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Gauri Lankesh The RSS has demanded that the govt track down the perpetrators and ensure justice. The cold-blooded murder of veteran journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru on Tuesday has shocked and angered the country. An outspoken critic of right-wing politics, the senior editor was killed right as she was entering her residence on Tuesday night, by three assailants who fired several bullets at her at point blank range. The killing has been condemned by people from across the board, including by Karnataka leaders of the BJP and the RSS, who also hit out at the Siddaramaiah-led government. Union Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation and senior Karnataka leader Sadananda Gowda called for an impartial probe in the case. I strongly condemn the murder of Journalist Gauri Lankesh. Let Police conduct impartial enquiry on the murder. — Sadananda Gowda (@DVSBJP) September 5, 2017 His Cabinet colleague, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, meanwhile condemned attacks on journalists. Terrible news from Bengaluru about the heinous murder of Gauri Lankesh. I condemn all acts of violence against journalists. — Rajyavardhan Rathore (@Ra_THORe) September 5, 2017 The party’s state President Yeddyurappa, though, condemned the law and order situation in Karnataka, taking the opportunity to attack the Congress government in the state. Shocked to hear the murder of #GowriLankesh strongly condemn this inhuman barbaric murder. Law &Order in the state has compleately collapsed — B.S. Yeddyurappa (@BSYBJP) September 5, 2017 On Tuesday night, the RSS Karnataka unit released a statement condemning Gauri’s killing. “RSS strongly condemns the killing of senior editor, writer and columnist Gauri Lankesh. We pray that God grants her family the strength to withstand the loss. We demand that the government rapidly tracks down the perpetrators and ensures justice,” the statement read.
The Devils completed their coaching staff today, naming former Lighting assistant Adam Oates to the same position with the organization. Oates will fall under the role of “offensive assistant” that new coach John MacLean spoke about during his introductory press conference. With the Lightning, Oates helped improve the power play, something the Devils desperately need to improve. General manager Lou Lamoriello had nothing but praise for the assistant coach. “Throughout his career, Adam was without question one of the top playmaking centers, particularly on the power play, and was considered one of the top face-off players in the game,” Lamoriello said in a statement released by the team. “These attributes bring a different dimension to our coaching staff and both John and I are delighted that Adam is joining our organization.” Oates, 47, played in 1,337 NHL games, registering 341 goals and 1,079 assists for 1,420 points and 415 penalty minutes. The former center played for Detroit, St. Louis (where he was teammates with Scott Stevens in 1990-91), Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Anaheim and Edmonton. Oates played in five NHL All-Star games, and reached the 100 point mark on four occasions. He ranks sixth all-time in assists. Oates retired from playing on April 3, 2004, and took his first NHL assistant job last season with the Lightning. Oates joins Larry Robinson and Chris Terreri on MacLean’s staff. *************** I think Oates could do well with the Devils this season. Clearly, the power play needs help. If he can do something to get solid production night in and night out, then I’ll be happy. Too many times over the past few years we’ve watched the Devils look really sharp with the man advantage on night and unorganized the next. The team needs stability, and it seems Oates can bring this to the organization. I also think his influence will be good for the young centers on this team, especially a guy like Travis Zajac. We all saw Zajac take a step forward last season, and Oates may be able to continue to improve Zajac’s overall play. Oates’ assist numbers are stellar, and I’m sure he can help Zajac to develop better on-ice vision and playmaking skills. While Zajac is one of the better centers in the league, I’m sure he’ll benefit from some time with Oates. Advertisements
ROME — The Italian authorities on Wednesday arrested the mayor of Venice and more than 30 others in a political corruption case linked to the city’s multibillion dollar flood-protection project. The arrests came only weeks after investigators revealed an embarrassing corruption scandal involving projects for next year’s Milan Expo. Mayor Giorgio Orsoni of Venice was placed under house arrest on Wednesday morning on charges that he misused public funds from a project to build underwater barriers to protect the ancient city. Investigators also arrested a number of other elected officials in the Venice region and were seeking the arrest of a member of the lower house of Parliament. Corruption scandals are not uncommon in Italy, but the latest arrests in Venice and Milan involve prestige projects in regions where governance is usually considered more trustworthy. Prosecutors on Wednesday accused Mr. Orsoni of directing public money for “political purposes.” Investigators also are examining whether politicians accepted about 25 million euros, more than $34 million, in bribes in exchange for awarding contracts on the flood-protection project. In a televised news conference, Carlo Nordio, one of the prosecutors in the case, said local businessmen and politicians had established a sophisticated system to divert money for bribes, including slush fund accounts in Switzerland and San Marino. He said businessmen used inflated bills and false consulting contracts to generate payments from public funds that were then diverted to politicians as bribes.
With training camp set to open in less than a month, Fury FC GM and Head Coach Paul Dalglish made another important addition to his squad with the signing of defender Ramon Martin Del Campo, pending league and federation approval. Del Campo, a versatile player that can play as a centre back or an outside back, comes to Ottawa after spending last season on loan with Puerto Rico FC in the NASL. In 2016, the 23-year-old featured in 16 Fall season games. He played 90 minutes in every game, picked up two assists, earned one Team of the Week nomination and won the Play of the Week on one occasion. “Ramon is a hardworking, aggressive defender that has an endless desire to win the ball back,” said Fury FC GM and Head Coach Paul Dalglish who is currently in California for the MLS Combine on scouting duties. “He’s another player that has that ruthless desire to win and his profile suits the type of players that I want to work with. We bring in players that will help us entertain with hearth this season.”
Underwater volcanoes erupt throughout the world, but in the southern Gulf of Mexico, they churn out something unusual: cold asphalt instead of hot lava. First discovered in 2003, these natural oil seeps at the bottom of the ocean provide a home and fuel for marine life. The highly diverse ecosystems that spring up around asphalt volcanoes do something else: sequester carbon. Federal laws protect deep-sea ecosystems on the U.S. side of the Gulf of Mexico, but on the Mexico side, no such protections exist. Because these sites occupy an area that is open to energy exploration and development, a multinational team of researchers has suggested that it is time to consider the best model to conserve them. Pavement Under the Sea Natural asphalt is a sticky, viscous form of oil. When microorganisms degrade oil from reservoirs below the seabed, they leave asphalt behind as a waste product. A team of German, U.S., and Mexican researchers discovered asphalt volcanoes at the Campeche Knolls in the southern Gulf of Mexico during an expedition in 2003. The researchers named the original site, covering more than a square kilometer in area, Chapopote, the Aztec word for tar. They found that as the asphalt seeped out of the seabed, it hardened and solidified in the cold water. Few processes add hard surfaces to the deep ocean, according to Ian MacDonald, a biological oceanographer at Florida State University in Gainesville and one of the researchers who discovered Chapopote. Most organisms that survive in the depths do so by burrowing under layers of the ocean bottom’s sediments, MacDonald said, but asphalts provide a hard surface on which species such as ice worms and some types of mussels can grow. In addition, the seeps provide the starting materials for chemosynthesis—the process by which organisms use energy from inorganic chemical reactions to make their food. The German government funded return trips in 2006 and again in 2015 to further explore the asphalts and characterize the diverse fauna that inhabit them. MacDonald presented the results of the 2015 expedition at the 2016 Ocean Sciences Meeting in New Orleans. Slow Ooze, Harboring Hydrates When the team first discovered the asphalt volcanoes, they found that the asphalt looked strikingly similar to lava flows on land—asphalt flows change size, they get wrinkly, they fold over each other, MacDonald said. They speculated that the asphalt was released quickly in bursts, but when they returned in 2015, a closer look at the asphalt eliminated that possibility. By creating a photo mosaic of the main asphalt flow and examining its shape and how the asphalt had weathered over time, they realized that the asphalt oozed slowly out of the seabed, rather than erupting in a quick spurt. “The asphalts come out very slowly—tectonically slowly,” MacDonald said. Unexpectedly, the research team found large mounds of gas hydrates—clusters of ice with methane trapped inside—on or near the volcanoes. They also found massive aggregations of chemosynthetic tube worms tens of meters long colonizing the hydrate mounds. Some of the tube worms may be hundreds of years old, they noted. Gas hydrates would normally dissolve quickly in seawater because the concentration of methane in the sea is so low, but the researchers suspect the tube worms help to stabilize the hydrate mounds. “The tube worms are creating a blanket that essentially sequesters the gas hydrate and stops it from dissolving into the seawater,” MacDonald explained. Interocean Connectivity Chemosynthetic communities proliferate around hydrocarbon seeps in many areas along the equator, from the Gulf of Mexico to West Africa’s Atlantic coast and even in the eastern Pacific. Before the Isthmus of Panama closed off the Atlantic from the Pacific, these waters were joined. “We think that, at some point, all of these communities were connected, and we still see a genetic relationship in some of the crustaceans between these sites.” “We think that, at some point, all of these communities were connected, and we still see a genetic relationship in some of the crustaceans between these sites,” said Elva Escobar, an aquatic ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City and a member of the research team. The group is now studying how the organisms’ larval stages go from one place to the other and is gathering Pacific specimens to compare with those from the other side of the isthmus. The asphalt ecosystem is an incredibly diverse community that is still understudied, according to Escobar. “We know very little about how these communities grow, how they are structured, how they change in time, and how they interact with the gas hydrates,” she said. Chapopote could provide a model for studying and conserving other chemosynthetic communities in the deep sea, she said. It “provides a natural laboratory that allows us to see the diversity of the processes occurring below the asphalt, within the asphalt, and at the asphalt-water interface,” she added. Hazards for Oil and Gas Extraction Mexico recently announced the first energy production lease sales in their ultradeep offshore waters, but the extensive asphalt pavements and gas hydrate mounds at those depths pose hazards for drilling operations, according to the researchers. If oil and gas companies encounter asphalts while drilling, it’s important to know whether the asphalt they hit is above or below the seafloor, MacDonald noted. “That will tell you whether the asphalt that you’re seeing is likely to be expansive and extensive, so you hit it in many places with your drill bit, or it’s still in the subbottom, where it might be a potential resource,” he said. Conservation Prospects Escobar, who serves on the Legal and Technical Commission of the International Seabed Authority, said that to conserve both the seeps and the species they host, researchers need to better understand how far the asphalts extend and how they change in space and time. The Mexican government is increasing the extent of marine protected areas off its coasts, Escobar said, and should also ensure that these unique ecosystems are included within those zones. According to MacDonald, informing both the Mexican public and the international community about the importance of these ecosystems might help protect them. “I think the international public should be engaged to recognize yet again an example of the diversity, beauty, and complexity of deep sea environments,” he said. —Lauren Lipuma, Contributing Writer Citation: Lipuma, L. (2016), Asphalt volcanoes erupt in slow motion, Eos, 97, doi:10.1029/2016EO048095. Published on 15 March 2016.
Another pandemic scam is being orchestrated by the corrupt CDC, the World Health Organization and big pharma . . .via the mainstream propaganda machine! SAY NO TO AN EBOLA VACCINE! Over the past few decades the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and their partners at big pharma have attempted many times to get a ‘pandemic’ off the ground that would include forced vaccinations. Over the past year, they have succeeded in convincing hospitals and clinics to require their employees take an unnecessary and risky flu shot as a condition of their continued employment. This was a huge and very profitable coup for big pharma. [Employee opt out info.] Never underestimate the power of big pharma when it comes to influencing policies in America. The only lobbying interests with more clout are AIPAC and the banking industry. If the American people continue to believe the dog and pony shows that play out in the main stream media, they will find themselves duped into accepting a dangerous vaccine that is NOT WARRANTED as safe or effective by the drug company that produces it. Drug companies have been granted immunity from any and all damages their vaccine products cause. [Supreme Court: Bruesewicz vs Wyeth] So who will insure that an ebola vaccine is safe or effective and who will insure that it won’t do more harm than good? NO ONE! While there are many good people accepting paychecks from the CDC or the public health industry, they have been intentionally misled by those that control these institutions. As they may also be required to accept an unsafe ebola vaccine – or else – they will be well served by understanding a few FACTS about the CDC . . . and ebola. The CDC is a for-profit corporation listed on Dun and Bradstreet The CDC promotes vaccines with full awareness that the vaccine manufacturers are immune from all liability should their products cause harm, or even death. [Bruesewitz v. Wyeth (2011)] The CDC owns a patent on the Ebola virus, which would include patent rights on a vaccine [1] The CDC, the WHO and the media are currently broadcasting fake ebola pandemic news and statistics [2] as they did during the fake swine flu pandemic in 2009. [3] The CDC knowingly deceives both health practitioners and the public about the dangers of vaccines, such as information that was buried after their Simpsonwood conference in 2000 [4] and other information exposed by CDC whistleblowers like Dr David Lewis [5] The CDC produces propaganda campaigns using a ‘playbook’ [6] The CDC wastes millions of dollars in ‘perks’, revealed by a congressional committee [7] The CDC hires unscrupulous researchers to create bogus studies, such as Dr Poul Thorsen [8] The CDC does not serve the public, but implements political agendas and policies on behalf of those that control the White House [9] The CDC offers financial bounties to state public health entities and even has employees working in their offices [10] The CDC ignores congressional reports and/or hearings, such as the Burton Report of 2003 [11] The CDC actively discredits/destroys reputable researchers, such as Dr Andrew Wakefield [12] The CDC hires private think-tank corporations, such as RAND, to produce phony “consensus” science reports [13] [14] The CDC has a long and nasty relationship with the CIA [15] Don’t fall for the Ebola Scare. Take your vitamin C, gets lots of sun (vitamin D), eat healthy, sleep well, follow the 10 step pandemic psyop by reading: Ebola – same game – same playbook, and help neutralize this nefarious scam by exposing it. Above all . . . don’t accept a dangerous and toxic ebola vaccine (and the liability that goes with it) that is not warranted by the manufacturer as either safe or effective!! Half-page brochure of this page ENDNOTES: [1] http://www.naturalnews.com/046290_Ebola_patent_vaccines_profit_motive.html [2] Information/proof at TruthSector.com; http://truthsector.wordpress.com/category/ebola/ [3] Former WHO employee and editor of Global Reseach.CA exposes the WHO: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-h1n1-swine-flu-pandemic-manipulating-the-data-to-justify-a-worldwide-public-health-emergency/14901 [4] Exposé by Robert Kennedy, Jr; http://www.globalresearch.ca/vaccinations-deadly-immunity/14510 [5] See book Science for Sale by CDC whistleblower Dr David Lewis [6] See research from Dr Sherri Tenpenny’s book Fowl; http://parentsagainstmandatoryvaccines.wikispaces.com/EBOLA++-+same+game+-+same+playbook [7] See “CDC Off Center” report by Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management; http://proliberty.com/observer/20070609.htm [8] Exposé by Robert Kennedy, Jr; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/central-figure-in-cdc-vac_b_494303.html [9] Interview with CDC whistle-blower Dr David Lewis; http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2014/06/24/the-shocking-truth-epacdc-whistleblowers-story-tlb-recorded-interview-included/ [10] Exposé by pharmacist Kristine Severyn; Profits not science motivate vaccine mandates [11] The 2003 Burton Report; http://vaccines.procon.org/sourcefiles/Burton_Report.pdf [12] Interview with CDC whistle-blower Dr David Lewis; http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2014/06/24/the-shocking-truth-epacdc-whistleblowers-story-tlb-recorded-interview-included/ [13] http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/August-2014/DHHS-Funded-RAND-Corp–Study–An-Inside-Job.aspx [14] See: Expert ‘consensus’ reports are scientific mumbo jumbo [15] See: The CDC and the CIA: a close and sick relationship Advertisements
The MMA world is one where Lord Chaos reigns supreme and Saturday afternoon before UFC 213 saw the mystical one's hand at work.The sport's passionate fan base was shaken up to learn of UFC women's bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes being forced out of her championship tilt with Valentina Shevchenko at UFC 213 due to illness.FloCombat confirmed the initial reports, then received word from sources close to the situation that Nunes experienced difficulty regaining weight after a difficult cut down to the bantamweight limit.Yet, while the jeers and disappointment hit social media platforms, there came a stir from the back, as UFC President Dana White announced women's strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk had offered to step up and take the fight in Nunes' absence."Joanna Champion" later doubled down on the notion with a social media post of her own, which served to spawn a heroic narrative of how the scrappy Polish champion was doing her damndest to step up and save the day.[instagram url="https://www.instagram.com/p/BWTEG3AF8rM/?taken-by=joannajedrzejczyk&hl=en" hide_caption="0"][tweet url="https://twitter.com/Patrick_Wyman/status/883778114467135488" hide_media="0" hide_thread="1"][tweet url="https://twitter.com/BitaNick/status/883770386198007808" hide_media="0" hide_thread="1"]The notion was awesome and easy to buy into. A dominant champion only in Las Vegas to do promotional work decides to strap on the gloves and fight up two weight classes against a woman who already owns three victories over her outside the UFC.That's storybook sports fantasy shit right there folks. In fact...that's all it is--fantasy.The tweets by White and Jedrzejczyk Saturday afternoon with the clock ticking down gave us a glimpse of the promotional game operating at its slickest. There were myriadreasons why the Nevada State Athletic Commission would never allow the strawweight champion to step in on less than 24 hours notice, but those were details that didn't seem to stick with most fight fans.Furthermore, FloCombat confirmed with NSAC Chief Bob Bennett the UFC never even attempted to get a bout between Jedrzejczyk and Shevchenko pushed through. They knew plenty well this wouldn't happen, but throwing out the social media bits they did served a greater purpose in the larger game.In the entire lemons-to-lemonade scenario, pushing the Jedrzejczyk-stepping-up narrative only served to further the gangster reputation the Polish fighter has earned with fists, blood, elbows, knees and sweat.Furthermore, there's no doubt in this writer's mind Jedrzejczyk could have very well been serious about agreeing to fight Shevchenko, but there was no way that bout was taking place on Saturday night in Las Vegas, and it's hard to imagine the women's 115-pound champion wasn't aware of that fact.But she played the game, and why not? There is no downside to this for "Joanna Violence" and the move could very well set up a pivotal showdown down the road if she makes the jump to the 125-pound weight class the UFC has been rumored to open in the coming year.Pushing the "save the day" narrative only helps to further her mystique, and that should absolutely be applauded.And for fans who jumped on the excitement of the moment they hoped would unfold...it's good on your part as well. Fight fans pay money, tune in, operate on Twitter to watch, love and stay connected to the fight game. No one can blame the eager masses for wanting some flatout badassery when a dumptruck of bad news was dropped moments before.It's the passion that makes fight fans special. And to that, I say never relent.That said, watching those who should damn well know better push a fake story is troublesome.MMAFighting.com's Marc Raimondi put out a tweet from NSAC killing that idea, just as our own Elias Cepeda got quotes from Mr. Bennett echoing the same notion, but new headlines kicked up, and more tweets fired out crediting Joanna Jedrzejczyk for attempting to save the day.And for this I'll once again quote NSAC's Bob Bennett, "The UFC did not request a replacement for Nunes."There you go. That's a look behind the Wizard's curtain. The great game continues.Play on.
By Eric M. Johnson SEATTLE (Reuters) - A white Seattle officer should be fired for biased and improper policing after she arrested an elderly black man using a golf club as a cane during a walk last summer, the director of a police watchdog group said on Tuesday. The Office of Professional Accountability found Seattle patrol officer Cynthia Whitlatch engaged in biased policing, among other policy violations, when she arrested William Wingate, now 70, last July, the group's civilian director Pierce Murphy said. "After careful review and consideration of all the evidence, I recommended that the Chief of Police sustain the allegations and end the involved officer's employment," said Murphy. The recommendations come after a U.S. District Court approved new de-escalation policies for the Seattle police department, which has been under federal monitoring for excessive force. They also follow the deaths of several black men at the hands of white police officers in cities across the United States, which have fueled street protests critical of the police's use of force. In Seattle, Wingate sued the city and the arresting officer, seeking about $750,000 in damages for racial discrimination, violation of his civil rights and "substantial humiliation, mental and emotional distress." The case is pending. Wingate, a military veteran who requires a cane to walk, was using the golf club as a crutch, according to court papers. His arrest sparked protests. Charges against Wingate were dropped after his arrest and the police department has apologized. The lawsuit says Whitlatch lied when she alleged he swung the golf club at her. Nowhere in a roughly seven-minute police dashboard camera video can he be seen swinging the club. A police officer familiar with the ongoing investigation declined to discuss the matter in detail but said Whitlatch was notified on Monday she faces possible termination. Whitlatch, who was placed on paid administrative leave following the arrest, will have the opportunity to present her case next month to Chief Kathleen O'Toole, who will make a final decision on the course of discipline, Murphy said. Murphy said the investigation did not specifically include a Facebook message she appeared to post after the incident in which Whitlach described black paranoia over white people being "out to get them." The department has since implemented "a fairly clear and strong policy" barring officers from making comments on social media that are detrimental to the agency's values, Murphy said. (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Lisa Lambert in Washington)
While you were sleeping last night, Anonymous hacked into the U.S. State Department’s website, reportedly in the name of fallen comrades Aaron Swartz and recently arrested members of LulzSec. Personal data – including names, email addresses and phone numbers of hundreds of State Department staffers – were leaked online to the ZeroBin website. The group also allegedly hit the investment firm George K. Baum and Company, which has ties to Stratfor, the private intelligence service that worked with the CIA (another former target of the group). In that attack, Anonymous also published the account data and transaction information of the bank’s users. The OpLastResort Twitter account says attacks are payback for the death of Aaron Swartz. “This tragedy is basis for reform of computer crime laws and the overzealous prosecutors,” they write on the group’s Twitter bio. But in an ironic twist, “Operation Last Resort” may have very unintended consequences. Domino Effect Will this attack finally wake up the U.S. government to the threat of online attackers? Last night’s hack might galvanize lawmakers to support the CISPA bill and introduce even harsher Internet laws. And that kind of overreaction could cause more damage than the attacks themselves. This latest attack comes on the heels of Anonymous defacing sites owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the United States Sentencing Commission, and the Federal Reserve. Anonymous also tried but failed to hit the broadcast of the State of the Union speech last week. So the wheels for enacting draconian laws may already be in motion. Anonymous, which champions Internet freedom, may have just pushed the Web down a dark shaft. Worse yet, Anonymous also claims to possess “warheads,” codes to unlock encrypted files said to contain sensitive government data, allegedly obtained during the Jan. 25 hack of the U.S. Sentencing Commission site. Under President Obama’s new cyberlaw mandate, these actions are cyber threats, punishable by severe action. How far is the government willing to go? And what will be the ultimate effect on our civil liberties? Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
hey everyone and welcome back to the my girls happy fun hour I remain your host Mike morals franchise creative director on Dungeons & Dragons and this week we are going to continue looking at the Sion character class we’ve spent a few weeks on this and before we dive in I have a quick question for everyone hello chat the question for you why you’re all typing in your greetings consider this so we’ve been doing the Sion for a while and I kind of feel like this is probably the light I think last week I said I’d maybe spend two more weeks on it but I think this might be it might make sense for this week to tackle the the shaper you can see I have the phrase at whale summoning and that’s gonna be our first can trip we’re gonna tackle what I thought we would do today is go through and look at some of the canned trips for summoning what those can look at essentially well summoning that’s not really the shippers doing but that’s mechanically what is the best match and then talk about what that subclass looks like and then I think from there it’s gonna be a lot of just boring desk work for me so what I like to do what I like to do is I’m gonna like bring in some enlightened self-interest I like to think that as I’m working on my campaign I’m running a campaign set in an interval on Fridays if you know that into your veil it was the world the fourth edition D&D and I’m adapting what do you call it the keep on the shadow fell but I’m making a higher level so I have some undead monsters I want to design for it so I thought would it be fun if after we work on this because I’ve kind of shown you how to design a class a very rough way if I did some monster design so chiming to chat me think monster designs sounds good as kind of our next topic so we’ve been doing character stuff since we started so the who we got here so let’s see what monster design however Simoes design okay I’m seeing all yeses and what I will do is what I want to do is take a few of those undead creatures and throw some stuff around them because I thought it will be fine yeah yeah okay so it’ll be fun and I think will be fun too is I could take I kind of share the entire process from start to finish and not just the mechanics but also how the story works and in this case I think it would be fun a game phantom diem but itching for the artificer you might not well hey I can spell anything we’ll see we’ll see the but the one of the nice things about monster designed as I can kind of show you what it really looks like in terms of how we often reproach monster design having a piece of art working at the story stuff and then it’s just kind of walk through some of the mechanical elements alright so I’m seeing a lot I’m seeing people like seem to think that’s cool okay cool um cool nice really spoiler part of his earner first the artificer might be uh we’ll see we’ll see there might be an artifice or design somewhere on our network drives that might be due for you soon I don’t want to say anything okay I’ll just come on say it well no I won’t come and say yeah I’ll come on say it’s an artifice of design there isn’t it there was a revision we have made it revision the challenge now is and this is something which you look at the process we’re going through the silent building a class is a lot to it so where we are right now at that is it’s got a revision based on feedback from a lot of sources from the play test feedback and then from a few back from other designers and then now it has to go through a refinement phase and this is important at this stage especially it’s something as big as the artificer if there’s just some obvious mistakes in the class we get everything revved up we throw it up for you a we could ever in prime to play test and if there’s just obvious broken stuff that means the play test feedback is going to be just more right it’s not gonna go anywhere the they call me Tomo no spoilers and what the actual casting thing is I’m not gonna say yeah because I want Crawford to have a chance to look through it I want Kate to have a chance to review it and really dig into it so I’m not gonna those some of the things I changed still stuff might still change but I have done another draft for the artificer the so the anyways let’s get the sign on dunya’s exactly okay so next we could be monsters we’ll start doing some monsters I’ll show you that process but let’s here talk about the taeyeon so we talked about the shaper being the subclass that essentially now mechanically we’re going to think of it like summoning but what we want the flavor to be is that I am plucking things out of my imagination or your imagination and making them real and making them do stuff now this is the important thing I think when we think summoning it’s very easy to get caught in I summon a thing and it beats people up I mean that’s definitely a very useful version of summoning believe me but there’s also space for more utility I summon something that can’t fly so it picks me up and carries me somewhere so I want to make sure we’re capturing that too especially for class that’s gonna be really a sub classes can be really focused on this ability putting some flexibility and they’ll be really good because then we just don’t have I just things are doing my fighting for me and also it gets us maybes we’ll see maybe some flexibility and how we’re actually limiting these things so first things I want to do yeah the are changed Eric we’re making Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends it’s exactly these are this is your imaginary friend that comes to life and that’s what I see the at-will summoning doing oh no don’t I don’t need a ch3 any core body usually you’re better behaved than that alright so yeah that’s basically what any we write you summon your imaginary friend now if you’re familiar with our process here the first thing we need to do we start designing maybe just a let’s go to new stuff let’s take a look at what exists in the game already right there are a number of summoning spells out there so we turn to a handy-dandy D&D Beyond which is and I gotta say I you know a total commercial mode right now but I love using the adeney beyond for design because it does make just searching yourself easier the it’s nice being let’s go through all spells and we are just going to go through and do our filter up spell targets right there I always forget and we’re just gonna go down to pretty sure summon spinning is a filter now let’s filter all our spells so this is a good starting point we want to check out we want to do is you know if you’re familiar with the show you get to hear me say this again what we want to do is look at what levels do certain things come in so checking these things out now we have fine steed find familiars I’m not I’m gonna ignore that one because it’s a bit of a outlier in terms of its utility infestation is using the summoning key word but it’s really it’s not actually summoning things it’s really the flavor and it’s just driving home that flavor so we’re gonna skip fine steed well we’ll go back to it but what I want to focus on is conjure animals third-level so what we’re saying here is that with a third-level spell now uh let’s see I’m gonna go so my head doesn’t get in the way I’m gonna do this so I want to take some notes here just to get us a sense here of what we have what’s going on and what we’re saying here with this spell is it a third level I can get one cr2 creature so I’m just gonna do a very quick and dirty table here just so we can I don’t want h3h3 is just like busting in today I wants to be everywhere let’s just go core body easy let’s go still know this a spell level and then see our so whatever establishes and I’m not gonna care too much about the other ones for right now what I want to do is just focus on the one for one I just burned a third level spell I get one cr2 creature the other two I’ll get back to those in a sec but we’re not yet I want to take a look at the other spells here now whatever you want to do here I’m gonna skip summon lesser demon because these are these come with drawbacks but at fourth we go to mana elemental and what’s interesting here is we’re saying at four we’re still seeing CR two now what’s happening here is something that I’m gonna say is like a little it’s soft design what this is assuming is that elementals by nature of being the creature type elemental are going to have more interesting things at CR two than beasts beasts by design are very boring they’re generally adjusted buckets of hit points with some basic melee attacks attached to them if there’s any special abilities they’re pretty minor maybe a rider on an attack like knocking someone prone or maybe some sort of sensory ability so I’m gonna note this right here that’s CRT that’s a beast and what I really want here is that you know what’s just the raw CR so I’m seeing here before that will spell an elemental it’s CR 2 so okay it’s not now here’s the one thing though is it’s not a huge upgrade going from elephant jarick elemental to generic beast or vice versa is not like wow you just doubled its power it’s more usually what happens is with summoning one of the things that will trip you up in D&D is those utility spells the future might be coming with and we’ll see that because I think Fay now phase also at 4th I know this is a very common problem least I’ve heard people complained about that some of these Fei you can bring in you know you’re dragging in like 8 CR 1/4 faith at all say can cast cure wounds or something like that the chat might know the specific issue people are saying but and kittens and mittens beets are boring Merle’s on why wats he hates Beastmasters range here following that beast it was the Fae master then we’d be all we’d be all in so again we’re gating it here we’re saying a little for spell that’s worth getting some magic find greater than greater Steve it’s like the king of the horses I don’t know what the spell does oh ok so this is kind of intro can’t see you know this is gonna be hilarious because I forgot the spell exists xanthus got everything on it’s at Zenith IRAs book they added it’s at aftermarket like year 3 expansion the so this is kind of interesting so we’re getting a kindest thing fight I forget let’s see 10 is 5 total combat I get telepathically uber blah drops to dismiss it okay doesn’t seem to see anything here that it says I can’t make this tell us into fight so this is we’re gonna kind of backdoor this in what’s the Griffin the CR see ours too great they’re all gonna be to watch this is gonna be like every summoning spell just gets er to the okay yeah they come we’ll take it can fight okay yeah last thing I need is Jeremy busting Kyle just gimme yeah this is a flood well this is a flying but these are flying creatures though but that doesn’t why wouldn’t I just summon these things and fly them look I’m complaining up my own game this is classy but wait a sec okay wait a sec see these conjure and all does it have a restriction see are two giant boar and Asura Sabretooth oh these guys are monstrosity czar they I might be completely whipping on that is a Griffin what Strasse monstrosity or is it a beast this is gonna be this yeah it’s a monstrosity okay there we go so again we’re getting this segregated here so basically we’re putting a lot of a lot of weight on that creature type a lot more than I didn’t I care for personally not personally professionally saying like has a dungeon has a game designer that’s probably more going here so good ok now we’re up to see our six well that’s a big jump so we went from so elemental level 5 up to see our six Wow okay that’s a big jump this is gonna be interesting to try to balance well look at the duration of fine good oh is one of those things that’s like buried the durations much longer because I think I’m just gonna snore m’l eyes my oh this is a minute Wow okay this is this is something that irritate I got it okay so these are all this is why we have one minute one hour find greater seat is 10 minutes instantaneous conjurer’s one minute this is one action this is it’s a little all over the place okay so here’s the thing this is not not a berry this as an opportunity opportunity for us to make something work a bit better yeah Conger Fay a minute I get why it’s a minute it’s really so you don’t do in the middle of a fight but it’s concentration so that’s all really gonna kind of throttle what else you can do alright opportunities there’s lots of opportunities here there is lots of opportunities here we can do a lot of stuff here that will make something a lot more fun because there’s a lot of like how it takes a minute oh I want to I want to get a foul on a summon a Tyrannosaurus Rex hello this is conjure face [Laughter] so yeah it is it is a t-rex okay cool so anyways this okay okay this is me gender sputtering on stream right like okay so you can up gun the spell that’s why the t-rex shows up okay so let’s go see our 6:00 at 6:00 okay but that’s six there all right opportunity keep saying that it’s an opportunity for us to make something you know this is really funny because I know people on Twitter especially it says oh I want to play a good summoner I’d be like aren’t there summoning spells in the game but I personally don’t play a lot of summoners and this is a corner of the game it’s like you can imagine if the game is a house I have I gone into those back corner room and I’m like it’s really dusty and like with what’s in here oh there’s summoning and it takes a minute I had no idea I literally last night was cleaning our garages looking for some miniatures and this is because I’ve been married for a while so I’m getting better at this there was a check my wife did some photography works someone sent her a check for it and I did not know I read I did not realize I had put the check out in the garage with some of my miniatures I accidentally picked it up and put in a box and so much here’s looking for it and so when I said I found it and she said where was it and I said oh it was behind the fridge I’m not gonna tell her I took your check and just put it out in the garage with a bunch of my my rail parth of miniatures I was sorting because I’m a goofball like this okay alright my new this happened it was this summer I knew I meant to make it this way and this is here okay it’s a celestial force in cr4 okay so this is all over the place this is really interesting case again opportunity right what we’re seeing here though is I am going to just be blunt I’m gonna ignore these spells beyond getting a sense of where the CR is because what’s happening here and this is something that I am not necessarily a fan of InDesign for old playing games and I know why we did this here right and this is a case of you know we did this five years ago essentially there would have been some adjustment in two and fourteen before the game released but this is something where don’t be afraid to look back at something you didn’t go I don’t really like how I did that that’s okay that means you’re learning hey I’m learning right and it’s I’m not I’m not trying to be lame and be like that’s my excuse for doing it this way this is something where somebody was a real Bears specially in third edition that’s a pun by the way so you can look him laughs the COS needs someone to bear the actual eat someone a whale it’s a whale of a good time the sum in the whale and you’d block off a hallway with a huge creature even bigger and then it would just flop around and die but still a barrier but anyway so this is pride era where we’re very very cautious because in designing the entire game system the there’s a lot of questions you have to ask spells in in particular you know when you look at the game where we are now in 2018 you’ve seen a lot more sub classes come out in terms of you a you have not seen as many spells in terms of our focus and the challenge being a single spell can really disturb the balance of the game but it’s very tricky to get play test feedback on say 50 new spells as opposed to two new subclasses or one new subclass whatever it is that we’re doing so with spells in fifth we were probably a lot not probably I know this because I worked on the game we were a lot more cautious about pushing things and summoning this was a great example of we decided to throttle back a bit on it to make it more situational what these like we know casting times of a minute to really make it something that you had to plan on rather than something that you could just do and I can see here okay so Kandra woodland being is an action that that’s what’s going on here yeah the tricky thing is as a player I can admit as a player I don’t like having multiple axes I have to use two meant to measure things I also don’t like the surprise factor I like hey if I’m a player scrolling through oh hey fine see that looks cool and you forget it’s got a ten minute casting time so this is like a warrant warrant moment in the game you’re like oh hey the guys are chasing us condors fine steed i’ll cast will get it warmer so no it actually takes ten minutes and it’s got all this stuff what’s going on so what I want this guy to do is is instant summons like I want I want this to just be instantly summon you friend or servant that’s what we want now here’s the trick to this Oh once I regard you – I’m putting suggest as an H case 2011 action spider accrual 4080 xx oh yeah so here’s something I threw about 12 in fighting on Twitter if you don’t follow me on Twitter oh and there’s a question tridents from black ace 13 and I actually wanna get to that one the okay so do two things I suggest don’t weapon fighting that on Twitter that instead of costing a bonus action because as I’ve hammered home many times if you’ve watched the stream to weapon the bonus action economy can get kind of messy with two up and fighting often class features require a bonus action to activate it something that can be defining like rage which means a great weapon fighting character you feel bad I would like you know how would that work without a bonus action so the idea is if you’re – I’ve been fighting in place of an attack you make two attacks but your damage gets decremented down in a well elegant simple way and the elegant simple way is what’s kind of struggling here but there are cases where that could probably lead to lot of attacks quick question about the Trident so I’ve seen them a few people ask well that why is the Trident such a crappy weapon the Trident is in the game not because we strive to make the Trident a an interesting weapon that sits alongside the spear and the sword the Trident in the game something because our aquatic creatures wield it and it’s really a flavor thing we felt that putting a lot yeah I felt and people seem to agree that if we’re gonna show arts abus to you again or Triton or merfolk who has a trident but then call it a spear and thus taplok that might be a little bit disconnect so that’s all that weapon is literally in the game because we have aquatic creatures that use trident we actually didn’t want you to make it feel like he was a great weapon that would be a natural thing that would use now you could argue that maybe that wasn’t a great case but like in some ways the weapon list serves two purposes it serves characters basically I like that what weapon I want to use it and then it also always serves the monsters so anyway while that’s going on here’s we want favor for at will summoning want clear utility things have a clear use have a function beyond combat the can fight instantly summon a friend or servant I’m probably gonna say you know restrict this to one creature as default I think a lot of the shenanigans that come in or one like I can get multiple creatures twelve or is it gonna be a non creature summoning option yeah I think that’s something which would be cool cuz essentially these are gonna be constructs can be almost anything and that frees up a lot of design space for us so you could say I’m gonna summon a dancing sword I’m gonna summon a giant you know rolling Boulder to crash through people and move around the got like a big bees hands say ciao Mart so gets a good comparison so the this is essentially what we want to do and when I think of at will summoning this is where and this is where I think this sort of this sort of benefit I get as I put spell slots into this what I think at will summoning does is it a costs to your action that’s like yeah cost your action action on an ongoing basis higher level summoning lets you stack things on top of your actions so what I mean by that is this I have an apples someone have this imaginary friend I want to call into being and make them do something I think if you think of the unseen servant spell yeah had her feign unseen servant being something along those lines except I wanted to be able to fight um you know otherwise I don’t really feel like a summoner if we’re they what I’m doing is just I can move stuff around but I can do that with mange hand so I have this creature I can bring it into existence like I sculpt it I can make it fight it’s gonna cost me my action to make it fight the benefit I get benefit I get that was that creature is gonna occupy a space so if I’m you if you’re miniatures player if you use miniatures in your game you probably instantly need to know that benefit as a party we can control an extra square we probably have to put a tax on that though so I’m going to throw this other thing in here at will summoning comes with some damage feedback what does that mean you might ask well I think what that what that means is that if I summon a creature and it’s at will I haven’t invested any magic into it my name our resources that could you gets killed I need to take a drawback that could be damage it could be something like I lose concentration for a time I’m in favor of damage that’s fast and easy as a player to assess I’m not looking for this to be a lot of damage what I just want to do is stop you from infinitely blocking a doorway the size limit northland Cal that’ll be something that we’ll play with as we go to higher levels so that’s something where we don’t want you to just round up to round him to keep blocking the doorway and essentially have a damaged sponge because that’s the other benefit and let’s actually take a quick step back so I realized I’m doing all this stuff thinking of the benefits of summoning this is why summoning is so tricky because it’s got a lot of follow-on benefits you know a fireball just does damage that’s it’s doing damage if you want it to do something else like set a building on fire or something the DMS to kind of start adjudicating this but summoning comes there’s a lot of things baked in it’s extra hit points for the party so a summoning a summon creature comes with having hit points so I can attack it I’m essentially creating a buffer for the party if so think of this scenario the party is in a dungeon they open a door there’s five goblins the shaper goes first they throw a summon creature into the doorway the goblins rush up with their swords one or more of the goblins has to spend their actions essentially dealing with that summoned creature again it’s very powerful a can trap and lets me cancel essentially it’s letting you cancel an attack at no cost is very good canceling an attack at a cost so in this case damage means I can use that but I have to use it judiciously and if I’m using it a lot it’s going to drain other party resources so what we want to make sure is we’re just not giving you a very big benefit and denying attacks is a big benefit if you can put your enemy in a position where they cannot attack you that’s and you can attack them back that’s fantastic that something you’ll do all day so we’ve got to make sure that we take an account into that it’s more area control so again it’s if think of if you’re using grid grid in a minute and miniatures it’s another miniature on the table for the party the so that’s not as big but it still can be pretty useful and it’s extra actions just do more stuff right if you have your adding essentially member to the party it just gives you more flexibility if you think of the party has it’s a group that has X number of actions to use each round adding more actions that’s always just a good thing there is vanishingly few cases that aren’t contrived we’re having those extra actions is actually drawback I mean at worst it’s neutral example you need to open a door that’s one action okay I could have 50 actions or five actions or one as long as I have one I can open the door so but typically scaling those up I have more actions means I can open that door we can go through and I can do something else so now there are some limits to it but we’re not those limits look more like adding eight to twelve extractions not one one is always always beneficial so we have to account for that too and that’s why you see often you know the actually here’s something really we should look at let’s say and someone mentioned it because of the fae in the beasting let’s take a look at everyone’s favorite character class the Ranger everyone for definitions of people who like Rangers you see a lot of the discontent people who don’t like the Beastmaster almost all the things that they don’t like about this design and go back to that list that I just rattled off so let’s take a look at our companion though a third level you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you choose a beast that is no larger than medium so that’s an important thing we don’t want you getting a large beast large creatures especially use miniatures are super useful to have in your party because they just they command four spaces party of four that’s essentially I’ve doubled the number of spaces I can control an a grid it makes it very easy to clean clothes off passages things like that challenge one quarter or lower oh that’s something I’m gonna write down there too that’s going to be kind of our I’m trying to put Ranger here to note that and set 1/4 that’s a little 3 there’s gonna do note that I’ll remember or chat you’ll remind me ok so so you get some bonuses ok we’re adding your your proficiency bonus just because we want to make sure it doesn’t go you know sideways so we’re giving it some hit point cushioning here but our base thing is 1/4 so this is essentially the hit points and the proficiency are just there to let this thing’s scale up so it’s not you do have to recycle it or you don’t have to worry about it it’s becoming useless the lot of people to argue this is just not very useful to start with it can understand you sure it can spend hit dice so it takes its turns on your initiative though it doesn’t take an action less you command it to on your turn you can verbally command the beast or to move no action required by you you can use your action to verbally command it to attack – whatever take much of actions the and that’s using your action and so it’s getting back this idea of adding extra actions to the party pool the thinking here and you can see that same reluctance to really embrace this idea of summoning that we saw in the spells with like the 10 minute casting times and cr2 being kind of our ceiling and once we hit CR 2 we just started changing other things in the spells to make them better casting time or type of creature you’re seeing this play out here in the Ranger and you’re seeing based on what we saw in the reaction to this design a lot of people just not happy with this they just didn’t feel like they were getting a creature that was their companion they felt like they were getting a robot with a remote control attached to it and you were remote controlling a robot I think that for me that’s kind of metaphorically where I feel it is and yeah it’s and that share DVI this is a great point all right the problem is this is made for people who want a pet I want to pet and then I get a pet and I get a kind of a pet that sort of lame and I was just having the discussion with someone today about a character race someone was working on and realizing that the way the design was configured if you rarely played that race like maybe you played that race once it was work fine but if you’re the type of player who said oh this is my favorite type of character to play oh I’m gonna play these guys and connect year I’m gonna play four different characters and all them will be this type of character ooh the way it was designed is like oh that’s actually feels kind of lame like it feels fun the first time but the second when you make I feels a little to say me so that is definitely something that is designed you need to think about that in terms of the player that you’re aiming to act not just in terms of what they like but in terms of over the course of several campaigns how will this stand up so he’s 0 cuz spiritual basically spiritual weapon is a streamline but pseudo version of summoning there might be something there the well I want to take a look that actually bring in creatures I want to make this work because I think we can make this work that’s a win I think there are players up there who if we can make this work would say finally I can play the character I always want to play I get to play the character who has pets and as someone who has two dogs and four cats I can understand that you like I mean pets around unless they wake up at both like 3:00 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. to be let out so much but that might be them kind of trying to tell you something and that might be our older dog and happy that we have a puppy in the house so used to getting older but still a puppy so yeah so this is really where you’re seeing the tension come in and I feel pretty confident that we we were cautious here and I think that caution was warranted I would stand by that decision I think if we went back to 2013 and whatever revised this we would revise it because we learn things since then not because there’s really any insight that we just flat-out missed when this sort of thing goes wrong it goes wrong in a way that makes the DM at least really irritated because I have played in the campaign with the broken summoning with somebody something that felt broken and in this specific case Elvis find it has something that just felt like ridiculous and it was doing things that felt far beyond what you’d expect from the character to do I had a friend of mine who would use multiple summonings to like summon just hoards of low CR creatures and just have them all use the help action and third edition if I remember right the help action stacked or it was like the hinder action stacked so there’s just ridiculous you know but it was a good example like a low-level spell that was producing like +10 attack bonuses which third edition were great because then your your iterative attacks we’ve got multiple attacks in third edition your attack bonus went down dramatically so getting a big bonus was huge it meant you were going from hitting one and a half times per round to like hitting all three times with your attacks so it could be really big the all right so yeah I know a frog wheeler a Wyson a character to scout when you have disposable NPCs another good example right that comes into the action sort of thing I have more actions I have actions I don’t mind sending out to die I were playing a game with a druid who was summoning animals and sending them down to trigger traps and a tumor in which was just sort of hilarious I am the guardian of nature animals I love you plants come to me I will I will take care of you protect you accept you fight Oh run down that hallway and let me know if anything jumps out and stabs you so again that gets back to this idea of putting the bet penalty on it you know this idea that if it’s free summoning I want to throw a some sort of I wanted in your resources in some way because I want to avoid hey I have this guy get some time at well someone him and have him run down the hallway to trigger traps we have them open doors we have them you know there’s a switch maybe we should pull it well let’s have a summon creature do it right and then you don’t want to deal with coming up all these weird rules like this creature can attack but it can’t pull a lever and they can’t walk down a hall and whatever right it when you when the restrictions on an ability start to be the bulk of its rules that to me is like you’re doing something very wrong you either you’re doing something just by its nature just isn’t gonna work it’s gonna be disrupting the game or you’re doing something in a way that really what you want to do is just penalize people in some way for abusing it so just make that as simple and direct and obvious as possible because players will always find ways to get around like very specific drawbacks but it’s harder to get around like look II just taking damage if you can get it you’ve been getting around taking damage then that’s great you’re gonna win you know in a lot of fights the so John Herzog artists are their penalties for letting the imaginary-friend die then read something later I don’t I’m not crazy about X I do like the idea that this is something that’s here for me and what I think I might do is this all right so are at will summoning here’s the mean version so I’m gonna do like I’ll do like version one but it takes damage you take that damage now I don’t want to do this because we have a d6 class then I mean like well I need to give you more hit points well now I have you the entire dat separate pool eight points maybe you’re tracking where so I don’t wanna deal with that it’s that what I wanted what I would like to say is when it is destroyed you take some damage and lose maybe your focus for around I think I want I kind of do both so it’s not just gonna come back so you’re gonna yeah I think actually yeah so I want to lose your focus which means in your concentration in focus so you’re not gonna be cavalier about it if you’re in a situation though where you do want to look I’m mission to sacrifice my summon character and this is at will not the other ones we’ll get to those in a sec I think that it’s open what I like about this is that you can decide tactically okay I’m gonna take this hit because I do need to keep the goblins in the room where I want to block the door and you know I’m gonna take a drawback here but it is gonna be useful to keep these guys out um let’s see Oh Morey I think it’s what you the greens a little hard to read what it was xx damage I like the overkill it feels a little fiddly to me I think I’d rather just make it a flat number so I don’t have in a situation where well they’re goblins only doing like say 1 d6 + 3 damage and I’m like the higher level I don’t care if these guys keep killing my summon as opposed to I’m really worried if the dragon kills it I’d rather just know that there’s just a flat a flat thing so we’re not like this weird scaling thing taking effect where some things are really nervous about attacking your summons and others you’re not so I just specify that the and I think looking at its benefits I’m probably gonna go say that you’re at will summon as a baseline is that the app will summon is a Buddist is a CR at 1/4 creature now what I mean by that is we’re gonna figure out either pull staff locks I’m not gonna go to any step locks today I’m just gonna use I’m just knees challenge as our as our baseline so the so that’s basically our entire thing here you know a CR 1/4 creature you and you have to spend your action to make it it’s been it’s action essentially what we’ve done is we’ve created a can trip what I imagine using this can trip will be a bonus action so I can summon it in and then have it attack somebody or I can have it do something well also gonna do is try to restrict range she’s gonna say 10 feet or even adjacent I don’t want this to be like hey there’s a chasm and there’s something on the side we need I will summon and my guy shows up and does something know again I want you to spend a resource for that I have to spend a spell slot or spell points or whatever it is because again if it’s at will at will things DMS have a higher high allergy to real good utility net will because it just distorts the entire design process of your adventures so so yeah so I think we want to restrict range I’m sure this is a great example playtesting will start revealing other things that’ll come up all right so then let’s just do a very simple thing here I’m gonna delete this because I don’t really care not that I don’t care but it’s just yeah and what I want to do is look at what my level so if I know level 0 is see our 1/4 essentially can’t rip I’m just gonna this is like this is where we start getting into like rough justice right we have a spell system here that is trying to do summoning but is maybe not pulling its full weight in terms of what people want I am pretty much committed to saying I don’t want you to summon multiple creatures unless I want to handcraft that I don’t want to make it as a look at the spells what they’re doing is they’re giving you this sort of progression that here let me I’ll show it to you we’ll take a look at one right this progression of the number of creatures is going to end up with things that you’re unhappy with as a DM because there’s no way that under conjure animals or any of them like okay be really fast contra elementals that we can really consistently say that hey eight one-quarter challenge rating things are equivalent to one two yeah they’re tax and damage might be but as soon as I have a spell on her ability resting here eight of those is just better than one and I’m sure right now if I just did a search for monsters I can find an example here so let’s go to elementals there might not even be a one eighth LCR elemental how do we got some right here yes let’s get the mud method and then Mitch it’s got some sort of special ability a mud breath so it can restrain creatures now eight guys who can show up and restrain you so basically means every round I’m restraining a lot of creatures for a long time so this just really kind of breaks down that idea of like the swarm summoning because we’re not gonna say our elementals don’t get abilities and this is what kind of makes them fun so I’m gonna be pretty focused on just doing this a one-for-one the so so let’s go through and now going to assist do some rough justice here so this is gonna be spell level so I’m just gonna go through and add my to hear three four five six seven eight nine and I’m just gonna sort of back the envelope what I think oh my god my computer froze this has been my thing today my my outlook just was like weirdly frozen I thought I broke it and an email is trying to respond to and oh no there we go I’m not in trouble 99 oh well that’s that’s now the new feature here right we did d-104 like the commoner so now the the the shaper gets how it’s getting really slow okay check in and just send all my data to the NSA make sure they have it all right so we send a level let’s see it’s never forgotten what does the let’s go back here it’s back in again to our spells so we set here under conjure animals cr2 is a third little spell should make sure had that right so I’m just gonna arbitrarily say that that’s gonna be one and arbitrarily say that’s half and I’m just gonna again equally arbitrarily just increase this by one no I don’t think this is actually going to work but it’s it’s a handy enough starting point this is also case now what I would probably do in play test is just come up with some generic stat blocks they’ll just get across this damage armor class and hit points I can finesse this later but this is what I’m basically going to look at use if you spend a spell slot of this level you get this step this corresponding stop lock to give you it now let’s take let’s do a quick reality check here to give you a sense let’s take a look at some CRE creatures and what I want is a CR eight beast because as I mentioned before beasts tend to be very simple so let’s go to monsters official and let’s go to beasts you know let’s just look at all the challenge unless is the Billy know there should be a lot of cluttered so let’s just do challenge rating eight like a look all right so we’re saying a t-rex with a knight the whole spell 136 hit points a C’s pretty lame it’s gonna get hit pretty quickly it’s got one bite in one tail this is I don’t know if its restriction carries any real bite but we’ll see +10 433 you can grapple +10 420 so seven hinges to the seventeenth level getting this that feels probably weak so I probably need to boost that up a bit let’s take a look at what did I am I sort of totally fake math give a game of CR for for a level 5 spell so that’s a 9th bubble so let’s take a look what that creature looks like let’s see how what the damage is there and I just can I just want a bruiser whoa okay yeah okay elephant okay it doesn’t get any more comp case guy is AC 1276 hitpoints yeah I don’t think I think this actually feels pretty for a fifth level caster this is my big creature I get getting seventy six extra hip points it’s nice and that’s nice durability +8 419 it’s got this traveling charge ability DC 12 though so I’m not too worried most creatures in let’s take a look at uh there’s a giant subterranean lizard simpler it’s the AC 1466 hitpoints one bite in one tail okay Gordon one of my kids oh it’s so so plus 7 for 16 + plus 7 for 12 one target not crapple by the lizard that’s kind of funny it’s very specific lizard grab me grapple me now you can hit me with the tail oh that you can swallow me in that pain alright so that that this feels reasonable so let’s take a quick thing here a very rough estimate of what this matches up if this is a fighter say typical fighters probably to have + 2 hit points per hit die and beginning about 8 hit points per level so this is actually pretty good avian +3 so let’s say 9 so level you know if the fighter the party probably has 80 to 90 to make a point so I’m not overshadowing the fighter but that’s still pretty good the cleric and the party probably has about let’s say again this is 9th level so 60 something sacred cleric and roguish hit points the art class is really the hard thing here most beats up pretty lame armor classes oh it’s also huge my phone is ringing I thought it told it – wow that’s pretty funny sorry but it’s the first time that’s happened but it is four months it’s the first time someone’s actually tried calling me I put on do not disturb the this is an easy thing to overlook this is huge so ok that’s not actually this is really good at locking down a big air of the battlefield ok so I feel actually that’s pretty good this guy’s gonna really tank up and he’s gonna dish out some ok hits I mean here’s his other main thing he’s only a plus 7 to hit our party members at 9th level are probably to be around probably I think nine or ten maybe ish around there depending up the up magic items and stuff but this is yeah someone’s trying to summon you through your phone true enough of our serious the this is a good example of I’m getting a text to my wife can’t find her computer I have no idea where it is the so she’s texting me now to the can this wait 17 minutes actually it can’t chat I can talk while I do this because I’m gonna tell her I think it’s on the couch so but what we’re seeing here is what we’re getting for summoning is a really big huge creatures great that’s a three by three grid that’s like nine size medium creatures so I feel pretty good you know so I want to pay attention to like the the opto level ten beyond that I think we just need to get the numbers right but this feels pretty good for a fifth level spell slot to get a challenge for creature yeah I’m not offended by it the I’m just gonna put a little like – they’re here just let me know that I need to verify below oh and even Kyle and I’m gonna tell her because she probably needs it for work anyway I’m probably be getting other things I am gonna have to go silent you guys get to watch me texts okay anyway it’s very it’s like this week we have a holiday here and if you’re not if not in the States 12th of July is tomorrow it’s a Wednesday it basically it’s like two working weekends back to it’s very strange this entire week feels very splintered all right so hey I have to be mortified if she knew she was on stream okay so here’s our basic thing now this may sound like we haven’t got a lot done we got actually had a ton done because here’s what we’ve done all I want to get to say is I can add will summon we’ve got some basic parameters for that then if I put a spell slot into this I up gun my summon creature and then I can drop these restrictions right so I’m not gonna say like you know I’m just gonna say lose these with a spell slide I think we’re gonna put the note here is uh stays where so that’s it this is like our first big step forward so then because I was thinking about this in terms of what the SONA CR to bard the seven bards ever just runs away in horror the so the main thing here is that we kind of have a rough outline for our creatures are gonna look like what I think I will do is rather than say hey go into the monster menu I’ll put a snap lock I think because this thing is constructed I’m we’re gonna give you stat blocks that you will use I think it’ll be faster to reference plus when we go to the next thing because I think some names gonna really show off the basically the idea of augmenting abilities the what I want to do is I want to know if I have and we know about some right here cause fear increase image extra actions like they’re just you know buffs in general we can give these things I want to know the destination and that’s one of the trickiest things in role-playing game design with a system that is allowing for more character customization is if you take something you want to know where is it going as an example imagine have an ability that says whenever I roll my damage dice if I roll the highest damage die I get to roll another die whatever it could do that once it’s very simple stuff but but you thinking okay that usually means one extra die oh wait what about if someone has a 2d six damage sword yeah the great sort how does that work you know and if you’re gonna say well we treat each die separately that ability is much more useful for someone with a great sword than it is for someone let’s say a great axe where the great axe is gonna get an extra die of one and twelve yeah exploding die Zack may right whereas there’s a one in three chance for you know I have one in six chance normally of that happening in a six signer but I’m willing to so roughly I’m getting twice as many chances one out of three top rounds I’m doing an extra d6 and then there’s you know one out of 36 issue runs that I’m getting extra to d6 right so it’s just that’s an area where knowing the destination really gives me a real sense of the the power this thing’s going to be so that’s why rather than have you go to the Monster Manual I want you going to these kind of pre-built stat blocks it makes it clear what’s gonna happen these these stab blocks can be kept very simple and utilitarian and then we can kind of get a sense of what does it mean like to increase your AC things like that I kind of know what AC is a great example a +5 bonus to AC if your AC is like 11 and 12 and that’s good but for AC is already 20 you know you might be shifting your bonus up your AC up to the point where monsters need to start rolling just 20s to hit you right look the elephant or whatever was it was a +7 so I mean it’s obviously a bonus Tacey is always great but you don’t want to end up with frustration of just like the creatures just can’t hit this guy because we push the AC too high that’s kind of why we have the sort of this idea of keeping hackers seeing bonuses narrow so then let’s do a quick thing what I want to do is cause fear and other emotions I want to be let’s say hey I’m gonna give this creature an aspect that makes it scary Oh a dead in seconds shape your class features I’m gonna get to that next actually so what I wanted to do is bang out what I wanted the spells to do increase damage indeed this is just general buffs either do that extra actions I think that’s another thing you could say I burned a spell slot I could you gets to go again or it’s a spell whatever it is and that could even scale up so we have some pretty obvious things we want to do oh and then we could offset up augment and other ways no utility comes to mount flies skills or detection abilities this is a lot of stuff we can give it here by essentially having targeted buff spells that augment my guy so what do we want to do for the shapers clients features well what I thought would be kind of interesting was the I’m just gonna copy and paste the Nomad here because this is fully new just you know we’re gonna do here right everyone’s favorite word that’s it bonus disciplines that’s just become a basic thing so we can give you two extra shaper disciplines and so what I like to do think between the Scion who focuses on shaping and the creature they actually shape or the thing they actually shape so I thought about like maybe like like someone mentioned doing sane you get some like some spell slots just for augments only the abhorson I’m a little worried about that because that’s just a very clear power up over what other characters are getting a way to think of it is what that what that was that you do is I can use my spell slots to augment my thing and I’m gonna use my other spells on top of it even if you’re specific about those bonus spell slots it’s still just opening up your bandwidth overall so what I want to try to do is give you things that improve the relationship between you and the creature so and again things that wouldn’t just be spells so a very simple thing to do Chicanos augment and shaping and I like things that are simple indirect so at first level your summon features gain advantage on attacks against pictures within this might not be the best thing but this is kind of direction where I want to go because what I’d like to do here and work on here is this idea that I can kind of combo up with Mike and my creature especially by summon one that’s doing its own thing now 10-feet might be too close so an alternate might be pick a target how can they say get them and my guy is really good at getting that guy well that might be need a cool-down a another thing we could do is this sort of free buff the rather than say hey like here’s some extra small slots cheese’s you want which but I think maybe we can do basically when you summon it you just get a free benefit so so maybe you can like increase max HP grants some extra game I don’t wanna do get some extra damage because that’s just makes your firepower better yeah so I think you can increase max HP you could also like share your skill proficiencies so if you can do something you can do something so that might be kind of useful to I can actually kind of like that the the divination spells load though those degrade that is a good point the important the I think what were you’re seeing there is since they’re degrading what it’s saying is these spells might not have the impact that say a fireball would have we’re incentivizing you to use really high-level spells for what’s really in character for you knowing that he was a player don’t and aren’t necessarily losing out on firepower that you could use later on the but I can’t remember if well I’ll live it up later cantide it doesn’t it says only when you use the divination spell you get as a lower level slot back right you don’t have to it doesn’t say then you’re locked into using it the rest but anyways the but yeah it’s definitely a it’s a tricky thing I’d rather just do it by giving you just the benefit because again you also now you want you know what’s going on you know that donation you know the benefit you know where it’s going so I think it’s augmenting your summons in some simple ways let’s see another thing we could let you do is at six level you get additional reaction you know I’m gonna throw this because I think this is interesting let’s say you can grant oh no I have seen additional actions as a spell ability you know what I don’t know if it that’s actually works and here’s why if you were last week I talked about how like in in games that like magic be an example or any game where the hey I put a creature into play at a cost there is invariably a Kevin effect that says I get to kill any creature for a much lower cost a potentially much lower cost they might only cost two or three resources opposed to like up to like infinite for a creature the tree thing with saying hey my creature gets an extra action is that skills kind of it does not necessary scale well because we think of the haste spell and use the hey spells an example I thought he’s from a character he’s very specifically says you get one extra attack there because we know a lot of the melee characters they’re getting their benefits for making multiple attacks now the Rogues an exception that was my design though we kind of felt like haste would be something which throwing it on the rope oh I’m sorry because that’s only during your turn sorry did this so even the rogue falls victim to that then I seen what the rogue is if they’re getting an extra attack if they missed and didn’t get a chance to use sneak attack they get to attack again and potentially amount put it on so I think I’m gonna strike the the spell effect of granting extra attacks extra actions I’m gonna strike that make that a class feature because I think that’s something that I don’t think scales well and class features are a good place to put things that don’t scale well because because of this follow usually about the seed we’re an extra action to a summing feature we gain on long rest so it’s pretty cool it’s very dramatic but I can just say look you get it take a long rest get this back you can’t just say keep spamming it it’s a good way to think of an ability that scaling abilities often have to be balanced at they’re their mightiest form which might push something like this I copy to the seventh level where you only get one of those per day this lets me go you know this is gonna scale so I can give it to you low levels to I just need to make sure you can only use it once per day because it needs to behave like those level 6 plus pills excuse me pardon me all right let’s ping we got 5 minutes but you know what it’s a weird holiday weekend two days on one day off two days on we’ll go a little late I don’t think anyone something I’ll bust down the door and yell at me if I’m going to late um let’s see oh yeah this is so let’s see so we’ve got that I’m just gonna just put it on this action just be very utilitarian here as I can remember it um let’s see we’ve got our no man is getting getting resistance weapon attacks until the start of your next turn after you teleport yeah let’s do this let’s do another let’s do a reverse reverse damage transference the 10th level I’m gonna say when you take damage reaction to have summon feature take all or some and that’ll that’ll come out in the wash so bonus extra bonus X Joe what is it it’s tip bonus in its texture it’s just double plus more good I don’t know what it is could be a barrel of toxic waste but there it is it’s more so I kind of like the idea giving you a little more durability you can do this idea of these as your helpers this might be one that gets swallowed up by spell but I don’t think so I like this idea that it’s there it’s constantly reaction and especially if it’s a spell sloughing if I use it to dump the damage back in my aunt wheel guy then I have damaged plane back to me again so it might have to be but we’ll see I’m gonna put a custom work there alright we have like four minutes Pelham just step back in you may have seen a walk behind me I think about to get kicked off line so let’s do a fourteenth double thing you can Joe and this is oh let’s do something here where well right now you could summon two creatures because I’m letting you concentrate twice oh how would that work because we don’t let you concentrate twice so it’s never in a case we have to figure out what happens my cast of concentration spell again so you know what I think oh this is the case oh this is easy well put it a simple restriction but then we’ll lift it double summons so I think we’re gonna have to clear up that and my impulsive to say you can’t concentrate in the same spell twice because I think that it’s going to lead to shenanigans I can probably prove that later if I have time but you can now this and I’m gonna put a big note to myself because that’s just one of the things that I really thought about which would be a big mess we didn’t consider it that’s why we work this way to make sure we consider these things can’t concentrate on same spell points question mark but I think that’d be a very simple thing you’d feel very great at that 14th you know you’ve got your entire career now I can summon two guys awesome so then I feel pretty good power wise it is actually really good so I think it probably has to sit at 14th I think we want to say you can’t double concentrate because flooding the board with so many guys that’s really good too huge creatures again if using nature’s you’re locking down a ton of the board space so and the rope I mean that for the actual class feature which I don’t know if I wrote let me take a quick look at that did we put your sonic focus today actually try to write that or did I just put in the table okay so we are saying sonic spells they’re not the same one just throw it in there it’s probably okay good so I don’t have to worry about the other summoning spells coming in and playing poorly with this I can wall those off all right so we’re at two o’clock this is a something that I really doesn’t need some more deep thinking now that rather than just die I don’t want to end up on stream just doing a lot of flailing around and I felt like I was flailing around a little more than I wanted want to when I’m doing something live because there’s a lot of like moving parts here so I think it just needs some time to just kind of kind of come bring everything together really bake it for a while and then roll it back out so let’s do neck next week let’s do some monsters cause monsters I think will be fun and I think that it’ll be a bit more coherent as we go across and I’ll give me some time to really think about all the implications because there’s actually a lot of stuff that’s bubbling up here this is a great example of a design that seems reasonable and the first play test may show that none of works at all right because there’s a lot of moving parts here so I think this needs to go in the oven for a bit it’s kind of like the Great British Bake Off this is the part of the show where we just show the bakers like nervously waiting for like you know the 40 minutes for their cake the so yeah maybe we’ll wait like maybe give it a month or so and I got a bunch of monsters I need to design at mine interval campaign so let’s let’s tackle those over a couple weeks that can show you some nice range of critters so fail are we’re getting next you a next Monday I think we are getting it next Monday because I know we’re actually working on it now spoiler that’s I was talking about a player-character race so there might be a player-character race and that you a so don’t don’t don’t be sure to race over to our website to get you way the puns they’re painful aren’t they they are or is it Tuesday a camera what day you a is I just work on it and it wanders off and then a bunch of things to work on so anyways work two o’clock thanks for tuning in ahh next week we’ll do some monsters and I’m gonna start working on this and let’s see if we get a bit more of a stable design here because we’re doing a lot we’re juggling a lot of things at once let’s let’s take a break and put get everything lined up nice and neat and then come back and look at this in August okay well take care everyone and I’ll see you next week
Mauricio Pellegrino has been overseeing Saints' penultimate training session today as preparation steps up for the Brighton clash, before speaking about the availability of his squad this afternoon. The manager confirmed that summer signing Mario Lemina has been ruled out of the weekend's Premier League action, following an ankle injury sustained in training, with no time frame put on his return. The rest of the squad has been given a clean bill of health, while Pellegrino is also considering the inclusion of young forward Sofiane Boufal after his match-winning contribution against West Brom. "Mario Lemina is injured this week," the boss began. "He is the only player we'll lose this week." "Sofiane is one possibility from the start, in the last two or three games he is playing well, even from the bench. "I am happy with that, I want to improve the competition in the squad. Sofiane is a young lad and this action can give him more confidence to be better."
The European Union and Armenia are close to concluding negotiations on a new agreement to deepen their political and economic ties, a senior EU diplomat said on Tuesday. Piotr Switalski, the head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that the two sides will hold another round of talks in Yerevan later this week. “These are the final moments of the negotiations,” he said. The planned accord will serve as a substitute for an Association Agreement negotiated by Armenian and EU officials in the summer of 2013. President Serzh Sarkisian precluded its signing with his unexpected decision in September 2013 to seek Armenia’s accession a Russian-led alliance of ex-Soviet states. The framework deal is expected to contain the main political and some economic provisions of the cancelled Association Agreement. But it will have no free trade-related component due to Armenia’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Switalski would not be drawn on possible dates for the signing of the new deal reflecting Yerevan’s desire to forge closer links with the West even after the 2013 U-turn. The diplomat did note, though, that an Armenian deputy foreign minister “was not far from the truth” when he said recently that it will likely be signed in the first quarter of this year. Switalski said the two sides only need to agree on “several issues” relating to the Armenia-EU cooperation framework. He declined to disclose those issues, saying only that some of them will require a “political decision.” Asked which side needs to make such a decision, he said: “It’s a process of mutual give and take. Nobody is talking about unilateral concessions.” Sarkisian reaffirmed his government’s commitment to deepen ties with the EU when he met with the EU’s commissioner for European neighborhood policy, Johannes Hahn, in Yerevan in November. According to Armenian government data, the EU accounted for almost 24 percent of Armenia’s foreign trade in January-November 2016, making the 28-nation bloc the country’s second most important trading partner after Russia.
The Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ have the same setup process, which in itself isn't too far removed from what you'd encounter on a brand new Galaxy S6. Things have changed slightly, however, and Samsung has even added a couple steps to an already quite long setup process. We're going to show you all of the high points of setting up a Note 5 or S6 edge, and make sure that you get your new phone started the right way. Wifi connection and End User License Agreement Things kick off pretty easily — select the language for your phone, and turn on accessibility features from the first screen if you need them. Then you'll choose a Wifi network and sign into that — even if you have an active SIM in your phone, we recommend getting Wifi connected for when the phone starts syncing data in the later stages of setup. And then it wouldn't be a phone setup without a licensing agreement. Samsung pops up a basic EULA about the terms of using its software. By default the phone has a box checked to send diagnostic data about the phone back to Samsung for analysis — you can uncheck this if you don't wish to send that data. Tap Next to move on to more interesting things. 'Tap & Go' and your Google Account Now that you have Wifi connected, this is where you can start really making the phone your own. Google introduced a new feature in Android 5.0 Lollipop called "Tap & Go" that lets you simply place a new phone back-to-back with your old Android phone and transfer your account information to the new phone via NFC and Bluetooth. That feature is the next thing you'll be greeted with, and it's a great way to switch to your new phone if you are coming from another Android. This will copy over the Google Account credentials from the old phone to the new one so you don't have to enter them manually. Depending on the security level of your account you may need to enter a password, but it's far easier than doing everything manually. Plus, it just feels kind of futuristic. If you're not coming from another Android phone or don't have your old phone available anymore, simply touch Skip and move on to the standard Google Account setup. You'll enter your primary Google Account (as in the one you use for Google Play and Gmail) name and password, as well as a two-step authentication code if you've turned that on for your account. If you have more than one Google account, enter the primary one you use for your data here, and you can always add additional accounts (Google or otherwise) in the phone settings later. Restore your apps and agree to Google's services Once your Google Account is entered, we go to another screen that's new for Lollipop devices. Google now lets you choose to restore apps and data from a specific device you have had connected to your Google Account, rather than just the most recent one. Tap the drop-down for "Restore from this backup" and select the phone you want to restore from — it's generally still hit-or-miss on which parts of the system will be restored, but expect things like Wifi network settings, sync options and wallpapers to make the jump. You can also select to restore the apps (but not app data) from that backup — choose "Also include" to select which apps (or no apps at all) to restore from that phone. If you'd prefer to start fresh with your new device — which is often advisable to avoid issues — you can instead choose "Set up as new device" from the top drop-down menu and select "Next." After you choose your restore options, it will then encourage you to set up a screen lock on your phone. It's a good idea to have one and if you have the time, you should set it up. Otherwise, you can (and should) add one later in the phone settings. You'll then face a screen where you now have to confirm you're aware of another licensing agreement and Google's service policies. The boxes for backing up your information privately to Google's servers is checked automatically, as is the box to use Google's location services — both generally make your phone experience better, and you can choose at any time to turn either one off if you change your mind. Samsung Account and sync Now it's Samsung's turn to get in on the account game — the next steps involve getting signed in to (or signed up for) your Samsung Account. If you've ever had a Samsung phone or tablet before you likely have a Samsung Account, which is used for syncing data in apps like S Health, Milk Music and the Galaxy Apps store. If you have the account, sign in with your user name and password here. If you don't have an account, we recommend just signing up for one here so it's out of the way and already into the phone for the times when you use Samsung's apps. The nice thing is that Samsung now lets you associate your Samsung Account with a Google Account, so you can use one set of credentials for both — little reason not to do it. And look, more licensing agreements! After signing into your Samsung Account, you'll be faced with more terms, conditions, policies and agreements. You can read through the terms with each link and select them as you go, or just tap the "I agree to all" option and get on with setup. After doing that, you'll be prompted to choose to back up your data now a second time to Samsung's servers. Chances are you won't need this if you're going with Google's backup service, and you really should choose to just do one or the other — our recommendation is that Google's the better way to go here. Set wake-up command and scan fingerprint The final two steps aren't really necessary for the function of your phone, but if you have the time it's good to just do them while they're in front of you. S Voice on the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 edge+ has a wake-up command option that lets you get the phone's attention and give it commands without ever touching the phone, and on this screen you can set that up. You choose the phrase — or you can go with "Hi Galaxy" as it suggests — and repeat it multiple times so that the phone knows how you'll be addressing it. Next is fingerprint scanning, which the phone can use to lock your phone simply but securely, and also use for authenticating in apps that support the sensor. The process is pretty simple — just follow the on-screen prompts to put a finger on the home button multiple times at varying angles to get a full scan of the finger. You only get to register one finger at first, but you can always go into the security settings of the phone to add more fingerprints, which you'll definitely want to do. Choose to enable Easy Mode and KNOX The last step to finish your setup is choosing whether you want to enable Easy Mode, and if you want to learn more about the KNOX security platform. Chances are Easy Mode isn't right for you if you're reading Android Central, as it really simplifies the home screen and phone experience, but if you're helping a less-experienced user get started with their phone this may be a good choice. KNOX is on the opposite end of the spectrum, as it helps lock down your sensitive data tight and separate it out from the rest of the phone so it's under an extra layer of security. You can learn about KNOX and see if it's right for you — chances are unless you're being required by a company to use it, you may find it overkill. A few odds and ends to remember There you go, you're onto the home screen and ready to enjoy your phone! If you're coming to the Note 5 or S6 edge+ from another Android, you may also notice a few different apps missing here. Because of changes in Google's agreements with smartphone makers you won't find apps like Play Newsstand, Play Movies, Google Keep or Google+ pre-installed anymore. Those apps haven't gone anywhere, and are still freely available in the Play Store — just open up that app and download any Google apps you're used to having but weren't installed by default. The same goes for some of Samsung's apps, which may need to be installed or updated right out of the box when you get your phone. Assuming you signed into your Samsung Account during setup, open up the Galaxy Apps store and download (or update) what you need there. And that's it! You're now ready to roll with your new Galaxy Note 5 or Galaxy S6 edge+.
This is Spilling the Beans , where plugged-in baristas give us the lowdown on where to go, what to do, and what to eat (and drink) in their hometown. Paul Haworth , director of coffee production at Cartel Coffee Lab in Arizona, has been working in the coffee industry “since last century,” starting in high school when he got a job at a coffee cart in Tuscon. His boss had flown over a roaster from Italy to teach them how to handle beans, and Haworth hasn’t turned back since. He met Cartel’s co-founder, Jason Silberschlag , in high school too. Now, many years later, Haworth knows everything about carne asada fries, tiki bars, and art farms—and it’s all in Phoenix and Tempe. When you get tired of the Grand Canyon, here are his picks. Where should I stay? I’d recommend the Clarendon . It’s a great little boutique hotel that’s very modern and affordable. I’d also say stay in an Airbnb in the Maple Ash Farmer Wilson area of Tempe that’s right next to ASU and our roastery. There’s a lot of culture there because the community is a mix of students and professors. Courtesy of Matt's Big Breakfast Where should I grab breakfast? If you’re in Tempe, Essence Bakery . It’s a traditional French bakery with the most ridiculous scrambled eggs I’ve ever had in my life. There are two locations, but the original is in Tempe. In South Tempe, there’s also a place called Crêpe Bar , with an amazingly talented chef, savory and sweet crepes, and great coffee. If you’re in central Phoenix, I’d recommend Matt's Big Breakfast . It’s a lot of food, but it’s just delicious. You’ll never be hungry afterward. Get the breakfast potatoes. Courtesy of FourTillFour Where should I go for a great cup of coffee? I’d definitely say Cartel , because I buy the coffee and obviously believe in it. Crêpe Bar also has a great coffee program; they use beans from Heart in Portland. I’d also recommend a place called Four Till Four in Scottsdale; it’s a Four Barrel account so you can get a little bit of San Francisco in this valley. Most people are multiroasters here but the other local roaster, besides us, is Press Coffee . Where to go to see great art? Check out Roosevelt Row . It was a bunch of houses that were turned into art galleries. There are a couple of coffee shops and restaurants there too. It has a crunchy feel to it, and it’s not really polished yet, but that’s where you can really get a feel for the local art scene. Best food market to eat your way around? This technically isn’t in Phoenix, but if you can drive 40 minutes, go to Barnone . There’s a guy named Joe Johnston and the farm he grew up on doesn’t exist as a farm anymore, but he’s converted it into an urbanized version of a farm. People call it Agritopia . They sell what grows there in their own marketplace, and they’ve turned the old barn into a makers’ space. He provides equipment and people make stuff there. One end has a wood-fired pizza oven. There’s a letterpress shop. And a brewery has a presence there. I think it’s one of the coolest things in the valley. Courtesy of Pizzicletta Hottest new restaurants? Definitely check out Chris Bianco’s restaurants. He’s a local celebrity here. Pizzeria Bianco is still my personal favorite, but people really love Tratto , which is his newest one that serves house-made pasta. Another one I’d recommend is FnB in Scottsdale. The level of hospitality and the things they do with vegetables—really creative. I also love Virtù , for its cocktail program and its food. If you want to go to a destination restaurant, and you’re going to the Grand Canyon anyway, we go to Pizzicletta , a small place that’s honestly maybe even better than Pizzeria Bianco. We’ll drive all the way up there just for the pizza and make a day out of it. Old-school Phoenix restaurant institution? It’s pretty random, but there is a New York hot dog company called Ted's Hot Dogs that serves amazing charcoal-fired hot dogs. One of the family members moved from New York to here and they use the same charcoal and stuff they use in New York. It’s been here since the mid-1900s and it’s a gem. Another one that’s great for lunch is Cornish Pasty , which is what it sounds like. It makes British pot pies called pasties—folded pastries filled with savory ingredients. If anybody is just in Tempe for the day, go here. Best breweries in town? There are so many now. The one that has the best breadth and the most interesting offerings is Arizona Wilderness , which is technically in Gilbert and a little bit of a drive. Otherwise, I would’ve recommended Four Peaks , which has always been a Tempe point of pride but was recently purchased by a much larger company. I also really like Wren House , which is in a home that was built in the 1920s. Courtesy of UnderTow Where to get a great cocktail? The hottest place in Phoenix is this tiki bar that’s underground below a café-restaurant called Sip Coffee & Beer House that’s actually a in a refurbished garage. It’s called UnderTow , and it’s blown up. Their cocktail program is honestly the best in town, but you have to make a reservation through an app, and it’s a little busy, and you don’t want to go on the weekends. I end up drinking at Crudo a lot. It’s an awesome restaurant that does a lot of raw Italian food, but their drinks menu has the classics plus a cocktail menu that’s rewritten seasonally. I trust the bartenders there. Rum Bar , which is attached to a restaurant called Breadfruit, has any rum you can imagine. Courtesy of Valley Bar Where to see live music? There is a new-ish place in central Phoenix called Valley Bar that’s a hip venue with a decent cocktail program. There’s also the Crescent Ballroom , which is owned by the same person, and hosts the best acts that come through here. Best places to get into trouble for the night? Go to Mill Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Tempe, which is right on the border of the university. It has a reputation for being really crazy. Pretty much the whole street is bars and shenanigans—but also lots of college kids. So, if you want something more low-key, a good place to meet people (and not dance) is Casey Moore’s Oyster House , which is actually a bar. It has this weird cult following, and it’s THE place where people go. Alex Lau Where to eat when the party is over? The breakfast burrito at Los Favoritos , or their carne asada fries. Otherwise, people would probably go to In-N-Out for burgers. Daytrip? It depends on the time of year, because in the summer you’d have to drive pretty far to be able to deal with the temperature. This time of year, it’s beautiful hiking weather. You could drive to the Superstition Mountains and be at the trailhead in about 45 minutes. There’s also cool local folklore about the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine. This guy supposedly had a goldmine and no one knew where it was but supposedly the mine is still out there somewhere. There are people who still spend a lot of time looking for it. Then there’s South Mountain, which is actually the largest municipal park in the country, and Camelback mountain in the Scottsdale area. In case you got hungry reading about pizza:
Coming on the heels of Valve’s announcement yesterday sources at NVIDIA have told the intrepid reporters at VRFocus that they will be announce their own VR, which might “possibly be named Titan VR.” For those at home keeping track that means we will have Oculus showing off the Rift, Sony showing off the Morpheus, Valve showing off the Steam VR, Razer showing off the OSVR, countless people showing off different iterations of mobile phone VR headsets, and now NVIDIA… yeah it’s sufficed to say VR will definitely be having a strong (wait for it…) ‘presence’ this year at GDC. According to the report the only other details that we know now are that the team behind the project is the same one behind NVIDIA’s SHIELD tablet. Earlier this month, the NVIDIA team sent out invites to an event on March 3rd that promised to show something that was “more than 5 years in the making” and that what they plan to show will “redefine the future of gaming.” This is most likely when we will get our first glance at the new HMD. UploadVR will be in attendance at the NVIDIA event, and will be bringing you in the moment updates on Twitter. We will monitor this story as developments continue to come in.
113 SHARES Facebook Twitter Linkedin Reddit Flagship is a RTS (real-time-strategy) game with support for the Oculus Rift that aims to put you in command of a fleet of spaceships. The game is controlled from a first person perspective with the player as the captain working from the bridge of the fleet’s lead ship. Players will command their fleet with the help of the crew and see the action unfold in space around them. Flagship Kickstarter Flagship is looking to raise £95,000 on Kickstarter and it’s currently 39% of the way there. I spoke with one of the title’s developers, Brad Jeffrey to learn more about the project. Flagship Q&A with Developer Brad Jeffrey Road to VR: What are your plans for integrating STEM? Do you have a Razer Hydra to prototype with? Jeffrey: We don’t actually have any Sixense hardware yet, we held off buying a set of Razer Hydra controllers as we were originally expecting the STEM devkits earlier in the year. Unfortunately there was a shipping delay as Sixense updated the design (for the better, I think), but they should start shipping in the next month or so. Unity integration seems reasonably simple, so from there it’s just a case of making the various systems onboard the ship work in a way that feels natural with motion controllers. The most obvious way would be to allow the player to just touch the controls with their hands, though in the case of larger interfaces like the map table, a laser pointer style interface may make more sense. The STEM system also opens up possibilities for offering fully 3D holographic interfaces that aren’t as feasible when using keyboard and mouse. Road to VR: Who is the development team and what is their dev experience, especially with regards to RTS? Jeffrey: Urban Logic games is made up of myself (Brad) and my brother Matt. We’ve both been tinkering with making games and mods for about 20 years. Matt is a freelance video producer by trade, but he’s also an experienced musician and 3D modeller. I’m a lead web developer as my day job, and I’ve had experience on mobile apps and data-driven applications. My biggest claim to fame is being one of the lead texture artists on Star Wars Quake: Call of the Force (aka SWTC). It was a pretty famous mod at the time, but that’s going back a few years! We’ve both been fans of the RTS games since the 90s, but space strategy games in particular always left us wanting to get a little closer to the action. We’ve been bouncing around the idea for Flagship for years, but it wasn’t until about a year and a half ago we felt we’d acquired the knowledge and skills necessary to build it. Road to VR: Will the crew have personalities, strengths/weaknesses, and will you be able to choose, promote, demote, or discharge them? Jeffrey: The aim is for your bridge crew to have distinct personalities, along with other department heads such as the chief engineer, the bartender, and the wing commander etc. Beyond that, it depends how far we can stretch our voice acting budget. You probably won’t be promoting and demoting individual crew members, for now we’re focusing on ship simulation aspects that are directly connected to combat and strategy. Ships in your fleet will level up providing they survive long enough, but this will probably be a per-ship stat. Road to VR: Aside from the bridge, what can players expect to do inside of the flagship? Jeffrey: You’ll most likely only leave the bridge during the down-time between battles. There will be consoles in your ready room dedicated to building your fleet and managing your empire. Engineering will contain systems you can calibrate to get extra performance (think Geordi La Forge tinkering in engineering to get that extra 1% out of the warp core). Other areas, such as the rec-room, will provide a way of getting to know your crew through interactive cutscenes. Road to VR: What’s your favorite VR game so far? Which version of the Rift are you deving with? Jeffrey: I’m not sure it qualifies as a game, but I loved Titans of Space. It was one of the first VR experiences that really made me think that this time VR was really going to go somewhere. It’s maybe a bit bare-bones presentation wise, but there are some pretty startling moments in that demo, and a real sense of scale. More recently, the Radial-G demo was really cool. I would have expected a game that moved you around so quickly to bring on motion sickness, but for whatever reason it didn’t at all. We’re developing on the DK1 at the moment, I haven’t quite been able to save enough to get the DK2, but we’re hoping to get our hands on one soon. In a Kickstarter update, the developers demonstrate the immense scale of one of many solar systems in which combat will take place: Flagship Screenshots
In 1999, Mark Nokes of Wallsall, England was incredibly excited about the imminent release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Like the rest of us, Mark had no idea just how terrible that movie would be...but that didn't stop him from legally changing his name to Darth Vader His wife, Suzanne, also took her husband's last name of Vader because...well, seriously, who wouldn't do that? If you're going to be married to the Dark Lord, you might as well receive all the benefits that come along with it. Can you imagine being called up for dinner reservations...or for your turn at the DMV? But I digress...this all leads us to 13 years later, when a rogue Jedi named Ikbale Hare (c'mon, that even sounds like a Mon Calamari name) became convinced that Mr. Vader was using the dark side of the force to seduce his own wife, Kelly Campbell (definitely a human). The two men began fighting, but before any light sabers could be unsheathed, Mrs. Vader stepped in the middle of the two to try and stop a physical altercation from occurring. Unfortunately for her, Ikbale had already committed himself to throwing a punch...which landed squarely on Mrs. Vader's face. "Heavens to Betsy!" The resulting melee was recorded in what may be one of the most incredible sounding police reports of all time. One excerpt, which was reprinted in the Birmingham Mail , reads in part: "There was a scuffle involving the two men and Mrs Vader tried to get between them... The defendant struck her but, there is evidence that, in fact, he had been trying to hit Darth Vader. Hare then picked up a brick and he threw sand into the face of Darth Vader, whose wife was so worried about him getting further involved in the dispute that she locked him in their house." Hare ran off and hid for two days before being caught and arrested. He was charged with (and pleaded guilty to) possessing a bladed article (knife, not a light saber), assault, and disorderly behavior. He will be required to complete 200 hours of community service and be placed under strict supervision for 18 months. Considering whose wife he punched, I'd say Mr. Hare got off pretty light. Just ask the late Admiral Ozzel what happens when Mr. Vader dispenses justice himself.
Bryan Bravo, 19, is shown on a stretcher after he broke into a Santa Ana home on Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. Two home invasion suspects chose the wrong house to target. The homeowner, who is trained in martial arts, turned the tables on the criminals, even shooting one of them.The incident took place at Erickson Dumaual's home in the 2500 block of West Manly Avenue around 4 a.m. Friday.Dumaual said two burglars came into his bedroom through an open sliding door, pointed a gun at his head and demanded money."Fifty-fifty, it was a struggle. I didn't know whether I was going to die," Dumaual said.Wanting to protect his sister and his 14-year-old nephew in the house, Dumaual took action."I saw the gunman turn his head, I attacked. I went for the gun. I have training in Krav Maga, so it didn't scare me at all," Dumaual said.Dumaual pushed the gunman against a window, shattered the glass, and then took the fight outside.After fending off both men, he took the gun. One suspect ran, but the one who lost the gun wanted to keep fighting."He never fired a shot on me, but I took that gun and he was going for that gun again, so I had to defend myself," Dumaual said.He shot the suspect in the leg, when the man tried to run. Dumaual pushed him into the pool and told him to stay put. When the suspect jumped out of the pool, Dumaual shot him again."He wanted to run," Dumaual said. He said the suspect kept saying, "I'm sorry," and tried to flee."No, you're staying right here buddy. So I tried to subdue him even more," he said.Officers arrived and took 19-year-old Bryan Bravo into custody. Dumaual's nephew took a photo of him on a stretcher.Police say the two suspects might have robbed someone earlier in the morning."The description matches. They were on a bike. Our victim was walking down the street, had a backpack, cellphone and money," Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said about that incident.As for Dumaual, he escaped with a few scratches and a cut on his foot from stepping on glass. He said these men picked the wrong house."He deserved it. He deserved every bit of it. I'd do it again if it happened again," he said.Police said Bravo is a known gang member with a long criminal history. He is expected to survive.If you have any information on the second suspect, you're urged to call Santa Ana police.
January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and this year an ad-hoc German collective called Laut Gegen Nazis (Loud Against Nazis) staged an intriguing protest against the Nazi Party of Germany, or the National Democratic Party of Germany, as they style themselves (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD), by using the innocuous tools of Facebook to call attention to the damnable persistence of Nazi ideology in Germany. Laut Gegen Nazis called it a “Like Attack”—they encouraged liberal opponents of fascist ideas to flood the NPD’s Facebook page by “liking” it and also by posting, as a comment, a link to a liberal-friendly image such as “Rassismus tötet!” (Racism kills!) or a rainbow version of the Nazi logo. In addition users were urged to adopt one of those very same images as their personal icons for the day (as they would obviously be seen on the NPD’s page itself). The slogan for the day was “Wir überfremden die NPD!”—which clever phrase requires a bit of unpacking. The German word überfremden is not a common one; it appears to be a bit of neo-Nazi jargon, and it means to be overrun by foreigners—such sentiments are surely discernable enough in the U.S. and U.K. as well. The genius of the slogan lies in the fact that Laut Gegen Nazis was proposing to do just that to the NPD’s Facebook page—overrun it with outside elements. As the Das Kraftfuttermischwerk blog pointed out, the project had the distinct drawback of having to oblige users, however briefly, to “like” such an odious entity as the NPD in order to function. But a sizable number of people appeared not to mind that particular taint, anyway. In the end, the NPD admins presumably had to work a little harder to maintain their page (it appears that many of the comments were scrubbed, although as of this writing—1/29—a few more recent comments could be seen on NPD’s website), and who knows how many minds, if any, were changed. But it remains a pretty clever implementation of social media to land a collective political point. Previously on Dangerous Minds: Foil Facebook’s facial recognition using sneaky World War I ‘razzle dazzle’ tactics
Ever since it was announced that Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) would be bringing virtual reality (VR) to the PlayStation 4 back in March 2014, fans have speculated on what first-party franchises could offer their support to the tech. Many would like to see platformers such as Ratchet and Clank or Jak and Daxter make the transition to the PlayStation VR head-mounted display (HMD), as it’s called, while others picture driving simulators such as Gran Turismo as the perfect companion for the device. It seems that SCE Head of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida agrees with the latter. “Many trial tests we’ve been doing, some genres just work fine,” Yoshida said when the popular racing franchise was brought up in an interview with Eurogamer released earlier this week. “One of those genres is racing games. So when Gran Turismo comes out on PS4, I’d like to see it support PlayStation VR, yeah.” Gran Turismo would presumably arrive on PlayStation 4 as Gran Turismo 7, but such a title is set to be announced. The series has come to every PlayStation platform with the exception of the PlayStation Vita, so it’s not hard to imagine it showing up later down the line. Back when PlayStation VR was first revealed – then known as Project Morpheus – Yoshida confirmed that SCE-owned Evolution Studios had also tested support for its own racing simulator, DriveClub. Ultimately the team decided against its inclusion, but perhaps possible support for the Gran Turismo series could go some way to making up for that. As it stands, SCE is yet to announce that any of its classic IP will support VR in the future, though has announced entirely new ones such as RIGS: Mechanised Combat League from Guerrilla Cambridge. VRFocus will continue to follow PlayStation VR closely, reporting back with the latest updates to the title.
Scottish Transgender Alliance has filed a petition with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service urging them to work with trans equality groups Thousands have signed a petition demanding Scotland’s courts not jail people if they do not tell their sex partners they are trans. The Scottish Transgender Alliance asked people to sign a petition asking the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) to urgently work with equality groups. It comes after Chris Wilson, 25, pled guilty in court after he was accused of failing to tell two girls his gender history and real age. He will be trialed this Friday (5 April), where he will likely face jail. Wilson is already on the sex offender’s register for life. Over 2,400 people signed the petition, addressing their concern trans people could risk imprisonment for not telling their sexual partners their gender history. Writing to the Lord Advocate, the STA said: ‘We consider it essential that trans people’s right to privacy about their gender history be upheld in all areas of their lives. ‘They must not be placed in fear of imprisonment simply for non-disclosure of their gender reassignment status to a sexual partner.’ Last month, Wilson admitted to having sex with a 15-year-old girl who said she was 16, after telling her he was 16 when he was really 22. He also admitted to kissing and cuddling another girl who was also 15 at the time, and also lied about his age. Despite the ages, it is believed due to the ‘obtaining sexual intimacy by fraud’ charge, Wilson was only convicted on the basis he had lied about his gender history. Nathan Gale, development worker at the STA, said: ‘There are other factors involved in this case, the two young women involved were only 15, but in bringing these particular charges the message the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has sent to trans people is, we will criminalize you if you fail to disclose your gender history to sexual partners. ‘Or put more bluntly, when it comes to sex you have no right to privacy. ‘I sincerely hope that on receiving this petition COPFS will understand the seriousness of trans people’s fears and respond to our call for COPFS to take urgent steps to address them.’ If you would like to read more about the case, check out Nathan Gale’s comment piece for Gay Star News here.
World Electioneering Entertainment 2016: 1,000 Years of Energy Independence and the Greatest Con Ever? [part 1/3] As probably anyone will attest, the greatest spectacle of the past year – if not of the past eon – has been none other than the United States presidential election, something that I now like to refer to as World Electioneering Entertainment (WEE). Because to properly understand this election (and its nascent title) requires, I believe, an understanding of the WWE – World Wrestling Entertainment. I've personally never had a liking for any of that wrestling stuff, but I am nonetheless intimately familiar with it all thanks to an old high school friend of mine – who goes by the nom de plume of Jason Sensation, but whom I knew as Jay – who has been a wrestler and impersonator in the WWE and other wrestling federations for nearly 20 years now. Follow along with this and the next two posts and – partially in thanks to my exposure to my old friend's antics and the mechanics of the WWE that he often explained to me – you'll see why I've come to the conclusion that this United States presidential election – WEE 2016 – might very well be the greatest con that any of us have ever beared witness to. But before I get to the significance of the WWE to the WEE, a partial recap of the three presidential debates – and in particular their mention of energy – is required in order to provide some backdrop for understanding their correlation. I didn't actually watch the debates myself but rather listened to them (because I gave up making and watching film and television 10 years or so ago), which in a strange twist of events actually made a significant difference. While moderator Chris Wallace stated in the third debate that "there is almost no issue that separates the two of you more than the issue of immigration", there is on the other hand probably no issue that more strongly bridges the two candidates – to go along with Bernie Sanders, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein – than the issue of energy. The first debate didn't cover much ground here, Hillary Clinton stating that We can deploy a half a billion more solar panels. We can have enough clean energy to power every home. We can build a new modern electric grid. Skipping over my doubts regarding the possibility of all that (which I've already repeatedly written of), Donald Trump then stated that "I'm a great believer in all forms of energy". Bravo? Jumping over to the third debate, it was stated by Clinton that "I do want us to have an electric grid, energy system that crosses borders." Although I won't examine this in detail, it's worth remembering that it was a highly integrated energy grid that in 2003 enabled a software bug and some unpruned foliage to allow for a two-day (for some a seven-day) blackout on the eastern seaboard that left 55 million people in a mad scramble over what to do with all of their melting ice cream. (If you think I'm being a bit unfair, it's worth remembering what was broadly learned from the blackout: absolutely nothing.) (photo by Brendan Loy) Switching over to the second debate, it was here that a question directly related to energy was (surprisingly?) asked by a fellow named Ken Bone. What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs, while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers? Roughly translated, his question was "How can we have it all?" Or rather, How can we have an increasing energy supply that doesn't pollute and which won't cause much job loss in the fossil fuel power plants that emit pollution? In response, and in short, it was stated by Trump that "There is a thing called clean coal. Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country". Clinton then stated that "we are now for the first time ever energy-independent". Both statements are patently incorrect, but since neither candidate disagreed with the other's statements on this I figure that we might as well lump both replies together and presume that what both Trump and Clinton believe in is 1,000 years of energy independence. Bi-partisan consensus! 1,000 years of energy independence for everybody! (photo by Gage Skidmore) For the record, and as Alice Friedmann relayed in her book When Trucks Stop Running, global coal supplies may have hit their energetic peak back in 2011, while the United States' peak in tonnage of coal will probably occur sometime between now and 2050. In regards to Clinton's statement about "energy independence", up until WWII or so the United States was in fact the world's overwhelming swing producer when it came to oil supplies and actually produced more oil than the entire world combined (why do you think the allies won WWII?). That was energy independence. But seeing how the United States currently produces about 9 million barrels of oil a day and consumes about 20 million barrels a day, perhaps it's believed somewhere in the back of Clinton's mind that Canada and Saudi Arabia are the 51st and 52nd states (which sometimes wouldn't be hard to believe). Having cleared that up, did the media call out either candidate on their highly erroneous statements? Well... In an interview with the New York Times, the questioner (sacrificial lamb?) that made the query on energy, Ken Bone, did turn out to be rather proud of himself: "I'm just glad I was able to spark the energy debate a little bit". Yes, well, so much debate occurred that Bone appeared on various news programs, talk shows, and even did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the website Reddit. In an interview with CNN, CNN's Carol Costello read him a tweet arguing that he had become a meme because of a combination of "33% confidence, 33% calming demeanor, 33% hugability, 1% power stache." So thanks to Bone's power stache the United States now has enough energy to – wait, what? Power stache? Meme? Those aren't even anagrams for energy. What's going on here? Alright, well, it turns out that had of I watched the second debate and not merely listened to it I would have noticed that Bone was wearing a bright red sweater, a sweater which caused a sensation across the Internet and got Bone booked on various television programs. Along with Kenneth Bone quickly bec[oming] a shorthand for all that is right about American democracy: mutual respect, caring about the issues, and the truly unifying power of a pun on the word "bone" a Halloween costume was crafted in Bone's likeness, Bone was, of course, offered a porn contract, to go along with all the rest that comes with that 15 minutes of fame thing. Following that, and upon doing the AMA on Reddit in which he used his regular user account and not a throwaway account, much of Bone's dirty laundry was laid bare for all to see via his comment history. I won't dignify any of that gossip by rehashing it here, but it did seem important enough that rather than call out Trump and Clinton on their "misstatements" about energy supplies, the media dutifully relayed the fact that the "Bonezone" had had a vasectomy some years ago. Gripping stuff I tell you. Anyway, this is where we get back to the macro spectacle of the WEE. Donald Trump shaves the head of WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, held by Stone Cold & assisted by Bobby Lashley, WM 2007. pic.twitter.com/W6oQW7Zlvf — phases pictures (@picturephase) September 29, 2016 Donald Trump shaves the head of WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, held by Stone Cold & assisted by Bobby Lashley, WM 2007. pic.twitter.com/W6oQW7Zlvf — phases pictures (@picturephase) September 29, 2016 As was explained to me many years ago by my old friend of WWE notoriety, there are essentially two characters in wrestling: the hero/heroine, known as the "babyface" (or "face" for short), and the villain, known as the "heel". The "face" persona is the empathic figure that aims to garner the respect and sympathy of the audience; they are likeable and honest and are determined to overcome the overwhelming odds placed before them. The "heel" on the other hand is the unethical figure that will lie and cheat and do whatever it takes to win the match (and/or the money, the girl/guy, the power, etc.); they readily antagonize the fans and even their peers, and have a habitual streak of playing the victim. Furthermore, the "heel" never accepts the loss of a match due to an ingrained perception that a grandiose conspiracy is relentlessly working against them. On top of all that, and regardless if you're the "face" or the "heel", what matters the most in the WWE is that you get attention, and any attention is good attention (meaning it doesn't matter if the audience loves you or hates you, but that you garner a strong reaction). In other words, and in case it isn't obvious enough, Trump's behaviour couldn't possibly fit any closer to the script and blueprint laid out for a WWE "heel": insult and deny, feign conspiracy, rinse and repeat. But while there is probably no greater student of World Wrestling Entertainment, and no person that has more shrewdly adapted it to politics than the incomparable and indomitable Donald Trump, I don't mean to imply that Trump is merely using the WWE playbook to run his campaign and ultimately win the election. No. What I mean to suggest is that Donald Trump may very well be playing out the part of a character, just as much as any run-of-the-mill wrestler does in the WWE and just as my old (wrestling) friend repeatedly did in public, the only ones in on Jay's gags and the characters he constantly acted out being his friends and the random person that recognized Jay from television and the various public events he partook in. "Battle of the Billionaires" Donald Trump shaves the head of WWE owner and billionaire Vince McMahon April 1, 2007 pic.twitter.com/tix2qPw7Na — Gary Lee (@garyibe007) September 6, 2016 "Battle of the Billionaires" Donald Trump shaves the head of WWE owner and billionaire Vince McMahon April 1, 2007 pic.twitter.com/tix2qPw7Na — Gary Lee (@garyibe007) September 6, 2016 For starters, Trump's history with the WWE goes back to at least the late-1980s (when the WWE was known as the WWF – the World Wrestling Federation) when a casino of his in Atlantic City hosted two of the greatest events in WWE's history – Wrestlemanias IV and V. Along with being a business associate and friend of WWE's owner Vince McMahon, Trump performed in Wrestlemania 23 in a match dubbed "The Battle of the Billionaires" (otherwise known as the "hair versus hair" match) where he ended up shaving the head of a subdued McMahon. Six years later Trump was inducted into the WWE hall of fame. Donald Trump being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013 (photo by Rick Foster) I won't delve too much into Trump's antics in this post (as I'll save that for the Trump post coming up next week), but suffice to say that Trump is a media savvy political performance artist like none other and is quite possibly playing out one of the greatest roles any of us have ever seen. Here's something relevant that Jay mentioned to me and other friends way back when and which I was able to find quoted on a website: There was a couple of times I was doing some home shopping gigs in Canada with WWE – and this was prior to my parody as Owen [Hart] – and Triple H was at one of the shows and he came up and asked me to dress up like Bret [Hart] and make fun of him. I really didn't wanna do it, he was my favorite guy and everything. Triple H had to sit down and explain the business to me, telling me, "You can be a fan, you're not offending him, this is a job. You're getting an opportunity, you can still impersonate him for us and it can be in dedication to him even though you're making fun of him, it's just part of the gimmick." @4CR_Billy To be fair, Melania wasn't the first to copy an idol. #Trump is clearly running as "Mr. McMahon." pic.twitter.com/y5Qzb1cjIK — LeMar McLean (@MarzMediaUS) July 29, 2016 @4CR_Billy To be fair, Melania wasn't the first to copy an idol. #Trump is clearly running as "Mr. McMahon." pic.twitter.com/y5Qzb1cjIK — LeMar McLean (@MarzMediaUS) July 29, 2016 If we can parallel that with Donald Trump, should we be so naïve as to believe that when Trump shaved off Vince McMahon's hair that he did so out of spite, or might it make more sense to realize that "it's just part of the gimmick"? Likewise, might it not be just as naïve to believe that Trump has been sincere when he's called Clinton "crooked Hillary" or even a "nasty woman" in the third debate? And how about "Little Rubio", "Lyin' Ted", "low energy" Jeb Bush, "Miss Piggie", and on and on and on? Are any of those to be taken seriously, or might it be possible that they're part of a ruse where they're also "just part of the gimmick", one where the "feud" between Trump and Clinton is entirely made up? And if it is just part of some "gimmick" (the purpose of which I'll touch on in a moment), might it then be possible that by lashing out at and/or incessantly commenting on and intellectualizing Trump's antics that our entire media, journalists, and all the rest of us observers have taken the place of the ravenous WWE audience member, giving not just Trump, but also the WEE, the attention and legitimacy sought after? Because it's not just the WWE that follows the matrix of "any attention is good attention", but also the media in general. As Les Moonves, CEO and executive chairman of CBS, put it last year, It [Trump's campaign] may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS... Man, who would have expected the ride we're all having right now?... The money's rolling in and this is fun. I've never seen anything like this, and this is going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It's a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going. There's no doubt that Trump is well aware of this and doesn't need one bit of reminding. As he put it himself two years before he even announced his candidacy, I'm going to get in and all the polls are going to go crazy. I'm going to suck all the oxygen out of the room. I know how to work the media in a way that they will never take the lights off of me. And that's not the bombast of some mere pretender. It's the truth being parlayed by possibly the greatest student of the WWE, one who has taken the WWE's mechanics and applied them to the biggest arena in the entire world – the ring of the United States federal election. The Hollywood Walk of Shame Jumping on the bandwagon, such things as the television show The Simpsons like to portray themselves as having warned us of a Trump presidency years ago. But on top of that being a bunch of self-indulgent nonsense, the only thing that mini-spectacles like The Simpsons have done is lay down some very useful groundwork for enabling the showmanship of Donald Trumps, thanks to its contribution to the creation of a complacent and apathetic people that is highly malleable to this "age of irony" of ours. As was put by one of the several apologists over at Salon, Humor is one of the primary ways that oppressed, weak, and marginalized people speak back to Power. The serf mocks the king. The worker laughs at the boss or factory owner. The slave derides and makes fun of the master. The child goofs on the adult. Oddly enough, Jay played the character "McDonald Dump" last week at a wrestling event in Toronto. I don't think for a second that Jay's a fan of Trump's, but much like the media and the chattering classes – and whether he realizes it or not – Jay's playing right into the hands of what I see as being the Trump and WEE ploy (Tweet via Twitter) True enough. As I hope this blog shows, I rather like humor (as well as humour). But while making light of the foibles of life is one thing, mockery is something else entirely – one where politics turns into theatre. While the various clowns and clownettes of late-night television pride themselves for eviscerating Trump, and while their audiences gleefully lap it all up, said clowns have accomplished absolutely nothing save for supplying Trump and the WEE with the attention and reaction they seek and require in order to legitimize what I believe to be the charade of WEE 2016. As Barack Obama's former chief speechwriter Tweeted back in February, "if Trump is the nominee, I actually think we should fund a SuperPAC that hires professional comedians to take him down with funny ads." But as the late media-theorist Marshall McLuhan put it several years ago, "The clown is really the emperor's PR man". Otherwise put, the very modus operandi of the mocking satirist is to feed into and legitimize the roasted. Jon Stewart To Appear At WWE SummerSlam 2016 https://t.co/3ObCdGjLED pic.twitter.com/lzQq0g93eU — Wrestling Central (@wrestlingcent) August 16, 2016 Jon Stewart To Appear At WWE SummerSlam 2016 https://t.co/3ObCdGjLED pic.twitter.com/lzQq0g93eU — Wrestling Central (@wrestlingcent) August 16, 2016 Think I'm exaggerating? Then take a look at the greatest eviscerating clown currently alive, Jon Stewart, "the most trusted name in fake news". While Stewart likes to play the role of the responsible observer that uses his razor-sharp with to take down those on high, in an infamous interview on CNN's Crosstalk he fired back at – cut off – criticism of of his actions by pointing out that "The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls! What is wrong with you?" Or in other words, we're supposed to take Stewart seriously while not, well, taking him serisouly at all. Jon Stewart and Mick Foley (of the WWE) at the Rally to Perpetuate Insanity (photo by Cliff) As if all that weren't enough, while it's well known that Stewart recently gave up the helm of his critically acclaimed 16-year stint as host of The Daily Show, it's not quite as well known who one of his recent employers has been. In case you need me to spell it out for you, yes, Jon Stewart has in fact been working for none other than the WWE, hosting and even wrestling in its RAW and Summer Slam events for the past couple of years. Still no word though on when Stewart and his foil will be meeting in the ring so that Stewart the clown can shave off the mane of his fellow showman, Donald Trump the emperor. As I recently read, it's not possible to name the greatest con ever pulled off because the greatest con that ever existed was the one that nobody ever realized was actually a con. With that in mind, might it be possible that Trump is actually playing out the role of the greatest "heel" that the WWE, and now the WEE, has ever seen? If so, what I can't help but ponder over is whether or not the purpose of "the gimmick" is to create a fog of distraction over the most important issue of the day that in a strange twist of events got superseded by a red sweater, talk of a vasectomy, and, shall we say, something that the "Bonezone" "liked". In other words, inane gossip took center stage over the topic of energy supplies. Or more specifically, peaking energy supplies. Jon Stewart Is The Best Guest-Host In WWE History @ http://t.co/4L7xRXIElo pic.twitter.com/zc8aQRBr9f — WrestleNewz.com (@wrestlenewz) August 26, 2015 Jon Stewart Is The Best Guest-Host In WWE History @ http://t.co/4L7xRXIElo pic.twitter.com/zc8aQRBr9f — WrestleNewz.com (@wrestlenewz) August 26, 2015 Moreover, I don't think we should expect this "feud" – this distraction – to end anytime soon. As Trump stated at the end of the third debate in response to whether he'd concede the election were he to lose, "What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense, okay?" As I'll explain further in the next post, were Trump to win the election the "feud" would essentially come to an end. But were he to lose the election, what I see as being a faux feud would be allowed to continue, thus allowing for the citizenry-cum-audience to remain properly distracted from slightly more important things like the collapse of industrial civilization. None of this is to say though that real people won't be affected in real ways by Trump's antics. Although what's going on in the ring of the WEE may be roughly staged – I imagine that Trump is taking the lead while Clinton has the simple job of playing herself in return – at many points in the future many real people in the stands of the WEE may be incited to riot, and many real people may, to say the least, get hurt. Alongside that, it's been postulated by John Michael Greer that upon the protracted collapse of industrial civilization the United States may see the rise of a Fred Halliot (that is an anagram). Which is, I'd say, entirely possible. But as stated by another late media-theorist, Neil Postman, in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, [Aldous Huxley] believed that it is far more likely that the Western democracies will dance and dream themselves into oblivion than march into it, single file and manacled. Huxley grasped, as Orwell did not, that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcoticized by technological diversions. Although Huxley did not specify that television would be our main line to the drug, he would have no difficulty accepting Robert MacNeil's observation that "Television is the soma of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World." Big Brother turns out to be Howdy Doody. In other words, so long as the citizenry is kept placated and gullible with its soma, what reason is there for how, or why, a Fred Halliot might emerge? However, once the lights start to go out – meaning once the televisions and movie theatres start going dark, and people start losing access to their soma – then all bets are summarily off. Furthermore, although I think Greer is spot on with his explanation of why so many voters are gravitating towards Trump, I'm not so sure about his interpretation regarding Trump's motivations. I'll hash out those motivations a bit more in the next two posts, starting with one on Donald Trump, followed by one on the candidate who I think wasn't so much bound to be the winner of the WEE so much as she wasn't bound to be the loser – Hillary Clinton. Having made a comparison between Donald Trump and my old friend Jay, out of fairness I'd like to add that besides being students of the WWE they are nothing alike. While Trump slurs virtually everybody he comes across, and whether they are part of a character or not, his words are given as his honest opinion of which there is no excuse for. On the other hand, the only slurs Jay ever doled out (that wasn't behind closed doors) were either upon himself or some light ribbing upon close friends. Let's get ready to rumble!!!!
PCMag's Fastest Mobile Networks story tested eight networks in 30 cities. Unfortunately, after the tests were completed, AT&T decided to dispute one element of our results. In the interest of fairness, here is AT&T's statement and our response. AT&T's Statement: The PC Magazine speed tests show the incredible 4G LTE download speeds we provide our customers and validate that AT&T offers the best iPhone data experience. We have given PC Magazine independent data establishing that their testing app has a technical flaw that understates our 4G LTE upload speeds when a particular version of the Android software is used. This flaw disparately affected AT&T’s upload and overall results. It’s disappointing and a disservice to the public that the editors chose to publish results we have demonstrated are inaccurate. We Respond: We were surprised to get this response, as AT&T's network did extremely well in our tests. AT&T's LTE network won 10 of the 16 cities where it was both available and not spectrum-limited. (For more on that, see Why Spectrum Matters.) AT&T was highly involved with our testing from the start. We used devices supplied by AT&T, and AT&T engineers spent several days helping to fine-tune our testing software before we got on the road. We used well-established testing software, which was also the basis of our 2011 network tests. It also is worth noting that the Android devices supplied to us by AT&T were loaded with the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system, and it appears that consumers may see faster upload speeds with different versions of the Android operating system. The upload speeds we got were exactly in the range promised by AT&T network architecture chief Kris Rinne when the network launched in 2011, as she told the AP. All speed tests give different results, as you can see in our tests of Sprint's new LTE network. The most important thing to do in a story like this is to use the same test across all carriers and to let everyone have their say, and we feel we've done this. For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.
I can’t wait for Thursday evening. Today I was granted an unexpected tour of The Ice @ Canalside after I ran into Kaitlin McGee Chmura, Assistant Project Manager of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation. As we walked around the site we could see all of the last minute details being worked out before the big day. The speakers were installed, as were the lights. The skate rental shipping crate (upcycled) was in place, as was the concierge hut. There was a food and beverage kiosk that looked like it was ready to go to. Tomorrow the hut will be serving up hot cocoa to people as they enter the site. There were pine boughs and garlands hanging all over the bridges, which will all be lit up tomorrow night. A large Christmas tree was decorated from trunk to top – that too will be lit up tomorrow. As we walked, we noticed that the first skater to ever skate on The Ice @ Canalside took to the ice to test it out. Then another skater joined him. It was a spectacle to watch the skater as he glided underneath the bridge that we were standing on. I thought about my own skates that hadn’t seen the light of day in years. Finally, they will be broken out and used this winter. There are some pretty cool features at Canalside that I was not aware of. On one side of the rink’s perimeter, the surface is rubber, which means that skaters can walk from the storage lockers to the Adirondack chairs to the food and beverage hut, without ever taking their skates off. On the opposite side of the rink, the aggregate stone walkways are heated, which means that snow will never accumulate. Brilliant! There will also be a large heated tent for anyone who wants to warm up. The public areas under the bridges protect people from the wind and falling snow (it’s all lit up too). On top of the bridges there are bistro tables and chairs set up, and propane heaters are being assembled to keep people warm. This will eventually be a “beer bridge” where people will be able to sit and order a frosty brew. Food trucks will be able to pull right up to the bridge, creating an instant food court. I also learned that there is a graphic that has been added to the ice surface of the canal rink. The graphic bares the emblem of The Aud that once stood at the site. “That spot,” Kaitlin told me. “Marks the exact spot where center ice was at The Aud. It’s a tribute to the auditorium and the history of the Sabres.” I also discovered that the ice surface had the markings for the sport of curling. Not only can you rent skates at Canalside (600 pairs of sharpened skates), you can also rent the equipment for recreational curling. The house Zamboni will make sure that the surface is slick enough for games at any given time. The Larkinville huts are all set up and waiting for vendors. The place is coming together quick now. Everywhere you look there are signs of life about to be infused into the site. Tomorrow is going to be a great day for Buffalo. Look at the photos and insert people!
My Secret Santa is pretty much amazing. The gift arrived about a month late but that was more than made up for. I received a Canon lens coffee mug...I LOVE COFFEE and I moderate r/ThisMug, which I'm sure is why all of the gifts were mugs. I also received a Pantone 376 mug. This one struck me as the most unusual, I can't imagine the amount of Googleing or just plain luck that this was the color chosen. When I was in high school I opened a computer repair shop and this is the exact Pantone color of my logo. I later managed a printing company, Moxicopy.com, I used the same Pantone color when recreating that logo. When Santa packed every thing up, two mugs were broken so they threw in $50.00.... unbelievable! I would have been happy with 1 coffee mug, even if it was late. THANK YOU ELODIN!
It’s not what you think I was happy to learn that Professor Steven Salaita reached a $600,000 settlement (plus $275,000 in attorney fees) yesterday in his lawsuit against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). As others, including Steven Salaita, himself, have said, universities may now think twice before violating freedom of speech rights of faculty in order to satisfy wealthy Jewish donors. Here is a statement about the settlement by Salaita recently published on The Nation website. In the article titled, “I Will Always Condemn Injustice, No Matter What The State Of My Employment,” Salaita wrote: We can claim meaningful victory against UIUC. The most decisive of those victories is the knowledge that upper administrators will think twice—and ideally not at all—about wrecking academic freedom and faculty governance by kowtowing to Zionist hysteria. However, Salaita will not be reinstated at UIUC, which was one of his initial demands and the university will not admit to any wrong doing. If Dr. Salaita would obtain a teaching appointment similar or better than the one he lost, I would view the settlement as a personal victory for him. But if pressure from the lobby will block such a job offer, as was the case with Norman Finkelstein, the monetary award would not even come close to compensating him for the subsequent loss of income. I could think of no better person to ask about the Salaita settlement than Dr. Norman Finkelstein, who himself was a victim of Jewish lobby pressure when he lost his tenure battle at DePaul University in 2007. Like Salaita, Finkelstein was denied a position by the school administration who overruled the decision of a departmental faculty committee. Unlike Salaita, Finkelstein chose not to initiate litigation for what appeared to be a clear violation of his rights by the university administration. He was subsequently unable to obtain academic employment despite a stellar publishing history, extremely favorable student evaluations and a doctorate from Princeton University. What follows is my complete and unedited correspondence with Dr. Finkelstein: On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 8:04 PM, Ira Glunts wrote: Dear Dr. Finkelstein, I was one of the people who hosted your appearance in Cazenovia, NY about four years ago. I was wondering what your reaction is to the Salaita settlement with UIUC. Do you think he will be able to get an academic position in the US? Can I quote your thoughts on this? I would greatly appreciate hearing your thoughts on this matter. I hope you are well and are enjoying the fall in NYC. Best, Ira Glunts Norman Finkelstein is known for views which surprise and sometimes dismay pro-Palestinian activists. His response definitely surprised this reporter who believes that Salaita is a gifted writer and speaker, and that he is well-qualified to hold an academic position such as the one he obtained at UIUC. Dr. Finkelstein is known for his decades long history of sharp and incisive criticism of Israeli government policy. However, he has taken a number of positions which many understand as incompatible with pro-Palestinian activism and solidarity. Among these are his characterization of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) advocates as cultists, his view that the pro-Israel lobby does not influence U.S foreign policy, and his deriding of advocates of a one-state solution for Israel/Palestine, as hopelessly politically naïve. In arguing the above positions, Finkelstein has maintained that he has been consistent in his thinking and that his views are in no way inimical to the Palestinian cause. I chose to publish this correspondence with Dr. Finkelstein’s permission because there is a general interest in what Finkelstein thinks and because his statement may help shed some light on the kind of thought processes that inform his other views. What follows is the complete and unedited response from Finkelstein to my message: I don’t think you want to hear my reaction. I am not a party-liner. I gave that up when Chairman Mao passed from the scene: I’ve read Salaita–or, let’s say, I’ve endeavored to read him. Even Google has yet to invent a translation program that makes coherent sense of his prose. As of now, Salaita hasn’t lost a day of work (he spent the current academic year occupying the prestigious Edward Said chair at American University in Beirut), and he reportedly walks away from University of Illinois with nearly a million dollars. That’s not bad for someone with a PhD from the University of Oklahoma who, before being hired to teach Native American Studies at an excellent second-tier university, last taught English composition at Virginia Tech. He did not deserve to get fired, but in a rational world it would be cause for wonder how he got hired in the first place. It’s a telling commentary on the state of the humanities that his tweets got greater scrutiny than his (so-called) scholarship. You are free to quote this in full, but not to excerpt it. [Underlining in the original.] There are two factual errors in the statement above. First, it is not true that Salaita “hasn’t lost a day of work.” Salaita did not teach in the fall semester of 2014 or in the spring semester of 2015. Secondly, Salaita received $600,000 in the settlement, not “nearly a million dollars,” as stated by Finkelstein. Dr. Salaita, when asked by this writer to respond via email to Finkelstein’s statement wrote, “No comment.” UPDATE #1: After publication, I was emailed this article, titled, “Dershowitz and Finkelstein: comrades at heart?,” by Steven Salaita which was written in 2013. I was unaware of the article’s existence when writing the above post. UPDATE #2: Dr. Norman Finkelstein has informed me via email that at the time of my interview with him he believed that the settlement awarded Salaita was $875,000. This is due to the fact the some reports incorrectly stated that amount, neglecting to acknowledge that $275,000 was awarded to Salaita’s attorneys.
Nathan Baker’s own goal against Reading had even his own team-mates perplexed (Picture: Getty Images) Manchester United do it, regularly. Bradford did it, memorably. Even German fifth-tier side SV Rodinghausen have managed it, recently. But Stoke are the only side not to in the best part of eight months. What am I talking about? Scoring against Aston Villa, of course. The stats are pretty sobering, not to mention damning. No clean sheets in 2013. No clean sheets in any of the last THIRTY-THREE matches Villa’s first-team have played, be it league (22), cup (five) or friendly (six). A sorry run that stretches back to December 8 last year – when Villa and Stoke played out a goalless draw that was every bit as much fun as it sounds. It’s a pretty embarrassing state of affairs if you’re a Villa fan (perhaps more so if you’re Kenwyne Jones or Jonathan Walters). And the leak hasn’t really been plugged, based on the evidence of pre-season. Advertisement Advertisement They have conceded in all of their friendlies thus far, against the aforementioned SV Rodinghausen (a side at an equivalent level to Solihull Moors), two German second tier sides, plus Luton, Wycombe and Crewe. Sure, results of friendlies mean very little – it’s all about building up match fitness, establishing patterns of play and integrating new arrivals into the squad. Performance 1, results 0. And the constant rotating of personnel in warm-up matches makes the odd defensive mix-up inevitable. Pre-season goals conceded just add weight to the view that Villa, with their callow defence, start each match 1-0 down. Villa leaked goals regularly from corners last season, notably in the Capital One Cup semi-final against Bradford (Picture: Getty Images) Taken in isolation, these pre-season goals could be viewed as aberrations. But instead they just add weight to the view that Villa, with their callow defence, start each match 1-0 down. Poor judgment blighted the inexperienced Villa defence last season. Witness the regular corner kick fiascos or Ciaran Clark’s naivety against Manchester City in March. But sometimes it was just sheer bad luck that prevented clean sheets – own goals by Ashley Westwood, Nathan Baker and Fabian Delph stopped Villa from shutting out West Ham, Reading and Fulham. New signing Jores Okore, highly-rated by all who saw him play for Nordsjaelland in the Champions League last season, should add quality to the spine, and Antonio Luna’s arrival adds further competition to Villa’s busy left-back slot (but more of that in a later blog). Advertisement Advertisement However, Okore suffered a hamstring injury in the match against Rodinghausen and has been in treatment ever since. Without him, it may be back to the same Lowton-Vlaar-Baker-Bennett quartet which, while individually talented, seems prone to an error or two. With Christian Benteke, Gabby Agbonlahor, Andi Weimann and Nicklas Helenius in attack next season, Villa will have goals in abundance. But if some of the basic mistakes of last season are repeated, we’ll need at least two to win matches.
Editor's Note: Xiaolin Zheng is one of National Geographic's 2014 Emerging Explorers, part of a program that honors tomorrow's visionaries—those making discoveries, making a difference, and inspiring people to care about the planet. The catalyst for Xiaolin Zheng's groundbreaking work in solar energy began with an offhand comment her father made years ago at her parents' apartment, a 13-story complex in the northeast China city of Anshan. “In China, the rooftops of many buildings are packed with solar energy devices,” says Zheng. “One day my father mentioned how great it would be if a building’s entire surface could be used for solar power, not just the roof, but also walls and windows.” An invention from Zheng's research team at Stanford University might someday make that possible. They have created a type of solar cell that is thin, flexible, and adhesive—a solar sticker, in effect, that could help power everything from buildings to airplanes. “By making solar cells extremely thin and flexible, they can be used in all kinds of new ways," says Zheng, an associate professor at Stanford and recipient of the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. "I hope our discovery will dramatically expand the affordable, practical, widespread application of solar power.” In 2010, a decade after her father’s initial comment, Zheng read a research paper that triggered the idea again. It described an experiment in which the nanomaterial graphene was grown on a layer of nickel atop a silicon wafer. When submerged in water, the nickel separated from the surface, along with the graphene. “It sounded unbelievable, like a magic trick,” she recalls, “But they had achieved very reliable results.” What if, she wondered, the same principle could be used to yield a thinner, more flexible solar cell that could peel off, attach to adhesive, and stick to virtually any surface? Because conventional thin-film solar cells are manufactured on glass or silicon wafers, they are rigid, heavy, and quite limited in how and where they can be used. Plastic or paper would be far more flexible, but it cannot withstand the high temperatures and chemicals required for fabrication. “Our new technique lets us treat the solar cells like a pizza,” explains Zheng. “When you bake pizza, you use a metal pan that can tolerate high temperatures. But when it’s time to distribute the pizza economically, it’s placed in a paper box." Working with her students, Zheng set out to fabricate solar cells on a silicone or glass surface as usual, but she inserted a metallic layer between the cell and the surface. After some trial and error, the team was finally able to peel away the metallic layer from the surface after soaking the whole structure in water for just a few seconds. The result was an active solar cell that is only a couple of microns thick—about one-tenth the thickness of plastic wrap, Zheng says. "It’s extremely flexible, so it can be attached to any surface—the back of a mobile phone, a skylight, a wall, a curved column.” The skinny, bendable cells can produce the same amount of electricity as rigid ones, and they offer cost benefits as well, according to Zheng. “The silicon wafers come through the process clean and shiny,” she says. “So just like a pizza pan, they can be used again and again, which translates to savings.” And because the solar stickers are lighter than conventional panels, they will be easier and less expensive to install. The stickers might be able to reduce manufacturing costs too, Zheng says. In traditional solar-cell production, the foundation materials account for 25 percent of the cost. The new method will enable that base layer to be removed or replaced with a cheaper material. For example, the windows of a building provide a ready-made base layer, so all that’s needed is the solar cell itself. A cell that could simply be peeled and applied enables that economical shortcut. Zheng predicts peel-and-stick solar cells could one day paper the sides of buildings, cover sidewalks to light walkways, energize home security systems, and help power solar cars or planes. Along with industrial uses, she envisions being able to stop at your corner store to pick up a pack of solar cells the way you buy batteries today. To help realize those large-scale applications, Zheng's team wants to test the technology with more efficient cells than the ones used for the initial breakthrough. "Our cells will also need to be larger, expanding from their current one-square centimeter size to a square foot or even square meter," Zheng says. New equipment will be needed, too, for the peel-off process that the researchers conducted by hand in the lab. Her research group is also looking into how solar energy could be used to split water atoms, producing hydrogen and providing a potentially cheaper, more efficient way to fuel everything from transportation to home heating. “As scientists,” she says, “I feel it is profoundly important to use our work to improve the world. For the future of our environment, we need to advance renewable energy rather than heavily relying on fossil fuels to meet growing demand. Solar power has always been my favorite because sunshine is so clean, abundant, and has fewer limitations on where it can be used.” Exactly how her solar-sticker idea will evolve from a nanoscience lab to the real world is not yet known. Now that the technology has been tested and proven, however, it's a testament to value in pursuing a seemingly outlandish notion. “Everyone has crazy ideas about some discovery that could change the world,” Zheng says. "Those ‘what if’ questions are always in the back of your mind. You also always keep your eye on the latest emerging technologies. When those two worlds happen to connect, it’s great.”
As a valued friend of the GIANTS you can access 4 x FREE tickets to the GWS GIANTS match at Spotless Stadium this Saturday in Sydney Olympic Park. The match details are below: WHEN MATCH TIME Saturday, 30 April GWS GIANTS v Hawthorn 4.35pm To register for your tickets simply follow the steps below and see you at the game! 1. To redeem your FREE family pass within general admission, CLICK HERE 2. Login to your existing GIANTS account or register for a new account. Note, you must create an account before entering the promo code password at step 4. 3. Select “Find Tickets” next to your match 4. Type the password “NEVERSURRENDER” when prompted to enter a promo code (no spaces, all capitals) 5. Select your number of tickets (max 4 per person) and click “continue” 6. Review your order and click “add to cart” 7. If you already have a GIANTS account, simply log in using your email and password. Otherwise click on “create an account” and enter in the details requested 8. Select your delivery option (TicketFast Tickets only) and click “Checkout” 9. Agree with the terms of use and select “submit order” 10. Select “Print tickets” and scan in at the gate on game day For any questions, please contact [email protected] or call 1300 GIANTS (1300 442 687) during business hours only. Tickets are strictly subject to capacity so get in early to avoid missing out. See you at the game!
Russian officials say four suspected members of an illegal armed group were killed by security forces in an operation at an apartment building in St. Petersburg. Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said the members of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) went to the apartment on August 17 to apprehend people recently added to a federal wanted list. The individuals were added to the list for alleged participation with militant groups in the volatile North Caucasus region, Markin said. He said the suspects posed resistance to the FSB agents and opened fire but were killed in a shoot-out. Witnesses said gunshots and explosions were heard at the scene. Markin said no civilians or security forces were injured in the incident. People who were evacuated from the apartment building have been allowed back into their homes. Based on reporting by TASS, Interfax, and Meduza
8 September, 2016. 11:15 CLANCY OVERELL \| Editor \| CONTACT With the NRL finals starting this week, clubs across the country have switched on damage control – with many clubs bringing in a flat out alcohol ban on all players – to avoid any off-field controversies in the most important fixtures of the year. However, in the deep north, Townsville city council have reinstated their annual amnesty for all North Queensland Cowboy footballers who find themselves on the wrong side of either the law or public opinion. “The last thing we want is to lose a player for six rounds like the Roosters lost Pearce,” said Townsville mayor, Jenny Hill. “So we’ve asked all local media, police and pub-owners to please not report anything that might hinder our boys in their quest for back-to-back premierships,” “It worked for us last year, and fingers crossed it will work again. We could have lost most of the side to that southern-centric Integrity Unit in if the NRL got a whiff of half the shit our boys got up to in 2015,” With the news that five North Queensland Cowboys players have been charged after allegedly egging cars in Townsville – it appears that the police involved have been stood down indefinitely without pay. The players were in a car stopped by police for a random breath test before midnight on Wednesday when an unknown person accused them of throwing eggs. After the footballers were officially charged in a disgusting display of disrespect and flat out idiocy – both the local police, local council and North Queensland club executives have ask QLD Police to relocate the police officer in question as soon as possible. “It’s disgusting,” Jenny Hill says. “He must be new up here. We have an amnesty for our boys and he should have known that”. The only exception to the amnesty is in regards to southern-born footballers who are likely to represent NSW in the State Of Origin series. “In the case of Tamou getting pinched for drink driving a few years back, we can all agree that was a fair exception,” “We spoke to the club beforehand and came to the conclusion that they would be able to continue the season without him. While we do have the support of the local cops, journalists should consult council before reporting on anything that could affect the line up,” said Hill, while dressed head-to-toe in Cowboys merchandise. With the NRL season back in full swing, it is a matter of time until young rugby league players from low socio-economic backgrounds begin making headlines for doing things that might be considered a “bit grubby” in public places. “Yeah, anything short of domestic violence is gonna be overlooked,” said local police chief, Ben Katter. His comments were met with a roaring reception from the local residents in attendance. “If they don’t like it down south, they can get fucked. For too long our club was overlooked due to dodgy refs and we aren’t going to end this streak any time soon,” “Fuck the Southerners. The North will rise again,” The council meeting was called to end shortly after the amnesty was re-voted in by a vast majority of the citizens that were present, this was followed by a stirring a-cappella rendition of Lee Kernaghan’s Boys From The Bush by lord mayor, Hill. SEE ALSO: Townsville Man Accused Of Being A Cop After Wearing Closed-In Shoes To The Pub
MINNEAPOLIS -- Since the beginning of this year, 22 states and the District of Columbia have introduced bills that would assess an excise tax on electronic cigarettes and nicotine liquid solutions used in e-cigarettes. With some state legislatures already adjourned and other states moving closer to adjournment for the year, the picture on e-cigarette taxes is becoming clearer. What is interesting is not just the fact that so many states are considering e-cigarette taxes, but also the different methods being proposed to tax e-cigarettes. So far, bills in eight states to tax e-cigarettes have either been defeated or died due to adjournment of the legislature. These eight states and the proposed tax rates that failed include the following: Arizona: 18 cents per milliliter of nicotine solution. Arkansas: 7.5 cents per milliliter of nicotine solution. Indiana: 24% of the wholesale price. Kentucky: 40% of the wholesale price. Montana: 1.73 cents per milligram of nicotine solution. Nevada: 30% of the wholesale price. New Mexico: 4 cents per milligram of nicotine solution. Virginia: 18 cents and 40 cents per milliliter of nicotine solution. The other legislatures with tax bills still pending include the following states: Alabama: 25 cents-per-milliliter of nicotine solution. Hawaii: 70% of the wholesale price. Maine: Cigarette tax rate of $2.00. Massachusetts: Cigarette tax rate of $3.51. Minnesota: 30 cents per milliliter of nicotine solution. New Hampshire: 73.94% of the wholesale price. New Jersey: 75% of the wholesale price. New York: 75% of the wholesale price. North Carolina: 3 cents per milliliter of nicotine solution. Ohio: 60% of the wholesale price. Oregon: 81.25% of the wholesale price. Rhode Island: 80% of the wholesale price. Vermont: 46% of the wholesale price. Washington: 60% of the retail price. Washington D.C.: 70% of the wholesale price. For those state legislatures that have not passed an e-cigarette tax bill, there are several key reasons for not enacting such a tax. First, there is uncertainty as to how e-cigarettes and nicotine liquid should be taxed. That uncertainty is reflected in the five different tax methods proposed under these bills including an OTP rate, a per-milliliter rate, a per-milligram rate, a cigarette tax rate, and a percent of the retail price. Second, e-cigarette taxes will not generate a significant amount of tax revenue. Third, some lawmakers do not want to use tax policy that would discourage people from transitioning to e-cigarettes. The tax landscape on e-cigarette taxes will become clearer as additional states wind up their 2015 state legislative sessions in the next several months. During January of this year, bills have been introduced in eight state legislatures to assess a tax on electronic cigarettes or the nicotine liquid solution used in e-cigarettes. These proposed tax bills include the following: Arkansas: House Bill 1156 would assess a tax of 7.5 cents per milliliter of nicotine liquid solution. Indiana: Senate Bill 384 would tax e-cigarette vapor products at a rate of .83 cents per milligram of nicotine in each milliliter of nicotine liquid solution. Nevada: Senate Bill 79 assesses a tax on nicotine liquid solution at the rate of 30% of the wholesale price. New Mexico: Senate Bill 65 taxes a tax of four cents per milligram of liquid nicotine liquid solution in an electronic cigarette. New York: Assembly Bill 296 and Senate Bill 722 tax electronic cigarettes and electronic cigarette cartridges at a rate of 75% of the wholesale price. Oregon: Two bills, D1037 and D2268, would expand the definition of tobacco product for purposes of taxation to include electronic cigarettes and nicotine liquid solution in order to apply the state’s tobacco tax rate of 65% of the wholesale price. Virginia: House Bill 1310 imposes a tax on electronic cigarettes and other vapor products at a rate of 40 cents per milliliter of nicotine liquid solution. Washington: House Bill 1645 and Senate Bill 5573 would impose a tax on electronic vapor products at a rate of 95% of the taxable sales price. With many state legislative sessions just beginning this month, plus four state legislatures that open their 2015 legislative sessions in the next month or two, there could be bills introduced in other states to propose a tax on electronic cigarettes or the nicotine liquid solution used in e-cigarettes. Currently, only Minnesota and North Carolina tax the sale of e-cigarettes with Minnesota assessing a tax rate of 95% of the wholesale price and North Carolina assessing a tax rate of five cents per milliliter of liquid nicotine solution.
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LONDON, Oct. 21 -- British atheists announced Tuesday a high-profile advertising campaign to put posters on London buses that say: "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." By Tuesday night, as many as 3,400 donors had given about $80,000 on a Web site set up to take contributions to fund the ads. The money arrived along with messages that ranged from witty to nasty, summed up by one from a donor who gave 25 pounds ($42): "Hoorah for the non-believers!" "We wanted it to be a positive message," said Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, which plans to advertise on buses starting in January. "It's about telling people that it's okay if you don't believe in God. If it raises a smile, too, good." While the vast majority of Britons identify themselves as Christians, only a small percentage attend services regularly. Atheism is far more popular, and socially and politically accepted, in Britain than in the United States. Many people who do not believe in God call themselves humanists or secularists. The British Parliament has an active and growing group of legislators who describe themselves as humanists. One of the world's most outspoken and provocative advocates of atheism, Oxford University Prof. Richard Dawkins, best-selling author of "The God Delusion," is a member of the humanist association and pledged to personally match donations up to 5,500 pounds (about $9,300), Stinson said. "This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think -- and thinking is anathema to religion," Dawkins is quoted as saying on the Web site. The Church of England issued a statement Tuesday defending the humanists' right to express their views but disagreeing with their message. "Christian belief is not about worrying or not enjoying life," it said. "Quite the opposite: our faith liberates us to put this life into a proper perspective. Seven in ten people in this country describe themselves as Christian and know the joy that faith can bring." In an interview, Stinson said the initial goal was to raise 5,500 pounds, enough to put advertising on the sides of 30 of London's extra-long "bendy buses" for four weeks. But the Web site was swamped with donors. One person pledged 10 pounds and left the comment, "Spread the word, and consign this superstitious nonsense to the dustbin of history! America, are you listening?" Another donated 5 pounds and said, "Marvelous. Sorry it's just a fiver -- I'm between jobs at the moment." Stinson said she was surprised by the outpouring: "It says something about the very loud voice that religion has in our society. People want something to balance that off." The campaign's unexpected success could mean it will be expanded to include posters inside buses or in the London subway. A spokesman for Transport for London, which operates city buses, said buses have carried ads for religious groups, but never ads promoting atheism. He said the humanists had not yet formally submitted an ad request. The ads are "not intended as an attack" on anyone's faith, Stinson said. In her view, they do not encourage people to become atheists, but rather are meant to offer support to "people who already do not believe in God." The idea for an atheist ad campaign first surfaced in June, as a suggestion by television comedy writer and journalist Ariane Sherine in a column in the online version of the Guardian newspaper. Sherine noted that ads running on the London buses at the time directed people to a Web site that declared that those who do not believe in God will spend "all eternity in torment in hell." The humanist association agreed to take on the project. The bus ads are designed to tell atheists that they will not burn forever in the "lake of fire" described on the religious Web site, Stinson said. "It's about reassurance."
What does it mean to be “evangelical”? What must you believe? What must you reject? Can you be an evangelical Christian and believe… …in evolution? …that Hell is only temporary? …that people from other religions can be saved without even knowing it? …that the atonement is not about God’s wrath being poured out on Jesus in our place? …that Scripture is errant? Many evangelicals would say “no” to most—maybe even all—of these. That’s why, in an attempt to protect the name of evangelicalism, some prominent leaders within evangelicalism have made it their responsibility to publicly denounce those with whom they disagree on issues like these. To be clear, there is no problem with publicly denouncing ideologies (that is, after all, what this article is doing right now). It is, at times, necessary to publicly call out false teachers. However, one must fully consider whether they promote a different gospel before coming forward with such a bold claim. But we’re not talking about denouncing ideas or exposing real false teachers. We’re talking about needless schisms and inconsistent, prideful exclusivism. Self-appointed gatekeepers of evangelicalism tear apart what could be a noble, diverse movement of the Spirit. These gatekeepers take it upon themselves to pronounce who is “in” and who is “out” of orthodox Christianity. By the standards of these gatekeepers, the definition of “evangelical” is becoming increasingly narrow, so much so that very few fit inside the definition. So, if we are going to be consistent, it’s time to weed out all of the heretics—especially those who have the most influence—not just Rob Bell, Rachel Held Evans or other Christian thinkers who have said something controversial recently. Let’s start with these six: 1. C.S. Lewis: Guilty Of Inclusivism and Rejecting the Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory Perhaps the most celebrated Christian writer of the last century, C.S. Lewis is respected by most Christians, no matter what theological corner they occupy. And that’s what confuses me. Lewis was no evangelical by the standards of modern evangelical spokespersons. Lewis’ seven-volume, fictional masterpiece, The Chronicles of Narnia, reveals his belief that it is possible for people in other religions to inherit the Kingdom of God without knowing it. Lewis also rejects the Penal Substitutionary theory of the atonement, which states that Christ “diverted” God’s wrath toward us and took it upon Himself. Instead, in part three of Chronicles, Lewis describes what is called the “Christus Victor” view of the atonement, which holds that the Cross is not an image of God’s wrath against us, diverted to His son, but it was the defeat of evil through an act of selfless love. (Here is a video of Greg Boyd giving a good description of that view using Lewis’ imagery.) 2. Martin Luther: Guilty of Rejecting Biblical Inerrancy Where would evangelicalism be without Martin Luther? He is the father of the Reformation and the champion of Sola Scriptura. But to the dismay of every evangelical Calvinist, I fear I must be the bearer of bad news that Martin Luther apparently didn’t believe the Bible is fully inspired, true or trustworthy. Speaking of inaccuracies in the books of Chronicles, he states, “When one often reads that great numbers of people were slain—for example, eighty thousand—I believe that hardly one thousand were actually killed.” 3. St. Augustine: Guilty of Rejecting a Literally Reading of the Creation Story In his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Augustine (to put it bluntly) thought Christians who took the Creation Story literally were a laughingstock and looked like idiots among non-Christians because they denied science and reason. This is Augustine, the one to whom we can give credit for the doctrines of original sin and Hell as eternal conscious torment (which are at the core of reformed theology). Here is his statement: “It not infrequently happens that something about the earth…may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.” Few are the pulpits he would be allowed to fill among conservative churches in our day. 4. William Barclay: Guilty of Universalism William Barclay’s iconic little blue commentaries are on the shelves of many pastors. So it’s odd that Rob Bell has been so roundly rejected for holding essentially the same belief as this celebrated theologian. Barclay writes, “I am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God…the choice is whether we accept God’s offer and invitation willingly, or take the long and terrible way round through ages of purification.” In that work, Barclay also lists early church fathers, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, as two other Christian Universalists. 5. John Stott: Guilty of Annihilationism John Stott is one of the great evangelical Christian thinkers of the last generation. Stott rejected the view that Hell is eternal conscious torment of the wicked and suggested, instead, that the unrepentant cease to exist after enduring the penalty for their sins. He wrote, “I believe that the ultimate annihilation of the wicked should at least be accepted as a legitimate, biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment.” 6. Billy Graham: Guilty of Inclusivism Billy Graham is, perhaps, the epitome of the evangelical identity. Or, so we thought… Like C.S. Lewis, Graham believes that those who do not hear of Christ may, indeed, be saved without explicitly confessing Him as Lord. In a 1997 interview with Robert Schuller, Graham said: “[God] is calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they have been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light they have, and I think that they are saved and they are going to be with us in heaven.” There are plenty of other examples: George Whitefield’s lobbying for slavery, Martin Luther’s hatred of Jews, John Calvin’s approval of burning heretics at the stake, etc. etc. Now, you hopefully find it ridiculous to reject these great and godly people. Which is why it’s amazing to me what we ignore in order to protect ourselves from the truth. We want our “heroes of the faith” to be perfect in theology and conduct, so we ignore or justify the parts we don’t like. We all do it. So, maybe it’s time to extend a bit more loving kindness to the evolutionists, to those who reject inerrancy, to those who take the Bible literally when it says that God will redeem all people to Himself, to the Rob Bells and the World Visions. And for those of us on the moderate-progressive side: maybe we can find it in ourselves to turn the other cheek and forgive those who wish us gone. Then, when we find someone who will accept us—“heresy” and all, let’s embrace and learn from them. This article was originally posted at AndyGill.org.
Clinton Calls for Ban on Bullets That Pierce Body Armor : Gun control: The President, speaking in Chicago, cites those who have managed to circumvent laws barring 'cop killer' ammunition. The President's campaign-like appearance came at a time when he is talking about anti-crime issues to strengthen his hold on the political middle and to preempt the attempts of his GOP presidential rivals. This month, in a striking break with tradition, the White House is spending $2.4 million to televise two campaign-style advertisements that emphasize Clinton's anti-crime credentials to audiences in California and other key electoral states. But "if a bullet can rip through a bulletproof vest like a knife through hot butter, then it ought to be history," Clinton said. "We should ban it." Standing on ground recently stained with the blood of fallen police officers, Clinton told an audience in the Austin neighborhood that "clever people" have figured out ways to make powerful ammunition that circumvents current laws to ban "cop killer" handgun ammunition. CHICAGO — Seeking to enhance his claim to law-and-order issues, President Clinton traveled Friday to gang-scarred west Chicago to demand a ban on any handgun ammunition able to pierce bulletproof vests or other body armor. Clinton appeared behind a brown-brick police precinct headquarters, only steps from the spot where a rookie policeman was killed March 5 in a gun battle with a teen-age gang. Officer Daniel Doffyn, wearing a bulletproof vest and trying to apprehend one gang member, was hit repeatedly in the neck by bullets from another teen-ager's TEC-9 assault weapon. Another officer was badly wounded in the same shootout. No manufacturer is now producing the kind of handgun ammunition that the law is designed to prohibit, officials acknowledged. But they asserted that history suggests there is every reason to believe manufacturers eventually will make such ammunition unless Congress acts to prevent it. Current laws on "cop killer" bullets outlaw ammunition made of certain materials or having other specifications. But federal officials said that such "specification standards" are not sufficient, now that manufacturers are finding ways to make ammunition from other, more commonly found materials. As a result, they said, new standards, based on bullet performance, are needed. "We're trying to think ahead," said Ronald K. Noble, Treasury undersecretary for enforcement, noting that manufacturers already have tried to find loopholes in the law banning "cop killer" ammunition by varying the design of their products. Legislation drafted by the Clinton Administration calls on the Treasury secretary to try to develop performance standards that would ban any ammunition capable of piercing body armor. Gun-control opponents are likely to fight the effort. They have argued that it will not be possible to develop standards that are uniform and clear. A National Rifle Assn. spokesman said that there is no need to supplement the ban on "cop killer" bullets that has been in effect since 1986. Tom Wyld said that the ban "works flawlessly" and noted that FBI reports indicate no police officer has been killed since 1986 with a bullet capable of piercing protective armor. Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) sought in June to amend the then-pending anti-terrorism legislation to extend the ban on armor-piercing ammunition to cover any product that could pierce body armor. His amendment initially passed a House Judiciary subcommittee on a 16-14 vote but stalled when two GOP members switched their position. * Clinton also faces challenges from congressional Republicans to the 1994 ban on certain assault weapons that he backed and to his plans to have the federal government help fund the hiring of 100,000 additional police officers across the nation.
Likely Candidates To Become The Lions Head Coach If Jim Caldwell Is Fired On Black Monday. Whether you believe Detroit Lions head coach Jim Caldwell should be fired or not is not going to matter on Monday. He will be fired or he will not be fired. There have been rumors that the Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, New York Giants, Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Tennesee Titans, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers could be looking for head coaches. Some of those have been confirmed and some denied, but we will not really know until Monday. The NFL advisory committee gives teams a list of up and coming head coaching candidates every year. Just to help you form an opinion rapidly, I am going to profile the ten that have not been the Lions head coach (Jim Schwartz), or current Lions offensive coordinators (Jim Bob Cooter). I’ll start with the obvious candidates, and move to the more obscure as I go down the list. Josh McDaniels Josh McDaniels, the New England Patriots offensive coordinator has been rumored to be Bob Quinn‘s first choice since the Lions GM took the job. McDaniels was the son of a high school football coach, his father won the USA Today award for High School coach of the year in 1997. McDaniels was a high school quarterback but moved to wide receiver in college at John Carrol University. His coaching career began in 1999 as a graduate assistant with Nick Saban’s Michigan State Spartans. After a single season, he moved to Cleveland for two years and sold industrial plastics. In 2001 McDaniels joined the Patriots as a personnel assistant, one season after Bob Quinn joined the team. While Quinn stayed in personnel, McDaniels moved on to coaching. In 2002 he became a defensive coaching assistant. He was promoted to quarterback coach in 2004. In 2005 he called the offensive plays for the team, but was not given the title of offensive coordinator. McDaniels got that promotion in 2006, and in 2007 he called the plays for an offense that scored 75 touchdowns and scored 589 points. For scale, only two teams are within 200 points of that total going into week 17 of the 2017 season. Leading the way are McDaniels’ Patriots with 432. In 2009 McDaniels became the head coach of the Denver Broncos. He immediately alienated the team’s promising franchise quarterback, young (and still good) Jay Cutler, by trying to get him traded for Matt Cassel. McDaniels took over an 8-8 team, and destroyed it, the team was 3-9 when McDaniels was fired partway through his second season as a head coach. The team returned to mediocrity immediately after McDaniels was gone, going 8-8 in 2011. McDaniels spent one season in St. Louis with the Rams before Steve Spagnuolo was fired, and McDaniels was allowed to leave. The Patriots immediately hired McDaniels back, their new offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien was leaving to take the head coaching position at Penn State. McDaniels helped the team win Super Bowls in 2012 and 2016 as their offensive coordinator. Ironically, with the Patriots, McDaniels has shown the ability to get the job done with any and all players he has been given. It is only his insistence on meddling with the personnel that did him in as a head coach. Rumors say that he would like to be active in that area again if he were hired. Bob Quinn would likely have to give up some authority to bring McDaniels in. McDaniels is widely regarded to be the top candidate for a vacancy as the Lions head coach. The Patriots defensive coordinator was an interior offensive lineman at Rensselaer Polytechnic institute from 1992-95. He graduated with a bachelor of science in Aeronautical Engineering. In 1996 he remained at RPI as a grad assistant before taking a job at Hoffman Air and Filtration systems as an applications engineer. He turned down a six-figure salary with another firm in 1999 and instead took the defensive line coach job at Amhurst College. In 2001 he became a grad assistant at Syracuse. It was 2004 when he joined the Patriots as an offensive coaching assistant. In 2005 he became an assistant offensive line coach. It was in 2005 that Patricia switched to the defensive side, serving as the linebackers coach. He began calling the Patriots defensive plays in 2010 but was not promoted to defensive coordinator until 2012. Detroit Lions Podcast contributor Jeff Risdon said on the podcast that people he has spoken to have told him that Patricia is the type of person who sees his players as game pieces. Patricia would be the polar opposite of Jim Caldwell, who relies on his personal leadership to unite the team in times of trouble, and keep them humble when times are easy. Patricia is undoubtedly smart and capable enough tactically, the question is whether he can lead a team. His Roger Goodell clown shirt stepping off the team plane returning from the Superbowl in January of 2017 will cool his prospects with a lot of teams. His personal relationship with Bob Quinn will likely detyermin whether he becomes the next Lions head coach. Mike Vrabel Mike Vrabel was an Ohio State All American defensive end, who went in the third round of the 1997 draft. He was drafted by the Steelers, recorded seven sacks in four years before he found his way to the Patriots in 2001. He won super bowls with the Patriots in 2002, 2004, and 2005. Vrabel was a 3-4 linebacker with inside/outside versatility. He had a career-high of 12.5 sacks and recorded multiple touchdowns as a goal-line tight end. in 2009 he was traded to the Chiefs along with Matt Cassel for the number 32 pick in the draft. He retired as a player in 2011. Vrabel immediately started coaching linebackers at Ohio State. When Meyer took over the Buckeyes he moved Vrabel to the defensive line coach role. Vrabel got spectacular reviews at the collegiate level as a coach. He moved up to the NFL as the Houston Texans Linebacker coach under defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel. In 2017 Crennel moved to an assistant head coach position with the Texans, and Vrabel became the team’s defensive coordinator. The Texans were decimated with injuries this season, and their defensive performance regressed significantly. The 2016 Texans, largely without J. J. Watt, allowed the fewest yards per game in the NFL. In 2017 they were number 23. The Texans have 20 players on IR going into week 17. That regression, however, does give some analysts, including last week’s podcast co-host Dan Orlovsky, a reason to pause and take a beat. Vrabel may need some more seasoning before taking the next step in his career. He is a long shot to be the Lions head coach in 2018. Pat Shurmur Pat Shurmur was a center at Michigan State. He was a co-captain of the Spartans team that defeated the USC Trojans in the 1988 Rose Bowl. Shurmur joined the NFL coaching ranks in 1999 after nine years coaching at lower levels. He was the Eagles tight ends and offensive line coach. In 2002 he became the quarterback coach in Philadelphia and oversaw the best years of Donovan McNabb’s career. He left the Eagles in 2009, for the Rams offensive coordinator job under head coach Steve Spagnuolo. Two years later Shurmur hopped on board the perpetual train wreck that is the Cleveland Browns. Shurmur was given the task of making Colt McCoy a franchise quarterback. Despite that handicap, Shurmur won nine games in two seasons, a miracle in Cleveland. The Jimmy Haslam era began with the first of his almost yearly housecleanings. GM Tom Heckert was fired and Shurmur went with him. He landed as Chip Kelly’s offensive coordinator in 2013. He was made the Eagles interim head coach after Kelly was fired. The 2014 illusion that Nick Foles was actually a good quarterback was the work of Mr. Pat Shurmur. The only game Shurmur coached for the Eagles as their head coach was a 35-30 win over the Giants, for second place in the NFC East. Shurmur was narrowly beaten out for the Eagles head coaching job by Doug Pederson. On January 25, 2016, Pat Shurmur became the Vikings tight end coach. On November 2, 2016, he was named the Vikings offensive coordinator in the wake of Norv Turner’s bizarre midseason resignation. The Vikings finished the year 8-8 despite a season that included their best player missing 13 games, and averaging 1.9 yards per carry in the three he did play, playing their fourth and fifth option at offensive tackle, and having their starting quarterback go down with a career-threatening non-contact injury. Shurmur was confirmed as the permanent choice as the team’s offensive coordinator after the 2016 season ended. He has cobbled together a perfectly functional offense despite losing his starting quarterback, running back, and a patchwork offensive line from week to week. The offense has not been the defining quality of the Vikings in 2016, but Shurmur’s ability to use the pieces he is given will likely make him an attractive head coaching candidate in the 2018 hiring cycle. Schurmur has the pedigree to become the Lions head coach in 2018. Dan Campbell Dan Campbell was a high School tailback that moved to tight end at Texas A&M. He went to the Giants in round three of the 2000 draft and started immediately. He primarily served as a blocker and he appeared in Superbowl XXXV. In 2003 he moved on to the Cowboys under Bill Parcells and offensive coordinator Sean Payton. He ended up the number two tight end behind Jason Whitten, and the highlight of his time in Dallas was missing a mere ten days of practice after an appendectomy in 2005. He joined the Lions in 2006 and put up career-high receiving numbers with 308 yards and four touchdowns. In 2007 and 2008 Campbell was on IR before the month of September ended. He was released in February of 2009. Campbell was immediately signed by Payton in New Orleans. It always speaks well of a player’s leadership qualities when a former coach brings them back late in their career. Campbell’s body didn’t even make it through August with the Saints and he retired shortly after receiving his Superbowl ring, despite not playing a down for the Saints during the regular season. Campbell became the Dolphins tight ends coach in 2011 after a year as a coaching intern with the team. Charles Clay developed as a player under Campbell’s tutelage. In 2015, when Joe Philbin was fired early in the season, Campbell took over a locker room that was fractured, and a roster that was terrible. He took the 1-3 Dolphins to a 6-10 record, moderately improving the team’s performance. Campbell was immediately hired by his former coach Sean Payton when the Dolphins let Campbell go. He has been the Saints assistant head coach and tight end coach since 2016. The 2015 Dolphins started with two impressive victories under Campbell, blowing out the Titans and Texans with a combined score of 82-36. The success, however, was not sustainable. The Dolphins told the press that Campbell was their second choice after the man they hired, Adam Gase, but they were concerned that he had never been more than a tight ends coach. Campbell requested his release rather than serving under head coach Adam Gase. That was not an unreasonable concern, and it is still true. The assistant head coach title Campbell holds in New Orleans is not a substitute for in-game authority and experience. There have been coaches that have seen success without serving as a coordinator, the San Diego Chargers rookie head coach Anthony Lynn was a running backs coach and has led his team to an 8-7 record going into week 17. Campbell’s chances at a head coaching job have likely been served well by Lynn’s success. Campbell is not a front-runner to be the Lions head coach in 2018. Matt Nagy Matt Nagy was a quarterback for the University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens. After his graduation, he joined the New York Dragons of the AFL. He also spent time with the Carolina Cobras, the Georgia Force, and the Columbus Destroyers. He won an Arena Bowl in 2005 with the Force and lost one in 2007 with the Destroyers. Nagy joined the Eagles on a coaching internship in 2009. After injuries to their roster, the team tried to sign him as a player, but the NFL disapproved the contract, presumably because they do not want teams stashing players as coaching interns. In 2010 he was promoted to a coaching assistant position, and in 2011 to a quality control coaching spot. The 2013 season saw Nagy in Kansas City as the Chief’s quarterbacks coach. he oversaw the revitalization of Alex Smith’s career. He became the Chiefs offensive coordinator but did not take over playcalling duties until December of this season. Nagy seems like a long shot to grab a head coaching job, with his limited experience as a play-caller. The Chiefs would also certainly like to keep the coach who has been shepherding Patrick Mahomes through his rookie campaign. It is not inconceivable that the Chiefs will give Nagy a sizable raise in order to hold on to him for at least another season. I do not believe Nagy will be the Lions head coach in 2018. Steve Wilks Steve Wilks was a defensive back at Appalachian State from 1987-1991. His playing career consisted of a single season with the Charlotte Rage of the AFL as a wide receiver, defensive back, and kick returner. he pops up on the documented coaching radar as the defensive coordinator at Johnson C Smith University in 1995. In 1997 he moved on to the defensive coordinator at Savannah State and took over the head coaching position in 1999. One year later he was the defensive backs coach at Illinois State, and he followed that with a one year stint in the same position back at Appalachian State. He followed that with a two-year stint as the defensive coordinator at East Tennessee State. In 2004 he became the defensive backs coach at Notre Dame. He took the same position at Washington in 2005. Wilks entered the NFL in 2006 as the Bears defensive backs coach. He joined the Chargers staff at the same position in 2009 and the Panthers in 2012. in 2015 he was promoted to assistant head coach in addition to his defensive back coach responsibilities. In 2016 he took over the defensive coordinator duties for the Panthers. After a tumultuous 2016 campaign, the Panthers defense has returned to form. The Panthers defense ranks seventh in yards allowed and eleventh in points allowed going into the final week of the 2017 season. Wilks would be a solid choice to be the Lions head coach in 2018. George Edwards George Edwards played linebacker for Duke. He was a two-year special teams captain and earned All ACC recognition. He began his career on the sideline at Florida as a coaching assistant in 1991. The 1992 season saw Edwards make his way to Appalachian State in the same role. In 1996 he joined Duke as a coaching assistant, and in 1997 he was a tutor for Richard Seymour and Marcus Stroud among other duties at Georgia. In 1998 Edwards became the linebacker coach in Dallas, a role he held until joining Washington as the assistant defensive coordinator and linebacker coach in 2002. He took over the defensive coordinator role full time in 2003. Washington cleaned house in 2004 and Edwards took a job as the linebacker coach in Cleveland. The Browns cleaned house in 2005 and Edwards found his stride as the linebacker coach in Miami under Nick Saban. When Saban bolted for Alabama after the 2006 season, Edwards kept his job under new head coach Cam Cameron, and then again the next year under new head coach Tony Sparano. In 2010 Edwards became the defensive coordinator of the Buffalo Bills under head coach Chan Gailey, but two years later he was back in Miami as the linebackers coach. in 2014 he got the defensive coordinator job in Minnesota but does not call plays, a duty that is held by head coach Mike Zimmer, one of the NFL’s keenest defensive minds. Edwards will undoubtedly get a lot of interviews, but his inclusion on this list is a bit baffling. That he has remained employed in the NFL consistently for two decades is impressive, but that is not the greatest accomplishment a head coach should have. The Vikings defense is incredible, but it is also clearly Mike Zimmer’s baby. It would not be the first time a Vikings Defensive coordinator nobody expected to actually be hired got a job as a team’s head coach. Nobody thought Mike Tomlin had a prayer in 2007 either. George Edwards would be a surprising choice to be the Lions head coach in 2018. Dave Toub Dave Toub was an offensive lineman for Springfield college in 1980 and 81. He moved on to the University of Texas-El Paso for the 1983 and 84 seasons. He earned all WAC honors twice. Toub was drafted by the Eagles in the ninth round of the draft but never made an NFL roster. He attended one training camp with the Eagles, and two with the Rams. His coaching career began as a graduate assistant at UTEP in 1986. In 1987 Toub became the strength and conditioning coach at UTEP. He then moved on to the University of Missouri where he served as the strength and conditioning coach for nine seasons. Andy Reid was the offensive line coach there from 1989 to 1991. Toub finished his time with Missouri as the defensive line coach for three seasons. In 2001 he entered the NFL as a special teams and quality control coach with the Eagles. In 2004 he became the Chicago Bears special teams coordinator. He was voted special teams coach of the year by the NFL’s coaches in 2007, a season where he sent a returner, gunner, and punter to the pro bowl. Toub interviewed for the Miami Dolphins head coach position in 2011, and then for the 2013 Bears opening after Lovie Smith was fired, but was never hired. The Bears wanted to retain Toub but he moved on when they chose Mark Trestman as their head coach. Toub reunited with Andy Reid in Kansas City and the Chiefs special teams units have been among the league’s best. It is rare but not unheard of for a special teams coordinator to become a head coach. John Harbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens is among the league’s best head coaches and came up in the league as a special teams coach. Toub is a long shot candidate to be the Lions head coach in 2018, but crazier things have happened. John DeFilippo John DeFilippo was a quarterback at James Madison University from 1996 to 1999. he did coaching internships in the summers of 1997 and 1998 with the Panthers and Colts respectively. In the year 2000, immediately following his playing career, DeFilippo landed the quarterback coach job at Fordham. DeFilippo took a grad assistant spot at Notre Dame in 2001. He moved on to the quarterback coach job at Columbia 2003. In 2005 DeFilippo joined Tom Coughlin’s Giants staff as a quality control coach. In 2007 he joined the Lane Kiffin coached Raiders staff as quarterbacks coach. DeFilippo was retained after Kiffin was under new head coach Tom Cable. Defillipo joined Rex Ryan’s Jets staff in 2009 in the same role but lasted only one year. In 2010 He took a job as the San Jose State quarterback coach and was promoted to the offensive coordinator position in 2011. DeFilippo got back into the NFL in 2012 as the Raiders quarterbacks coach. He got his first and only coordinator job at the NFL level under head coach Mike Pettine. The entire management and coaching staff were fired after that season by owner Jimmy Haslam, but Defilippo was brought on board in Philadelphia to work with rookie quarterback Carson Wentz. The play of Wentz is the primary reason that DeFilippo is a candidate for head coaching jobs, and it is likely that he will find a position with a team that is looking to bring a young quarterback into the fold. Defilippo does not seem to be a likely candidate for the Detroit Lions head coach position if it becomes available. Bill O’Brien Bill O’Brien is the best head coach that might be fired in 2018. He played linebacker and defensive end for the Brown Bears from 1990-1992. in 1993 he coached tight ends at his alma-matter. He moved to coaching inside linebackers a year later before moving on to Georgia Tech as a graduate assistant from 1995-1997. In 1998 he became the Yellowjackets running backs coach. He took on the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach role in 2001 and added assistant head coaching duties in 2002. in 2003 he left Georgia Tech for a role as the running backs coach at the University of Maryland. in 2005 O’Brien became the offensive coordinator at Duke, where he coached former Detroit Lions Thad Lewis. In 2007 O’Brien made the jump to the NFL, taking a job with the Patriots as an offensive assistant. In 2008 he took on playcalling and quarterback coach duties after Josh McDaniels left to take the Denver Broncos head coaching position. O’Brien claimed the offensive coordinator title in 2011 and helped the Patriots make it to Superbowl XLVI. O O’Brien took the Penn State head coaching job in 2012, replacing legendary head coach Joe Paterno. In July of that year, we all learned of the Jerry Sandusky scandal and Penn State was harshly punished. O’Brien interviewed for head coaching positions with the Eagles and Browns in 2013 but decided to remain at Penn State. He Took the Texans head coaching job in 2014. O’Brien took over a 2-14 Texans team and took them to a 9-7 record in his first season despite a lack of contribution from first-round pick Jadeveon Clowney. He repeated a 9-7 record in 2015 and 2016. O’Brien was able to string together three winning seasons with Ryan Fitzpatrick, Case Keenum, Ryan Mallett, Bryan Hoyer, T. J. Yates, Brandon Weeden, Brock Osweiler, and Tom Savage at quarterback. In 2017, however, the Texans ended the year with 20 players on injured reserve, including rookie phenom Deshaun Watson, and 2/3 of the team’s elite pass rushers J. J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus. The Texans are 4-11 and the relationship between O’Brien and Texans general manager Rick Smith has become toxic according to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle. If O’Brien were to come available, he would be an ideal candidate to become the Lions head coach in 2018.
The first commercial for the [email protected] television anime series aired in Japan on Friday. The story follows a hikikomori (shut-in) named Sasami Tsukuyomi (voiced by Kana Asumi) who is unmotivated about even changing clothes or eating. Her brother Kamiomi (Houchu Ohtsuka) takes care of her, even though she despises his slave-like nature. Sasami spends her days viewing the outside world via a "Brother Surveillance Tool" on her computer. In the outside world, the three beautiful Yagami sisters (played by Chiwa Saito, Kana Hanazawa, and Ai Nonaka) and Sasami's brother are in the middle of relationships worthy of a romantic comedy. Akiyuki Shinbo is teaming up again with his Madoka Magica and Bakemonogatari studio SHAFT to make the television anime of Akira's [email protected] light novel series. Katsuhiko Takayama (And Yet the Town Moves, Love, Election & Chocolate ) is in charge of the scripts, and Hiroki Harada (Romeo × Juliet, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal) is designing the characters. The series will premiere on the TBS and BS-TBS channels in Japan on January 10.
New Ebola Vaccine Has '100 Percent' Effectiveness In Early Results Enlarge this image toggle caption Sean Hawkey/Sean Hawkey Sean Hawkey/Sean Hawkey In a development that could change the way the deadly Ebola disease is fought, researchers have announced promising results of a new vaccine's trial in Guinea, one of several countries affected by a historic outbreak in West Africa. "The estimated vaccine efficacy was 100 percent," a team of researchers say. The trial was called Ebola ça Suffit — French for "Ebola that's enough." Funded by the World Health Organization and other groups, it started in April and ended on July 20, relying on participants who consented to be part of the trial. The more than 20 researchers who took part published their findings in The Lancet medical journal on Friday. "The current data basically tells us that the vaccine works to protect people against Ebola," says Dr. Bertrand Draguez, medical director of Médecins Sans Frontières, which took part in the research along with WHO and authorities in Guinea. Draguez and other experts are heartened by the new results — but they also warn that as testing expands, the effectiveness rate of the vaccine will likely fall below 100 percent. The trial used the "ring vaccination" method, in which all suspected contacts receive treatment. No placebos were administered. "Even if the sample size is quite small and more research and analysis is needed," Draguez says, "the enormity of the public health emergency should lead us to continue using this vaccine right now to protect those who might get exposed to the disease: contacts of infected patients and front-line workers." The trial vaccine, formally called rVSV-ZEBOV but more commonly known as VSV-EBOV, was supplied by the pharmaceutical firm Merck Sharp & Dohme. The drug was initially developed by Canada's Public Health Agency and was tested as early as 2011. To conduct the Guinea trial, researchers used newly confirmed Ebola cases to identify clusters of people with whom the patients had contact. On a random basis, those clusters then received the vaccine either immediately or after a 21-day delay. "In the immediate vaccination group, there were no cases of Ebola virus disease with symptom onset at least 10 days after randomization," the researchers say, "whereas in the delayed vaccination group there were 16 cases of Ebola virus disease from seven clusters, showing a vaccine efficacy of 100 percent." Researchers say that for both groups — those who got the vaccine immediately and those who received it after a delay — no new Ebola cases were diagnosed starting at six days after vaccination. The randomization phase of the trial was stopped this week, WHO says, "to allow for all people at risk to receive the vaccine immediately." It will also now include younger people than the adults involved in the trial. toggle caption Sean Hawkey/Sean Hawkey The first person to receive the trial vaccine in Guinea was Mohamed Soumah, 27. He tells WHO: "It wasn't easy. People in the village said that the injection was to kill me. I was afraid. I was the first one to be injected, the very first, here in my village on 23 March 2015. I've been monitored for 3 months and I've had no problems. The last follow-up, 84 days after the vaccination, was all clear." The vaccine is administered via a shot to the upper arm. The researchers who ran the trial say their results suggest a single injection is highly effective, and that protection against Ebola can be established quickly. They're also still analyzing possible adverse reactions to the drug. The interim findings on the Guinea trial are the latest to bolster the belief that VSV-EBOV could be the drug Ebola-fighters have been waiting for. Earlier this year, it showed positive results in clinical trials at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. A Walter Reed release about that study explained how the drug is derived: "VSV-EBOV is based in part on a genetically engineered version of vesicular stomatitis virus, which primarily affects rodents, cattle, swine and horses. Human VSV infections are rare and mild. In the VSV-EBOV investigational vaccine, the gene for the outer protein of VSV replaces the same gene segment of the Zaire Ebola virus species." Researchers in the Guinea trial say the number of new clusters of potential patients is falling, because the rate of new diagnoses in the country has dropped. The next immediate step, they say, is to continue the trial and vaccinate more people. Last Friday, Guinea's government and medical ethics groups approved that plan.
Joe Scarborough on MSNBC. MSNBC Joe Scarborough on Wednesday cautioned President-elect Donald Trump against picking close advisers with little foreign policy experience for top administration posts. The "Morning Joe" host said that Trump should pick "very boring, very middle-of-the-road" officials to serve in foreign-facing administration posts such as secretary of defense, secretary of state, and director of the National Security Agency. "You don't get rookies for that. You don't get ideologues for that," Scarborough said. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton are both rumored to be potential picks for secretary of state — options that Scarborough warned would set off a media firestorm and damage relationships abroad. "Abroad, you can't lurch to a John Bolton," Scarborough said. "You think the Steve Bannon appointment got negative press? You think that's bad? Pick Rudy Giuliani as your secretary of state or John Bolton as your secretary of state, and watch everything melt down internationally." Scarborough specifically singled out Giuliani, citing a New York Times article detailing large payments Giuliani took from the Qatari government as well as a group on the state department's terror watch list. "After the Hillary Clinton debacle on paid speeches and foreign interests, how could Rudy Giuliani ever be secretary of state?" Scarborough said. "Is [Trump] going to call him 'Crooked Rudy' now?" Watch the clip below, via MSNBC:
Square Enix today released new World of Final Fantasy screenshots featuring the heroes Reynn and Lann as a mysterious woman named Enna Kros guides them into the world of Grymoire. Along the way, the siblings encounter notable characters, locations and monsters that will be familiar to Final Fantasy fans, including the legendary Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII and the town of Cornelia from the original Final Fantasy. The new images showcase Mirages, powerful creatures that can turn the tide of any battle to aid Reynn and Lann. Players can take advantage of the game’s unique stacking mechanic to increase attack power and HP and unlock special abilities. Among the iconic Mirages are Shiva, Ramuh, Ifrit and Cerberus, ready to wipe out all enemies that oppose the duo. World of Final Fantasy also introduces train travel with the Cactuar Conductor for Reynn and Lann to journey across Grymoire.
Yesterday I reported on an article in The Daily Caller that turned reality on its head by claiming that the EPA’s attempt to avoid hiring 230,000 new employees to administer greenhouse gas (GHG) emission permits was actually the EPA planning to hire those employees. As I pointed out, the article had enough major errors that it needed either significant corrections or a full retraction. Today the executive editor of The Daily Caller, David Martosko, attempted to justify the original article in an editorial. However, Martosko’s failed defense of an indefensible article means that The Daily Caller now has two articles that are so filled with errors and misrepresentations that they should be corrected or retracted entirely. Martosko correctly wrote that the effects of the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations was more than the EPA expected. He also correctly wrote that the EPA wrote a tailoring rule that would be implemented in phases so that the impacts to the regulated entities could be minimized. He also correctly wrote that there is a federal court case pending about whether or not the EPA’s tailoring rule is legal with respect to the Clean Air Act. Unfortunately, everything else that Martosko wrote about the EPA’s tailoring rule, the illusionary 230,000 new EPA jobs, and the pending court case is either wrong or missing critical information. Martosko wrote that the EPA would have to hire another 230,000 employees in order to regulate 6.1 million GHG emitters. Martosko neglected to mention that the EPA presented this as a choice in their court filing – either radically increase the size and budget of the EPA or deal with a permitting process that would lengthen from 6-10 months today to approximately 10 years, but within the EPA’s current budget and workforce. Martosko wrote that the EPA “was in court to ask a court for permission” to implement the phased-in tailoring rule, and that the court case was “presumably the only way the EPA can avoid the $21 billion hiring spree….” This is simply false. As I mentioned yesterday, the EPA was challenged in federal court by multiple states’ Attorneys General and a host of industry groups. It’s those states and industry groups who are demanding that the EPA regulate according to a strict interpretation of the Clean Air Act, and it’s this strict interpretation that would force the EPA to hire more workers or lengthen the permitting process. So it’s not the EPA who is asking permission of the court, it’s the states’ Attorneys General who are challenging the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act. Martosko wrote that the EPA’s tailoring rule “doesn’t seem to comply with the Clean Air Act” because the Act “doesn’t allow the government to pick and choose” who to regulate. This may well be true, but Martosko can’t know that – there’s a court case pending in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (#10-1073) that will decide this very question. Either Martosko has some unique portal to the future, or he’s prejudging the results of a federal lawsuit. Martosko wrote that the EPA may find itself in an “all-or-nothing scenario” where it has to hire more regulators and the taxpayers have to pay the bill. Martosko has to know that he’s wrong about this too. As I mentioned above, the EPA could choose to extend the permitting process instead of hiring new workers. Or the EPA could hire some workers and not extend the permitting process quite as much. But there’s always another option – ask Congress for relief from the strict rules of the Clean Air Act. As I pointed out yesterday, this is one of the two likely reasons that industry wants the EPA to strictly enforce GHG emissions at the legal limit set out in the Clean Air Act – to force the EPA to ask a skeptical Congress for changes to the Clean Air Act, which would open up the entire Act to revision by a regulation-unfriendly Congress. Martosko wrote that the EPA is “committed to regulating everyone – at the full $21 billion cost – at some point down the road.” While true to some extent, Martosko neglects to mention a critical point made by the EPA in their court brief – the EPA expects to learn enough about how to regulate smaller emitters during the phase-in process that the EPA will not need to spend that much money, hire that many people, and/or add that much time to the permitting process. Which is a point that Martosko, and Boyle in his original article on Monday, would have known if they had, in fact, written a story that was, as Martosko claimed, “well reported, carefully sourced, and solidly written.” One out of three isn’t so bad, I guess. Today, Martosko committed the same sins of omission and uttered the same objectively false claims that Boyle did in the original article on Monday. As a result The Daily Caller now has a credibility problem that is twice as large as it was – two articles that require major corrections or retractions instead of just one. The Daily Caller has an opportunity to show both its readers and its critics that it has journalistic integrity by correcting or retracting both articles. Or not.
Last month, two Flagstaff businessmen traveled to Washington, D.C., to show their support for the proposed Greater Grand Canyon National Heritage Monument. “We went to Washington because usually it is the environmentalists who support this sort of thing. We wanted to show support from the business community,” said Robin Prema, owner of Speedi Car Wash, Super8 Motel on Old Route 66 and other properties around Flagstaff. “This is a different voice.” Prema traveled with Ash Patel, CEO of Southwest Hospitality Management. Patel owns many hospitality businesses around Arizona, including the Flagstaff Holiday Inn Express. He is currently working on the new Hampton Inn and Suites and Fairfield Inn and Suites development on Country Club Drive. “Our children are asking us to be more responsible and preserve natural areas for the citizens of the United States and the citizens of the world. The world has changed since I first came to Flagstaff in 1991. Uranium mining does no good. I don’t think there should be any uranium mining near the Grand Canyon,” explained Patel. “We need to protect not just the park, but around the park. What happens around the park, affects the park.” “The Grand Canyon feeds the Northern Arizona economy. It is important to leave the Grand Canyon in its natural form rather than change it into a concrete jungle,” added Prema. Although the duo visited with lawmakers and administrators as person citizens, “We went with the support of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) and the Flagstaff Lodging and Restaurant Association (FLRA),” explained Patel, a past Chairman of the Board of AAHOA. Other business leaders are not in support of the proposed national monument. Stewart McDaniel, vice president of government affairs, Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce points to two over-arching problems with the proposed 1.7 million-acre monument: losing state revenue and losing access to lands. “We can’t get tax money from federally-owned lands and we can’t control how the lands are used. In this proposed national monument, ranching and other actions will not be allowed. Ranchers are some of our best caretakers,” McDaniel said. “We’re very thankful for the solid leadership of Congressman Paul Gosar, whose focus defeated Raul Grijalva’s Grand Canyon National Monument proposal, an enormous public land grab with huge consequences,” said Julie Pastrick, CEO of the Greater Flagstaff Chamber. The proposed monument is the size of the state of Delaware. President Obama could designate the area a national monument under the Antiquities Act. In mid-July, Gosar defeated Grijalva’s amendment that would have removed a Gosar-sponsored provision that prohibits funding to make a presidential declaration of a national monument where there is significant local opposition. A recent poll found that 71.6 percent of Arizonans are opposed to the proposed administrative designation of 1.7 million acres in Northern Arizona as a National Monument. The poll was conducted by Coleman Dahm and Associates for Americans for Responsible Recreational Access. Americans for Responsible Recreational Access Executive Director Larry Smith said in a press release, “This new poll underscores what we really already knew – the people of Arizona want to protect public lands, but they want to have a meaningful say in how the lands are protected. Unilateral action by the administration takes away their voice and creates resentment. The administration should listen to the people and work collaboratively with them to manage these lands instead of imposing draconian restrictions to appease a narrow group of interests.” Yet, proponents of the designation turn to another poll that says Arizonans are in favor of the monument. In a blog post on the Grand Canyon Trust website, Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Program Director states, “Eighty percent of 500 voters surveyed support the establishment of the Greater Grand Canyon National Heritage Monument. More than eight times as many voters strongly support the monument [58 percent] as strongly oppose it [7 percent].” The poll was conducted by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates in January 2016. “Eighty percent of Arizona people support the proposed National Monument. If that is the case, why aren’t the politicians behind it?” asked Prema, who is also the interim president of Flagstaff Lodging and Restaurant Association (FLRA). Gosar explained in a press release: “This proposed 1.7 million acre land grab would undermine the Four Forest Restoration Initiative Program and make Arizona more vulnerable to wildfires. Attorneys have testified that this proposed monument could tie up future surface water use and future groundwater use. The proposed monument also includes 64,000 acres of Arizona State Trust lands and almost 28,000 acres of private land.” Opponents also call attention to the fact that National Monument designations under the Antiquities Act typically have significant consequences that negatively affect grazing rights, water rights, wildfire prevention, and other land management activities. These declarations also result in restrictive land-use regulations and also impact hunting, fishing, Off Highway Vehicles (OHV) and other recreational activities. “The state government can manage our lands better than the federal government,” argued McDaniel, citing the recent toxic waste spill at the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency into Western rivers, including the Animas River in Colorado. The Arizona Chamber Foundation also came out against the proposed monument, stating, “Given the disappointing mismanagement of important western issues, it is clear that Washington, on its own, is not the best steward of Arizona’s land and natural resources. But should the monument designation proceed, the Department of Interior – based in Washington – would obtain exclusive control of the area within the monument designation.” “This is not a partisan issue, it is a citizen issue,” said proponent Patel. The Flagstaff Lodging and Restaurant Association has supported the proposed monument for some time. A letter from then Chairman Ruben Abeyta informed its members earlier this year: “A monument designation will shift focus from extraction of uranium and timber to protecting cultural, recreational and wildlife values. It creates an expectation on the local and national level for better protection of public lands around the Grand Canyon.” “We’re hoping that when the president looks at the options that are on his desk, that the Grand Canyon would be at the top of his list,” concluded Patel. FBN By Stacey Wittig, FBN
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Residents who are 18 or younger are not allowed on the street without an adult between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Liquor cannot be sold after 1 a.m. Smoking is banned throughout the city, except in a few designated areas. A party town? Maybe not, but many people who live here in Davao City, where President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has been the mayor for most of the past two decades, say that’s not the point. They believe that Mr. Duterte, who will begin his term on June 30, has brought safety and calm to a city that is surrounded by areas where violence is rife. At Magsaysay Park along the waterfront, children roller-skate at an outdoor rink near stands where brightly colored pomelo, mangosteen and other tropical fruits are sold. Young couples sit on shaded benches, giggling and holding hands.
Fourteen-year-old Yusef a-Shawamreh, who the IDF killed one week ago in the southern West Bank, was not vandalizing the separation barrier when he was killed, but was crossing it to pick plants on his family’s agricultural land, B’Tselem reported Wednesday following its own investigation. According to the report, a-Shawamreh was shot when he and two friends, Zahi a-Shawamreh, 13, and al-Muntaser Beallah a-Dardun, 18, were going through a wide gap in the fence that has existed for at least two years; it is safe to say the IDF has known about the gap in the fence. The two surviving youths told B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash that they heard three or four shots as they got off the road, fired with no advance warning. This contradicts the IDF’s version of the story, which claims that soldiers saw the youths vandalizing the fence, began procedures to arrest a suspect — which means shouting warnings and then firing in the air – and then shot a-Shawamreh after he and his friends allegedly did not heed the warnings. B’Tselem also reported that although the soldiers provided first aid to a-Shawamreh, a military ambulance took 30 minutes to reach the site of the shooting, despite the fact that there is a military base only two kilometers away. What’s worse, the soldiers were apparently on a proactive ambush mission in broad daylight and should have been aware that Palestinians regularly cross that part of the fence to pick gundelia, a thistle-like edible plant annually harvested at this time of year. This section of the barrier is located well within the West Bank, some 200 meters east of the Green Line, not far from the a-Shawamreh’s home in the south Hebron Hills village of Deir al-‘Asal al-Foqa. The a-Shawamrehs own farmland that is now located on the other side the barrier, and that land is where the three youths were heading to gather plants. In a statement, B’Tselem said: “By justifying the use of lethal fire in broad daylight at youths who posed no danger to any other persons, the above [IDF] statement conveys a cynical lack of concern for the life of a Palestinian teenager.” The Military Police Criminal Investigations Department (MPCID) has launched an investigation into the incident. Including a-Shawamreh, the IDF has killed 19 Palestinians in the first 81 days of 2014 — an average of one every 4.26 days. Eleven were killed in Gaza, about half of them civilians who posed no threat whatsoever, except that they were close to the border fence; others were targeted by Israeli airstrikes in response to fire into Israel. The eight killed in the West Bank include the Jordanian-Palestinian judge shot and killed at the Allenby Crossing, the circumstances of which remain obscure and conflicting. (It certainly doesn’t help that the security cameras were peculiarly not working that day.) While the circumstances of each killing vary to a degree, the numbers are startling. They tell the story of a military framework all too capable of taking lives all too often. Correction: The sixth paragraph of this article has been corrected to reflect that on average, one Palestinian was killed every 4.26 days in the first 81 days of the year, and not, as it mistakenly stated due to a typo, 4.26 Palestinians each day. Related: IDF kills Palestinian suspected of vandalism 2013 was a deadly year in Israel-Palestine
What is it about Hollywood elites who jump on their soapboxes proclaiming to be saviors of America, but then do everything imaginable to undermine the core principles of its founding? Take Hollywood’s anti-gun glitterati for example. Between making personal fortunes from glorifying guns in their movies and living exuberant lifestyles that includes armed security, one would think they would support their fellow Americans right to self-defense. Nope. We’ve all heard of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his scandalous anti-gun program Everytown For Gun Safety. Now, Academy Award-winning actress Julianne Moore has recently launched her own gun control group called Everytown Creative Council, which, not surprisingly, falls under the auspices of Bloomberg’s organization. To help her, she has recruited fellow celebrities Meg Ryan, Amy Schumer, Jennifer Lawrence, Reese Witherspoon, Kevin Bacon, Kristen Bell, Jessica Chastain, J.J.Abrams, and others to join in her un-American assault on the Second Amendment. In a Huffington Post blog, Moore had the audacity to write: “We are actors and artists, but we are Americans first. … We respect the Second Amendment but keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of convicted criminals, terrorists, domestic abusers, stalkers and dangerous people isn’t anti-gun; it’s pro-common sense.” “We know that more than 90 percent of Americans support common-sense reforms that are proven to save lives. What not enough people know and what the gun lobby doesn’t want more of us to know is that a large majority of gun owners support these reforms too.” This is a level of propaganda we would expect from the pompous pigs in George Orwell’s 1945 classic novel Animal Farm. All people are equal, but some people (the elites who like to make the rules) are more equal than others. First, Moore attempts to establish herself and her fellow creative comrades as “Americans First,” which is nothing more than a stealthy ruse that acts as a preemptive strike against our reasoning and constitutional understanding of the Second Amendment. Next, she attempts to instill fear by listing all the bad guys who could potentially get their hands on “dangerous weapons.” Apparently, she has never read the FBI’s yearly published Uniform Crime Report. If she did, she would know that the most used lethal weapon of all is not a gun, but rather a bludgeoning instrument, primarily the fist. Moreover, who does she mean when she loosely uses the terms “terrorists” and “dangerous people?” NRA members? Tea Party supporters? Christians? As if this is not enough, she also cleverly uses nicer sounding words like “pro-common sense” instead of “anti-gun,” even though gun control proponents like Bloomberg and his gang believe confiscation is the best exercise of common sense. Finally, Moore throws out some made-up statistics without citing where they came from in hopes that a few suckers will take the bait, hook, line, and sinker. It appears Moore is so consumed with mindless emotionalism that she feels there is no need to do research. Like Bloomberg’s group, Moore’s primary goal is to secure stronger background checks, as if criminals actually care about background checks. Clearly, this hasn’t stopped her bad guys from having it their way in gun-free zones. Even California’s uber strict gun control laws haven’t prevented such crimes. Case in point, the recent San Bernardino terrorist attack. This is precisely why many of us believe we need to be responsible for our own self-defense. This includes women, the fastest growing demographic purchasing firearms today. Instead of cowering with their children in a closet, these women are now preparing themselves to fight back. Why such a proactive stance? It’s is about real life and death, not a Hollywood movie! Still, it’s Moore’s latest promotional stunt with her fellow creative comrades that truly takes the cake. It’s a video — a selfie of sorts. It features Moore and other celebrities offering a message that is as repetitive as it is boring. It goes like this: “We can end gun violence.” Apparently, this is the best the so-called “creative community” can come up with. Their big surprise comes at the very end when President Obama reprises his old cliché, “When we come together, Americans can do anything.” Yawn. As you can see, while Washington and Hollywood anti-gun glitterati exalt themselves making bogus public service announcements, real American’s are taking constitutionally lawful action to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their communities. Frankly, Americans are sick and tired of elitists making two sets of rules — one set for themselves and another for everyone else. A prime example of this is the recent Golden Globe Awards where Hollywood’s crème de la crème benefited from the largest presence of heavily armed security in the show’s history. This is why Virginia state senator Charles Carrico is currently proposing a new law that would deny armed security to elected officials who oppose American citizen’s right to keep and bear arms. To me, this is one of the best examples of a common sense gun law. Perhaps this new standard of unarmed equality should also apply to busybody Hollywood celebrities. By Kimberly Bloom Jackson
The European Commission on Wednesday (21 March) said Cyprus itself was responsible for the most unpopular detail of its bailout. Following the Cypriot parliament's rejection of the €10 billion bailout, the commission said it was Nicosia that wanted to apply a levy on all savers - including the least well off - when the terms of the deal were being discussed. It is this element that sparked Cypriots to queue to take money out of their accounts and led to fears of a bank run that could spread to other vulnerable periphery euro countries. "The commission made it clear ... that an alternative solution respecting the financing parameters would be acceptable, preferably without a levy on deposits below €100.000. The Cypriot authorities did not accept such an alternative scenario." It said it is now up to Cyprus to find "alternative solutions” to raise the €5.8 billion that its creditors want from the island itself. In Berlin, the German government was busy outing Cyprus' role too. "The way the levy is structured was not something the Eurogroup or the German government imposed on Cyprus, it was a decision by the Cypriot government. They did not want to have depositors above €100,000 pay too much," government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said Wednesday. It follows several comments by finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble that Cyprus was keen to maintain its business model as a low tax, financial centre. During the bailout discussions on Friday, Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades baulked at taxing larger deposit holders, including many wealthy Russians, at anything higher than 10 percent. The end solution was to tax all savers: a compulsory levy of 6.75 percent on deposits under €100,000 and a 9.9 percent tariff on savings over €100,000. A last minute tweak to exempt those with less than €20,000 savings was not enough to avoid the entire bailout package being voted down. The events mark an extraordinary few days of blame and counterblame as individual EU politicians refuse to accept accountability for the original package. Meanwhile the decision-making trail, despite the commission’s statement putting the blame at Nicosia's door, remains muddy. According to one EU source, the commission sided with Cyprus when Nicosia refused to accept an original German proposal called a "bail-in," in which only the two largest banks - Laiki and Bank of Cyprus - would have been "considerably restructured," meaning losses for depositors and bondholders alike. But under that proposal, depositors under €100,000 would not have been hit. “We don’t really understand why the commission opposed this,” the source said. The same source also indicated the commission was in agreement with Cyprus when it suggested taxing all savers with a one-off levy in all Cypriot banks. The commission, for its part, said that not all “elements” of the bailout correspond to its “proposals and preferences.” But it added that it was not EU economics commissioner Olli Rehn’s “responsibility to start putting down reservations when everyone else is in agreement.” Meanwhile, German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle told press in Berlin on Wednesday that there is no point in blaming "one person, one institution or one country" for the levy. He added: "But I already said at the weekend that I am sceptical about the involvement of small savers because it can hit the wrong people." For now, the status of the bailout is in limbo. It is unclear when Cypriot banks will re-open and how long the European Central Bank will keep up an emergency-lending scheme for Laiki and the Bank of Cyprus in the absence of a bailout deal. The absolute deadline for a revised bailout is 3 June, when €1.42 billion in government bonds falls due.
The holiday season is one of the hardest times for vegetarians and while Thanksgiving is approaching, my heart is filling with more sadness. More than 46 million turkeys are massacred for Thanksgiving each year with most of them being boiled alive, not to mention the chickens, pigs, cows, and lambs. I wonder, how can people steal the lives from those who deserve to live, no matter how tiny or big they are? Although I am a partial vegan – I refuse to eat meat – I do keep transitioning into a vegan world and do keep inspiring others to do the same. The holiday season is a real challenge to me. With all the family members, relatives and friends being huge meat lovers, finding something to eat other than meat on a festive table is impossible. I’m sure I’m not alone, so the only way out here is to cook our own meals that will be safe and tasty for us – full and partial vegetarians. Try out the following vegan Thanksgiving recipes and who knows maybe you will make someone go vegan as well. That’s exactly what I’m going to do this year. 1. Ribollita – Tuscan White Bean Soup This one is a perfect alternative to a traditional turkey soup. The soup is jam-packed with nutrients and absolutely versatile. Get the full recipe here. 2. Sweet Potato Galette with Caramelized Shallots It can be both a main dish and a side dish or quick Thanksgiving appetizer, you name it. The only thing is, I skip the goat cheese and use less salt in this recipe. And the downside is, the sweet potato galette takes about 2 hours to make, but trust me, that time is worth it. Check out the recipe here. 3. Stuffed Butternut Squash with Farro, Chickpeas, and Kale No one will leave your house feeling hungry this holiday season. Get the recipe here. 4. Pumpkin, Butternut Squash, and Gorgonzola Bread Pudding Since I’m lactose intolerant, I’m going to use a plant-based milk while making the pudding. Get the recipe here. More: 10 Vegan-Friendly High Protein Foods 5. Vegan Green Bean Casserole Even if you are bad at cooking, you will not fail to make this gluten-free and vegan casserole. Check out the recipe here. 6. Vegan Roasted Garlic and Herb Dinner Rolls The step by step instructions with pictures will help you make these dinner rolls with little to no efforts at all. Look for the recipe here. 7. Pumpkin and Cheesy Baked Potato Casserole No Thanksgiving dinner is complete without pumpkin and baked potatoes. Combine these two ingredients in one super yummy festive meal. Find the recipe here. 8. Roasted Cauliflower Risotto with Truffle Oil Easy to make and quick to eat, what else do you need for your Thanksgiving table? Get the recipe here. 9. Tofurkey Trick everyone into thinking they are eating actual turkey. Check out the recipe here. More: 9 Foods to Strengthen Your Immune System 10. Lentil Shepard’s Pie This one is as tasty as a meat version. I would say it is even more delicious. Plus, it is easy to make. Get the full recipe here. There you have it – some of the tastiest vegan Thanksgiving recipes that you can confidently use for Christmas as well. Whether you eat meat or no, just try them out. Let’s stop promoting an animal abuse together. They deserve to live just like we do! So, what are your favorite vegan Thanksgiving recipes out there?
Why Abortion is Moral All of the arguments against abortion boil down to six specific questions. The first five deal with the nature of the zygote-embryo-fetus growing inside a woman’s womb. The last one looks at the morality of the practice. These questions are: Let’s take a look at each of these questions. We’ll show how anti-abortionists use seemingly logical answers to back up their cause, but then we’ll show how their arguments actually support the fact that abortion is moral. 1. Is it alive? Yes. Pro Choice supporters who claim it isn’t do themselves and their cause a disservice. Of course it’s alive. It’s a biological mechanism that converts nutrients and oxygen into energy that causes its cells to divide, multiply, and grow. It’s alive. Anti-abortion activists often mistakenly use this fact to support their cause. “Life begins at conception” they claim. And they would be right. The genesis of a new human life begins when the egg with 23 chromosomes joins with a sperm with 23 chromosomes and creates a fertilized cell, called a zygote, with 46 chromosomes. The single-cell zygote contains all the DNA necessary to grow into an independent, conscious human being. It is a potential person. But being alive does not give the zygote full human rights - including the right not to be aborted during its gestation. A single-cell ameba also coverts nutrients and oxygen into biological energy that causes its cells to divide, multiply and grow. It also contains a full set of its own DNA. It shares everything in common with a human zygote except that it is not a potential person. Left to grow, it will always be an ameba - never a human person. It is just as alive as the zygote, but we would never defend its human rights based solely on that fact. And neither can the anti-abortionist, which is why we must answer the following questions as well. 2. Is it human? Yes. Again, Pro Choice defenders stick their feet in their mouths when they defend abortion by claiming the zygote-embryo-fetus isn’t human. It is human. Its DNA is that of a human. Left to grow, it will become a full human person. And again, anti-abortion activists often mistakenly use this fact to support their cause. They are fond of saying, “an acorn is an oak tree in an early stage of development; likewise, the zygote is a human being in an early stage of development.” And they would be right. But having a full set of human DNA does not give the zygote full human rights - including the right not to be aborted during its gestation. Don’t believe me? Here, try this: reach up to your head, grab one strand of hair, and yank it out. Look at the base of the hair. That little blob of tissue at the end is a hair follicle. It also contains a full set of human DNA. Granted it’s the same DNA pattern found in every other cell in your body, but in reality the uniqueness of the DNA is not what makes it a different person. Identical twins share the exact same DNA, and yet we don’t say that one is less human than the other, nor are two twins the exact same person. It’s not the configuration of the DNA that makes a zygote human; it’s simply that it has human DNA. Your hair follicle shares everything in common with a human zygote except that it is a little bit bigger and it is not a potential person. (These days even that’s not an absolute considering our new-found ability to clone humans from existing DNA, even the DNA from a hair follicle.) Your hair follicle is just as human as the zygote, but we would never defend its human rights based solely on that fact. And neither can the anti-abortionist, which is why the following two questions become critically important to the abortion debate. 3. Is it a person? No. It’s merely a potential person. Webster’s Dictionary lists a person as “being an individual or existing as an indivisible whole; existing as a distinct entity.” Anti-abortionists claim that each new fertilized zygote is already a new person because its DNA is uniquely different than anyone else’s. In other words, if you’re human, you must be a person. Of course we’ve already seen that a simple hair follicle is just as human as a single-cell zygote, and, that unique DNA doesn’t make the difference since two twins are not one person. It’s quite obvious, then, that something else must occur to make one human being different from another. There must be something else that happens to change a DNA-patterned body into a distinct person. (Or in the case of twins, two identically DNA-patterned bodies into two distinct persons.) There is, and most people inherently know it, but they have trouble verbalizing it for one very specific reason. The defining mark between something that is human and someone who is a person is ‘consciousness.’ It is the self-aware quality of consciousness that makes us uniquely different from others. This self-awareness, this sentient consciousness is also what separates us from every other animal life form on the planet. We think about ourselves. We use language to describe ourselves. We are aware of ourselves as a part of the greater whole. The problem is that consciousness normally doesn’t occur until months, even years, after a baby is born. This creates a moral dilemma for the defender of abortion rights. Indeed, they inherently know what makes a human into a person, but they are also aware such individual personhood doesn’t occur until well after birth. To use personhood as an argument for abortion rights, therefore, also leads to the argument that it should be okay to kill a 3-month-old baby since it hasn’t obtained consciousness either. Anti-abortionists use this perceived problem in an attempt to prove their point. In a debate, a Pro Choice defender will rightly state that the difference between a fetus and a full-term human being is that the fetus isn’t a person. The anti-abortion activist, being quite sly, will reply by asking his opponent to define what makes someone into a person. Suddenly the Pro Choice defender is at a loss for words to describe what he or she knows innately. We know it because we lived it. We know we have no memory of self-awareness before our first birthday, or even before our second. But we also quickly become aware of the “problem” we create if we say a human doesn’t become a person until well after its birth. And we end up saying nothing. The anti-abortionist then takes this inability to verbalize the nature of personhood as proof of their claim that a human is a person at conception. But they are wrong. Their “logic” is greatly flawed. Just because someone is afraid to speak the truth doesn’t make it any less true. And in reality, the Pro Choice defender’s fear is unfounded. They are right, and they can state it without hesitation. A human indeed does not become a full person until consciousness. And consciousness doesn’t occur until well after the birth of the child. But that does not automatically lend credence to the anti-abortionist’s argument that it should, therefore, be acceptable to kill a three-month-old baby because it is not yet a person. It is still a potential person. And after birth it is an independent potential person whose existence no longer poses a threat to the physical wellbeing of another. To understand this better, we need to look at the next question. 4. Is it physically independent? No. It is absolutely dependent on another human being for its continued existence. Without the mother’s life-giving nutrients and oxygen it would die. Throughout gestation the zygote-embryo-fetus and the mother’s body are symbiotically linked, existing in the same physical space and sharing the same risks. What the mother does affects the fetus. And when things go wrong with the fetus, it affects the mother. Anti-abortionists claim fetal dependence cannot be used as an issue in the abortion debate. They make the point that even after birth, and for years to come, a child is still dependent on its mother, its father, and those around it. And since no one would claim its okay to kill a child because of its dependency on others, we can’t, if we follow their logic, claim it’s okay to abort a fetus because of its dependence. What the anti-abortionist fails to do, however, is differentiate between physical dependence and social dependence. Physical dependence does not refer to meeting the physical needs of the child - such as in the anti-abortionist’s argument above. That’s social dependence; that’s where the child depends on society - on other people - to feed it, clothe it, and love it. Physical dependence occurs when one life form depends solely on the physical body of another life form for its existence. Physical dependence was cleverly illustrated back in 1971 by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thompson. She created a scenario in which a woman is kidnapped and wakes up to find she’s been surgically attached to a world-famous violinist who, for nine months, needs her body to survive. After those nine months, the violinist can survive just fine on his own, but he must have this particular woman in order to survive until then. Thompson then asks if the woman is morally obliged to stay connected to the violinist who is living off her body. It might be a very good thing if she did - the world could have the beauty that would come from such a violinist - but is she morally obliged to let another being use her body to survive? This very situation is already conceded by anti-abortionists. They claim RU-486 should be illegal for a mother to take because it causes her uterus to flush its nutrient-rich lining, thus removing a zygote from its necessary support system and, therefore, ending its short existence as a life form. Thus the anti-abortionist’s own rhetoric only proves the point of absolute physical dependence. This question becomes even more profound when we consider a scenario where it’s not an existing person who is living off the woman’s body, but simply a potential person, or better yet, a single-cell zygote with human DNA that is no different than the DNA in a simple hair follicle. To complicate it even further, we need to realize that physical dependence also means a physical threat to the life of the mother. The World Health Organization reports that nearly 670,000 women die from pregnancy-related complications each year (this number does not include abortions). That’s 1,800 women per day. We also read that in developed countries, such as the United States and Canada, a woman is 13 times more likely to die bringing a pregnancy to term than by having an abortion. Therefore, not only is pregnancy the prospect of having a potential person physically dependent on the body of one particular women, it also includes the women putting herself into a life-threatening situation for that potential person. Unlike social dependence, where the mother can choose to put her child up for adoption or make it a ward of the state or hire someone else to take care of it, during pregnancy the fetus is absolutely physically dependent on the body of one woman. Unlike social dependence, where a woman’s physical life is not threatened by the existence of another person, during pregnancy, a woman places herself in the path of bodily harm for the benefit of a DNA life form that is only a potential person - even exposing herself to the threat of death. This brings us to the next question: do the rights of a potential person supercede the rights of the mother to control her body and protect herself from potential life-threatening danger? 5. Does it have human rights? Yes and No. A potential person must always be given full human rights unless its existence interferes with the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness of an already existing conscious human being. Thus, a gestating fetus has no rights before birth and full rights after birth. If a fetus comes to term and is born, it is because the mother chooses to forgo her own rights and her own bodily security in order to allow that future person to gestate inside her body. If the mother chooses to exercise control over her own body and to protect herself from the potential dangers of childbearing, then she has the full right to terminate the pregnancy. Anti-abortion activists are fond of saying “The only difference between a fetus and a baby is a trip down the birth canal.” This flippant phrase may make for catchy rhetoric, but it doesn’t belie the fact that indeed “location” makes all the difference in the world. It’s actually quite simple. You cannot have two entities with equal rights occupying one body. One will automatically have veto power over the other - and thus they don’t have equal rights. In the case of a pregnant woman, giving a “right to life” to the potential person in the womb automatically cancels out the mother’s right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. After birth, on the other hand, the potential person no longer occupies the same body as the mother, and thus, giving it full human rights causes no interference with another’s right to control her body. Therefore, even though a full-term human baby may still not be a person, after birth it enjoys the full support of the law in protecting its rights. After birth its independence begs that it be protected as if it were equal to a fully-conscience human being. But before birth its lack of personhood and its threat to the women in which it resides makes abortion a completely logical and moral choice. Which brings us to our last question, which is the real crux of the issue…. 6. Is abortion murder? No. Absolutely not. It’s not murder if it’s not an independent person. One might argue, then, that it’s not murder to end the life of any child before she reaches consciousness, but we don’t know how long after birth personhood arrives for each new child, so it’s completely logical to use their independence as the dividing line for when full rights are given to a new human being. Using independence also solves the problem of dealing with premature babies. Although a preemie is obviously still only a potential person, by virtue of its independence from the mother, we give it the full rights of a conscious person. This saves us from setting some other arbitrary date of when we consider a new human being a full person. Older cultures used to set it at two years of age, or even older. Modern religious cultures want to set it at conception, which is simply wishful thinking on their part. As we’ve clearly demonstrated, a single-cell zygote is no more a person that a human hair follicle. But that doesn’t stop religious fanatics from dumping their judgements and their anger on top of women who choose to exercise the right to control their bodies. It’s the ultimate irony that people who claim to represent a loving God resort to scare tactics and fear to support their mistaken beliefs. It’s even worse when you consider that most women who have an abortion have just made the most difficult decision of their life. No one thinks abortion is a wonderful thing. No one tries to get pregnant just so they can terminate it. Even though it’s not murder, it still eliminates a potential person, a potential daughter, a potential son. It’s hard enough as it is. Women certainly don’t need others telling them it’s a murder. It’s not. On the contrary, abortion is an absolutely moral choice for any woman wishing to control her body.
What do you feel like when you buy a Kit-Kat, take a bite and discover there is no wafer? Do you scream and shout about the deviance of said chocolate bar? Do you throw it to the floor in disgust? Do you write to Nestle demanding they send you the missing wafer? No? But why don’t you do that? – after all you bought the blinking thing in the first place because it has a wafer, surely? You actively desired the wafer! Otherwise you’d have plumped for a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk or maybe selected a Yorkie (only if you’re a boy, of course). But no, you have a little smile to yourself, you enjoy the extra chocolate, and some of you might even feel the need to post on Facebook. “Just had a KitKat with no wafer – RESULT!” By the way, if this is you, please do not do this. I am happy for you really, but you’re cluttering up my feed. So why is it that we feel just a little bit blessed when we encounter the Kit-Kat with no wafer? I guess it’s because we can enjoy quite a relaxed state of mind around snacks and can see the experience as serendipity. Sure, maybe we wanted the wafer, but actually the sweet surprise of solid chocolate makes up for all that. So what if we took this reaction and applied it to the rest of our lives? To relationships and business? Can you imagine how happy you’d be if when things didn’t go according to plan you were even happier with the results? It’s all about attitude, and having an open mind and not focussing so intently on getting things precisely as we want them when certain factors are outside of our control. You must be prepared to look for opportunities in adversity and to look upon the most favourable aspects of what might otherwise be deemed a negative experience to achieve serendipity more often. This attitude gives us the freedom to commit to undertakings without being blind to all the other opportunities that might come our way. And it gives us the valuable skill of always finding the positives in life. “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’, but ‘That’s funny…'” – Isaac Asimov http://www.wiseism.com/like-kit-kat-no-wafer-serendipity/http://www.wiseism.com/wp-content/uploads/serendipity.jpg http://www.wiseism.com/wp-content/uploads/serendipity.jpg Wise LivingWise Mindattitude,choices,life,living wisely,luck,opportunities,positive thinking,relationships,serendipity,wisdom,wise philosophy,wise ways of livingWhat do you feel like when you buy a Kit-Kat, take a bite and discover there is no wafer? Do you scream and shout about the deviance of said chocolate bar? Do you throw it to the floor in disgust? Do you write to Nestle demanding they send you...The WiseistBeth [email protected] name is Beth Burgess. I don't claim to be the wisest, but I am 'The Wiseist' - someone dedicated to collecting and sharing wisdom that can help people live their lives more happily and successfully. I'm also the bestselling author of "Instant Wisdom: 10 Easy Ways to Get Smart Fast",, a therapist,, coach, freelance writer, speaker, trainer, and workshop leader. And I'm still learning too.Wiseism
Tennessee redshirt freshman defensive lineman Andrew Butcher’s football career is over. The Alpharetta (Ga.) native announced via Twitter on Monday evening that he has opted to take a medical exemption, meaning he will remain on scholarship at UT, but will no longer play football. Zone not found or deactivated.Zone id : 5 Butcher’s college career comes to an end before it truly got a chance to get started. Ranked as a three-star defensive end coming out of Alpharetta High Schooll, the Clemson legacy prospect enrolled early in 2015 and participated in spring practice that season. But an offseason surgery put him behind for the 2015 season, forcing him to take a redshirt. And while he bulked up and was able to return to practice later in 2016 as a defensive tackle, Butcher never saw the field for the Vols despite a rash of injuries and attrition at the position. His Twitter statement on Monday indicates that four surgeries, which included two major operations on one knee, were simply too much to overcome physically. Butcher will no longer count against the 85-man scholarship limit for UT.
SQL injection is a type of security exploit/vulnerability in which the attacker submits a SQL code to a Web form input box exposing the back-end database to gain access to resources or make changes to data. SQL injection allows an attacker to create, read, update, alter or delete data stored in the back-end database. A SQL injection attack can occur when a web application utilizes user-supplied data without proper validation or encoding as part of a command or query. Typically, on a Web form for user authentication, when a user enters their name and password into the text boxes provided for them, those values are inserted into a SELECT query as it is. If the values entered are found as expected, the user is allowed access; if they aren't found, access is denied. However, most Web forms have no mechanisms in place to block input other than names and passwords. Unless such precautions are taken, an attacker can use the input boxes to send their own request to the database, which could allow them to download the entire database or interact with it in other illicit ways. More than 20 percent of all web vulnerabilities being attributed to SQL injection, this is the second most common software vulnerability, as due to it anyone can get access to the database of your system. Therefore, having the ability to find and prevent SQL injection should be top of mind for web developers and security personnel. In general, a SQL injection attack exploits a web application that does not properly validate or encode user-supplied input and then uses that input as part of a query or command against a back-end database. If your web application has a form asking for a user id. Then a hacker may write any user id "number or 1=1" if you have not done proper validation before using the input then this may compromise your database security. Hacker may also use a complete query like for the above example hacker may write "# or 1=1; Select * from users ; --" if this query executes then whole of your users information can be displayed and remaining of your query will be commented to avoid errors. According to security experts, the reason that SQL injection and many other exploits, such as cross-site scripting, are possible is that security is not sufficiently emphasized in development. To protect the integrity of Web sites and applications, experts recommend simple precautions during development such as controlling the types and numbers of characters accepted by input boxes. Prevention You can prevent SQL injection if you adopt an input validation technique in which user input is authenticated against a set of defined rules for length, type and syntax and also against business rules. Most of the languages provide support for prevention of sql injection by the use of prepared statements/queries which checks the parameters to be used in the query for sql injection. Use strongly typed parameterized query APIs with placeholder substitution markers, even when calling stored procedures. Show care when using stored procedures since they are generally safe from injection. However, be careful as they can be injectable (such as via the use of exec() or concatenating arguments within the stored procedure).
A recent BDN article regarding the religious liberty bill I am sponsoring is full of misperceptions, paranoia and inaccuracies. The article suggests that this bill is somehow designed to undermine gay marriage. This is not about gay marriage. The bill, LD 1428, is about assuring the religious liberties spelled out in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution are protected for all Maine citizens. The goal is to prohibit Maine from burdening Mainers’ free exercise of religion without strong justification. Those quoted in the article imply that this legislation is unnecessary because the First Amendment already guarantees religious freedom. A U.S. Supreme Court decision and recent actions by other states, however, suggest otherwise. In 1993, the U.S. Congress passed the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which stated the government cannot place burdens on the free exercise of religion unless doing so serves a compelling state interest or is accomplished by the least restrictive means possible. That law was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, however, in 1997. The court ruled that while the law’s application to the federal government was constitutional, its extension to individual states was not. Eighteen U.S. states have since adopted their own religious liberty laws as a result of that ruling. In recent years, there has been a flurry of attacks on religious liberties around the U.S., such as demands that Christmas trees not be placed on public property and school plays make no reference to religion. Here in Maine, an elementary school was forced to drop the “Blessing of the Fleet” portion of its annual boat launching ceremony after being threatened with a lawsuit by a Washington special interest group. In Bar Harbor, the town council recently voted to remove a memorial to World War II veterans from a public park. Why? Because the memorial consisted of lights on a Christmas tree. The common thread in all of these cases is an unprecedented attack on religious liberties in which those affected have no legal recourse. The aim of my religious liberty bill is to join those other states in adopting religious freedom guidelines to prevent the government from being able to easily infringe on citizens’ rights to freely exercise their religion. More specifically it would: — Restore the compelling interest test and guarantee its application to all cases where the exercise of religion is burdened by state action; — Provide a claim or defense to a person or persons whose exercise of religion is burdened by state action. Religious rights are not for a specific group of people or individuals. They are for all of us. My bill would ensure those rights are protected by Maine law. Senator David Burns, R-Whiting, serves on the Maine Legislature’s Judiciary, Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and Government Oversight committees.
Not surprisingly, the news comes from Massachusetts, where Daniel Booth filed a joint motion for costs and stay of proceedings, and for protective order in Guava v. John Doe (MAD 12-cv-11880 ). Basically, this document, besides asking what its title implies, describes the very same instance of Prenda’s douchebaggery that I wrote about in the last Guava update , but does so using more details and a much better language. I do not want to write a full-blown post and analyze this document. Firstly, so many events have been happening lately on the troll battleground: if I dive in the details of each of them, I will have to spend 24/7 on this issues, which is less than desirable during the holidays season. And secondly, documents written by Dan and Jason are always well articulated and, as a rule, do not require additional comments. If you don’t know anything about Guava/Arte de Oaxaca scams (derived from the Lightspeed’s fraudulent lawsuit) and want to fully understand both the subject and the beauty of the following document, you should familiarize yourself with the history of these lawsuit abuses. John Steele, during his drunken outbreak of rage thought he vindicated only Erin Russell and her clients. It never crossed this narcissistic moron’s mind that Erin also might be a local representative for someone else. In this case, “someone else” happened to be Booth Sweet, whose attorneys are several leagues above Massachusetts Prenda’s counsel Daniel Ruggiero, so I pity the poor scumbag: he will feel a lot of heat soon (he is currently being confronted by superior attorneys in several states). His masters, criminal masterminds from now being abandoned ship Prenda, are not in much better situation. Readers of this blog know this. Coverage TechDirt: Prenda’s Latest Bag Of Tricks: Getting Info On IP Addresses By Any Means Necessary by Mike Masnick. Followup
Dwarf seahorses swim slowly. That doesn’t seem to hurt their ability to catch prey, however. What they lack in speed they make up for in stealth. Their jaws approach their prey, undetected, until they’re closer than the thickness of a penny. Then the fish strike before their snack can escape. Scientists recently reported they’ve found the secret to this seahorse’s sneak attack: the unusual shape of its head. Seahorses often eat copepods, tiny shrimplike crustaceans that share the same watery neighborhoods as the fish. But copepods will swim away quickly when they sense a predator nearby. They need only two or three milliseconds of warning, says Brad Gemmell. He’s a marine biologist at the University of Texas at Austin. That amount of time is about as long as it takes a fly to flap its wings. A dwarf seahorse (Hippocampus zosterae) can strike in less than half that time. But to succeed, the fish has to practically swim right up to the copepod without scaring it away. That’s where the head trick comes in, says Gemmell. He and his coworkers found that as a seahorse swims, a small zone of water in front of its head barely moves. And that calm water is key, they reported November 26 in Nature Communications. Copepods use antenna hairs to sense danger, like the whoosh of water that precedes an attacking predator. But because of the shape of its head, a dwarf seahorse won’t stir up the water. So the copepods never know what’s coming. Gemmell notes that dwarf seahorses are some of the slowest-swimming fish in the sea. And because their snouts are shorter than that of other seahorses, they must strike from a closer distance. But thanks to their head shape, they can still catch “one of the most capable escape artists on the planet,” he told Science News. Dwarf seahorses and some copepods inhabit underwater meadows of sea grass in the Gulf of Mexico and other parts of the Caribbean. The meadow’s slow water flow makes nearby movements —like a watery whoosh — easier for copepods to detect. But dwarf seahorses use their heads to sneak around. This could be a running contest between prey and attacker. The copepods evolve, or develop over a long period of time, better escapes. Then seahorses evolve better stealth, explains Sam Van Wassenbergh. A biologist at Ghent University in Belgium, he did not work on the new study. To investigate the seahorse’s secret, Gemmell and his coworkers shined lasers through water in a tank containing dwarf seahorses and copepods. Particles suspended in the water bumped the laser light and caused tiny changes in its direction. By studying these changes, the scientists could tell how the fluid moved. When they studied the laser’s path around the head of attacking seahorses, the scientists observed a little spot near the top of the snout where the water stayed calm. Getting close is key, Gemmell says. Other fish other succeed at catching copepods in calm water about 33 percent of the time. But when a dwarf seahorse gets within striking range, he notes that it will catch a copepod an impressive 94 percent of the time. Power Words copepod A large class of small crustaceans found in the ocean and in freshwater habitats. crustaceans Hard-shelled, water-dwelling animals including lobsters, crabs and shrimp. evolve To change gradually over generations, or a long period of time. In living organisms, the evolution usually involves random changes to genes that will then be passed along to an individual’s offspring. These can lead to new traits, such as altered coloration, new susceptibility to disease or protection from it, or different shaped features (such as legs, antennae, toes or internal organs). millisecond One-thousandth of a second predator (adjective: predatory) A creature that preys on other animals for most or all of its food. prey Animal species eaten by others.
My early days as a DJ back in the 1980s were some of my favorite times in my career, because I got to play all styles of music from Italo disco to house and from new wave to reggae. I tied them all together with my trusty Roland 808 drum machine. This was the beginning of electronic dance music as we know it today. But I had one big problem — I was super shy. I couldn’t even look at the crowd! All I did was look at the turntables and the mixer. I recall when I was the resident DJ at The Playground in Chicago — where I played for 1,500 kids every Friday and Saturday — reaching a point where I had the most amazing revelation. As I was going through all the technical aspects of DJing, I had no idea that a lot of girls would just stand in front of the DJ booth and stare at me. When I finally looked up, I realized that I had absolutely nothing to be shy about. Girls love DJs. From that moment on I stood tall in my skills and embraced the attention that a DJ commands. I remember playing MayDay in Berlin, Germany for the first time back in 2000. I closed it out following Jeff Mills, Carl Cox, Marusha and WestBam. Talk about being scared. Not because each one my peers is an amazing, legendary DJ, but because they all played fast, hard techno! Now I play a very diverse cross section of styles of electronic dance music, but never hard techno. As a matter of fact, WestBam — one of the founders of Mayday — was very adamant that he wanted me to play whatever I felt. ART of the DJ live in Arcata, California in May, 2014 Well, going from 145 BPM to 125 BPM is a huge jump for any style, but I was up for the challenge. As I played my first track and watched the ecstasy-induced crowd go from a frenzy to a cool groove, my spirit relaxed. The process took about five minutes, but as I looked at WestBam and saw him nod “I told you so,” it was the most amazing feeling. Further proof that all styles of music are universal. It was definitely one of my most memorable sets of all time. In 2010 I started incorporating live visual elements into my sets to enhance the experience. I remember the first time I utilized the Roland Visual Sampler system and ran my documentary “The Real Story” at King King in Los Angeles. The crowd was fascinated because I was DJing, but the visuals were telling my story at the same time. They didn’t know whether to dance or to watch. Having that kind of control over a crowd is stimulating, to say the least. The 2014 Chosen Few DJs event — the largest 100% pure house music celebration in the world, boasting over 50,000 in attendance — was my favorite by far. My performance utilized my own edits of house favorites and new tracks blended together. I even had a hype (wo)man in my homie, the incomparable, beautiful, talented and sexy LisaRaye!
Two-time BJJ world champion, two-time ADCC champion, and UFC and Pride veteran Fabricio Werdum shocked the world when he choked out Fedor Emelianenko in 2010. Now he'll challenge Alistair Overeem for the Strikeforce title in the first round of their heavyweight tournament. He talked to Tatame about the fight: Technically, your side of the key is stronger, is where the favorites are. Why do you think that Strikeforce matched the fights this way? I believe they did it that way so that they can sell many pay-per-view subscriptions on the semifinals and on the finale. They're betting I'll beat Overeem and that Fedor beats Big Foot, because they know everybody wants that rematch. So, they want to guarantee a good semifinal so that they sell it out and they're betting on it. Who doesn't want to watch a rematch like this one? ... Both Kharitoov and Arlovski has beaten you. Do you think about fighting them again? What I think about is a rematch with Fedor. I wouldn't like to give Overeem this rematch, I'm just fighting because the event matched this fight. To Fedor I'll give this rematch happily, because I like him and he deserves this rematch. But first I have to think about how I'll beat Overeem so that rematch can happen. It says a great deal about the lack of legitimacy the Strikeforce heavyweight belt has that Werdum doesn't even care that he'll be the champ going into the second round of the tournament if he beats Overeem. The genius of the Strikeforce tournament is it's allowing them to book the fights that they should have been booking anyway. Werdum beat Fedor and earned the title shot against Overeem -- whether he wants it or not. Fedor was so dominant for so long that he deserves a shot at the title after only one win. Antonio Silva will certainly deserve a title if he beats Fedor. As for the weaker side of the bracket, if Josh Barnett, Andrei Arlovski, Sergei Kharitonov, or Brett Rogers picks up two wins, they'll be a credible challenger -- especially by Strikeforce standards.
Our journey into the final frontier is still in its infancy. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to venture into outer space in 1961. Fast forward to today and we have men and women living aboard a space station orbiting 249 miles above Earth. Private companies such as SpaceX are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with reusable rockets. Probes like New Horizons are studying the distant bodies of our solar system. But, how do we take that next step? One potential answer is photonic propulsion. Basically, using lasers as propulsion. Professor Philip Lubin from the University of California Santa Barbara gave a talk at the 2015 NIAC Fall Symposium last October. In it, he tackled the prospects of photonic propulsion and what it could mean for interstellar travel and exploration. Lubin tells us we can already get to relativistic speeds (a speed that is a sizable proportion of the speed of light) in the laboratory. Think the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. That uses electromagnetic acceleration. Then we get to things we use to travel in everyday life – cars, airplanes and rockets. And “we are pathetically slow,” according to Lubin. This is where photonic propulsion could come into play. Now, this isn’t your typical propulsion system. Think about NASA’s Dawn and New Horizons spacecraft. The propulsion systems are attached to the spacecraft. What Lubin is proposing is building a laser array to propel a spacecraft. The array and the spacecraft start in low-Earth orbit. But, then the spacecraft is propelled away while the array stays in Earth orbit. Here’s an image that illustrates what’s going on. You see how the craft is much further away from the laser array? That simulation was using a 20 m diameter array with power of 272 kW propelling a 1 g payload. What makes this system so intriguing is it’s scalable. You could create a bigger array to power a bigger payload. When the SLS launches in the next few years, it will rise off the launch pad at between 50 and 100 gW (gigawatts). “Turns out, to get to relativistic speeds with the spacecraft we’re talking about, you basically need the same power level,” says Lubin. “And for about the same amount of time. It takes 10 minutes to get to orbit with the shuttle. It takes us 10 minutes to get to 30% the speed of light with about the same power level, just using different technology.” This technology could propel a 100 kg spacecraft to Mars in three days. Something the size of a shuttle? About a month. “There are recent advances which takes this from science fiction to science reality,” says Lubin. “There is no known reason why we cannot do this.” The potential uses for photonic propulsion are nearly endless. From planetary defense to SETI. You can imagine how handy this technology would be for pushing asteroids or comets on a potential impact course away from us. How do you stop? And therein lies the rub. “If you ever watched Spaceballs, you know on the back it says ‘we stop for nobody.’ So we stop for nobody,” Lubin joked at his NIAC Fall Symposium talk. One idea is an Alpha Centauri flyby mission. Getting to Mars in three days sounds great, but placing an object in Mars orbit is trickier. You would need a second array on the surface or orbiting the red planet to slow down the spacecraft. But, using this propulsion for manned missions is a very long ways off. It would be better suited for flybys of objects outside of our solar system. Watch the entire talk by Lubin to learn more about the ins and outs of photonic propulsion.
At the memorial for Nelson Mandela, President Barack Obama eulogized the fallen leader: Like Gandhi, he would lead a resistance movement – a movement that at its start held little prospect of success. Like [Martin Luther] King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed. Listening in the crowd sat Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's second deputy prime minister. Apparently the words were lost on the government His Royal Highness was representing (though it's questionable he even relayed the message), because within the next week, a Saudi judge sentenced democratic activist Omar al-Saeed to 4 years in prison and 300 lashes. His crime: calling for a constitutional monarchy (a government that would likely outlaw such cruel and unusual punishment). Omar al-Saeed Photo: Twitter Saeed is a member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (Acpra), an organization documenting human rights abuses and calling for democratic reform. He is its fourth member to be sentenced to prison this year. In March, co-founders Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani (who I have met in the past, and previously wrote about) and Abdullah al-Hamid were sentenced to prison terms of 10 and 5 years on charges such as "breaking allegiance with the ruler" and running an unlicensed political organization – despite repeated attempts to obtain a license. Not surprisingly, there has been no strong public statement from the Obama administration regarding Saeed's sentencing. Following the conviction and sentencing of Qahtani and Hamid, the strongest language came from the obscure United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. It took a direct question at a press briefing to prompt a canned statement from the State department, claiming "concern" at the arrests and sentences, and asserting that the US makes "strong representations for human rights activists" wherever our diplomats are. It is also of little surprise that American media hasn't pressed Obama administration officials on this latest persecution, and the clear signal the sentence sends that those "strong representations" fell on deliberately deaf ears. After all, there is much to be distracted by in the region: the Iranian nuclear deal, the continuing bloody war in Syria, and the escalating conflict in Egypt. All of these strategically concern Saudi Arabia and its level of influence – briefings at State in the days following Saeed's sentencing touched on issues such as Saudi-US cooperation in the Middle East peace process, and the Geneva II conference over Syria, with no mention of the quashing of nascent civil society. But what is particularly galling about the lack of public pressure on the Saudi government for their continued crackdown on Acpra and other democratic activists is that it is indicative of a broader flight from the lofty pro-democracy rhetoric of the Obama White House at the beginning of the Arab Spring. With Syria, the Obama administration seemed interested principally in retributive strikes against the Assad regime for using chemical weapons simply because it crossed an imaginary "red line" and because it violated an "international norm", regardless of what the effect would be on the revolution's non-extremist anti-Assad forces and movements – likely the only (yet swiftly fading) hope for democratization. The United States government chose not to label the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi as a military coup in Egypt – and then only reduced military aid (which is required by law should a military government overthrow a democratically elected leader) in the face of massive and violent repression where, quite literally, "the whole world was watching". Secretary of State John Kerry then said this aid reduction was not a form of "punishment" in his November visit to Cairo. Now the state department had to issue a statement on 23 December, condemning the recent crackdown by Egypt's military government on peaceful demonstrators and activists – a sign that once again, trust in authoritarian regimes to be the stewards of inclusive democratic transitions will result in failure. Of course, there are strategic rationalizations for supporting the military government of Sisi in Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, despite human rights abuses. The US is set to sell $10.8bn in military weapons, including standoff land attack missiles and anti-ship harpoon missiles capable of being fired from US-made F-15s and F-16s to Saudi and the UAE – the latter just sentenced an American citizen to a year in prison for making a satirical video about Emirati youth. These countries are important players, and must interact with the many moving parts of US foreign policy. But this was also the argument behind support for the apartheid government of South Africa – where strategic interests took precedence over addressing clear injustice. It's clear that half-hearted condemnations have little effect on human rights abuses. The governments of countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt can't afford to truly forswear US support (even if they make public displays of frustration). The US and other allies should demand an end to the suppression of democratic activism and civil society – and back it up with real threats of withdrawal of support. Supporters of democracy should not be afraid to name, shame, and directly confront tyranny wherever it is seen. Whether it is in Russia or China, or perpetrated under the guise of "national security" by the United States or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Those that deem oppression a strategic necessity or its elimination an impossibility almost always end up on the "wrong side of history".
A few months ago we showed you how to make beautiful fractals in polymer clay. Take that idea, run with it, and where do you end up? In the kitchen, making Sierpinski cookies! These cookies, made from contrasting colors of butter cookie dough, are a tasty realization of the Sierpinski carpet, producing lovely, edible fractals. As with our earlier project involving clay, you can make these by using a simple iterative algorithmic process of stretching out the dough and folding it over onto itself in a specific pattern. For choice of materials, we found the pixel cookies on Instructables to be inspiring. ( You can, of course, make a representation of a fractal using pixels, like these Sierpinski triangles. However, there is a big logical difference between generating a fractal algorithmically versus just making a picture of one with pixels!) Our method starts with an initial pattern. Once that is made, it is stretched out to make it small enough to form the basis of the next iteration, which is in turn stretched out and folded to make the next iteration. Again, we’ve used this method before with fimo fractals, but the time for cookie fractals has come! The pixel cookie advice to use the butter cookie recipe from Cook’s Illustrated is excellent (they even posted the recipe). You’ll need dough of contrasting colors. You can use food coloring if you like, but we suggest chocolate. To make a batch of chocolate dough, reduce the flour by 1/4 cup and substitute 1/4 cup of cocoa powder. Also reduce the butter by a tablespoon and mix about a tablespoon of melted bittersweet chocolate into the cream cheese before adding it to the dough. Chilling the dough isn’t necessary, as you want it to be soft enough to be workable. For the first block, you’ll need to roll out eight strips of one color and one of the contrasting color. After rolling them out, form each one into a square, then stack them to form a larger block with the contrasting color in the center. You’ll want to slice off the end of the stack to even it up. Use a sharp knife and cut carefully so you don’t squish the pattern. To draw the block out longer and thinner without disturbing the pattern, turn it over frequently. You can either squeeze the sides, then rotate, or press the top, then rotate. It helps to pull it out twice as long as it was, then cut in half, and repeat until you have eight equal pieces, each about as long as the original block. Parchment paper is a good work surface for this. Keep an extra sheet handy for when the one you’re working on gets too sticky. Roll out another length of the contrasting color, using the same amount of dough you used for the original pieces. Form it into a square, and stack the pieces up with the contrasting piece in the center again. As you draw out the block, the edges of the individual sections will merge. If you want to cut samples of the different iterations, this is the time to do it – just after the edges have merged sufficiently. Again, lengthen it until it is twice as long, cut, and lengthen those pieces, cut again and repeat. When you add another piece of contrasting color and stack everything up, the pieces will again be somewhat separate. You will want to draw it out a little smaller to merge the blocks before slicing. With three iterations, it’s now ready to slice. (If brave, feel free to try more iterations.) Chilling it would probably be a good idea, but if you’re impatient, be sure to rotate between slices to keep the pattern from getting too squished in any one direction. Slice carefully with a very sharp knife or a cheese wire. One final (but optional) step is to gently roll each cookie out to smooth the surface texture out. Before… and after baking. Admire them while you can as they disappear quickly. Fractal foods are not particularly common, but they are a lot of fun, like this fantastic fractal pizza. So, what fractal foods can you come up with? We’d love to see pictures of your fractal food in our flickr pool.
An Ontario university is the latest to bump the salaries of its female faculty members after discovering they were being paid thousands of dollars less than their male coworkers, but one professor says steps must be taken to prevent — not just rectify — such biases in academia. In a memo emailed to faculty Wednesday and obtained by The Canadian Press, the University of Waterloo said a working group tasked with analyzing faculty salaries uncovered a "systemic gender anomaly" that was "consistent across the university." As a result, it said an adjustment of $2,905 will be made on Sept. 1 to the salaries of all female faculty members who were in the faculty association’s bargaining unit as of April 30 of last year. However, the working group said in its report that the increases will not be applied retroactively. Aimee Morrison, an associate professor at the university and associate chair of graduate studies, says this type of inequity is a problem across academia "and probably all fields." While it’s great that the university is willing to address the problem, "I don’t see a bigger conversation happening in really pointed ways about how does this keep happening," she said. "It’s not an anomaly if it’s a pattern." Several other Canadian universities, including Hamilton’s McMaster University and the University of British Columbia, have given raises to female faculty members in recent years so that they earn as much as their male peers. The University of Waterloo itself has conducted salary reviews in the past, including one in 2008 that made "several recommended salary adjustments for individual women faculty" but did not lead to university-wide increases. The working group recommends that the university examine salaries every five years on top of conducting annual reviews within each department. It also stresses that since starting salaries and merit increases are the key factors affecting pay, "care should be taken to ensure that starting salaries are equitable, as inequity at this point can quickly compound." Morrison, who has sat on faculty evaluation committees, said there could be checklists or other tools to help people take note of their internalized biases when determining salaries. "The reason that we have to keep doing these reviews is that the underlying inequities in how faculty members are assessed or in how they are supported in their initial salary negotiations is still going to be prey to bias," she said. "If we could fix the bias, the anomaly, once fixed, would not reproduce itself, but it keeps reproducing itself." Lynne Taylor, co-chair of the working group, said the review’s mandate was simply to identify any discrepancies, not the underlying causes. "We still don’t have a clear sense of why it happens. I would love that to be fixed and I think there are people in the upper reaches of the administration who would like to see this rectified as well," she said. "Until we have a sense of where that’s coming from, though, I think it is smart to have a regular review," she said. "All of us would just wish it wasn’t necessary but if it is, at least it’s getting fixed." Jean Andrey, dean of the faculty of environment, said the anomalous salaries were spread across all faculties and ranks, adding that the university has been "doing a lot of thinking" about how the discrepencies didn’t get noticed before. Andrey suggested the differences in salaries could be the result of a "legacy effect" due to there not being as much equity in the past, or that starting salaries for some employees could have been lower due to a "different approach in negotiating terms of employment" when they were hired. "The really good news about the work we’ve done is that by looking at annual performance reviews we’ve been able to conclude that there’s no evidence of a systematic gender bias in the way that we do annual merit evaluations," she said. "We believe that there is fairness in our assessment processes." Waterloo’s latest review was part of a salary settlement between the university and the faculty association that was reached May 1 of last year. Other faculty members’ salaries were also flagged as "anomalous" and the review recommended that a one-time adjustment be made to make up for the discrepancy. Salaries were evaluated using a regression model that took several variables into account, including annual performance evaluations and outstanding performance awards. The report says that 71 of roughly 1,170 faculty members were identified as "potential anomalies," and of those, 59 were confirmed anomalies, meaning "there was nothing in their career path that could account for the aberration in their actual salaries and the fitted/predicted salary outputted from the regression model." The remaining 12 will be investigated further.
Though the concept of savory chopped meat wrapped in dough exists in every cuisine, in one way or another — fried, baked or boiled — the British have proudly claimed sausage rolls as their own. Or so says my friend Caroline, an expat Briton who considers herself an expert in such things. (I am always asking her for the English point of view, and she is not shy.) What is she cooking for the holidays? I asked. Sausage rolls, she said, tons of them. For Caroline, it’s no bother at all to throw together a bit of puff pastry and a batch of sausage meat; she doesn’t even have to measure ingredients, so accustomed is she to the routine. And it is fairly simple. Form the sausage filling into a long log shape and wrap it with dough, slice into pieces, brush with egg wash and bake till golden.
Remedy Games is looking to hire a new game designer, so let’s pick over the job ad and see what we can surmise from it. Remedy Games, known for Max Payne (1 & 2), Alan Wake, and Quantum Break, is currently in development on a project we don’t know much about. The project, codenamed ‘P7’ (this is their seventh title), is looking for a game designer with experience and knowledge of online systems. To be more specific, it really sounds like they want the designer to be familiar with Destiny. Part of the job ad reads: Are you constantly thinking about intriguing ways to excite your players and keep them invested in your game’s world? Are you obsessed with lore and a desire to create rich content that communities will devour? Do you design challenge systems that are so moreish your players plan their week around them? Have you already designed the next Battle Royale? Are you always among the first to find Xûr? The ‘responsibilities section of the job ad specifically mentions creating “compelling, innovative online game modes” too. They are looking for someone to “share knowledge and keep the team updated on trends and areas for innovation in the connected- gaming space”. This is interesting, as Remedy has, in the past, worked exclusively on single-player games. A move into large, persistent multiplayer gaming is a huge change for the developer, which is publishing the game under 505 Games (and they have invested in it fairly heavily). We know (per the link above) that the game will use the same engine as Quantum Break, and that it will come to PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Hopefully we’ll find out more about what they’re working on in 2018. If this, incidentally, sounds like something you’d be good at, applications are open until January 1. This is a full-time position, and you must live in or be willing to relocate to Espoo, Helsinki. The company offers five weeks of holidays a year, which is pretty nice considering gaming’s crunch culture.
Anthony Joshua has won all 16 of his professional fights by knockout Great Britain's IBF world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua could make a defence of his title at Beijing's National Stadium, according to promoter Barry Hearn. The National Stadium - or Bird's Nest - was used at the 2008 Olympics. "When you plan someone's career like Joshua you tend to plan in advance," said Hearn, who saw Joshua stop Charles Martin last month to win the title. "I think we're two years from saying we can sell out the Bird's Nest in China." Hearn is the father of Joshua's promoter Eddie, and chairman of the fighter's Matchroom stable. He identified China's 2008 Olympic silver medallist Zhang Zhilei, who has built an unbeaten professional record of eight fights since basing himself in Las Vegas, as a potential opponent for 26-year-old undefeated Joshua. "Sometimes these things don't happen because people get beaten, but our job is about creating these kinds of moments," he added. Joshua will make the first defence of his title against American Dominic Breazeale in London next month.
It has been some time (almost 2 years?) since we started using React.js at Arkency. It quickly propagated to all of our projects. Along the way, we’ve been blogging a lot about what we learnt. So far we’ve released: 28 blogposts 5 open repositories React.js koans 7 YT videos 2 books (with repos) dozens of emails to our React Kung Fu mailing list This blogpost is an attempt to put all the resources in one place. Blogposts React.js koans React.js koans YouTube videos Repositories Books Rails meets React.js The book will teach you: How to install and configure React.js in your Rails project. Working with dynamic React based forms. How to transform your view to React-managed components. What you can use React.js for in your projects and how. Detailed knowledge about how to use it and best practices to work with React.js, with examples. How to test React components. You will also get Ruby and CoffeeScript code for the examples. And it begins with a tutorial so that you start with practical skills. Animations with React.js is such a great topic that we decided to record and include 2 videos on this topic. Buy Rails meets React.js React.js by example We love working with React.js so much, that we also published another book on this topic - “React.js by Example”. This book doesn’t focus on the Rails integration. We wanted to share with you how to setup a separated (from Rails) React.js-based frontend. This book is directed to people who are total React.js newbies. There are 12 typical examples implemented in React.js. Each of the examples is another chapter. Each example contains a narration on how one of us (from Arkency) approaches the development of a React.js component. What’s more - you receive all the repositories for this book! You can browse the code, you can run the examples, you can tweak them. After reading this book, you will be fully ready to approach a typical React.js component. The examples are written in EcmaScript2015 and use webpack. Buy React.js by Example Which of our React.js books to choose? Those books are very different. They teach you React.js in different ways. While the “Rails meets React.js” book is more Rails focused, it focuses on developing one component from a small one to a very complex widget. The “React.js by Example” is focused on the starting point. It shows 12 examples, which are typical things you will start with. Many of our readers bought both of the books and are happy with that. If you need to choose just one - if you want to use React.js within an existing Rails ecosystem, then go for “Rails meets React.js”. If you are allowed to develop the frontend separately to Rails, then choose “React.js by Example”.
Economically and environmentally, it would be far better for the future of the planet to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and provide more incentives for clean energy. Economically and environmentally, it would be far better for the future of the planet to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and provide more incentives for clean energy. Photo: Union of Concerned Scientists Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt recently proposed eliminating federal tax credits for wind and solar power, arguing that they should “stand on their own and compete against coal and natural gas and other sources” as opposed to “being propped up by tax incentives and other types of credits….” Stand on their own? Pruitt surely must be aware that fossil fuels have been feasting at the government trough for at least 100 years. Renewables, by comparison, have received support only since the mid-1990s and, until recently, have had to subsist on scraps. Perhaps a review of the facts can set administrator Pruitt straight. There’s a strong case to be made that Congress should terminate subsidies for fossil fuels and extend them for renewables, not the other way around. A century (or two) of subsidies To promote domestic energy production, the federal government has been serving the oil and gas industry a smorgasbord of subsidies since the early days of the 20th century. Companies can deduct the cost of drilling wells, for example, as well as the cost of exploring for and developing oil shale deposits. They even get a domestic manufacturing deduction, which is intended to keep US industries from moving abroad, even though—by the very nature of their business—they can’t move overseas. All told, from 1918 through 2009, the industry’s tax breaks and other subsidies amounted to an average of $4.86 billion annually (in 2010 dollars), according to a 2011 study by DBL Investors, a venture capital firm. Accounting for inflation, that would be $5.53 billion a year today. The DBL study didn’t include coal due to the lack of data for subsidies going back to the early 1800s, but the federal government has lavished considerably more on the coal industry than on renewables. In 2008 alone, coal received between $3.2 billion and $5.4 billion in subsidies, according to a 2011 Harvard Medical School study in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Meanwhile, wind and other renewable energy technologies, DBL found, averaged only $370 million a year in subsidies between 1994 and 2009, the equivalent of $421 million a year today. The 2009 economic stimulus package did provide $21 billion for renewables, but that support barely began to level the playing field that has tilted in favor of oil and gas for 100 years and coal for more than 200. A 2009 study by the Environmental Law Institute looked at US energy subsidies since the turn of this century. It found that between 2002 and 2008, the federal government gave fossil fuels six times more than what it gave solar, wind, and other renewables. Coal, natural gas, and oil benefited from $72.5 billion in subsidies (in 2007 dollars) over that seven-year period, while “traditional” renewable energy sources—mainly wind and solar—received only $12.2 billion. A pie chart from the report shows that 71 percent of federal subsidies went to coal, natural gas and oil, 17 percent—$16.8 billion—went to corn ethanol, and the remaining 12 percent went to traditional renewables. A new study by Oil Change International brings us up to date. Published earlier this month, it found that federal subsidies in 2015 and 2016 averaged $10.9 billion a year for the oil and gas industry and $3.8 billion for the coal industry. By contrast, the wind industry’s so-called production tax credit, renewed by Congress in December 2015, amounted to $3.3 billion last year, according to a Congress Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate. Unlike the fossil fuel industry’s permanent subsidies, Congress has allowed the wind tax credit to expire six times in the last 20 years, and it is now set to decline incrementally until ending in 2020. Similarly, Congress fixed the solar industry’s investment tax credit at 30 percent of a project’s cost through 2019, but reduced it to 10 percent for commercial projects and zeroed it out for residences by the end of 2021. The JCT estimates that the solar credit amounted to a $2.4-billion tax break last year. Totaling it up, fossil fuels—at $14.7 billion—still received two-and-a-half times more in federal support than solar and wind in 2016. The costs of pollution Subsidy numbers tell only part of the story. Besides a century or two of support, the federal government has allowed fossil fuel companies and electric utilities to “externalize” their costs of production and foist them on the public. Although coal now only generates 30 percent of US electricity, down from 50 percent in 2008, it is still responsible for two-thirds of the electric utility sector’s carbon emissions and is a leading source of toxic pollutants linked to cancer; cardiovascular, respiratory, and neurological diseases; and premature death. The 2011 Harvard Medical School study cited above estimated coal’s “life cycle” cost to the country—including its impact on miners, public health, the environment and the climate—at $345 billion a year. In July 2016, the federal government finally began regulating the more than 1,400 coal ash ponds across the country containing billions of gallons of heavy metals and other byproducts from burning coal. Coal ash, which has been leaching and spilling into local groundwater, wetlands, creeks, and rivers, can cause cancer, heart, and lung disease, birth defects and neurological damage in humans, and can devastate bird, fish, and frog populations. But that was last year. Since taking office, the Trump administration has been working overtime to bolster coal, which can no longer compete economically with natural gas or renewables. Earlier this year, it rescinded a rule that would have protected waterways from mining waste, and a few months ago it filed a repeal of another Obama-era measure that would have increased mineral royalties on federal lands. More recently, Energy Secretary Rick Perry asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure that coal plants can recover all of their costs, whether those plants are needed or not. Natural gas burns more cleanly than coal, but its drilling sites, processing plants, and pipelines leak methane, and its production technique—hydraulic fracturing—can contaminate water supplies and trigger earthquakes. Currently the fuel is responsible for nearly a third of the electric utility sector’s carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the US transportation sector—whose oil-powered engine exhaust exacerbates asthma and likely causes other respiratory problems and heart disease—is now the nation’s largest carbon polluter, edging out the electric utility sector last year for the first time since the late 1970s. Like the coal industry, the oil and gas industry has friends in high places. Thanks to friendly lawmakers and administrations, natural gas developers are exempt from key provisions of seven major environmental laws that protect air and water from toxic chemicals. Permitting them to flout these critical safeguards forces taxpayers to shoulder the cost of monitoring, remediation, and cleanup—if they happen at all. The benefits of clean energy Unlike fossil fuels, wind and solar energy do not emit toxic pollutants or greenhouse gases. They also are not subject to price volatility: wind gusts and solar rays are free, so more renewables would help stabilize energy prices. And they are becoming less expensive, more productive, and more reliable every year. According to a recent Department of Energy (DOE) report, power from new wind farms last year cost a third of wind’s price in 2010 and was cheaper than electricity from natural gas plants. Perhaps the biggest bonus of transitioning to a clean energy system, however, is the fact that the benefits of improved air quality and climate change mitigation far outweigh the cost of implementation, according to a January 2016 DOE study. Conducted by researchers at the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the study assessed the impact of standards in 29 states and the District of Columbia that require utilities to increase their use of renewables by a certain percentage by a specific year. Called renewable electricity (or portfolio) standards, they range from California and New York’s ambitious goals of 50 percent by 2030 to Wisconsin’s modest target of 10 percent by 2015. It turns out that it cost utilities nationwide approximately $1 billion a year between 2010 and 2013—generally the equivalent of less than 2 percent of average statewide retail electricity rates—to comply with the state standards. On the benefit side of the equation, however, standards-spawned renewable technologies in 2013 alone generated $7.4 billion in public health and other societal benefits by reducing carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter emissions. They also saved consumers as much as $1.2 billion by lowering wholesale electricity prices and as much as $3.7 billion by reducing natural gas prices, because more renewable energy on the grid cuts demand—and lowers the price—of natural gas and other power sources that have higher operating costs. Take fossil fuels off the dole If the initial rationale for subsidizing fossil fuels was to encourage their growth, that time has long since passed. The Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, published a fact sheet in May 2016 identifying nine unnecessary oil and gas tax breaks that should be terminated. Repealing the subsidies, according to CAP, would save the US Treasury a minimum of $37.7 billion over the next 10 years. An August 2016 report for the Council on Foreign Relations by Gilbert Metcalf, an economics professor at Tufts University, concluded that eliminating the three major federal tax incentives for oil and gas production would have a relatively small impact on production and consumption. The three provisions—deductions for “intangible” drilling costs, deductions for oil and gas deposit depletion, and deductions for domestic manufacturing—account for 90 percent of the cost of the subsidies. Ending these tax breaks, Metcalf says, would save the Treasury roughly $4 billion a year and would not appreciably raise oil and gas prices. At the same time, the relatively new, burgeoning clean energy sector deserves federal support as it gains a foothold in the marketplace. Steve Clemmer, energy research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, made the case in testimony before a House subcommittee last March that Congress should preserve wind and solar tax incentives beyond 2020. “Until we can transition to national policies that provide more stable, long-term support for clean, low-carbon energy,” he said, “Congress should extend federal tax credits by at least five more years to maintain the sustained orderly growth of the industry and provide more parity and predictability for renewables in the tax code.” Clemmer also recommended new tax credits for investments in low- and zero-carbon technologies and energy storage technologies. Despite the steady barrage of through-the-looking-glass statements by Trump administration officials, scientific and economic facts still matter. Administrator Pruitt would do well to examine them. Congress should, too, when it considers its tax overhaul bill, which is now being drafted behind closed doors. If they did, perhaps they would recognize that—economically and environmentally—it would be far better for the future of the planet to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and provide more incentives for clean energy. Posted in: Energy, Uncategorized Tags: Administrator Scott Pruitt, EPA, Scott Pruitt, Trump Administration Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and a safer world.
Dunedin police are calling for action to prevent potentially deadly overcrowding at city bars. Alcohol harm reduction officer Sergeant Ian Paulin said last week's district licensing committee hearing for Dunedin's Carousel bar highlighted the problems with the current system. Carousel operator John Devereux admitted regularly breaching the second-storey bar's maximum occupancy of 50 people - in place because of risks of having only one exit - since the bar was established in 2006, but police did not find out about the limit until late last year. Sgt Paulin said police did not know the occupancy limit of each of the city's bars and relied on what the duty manager told them at each visit. ''We haven't got the time to follow up on every licensed premises visit the troops do and find out if that number is accurate,'' Sgt Paulin said. If bars were breaching their maximum occupancy, which was not always obvious, there was a chance of things going ''hugely'' wrong in the event of a fire or other disaster. ''There is massive potential for serious death and that has been well-documented overseas.'' This was why part of the police submission to Dunedin City Council's local alcohol policy (LAP) was for each bar to have to display its maximum occupancy next to the liquor licence. The change would help both licence holders and enforcement agencies ensure bars were not overcrowded and had the potential to save a life. Sgt Paulin was ''very'' hopeful it would be included in the LAP, which was to be voted on by the council soon. At last week's hearing, Sgt Paulin said Southern District commander Superintendent Andrew Coster had called for an increased focus on overcrowding after being ''astounded'' after last year's All Blacks test match at the number of duty managers who had ''no idea'' of the maximum occupancy of their bars.
Written by Anna Rubin ’15 We are pleased to announce another newly digitized collection: the Woodrow Wilson Correspondence in the Office of the President Records. Wilson was president of Princeton University from 1902-1910, Governor of New Jersey 1911-1913, and U.S. President 1913-1921. This collection contains correspondence between Wilson and University faculty, administrators, alumni, and parents, as well as departmental records and information on University projects that were taking place during his term, such as the construction of the Graduate College. Wilson’s Princeton presidency presented him with many challenges, the most ultimately significant of which was conflict over campus social life. In the first of a two-part series, we take a look at Wilson’s battle with the eating clubs. Wilson was no great fan of the eating club system, which had begun in the mid-nineteenth century. He felt it drew energy, attention, and interest away from academics toward the social life of the college, and had a certain “snobbish” character about it. The clubs, then numbering 14, were the hub of the upperclassman’s life, providing a place for their members to eat, drink, and be merry in houses just off campus. Current members of clubs selected new members from the sophomore class, a process that would eventually become known as “bicker.” Wilson felt that the clubs’ allure overshadowed the college experience, as “it absorbs the attention and all the planning faculties of the undergraduate because all social ambitions turn upon it…His thought is constantly fixed upon that object throughout the first two years of his university course with a great intensity and uneasiness whenever he thinks either of his social standing, his comradeships or his general social consideration among his fellows.“ About a third of each class would not obtain membership to a club. As Wilson saw it, “their lot is little less than deplorable” because they were then, for their remaining two years, excluded from the central social life of campus. (Office of the President Records (AC117), Box 63, Folder 13) In December 1906, Wilson presented a report to the Board of Trustees on the school’s current social conditions, expressing his hope to divide Princeton into residential quads, with members of all four classes in each quad and a faculty advisor overseeing each. Students would live and eat in their quads all four years, eliminating the necessity of the eating clubs entirely. Wilson thought this plan was “an indispensable accompaniment and completion of the preceptorial system,” another of Wilson’s innovations, reports of which can also be found in the records. (Office of the President Records (AC117), Box 63, Folder 13) While the report claimed to be focused positively towards the intellectual growth of the University, rather than negatively towards the eating clubs, Wilson did make his feelings clear: But, in spite of their admirable spirit and of every watchful effort they have made to the contrary, and by a process which neither they nor we could successfully control, a system of social life has grown up in the University by reason of their existence which divides classes, creates artificial groups for social purposes, and renders a wholesome university spirit impossible. Circumstances created, not by design, but by the inevitable operation of human nature, render a radical reorganization of our life imperative, if the main ends for which that life is meant to be attained. The report was published in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 12, 1907, a copy of which is in Wilson’s files. A sub-committee of the Board of Trustees responded in a report on social conditions on March 3, 1908. The committee agreed with Wilson’s assessment of the “evils” of the social life at Princeton: Without attempting to detail these evils, or to emphasize them by citation of individual instances, it seems that the most important can be classified and summarized under the following heads: 1. The segregation of sophomores from other undergraduates; 2. The unfortunate position of upper classmen failing election to any club; 3. The distraction of undergraduates from their academic pursuits at times of, and incident to club elections, and because of the social demands upon their time; 4. The under classmen’s temptation to seek social advancement by choice of associates, tending toward snobbishness and incident extravagance. (Office of the President Records (AC117), Box 63, Folder 1) But they diverged from Wilson here and did not propose to begin a residential quad or college system. Instead they moved to reform the club system, suggesting that no more clubs be created, that a small number of sophomores be admitted to the clubs at the beginning and middle of the year, and that faculty and the clubs “encourage closer relations and a better understanding.” Additionally, they suggested creating a University Club with open membership. They felt their proposed reforms would have the sufficient effect of mitigating the social evils of the university as they outlined, without revolutionizing campus culture or getting rid of “a system which contains much that is good and around which centre (sic) traditions and, to many, fondly cherished associations which should not lightly be done away with.” Wilson’s reforms were not put in place to any lasting effect, but he remained interested in the issue long after his time at Princeton. He wrote to V. Lansing Collins, Secretary in the Office of the President at Princeton, in November 1923: “The subject matter of the report still interests me if for no other reason than because it led to the Trustees in their sagacity to kick me upstairs into the Governorship and Presidency.” (Office of the President Records (AC117), Box 63, Folder 13) Concern for maintaining proper balance of social and academic life was a strain that ran throughout Wilson’s tenure as president. The debate also arose during discussions surrounding the construction of the new Graduate College. In the next installment in this series, we will take a look at Wilson’s loss in that fight over its location. Look for the second installment in this series in March. Anna Rubin ’15 worked as an archives assistant at the front desk here at Mudd while completing her senior year at Princeton. She was heavily involved in the digitization of this collection. Thanks to Julian Dean, a graduate student in Politics, who alerted us to an error in the caption for the photo of Colonial Club. We believe this photo was taken in 1905, not in 1906 as was originally stated. Like this: Like Loading...
As mentioned in my introductory post, it takes quite a bit of work to make my audio-reactive cigar box “tick.” The mechanical assembly comes in another post, but this is all about how it was programmed and wired. If you’d like to just skip to the Arduino code, it’s listed here. In case you forgot or missed it, here’s the video of this cigar box in action: As for how everything works, keep reading, and I’ll try to explain what is going on in a bit more detail. Microphone Input Getting a correct signal from a microphone breakout is a bit more complicated than one might think; Instead of just measuring the voltage, you have to define a sample size as shown in this Adafruit post. I actually used something from Sparkfun, but I think they work very similarly. One thing that I’m told would have helped my results, would be to put the servo motor on a separate signal while combining grounds. The servo draws a lot of power from everything, causing the microphone breakout to be thrown off at times. At least that’s my understanding. Also, if you’re using an Arduino, you’ll need to make sure to hook the supply voltage to the “AREF” pin as well to give it a voltage to compare it to. Servo Control The servo is hooked to PWM pin 5 as well as the + and – of the batteries. The code is written so that it varies how high it lifts to lid (2 positions now). It would likely be possible to make it directly proportional to the lid, but I haven’t tried this yet. If you’re going to do this, I used, and would recommend my servo-connecting header “component.” This little device makes connecting a standard to a servo wire to a breadboard quite easy. LED Strip Control There is some good tutorial material on Adafruit, and you can certainly check out my code to see what is going on there. The cool thing about these strips is that you can control all the LEDs in them with two wires, not including the +5VDC and and GND cable. Also, to change the number of LEDs under control, you just change the code and cut the strip. It’s a really cool device that I hope to play with more. Wiring Wiring for this project is provided through a small breadboard (this one – Amazon), and a lot of hookup wire. Even though there are some wires that could be run into the Auduino directly (LED strip signal wires for instance) running it into the breadboard first, then into the processor seems to keep things clean. This is especially important since the lid jumping up and down definitely has a tendency to pull the wires out. Along with this, I plugged the servo into the breadboard using a technique outlined here. This double-ended header really makes it easy to remove or plug it in without too much hassle. All in all, I was quite pleased with how the wiring turned out. Thanks for reading, if you’d like to see how everything was put together mechanically, check out this post.
Shadow home secretary responds to figures showing more referrals for neo-nazism than Islamic extremism in parts of UK Prevent strategy failing to rein in rise of UK's far right, says Diane Abbott The government’s controversial counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, has failed to change the attitudes of those on the far right, the shadow home secretary has said in response to figures showing the number of referrals linked to neo-nazism is overtaking Islamic extremism cases in some parts of the UK. Diane Abbott said the figures reflected “the alarming rise of far-right activity across the country”. “It also reflects the increasing confidence of far-right groups to air their views publicly,” she said on Monday. “These figures are useful in proving what we already know, but the Prevent programme has failed to change the attitudes of those on the far right.” UK's Prevent counter-radicalisation policy 'badly flawed' Read more Ben Wallace, the security minister and MP for Wyre and Preston North, has highlighted the increase in far-right radicalisation in England and Wales. Figures show that almost 300 under-18s were referred to officials under the Prevent strategy last year. Of these, at least 16 involved children under the age of 10. “The Prevent strategy is seeing a growth in far-right referrals,” Wallace told the House of Commons recently. “In some areas of the country, these Prevent referrals outnumber those about the other parts we are worried about.” Data released by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) under a freedom of information request from the Sunday Times shows that the number of far-right referrals in England and Wales has increased by 74%, from 323 cases in 2014-15 to 561 in 2015-16. About 292 cases, or 52%, involved under-18s. “The Prevent strategy is misconceived because it limits legitimate safe spaces for discourse, places like classrooms and lecture theatres,” Abbott said. “We urgently need an anti-extremism strategy that addresses the subversive and veiled far-right activity that is allowed to fester in private.” The NPCC figures come as Merseyside police investigate the appearance of stickers around Liverpool declaring that people were entering “Nazi-controlled zones”. The stickers, posted by a neo-Nazi youth movement called National Action, were timed to coincide with Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of the neo-Nazi stickers that appeared in Liverpool to coincide with Remembrance Sunday. Photograph: Patrick Hurley/PA “It’s the politics of hate. We’re seeing the rise of this sort of thing across the country, across the western world and it’s of huge importance that we all stand united against it and make sure there is no place for this sort of thing in Liverpool or anywhere,” Patrick Hurley, a Mossley Hill councillor said. Britain’s Muslim communities have criticised the Prevent strategy as a toxic brand and a “big brother” security operation, but it was recently revealed that the programme is to be toughened up rather than scaled back as part of the government’s wider reworking of its counter-terrorism strategy. The chief constable of Leicestershire police, Simon Cole, who is in charge of Prevent, said earlier this year that far-right extremists made up half of all cases in Yorkshire and 30% of the caseload in the east Midlands. Prevent strategy to be ramped up despite 'big brother' concerns Read more Nationwide, however, Islamic extremism is still the most common referral, with 2,810 cases making up 70% of those flagged up under Prevent. The NPCC said it was worth noting that the Prevent duty, which sets out the obligations of public-facing bodies under the strategy, was introduced in July 2015 and has resulted in a significant increase in referrals of all types. Ibrahim Mohamoud, a spokesman for Cage, an independent advocacy organisation, said on Monday: “What these figures suggest is that Muslims are still far more likely to be referred to Prevent in England and Wales. “There still seems to be a great deal of dissonance between the way the authorities understand the role of ‘extremist ideology’ or ‘radical fundamentalist thought’ in the case of Muslims, and the subscription to far-right ideology.” Yvette Cooper, the chair of the home affairs select committee, has said the fallout from the 23 June vote to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election should serve as a warning about the dangers of whipping up hatred and prejudice in political campaigns, as MPs prepare to examine a spike in hate crime in the UK. Police recorded 41% more hate crimes in July 2016 than in the same month the previous year, with a peak on 1 July, records show. Several high-profile attacks occurred in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, including the vandalising of the Polish community centre in Hammersmith, west London, and the death of Arkadiusz Jóźwik, a Pole who was attacked in Harlow, Essex. Rashad Ali, a senior fellow specialising in extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue thinktank, told the Times that in some areas of Wales, the proportion of Prevent referrals from the far right were “well over” 50%. Ali said the rise in far-right extremism could be linked to the “loss of the centre ground” in today’s politics. “Whether it’s on the left or the right, the fringes are now leading the debate and the discussion,” he said. Instead of fighting terror, Prevent is creating a climate of fear \| Amrit Singh Read more Ali argued that Trump’s election, with the endorsement of the KKK, and the rhetoric of Marine Le Pen, the Front National presidential candidate in France, were helping to “legitimise the world view” of fascists. National Action is believed to have fewer than 100 members, but the group has a strong presence on social media, where it has celebrated Trump’s election with images of him captioned “white power”. Matthew Feldman, the co-director of the centre for fascist, anti-fascist and post-fascist studies at Teesside University, said the radical right was “starting to mainstream its narrative following the decline of the BNP as the main party-political vehicle for radical right ideas”. “This led to a proliferation of other groups like the Defence Leagues and Britain First – both of which are much more anti-Muslim than the more developed neo-fascist policies advocated by the BNP, including antisemitism and biological racism,” Feldman said. “So it is a time of change for the far and radical right in the UK, although like the US, 2016 has been a very different year than most. The Brexit vote, like that of Trump’s election, seems to have sparked, at least for some, a kind of ‘celebratory racism’ whereby some hate incidents are apparently legitimated by the ‘trigger’ event of an enormous and unexpected victory.” Feldman added, however, that the immediate context can obscure longer term developments, which may be driving the increasing far-right Channel referrals and Prevent cases over recent months and years. “Over the last decade, governmental and media focus has been overwhelmingly concentrated upon the threat from jihadi Islamist extremism and terrorism,” he said. “Given finite resources and time, this has necessarily meant that less attention has been trained upon the radical right, which has increasingly turned to the lowest common denominator of anti-Muslim bigotry since 7/7. “In this, as the BNP had already recognised in 2005, turning away from racial to religious hatred was a potential issue that could break into the mainstream. Unlike in the past, the lowest common denominator of Islamoprejudice has allowed a number of different types of radical right groups, such as the counter-jihad movement, which are street-based and party political, to work together locally in places like Dover, Swansea and Newcastle. “The increase in far-right referrals therefore comes as little surprise to those monitoring the radical right during these years of upheaval, both for radical right groups and domestic politics in Britain.”
Militants in Afghanistan have launched an attack on a government delegation visiting the site where a US soldier killed 16 civilians. Two of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brothers and several top security officials were in the delegation in Panjwai in Kandahar province. One Afghan soldier and three of the militants were killed, police said. The delegation is heading back to Kandahar. The US soldier said to have carried out Sunday's attacks is under arrest. A US military official said that "probable cause" had been found, meaning they could continue to hold the soldier. The unnamed 38-year-old staff sergeant is being held at an undisclosed location. 'No rush to exits' A senior Afghan official confirmed to the BBC that an attack "from several directions" had taken place on the delegation, which was there to meet villagers and tribal elders. Afghan forces returned fire. The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says officials reported a 10-minute gun battle during which Taliban fighters fired from a distance at a mosque where the delegation and civilians were taking part in a prayer service. Analysis President Karzai is personally involved in Kandahar - it is his home province and he has close relations with tribal elders. He, his friends and his brothers have all been working around the clock to say the soldier will be brought to justice and that taking to the streets in violent protest is not in the interests of the Afghan people or the Afghan government. Afghanistan will push for a US trial of the soldier which one aide said should be "in open court, in the presence of the media in weeks or months, but not years". If guilty, Kabul would demand the death penalty. It also wants those in charge at the base to be held responsible for not preventing the soldier's attack. On the issue of Nato, senior members of the Afghan government say any premature withdrawal will undermine the entire mission and the only people to benefit would be the Taliban. Panjwai police said that in addition to the soldier killed, two other people, including an intelligence officer, were wounded. One of Mr Karzai's brothers, Qayum, told the Associated Press news agency it appeared initially that the attack was not serious and the delegation "assumed that it was the national army that started to fire in the air". He said the delegation, which included Kandahar's governor and the minister of border and tribal affairs, was safe and returning to Kandahar city. A member of the delegation, Abdul Rahim Ayubi, told AP the governor was trying to explain to locals that the shooting was an isolated incident. "But the people were just shouting and they were very angry. They didn't listen to the governor. They accused him of defending the Americans instead of defending the Kandahari people," Mr Ayubi said. Anti-US sentiment is already high in Afghanistan after soldiers burned some copies of the Koran at a Nato base in Kabul last month, sparking deadly riots across the country. On Tuesday morning, some 600 students took part in a rally in the eastern city of Jalalabad, condemning the Kandahar attack and chanting "Death to America! Death to Obama!". In Washington, US President Barack Obama said America was "heartbroken over the loss of innocent life", and promised no effort would be spared in investigating the shooting and bringing the culprit to justice. "We will follow the facts wherever they lead us," he said, "and we will make sure that anybody who was involved is held fully accountable with the full force of law." He also insisted that the US will "responsibly" withdraw its forces between now and the end of 2014, the date he set with allies to close out the war, dismissing media speculation that he might speed up the process. US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the soldier who has been detained in connection with the Kandahar shootings could face the death penalty if found guilty. The Taliban has renewed threats of revenge attacks, saying it would behead "sadistic" American soldiers. 'Cowered in fear' Details about Sunday's shootings are still unclear. The American soldier left his base in Kandahar in the early hours and went on a rampage in nearby villages. Previous tension points February 2012: Deadly protests after US troops inadvertently burn Koran Deadly protests after US troops inadvertently burn Koran January 2012: Video shows US marines urinating on dead Afghans Video shows US marines urinating on dead Afghans March 2011: Radical US pastor burns Koran, triggering deadly protests Radical US pastor burns Koran, triggering deadly protests April 2008:Protests against cartoon of Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers Locals told reporters how they cowered in fear as the man made his way from door to door, trying to get into their houses. "I saw a man, he dragged a woman by her hair and banged her head repeatedly against the wall. She didn't say a word," one witness said. He broke into three houses and killed 16 people, most of them women and children. He then burned their bodies, according to reports. The US defence secretary said the soldier "came back to the forward operating base and basically turned himself in, told individuals what had happened". Pentagon officials said they would not release his name while the investigation was going on. Reports said the soldier, who has three children, had been deployed to Afghanistan in December for his first tour of duty there after serving three times in Iraq.
Codi Wilson, CP24.com Police say a cyclist has been charged with careless driving after he posted a stunt video on Instagram that showed him weaving in and out of traffic riding only on his back wheel. The cyclist, who posted the video on the Instagram account for My Little Bike Shop, was seen heading southbound on Yonge Street, south of Wellesley Street, with his front wheel in the air, swerving in and out of traffic. At one point during the video, the cyclist is seen briefly biking on a busy sidewalk. Police say the incident occurred on June 17 at around noon. The video was later posted on the Toronto Police Service’s Instagram account with the caption, “Thanks for the video, great riding skill, but dangerous cycling behaviour… YOU now have our attention.” The caption went on to say that the video showed “evidence of careless driving under the HTA” in addition to multiple by-law offences. “This is essentially a perfect example of poor cyclist behavior,” he said. “He could have been killed. He went through a red light between oncoming traffic.” The cyclist defended his actions in a subsequent Instagram post. “I never crashed, I never hit anyone, and didn't commit any sort of hit & run. I never even made / make anyone slow down, hit their brakes or cause them to pull last second maneuvers,” the post read. “Yes, maybe a little dangerous, but I am a expert, have been doing this my entire life and have NEVER had an accident or caused an accident while on the streets of Toronto, while on my bike (one wheel or two).” On Monday, police announced that the 28-year-old cyclist had been charged. He is scheduled to appear in court next month.
Piracy websites can be targeted by the US and UK regardless of where they're hosted or which domain they use, according to legal experts. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has been taking down sites with illegal content and targeted one UK student with extradition, despite the content not being hosted in the US. Erick Barnett, assistant deputy director for (ICE), told The Guardian that any site that uses a .com or .net domain name is fair game, as those are registered through US company Verisign. "By definition, almost all copyright infringement and trademark violation is transnational," he told the newspaper. "There's very little purely domestic intellectual property theft." People do not understand the extra-jurisdictional nature of the internet Iain Connor, a partner in the intellectual property division at law firm Pinsent Masons, said the situation was similar in the UK - but a site need not even use a .uk address to be taken to court, despite a general belief to the contrary. “You look to where the website’s directed,” Connor told PC Pro. While a web address can be one part of that, courts will also look at what language it's written in, what currency it takes payments in, and who advertising is directed at. “It’s a myriad of factors which will determine whether a UK court feels it has jurisdiction, because the test for jurisdiction is where the damage is occurring. “People do not understand the extra-jurisdictional nature of the internet,” he added. “They think, 'I can do it here so it’s okay everywhere'. People need to be aware is that of course the nature of the internet means they can be conducting an illegal act overseas even when the act may or may not be illegal in the country they are based.” Extradition questions The issue affects 23-year-old student Richard O’Dwyer, who faces extradition to the US because his site TVShack.net allegedly linked to pirated content. O’Dwyer’s family and defence have questioned why the US is targeting him when a similar case, over website TV-Links, was dismissed from UK courts. However, Connor suggests the comparison isn’t valid. “That was a Crown Court criminal prosecution, where the burden of proof was unreasonable doubt. Most copyright cases are done on the balance of probability,” he said, adding that criminal burden of proof is an "incredible" level to satisfy. "And, criminal cases are not in any way precedent forming… people point to that case, but so what? If I got off shoplifting in the past, does that mean shoplifting is now legal? No.” And because O'Dwyer's site used the US-based .net domain, US authorities can take action, and will choose to do so in their own courts because they're more likely to win. There’s a diminishing global sympathy for people who are aggregating other people’s content unless they’ve got a license to do it "If you’re looking globally and forum shopping for a court that is likely to give you a better result, the simple fact of the matter is, as a US company, dealing with US content, in front of a US court under US copyright law, you’ll stand a better chance of securing the result you want," Connor said.
This post was contributed by a community member. On this date two years ago, Gov. Maggie Hassan signed HB 573, making New Hampshire the last state in New England to approve a medical marijuana law. Unfortunately, so far this law has failed to benefit patients in any way, and it still is not clear when it will finally begin to do so. Nearly a year ago, I published this commentary on New Hampshire's medical marijuana law at Fosters Daily Democrat. Sadly, very little has changed in the last year, so the following statements remain entirely accurate: "Patients who have been waiting desperately for legal protection have yet to experience any actual compassion from the executive branch." "The challenges facing patients are compounded dramatically by the fact that New Hampshire still maintains such harsh penalties for simple marijuana possession… the penalty for possessing even a tiny amount of marijuana in New Hampshire is up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2000." "As a result of these delays, today many NH patients are forced to continue using dangerous and addictive drugs such as OxyContin rather than being able to benefit from the use of a safer alternative." The human consequences of this policy failure have been substantial. Some, including well-known patient-advocate Clayton Holton, have passed away while waiting for the law to take effect. Others, such as Ron Mitchell, have had no choice but to leave their families behind and move to another state in search of relief. Patients received some good news in late May when the Department of Health and Human Services finally selected three applicants to move forward with their plans to operate four dispensaries in the state. However, the state cannot guarantee that these four dispensaries will be able to open and begin serving patients in a timely fashion. And, since the success of the program depends entirely on the success of these three dispensary applicants, patients are still left with more questions than answers with regard to the program's future. If you're interested in learning more about why this law has not yet fulfilled its purpose, I hope you will take time to read the Marijuana Policy Project's new two-year retrospective on New Hampshire's "Therapeutic Use of Cannabis" program. Titled "Confusion, Delays, and Continued Arrests," it includes the most recent updates, analyzes why the law is not yet effective for patients, and makes recommendations for improving the law and policy moving forward. Additionally, for those who may continue to doubt the efficacy of cannabis for therapeutic use, I hope you will take time to familiarize yourself with research published last year by the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that "Medical cannabis laws are associated with significantly lower state-level opioid overdose mortality rates." It simply makes no sense to continue denying patients legal protection if their medical providers believe they could benefit from using cannabis instead of relying solely on prescription drugs such as OxyContin. But in New Hampshire, that is still exactly what is happening. In one particularly high-profile case, Thomas Orkney, a 58-year-old Navy veteran suffering with a traumatic brain injury, was arrested by Lebanon police and charged with a misdemeanor for possessing less than one-half ounce of cannabis in his apartment. This man was charged with a crime despite the fact that he showed police his medical marijuana certificate from another state and told them he had obtained the cannabis from a state-legal dispensary. Mr. Orkney's arrest plainly contradicted the assurances legislators have continually received from the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police. "We're not arresting patients in their homes," the association's president, Enfield Chief Richard Crate, told the Associated Press in 2013. Even if Mr. Orkney had not been a patient, his possession of cannabis would not have even been considered a criminal offense in any other New England state. All other New England states have decriminalized simple possession in addition to implementing effective medical marijuana laws. Sadly, the question I posed at the end of the Fosters editorial last year still seems appropriate: "Is this really supposed to be somebody's idea of compassion?" Matt Simon is the New England Political Director of the Marijuana Policy Project.
Memphis Depay may have stolen all the headlines as Manchester United returned to European competition against Club Bruges on Tuesday night, but there was further cause for optimism at Old Trafford. Summer singing Bastian Schweinsteiger, a half-time substitute for Michael Carrick, showed United fans what they could expect from the World Cup-winning midfielder this season. In his 45-minute cameo the former Bayern Munich star made more passes than any of the Bruges players made in the entire 90 minutes. Bastian Schweinsteiger was introduced at half-time against Club Bruges on Tuesday night The Germany midfielder attempted more passes in 45 minutes than any Bruges player did in 90 minutes The 31-year-old Germany international even put his own team-mates to shame during the 3-1 first-leg victory over the Belgians as United bid to return to the Champions League group stage. Schweinsteiger attempted a total of 54 passes - more than Wayne Rooney managed in 84 minutes, Memphis Depay in 90 minutes and Adnan Januzaj in 72 minutes. Only fellow new signing Morgan Schneiderlin came close to matching Schweinsteiger's impressive figures. The France midfielder attempted 90 passes in the whole game, which averaged out per half still falls nine short of the German. For Bruges, Oscar Duarte made the highest number of passes. The Costa Rican defender, who helped shut out England at the 2014 World Cup, tried to find team-mates on 44 occasions. Carrick made way for Schweinsteiger as Louis van Gaal admitted he wanted to build up German's fitness PASSES ATTEMPTED Manchester United Morgan Schneiderlin (90 mins) - 90 Daley Blind (90 mins) - 69 Juan Mata (90 mins) - 68 Bastian Schweinsteiger (45 mins) - 54 United fans have been waiting patiently to see more of marquee signing Schweinsteiger, who has been eased in gently over the first weeks of the season by manager Louis van Gaal. The Dutchman revealed after Tuesday's win in their Champions League qualifier that he brought Schweinsteiger on to build up his fitness. 'It was a tactical substitute but also I have to build up the games of Bastian Schweinsteiger because we need him in our team. He came to the USA (on the pre-season tour) out of a holiday. I'm sorry but then you are not fit.' United scored in the final few seconds against Bruges when Marouane Fellaini met Depay's superb cross after the Holland forward announced himself to the Old Trafford crowd with two superb strikes.
New Handheld Game Console Capable Of Running All PC Games Author: Jeff Taylor With the rise of tablets, mobile phones, and notebooks, the desktop market is being kept alive in large part due to PC gaming enthusiasts (and grandparents). PC gaming allows you to experience the fastest frame rates, the best graphics, and the largest and least expensive library of games – the downside is that it’s not exactly portable. Good luck enjoying the latest PC games while you’re stuck in layover at the airport or waiting for a bus, and have fun hauling your entire rig back and forth to a buddy’s house every weekend. There’s got to be a better way… PC gaming is amazing, but we’ve always had to make sacrifices when it comes to the convenience of portability. Dumb little mobile games are popular as hell because you’ve always got your phone on you. But now there’s a portable device that’s small enough to fit in your pocket, but that packs a real punch graphically. The PGS is a new handheld that’s capable of playing PC games at 1440p. It comes loaded with Windows 10, supports Steam games, has 8 gigs of ram, and a 128 gb hard drive. The battery can last for up to 5 hours with very demanding games, and even longer for less graphically-demanding games. There are two versions available, Hardcore and Lite. The lite version has half the ram, half the storage, and runs at 720p. Still, on a 5.5 inch screen, that’s really not the end of the world. Along with Windows 10, this device promises to allow players to dualboot into Android 6 as well, on the 2nd screen. Depending on which model you want, it will cost around $220-$260, which actually seems unbelievable – so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt while remaining cautiously optimistic. Here’s a video from a Kickstarter that they apparently decided not to launch after all: Disclaimer: This is a prototype video, and when somebody in the comments called them out on simply disassembling a Linx 7″ Tablet PC, the creators of the PGS said this video isn’t complete yet and responded as follows: We did not plan to show an early prototype of the public. Before starting the assembly of more complex solutions, we had to ensure the consistency of decisions. It is normal practice for small companies. So far the general reaction to this device has been skepticism, for numerous reasons. A lot of doubts come to mind, like how hot would this little thing get? There can’t be a lot of room in there for fans or ventilation, plus it’s pushing out some real power, with a big battery to boot. How are they including a full version of Windows, all of this hardware, two HD screens, and selling it for a couple hundred bucks? The PGS is set to be available near the end of this year. You can visit their website here. Let us know your initial reactions, impressions, and thoughts about this device. Are you getting your hopes up, or do you plan on waiting until you can actually hold it before getting too excited? Just because it sounds too good to be true, doesn’t mean it isn’t… That’s how the saying goes, right? Update We reached out to the PGS Team for a follow up, and this is their response:
In regard to directing another Star Trek movie, J.J. Abrams said, “I don’t know. The idea of working with these people again would be a thrill and a privilege. One of the reasons I wanted to do the second one was so I had a chance to work with this cast and crew again.” J.J. Abrams added, “It really would depend if there’s a third movie that the studio wants to make. It would depend what the schedule was. Would I be open to it? Of course I would.” Most are assuming that Paramount will want to release Star Trek 3 in 2016 to coordinate with the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. With Star Wars Episode VII set to hit theaters in 2015, a 2016 date would probably be a challenge to work for J.J. Abrams' schedule, but it still might be possible if the release date is late in 2016.
LONDON (Reuters) - British inflation hit its highest level since September 2013 last month, extending its sharp rise since the vote to leave the European Union and tightening the squeeze on living costs as a national election approaches. Consumer prices rose by an annual 2.7 percent, data showed, and they look set to rise further due to the fall in the value of the pound and the recent rise in global oil prices. Britain’s economy was barely ruffled last year by the shock vote to leave the EU. But the steady rise in inflation since then, combined with weak wage growth, has slowed its momentum this year. The opposition Labour Party on Tuesday sought to highlight rising costs for voters as it launched its policy proposals for the June 8 election, pledging a higher minimum wage and state involvement in the energy sector to keep prices down. Last week, Bank of England (BoE) Governor Mark Carney warned 2017 will be challenging for consumers, with inflation now almost certain to overtake wage growth. “The last thing Britain needs is another real wage slump. But rising prices are hammering pay packets,” Trades Union Congress General Secretary Frances O’Grady said. Prime Minister Theresa May called the snap election last month to strengthen her mandate to negotiate Britain’s exit from the European Union. But living standards are a big campaign issue, pushing her party into a promise to cap energy prices that breaks with its usually pro-market agenda. Despite the rise in inflation, however, the economy is far from overheating, and all but one of the BoE’s eight policymakers voted last week to keep interest rates on hold. Prices are displayed on a store window in London, Britain May 16, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall AIRFARES SWING IN EASTER The latest inflation figures were boosted most of all by rising airfares during the Easter holidays which last year took place in March. Rising clothing prices, higher car tax and electricity also pushed up consumer prices. Many economists see more inflation ahead. “We remain convinced that the market is underestimating the further upside for inflation from here,” Scotiabank analyst Alan Clarke said. He expects utility bills, food costs and the weak pound to put more pressure on prices in future. Sterling briefly spiked to its highest in almost a week against the dollar before falling back. GBP=D4 Many economists say the impact of the fall in sterling on consumer prices will be felt more strongly in the coming months, and the central bank expects inflation to peak at nearly 3 percent by the end of this year. Capital Economics said it expected inflation to exceed 3 percent before the end of the year but saw little sign of domestic inflation pressures becoming entrenched. Excluding oil prices and other volatile components such as food, core consumer price inflation rose to 2.4 percent, the strongest rate since March 2013 and above economists’ expectations for a 2.2 percent rise. Slideshow (6 Images) Services prices - which the BoE uses as a guide to domestic inflation pressures - rose by 3 percent, also the biggest jump since September 2013, pushed up by the higher air fares. The ONS said house prices in March rose at their weakest rate since October 2013, up 4.1 percent on the year. Prices in London rose 1.5 percent, the weakest since March 2012.
Why were dozens of New Orleans residents wandering around the edge of Big Lake in City Park after dark on Sunday (July 10), studying the screens of their iPhones and uttering strange words such as "Pidgey," "Crobat" and "Gyrados?" They were engaged in a sort of digital-era, imaginary, hunting expedition called Pokemon Go that, since its debut Thursday (July 7), is gaining on Twitter in the number of daily users, according to Forbes Magazine, and has added $11 billion to the value of Nintendo, the company that conceived it, according to the Quartz website. Early on, the avalanche of game users overwhelmed servers, bringing the hunt to a temporary halt. Pokemon Go player Josh West explained the activity like so: "Basically, Nintendo released an app about a week ago that uses your GPS (the satellite-guided Global Positioning System) in your area to give you a map, and it just places Pokemon all over the map." Before Nintendo sprinkled Pokemon all over the virtual landscapes of the United States, Australia and New Zealand (with the rest of the globe, too, presumably following) the creatures dwelt on Japanese trading cards, comic books, a long-running animated television adventure series and in video games. According to Wikipedia, the Pokemon game series "is the second-most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world, behind only Nintendo's Mario franchise." Harmlessly capturing Pokemon is the goal. The rarer the mythical creature the better. Practically anyone born after Pokemon was invented in 1995, or anyone who has had a child in the Pokemon era, knows all about it. The big difference between Pokemon Go and past Pokemon products, is that the new game requires players to leave their lairs and traverse the analog terrain. "It's '90s nerd nostalgia and it's making everybody get off their behinds and go places," player Cameron Hawkins said. Truth be told, Hawkins used a more colorful term than "behinds." Playing Pokemon Go - Jan Domingue, Nalita Rosales, and Kammie Pom (Photo by Doug MacCash / NOLA.com \| The Times-Picayune) Several players agreed that getting out of the house was, indeed, a big part of the draw. Michael Flynn, whose face was flecked with sweat, said that he'd walked "14 kilometers" on Saturday (July 9), which, he added, was "pretty far" for him. Mohammad Alkurd said that he and his buddies had become so absorbed in the hunt that they wandered the park from midnight Saturday until 7 the following morning. The glowing purple Pokemon Go smartphone maps are apparently tailor-made for given environments. One player pointed out that the Roy Lichtenstein sculpture in front of the New Orleans Museum of Art is a gathering spot that drew hundreds of players in the first days of the game. Players scour the landscape, phones in hand, until they encounter a fluttering on-screen purple bat, a bouncing pink bunny/aardvark, a chattering yellow chipmunk, or some such digital denizen. Then they attempt to capture the crature by tossing virtual magical balls at it. The balls act, more or less like lassos. Like a baseball coach teaching a pitcher to throw a curve ball, one Sunday night player demonstrated the twist of the fingertip that he applies to the digital balls on his touch screen as he lets them fly. He believed that a proper finger twist can make all the difference. Israel Parrilla, who speeds up the stalking process by playing Pokemon Go from the seat of his bicycle, earned gasps of admiration from fellow players when he declared that while hunting near Costco, he had snared a prized blue dragon called a Gyrados. Near Lelong Drive in City Park someone caught a smaller, cuter blue dragon called a Dratini. Everyone agreed that the opportunity to socialize with other creature hunters (aka Pokemon trainers) was a big part of the draw. Some players greeted silhouettes in the distance by shouting "Pokemon Go" in the same way a sailor might shout "Ship ahoy." A reddit page titled NOLAGo seems to be a trove of New Orleans-elated Pokemon Go info. As with any new phenomena, there have been downsides. The Guardian website reported that armed robbers in Missouri may have used the game to lure unsuspecting victims. The CBCNews website reports that a Wyoming player stumbled upon a dead body. CBCNews also reports that the benignly besieged occupants of an Australian police station wish the game-maker had not marked their the station as a Pokemon Go player gathering spot. Pokemon Go - Capturing a Crobat (Photo by Doug MacCash / NOLA.com \| The Times-Picayune) "I had a crazy experience the first day," said a Pokemon Go player who asked to use the pseudonym Professor Alex. "I basically ran into an escaped pit bull (in the Lakeview neighborhood). I'm, like, looking for monsters and I'm not looking where I'm going and I passed this really mean dog. The dog actually attacked me." The professor said he escaped by scrambling up the rock embankment of some nearby railroad tracks, then onto a concrete piling, where he tossed rocks (harmlessly) in the dog's direction, until the animal gave up its pursuit. "It's this really weird learning curve, trying to figure out how to work the game and then having all this, like, real life intriguing crazy stuff happen," the professor said. Attention Pokemon Go players, I'd love to make a slideshow of Pokemons in the New Orleans environment. If you spot Pikachu in the French Quarter or a Gyrados at Elmwood Shopping Center, or a Crobat at NOMA, please snap a screen grab and send it to [email protected], or just post it in the comment stream of this story. Pokemon Go - a Krabby in the Quarter (Photo by NOLA.com \| The Times-Picayune staff) Pokemon Go - a Horsea near the Natchez (Photo by NOLA.com \| The Times-Picayune staff)
Photo Good Tuesday morning from Washington, where immigration remains the No. 1 topic of discussion while President Obama also keeps an eye on Iran talks and the situation in Ferguson, Mo. Senator Mary L. Landrieu bets her career on the Keystone XL pipeline, and the city continues to feel the repercussions of David H. Petraeus’s extramarital affair. In the Senate, an overhaul of domestic spying operations is on the line. While the issue has been overshadowed by the immigration debate, an overhaul of domestic spying operations is set for a test this evening in a Senate vote spurred by disclosures about National Security Agency operations by Edward J. Snowden. Senators will decide whether to open debate on the U.S.A. Freedom Act, a bipartisan proposal backed by both progressives and conservatives in an attempt to end the intelligence agency’s once-secret program, which systematically collects data in bulk about Americans’ phone calls. The bill’s supporters, led by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, say they are close to assembling the 60 votes needed to bring it to the floor. Supporters have highlighted support for the bill from Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter and other tech companies. The bill would allow the phone data to remain in the custody with the phone companies. It would also give phone and Internet companies more freedom to disclose orders they have received from the government. The measure faces serious opposition. Some believe it could harm national security, and others argue it does not go far enough in protecting individuals and consumers. The White House warned yesterday that if the bill is blocked, major surveillance programs due to expire next summer may be in jeopardy. — Carl Hulse President Obama had been back less than a day from a weeklong trip to Asia but he wasted no time yesterday in sounding out Democratic senators on immigration. The discussions were broad, congressional officials said, and Mr. Obama did not provide a timetable for executive actions that could protect as many as five million undocumented immigrants from deportation. But the conversations were a clear signal that the president was preparing to move soon, and came as top Senate Democrats sent a letter urging the president to do so. Immigration activists speculated that an announcement could come before week’s end. But that’s not the only item on his agenda. Today, Mr. Obama faces a Senate vote on a measure that would force him to approve, or veto, the Keystone XL pipeline. In St. Louis, officials are bracing for possible unrest when the grand jury in the Michael Brown case makes its decision public. That could draw Mr. Obama, and the Justice Department, back into that volatile situation. And overseas, the president’s team is probably in the final week of negotiations with Iran over the fate of its nuclear program. For a so-called lame duck, it promises to be a busy week. — Michael D. Shear Last week, Senator Mary L. Landrieu got her colleagues to agree to hold a vote that would expedite approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Then yesterday she found protesters laying down an inflatable pipeline on the lawn of her home a few blocks from the Capitol. But the question remains: Will the vote help her hold her seat in a runoff next month in petroleum-producing Louisiana? Ms. Landrieu, a Democrat, received significant publicity in demanding a pipeline vote as soon as Congress returned. It’s scheduled for today, and win or lose, she can argue that she was able to force the Senate to be decisive — even if the vote was allowed mainly to try to rescue her. But even if Ms. Landrieu were to weld the pipeline together herself, it might not be enough. She is being significantly outspent by Republicans and is at a disadvantage in a head-to-head race against Representative Bill Cassidy, her Republican opponent. Fellow Democrats increasingly see her position as precarious. — Carl Hulse Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who is expected to be re-elected today as the House Democratic leader, moved yesterday to put her stamp on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee by installing Representative Ben Ray Luján as its chairman. Mr. Luján, from a prominent New Mexico political family, puts a younger lawmaker — he’s 42 — with appeal to Hispanic groups at the head of the committee. (He replaces Representative Steve Israel, who is 56 and from reliably blue New York.) As House minority leader, Ms. Pelosi gets to pick the congressional campaign chairman. But she is having to fight to get another of her allies installed as the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Ms. Pelosi wants a close friend, Representative Anna G. Eshoo of California, rather than Representative Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, who has the advantage of seniority. It’s a test of whether Ms. Pelosi still has clout with her colleagues after the electoral pounding her party took two weeks ago. — Carl Hulse President Obama will receive a briefing on the Ebola response at the White House and participate in an ambassadorial credentialing ceremony. Vice President Joseph R. Biden meets with Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka of the Czech Republic before leaving for a trip to Morocco. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, holds a news conference on the Affordable Care Act in Houston. Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about Ebola at 1 p.m. Freshman House members gather for their class photo at 8:15 a.m. The list is an all-star lineup of the Obama administration’s national security team. There are cabinet members, current and former; intelligence chiefs; a constellation of generals; and former F.B.I. and C.I.A. directors. They are all potential witnesses in a lawsuit filed by the Florida socialite Jill Kelley. Her lawyers have told the Justice Department they want to depose each person on the list or subpoena documents from them. Ms. Kelley and her husband are suing the federal government for disclosing her identity in connection with the scandal that led David H. Petraeus to resign as the C.I.A.’s director in November 2012. Alan Raul, a lawyer for Ms. Kelley, and a spokesman for the Justice Department refused to comment. The names have not been made public, but a person affiliated with the litigation provided them, and the biggest are: Gen. John R. Allen. James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Jeh C. Johnson, secretary of homeland security. Robert S. Mueller III, former director of the F.B.I. Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Former Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta. General Petraeus, former C.I.A. director If the suit goes to trial, and they are all called to testify, the witness list would rival the star power at the Scooter Libby trial in 2007. — Michael S. Schmidt The National Journal lists the reasons why an executive order to defer deportations of some illegal immigrants may hurt both parties. At National Review Online, Andrew C. McCarthy lays out the case for President Obama’s impeachment. Uber’s chief executive gave a big thumbs-up to the Affordable Care Act over the weekend, and Republicans aren’t happy, according to New York magazine. What will the “Duck Dynasty” family say? House Republicans have passed a $120 million increase in an annual levy on duck hunters, Politico reports. The ad wars continue in the Louisiana runoff, with Senator Landrieu saying the latest commercial from her Republican opponentis sexist, according to The Times-Picayune. Pope Francis has been invited to address Congress, The National Catholic Reporter says. He would be the first pope to do so.
David Graham, a writer at The Atlantic, thinks it might not be a good idea to annoy your fellow Thanksgiving guests with discussions about politics. However, this year he is making an exception and is urging his fellow liberals to attempt reeducating the "unenlightened" Thanksgiving guests with a plethora of leftist talking points. Why? Because of President Donald Trump. Here is Graham making the case for risking the ruination of your Thanksgiving dinner by injecting liberal politics into the conversations in Go Ahead, Talk Politics at Thanksgiving: <<< Please support MRC's NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>> Of all the Thanksgiving anxieties—bad traffic, overcooked turkey, undercooked turkey, the aunt who tries to get creative with some gourmet cranberry relish when all you want is the familiar canned variety, dammit, her increasingly intoxicated and querulous husband, and so on—no fear seems to equal that of getting sucked into a political conversation. ...This hasn’t stopped some people from urging others to do it—most notably Barack Obama, who encouraged people to talk about health insurance at Thanksgiving 2013. No wonder Obamacare was so unpopular for so long. This year, however, here’s my (probably bad) advice: Go ahead, argue about politics. Really? What changed your mind? Why, David, is this Thanksgiving different than all other Thanksgivings? There are two primary reasons to just dive in. First, President Trump’s ability to grab the spotlight and inject himself into so many facets of life makes trying to avoid politics practically futile these days. I’m a political journalist and spend all my time talking, reporting, and writing about politics, so I am not especially representative, but I also live far outside the Beltway in North Carolina. I am astonished at how often conversations with “civilians” outside of politics and journalism drift inexorably toward politics, followed by an awkward silence as everyone realizes the discussion has gone there. Besides, what else are you going to talk about? The weather? That’s going to be a climate-change debate in no time at all. Of course! Trump's fault. And can we refer to the New York Times column by Benjamin Y. Fong that blames capitalism for climate change? The same capitalism that made it possible for almost every family in America to have a Thanksgiving turkey on their table. Second, the stakes are higher this year. That isn’t to say that politics doesn’t affect our lives deeply all the time—if I felt it didn’t, I wouldn’t waste my time covering it—but the matters that the last year or two have brought into the arena are central to the nation’s identity: the role of racism in American society, the fate of longstanding norms about how the U.S. functions, the appropriate role for our country in global affairs, what rule of law means, and nuclear war, for pete’s sake. These are more important than the details of health-care legislation, marginal tax rates, or any number of the mundane topics that might have caused friction at previous years’ family feasts. If the things I’m talking about here are more likely to cause screaming matches, that’s because they’re so important. Oh yes, how well I remember the children at the kiddies table last year getting into a food fight arguing over marginal tax rates. A familiar Thanksgiving topic going back to the days of the Pilgrims. Only by talking to relatives can you find out whether they hold dubious political positions (read: ones you disagree with, but also ones that are factually incorrect), and thus try to convince them to adopt your position. How to do that? Politifact offers a fact-sheet for easy reference, but frankly you’re probably better off just setting your own pants on fire. Liar! Liar! Pants on fire! As for relying on Politifact, right now their Thanksgiving recommendation is to stick to such "facts" that Trump is merely the lucky beneficiary of "economic tailwinds" and that Hillary Clinton knew nothing about anything nefarious in the Uranium One deal. Got that, Sergeant Schultz? She knew nothing...NOTHING! Political scientists have also found that people are more likely to change their political views based on personal interactions—especially personal interactions that are focused on issues, rather than arrayed along partisan battle lines. So does that mean we should bring some extra MAGA hats to the Thanksgiving meal to give to one or more of the guests in case they get Red Pilled? So go ahead, take on your grandma’s outdated views. Go ahead, get into it with your smug, know-it-all nephew. Go ahead, explain to your cousin who read an online explainer that the issue is more complicated than it appears. The country’s fate depends on it. "Alexa, please talk to my annoying Thanksgiving guest so I don't have to listen to his drivel."
The Campaign for North Africa Designer(s) Richard Berg Publisher(s) Simulation Publications, Inc. Publication date 1978 Genre(s) Military simulation Players 2-10 Playing time Up to ≈1,500 hours Synonym(s) CNA The Campaign for North Africa (generally referred to as CNA by wargamers), is an unprecedentedly detailed military simulation game of the North African Campaign of World War II.[1] It was designed by Richard Berg and published by Simulations Publications, Inc. in 1978. Complexity [ edit ] Though some fans of war simulation games appreciate detail, The Campaign for North Africa offered more detail than any board wargame before or since, leading to the ambivalent reaction with which the game is regarded. Even gamers who were initially fascinated with the idea of an extremely detailed war game might have been chagrined when they opened the box to discover 1,800 counters, maps large enough to cover several tables, and a three-volume rulebook of considerable weight and density. The rules cover logistics in extreme detail, far more so than the combat simulation. It is recommended that each side be played by a five-person team, including a Commander-In-Chief and four subordinate commanders, making a total of ten players needed for a game, although it can be played with the usual two. According to SPI, a complete game can run over 1,500 hours. However, the logistics of keeping a ten-person group together for fifteen hundred hours of gaming was a feat beyond even most hardcore wargamers, and completed full games of The Campaign for North Africa are rare. Legacy [ edit ] Although The Campaign for North Africa is playable only with great difficulty in terms of time, the game is prized by collectors and has been praised by some players, who consider it something of the "ultimate paper war game". A commonly cited example of its level of detail (and one noted in SPI's advertising) noted is the fact that the game's Italian troops required additional water supplies so that they could prepare pasta. The game represents a brief evolutionary step between the relative simplicity of most paper war games of its time, and the dawn of the era of computer war games, where complexity and depth need not come at the expense of playability. Due to the game's collectability and legendary status, it has long been considered a candidate for possible reissue. Decision Games expressed a desire to do so, promising "the unplayable monster made playable", which suggests that the game would be considerably revamped instead of simply reprinted. The December 2007 flyer allows a prospective purchaser to commit to buying the game if and when it is published. Latest developments [ edit ] The original game has received an extensive rules review, which nevertheless retains the unique and detailed game systems. Apart from a variety of minor fixes, a series of deeper changes have been made to "fix" the oft-criticised air game rules. An extensive spreadsheet system, backed by custom programming has been developed in association with the update. This "playable" version is hosted at the CNA Play Group. In the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, the game is played in "The Neonatal Nomenclature" (S11/Ep1-2018) when character Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) offers to stay with Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz (Melissa Rauch) while waiting for her go into labor.
The other, which included New England-area research institutes only, found that women joining those organizations as new faculty members received lower levels of start-up funding to launch their independent research than male junior faculty — on average, less than half the amount the men received. These new findings are especially troubling in the context of the traditional academic trajectory of women, said Dr. Gary Gilliland, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center president and director, who was not involved in either study. Students enrolling in and graduating from medical school and graduate programs in biology are about equally split between men and women, Gilliland said. But women are underrepresented among faculty members at universities and other research institutes — and those are the scientists who generally lead research teams. The study released Tuesday, which was led by researchers at Harvard Medical School, found that women make up 33 percent of academic medical faculty overall but only 17 percent of full professors. “That’s one of the biggest challenges at any institution. How do you make sure you’re providing adequate support for women?” Gilliland said. Gilliland is proud that women make up 40 percent of the full members at Fred Hutch (the equivalent of full professors at universities), but recognizes that the Hutch — and academic science overall — still has work to do to reach gender equality. “The thing I’d like to focus on here at the Hutch is how do we get to 50 percent [female faculty]? And what are the issues that constrain that? I’m not sure I know all the answers to that, but there are ways that we can try to understand it,” he said. The many roads to inequality It’s not news that there are gender differences across many aspects of science, said Harvard Medical school physician and health economist Dr. Anupam Jena, who led the study on gender disparity among research physicians. Previous studies have identified that women in academic science and medicine have lower salaries, fewer publications and are less likely to hold leadership positions than men. But the Harvard study captured measures of research productivity such as years of experience, publications, grant funding and participation in clinical trials that could play into women’s career advancement — any measure they could think of other than blanket discrimination — and stripped them away. When they did, they found that all else being equal, a female academic physician was about 13 percent less likely to be a full professor than her male counterpart, Jena said. That disparity held up across all types of institutes, including those top-ranked as teaching hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, and across nearly all medical specialties. For their study, Jena and his colleagues drew from a database of nearly 1 million U.S. doctors collected by the medical social media network Doximity. That dataset included more than 90,000 physicians working at universities and other academic organizations. Like past studies, theirs found that the female academic physicians on average had fewer publications, were less likely to have conducted a clinical trial or to have an NIH grant. This lower overall research productivity could be due to confounding factors like lower start-up funding, lack of mentorship or interruptions to work from having children, Jena said. But their study did show something new: “Once you equalize the playing field and take men and women who are equally productive in terms of research, it still appears to be the case that men are promoted to full professor more often than women are. So it does definitely suggest that there’s some discrimination going on that needs to be addressed,” Jena told Fred Hutch News Service. Jena hopes academic leaders will follow suit by looking into their institutes’ own promotion practices. “When that information is more transparent, I think there’s an opportunity at the higher levels to ensure that this discrimination doesn’t occur,” he said. “Transparency is probably key to all this.” Disparities in dollars The other JAMA study on gender disparities was led by Boston-based Health Resources in Action, which helps match private philanthropists with medical research in need of funding. As part of the application process for early-career researchers, the organization asks applicants to list the amount of money received from their home institution to start their research labs, also known as a “start-up package,” said HRiA’s Dr. Robert Sege. “We began to just notice there was a difference” between the start-up funding levels reported by men and women, said Sege, who led the study and who oversees the grant process at HRiA. So they analyzed 219 applications that came from male and female junior faculty from 55 different New England institutes. They found that the average male applicant reported start-up funding of $889,000. The average female faculty member’s start-up package: $350,000. “It was completely a shock to me about how big the difference was,” Sege said. “This is how people get started in their scientific careers. The fact that men have a median over twice as high as women at similar points in their careers was really quite surprising.” Although their study was small and only included organizations from one area of the country, Sege believes these trends will likely hold true in larger studies. New England is a large biomedical research hub that attracts scientists from all over the world, Sege said: “I couldn’t think of any reason why this would be a big difference in New England if it didn’t represent a national trend.” In the years between 1999 and 2012 (the most recent year complete data was available), the average start-up funding amount given to the 14 female laboratory-based junior faculty hired at Fred Hutch was 81 percent the average amount the 32 male early-career faculty hired in that period, according to information from the Fred Hutch finance department. The closest comparison to the Hutch’s faculty in the HRiA study were the basic scientists, Sege said. Female basic science researchers in Sege’s study received on average 60 percent of the start-up package the men were given. Sege’s study wasn’t able to address the reasons behind the large funding disparity, but Fred Hutch cell biologist Dr. Sue Biggins suspects that negotiation is to blame. “Start-ups are often negotiated and some women will be less likely to ask for as much,” she said. Others have proposed similar reasoning behind salary differences between male and female scientists. That’s part of the reason that Fred Hutch’s Basic Sciences Division, for which Biggins serves as associate director, has a different policy for both start-up funding and salaries. In Biggins' division, start-up funding is based simply on a list of necessary resources provided by the incoming faculty, Biggins said, and salary is based solely on title. “We eliminate a lot of the negotiation issues, which reduces potential disparities,” she said. Have you experienced gender bias in your career? 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Insulin that can be inhaled was briefly available to diabetics a few years ago -- but weak sales drove drugmakers to shut down their sales. Now, a new inhalable insulin powder that's more effective than injected and oral treatments could be available as early as next year. Businessweek reports. In a late-stage clinical trial, Afrezza showed positive results for controlling diabetes. Taken with a small inhaler (called Dreamboat), the powder helps insulin reach peak levels within 14 minutes -- matching the insulin release in non-diabetics when they eat. According to the drug’s maker, California-based MannKind, in this latest study -- involving 518 patients with Type 2 diabetes (where cells fail to use insulin properly) -- Afrezza helped reduce long-term blood sugar levels. It’s also expected to be used by patients with Type 1 diabetes (where the body produces no insulin). Pharmaceutical companies have been working on inhalable insulin for a long time -- on the theory that diabetics would rather puff on an inhaler than give themselves a shot. They’ve faced high profile commercial failures in the past: In 2007, Pfizer stopped selling its Exubera insulin powder because of weak sales after less than two years on the market. Exubera never gained traction, largely because insurers wouldn’t pay for it, saying it was too expensive and didn’t work for many patients. Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk both ended inhaled insulin research programs in 2008. According to MannKind last week, Afrezza is more effective than the prior drugs and could cost about the same as the current injectable insulin "pens" (about $2,000 annually). The market for diabetes treatment is "so immense and it’s growing so rapidly," says MannKind’s Matthew Pfeffer. More than 8 percent of Americans have Type 2 diabetes. "While we think of our country as having an obesity and diabetes epidemic, we’re not even in the top 10 of incidence of diabetes." The U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected Afrezza in 2011. The company plans to file these latest results with the FDA this fall and expect a decision in 2014. [Via Businessweek, Reuters] Image: MannKind This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com
Notes: Hey, Jokemaster here just wanted to say that this is my second "story" ever and this is actually going to be a multi-piece story. So if there's anything y'all think I could improve or change, please don't be afraid to leave a review to let me know. Yang is a playful spontaneous big sister, not to mention she is one of the best fighters in the entirety of her school and to top it all she has the best teammates anyone could ask for. She has one problem however She wanted to fuck all of them and perhaps the biggest problem was that she meant it, especially the "all of them" part, which included her sister. Blake caught her eye was when they first met in the emerald forest when she took down an ursa and smirked at Yang almost tackling her then and there. Ever since she met Weiss, Yang wanted to make that perfect princess her submissive bitch. Last, but certainly not least, Yang wanted Ruby, her own sister, to become her personal sex slave and allow Yang to use her mouth whenever she Yang knew just how unlikely all that was and one fateful day decided to take a walk to clear her mind of all her dark and lustful thoughts. While Yang was walking in the emerald forest to clear her head, she ended up walking a rather far distance from beacon. The sun was setting and Yang decided it was time to head back, the problem was she felt rather lost in the large forest and on top of that she could feel eyes watching her. She readied herself for an attack from any angle when she heard rustling all around her. Out of the bushes jumped a horde of grimm in the form of a dozen beowulfs, a dozen ursas and even, four goliaths with their massive tusks pointed at her. All of the beast surrounded her. Yang knew on her best day she couldn't handle these many grimm and began to look for a way out. To her surprise she heard someone call out from behind the grimm, "Don't be afraid dear child, my pets and I are not here to hurt you." she couldn't put a face to the voice until the grimm encircling her parted like an opening gate to show a tall woman with snow white skin, black veins, in a dark dress, and seemingly literal darkness emanating off of her. The woman approached the Yang and stared at her for a moment, smiling. Yang had no idea who she was but realized she was screwed if the grimm suddenly attacked and played along with this mystery woman and asked, "Who are you and if you don't want to hurt me then what do you want?" The woman's smile grew and replied "My name is Salem and I'm here to help you dear child, I sense the dark desires you have and I am here to give you the power to make your dreams reality" Yang was baffled she had no idea how much Salem knew about her and responded with a stutter, "I-I have no idea what you're talking about" Salem gave a sinister laugh and spoke again, " You lust for all of your teammates, even your younger sister" Yang was completely awestruck, blushing heavily and couldn't even formulate a response. "How delicious, don't worry girl I am here to help you dominate all of them and all you have to do is be willing to let me test a new spell on you" Yang still awestruck but able to form a response this time responded, "I don't really have a choice do I?" Salem, all too eager to respond, "oh my dear of course you do, my new spell is meant to affect willing subjects only, a type of reward for those smart enough to join me rather than foolishly opposing me, so you could choose to join me and live in pleasure or deny me and the other option is death" she said that final bit while staring into Yang with her own glowing red eyes. Yang realizing her situation thought on her very limited options and decided that possibly being able to live out her sexual fantasies with her teammates sounded much better than being grimm food and agreed to be Salem's subject. Salem approached Yang put her hand on the young huntress's chest and told her to take a deep breath. Yang felt a burst of what could only be described as pure darkness leave Salem's hand and enter her chest, it stung for just a second. Yang fell forward into Salem who happily caught her newest test subject."What did you do to me?" Yang asked unable to stand on her own yet, "I gave you a miniaturized version of my own power, you will have increased strength, endurance, and even create and control your own grimm, not to mention a fun new tool for yourself, though in truth not all powers may manifest right away and you will have to use your dark-lustful thoughts to master them. Initially you will need to transform into a form like mine to use them, but eventually you will have access to all of your powers in your human form. Let's start with transforming, you must visualize yourself dominating someone you want" Yang regaining her balance focused on what Salem said and thought about Ruby and fingering her while she was tied down and gagged, unable to stop Yang from fingering her to orgasm again and again. That thought did the trick all right, by the time Yang came back to reality from her sexual daydream, she realized that she had transformed into a near copy of the woman before excluding their own physical differences such as height, she looked just like the woman before with both of them having snow-white skin, dark veins, Yang's hair having turned pure white. Yang felt stronger than before and was even able to order some of the grimm to come closer and back off by just waving her hand. It all would have been crazy enough on its own but then Yang looked down for her biggest surprise. A new addition to her lower body in the form of a 12 inch dick with a fair amount of girth to it. While Yang found herself yet again unable to form words from shock, Salem took the time to explain what the hypothesized abilities were of her experimental spell, "when you cum inside anyone in any whole with your new tool a darkness will spread within them into their brain and slowly, but permanently, turn them into obedient slaves with their bodies and minds unable and un-wanting to resist you." "Allow me to demonstrate what it would taste like for your lucky victims" with that Salem approached Yang from behind and began to stroke Yang's cock. Yang had never experienced pleasure in this way and her legs quickly turned into jelly under Salem's amazing touch and found herself on her sitting on the forest floor with Salem sitting right behind her still stroking her. After a few moments Yang's breathing was rugged and she could feel she was close and then Salem whispered in her ear "get a good look and sniff of your new equipment" Yang did as she was told, to lost in her pleasure as she found herself intoxicated with the amazing smell. After she got over her initial high of the smell she noticed her cock was oozing clear liquid out of the tip, she wondered what it was. Salem whispered in her ear yet again saying, "bend down and taste it" Yang complied yet again and was able to bend down easy enough to take a small and hesitant lick of her new cock and its Yang was in love with the flavor and wanted more as she was about to bend down to start sucking herself off Salem stopped her "Now you understand why you will be irresistible, but suck yourself off on your own time this is merely a demonstration of what it will be like for those you dominate, now let me finish you off, but do keep your mouth open we wouldn't want to waste anything~" Not a moment later Yang was thrown over the edge screaming, "oh yes, oh YES!, OH YES!" then she came full force with her face still looking down and mouth happily still open ready to receive her own gifts that she would eventually give to the rest of her team. Yang's cock shot the delicious liquid directly into her own awaiting mouth and combined with the fact that Salem was enjoying the sight so much that she didn't feel like stopping Salem kept up her stroking which caused Yang to shoot multiple ropes of her cum into her mouth swallowing as much as she could. One more orgasm directly into her mouth again. By the time Salem was satisfied with her subject, Yang was a scrambled mess on the forest floor Salem stood to leave and ordered one of her grimm to give Yang a ride back to just outside the school limits so in the morning Yang could begin her dream of dominating her team which even in Yang's mind scrambled state new would be an incredibly pleasurable experience.
A 19-month-old toddler is in a medically-induced coma after a SWAT team threw a flash bang grenade in his crib during a no-knock raid. Local news stations report the child is also paralyzed. However, police state that the incident isn’t their fault – the baby is, sadly, a casualty of domestic terrorism. The boy’s mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, had brought her husband and children to visit her sister-in-law in Georgia after their own Wisconsin home burned down. Habersham County, Georgia, deputies allegedly bought drugs from a man in the home earlier that week and returned with a no-knock warrant on May 28th. The raid occurred around 3 a.m. A Special Response Team (SRT) accompanied by narcotics agents breached the door and, finding the doorway blocked, threw the flash bang. The object blocking the doorway just happened to be little Bou Jr’s playpen, and the device landed on his pillow. Sheriff Joey Terrell, the district attorney, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) have all stated that law enforcement did not engage in any wrong doing, as they did not know there would be children in the home. Terrell told press that because their informant did not mention seeing any children on the premises, the event could not have been prevented or avoided. He additionally stated that they had had prior information on the suspect, who had been involved in an altercation involving a “possible AK-47.” He added that the altercation was “supposedly about drugs.” He also reports that the child’s parents “knew something was going on” and tried to keep themselves and their children separated from the dealings while searching for another place to live. However, Terrell also shows little remorse or sympathy for the innocent child caught in the crossfire and takes none of the blame. “The person I blame in this whole thing is the person selling the drugs,” he told the local news. “All they care about is making money… They don’t care about what it does to families. It’s domestic terrorism, and I think we should treat them as such.” He went on to talk about how angry it makes him that these “terrorists” have destroyed another family. Wanis Thonetheva, 30, was arrested on drugs and weapons charges during the raid; however, police have not been clear as to whether or not drugs or weapons were actually found in the home. By Terrell’s logic, it is Wanis Thonetheva who is responsible for the maiming of a baby, because he committed the terrorist act of voluntarily exchanging a desired product for money. Thonetheva is guilty because Regardless of one’s belief as to whether or not this is a heinous crime, does such an exchange warrant a violent response that endangers not only the seller, but his or her family, friends, or neighbors? Terrell states that his department started the team because “children are getting involved in situations they don’t need to be.” However, one could argue that children also do not need to be innocent victims during no-knock raids. A charity to help little Bou can be found here. Contact information for the county police can be found here.
Workers in the United States know they are losing ground in the current Depression, as they are watching the rich going in the opposite direction. A decline in real wages comes on top of stagnation of wages in the three previous decades. A new report issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says: “The recent recovery in the United States appears unusual from a historical perspective … with a much stronger rebound in profits relative to labor income. “One explanation is that workers’ fear of long-term unemployment has led to more subdued wages relative the labor productivity growth during the recent recovery.” How can we be speaking of a “Depression” and a “recovery” happening at the same time in the US (and world) capitalist economy? New York Times columnist Paul Krugman compares the situation with the Great Depression of the 1930s. After the initial crash, there was a period of recovery which led to another downturn around 1937. But the whole decade was marked by stagnation and high unemployment. This is the kind of period we are in now. The IMF report found Americans are lagging far behind their counterparts in Europe. Only workers in two advanced economies in Europe have fared worse during the recent recovery: Spain and Greece. The IMF also says that while profits are up everywhere, total labour compensation has risen in every leading economy except four: the US, Greece, Ireland and Spain. The change in the relative share of total income going to labour has fallen sharply in the US since the trough of the downturn. It has risen slightly in Europe as a whole. Should workers in the US be looking to Europe for guidance? That’s not the way it looks from here, peering across the Atlantic. What we see is a Europe in deep economic turmoil and trouble, with some countries, including Britain, already teetering on a new downturn, high unemployment, and “austerity” for workers. We can be envious of the fact that many European workers still have a higher social wage, government benefits won in struggle in the past, than US workers have. But the austerity drive in Europe is attacking those benefits. And, in much of Europe the electoral system, while geared to maintaining capitalist rule, is more democratic than in the US. The voice of working class resistance to the capitalist offensive can peek through, even if it is muffled. Or not so muffled, as in the case of the anti-austerity Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) in Greece which came second in the May 6 elections and is polling way ahead for the June 17 follow-up election. In the US, we are in the midst of an electoral farce to beat all electoral farces. The Democrats and Republicans are really two wings of a single capitalist party, whose major “difference” is over how much to cut the social wage and how fast, and how much to privatise everything from jails, education and even the postal system. The grotesque spectacle of billions of dollars being spent on vacuous advertisements for the candidates of both parties makes the 2012 elections not only farce but buffoonery. One thing we can identify with in Europe is mass mobilisations against the capitalist offensive. The Occupy movement is part of that. The situation for US workers is even worse than it appears in the IMF report. The IMF includes in the workers’ share of national income wages, salaries, interest, capital gains and stock compensation and compares this to business profits. Workers do get some interest on their savings, some stock income and capital gains, but the bulk of these incomes go to the rich. The salaries of the top officers of JPMorgan Chase are not exactly in the same category as the salaries of the bank tellers they lord over. The IMF also doesn’t include cuts to the social wage. The attack on the social wage in the US is picking up steam. One example is unemployment benefits. A recent article in the NYT said: “Hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans are receiving their final unemployment cheques sooner than they expected, even though Congress renewed extended benefits until the end of the year. “The cheques are stopping for the people who have the most difficulty finding work: the long-term unemployed. More than five million people have been out of work for longer than half a year. “Federal benefit extentions, which supplemented state funds for payments up to 99 weeks, were intended to tide over the unemployed until the job market improved. “In February, when the program was set to expire, Congress renewed it, but also phased in a reduction in the number of weeks of extended aid and effectively made it more difficult for states to qualify for the maximum aid.” As a result, hundreds of thousands of long-term unemployed won’t even get their cheques through the end of the year when the program expires. [Barry Sheppard was a long-time leader of the US Socialist Workers Party and the Fourth International. He recounts his experience in the SWP in a two-volume book, The Party -- the Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, available from Resistance Books.]
Remember why unions were formed in the first place — to protect workers from being taken advantage of? Nowadays, the rank-and-file mostly need protection from their own leadership. Daniel Hughes, former head of the Field Supervisor Association representing Port Authority workers, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court this week to looting $300,000 in members’ dues over five years. The union heavyweight allegedly used the money for Queens hotel trysts with hookers, casino getaways and high-priced dinners. A rare occurrence? Hardly. Last May, ex-Central Labor Council boss and former Queens Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin was sentenced to 10 years for embezzlement — including from the electricians union he once ran. Other examples abound. A not-exhaustive rap sheet — partly tracked by the DC-based National Legal and Policy Center — includes: * Aug. 5, 2009: Michael Forde, ex-head of the city’s District Council of Carpenters, was hit with a 29-count indictment for taking bribes from members — in exchange for allowing them to avoid mandatory contributions to their pension funds. Forde beat similar charges several years before. * Feb. 11, 2010: Anthony Rumore, ex-president of Scarsdale’s Teamsters Local 812, pleaded guilty in federal court to making false statements related to extorting free labor out of his membership. * Feb. 16, 2010: Thomas Pokrywczynski, former secretary-treasurer of Buffalo-area Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1342, pleaded guilty in federal court to theft of $254,000 in union funds. * Feb. 17, 2010: Melissa King, former benefits administrator of the “Sandhogs” tunnel-digging union, was indicted for embezzling some $40 million from three benefit funds she oversaw. * April 21, 2010: Wayne Mitchell, ex-president of Communications Workers of America Local 14170 (representing mailroom workers), pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court to embezzling $200,000. * April 23, 2010: Mitchell’s immediate successor, Larry DeAngelis, pleaded guilty to stealing $60,000 from the union. * May 11, 2010: Peter Thomassen, assistant supervisor of the above-mentioned carpenters union, resigned after a report showed huge amounts of spending on lavish parties, junkets and steak dinners. An indictment is anticipated. An epidemic? So it would seem. Rank-and-file members can be forgiven for suspecting that there’s something about organized labor that attracts leadership of a criminal bent.
Mutmut: a Python mutation testing system Anders Hovmöller Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 1, 2016 Skip to “How hard can it be?” if you don’t care about the background. What is mutation testing? Mutation testing is a way to be reasonably certain your code actually tests the full behavior of your code. Not just touches all lines like a coverage report will tell you, but actually tests all behavior, and all weird edge cases. It does this by changing the code in one place at a time, as subtly as possible, and running the test suite. If the test suite succeeds it counts as a failure, because it could change the code and your tests are blissfully unaware that anything is amiss. Examples of mutations are changing “<” to “<=”. If you haven’t checked the exact boundary condition in your tests, you might have 100% code coverage but you won’t survive mutation testing. Background I wanted to try out mutation testing for libraries I build in Python so I looked at what was available. I had some ideas for ways of radically speeding up mutation testing based on what pytest-testmon does and adding some ideas of my own on top. Googling showed me two alternatives: Mutpy: a simple system developed as a thesis. Not maintained anymore. Cosmic Ray: actively developed. Both these are Python 3 only which is a bit sad because I’m still on Python 2 for work at least for a year more. But I could live with that since the libs are Python 2 and 3. Cosmic Ray seemed the more promising so I tried installing it but after struggling just to get the dependencies installed I decided that if it’s this hard just to install it probably won’t be practical. I looked into the code a bit to see if I could use just the mutation parts as a library but it looked to me like a big monolithic system so I gave up on that. Next I looked at mutpy. This code is radically smaller and simpler but after struggling to refactor it in some ways to make it even simpler I thought to myself: How hard can it be? Turns out, not that bad! Mostly the building blocks are already available. I decided that I absolutely wanted a feature both Cosmic Ray and mutpy lacked: being able to apply a mutation on a source file and not screw up the entire file. Cosmic Ray and mutpy use Pythons built in AST library but it has the unfortunate property of not representing formatting in the AST, making it impossible to just dump the AST back out and get the original file. So if I can’t use Pythons own AST, what then? Enter baron, an independently developed Python->AST library specifically created to be able to round trip without changing your source files. Baron doesn’t support all of Python 3 syntax yet unfortunately, but it looks like people are working on it. [EDIT: Since this article I’ve replaced Baron with Parso and now I fully support Python 3!] My battle plan was this: Make a mutate function that receives source code and can mutate everything relevant (so you can get a count of available mutations) or a specific mutation specified by an index. Make an import hook so that the file you want to mutate is mutated in memory on the way from disk. This will enable parallelization. Pytest plugin that sets up the import hook and enables you to specify what mutation you want. Make a small command line program that runs through the mutations and checks the output from tests. It should also be able to apply a specific mutation on disk, so when you find an interesting one you can see very easily what the mutant was. Point 1 was fairly easy: basically I needed to make sure all AST node types were either not mutated (because it doesn’t make sense) or mutated in the most nasty way I could think of. In this step I ran through the code of lots of big open source projects (e.g. django and numpy). I found some parse bugs in baron at this step, but nothing that impacted the code I wanted to run mutation testing on. I just reported the bugs and moved on. Point 2 was nasty. It turns out the import hook system in python is pretty shit. The default behavior to load from the filesystem isn’t in the list of hooks because it’s in C code somewhere, so you can’t base an importer on it. That would be ok if the design was ok, but unfortunately the import hook system works like this: Python asks one import hook at a time to import the module. That sounds simple and simple is often good, but importing actually contains these steps: Find the source file Read the source file Convert the source file from text to a runnable module And all importers must do ALL of the steps. So the zip file importer must do the steps that are the same as the default and it can’t just call into the default loader because it doesn’t exist as python code. And it also means that if I want to intercept between step 2 and 3 on ALL importers I have to reimplement all importers. This obviously sucks (and might not even be possible, for systems with their own custom importers), but even worse is that implementing an import hook correctly at all is a lot of nontrivial code that is a bloody beast to get right. Supposedly this is somewhat better in python 3 with importlib, so I found a backport of it to python 2 but it was broken. I managed to hack around the crashes but in the end I didn’t get my import hook working with that either. I asked for help on reddit too, to no avail. After several hours of fighting this fight I gave up (for now) and just went with disk based mutation. It’s not great because it can’t be run in parallel but at least it works and it’s super simple. It’s also very flexible with regards to which test runner you use, since you don’t need any plugins that would have to be made for pytest, nose, unittest, etc, one by one. Giving up on this means Point 3 becomes moot, so that’s great. Basically I should have made this thing first anyway, because it’s very good to have :P Point 4 was pretty easy. The hardest was finding out how to nicely output continual progress updates on the console :P So where do I stand now? We’ve run mutmut on tri.declarative and tri.struct at work and it found several things we didn’t test as thoroughly as we thought, even though we had 100% coverage on our tests. For tri.declarative it also found a piece of dead code and an error in correctly creating a plural in an error message. It clearly improved our test suite, even though it didn’t find any bugs. You can probably just run mutmut right now. It’s a pretty simple piece of code and for it to work with your test runner it just requires that it has an exit code of zero for success and anything else for failure. It’s pretty slow obviously since it’s not parallelized at all and it has to run the entirety of whatever test suite you specify for every mutation (and there are many!). What’s next? I still have some work to do. Using pytest-testmon is still on my list, as is solving the import hook system to enable parallelization. Those things alone should be able to give me orders of magnitude faster tests. The goal is to keep the super simple system I have now so that there’s always a simple to debug and adapt system that you can use for weird scenarios or debugging. I also have some ideas for pytest-testmon like being able to keep a central database shared between developers, which could also be used for mutmut so if someone has already tried running a specific mutation for a specific version of a file, you don’t have to. 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I♥Halloween > Haunted Houses > California Haunted Houses for Halloween 2018 Here in the Golden State, the Halloween Season offers an endless amount of fun. A popular tradition that many enjoy during the spooky season is Haunted Houses, of course! There are a ton happening all throughout California, whether you reside in San Diego, Los Angeles or up by Sacramento, there’s plenty of Haunted Houses in your area that are opening their doors for your dark pleasure. Many will start their season before October even arrives, and won’t close up shop until right after Halloween, giving you more than enough time to get your Haunted House fix! Some haunts will feature a theme that they stick to all throughout, while others switch things up depending on the room you’re in. In this case, you won’t know what is awaiting you in the next room – it could be a killer clown, a hungry zombie or a psychotic doctor and his patients – you’ll never know until you enter! If you’re interested in taking the kiddies with you, but want less scares, some haunts feature “Not-So-Scary” days where the entire family can attend together. These usually take place on the weekends, so be sure to check the particular Haunt’s schedule ahead of time to assure you head there on the correct days. Add to the fun by checking out a haunt that offers additional Halloween activities such as Pumpkin Picking, Hay Rides, Spook Walks and Corn Mazes! Haunted Houses Near California I♥Halloween hopes that you have found the ideal Haunted House attractions to feed your appetite for fright this Halloween season! Nearby Haunted Attractions More Haunted Events & Attractions in California Fall Farm Fun / Things To Do California Experienced a Haunted House in California? Tell us about your experience so we can let visitors know what they can expect. If you own or operate a Haunted House and want to be published in this directory please use this contact form to get in touch. All information on this page was believed to be accurate at the time it was posted. Always call before you go and please report any inaccuracies. Comments comments
Advertisement Massachusetts Army vet using music to help kids around globe Justin D'Addario founder of "Rock 'N Roll Uganda" Share Shares Copy Link Copy Many people dream of one day becoming a rock star and gaining international fame.A retired Army veteran from North Andover has actually done it, but you probably don't know him.Justin D'Addario is the founder of "Rock 'N Roll Uganda," a school that teaches impoverished young people to play the guitar for free.D'Addario is a retired Army combat engineer whose tour in Iraq and Afghanistan was cut short by a roadside bomb on Thanksgiving Day in 2009. When D'Addario recovered, he found he still had a desire to serve.His new mission became finding a place in the world where he could help young people.D'Addario landed in the Ugandan Capital of Kampala, at a little school called the Rainbow House of Hope.He said when the school asked what his talents were, he said he could teach English and play the guitar. "There were three of them there, and they said, 'you can play guitar?'"It turned out the school had a number of guitars in storage, and no one knew how to fix them.D'Addario taught the kids what he knew: Rock 'n Roll."The only full songs that I knew were by bands like Green Day, Bad Religion and Blink 182, D'Addario said. "They totally loved it!"A short time later, several of the students became teachers too, and would-be rockers were coming from all over.Three years later, the program has ten guitars and over 100 students D'Addario is now trying to raise the money to build an actual school.. through a GoFundMe page.He estimates it would take approximately $15,000 in U.S. currency to accomplish his goal. For more informationhttps://www.gofundme.com/yf2u2khttps://www.facebook.com/PunkRockKampala/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hiCbt2nlqUhttp://crowdsurfcentral.com/articles/2016/6/2/rock-and-roll-ugandaGet the WCVB News App
Cost of gold in 1983: $424/troy ounce 2008 inflation adj. cost: $914/troy ounce Actual 2008 cost: $923/troy ounce When Mr. T hit the TV scene on "The A-Team," he wore a swath of gold chains around his neck, both on-screen and off. If T decided to cash in the raw material today, he'd make a tidy sum of $923 an ounce, which is more than double the price of gold in 1983, according to Catherine Gignac, precious metals analyst for Wellington West. But when you adjust it for inflation, the value is about the same as it was 25 years ago, she said. So you should pity the fool who told T he'd make real money with a long-term investment. Incidentally, Mr. T stopped wearing the gold after Hurricane Katrina, because he considered it an insult to the impoverished victims. NEXT: Ocean's Eleven - 1960 vs. 2001
It was, at times, puzzling — a three-ring circus without the tent — for players wearing the Double Blue in 2016. For some members of the Toronto Argos, the puzzles turned into chaos early in 2017. First, GM Jim Barker was shoved out the door on Jan. 24. Three days later, head coach Scott Milanovich quit to become the quarterbacks coach with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. With plenty of moving parts and not much certainty in either the football ops department or in the coaching staff, potential free agents lined up to get out the door. Three Argos – defensive back A.J. Jefferson, along with receivers Kenny Shaw and Diontae Spencer — landed with the Ottawa Redblacks. “I would have loved to stay in Toronto, but our coach left, our GM left … I didn’t know what was going on,” explained Jefferson on Thursday. “I decided I should see what was going on in free agency. It was one of those things where it was just time for a change.” It was a weird 2016 season for the Argos. In early October, after a 38-11 thumping at the hands of the Montreal Alouettes, the Argos dumped their three best receivers – Kevin Elliott, Vidal Hazelton and Tori Gurley. A couple of weeks before that, the Argos dealt for quarterback Drew Willy – but they paid dearly, giving up popular defensive back T.J. Heath along with first- and third-round draft picks. “We lost some guys during the season, that was kind of upsetting to me,” said Jefferson. “It was surprising. It was the last thing I would have expected them to do. When they traded T.J., everybody was kind of, ‘It’s OK, they have a plan, they have a plan.’ In the end, I just wondered, ‘Where is this all going?’ ” So when it came time to test the free-agent waters, on Feb. 14, Jefferson got a good feeling about the Redblacks after talking to the team’s coaches. He signed a one-year contract and is excited to be part of RNation. “They play my kind of football,” he said. “I wanted to go to the best place where I could have success. I think I excel in man (to man pass coverage) and press man, we kind of got away from that last year in Toronto. My first year, that’s pretty much all I did. (The Redblacks) said they would give me an opportunity to showcase my talent.” It’s been a learning curve for Jefferson since he joined the Argos in 2015 after spending time on the NFL rosters of the Arizona Cardinals, Minnesota Vikings and Seattle Seahawks. In his two CFL seasons, the 28-year-old from Bakersfield, Calif. has 91 tackles, five sacks and six interceptions. One of those interceptions came last July 31 (in a 23-20 Argos win over Ottawa) on a gimmick play by the Redblacks, who initially lined up for a field goal attempt, but instead had quarterback Henry Burris run up behind centre Jon Gott and lob a pass intended for Zack Evans. Even with a defensive lineman as the intended target, the Argos weren’t tricked. “They lined up in a field goal formation, then everybody split,” said Jefferson. “So they left me on the backside. I knew I had to watch the guy. But it was kind of 2-on-1. My teammate and I had the guy dealt with. He went out for a pass, it wasn’t a nice pass. It was fairly easy to get underneath it.” A multi-sport athlete – soccer, basketball, running track, football and T-ball (“I think I played it one year — I was bored, kicking the grass”) – Jefferson said he puts plenty of work into improving what he does. “Football was one of those things that kind of translated over from every other sport I played – catch the ball and run with it,” he said. “I look at my film from last year. Typically, I watch the games I don’t think I played well in – try to see what I can improve on. Everybody’s different. People learn differently. The things I do well, I don’t tend to work on those. The things I don’t do well, I want to get to the point where I can do everything pretty good. Then I can start working on things that I’m really good at. I’m like my own biggest critic. So I’d rather see what I’m doing wrong and correct it.” He believes his arrow is still pointing up as he drives himself to get better. “I’ve always been wanting to be the best at whatever I’m doing,” said Jefferson. “It’s kind of the way I grew up around my family and friends – being very competitive. Being a professional, it’s one of those things you have to do to keep your job. Redblacks could be done spending While there’s still a pretty impressive list of CFL free agents looking for work, it’s possible, maybe even likely, that the Ottawa Redblacks have closed their wallet. Free-agent season, for them, may already be over. Defensive linemen like Alan-Michael Cash, Bryan Hall, Justin Hickman, Euclid Cummings and both Moton Hopkins and Cleyon Laing from Ottawa’s Grey Cup team of 2016 are still looking for work. Another former Redblack, offensive lineman J’Michael Deane, is still a free agent. Then there are defensive backs like Patrick Watkins, John Ojo and Cauchy Muamba. Some of the players mentioned are looking for an NFL opportunity, for others it’ll be a matter of time. But when asked if Ottawa might get back into the free-agent fray, Redblacks GM Marcel Desjardins said: “I don’t anticipate us doing anything.” As they say, it is what it is.
Wintzell's Oyster House is shuttering its Huntsville store today after six years in business. The Mobile seafood chain announced the closure Sunday on Facebook. No one at the Sanderson Street restaurant was available this morning for an interview about the closure. Wintzell's continues to operate restaurants in Guntersville, Mobile, Saraland, Fairhope, Orange Beach, Greenville, Montgomery and Fultondale. After careful consideration, Wintzell's in Huntsville has made the very difficult decision to close it's doors effective... Posted by Wintzell's Oyster House-Huntsville on Sunday, February 19, 2017 The closure comes three years after Wintzell's shut down its Decatur eatery on Beltline Road Southwest in the Plum Tree Shopping Center. Thirty-five Wintzell's employees were left jobless less than two weeks before Christmas. Sam's Sports Grill now operates in the former Wintzell's space. AL.com will update this story as more details are available.
BANGKOK/JAKARTA -- For automakers, Southeast Asia means Indonesia and Thailand. Impending Thai auto subsidies have manufacturers from across the globe scrambling to set up shop. Indonesia, meanwhile, is a huge market with plenty of room to grow. The entire region has promise. But capturing a piece of these two markets could allow an automaker to lay the foundations for future regional expansion. "Since the Mazda 2 [called the Demio in some markets] is a highly competitive model globally," said Yuji Nakamine on Nov. 6, "it will make a big contribution to the growth of the Thai automobile industry as an export model." Nakamine, senior managing executive officer of Mazda Motor, was at a ceremony in Thailand marking the beginning of production of the car there. Initial production of cars for export to Australia began in mid-September at Auto Alliance (Thailand), a 50-50 joint venture with U.S. automaker Ford Motor in the southeastern province of Rayong. To begin mass production, Mazda took over passenger car production lines from Ford with a view to raising annual output capacity to 120,000 units, up from 50,000. Sales in Thailand and neighboring countries are due to begin early next year. Total investment costs in the Mazda 2 factory were 12.6 billion baht ($383 million). "We are investing so big because we aim to build Thailand into our global export hub," Nakamine said. Helping hand The Mazda 2 will be eligible for tax benefits under Thailand's program to promote fuel-efficient, low-cost small cars. The companies that benefited from the first phase of the government program, which began in 2007 and ran through 2012, were Toyota Motor, Honda Motor, Nissan Motor, Mitsubishi Motors and Suzuki Motor -- all Japanese. Nine models, including Nissan's March, which in March 2010 began rolling off production lines, achieved combined sales of 500,000 units. The cumulative total of cars that were built, including exported vehicles, came to more than 1 million. Nissan shifted production of the March from Japan to Thailand during the subsidy program. It has remained there since, and the car is exported from the Southeast Asian nation to the rest of the world, including Nissan's home market of Japan. It was the first time for Nissan to produce a major model overseas for export back home. Critics worried whether Thai workers could turn out quality cars. But no longer. The export base has been a success. Among Japanese automakers with production bases in Thailand, Mazda was the only one to miss out on the first round of subsidies. So when the government unveiled Phase 2 of its program for eco-friendly cars, Mazda was determined to be the first to get preferential treatment. Japanese automakers have company this time round. General Motors and Ford Motor of the U.S., Gremany's Volkswagen and SAIC Motor-CP, a joint venture between Shanghai Automotive Industry and Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group, are all expected to apply for tax breaks. Subsidies will be available for cars with gas engines of 1.3 liters or less, and those with diesel engines of up to 1.5 liters. The cars also have to get a fuel efficiency of at least 23km per liter of fuel to qualify. Manufacturers are expected to invest at least 6.5 billion baht in facilities for subsidy-compliant cars. They must also ramp up output to at least 100,000 units annually within four years. If all conditions are met, the government will reduce or eliminate such charges as corporate tax, import tariffs on facilities and components, and excise tax. The five Japanese automakers that qualified for the first round of benefits positioned Thailand as a launchpad for exporting low-priced small vehicles worldwide. Ford and GM are expected to do the same when the next phase kicks in. GM has a Thai plant, built in 2000, that is capable of turning out 130,000 vehicles a year. Outside of its joint venture with Mazda, Ford has a plant that began operations in 2012 and can build 150,000 vehicles a year. SAIC Motor-CP opened a factory in June with an annual capacity of 50,000 vehicles. It aims to build one more facility, which will add another 200,000 vehicles to capacity. Volkswagen does not have factories in Thailand but is considering setting up a plant to produce eco-friendly cars there. Glut feeling Thailand's auto market may soon have an overproduction problem. Still, manufacturers are undeterred; Southeast Asia is one of the world's most promising growth markets. Six major Southeast Asian nations -- Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore -- saw combined new car sales rise 70% over the five years through 2013, to 3.56 million vehicles. The combined market is larger than that of Russia, which in 2013 had sales of 3.04 million vehicles, India's 3.24 million, and close to Brazil's 3.77 million. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations "has a population of 600 million people and a growing middle class, and very low vehicle density," said Matt Bradley, president of Ford Asean. "That will make Asean one of the largest buying populations in the world." Sometime in the next five years, he added, Asean will hit 5 million sales annually. Two characteristics define the Southeast Asian auto market: its importance for meeting demand at home and abroad, and the dominance of Japanese companies. Thailand is home not only to automakers, but also to a number of parts and materials suppliers, reflecting its growing importance as an export hub. Indonesia, meanwhile, with a population of 250 million, has a great deal of domestic demand to satisfy. The two nations make up more than 70% of the regional market. Japanese vehicle sales in Asean have outstripped regional market growth. Japanese producers have a combined 89% share of Thailand's auto market and 95% of Indonesia's. European, U.S. and other automakers need to figure out how to take share from Japanese manufacturers. Non-Japanese companies are working on doing just that. In Indonesia, which is set to overtake Thailand to become Southeast Asia's top auto market this year, GM has constructed a plant with an output capacity of 40,000 vehicles a year at a cost of $150 million. Production at this plant, in Bekasi, on the outskirts of Jakarta, commenced in mid-2013. It turns out a family-friendly, small crossover utility vehicle, the Chevrolet Spin. The price of the seven-seat vehicle starts at 150 million rupiah ($12,300), about the same price as the mainstay model of Toyota's Avanza, Indonesia's top-seller. Ford earlier this year launched a small SUV, the EcoSport, in addition to its popular compact Fiesta in Indonesia. The EcoSport is designed to appeal to young consumers and sells for 200 million rupiah to 300 million rupiah. Tata Motors, which in 2012 formed a subsidiary in Indonesia, last year released the small hatchback Vista, SUV Safari Storme and crossover Aria. At the Indonesia International Motor Show in Jakarta in September, the Indian company displayed its Zest sedan, which had just hit the Indian market. Tata is considering selling the car in Indonesia. "We will continue to introduce new models and create a new market," said Biswadev Sengupta, president director of Tata Motors Distribusi Indonesia. Extra space Statistics on car ownership highlight the growth potential of the Thai and Indonesian markets. In Thailand, one out of five people owns a car; in Indonesia, one in 60. By contrast, there is one car per 1.3 people in the U.S. and one per 1.7 in Japan. Moreover, Asean plans to create a single market in late 2015. This should add further impetus to auto and auto parts exports within the region, and facilitate production and marketing. The Asean Economic Community is expected to simplify procedures for foreign companies wanting to set up shop in countries in the region. Despite the promise, automakers face significant challenges. Volkswagen, which had planned to break ground on a plant in Indonesia earlier this year, put off the move until 2015 or later as the rupiah depreciated. Non-Japanese companies have also yet to create robust sales and service networks, which will likely limit their reach for potential customers.
March 1, 2012 TENS OF millions of workers took part in a one-day general strike in India on February 28 in the country's largest industrial action since its independence in 1947. This is the first time that India's main trade union federations, which are all affiliated to one or another political party, have come together to protest "neoliberal economic and labor policies" pursued by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the governing coalition led by the Congress Party. The action was also supported by more than 5,000 independent unions. This reveals two important things about India that are usually forgotten by the Western media. First, India is not merely a seething mass of desperation, composed of peasants and the abject poor. It has a massive working class with organizations that are capable of bringing out large forces. Second, the economic realities of neoliberal growth do not go unchallenged indefinitely. Even in the places where the vice grip on workers has been tightened to extreme levels, people find a way to fight back. Participants in India's largest-ever general strike march in Hyderabad Among the demands that the unions made were the establishment of a national minimum wage, the end of temporary employment (what are called "contract laborers" in India) in favor of permanent jobs, more efforts to curb runaway inflation (the official rate is hovering at around 7.5 percent), guaranteed pensions, and an end to the privatization of publicly owned companies. The banking and insurance sectors were hit hardest by the strike, but other workers, including dockworkers, postal workers and transportation workers, were heavily involved. The coordination of a national strike on this scale marks the beginning of a new stage in the confrontation between labor and capital in India, as the benefits of India's boom has produced an economy in which the benefits accrue to the few at the top. Despite threats from the central government and a last-minute offer to negotiate, the strike took place and brought out millions. In Kerala, the state government threatened workers with a "dies non" order (no work, no pay), while in other places like New Delhi, the government attempted to enforce the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) to force workers in industries like power generation back to work. In West Bengal, members of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) party also attacked and injured strikers. FOR THE past decade, India has been the darling of the economic pundits globally, with massive growth rates and a burgeoning middle class whose consumptive powers have fuelled the national mythology of "India Shining." According to current estimates, the Indian economy grew at around 7 percent last year and is projected to grow again at a similar rate in 2012. At the same time, the benefits of that growth have been massively skewed. As Katherine Boo's new book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, demonstrates, the growth of the Indian economy has happened at the same time as the growth of its underclass. Mumbai, the symbol of India's new economic power and famous for its massive film industry, is now commonly referred to as "Slumbai"--more people live in slums in Mumbai than don't. Many of these slum dwellers work in the hyper-exploitative informal economy--if they work at all. Agricultural reforms implemented in the past 20 years have immiserated people in the countryside. Last year alone, there were more than 15,000 farmer suicides as a result of indebtedness and bad harvests. Desperate farmers then migrate to the larger cities and towns where they form the massive reserve army of the unemployed, which drives down wages. The national strike was a response to these conditions and the pinch that workers are feeling throughout the country. Last year, there were some spectacular job actions at places like the Maruti Suzuki auto plant in the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon, where workers fought a pitched battle for wages and occupied the factory for almost two weeks. At the same time, the official line of the Congress Party-led government and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is that neoliberal economic policies are going to continue. At the heart of the fight with the unions is the controversial pensions bill now before parliament, which would tie workers' retirement benefits to market-driven financial instruments and put employee retirements in jeopardy. But also at issue are Singh's plans to sell off major state holdings in order to finance repayments on international loans and budget deficits. Singh did, after all, cut his teeth as the economic architect of India's neoliberal reforms, which began to be implemented when he was the finance minister under former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. All this puts twin pressures on unionized workers in India. On one side is the threat of being pushed into the growing underclass, which labor is trying desperately to unionize. The other peril comes from neoliberalism and the attack on union rights. This has produced the conditions for greater worker militancy in India. However, this confrontation between labor and capital in India will not be decisive. To start with, the unions have only put forward a tentative one-day strike, with a long and vague list of demands. Moreover, the official trade unions are all connected to various political parties, and these massive days of protest are usually connected to political gamesmanship that the parties play against one another. The unions at the head of the strike were led by the official left in India, which is still dominated by Stalinist and Maoist political organizations. So in India, there is the All-India Federation of Trade Unions (run by the Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) Janashakti faction), All India Central Council of Trade Unions (dominated by the CPI-ML Liberation faction), All India United Trade Union Center (run by the Socialist Unity Center), the All India Trade Union Congress (run by the Communist Party), the Center of Indian Trade Unions (controlled by the Communist Party of India-Marxist) and the United Trade Union Congress (run by the Revolutionary Socialist Party). Since many of these parties are no longer revolutionary, they tend to play a dampening role on the class struggle, rather than developing it. This isn't to say that workers don't fight back. They do, but the unions do their best to limit their struggles. In 2006, there was an attempt to form a federation of Independent Trade Unions called the New Trade Union Initiative, which holds out some of the best possibilities for an independent trade union movement in India. Many of these unions also participated in the recent one-day action. Second, there are also reactionary trade unions, like the Hindustan Mazdoor Sabha run by the right-wing Bharatiya Janati Party (BJP), and the Bhartiya Kamgar Sena, run by the ultra-right-wing Shiv Sena. Both of these unions also participated in the strike, largely because the leftist unions kept the slogans vague enough that the right wing could use the one-day strike as cover for purported populist politics. Part of the reason that the right and the left were able to come together (as they have in the past, under the Janata Party government in the 1970s) is because they are both now in the opposition to the Congress Party's UPA coalition that runs the central government. In fact, despite agreeing early on to support the strike, the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC, run by the Congress Party) withdrew after the party leadership put substantial pressure on it. "The strike is politically motivated and illegal. We will oppose it on Tuesday," said Ashok Chaudhary, the national president of the INTUC. But this alliance between left and right can only be temporary and opportunistic, as the BJP and Shiv Sena are both pursuing neoliberal policies in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra respectively, where both play much larger regional roles. The left-right labor alliance is also dangerous, since the right wing has not been shy about stoking up ethnic and communal hatred in times of economic contraction. PART OF the reason that the strike took place in as spectacular a way as it did was because the traditional left was routed at the polls in the last elections. During the time that the left was in power in places like Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal, they were able to play a dampening role on industrial actions. But once they were removed from office, they found it possible to allow the discontent of their members to be expressed in order to embarrass the current government. But only to a point: Too much worker militancy threatens their own ability to contain mass anger. Indeed, these parties have, in the past, used their ability to keep a lid on struggle to lure capital investment to their economically impoverished states. Thus, in those traditional leftist strongholds, the strike was strongest, and it went beyond industrial work stoppages to actually disrupt traffic and business in major cities. In other places, such as Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, and Karnataka, the effects of the strike were not as strongly felt. But the most significant showdown was clearly in West Bengal, where Chief Minister Banerjee attempted to flex her muscle against what she called "the politics of bandhs" (protests that shut downs entire cities). Having recently beaten the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at the polls, Banerjee is now in the position of having to do the bidding of large capital, despite having organized strikes and bandhs herself in the past. In Kolkata, the police were out in droves, attempting to get people back to work, while Banerjee's TMC party sent many of its members to break up rallies and pickets throughout the city. Ironically, Banerjee came to power on the basis of an electoral backlash against the CPM when it tried to raze entire villages in order to make way for a manufacturing campus in the countryside for industrial giants like Tata Motors. Now, Banerjee is doing the work of the same capitalists she claimed to oppose--an opportunistic about-face that will only expose her to greater challenges. What the general strike reveals is that although working-class anger at the economic and political system in India is growing, the major left parties have been unable to deliver anything but symbolic and token changes in their lives. The general strike revealed that the working class in India is quite large and has muscle. But to take the struggle forward, workers will need new forms of political and union organization.
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BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Monday that “diehard” independence supporters in Taiwan and Hong Kong were seeking to link up to hatch separatist plots, but that they would never succeed. Pro-independence protesters carry placard and flags during a pro-democracy march on the day marking the 19th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to Chinese sovereignty from British rule, in Hong Kong in this file photo dated July 1, 2016. REUTERS/Bobby Yip Dozens of pro-Beijing lawmakers walked out of the Hong Kong legislature last Wednesday to prevent the swearing-in of two pro-independence activists, setting the scene for a new constitutional crisis in the Chinese-controlled city. Asked about the case the following day, Chiu Chui-Cheng, spokesman for Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, said the two had been directly elected and called on China and Hong Kong to respect the will of the public. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said on Monday the “one country, two systems” model for Hong Kong had been fully implemented since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, receiving widespread support in Hong Kong and internationally. “We resolutely oppose the Taiwan authority meddling in and interfering with Hong Kong’s implementation of ‘one country, two systems’ and words and actions that damage Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability,” it said in a statement. “Diehard Taiwan independence elements on the island and Hong Kong independence elements are colluding with each other, making futile attempts to split the country. “This will certainly be opposed by compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and in Hong Kong and cannot succeed.” Ray Wong of the “localist” group Hong Kong Indigenous also visited Taiwan last week. The topic of independence has long been taboo in Hong Kong. China considers self-ruled Taiwan a wayward province and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control after defeated Nationalist forces fled there at the end of a civil war with the Communists in 1949. Relations between China and Taiwan have worsened since the election of Tsai Ing-wen from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party as Taiwan president in January.
"My cats are my family. They make our home so enjoyable that no words can describe how much they mean to all of us," said Wei Wang from Taiwan. Melon, one of Wei's cats, has a huge appetite. Unlike other cats in the house, he cleans everybody's dishes and makes sure that there is no leftover on the plates. Melon is therefore bigger than Aniki who is at the same age as him. Melon loves snacks and can go crazy for them. "No matter what he is doing at the time, as soon as he hears the snack bottle, he will run over and try to grab the treat off my fingers with all he's got." No matter how you cuddle or hold him, Melon never gets annoyed. He likes to be petted and given a lot of attention to. He is always sweet and never throws a fist at people. Melon likes to wrestle with Aniki, but they always end up snuggling together in a nap. "It gives all of us a fuzzy feeling inside every time." "I watch them grow and take care of them along the way. The experience has been extremely precious. We have built a strong bond with each other. They are more than just pets, they are my children." Photos courtesy of ©Wei Wang. (See Wei Wang's other cats: Sushi & Aniki)
For a while now, the Ruby community has become enamored in the latest new hotness, evented programming and Node.js. It's gone so far that I've heard a number of prominent Rubyists saying that JavaScript and Node.js are the only sane way to handle a number of concurrent users. I should start by saying that I personally love writing evented JavaScript in the browser, and have been giving talks (for years) about using evented JavaScript to sanely organize client-side code. I think that for the browser environment, events are where it's at. Further, I don't have any major problem with Node.js or other ways of writing server-side evented code. For instance, if I needed to write a chat server, I would almost certainly write it using Node.js or EventMachine. However, I'm pretty tired of hearing that threads (and especially Ruby threads) are completely useless, and if you don't use evented code, you may as well be using a single process per concurrent user. To be fair, this has somewhat been the party line of the Rails team years ago, but Rails has been threadsafe since Rails 2.2, and Rails users have been taking advantage of it for some time. Before I start, I should be clear that this post is talking about requests that spent a non-tiny amount of their time utilizing the CPU (normal web requests), even if they do spend a fair amount of time in blocking operations (disk IO, database). I am decidedly not talking about situations, like chat servers where requests sit idle for huge amounts of time with tiny amounts of intermittent CPU usage. Threads and IO Blocking I've heard a common misperception that Ruby inherently "blocks" when doing disk IO or making database queries. In reality, Ruby switches to another thread whenever it needs to block for IO. In other words, if a thread needs to wait, but isn't using any CPU, Ruby's built-in methods allow another waiting thread to use the CPU while the original thread waits. If every one of your web requests uses the CPU for 30% of the time, and waits for IO for the rest of the time, you should be able to serve three requests in parallel, coming close to maxing out your CPU. Here's a couple of diagrams. The first shows how people imagine requests work in Ruby, even in threadsafe mode. The second is how an optimal Ruby environment will actually operate. This example is extremely simplified, showing only a few parts of the request, and assuming equal time spent in areas that are not necessarily equal. I should be clear that Ruby 1.8 spends too much time context-switching between its green threads. However, if you're not switching between threads extremely often, even Ruby 1.8's overhead will amount to a small fraction of the total time needed to serve a request. A lot of the threading benchmarks you'll see are testing pathological cases involve huge amounts of threads, not very similar to the profile of a web server. (if you're thinking that there are caveats to my "optimal Ruby environment", keep reading) "Threads are just HARD" Another common gripe that pushes people to evented programming is that working with threads is just too hard. Working hard to avoid sharing state and using locks where necessary is just too tricky for the average web developer, the argument goes. I agree with this argument in the general case. Web development, on the other hand, has an extremely clean concurrency primitive: the request. In a threadsafe Rails application, the framework manages threads and uses an environment hash (one per request) to store state. When you work inside a Rails controller, you're working inside an object that is inherently unshared. When you instantiate a new instance of an ActiveRecord model inside the controller, it is rooted to that controller, and is therefore not used between live threads. It is, of course, possible to use global state, but the vast majority of normal, day-to-day Rails programming (and for that matter, programming in any web framework in any language with a request model) is inherently threadsafe. This means that Ruby will transparently handle switching back and forth between active requests when you do something blocking (file, database, or memcache access, for instance), and you don't need to personally manage the problems the arise when doing concurrent programming. This is significantly less true about applications, like chat servers, that keep open a huge number of requests. In those cases, a lot of the application logic happens outside the individual request, so you need to personally manage shared state. Historical Ruby Issues What I've been talking about so far is how stock Ruby ought to operate. Unfortunately, a group of things have historically conspired to make Ruby's concurrency story look much worse than it actually ought to be. Most obviously, early versions of Rails were not threadsafe. As a result, all Rails users were operating with a mutex around the entire request, forcing Rails to behave like the first "Imagined" diagram above. Annoyingly, Mongrel, the most common Ruby web server for a few years, hardcoded this mutex into its Rails handler. As a result, if you spun up Rails in "threadsafe" mode a year ago using Mongrel, you would have gotten exactly zero concurrency. Also, even in threadsafe mode (when not using the built-in Rails support) Mongrel spins up a new thread for every request, not exactly optimal. Second, the most common database driver, mysql is a very poorly behaved C extension. While built-in I/O (file or pipe access) correctly alerts Ruby to switch to another thread when it hits a blocking region, other C extensions don't always do so. For safety, Ruby does not allow a context switch while in C code unless the C code explicitly tells the VM that it's ok to do so. All of the Data Objects drivers, which we built for DataMapper, correctly cause a context switch when entering a blocking area of their C code. The mysqlplus gem, released in March 2009, was designed to be a drop-in replacement for the mysql gem, but fix this problem. The new mysql2 gem, written by Brian Lopez, is a drop-in replacement for the old gem, also correctly handles encodings in Ruby 1.9, and is the new default MySQL driver in Rails. Because Rails shipped with the (broken) mysql gem by default, even people running on working web servers (i.e. not mongrel) in threadsafe mode would have seen a large amount of their potential concurrency eaten away because their database driver wasn't alerting Ruby that concurrent operation was possible. With mysql2 as the default, people should see real gains on threadsafe Rails applications. A lot of people talk about the GIL (global interpreter lock) in Ruby 1.9 as a death knell for concurrency. For the uninitiated, the GIL disallows multiple CPU cores from running Ruby code simultaneously. That does mean that you'll need one Ruby process (or thereabouts) per CPU core, but it also means that if your multithreaded code is running correctly, you should need only one process per CPU core. I've heard tales of six or more processes per core. Since it's possible to fully utilize a CPU with a single process (even in Ruby 1.8), these applications could get a 4-6x improvement in RAM usage (depending on context-switching overhead) by switching to threadsafe mode and using modern drivers for blocking operations. JRuby, Ruby 1.9 and Rubinius, and the Future Finally, JRuby already runs without a global interpreter lock, allowing your code to run in true parallel, and to fully utilize all available CPUs with a single JRuby process. A future version of Rubinius will likely ship without a GIL (the work has already begun), also opening the door to utilizing all CPUs with a single Ruby process. And all modern Ruby VMs that run Rails (Ruby 1.9's YARV, Rubinius, and JRuby) use native threads, eliminating the annoying tax that you need to pay for using threads in Ruby 1.8. Again, though, since that tax is small relative to the time for your requests, you'd likely see a non-trivial improvement in latency in applications that spend time in the database layer. To be honest, a big part of the reason for the poor practical concurrency story in Ruby has been that the Rails project didn't take it seriously, which it difficult to get traction for efforts to fix a part of the problem (like the mysql driver). We took concurrency very seriously in the Merb project, leading to the development of proper database drivers for DataMapper (Merb's ORM), and a top-to-bottom understanding of parts of the stack that could run in parallel (even on Ruby 1.8), but which weren't. Rails 3 doesn't bring anything new to the threadsafety of Rails itself (Rails 2.3 was threadsafe too), but by making the mysql2 driver the default, we have eliminated a large barrier to Rails applications performing well in threadsafe mode without any additional research. UPDATE: It's worth pointing to Charlie Nutter's 2008 threadsafety post, where he talked about how he expected threadsafe Rails would impact the landscape. Unfortunately, the blocking MySQL driver held back some of the promise of the improvement for the vast majority of Rails users.

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