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It was building up to be a hugely difficult decision for Zinedine Zidane, and one that could have made or broken a career-defining night for Gareth Bale, only for the Real Madrid record signing to make it very easy for his manager.
Amid so much debate about whether he or Isco will start for Real Madrid in their Champions League final against Juventus in Cardiff, the 27-year-old took matters into his own hands, by taking time to explain how bad his ankle still is.
“I am not 100 per cent. I haven’t played for six or seven weeks. I obviously had my operation which still really hasn’t recovered,” Bale said, on Real’s pre-final media day. “If I’m called upon to start, I will start obviously. But to last 90 minutes. I haven’t played a lot of football this year since my operation, so that would be difficult. Isco has been playing fantastically well for us, at the end of the season, so whatever the manager decides, I will [accept it].”
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Given those very comments and how he went on to speak about the pain he's been suffering, however, the decision is surely to start Bale on the bench in his home country? It could have been a lot more complicated for Zidane this week, even if it could still leave a few complications in the summer.
The major issue beyond Saturday’s showpiece at the Principality Stadium is that Bale remains president Florentino Perez’s major modern signing, and one of his favoured players. The Bernabeu supremo likes seeing him on the pitch, and enjoys the devastatingly pure pace and power to his game.
Perez feels that Bale embodies the kind of individual brilliance that Real’s history has been built on, but that isn’t necessarily the individual brilliance that the current team's run to the final has been built on.
There is little doubt Isco’s more poised game has given Real much more of a balance, and just made all those individual parts fit so much better. A team that had constantly been so unconvincing despite its quality all of a sudden looked so complete, especially in the last two Champions League ties against Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid. It gave Zidane a huge dilemma ahead of the last and biggest game of the season, and one that many around the Bernabeu believed could define him as a manager.
Would he do what was evidently best for the team and pick Isco, or do what felt implicitly political and pick Bale, especially given all the drama and symbolism of this match being played in Wales. This is how it was meant to be, after all: the record signing going back home to emphasise how the Bernabeu is the European Cup’s home, by helping them becoming the first club to retain it in the modern Champions League era.
Shape Created with Sketch. Real Madrid's greatest-ever XI Show all 11 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Real Madrid's greatest-ever XI 1/11 Iker Casillas Getty 2/11 Chendo Getty 3/11 Fernando Hierro Getty 4/11 Sergio Ramos Getty 5/11 Roberto Carlos Getty 6/11 Pirri Nationaal Archief Fotocollectie Anefo 7/11 Zinedine Zidane Getty 8/11 Cristiano Ronaldo Getty 9/11 Francisco Gento Getty 10/11 Raul Getty 11/11 Alfredo di Stefano Getty 1/11 Iker Casillas Getty 2/11 Chendo Getty 3/11 Fernando Hierro Getty 4/11 Sergio Ramos Getty 5/11 Roberto Carlos Getty 6/11 Pirri Nationaal Archief Fotocollectie Anefo 7/11 Zinedine Zidane Getty 8/11 Cristiano Ronaldo Getty 9/11 Francisco Gento Getty 10/11 Raul Getty 11/11 Alfredo di Stefano Getty
“It is massively special for me personally, as it is where I was born, where I grew up,” Bale added this week. “Any Champions League final is special, but this is a little bit extra special.”
That would have been very tough to resist, and required almighty resolve from Zidane. Now, it is barely a dilemma at all. Whether intentional or not, Bale has made it very easy to be left out.
It would now be a huge surprise if he didn’t start this home final on the bench. The ripple effect of that, however, could be to bring Bale’s time at the Bernabeu to a close. As reported by The Independent in early May, Perez wants to keep the Welsh star, but there are a few among the Bernabeu hierarchy that are suggesting a sale might not be the worst idea and it was not a coincidence that a comment piece appeared in Marca on Monday suggesting exactly that.
The bottom line is that if Real do win on Saturday to return to Europe’s peak, but without Bale in the starting XI, that will be a much easier sell. It is a prospect that has already been discussed between Bernabeu officials and those from Manchester United.
There is another prospect from this final, however, that could prove just as influential. Some close to Zidane’s squad feel it is highly likely that Bale will come on as a sub, especially if the game is as tight and tough as Juventus’ famed defence suggests it will be. It could then become a contest when the Welsh star’s individual brilliance from the bench is essential.
That could well mean that, even if the final does not go as Bale or so many of his Welsh supporters had imagined, it could yet exceed expectation and become an even greater home-coming story.
It would be foolish to write him off. He’s been in similar situations and prevailed, such as in the 2014 final when he hit the goal against Atletico that finally put Real ahead to eventually win 4-1, even if the surroundings have never been as familiar as the Millennium Stadium.
So much intrigue will begin with Zidane's decision, but Bale has gone some way to finalising it. After that is when matter gets far more interesting.
Keep up to date with all the latest news with expert comment and analysis from our award-winning writers |
Canada’s poised to welcome the first planeload of Syrian refugees Thursday evening as part of the federal Liberals’ much-touted pledge to resettle 10,000 (formerly 25,000) by the end of this month.
But the government still hasn’t followed through on its election promise to reverse health cuts to refugee care made under the previous government three years ago.
READ MORE: What’s the deal with refugee health care?
“The Government is committed to restoring the Interim Federal Health Program. We are currently working towards that goal,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokesperson Nancy Caron said in an email to Global News Thursday evening.
But the feds have made a special provision to ensure Syrian refugees get the full slate of health care as other privately sponsored refugees and asylum-seekers in limbo get turned away.
“The current Interim Federal Health Program includes provisions that allow the Minister to extend the coverage available to an individual or group,” Caron wrote.
“In this case, full IFHP benefits, known as ‘Type 1’ coverage, is being made available to all of the Syrian refugees arriving in Canada as part of this initiative. We will have more details available soon.”
Caron wouldn’t say when the health cuts will be reversed for all refugees.
READ MORE: Canada’s scrambling to resettle Syrian refugees but won’t say when health care will be restored
About 20,000 refugees come to Canada per year, from dozens of countries. Canada is in the midst of several multi-year commitments to resettle refugees from Eritrea, Sudan, Iraq, Bhutan, Turkey and elsewhere.
A federal court called the 2012 cuts to refugee care “cruel and unusual.” The then-governing Conservatives appealed that ruling and hadn’t reinstated refugee health care when the Liberals defeated them in October.
Restoring full refugee health care was one of the Liberals’ campaign promises. Both Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister John McCallum and Health Minister Jane Philpott have reaffirmed that pledge.
WATCH: Philpott on Syrian refugee health care
It isn’t clear why that hasn’t happened.
In the meantime, privately sponsored refugees, people whose claims are in limbo or who are making an “inland” refugee claim after having arrived in Canada don’t get the full benefits of their counterparts.
In response to the cuts Ontario, Quebec and other provinces put in place stopgap refugee health coverage of their own.
But the ensuing system was so confusing, the paperwork so arduous for often-overworked health practitioners, that many stopped treating refugees altogether.
As Global News reported earlier this year, even those who qualify for health coverage sometimes get turned away.
Advocates have said this is bad for both vulnerable people and public health: When people delay seeking treatment because they can’t afford to pay for it, they get sicker and pose a risk to other people if they have an infectious disease.
They’re also more likely to need much more expensive emergency treatment later on. |
Jonathan Lucroy is one of baseball's best catchers. Still, this hasn't been the easiest of weeks for the 2016 All-Star. On Saturday, the 30-year-old was traded from the Milwaukee Brewers to the Cleveland Indians -- a deal Lucroy rejected (the Indians were on his no-trade list) amid concerns he wouldn't get enough time behind the plate in 2017. "I have to look out for me and my family," he says. "I know Cleveland fans are mad at me right now, but my decision had zero to do with the quality of their team." On Monday, Lucroy was moved to the Texas Rangers with reliever Jeremy Jeffress as part of a deadline trade that included several minor league prospects. Here, Lucroy discusses the failed Cleveland deal and the moments before and after his trade to the Rangers -- a move he hopes will deliver him to his first playoff appearance in five years.
When you're traded, you're never sure what to expect. I'd never been dealt before, so this was a new experience for me. After our game on Saturday, against the Pirates, I was called into an office. Something was going down. The general manager, David Stearns, told me I'd been traded. David said he couldn't say who got me because medical stuff needed to be cleared before it could be announced. I figured it must be a team that wasn't on my no-trade list, just because of everything that goes into that. Based on what I'd seen online and what I heard from my agent, I knew the Mets, Indians, Dodgers and Rangers had shown interest. Cleveland was the only one of those teams on my no-trade list, so I ruled that out.
It was already pretty clear there wasn't going to be much of a future for me in Milwaukee. They're in rebuilding mode, and they wouldn't want to pay to keep me there. I had a team option for 2017, and then that was it. It's the reality of the situation. I grew up in the organization, spent nearly 10 years with it. I love the fans, but this is all part of the game. You hear -- baseball's a business -- but it really is. They were figuring out their roster for the future, and I wanted to win now. That's the landscape, and it's something you have to deal with. So I got the news I was traded, and I was excited to know where I would play next. I knew it'd be a competitive situation. I like being part of something bigger, like a cog in an engine. In Milwaukee, I didn't feel part of that because we weren't winning. With a trade, I'd be on a team that was working toward the playoffs.
My agent, Doug Rogalski, found out it was the Indians that traded for me. I was surprised, but I wanted to keep an open mind. Great team. Competitive team. There's a real chance to win. Doug called Chris Antonetti, the Indians' president. There was one thing we wanted to know: What was my future with the Indians? We knew Cleveland already had a good catcher, Yan Gomes, who's injured right now. He's getting paid more than me, and he's younger than me. We knew they'd probably want him catching almost every day next year. Heck, if I were the general manager in Cleveland, I'd want Gomes catching every day.
We were right. Antonetti told Doug that the Indians couldn't make any promises on me catching next season. There was no way they'd drop the team option, either, because I'm pretty inexpensive in 2017. I don't blame them. I would have been mostly at first base and designated hitter. In the end, that was the deal killer. Doug called me. He said, You're not going there.
"You can say anything you want about what I've said in the past about wanting to get traded to a winner and then blocking the trade to Cleveland. Well, guess what? I did get traded to a winner." Jonathan Lucroy
Cleveland fans don't like that part, but it's nothing against them. It wasn't personal. If anything, I have even more respect for the Indians because of Antonetti's honesty. He could have lied to my agent and said I'd play catcher every day next season. But he didn't. He told the truth. I'm thankful for that. My decision not to go to Cleveland had nothing to do with the team, but it had everything to do with my future in this game. It was an economic decision. Period. I have to look out for my family's best interests and my interests as a catcher who'd be going into 2018 not having played my position the previous year. I am a catcher. I've been catching since I was 12 years old. I love being behind the plate, being involved in the game from that perspective. I love every part of that. I'm not changing positions for anybody. I don't care who it is. My value is as a catcher, and I know it.
So we blocked the trade. And then we waited.
Things weren't dead. I knew I could still be moved. I was in a good position. If I were traded, it would be to a team that was in the playoff race. That was obvious. Doug knew there would be teams that would try to re-engage with the Brewers. I was hoping the Rangers were still interested. Dallas was our No. 1 target. My wife is from Louisiana, I went to college in Louisiana, and we still live in that state, so this was really close to home for us. If we could pick a perfect spot to go as a family, and for competitive baseball, the Dallas area was the place. They know their sports in Texas. Great fans. Great facilities. Great team. We have a lot of friends there. We were hoping the Rangers were still interested.
My manager, Craig Counsell, put me in as a pinch hitter on Sunday. It was a day before the trade deadline, and no one knew if I was wearing a Brewers uniform for the last time. I got a standing ovation, and it meant a lot to me. I dug into the batter's box, and I was in limbo. I figured if this is my last at-bat here, it's my last at-bat. If not, we'll see what happens. I flied out. It wasn't much of a storybook ending.
A day after the deadline, Jonathan Lucroy started his journey with the Rangers. Greg Fiume/Getty Images
Afterward I felt a little sad, a little excited. Honestly, I was scared because I didn't know what was going to happen next. I was thinking about my wife, Sarah, and our young daughter, Ellia. If I got traded, how would it impact them? How would we get our stuff to our new city? They'd be by themselves, sorting things out, and I wouldn't be there to help. But I had to keep going like nothing was going to change in our lives. My general manager had told me I wasn't going to be dealt unless the team liked what it was getting in return. They weren't just going to give me away.
I decided to take a flight out of Chicago for San Diego, because that's where the Brewers were playing next. It was Monday, just before the trade deadline. If I wasn't traded, I'd have to be in San Diego, ready to go. I was in a parking lot at O'Hare International Airport when Doug called. It was 2:50 p.m. Central time. Ten minutes before the deadline. Doug said Ken Rosenthal tweeted that I'd been traded to the Rangers. I was totally calm about it. I said, I'll stay here and wait for confirmation from David. Five minutes later, I got the call. It was really straightforward: Hey, we just traded you to the Rangers. It's official. I left Chicago and headed for Miller Park.
I called my wife and told her what was happening. She'd been a nervous wreck leading up to this point, and now I heard the excitement in her voice. I called my parents. I called my agent. Jon Daniels, the Rangers general manager, called me and said he was glad I was joining the team. Less than an hour earlier, I didn't know what was happening, and now I wound up getting traded to the team with the best record in the American League. You can say anything you want about what I've said in the past about wanting to get traded to a winner and then blocking the trade to Cleveland. Well, guess what? I did get traded to a winner.
Finally, I got back to Milwaukee and went into the Brewers clubhouse. I grabbed some catcher's equipment. It was royal colored. I grabbed some spikes that matched, and I got some clothes. The Brewers would have to box up the rest of my locker and ship it to me. David knew I was at the park, so he came down and met me at one of the stadium's entrances. We shook hands. Then I was gone. I went home, kissed my wife, grabbed some more clothes. My daughter was off playing with friends, but I had to leave. Texas was playing in Baltimore on Tuesday, and I had to get to the airport. I kissed my wife again and said, I'll see you in a couple weeks. That's the life of a baseball player.
The last time I was in a playoff race was 2014, but we fell apart in mid-August and blew it. The last time I was in the playoffs was 2011, my first full season as a major leaguer. I still remember Mark Kotsay, one of our veterans, standing up and telling us we didn't understand how hard it was to make it to the playoffs. He told us that guys played their entire careers without making it to the postseason. He said it might not happen for any of us again. I heard that, and I was like, C'mon. No way that's happening. I thought we could go every year. I was spoiled. I was also dead wrong. I learned a lesson from that. Don't take things for granted.
Texas made a sacrifice to bring me in. They gave up some good prospects. By making that sacrifice, they're telling me they need me here to win. When a player's on a team, wherever it is, you want to have that wanted and needed feeling. It makes you feel like you're part of something. We aren't in the playoffs yet, but we have all the pieces. I'm already falling in love with this roster. We have two players in our lineup who are Hall of Fame guys: Adrian Beltre and Carlos Beltran. Those two dudes are unbelievable. I'm honored to play with them, and I know I'm going to be a better baseball player being around them. I've only played on the road for Texas, but I can't wait to play a home game.
When I step to the plate there, I'm going to take it all in. I'm going to take all of this in. I know I had nothing to do with the Rangers getting to where they are now, but I want to have a lot to do with finishing the job. |
Comedian Sarah Silverman told Bernie Sanders supporters who refuse to back Hillary Clinton that they are "being ridiculous" during her speech at the Democratic National Convention July 25. (The Washington Post)
After a day full of tensions between Bernie Sanders supporters and the Democratic Party, the first few hours of the party's convention on Monday featured plenty of distractions, and things seemed to be moving forward.
Then Sarah Silverman showed up.
The comedian was a Sanders supporter in the primaries, and she came to the stage with Clinton supporter and fellow "Saturday Night Live" alum, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). It was a good idea in theory: two comedians trying to bring some levity to the situation and defuse it with humor.
But feelings were still raw. Silverman argued for unity and gave a generally well-received speech, but Sanders supporters weren't happy, and they began making their voices heard.
Silverman tried to make jokes. She noted that Clinton, who was most recently secretary of state, "was a secretary, and now she's going to be president." The crowd got louder.
Silverman added, "I will vote for Hillary with gusto." She concluded her speech by saying, "As I continue to be inspired and moved to action by the ideals set for by Bernie, who will never stop fighting for us, I am proud to be a part of Bernie's movement, and a vital part of that movement is making absolutely sure that Hillary Clinton is the next president of the United States."
The crowd got louder. By that point, though, Franken and Silverman had also run out of material and were being asked to stretch their segment due to a problem with musical guest Paul Simon's organ.
It got a little awkward as they stalled and people chanted. And then Silverman said this: "To the Bernie-or-bust people, let me just tell you: You’re being ridiculous."
Franken gamely tried to argue Silverman had just done a good thing.
"This is a comedian," he said, gesturing to the "Hillary, Hillary" chants. "This is the power of comedy."
Silverman then alluded either to the awkwardness of them still standing there or to the fact that the crowd was still arguing.
"Thank God they can fix this in post[-production]," she said, referring to the editing process in movies and TV shows.
Needless to say, "you're being ridiculous" is not the message the party would have scripted for Silverman or anybody else onstage Monday night. Given it was delivered by Silverman and not a party official, though, perhaps it will blow over.
It could even be remembered as a key moment — in a good way. The Clinton supporters in the crowd surely appreciated the moment, and they cheered loudly, as Franken noted. But it also stands to reason that it could inflame Sanders backers going forward — which was the opposite of the point in sending Silverman out there, after all.
At a time when things appeared to be moving past the drama of the day, it might not have been the best time to put an ad-libbing comedian on the stage to make an appeal for unity. Or maybe it was genius. We'll see how it plays going forward.
Here is Silverman's full speech: |
A co-worker of mine is currently on a special diet and has been experimenting with several low-carb dishes. One day a few weeks ago, she dropped by my office to tell me about a recipe she’d found – pizza crust made of cauliflower! Yes, it sounded a little strange, but I was definitely intrigued. Since she’s a culinary school graduate and enjoys food as much I do, I trust her judgement and wanted to try it.
She offered to bring a piece to the office the next day for me to sample and even day-old and reheated, it was really good!
My husband is a pizza fanatic, so this new discovery was particularly exciting. Since I try to limit the processed stuff we eat, cutting out simple carbs from our meals when possible, I don’t like to make or order pizza very often. I personally love the sauce, cheese and all the toppings that come on pizzas, but I don’t like the way I feel after eating all the dough that serves as the delivery vehicle, so this twist on the crust has made us both very happy.
With a hefty dose of veggies, I feel good about eating it myself and feeding it to him, which means he can get his pizza fix a lot more often now. We pile it high with a variety of toppings- mushrooms, spinach, red peppers, green peppers, onions, green and black olives, sometimes with meat, and sometimes without.
I’m not going to lie and say it’s just like eating a flour pizza crust because it’s not. But surprisingly, it’s not like eating cauliflower either. I’m not even sure that you’d be able to guess what it was made of if someone hadn’t already told you. The one problem I find is that while it’s not impossible to pick up a piece and eat with your hands, it’s much easier to use a fork. We feel that’s a small price to pay though in order to feel better about what we’re eating.
I’m interested to see what some of you think, so please, if you give it a go, come back and leave a comment!
Cauliflower Crust Pizza Serves 2; Adapted from Your Lighter Side. Ingredients: 1 cup cooked, riced cauliflower 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese 1 egg, beaten 1 tsp dried oregano 1/2 tsp crushed garlic 1/2 tsp garlic salt olive oil (optional) pizza sauce, shredded cheese and your choice of toppings* Directions: To “Rice” the Cauliflower: Take 1 large head of fresh cauliflower, remove stems and leaves, and chop the florets into chunks. Add to food processor and pulse until it looks like grain. Do not over-do pulse or you will puree it. (If you don’t have a food processor, you can grate the whole head with a cheese grater). Place the riced cauliflower into a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 8 minutes (some microwaves are more powerful than others, so you may need to reduce this cooking time). There is no need to add water, as the natural moisture in the cauliflower is enough to cook itself. One large head should produce approximately 3 cups of riced cauliflower. The remainder can be used to make additional pizza crusts immediately, or can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one week. To Make the Pizza Crust: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup cauliflower, egg and mozzarella. Add oregano, crushed garlic and garlic salt, stir. Transfer to the cookie sheet, and using your hands, pat out into a 9″ round. Optional: Brush olive oil over top of mixture to help with browning. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven. To the crust, add sauce, toppings and cheese. Place under a broiler at high heat just until cheese is melted (approximately 3-4 minutes). Enjoy! *Note that toppings need to be precooked since you are only broiling for a few minutes.
Note for those that don’ t have a microwave:
You can steam the florets on the stove before ricing them. The texture/consistency won’t be the same (It will be more like a puree) but it still works fine once you mix all the ingredients together! I know because I’ve tried it that way too! |
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Many liberal reporters and commentators have dismissed or downplayed the emerging Benghazi and Internal Revenue Service scandals as non-scandals or trifling bureaucratic errors.
But reports that the Justice Department has been targeting journalists, first reporters at The Associated Press and now Fox News’ James Rosen, has caused the generally Obama-admiring press to question the purity of their redeemer.
Here are 10 tweets from liberal commentators and reporters expressing outrage on Monday over Rosen-gate:
Unemployed liberal commentator Keith Olbermann:
My experience dealing with @jamesrosenfnc was unpleasant and contentious. And I fully support him against this unwarranted act by DOJ — Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) May 20, 2013
The New Yorker’s excellent long-form writer Ryan Lizza:
Case against Fox’s Rosen, in which O admin is criminalizing reporting, makes all of the other “scandals” look like giant nothing burgers. — Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 20, 2013
If James Rosen’s “clandestine communications plan” were illegal, every journalist in Washington would be locked up. Unreal. — Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 20, 2013
Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman:
#Fox Rosen probe as bad/worse than #AP: in unprecedented move, govt says he “conspired” with leaker to get info; that’s what reporters do! — Howard Fineman (@howardfineman) May 20, 2013
BuzzFeed’s Michael Hastings:
Hey Jay @presssec Carney. If the Bush DOJ had done this to your reporters when you were Time DC bureau chief, how would you have responded? — Michael Hastings (@mmhastings) May 15, 2013
The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald:
Accusing James Rosen of committing crimes – for basic reporting – may be the most dangerous thing the Obama DOJ has done yet — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 20, 2013
WIRED’s Spencer Ackerman:
LOL a “covert communications plan” between journalist & source. Like basic reportorial opsec? washingtonpost.com/local/a-rare-p… Disgusting. — Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) May 20, 2013
Soon-to-be MSNBC.com’s Adam Serwer:
If you prosecute reporters for seeking/receiving leaks and you’re basically making non-government sanctioned reporting a crime. — AdamSerwer (@AdamSerwer) May 20, 2013
Talking Point Memo’s Josh Marshall:
Just This: U cross a big line when u go from investigating journos to prosecute leakers to accusing journos of commitng crimes by doing job — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 20, 2013
Al Monitor’s Laura Rozen:
1st thing agree w/ Cruz on RT @juliaioffe: MT @sentedcruz: W FF & DOJ targeting press @johncornyn right—AG Holder must go — Laura Rozen (@lrozen) May 20, 2013
Slate’s Matt Yglesias:
Wow. Obama-era leak crackdowns on journalists look worse and worse:m.washingtonpost.com/local/a-rare-p… — Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 20, 2013
Follow Jamie on Twitter |
Widnes Vikings have entered into an exciting partnership with the RFL that will see the club play a leading role in the development of the Cumbria Regional Academy.
The Academy provides a career path for the elite young talent in West Cumbria and the link with Widnes Vikings will provide those players with access to the benefits that come from being part of a Super League club culture.
Widnes Vikings will also work closely with all the stakeholders in Cumbria, including Barrow Raiders, Whitehaven and Workington Town, to enhance the player development pathways in the region for the benefit of the professional and community games.
Widnes Vikings Head of Youth Phil Finney commented: “We are looking forward to working with the RFL and the Cumbria Regional Academy on a series of initiatives that will
benefit the whole sport.
“We think that we can make good use of our experience and expertise alongside the vast local knowledge within the staff and volunteers already in place in the region to provide a pathway to England, Super League and the Championships for an increasing number of Cumbrian players.
“A crucial element will be the development of strong working relationships with all of the key stakeholders in the region, including the professional and community clubs and the local schools.
“We want to forge strong working partnerships with Cumbrian community clubs and their staff and volunteers to provide further opportunity for the players and coaches across the county.”
Widnes Vikings Chief Executive James Rule added: “We are very proud of the fact that this year we received the highest possible grading in the independent Academy Audit.
“We have developed an outstanding Academy environment and working alongside the RFL we want to utilise that best practice to great effect to develop a genuine partnership with the Regional Academy and with the wider Cumbrian region.”
RFL Director of Performance and Coaching Jon Roberts said: “The Cumbria Regional Academy has made huge strides in the last two years and this four-year partnership with Widnes Vikings provides a terrific opportunity to make even more significant progress.
“Cumbria is an important region for the sport and it is essential that we do all we can to create an environment that allows every player to realise his potential. The involvement of Widnes Vikings will help us achieve that objective.
“The partnership helps create a clear pathway to the England team for every young player in Cumbria: whilst not all of them will make it that far, a great many will develop into players for Barrow, Whitehaven, Workington Town, the Super League clubs, including Widnes, and community clubs across the county.” |
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Located in the Danakil Depression (or Afar Depression) in the Afar Region of northeastern Ethiopia, Erta Ale is one of the driest, lowest, and hottest places on Earth. Temperatures during the year range from 77 degrees Fahrenheit to 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The area is beset by drought, bereft of trees, and has little in the way of roads.
Known by the Afar as the "smoking mountain" and "the gateway to hell," Erta Ale is a 2,011-foot-high constantly active basaltic shield volcano. It is one of only a handful of continuously active volcanos in the world, and a member of an even more exclusive group: volcanos with lava lakes. While there are only five known volcanos with lava lakes globally, Erta Ale often has two active lava lakes, making it a unique site.
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Erta Ale was discovered in 1906, which also makes it the longest-known lava lake. For a lava lake to exist, the surface of the lake and the magma chamber below must form a constant convecting system, or the entire thing will cool and solidify.
Beneath the ground surrounding Erta Ale is an enormous pool of active magma. The lake goes through cycles and will cool, form a black layer on top, and then suddenly convect back into liquid lava. Occasionally, due to pressure, "fountains" of lava will form, spewing lava in 6- to 13-foot-high plumes.
The volcano itself has erupted in 1873, 1903, 1940, 1960, 1967, and 2005, when it killed hundreds of livestock and forced thousands to flee. In 2007 lava flows once again forced evacuation. Two people went missing and were presumably killed.
Despite the harsh conditions, danger of volcanic eruption, and extreme heat, Erta Ale has become something of a tourist destination recently. Whereas in 2002 the area was accessible only by helicopter, today adventure tourism groups take trips to the volcano lakes and it is now possible to drive within 4.3 miles of the volcano.
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Once Again Apple Uses Image It Didn't License: This Time Photographer Sues
from the don't-they-have-lawyers? dept
Lawyers for big companies tend to be notoriously careful to make sure the companies license images they use for marketing purposes, for obvious reasons. And yet... Apple seems to keep using unlicensed images. It's really quite surprising. A couple of years ago, we wrote about how the default wallpaper for the iPad was used without licensing it. In that case, the photographer, Richard Misrach, was thrilled, saying that he was sure that a contract was on the way, and whatever was in it would be fine: "I'm sure they'll send me [a contract] quickly now. But I'm very happy, I'm sure it's fine, and the terms are good." I don't know if that experience made Apple confident it could do the same sort of thing again, but Misrach's response is not quite the norm. And Apple is now discovering that as it will have to deal with a lawsuit from photographer Sabine Liewald As detailed at the Patently Apple site , Liewald has sued Apple, claiming that it used her photograph as part of the marketing around the MacBook Pro's promotion for its Retina Display.The first link above, to the MacObserver story, notes that Apple is now using a different (though similar) image of an eye. However, Liewald claims that Apple had requested Liewald's image from her Factory Downtown page , but for layout purposes only. It sounds like someone then got confused over whether or not they had actually licensed the image. Again, it's really surprising that Apple isn't a lot more careful about this kind of stuff. Liewald is apparently claiming that she's entitled to both "actual damages including defendant's profits"statutory damages. That sounds like a lawyer just trying to push the company to settle faster -- and I wouldn't be surprised if Apple cuts Liewald a decent check pretty quickly to make this go away. I can't imagine that it pays to fight this lawsuit.
Filed Under: copyright, license, retina display, sabine liewald
Companies: apple |
“Why did you write about it, then,” said the man, “if you don’t want to talk about it?” I was on holiday with my husband and we were having dinner at the house of a friend. Evidently, she had told the man something about me because he began asking questions almost as soon as we sat down to eat. When I said I was on holiday, trying to relax, and that I didn’t want to answer his questions, he grew indignant. My decision to tell my story publicly—a decision I had made fifteen years earlier—meant to him that I was public property. This is not unusual. I have grown to understand it, though I have not entirely grown used to it, just as I have grown to understand that people have their own ideas of who and what I ought to be, wounded victim or heroic survivor.
At one minute past midnight on July 19, 1975, my father was hanged. For twenty-seven years, I told no one about it. Then I published a memoir. I have lived with the aftermath of that decision ever since, as does anyone who has published their own story, who has unwrapped what had previously been concealed: the skinned inner self dragged out and, shrinking in the light, placed beneath the bright hot gaze of strangers.
We had kept silent about the death of my father—my brother, sister, stepmother, and I. The youngest sibling, I was eleven when it happened, and I knew from the earliest, instinctively, that our story was not something to share with strangers. In Sierra Leone, the entire country knew what had happened to us, but in Britain, where we later went to live, nobody knew. We could go incognito, and we did. All the same, we talked about it compulsively, we three siblings, whispering among ourselves. I remember once, when I was in my twenties, the three of us sitting in a fashionable London wine-bar whispering memories of our father. Why did we do that?
At the time, I took it for granted that we needed to whisper, in order to keep our story private. But other, more sinister, reasons became obvious once I started to investigate the conditions of our shared childhood. Our father, Mohamed S. Forna, a Sierra Leonian medical doctor, political activist, and the most prominent opponent of the country’s rising dictator, had been under constant scrutiny: watched, followed, and spied on even by members of our own household staff. Silence was a habit I was born into. When my father spoke, he did so publicly. His judicial murder was the president’s response, his message to the nation that this was where such actions got you. He silenced my father, and in time the silence spread to every person in the country.
War came, as my father had predicted it would—an implosion of rage and violence which went on for more than ten years, finally ending in 2002. Cracks had appeared in the wall of the country’s silence, but still no words were spoken. That was the year I published my memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water, an account of my father’s life and death and of Sierra Leone’s recent history. The impact was greater than I had imagined: newspaper and radio interviews, public engagements, serialization, a TV documentary. Nowhere was the desire to hear me discuss what I had written about greater than in Sierra Leone. In a talk I gave at the university, those who could not get into the auditorium sat on the grass outside and listened through the open windows.
Back then, there were not a great many memoirs on the market. The decade and a half that has passed since has seen a resurgence in the form. Today, there is no subject I can think of that has not been excavated by the modern memoir: family, relationships, childhood abuse, both physical and mental illness, sexual adventure, sexual assault, sexual identity, addiction, bereavement, divorce, childhood, coming of age, mothers and motherhood, fathers and fatherhood, siblings, home, travel, exile, war, each of the decades from the 1950s on.
In the months after I published mine, people I knew seemed to look at me in a new way, as though I was totally different from the person they thought they knew—which was, in some ways, true. Others read the book and seemed promptly to forget everything they had read. Sometimes, in later and unrelated conversations, they would ask me a question to which they knew the answer because they had already read it. I have done this, too: separated the person and the author of a memoir as though they were entirely different.
You must also, once your book is published, deal with the reactions of strangers. I received hundreds of letters from readers who said my book had affected them. I always wrote back, more than once I even met with a correspondent.
I once had lunch with a South African woman who had written to me, whose life was shaped by the disappearance of her father. She had never shared her story because, she said, the family was ashamed. They had been wealthy; she and her mother felt that if their story became known, suspicion might somehow fall on her father’s business dealings. They relocated to Britain and told nobody. I remembered our own years of silence. One of the reasons I didn’t tell most of my friends was the worry that people would see my father as having been guilty of something.
The letters, now more often emails, have never stopped. Very occasionally, I have felt daunted by the idea of dealing with another person’s loss. I try not to let it show, and I hope I am successful in this, because once you have written your story, you become seen as a “survivor” and other people will reach out for you.
There were also those people who were crass, or unthinking, or downright prurient, to whom my life had become spectacle. They expected me to talk on demand about those events I had written about, as if I was on stage. I had written about events and experiences that are painful to talk about, but which I felt must nevertheless be described. That is the simplest reason people write about themselves—because talking hurts too much.
“I feel like a car accident everyone is slowing down to look at,” remarked a writer who, like me, had written an account of her activist father’s assassination, which had taken place when she was a teenager. We were walking to the stage at a literary festival where I was about to interview her. “I didn’t expect the interest to be so,” she searched for the word, “pornographic.”
I came to think of the small group of people I knew who had endured similar experiences as the “Murdered Parents Club.” In each other’s company, we could talk without having to explain or defend ourselves, without feeling like an exhibit in the museum of humankind. The “club” consisted of the aforementioned writer; a close friend whose activist mother disappeared on pilgrimage in India; a Colombian whose father was murdered by paramilitaries outside their family home; a Nigerian journalist whose father was executed. We could talk and even laugh among ourselves in a way that was impossible in front of others.
The writer of a memoir must necessarily reveal a great deal about herself or himself, and often about other people, too. You sacrifice your own privacy, and you sacrifice the privacy of others to whom you may have given no choice. They may enjoy the attention or be enraged by it. “People either claim it or they sue you,” the head of press at my publisher told me in the weeks before my memoir was published. I knew who might sue or come after me—members of the regime that had killed my father. I comforted myself with the belief that they had for the most part been exiled or discredited, or had gone underground. The only person I allowed to read the unpublished manuscript was my stepmother, because I was concerned about her safety even more than my own. She still lived in the country, and the violence can ricochet for months after a civil war.
In the final draft, I changed one name only—of the man who had betrayed my father for the promise of money, agreeing to give false testimony at his treason trial on behalf of the regime. He admitted this to me during our interview. I despised him and I knew other readers of the book would despise him, too. He had a pitch selling Lotto tickets in Freetown, a small city. Anyone could find him just by asking around, as I had done. Already, one or two one or two suspected former rebel soldiers had been lynched in the city.
For this reason, I changed his name, and privately decided that I would change any other names that my stepmother wanted me to. But without saying this, I let her read the book. When she gave it back to me, she made no comment. On the final page, I found a checkmark and the words “Well done, darling!” Later, she elaborated: if we were going to do it, we would go all the way. My sister, over lunch a few months after the memoir was published, mused: “You help to kill somebody and you think you’ve got away with it, and then, twenty-five years later, the telephone rings.”
It’s not hard to see why memoir is so popular. For readers in constant search of “authenticity,” the true memoir trumps the fictional novel. These people may have experienced relatively little adversity or danger in their lives. Another kind of reader who particularly values the memoir is one who has endured a fate similar to the writer’s. She or he may be the survivor of domestic abuse, perhaps, or of illness, or crime. The memoir acts for this reader as testimony; it confirms the reality of her or his own experience, and offers courage and the possibility of comfort.
The question I am most frequently asked is whether I found writing the memoir therapeutic. I encounter this most commonly among Western audiences, perhaps because the culture puts the self first and foremost. When I teach classes on memoir, I begin them all in the same way: “This is not therapy. If you want therapy, go and see a therapist.” I have had one woman stand up and leave. She thanked me later. She had realized in that moment that therapy was, in fact, what she needed.
The writing of a memoir can be a test in mental courage. In the long months of putting pen to paper, you must return to immerse in, and endure, the very thing that caused you the most pain. You must pick at the scabs of old wounds and pour vinegar on them. Writing can be a way of handling the experience of loss, trauma, or pain, but it comes with no guarantees. “Be careful,” said my sister when I began. “Because what you find out may be worse than we already think we know.”
An early newspaper review came close to destroying my relationship with my mother. The reviewer seemed less interested in addressing the political oppression, judicial murder, and civil war that is the book’s focus, than in weighing my mother’s abilities as a parent, very unfairly in my view. My mother was working overseas at the time and her copy of the finished book hadn’t arrived when a third party alerted her to the review. It hurt her badly, and she did not speak to me for a long time. When she did attempt to re-establish contact, I’m afraid I had become angry and didn’t see her for many more months.
Sometimes, not being written about is worse than being written about. I once heard Will Fiennes, the author of The Snow Geese, describe how he had left all mention of his mother out of his original manuscript (in which he describes his relationship with his father and their shared love of ornithology) because, in his view, she was a very private person. When he gave his mother a draft of it, she initially responded in a complimentary fashion, but after he pressed her, she eventually asked: “But where am I?” Fiennes told the audience that as a result there were at least three “totally gratuitous” mentions of his mother in the final version.
I knew a woman who, after her husband’s untimely death, found in his diaries an account of a long affair he had been conducting, along with descriptions of his boredom with family life. She wrote a raw, furious memoir about the impact of that discovery on herself and her family. Her agent told her it was brilliant. Then she asked, “Now, do you really want to publish this?” The woman realized that in her heart she didn’t and took her manuscript back. We would all wish for a friend as decent as her agent.
The judgment is a fine one. I once knew both the writer of a sex memoir and her former partner; the end of their relationship had triggered her sexual wanderings for the next year. Before the book was published, she sent him a copy. He wrote back to her, he told me: “I hope it sells by the truck load and you never regret writing it.”
To be the author of a memoir is to become a confessional for other people. All over the world, people tell me their stories: the high-end male sex worker, the girl held by a rebel army for three years, the man with African-American forebears who “passed” as white, the woman with the conman father, the girl who nearly ate and drank herself to death, the woman born in a concentration camp. Sometimes, sharing their stories with me is all they want, and it is enough. Sometimes, they want a wider recognition for their stories. To them, I say this: write, but only if you are sure you want to live with the consequences every day for the rest of your life. |
The thrilling Summer international Test series has concluded and what a ride it’s been! Undoubtedly the biggest matches were in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Check out this smooth mashup that perfectly highlights the drama and emotion of the third and final weekend, from what was a brilliant round of Test rugby.
As you already know, history was made in perhaps the most compelling of the three when England – for the first time ever in Australia – won the series and completed the whitewash.
All three matches were played on a knife’s edge and perhaps could’ve gone differently but there’s no arguing who the better team is on current form.
Elsewhere, there will be some serious heartbreak and perhaps sober reflection on a series that could’ve been well in hand. Ireland comes to mind as they played their hearts out, but fell short to the Springboks in suspenseful fashion.
As with the Wallabies, coach Warren Gatland and Wales found themselves on the short end of a 3-0 series sweep, which also included a loss to an under-strength Chiefs squad.
Going into the upcoming Rugby Championship it’ll certainly be difficult to predict how South Africa and Australia will compete against the sensational All Blacks, as they undoubtedly looked like the best side in the world.
It makes for a fascinating prospect, especially when you throw Argentina into the mix. All in all, it’s a wonderful time to be a rugby fan, and we no doubt have plenty more great moments to come.
NZ vs Wales Highlights | Australia vs England Highlights | South Africa vs Ireland Highlights
Enjoy this emotive montage from the three big Tests from this past weekend
credit: rugbyrules/thomas |
In May, Bitcoin Magazine covered the spectacular launch of The DAO, a new kind of organization created and run using blockchain software rather than conventional corporate structures. The DAO ‒ an acronym for Distributed Autonomous Organization ‒ is similar to an open venture capital fund based on Ethereum smart contracts and rapidly became the world’s largest crowdfunding to date.
Shortly after its launch, The DAO had an equally spectacular crash caused by poorly understood aspects of its implementation of smart contracts, which a malicious attacker was able to exploit.
Emin Gun Sirer of Cornell University told The Economist, “the attacker simply read the terms and conditions more closely than anyone else.”
Regardless of misfortunes and temporary setbacks that are only to be expected in the early phases of a new technology with a potentially disruptive impact, DAOs have a huge potential. According to futurist David Orban, The DAO can be a pathfinder and a model for very ambitious crowdfunded initiatives to tackle important challenges, including a new global phase of the space program.
“From the $10 million order of magnitude crowdsales two years ago, to the $100 million crowdsale today, we will get to $1 billion in a couple of years, and then to $10 billion in another two-three,” he said.
Now, other renowned cryptographers, technologists and economists specialized in future studies are starting to weigh in. Futurist Ralph Merkle, who is also one of the inventors of public key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing and the originator of the “Merkle Trees” used in blockchain systems including Bitcoin and Ethereum, has published a paper titled “DAOs, Democracy and Governance.” Merkle’s thesis is that DAOs and crowdsourcing could lead to a new form of democracy which is more stable, less prone to erratic behavior, better able to meet the needs of its citizens and which better uses the expertise of all its citizens to make high-quality decisions.
“We call this new form of democracy a DAO Democracy,” says Merkle. “Further analysis and small-scale implementations combined with further research into their effectiveness, seem both warranted and urgently needed, given the range of problems facing humanity today and the more pressing problems anticipated in the future.”
Futarchy, proposed by futurist Robin Hanson, a professor of economy at George Mason University and the author of a much discussed recent book about radically futuristic economy, is a proposal to govern by prediction markets. “The proposal seems like an excellent approach for improving upon existing democratic forms of governance,” says Merkle.
Prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions. The current market price for a prediction ‒ for example the election of a particular candidate ‒ can be interpreted as an aggregate, crowdsourced estimate of the probability of the prediction. Hanson, a leading prediction market researcher, was all over the news in 2003, when the Policy Analysis Market (PAM), a prediction market proposed by the United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and based on Hanson’s ideas, was canceled after a wave of accusations of incentivizing terrorism, which resulted in the resignation of John Poindexter, head of the DARPA unit responsible for developing the project.
In her 2015 book “Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy,” dedicated to advanced future applications of distributed ledger technology beyond currency (“Blockchain 1.0”) and smart contracts (“Blockchain 2.0”), futurist Melanie Swan defines futarchy as two-step democracy with voting plus prediction markets.
“The first step would be carried out by regular voting processes, the second step via prediction markets,” explains Swan. “Prediction market voting could be by different [cryptocurrencies] or other economically significant tokens. Prediction market voting is investing/speculating, taking a bet on one or the other side of a proposal, betting on the proposal that you want to win. As with random-sampling elections, blockchain technology could more efficiently implement the futarchy concept in an extremely large-scale manner (decentralized, trusted, recorded, pseudonymous.) The futarchy concept is described in shorthand as ‘vote for values, bet on beliefs,’ an idea initially proposed by economist Robin Hanson and expounded in the blockchain context by Ethereum project founder Vitalik Buterin.”
According to Swan, who founded the Institute for Blockchain Studies to examine the theoretical, philosophical and societal implications of blockchain technology, blockchain-based futarchy could became a common, widespread norm and feature or mechanism for all complex multi-party human decision-making. “One effect of this could be a completely new level of coordinated human activity that would be orders of magnitude more complex than at present,” notes Swan, cautioning that, of course, any new governance structure including futarchy has ample room for abuse.
“I’m encouraged that some people might actually try out versions of futarchy,” Hanson told Bitcoin Magazine. “It is perhaps unfortunate that they face especially difficult governance problems. But still, I’d love to see a head-to-head comparison with other mechanisms in most any governance context.”
Hanson isn’t entirely happy with Merkle’s proposal, however. In a blog post titled “Merkle’s Futarchy,” he worries about the possibility that futarchy implementations could ignore or sidestep the cautions and safeguards that were an important part of his original proposal, and criticizes what he sees as weak points of Merkle’s proposed implementation. “I’m happy to see the new interest in futarchy, but I’m also worried that sloppy design may cause failures that are blamed on the overall concept instead of on implementation details,” notes Hanson. “As recently happened to the DAO concept.” |
Have you ever found yourself watching a cartoon and noticing the illustrations behind the characters? Those backgrounds can often be prettier than the action in the foreground. If only those pesky mice and long-nosed boys would get out of the way! If so, the upcoming Beverly Hills Animation Art Signature Auction is for you.
On a serious note, I've always admired how classic, hand-drawn animation is born. Watching early animators flipping those cels back and forth to create the illusion of movement is amazing, and painting a detailed background for every single scene is probably one of the most important artistic tasks in the highly complex process of making an animated cartoon.
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Background artists usually painted these backdrops wide and tall (depending on the camera panning), in gouache, acrylic paint, watercolor, oil paint, or even crayon. The resulting still backdrops are nothing short of art—but in the actual cartoons, we seldom get to enjoy the whole image, due to the camera movements.
The following examples from the Animation Art Signature Auction on November 20 show just how beautiful these artworks can be—I know I wouldn't think twice about putting some of them on my walls.
A background illustration from Two Pan Goofy. It was painted for the 1952 Walt Disney short, but wasn't actually used.
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
This pan background showcases the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan, including the World Trade Center and the Manhattan Bridge. It was painted for The Real Ghostbusters (DIC, 1986).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
A great Art Deco-style production background of the Batcave from Batman the Animated Series (Warner Brothers, 1995), created by Bruce Timm.
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
This breathtaking pan production background of a detailed medieval staircase located within Maleficent's castle was hand-painted by Eyvind Earle, color stylist and chief background painter for Sleeping Beauty (Walt Disney, 1959).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
Magnificent vertical pan production background painting for Sloppy Jalopy (UPA, 1952).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
A stylized view of Las Vegas with all the famous hotel signs, for Aesop and Son in Sick Lion (Jay Ward, 1962).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
A background illustration by Paul Julian for The Tell Tale Heart, a cartoon adaptation of the classic short story written by Edgar Allen Poe (UPA, 1953).
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Cap'n Crunch cereal commercial production background (Jay Ward, c. 1960s) by Bill Hurtz and Pete Burness.
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
A beautiful landscape background from Scrambled Eggs (Walter Lantz, 1939), painted by legendary Art Nouveau illustrator Willy Pogany (1882-1955).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
Belle's Magical World master background of the Beast's Castle (Walt Disney, 1998).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
Dinotopia: The Mini Series background color key (Walt Disney, 2002).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
A very detailed background color key of the haunted bedroom for Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (Hanna-Barbera, 1998).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
A wide angle view of the Calcutta airport for The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (Hanna-Barbera, 1996).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
The Man on the Flying Trapeze background by Paul Julian (UPA, 1954).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
The Smurfs (Hanna-Barbera, 1984).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
Two backgrounds from Buford and the Galloping Ghost (Hanna-Barbera, 1979).
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
Two SWAT Kats hand-painted background color keys (Hanna-Barbera, 1993).
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A spooky view of Gotham City's imposing Arkham Asylum from The New Batman Adventures (Warner Brothers, 1997).
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The Simpsons (Fox, 2002). A 12-field production background, hand-painted on celluloid, from the 13th season episode, "The Lastest Gun in the West," which was originally aired on February 24, 2002.
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Photo: Heritage Auctions
Two Famous Studio backgrounds from The Sixties, done by famed book illustrator and animation artist Anton Loeb.
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A deserted saloon in Ghost Town (Terrytoons, 1944).
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A Mighty Mouse background from the 1940s (Terrytoons).
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Top image: Pinocchio production pan background (Walt Disney, 1940). This film's backgrounds were masterfully painted by Claude Coats, Merle Cox, Ed Starr, and Ray Huffine, to name a few – Heritage Auctions |
The Biggest Election Surprise of the Year May Actually Be in West Africa
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh once vowed to rule his country for “one billion years.” He was only 999,999,978 years off. On Friday, Jammeh lost his country’s general election to opposition leader Adama Barrow after 22 years in power.
The defeat comes as a huge shock — not only because an unlikely opposition leader ousted an authoritarian president with a penchant for coups, but also because the president accepted the loss. “It’s really unique that someone who has been ruling this country for so long has accepted defeat,” Gambian electoral commission chief Alieu Momar Njie told reporters.
Barrow earned 45.5 percent of the vote, while Jammeh trailed with 36.7 percent, according to the BBC. The surprise win by an opposition figure — and Jammeh’s even more surprising acceptance of his loss — is a historic moment for the tiny West African nation, which hasn’t had a smooth power transfer since gaining independence in 1965.
Jammeh has ruled Africa’s smallest nation with an iron fist since first wresting power in a coup in 1994. His repressive regime impoverished an already underdeveloped country; the poverty rate that has hovered around 50 percent for years, according to the World Bank. Since taking power, he’s unleashed his security forces to torture, intimidate, arrest, and suppress dissenters to keep his grip on power, according to Human Rights Watch.
Instances of dictators losing their own ‘window dressing’ election are rare. But there was a perfect storm of various factors that turned the tide in Gambian opposition’s favor, said Jeff Smith, founder of Vanguard Africa.
“First, the opposition was unified and energized in a way that they had never been before,” Smith told Foreign Policy. The government’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in April and May garnered international scrutiny and galvanized various opposition factions. “It was the longest and most defiant act of public disobedience the country witnessed since Jammeh came to power,” Smith said.
Then there’s Europe’s refugee crisis. “Gambia plays an outsized role in the crisis,” Smith said. “It’s the fourth largest ‘exporter’ of refugees to Italy this year, despite being one of Africa’s smallest countries.” This raised Europe’s awareness of the plights of Gambians and ratcheted up international scrutiny on Jammeh’s regime.
And then, there’s the enigmatic dictator himself. Jammeh’s brutal and bizarre antics have drawn an international media spotlight that both enraged his people and energized the opposition over the years. It starts with his public proclamations. He led state-sanctioned ‘witch hunts and threatened to personally slit the throats of gay men in a public speech.
He also isolated Gambia abroad. When he won reelection in 2011 in results that many international observers questioned, he told critics to “go to hell.” In 2013, he withdrew from the Commonwealth, the 54-nation group of former British colonies, after the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office released a report charging Gambia with human rights abuses. Jammeh also pulled Gambia out of the International Criminal Court for alleged bias against African nations; one of his ministers called it the “International Caucasian Court” when explaining the government’s decision to withdraw.
Suffice it to say, Gambians were clearly ready for change. And facing a wave of popular dissent and international pressures, he had to relent.
“Jammeh faced such a surprising groundswell of support for the opposition that they couldn’t fudge the numbers to the point where they could make it credible that they won,” Smith said. That hasn’t stopped dictators before, but international pressure made have tipped the scale, particularly pressure from his own neighborhood of relatively successful West African democracies. “For a number of years, the regional leaders have become fed up with Jammeh,” Smith said. “He’s a black eye on a region that’s performed overwhelmingly well writ large.”
The United States and European Union also made clear an intent to slap sanctions on the country if Jammeh stole the elections again, as did neighboring countries like Senegal, which surrounds the tiny sliver of land that comprises Gambia. This, coupled with a determined and unified opposition, convinced the president to accept his loss.
Jammeh, to defend his dictatorial cred, did try to make things difficult for the opposition as his country headed to the polls. In a classically authoritarian move, his regime banned internet and international phone calls when the country took to the polls. He also barred EU election observers from monitoring the process. But it didn’t deter Gambians from voting him out.
His successor is a relatively new and inexperienced figure in Gambian politics. Adama Barrow is a real estate manager with little government experience (though he was reportedly a former retail store security guard in London before he threw his hat into the ring of Gambian politics.) He wasn’t supposed to be the face of the opposition, but Jammeh threw many other would-be frontrunners in jail. “He was thrust into this position because the leaders of party he’s a member of, the United Democratic Party, are all in prison,” Smith said.
When Barrow takes office, he has a tough road ahead. The first item on the agenda is healing a nation that has suffered a traumatic dictatorship for over two decades. And then there’s the administrative challenges.
“Jammeh ran Gambia as a mafia state,” said Smith. “The state does not exist without him, so there’s a huge void that Barrow has to fill.” He said there’s little economic opportunity but Gambians are hopeful for the change new leadership could usher in.
That void is a particularly deep and bizarre rabbit hole, starting quite simply with Jammeh’s resume. Officially, it painstakingly lists some 80 awards he’s received as president, ranging from the “Admiral in the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska” (yes, that one is real) to an “Honorary Degree in Herbal and Homeopathic Medicine” from Belgium’s Jean Monnet European University, to the “Most Student Loving and Innovative President in Africa” award to the “Kentucky Colonel Award” from the governor of Kentucky.
Oh, and don’t forget that Jammeh can cure asthma and (at least, he claims) AIDS — but don’t think that makes him a witch. “I am not a witch doctor, and in fact you cannot have a witch doctor. You are either a witch or a doctor,” he said, when his purported medical miracles came to light.
And if titles alone won elections, Jammeh would have clinched a win; his formal title is His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Doctor Yahya AJJ Jammeh Babili Mansa. (He added Babili Mansa, meaning ‘conqueror of rivers,’ to his title in 2015).
A 2014 coup attempt adds another strange layer to his story. The coup ringleaders were a Texan real estate developer and a Minnesotan computer studies teacher who served 10 years in the U.S. Army. Because of course. The FBI later arrested the two men, both U.S. citizens of Gambian descent.
None of Jammeh’s awards, strange antics, or his ability to dodge coup attempts, curried favor with his people, as the voters showed Friday. It’s an upset few — including Barrow himself — expected. But international scrutiny on the bizarre and brutal dictator may have been the final nail in the coffin of Jammeh’s reign.
“For years, the opposition struggled and put their lives on the line without anyone taking note,” Smith said. But when international media shed light on the Gambian leader, they also brought the plight of his people to light.
“The opposition wouldn’t back down,” Smith said. “This time, they knew the world was watching.”
Photo credit: MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images |
In the week since the election, political pundits and everyone who didn’t vote for Donald Trump have been trying to wrap their heads around how he emerged victorious as president-elect.
Are the 60 million Americans who voted for Trump as ignorant, racist, and misogynistic as he proved to be during his campaign? Are they so disenchanted with the political establishment that they chose a con artist over a flawed but objectively more qualified candidate whose very name is synonymous with that establishment?
Of the many complicated factors that motivated the electorate, there’s evidence that the anti-establishment movement was a big one. We knew this when Bernie Sanders, an anti-establishment politician with very little name recognition, came close to beating Hillary Clinton during the primaries.
Early on, many progressive millennials admitted they preferred Sanders to Clinton. Now, that same demographic--joined by older supporters of both Sanders and Clinton—are marching to protest Trump’s election in cities across the country and calling for a political revolution.
They were marching down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue on Tuesday when Becky Bond and Zack Exley, who spearheaded the grassroots volunteering efforts that helped Sanders surge ahead in the primaries, were at Civic Hall promoting their book, Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything.
“We have to translate this energy into work that will actually blunt some of the worst abuses of the Trump administration, and also begin working to build the base of mass organizing that we’ll need to sweep the elections in 2018,” Bond said of the anti-Trump movement, while protesters chanted “not my president” outside.
I met the authors in a conference room at Civic Hall, ahead of a Q&A with Civic Hall co-founder Micah Sifry.
Bond worked for the CREDO—a mobile phone company that raised tens of millions of dollars for progressive groups—for 15 years before quitting her job to work full time for the Sanders campaign. Both authors are 46.
Having worked on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2003, John Kerry’s in 2004, and Obama’s in 2008, Exley parlayed his knowledge of what made a campaign successful—particularly the Obama campaign’s strategy of forming “neighborhood teams” in battleground primary states—into efforts to mobilize and organize volunteers for the Sanders campaign.
Like Sanders himself, Bond and Exley aren’t interested in debating whether the Vermont senator could have beaten Trump had he been the Democratic nominee.
Yet they are certain the only way to fight the Trump administration now is to galvanize volunteers through “big organizing” for a revolutionary mass movement, just as they did for the Sanders campaign, pushing revolutionary progressive agendas through tech-enabled, peer-to-peer participation in politics.
Rules for Revolutionaries outlines 22 “rules” in chapters—from “The Revolution Will Not Be Staffed” to “People New to Politics Make the Best Revolutionaries”—and highlights major goals of big organizing: free public college, universal health care, an end to the drug war and the mass incarceration of racial minorities, and an anti-globalization industrial policy which, Bond and Exley argue, will create more jobs at home.
Many readers will recognize these goals from the Sanders campaign, but the book stresses that mass revolutionary organizing is bigger than the 2016 election: it’s what powered “virtually every transformational movement in US history from anticolonial rebellions up through the civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights movements,” the authors write.
Indeed, the concept of big organizing isn’t new, but it’s especially appealing now to those who are fed up with establishment politics. There’s no big money in big organizing, and volunteers act as campaign staff.
In Rules for Revolutionaries, Bond and Exley explain that “big organizing is what populists used to simply call organizing but with the potential for much greater scale thanks to new and accessible technology for connecting people.”
Small organizing, by contrast, has risen recently with the liberal establishment’s attempts to address radical problems through incrementalist politics, putting power “in the hands of an increasingly small number of mega corporations and institutions,” they write.
Clinton’s campaign relied on small organizing, which Bond and Exley say works just fine when the goal is maintaining the status quo. But it’s not big enough to challenge the establishment.
“People are beginning to understand that the problems we face now, like climate change and racial injustice, are too big for incrementalist solutions,” Bond said on Tuesday. “We need to address these problems urgently and make huge changes before it’s too late.”
Both Bond and Exley noted that they were working on the fringe of the Sanders campaign in its early months, and that their big organizing tactics were considered so politically unorthodox at the time that it would have been irresponsible for the campaign to invest in them.
“The tragedy of these insurgent presidential campaigns is that hundreds of thousands of people want to come out and work but we don’t have the resources to put them to work,” Exley said, comparing the early grassroots movement of the Sanders campaign to a start-up with millions of customers and no product.
But their movement gained momentum over time: Sanders went from having only 3 percent name recognition at the start of his campaign to capturing 46 percent of pledged delegates—many of them pulled into politics for the first time—at the Democratic National Convention.
Kenneth Pennington, who was national digital director for the Sanders campaign, praised Exley and Bond’s big organizing efforts in an email to The Daily Beast.
“What Becky and Zack brought to Bernie 2016 was a strategy for organizing millions of volunteers that required fewer staff and less resources,” Pennington wrote, adding that they “built a network of largely self-sufficient volunteer teams that produced invaluable work for Bernie’s campaign.”
That invaluable work included 75,000 volunteer-run events around the country during the campaign, 8 million peer-to-peer text messages to supporters and voters, and 81 million phone calls to voters.
“Those kind of numbers only happen when you trust volunteers as leaders like Becky and Zack did,” Pennington wrote, remarking that their distributed organizing team “set the standard for how progressives should organize for decades and revolutions to come.”
Do they think their methods will be embraced in future presidential campaigns?
“It depends on who’s running the campaign,” Exley said, adding that veterans from the Clinton or O’Malley campaigns, for example, probably wouldn’t adopt a grassroots big organizing strategy. “They don’t know the potential of what we’re doing, so it won’t become standard.”
The key to changing the system, Exley and Bond argue, is understanding the importance of going for big goals that even progressive liberal politicians say are politically impossible.
And what of the progressive economists who argued that some of Sanders’s domestic economic proposals weren’t feasible?
In February, four former Democratic chairmen and chairwomen of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers wrote an excoriating letter to Sanders and Gerald Friedman, the source of the Sanders’s campaign’s numbers, calling out Friedman’s extremism and claims that “exceed even the most grandiose predictions by Republicans” and could “undermine the credibility of the progressive economic agenda.”
Responding to the letter, liberal economist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times that the Sanders campaign’s job projections and healthcare claims “aren’t just implausible, they’re embarrassing to anyone remotely familiar with economic history.”
Krugman noted that, under Sanders’s single-payer healthcare plan, health care costs would be disproportionately incurred by a small segment of the population.
“Paul Krugman is not a progressive economist,” Exley countered, arguing that economists have “shifted so far to the right” that liberals like Krugman are essentially promoting Reaganomics.
Bond concurred that ideology governs what people like Krugman consider feasible or possible—an odd assertion, given that Krugman and others who lambasted Sanders’s economic proposals have pushed for progressive reforms like raising the minimum wage.
“I don’t think there’s a strong empirical argument against making the changes we’re asking for,” she said, “it’s just a matter of prioritization.”
If the government can spend $20 trillion bailing out big banks and billions of dollars on wars in the Middle East, Exley and Bond argued, then it could certainly afford Sanders’s economic proposals.
To some, the core principles of mass organizing may seem similarly idealistic or counter-intuitive, like the idea that people are more likely to step up to the plate for game-changing issues—free college tuition!—than they are for incremental plans for change.
One can see how people new to politics—the best revolutionaries, according to Exley and Bond—would be more likely to rally behind those game-changing issues than more nuanced proposals.
“The people who are new come in with a sense of urgency and they don’t have bad ideas left over from the way they did it last time,” Exley said.
Today, many of those people are being asked by their friends on Facebook to protest Trump. How can they affect change through mass organizing now?
Bond cited the Black Lives Matter movement as an example of mass organization, and suggested that we appoint black leaders to deconstruct institutional racism while fighting for issues like income equality.
She also said that people need to be ready to act if, for example, President Trump mandated that all Muslims register. “We’d need to get millions of people to register as Muslims in solidarity,” she said, adding that—in the meantime—we should push for more American cities to be like San Francisco, a sanctuary city that protects immigrants from deportation.
Given that progressives already support these principles, we shouldn’t be surprised if an Occupy Wall Street-style, mass-organized movement arises in response to Trump’s presidency. And if the progressive anti-establishment movement that latched onto Sanders’s campaign pulls mainstream liberal voters into its camp, then Rules for Revolutionaries might become our generation’s political manifesto. |
Russia has begun delivering S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran.
The announcement was made on December 3 by the arms trade adviser to President Vladimir Putin.
However, Vladimir Kozhin did not disclose any details in comments quoted by Russia's TASS news agency.
Russia in 2010 froze a deal to supply advanced long-range S-300 missile systems to Iran, linking the decision to UN sanctions.
Putin lifted the suspension earlier this year following Iran's deal with six world powers to curb its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
Last month, officials said that Russia and Iran finalized the contract for their delivery.
The S-300 deal has long worried Israel and other countries in the region, as well as the United States, which see it as destabilizing.
Based on reporting by TASS and AP |
Could a Trump presidency, in effect, ruin the global climate forever?
The answer is yes. The global, delicate effort to mitigate climate change already faced so many challenges, took so long to build, and came into being so desperately late. Trump, who has denied climate change is real and has an energy strategy based almost entirely on fossil fuels, could derail the effort entirely if he pulls the US out.
But it doesn’t have to be so—especially if key actors like China step up and take on responsibility for their actions, and for the world.
China to the fore
Let’s get this out of the way: China is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. It’s responsible for about a fifth of all emissions, having taken over as the top polluter from the US in 2006. China burns so much coal that air pollution there has been estimated to kill up to 1 million people a year.
And back in 2009, when the world came together in Copenhagen and reached a (non-binding) agreement on cutting emissions multilaterally, China stood out for the wrong reasons: It was uncooperative and committed to its particular brand of economic growth—which meant emissions growth.
But in recent years the country has changed its stance and its ways. In 2015, China committed to cutting its emissions per unit of GDP by 60%-65% from 2005 levels. Total emissions there are still rising, but China has said it would work hard to reach peak total emissions by 2030.
It hasn’t committed to cuts in absolute terms, as many countries—most of the European Union, for example—have. But it has made a massive financial commitment to clean energy, becoming the biggest builder of new renewable infrastructure in 2014.
It’s also improved the efficiency with which energy is used. From 1990 to 2000, China cut its energy intensity—the energy used to produce each unit of GDP—by 5.9%, according to the International Energy Association, significantly more than the global average of 1.5%.
None of this is leadership, which to date has come mainly from Europe. But there are tentative signs that is shifting, too.
China’s chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, said that Trump should honor the US’s existing global commitments.
Ahead of the US elections, China’s chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, took the rare step of commenting on a foreign election to say that Trump should honor the US’s existing global commitments. A “wise” politician, Xie said, was one who conformed to global trends.
While that’s fairly oblique compared to many of the criticisms of Trump, it is an unusual example of China publicly weighing in on the climate policies of another country. Now that China has accepted the need for unified action, perhaps it is becoming more ready to push for it.
Meanwhile, it’s becoming clear that as far as China is concerned, climate change is central to the global agenda. And that commitment isn’t likely to change. China’s leadership style may be authoritarian, but it’s good for policy continuity.
America’s recently acquired mantle
There are two parts to every country’s climate policy.
The first is domestic: The efforts to cut emissions at home through policies like taxes on fuel and carbon or subsidies on renewable-energy infrastructure.
The other part is international. This can mean showing leadership in the intricate negotiations necessary to get dozens of countries to agree to policies requiring them to work together for a common good. Negotiators need the skills to find a way forward that feels fair to actors with incredibly different needs—and, potentially, then selling the policies to the people back home. In recent years, international leadership has also meant richer nations taking responsibility for past emissions—the industrial eras that saw their economies grow vast, fast—by agreeing to essentially fund poorer nations’ transition away from fossil fuels.
The US is important in both arenas.
Its greenhouse-gas emissions were the highest in the world until 10 years ago and are still second highest, so cutting at home has an impact globally. And as the world’s biggest economy, it is looked to as a leader. It’s hard, though not impossible, for global policy-makers to act effectively without American buy-in.
Until very recently, the US was not leading in global climate change policy. Far from it.
But until very recently, the US was not leading in global climate-change policy. Far from it. Al Gore, who ran in 2000 on a platform that included very clear climate policies, could have become the first president to make a meaningful impact globally. Instead, George W. Bush won and promptly pulled America out of the Kyoto Protocol, the hard-fought agreement between nations to work multilaterally towards protecting the climate.
Barack Obama was the first president to make serious efforts to tackle climate change through domestic policy. A hostile legislature derailed many of these endeavors, and Obama was criticized abroad for failing to provide more global leadership. It wasn’t until winning a second term, with less to lose domestically (US presidents can serve only two terms) and the climate menace clearer than ever, that Obama took bigger steps to make the US less dependent on oil. And it took until 2014 for him to announce a bilateral agreement with China, in which both countries agreed to cut emissions by a fixed amount for the first time.
America’s ability to cut emissions has always been hampered by the need to balance a climate-friendly policy with domestic needs like cheap gasoline. It has lagged far behind countries like Germany and others in Europe, but it was beginning to shoulder responsibility, provide vision, and set an example. That might not be the case for long.
What a Trump about-face could mean
Trump’s energy strategy calls for lifting constraints on domestic fossil-fuel production and reintroducing coal, the most polluting fuel, into the mix. He keeps promising “clean coal” technology, which is so expensive that, despite years of intensive R&D effort, it barely exists anywhere in the world.
He has also promised to cancel payment to United Nations climate programs, and use that money instead to “fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure.” Such spectacular abdication of responsibility for historical or future climate change would see the US instead focus on patching parts of a country damaged by some of the very things international climate strategy is seeking to mitigate, like pollution.
Putting Myron Ebell in charge of an agency with a climate remit is more dangerous than not having such an agency at all.
There is some hope Trump won’t actually enact all his campaign promises, perhaps by being persuaded out of them by the people he appoints. The likelihood of the latter is slim when it comes to climate. One of Trump’s first acts as president-elect was to appoint Myron Ebell to lead the transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency. Ebell denies that climate change is real. Putting him in charge of an agency with a climate remit is more dangerous than not having such an agency at all, as it will lend legitimacy to views that most scientists believe are laughable. The one ray of hope is that Ebell may find few allies in the House or the Senate because his views are so extreme.
Trump has also said he will pull out of the climate deal signed in Paris a year ago, which came into force on Nov. 4 and which the US has already ratified. That deal is the world’s current best hope for averting catastrophic climate change and most observers agree that even it does not yet go nearly far enough.
Trump’s promised policies would be a massive blow to the already-slim possibility of keeping global temperature from rising more than 2° C above pre-industrial averages—the threshold for preventing irreversible damage.
It isn’t clear whether Trump truly doesn’t believe in climate change, or just doesn’t care about the future. If the latter were the case, it wouldn’t be unusual. Voters want to be happy today, and can find it hard to understand the implications of policies that won’t be felt in their lifetimes.
That is the central issue to the whole history of climate change: politicians have neither the incentive to care nor, usually, a long enough mandate to make a difference.
How to hope
In the face of such terrifying prospects, turning to China for leadership might be a wild clutching at straws. The country has forged its own path to prosperity without much reference to the rest of the world and at massive cost to the environment.
But as China and others develop and Western economies stagnate, the bulk of emissions is shifting away from the developed world to newer economies. China could be a better model than the US for a nearby country like India, which is also guilty of massive, careless, carbon-intensive growth.
India can easily shirk responsibility if China is also shirking.
Since the two are regional rivals, a better way to express the relationship might be not as one of leadership, but of competition: India can easily shirk responsibility if China is also shirking, but if China is going green, Indians might be more easily persuaded to as well.
And in 2015, for the first time, global economic decoupled from from growing emissions. That was due, for the most part, to emissions cuts in two countries: China and the US.
In short, Donald Trump is assuming a frightening degree of power at what might be a tipping point in global climate negotiation. But he’s still one man, with a finite term both in office and on earth, contending with issues that are much larger than him, and trudging head-on against the flow of scientific knowledge, popular opinion, and—as Xie noted—global political trends.
Trump was elected on a platform of strength. Wisdom we might have to seek elsewhere. |
GREENVILLE, N.C. -- A North Carolina university is conducting an internal review after one of its white police officers handcuffed a black man who had just been brutally beaten by four white people.
East Carolina University officials were appalled by the incident, which began off campus, but spilled onto the university when the man running from a beating was caught and beaten again near a dining hall, Chancellor Steve Ballard said Thursday in a statement to students.
"We understand the investigation thus far provides no confirmation that race played a role. We hope that to be the case, and we urge our campus and community to let the process work," Ballard said in his statement.
The incident began early March 17 when Patrick Myrick hit a woman in the face and she fell to the ground, Greenville Police said in news release.
Several people ran to Myrick and began beating him up, then chased him and beat him again. He suffered serious injuries and had to be taken to the hospital, police said.
Three of the white suspects have been arrested. Theresa Marie Lee, 25; Mack Humbles, 26; and Mark Privette, 33, are all charged with felony assault inflicting serious bodily injury. It wasn't known whether any had lawyers to speak on their behalf. Working phone numbers couldn't be found for the suspects.
Police are seeking the fourth suspect.
Lee was an East Carolina University student but is no longer enrolled, according to the school.
"We are appalled by the brutality of the incident. We will have zero tolerance for allowing these kind of things on our campus," Ballard said during a press conference Thursday.
The East Carolina University Police Department is also conducting an internal review of its officer who handcuffed Myrick. Officials did not name the officer but said he is on leave and not on campus.
Authorities said the officer did not use any violence against Myrick and a videotape of the incident is being reviewed.
Under North Carolina law, police officers can't charge Myrick with hitting the woman because they have to see the crime take place for a misdemeanor charge. But police said the woman has told investigators she wants to obtain an arrest warrant against him.
ECU students shared their reactions to the news with CBS affiliate WNCT.
"It makes me a littler more weary, like stay out of trouble, don't be by yourself. They should be there to help you but things could always go wrong," said ECU Freshman Barbara Garfinkle.
Another student, Nick Fullenwider, told WNCT he wants to hold off on judgment until the investigation is complete, adding that he hopes the school would be transparent.
"As long as we get more of that, I think that would go a long way to helping the situation all over the country," he said. |
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Elkhart Mayor Tim Neese has pulled all of the Elkhart Police Department’s body cameras off the streets.
Nearly a quarter of the 80 being used aren't working. The issue came to light after a deadly shooting where the officer's camera wasn't working.
The city and police department had high hopes for body cameras, but problems landed more of them in the shop instead of on the streets.
Early tests on them didn't indicate any problems using them
"We expect there to be some problems, but we didn't expect to have as many issues as what we have had -- 25 percent of them currently in repair,” said Elkhart Police Department’s Chris Snyder.
Elkhart Mayor Tim Neese is not happy with that number. He suspended the use of them after consulting with police.
"We are temporarily going to discontinue use of vest cams and the consensus is that the inconsistency or the irregularly of vest cams working is really worse than not having them, and so I want to emphasize that is on a temporary basis,” said Neese.
Since the 80 body cameras were officially brought on board last year and put out in the field, the city says the department has experienced a wide range of technical problems with them, ranging from radio interference to wiring and the battery life.
Police were hoping body cameras would shed light into the investigation of a Dec. 4 officer-involved shooting, but that officer's camera had malfunctioned before the incident.
That incident and other problems led the mayor to pull the cameras.
“It’s just been really a series of vest cams that have malfunctioned,” Neese said.
“You never know when they are working or not working properly. It’s very disruptive to law enforcement to go back and then find out something you thought was captured on video never got captured,” Snyder said. |
The GRACE mission was selected as the second mission under the NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program in May 1997. Launched in March of 2002, the GRACE mission is accurately mapping variations in Earth's gravity field. Designed for a nominal mission lifetime of five years, GRACE is currently operating in an extended mission phase, which is expected to continue through at least 2015.
GRACE consists of two identical spacecraft that fly about 220 kilometers (137 miles) apart in a polar orbit 500 kilometers (310 miles) above Earth. GRACE maps Earth's gravity field by making accurate measurements of the distance between the two satellites, using GPS and a microwave ranging system. It is providing scientists from all over the world with an efficient and cost-effective way to map Earth's gravity field with unprecedented accuracy. The results from this mission are yielding crucial information about the distribution and flow of mass within Earth and its surroundings.
The gravity variations studied by GRACE include: changes due to surface and deep currents in the ocean; runoff and ground water storage on land masses; exchanges between ice sheets or glaciers and the ocean; and variations of mass within Earth. Another goal of the mission is to create a better profile of Earth's atmosphere. GRACE results are making a huge contribution to the goals of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Earth Observation System (EOS) and global climate change studies.
GRACE is a joint partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States and Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR) in Germany. Dr. Byron Tapley of The University of Texas Center for Space Research (UTCSR) is the Principal Investigator (PI), and Frank Flechtner of the GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Potsdam is the Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI). Project management and systems engineering activities are carried out by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. |
Image caption The monument was erected six years after the mail coach crash
A 19th Century monument erected to warn Welsh stagecoach drivers of the danger of drink-driving is to get a facelift.
The Mail Coach Pillar built in 1841 marks the spot on what is now the A40 between Llandovery and Brecon where a mail coach plunged over a precipice.
According to the inscription, driver Edward Jenkins was drunk at the reins.
It aims to "caution mail coach drivers to keep from intoxication," and has seen better days, but will be repaired for the first time in 80 years.
The inscription says the coach was travelling between Gloucester and Carmarthen on 19 December, 1835 when it plunged 121ft (about 38m) off the precipice.
The inscription says Mr Jenkins's coach was travelling at "full gallop" on the wrong side of the road when it met a cart coming in the opposite direction.
Broke into several pieces
The coach, along with the driver, guard and five passengers were sent tumbling into the valley where the coach hit an ash tree and broke into several pieces.
Everyone on board survived but Mr Edwards appeared before a magistrate in Llandovery and was fined £5 and costs, although he denied being drunk.
It's a grade II listed monument but quite unusual... I'm absolutely delighted Robin Ennion, Llandovery postmaster
The inspector of mail coaches, a Mr J Bull, suggested, designed and erected the monument which was paid for by public donations.
The inscription on it states that its aim is to "caution mail coach drivers to keep from intoxication."
Today, the top of the monument has broken off and the railings surrounded it have buckled - possibly after being hit by a large vehicle backing in to it.
The Royal Mail says it is working with the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority to restore the pillar and is contributing financially.
Llandovery's postmaster, Robin Ennion, said there had been calls to repair it for several years.
"It's a grade II listed monument but quite unusual. I'm absolutely delighted," he said.
Mr Ennion said thousands of people must travel past it without knowing its history and he hopes the restoration will preserve it for many years to come.
Romantic era
Llandovery town councillor Gill Wright told BBC Radio Wales the monument was of great historical interest.
It's these moments that you realise you'd much rather be driving your car, taking the bus or the train rather than clattering along in a cold coach Coun Gill Wright, Llandovery Town Council
"If it isn't unique, it's certainly very rare," she said.
"An outside memorial for the Royal Mail - very few of them were outside, if any. Most of them were inside buildings.
"It was definitely due a bit of a facelift but now it looks as though we're going to have a real go at it. The Royal Mail Heritage Trust is generously paying the cost," said the councillor.
"I think is probably more than a car that knocked it because it looks as though it followed a fault line in the stone. It's come off in a very straight line and for a time we thought maybe someone had cut it."
Mrs Wright said the monument reflected a romantic era of horse-drawn coaches but also the harsh reality of 19th Century travel.
"Very romantic - but it's these moments that you realise you'd much rather be driving your car, taking the bus or the train rather than clattering along in a cold coach." |
On the early sketches, the Hawks Nest bleachers were on the south end of the stadium, and the field-level end-zone suites were designed to invite Seahawks players to jump in among the fans, creating a Seattle version of the Lambeau Leap.
But planners quickly decided the Hawks Nest would better frame the view of the Seattle skyline on the north.
For unknown reasons, Seahawks touchdown scorers have not developed the habit of executing Hawk Hops over the short divider near the north end zone.
The noise created by the 12th Man fans and captured and reflected by the stadium configuration, well, that has more than met expectations.
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“(Seahawks owner) Paul Allen challenged us to generate a home-field advantage,” said David Murphy, original project director on what would become CenturyLink Field, which opened in 2002.
A recent test revealed a noise reading of 137.6 decibels during a Seahawks home game. That’s in the range between a pneumatic jackhammer (130 dBs) and a jet engine at 100 feet (140 dBs).
Saints coach Sean Payton is well-aware of the environment, having felt the measurable seismic activity when running back Marshawn Lynch scored the touchdown that beat New Orleans in January 2011, the last time they met in Seattle in the postseason.
So he is not interested in hearing about record decibel readings as his team prepares to play the Seahawks on Saturday at CenturyLink Field in an NFC divisional-playoff game.
“It’s kind of like August down here in New Orleans,” Payton said this week. “At some point, it’s as hot as can be, and we don’t need to know the exact temperature.”
But in the spirit of public service, Payton and the Saints should be reminded that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health warns of exposure to noise above 115 dBs for more than 15 minutes.
Welcome to an afternoon at CenturyLink Field: Home to 68,000 pneumatic jackhammers. New York Giants offensive lineman Shaun O’Hara, November 2005
O’Hara referenced the Nov. 27, 2005, game when frenzied fans discombobulated the Giants’ offense into 11 false starts and caused then-Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren to present the game ball to the 12th Man fans the next day.
Re-examine the effect of those 11 false starts. The Seahawks surely needed them in a 24-21 overtime victory. A loss in that game, and they would have finished 12-4 instead of 13-3, and the Giants also would have been 12-4 with a head-to-head win over the Seahawks to own the tiebreaker for NFC home-field rights.
Since 2005, Seahawks opponents in Seattle have committed a league-high 141 false starts — their faulty communication reputed to be caused by the intrusion of crowd noise.
Their advantage at CenturyLink the past two seasons has led to NFL-best figures in home record (15-1), home winning margin (17 points per game), home takeaways (41) and home turnover margin (+25).
Excluding Super Bowl XL, the Seahawks are 7-2 in home playoff games and 2-9 on the road. But they’ve won five in a row at home since starting their Super Bowl run in the 2005 season.
Seahawks linebackers coach Ken Norton Jr. has played and coached in 20 postseason games, more than anybody on the Seahawks’ roster or staff. He is the only player in NFL history to win three consecutive Super Bowls (two with the Dallas Cowboys and one with the San Francisco 49ers).
“Our 12th Man is unlike anything I’ve ever known,” Norton said when asked to compare his experience in NFL venues since the late 1980s. “There is no comparison: CenturyLink is far above and beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. Not to take away anything from Cowboys Stadium, which they’ve blown up, or Candlestick, which they’re about to blow up, but nothing’s even close to CenturyLink.
“Nothing compares to that energy and excitement.”
Norton cited great fans in Kansas City as well as the captured noise in some indoor arenas, but he contended the difference in Seattle is the expectation of the fans.
“They come here expecting to set records,” Norton said. “They expect to have an impact on the game with the false starts and keeping quarterbacks from making their checks. They absolutely know they are a part of this team.”
But, really? A part of the team?
“Absolutely, that’s for real,” Norton said. “The noise factor, and how that works into our pass rush ... that’s something we work into our game plan.” David Murphy on the way the roof canopies reflect the crowd noise back to the field
Then with the architectural firm Ellerbe Becket, Murphy spent his first day working on the Seahawks stadium project taking a tour of Husky Stadium. It was led by one of Allen’s Vulcan Inc. employees — former Washington quarterback Damon Huard.
Allen told Murphy how much he loved the experience of football games in the open air at Husky Stadium, where the cantilevered roofs cover most of the seats and, to some extent, reverberate the crowd noise. So the visit to Husky Stadium informed Murphy.
But the Kingdome, despite its flaws, also passed down influences to its SoDo successor — particularly in the way its design connected the fans to the action.
“It’s a legacy that goes back to the Kingdome days,” Murphy said. “It was a loud building that had a pretty intimate seating bowl with fans right on top of the action. That played into the design of CenturyLink.”
There was little choice, in fact, because CenturyLink’s urban setting mandated a smaller footprint than any other in the NFL.
“We had to find ways to fit an NFL stadium in there,” Murphy said. The answer was to stack the upper deck and angle all the seats toward the field.
“People wonder why a lot of domed stadiums aren’t louder. Well, they’re designed to accommodate concerts, so they have absorbent material in the roofs,” Murphy said. “But we wanted this to stay loud, so there’s no absorbent material in our roofs, and they’re positioned and oriented so it focuses the sound back at the field.”
The 3,000 aluminum bleacher seats in the Hawks Nest were intentionally designed in anticipation of the effect of 6,000 stomping feet. The innovative addition of the Red Zone Suites in the north end zone, Murphy said, was the idea of executives Bob Whitsitt and Bert Kolde “to create another price point and make it unique ... we were looking for a place where fans could interact with the players.”
Has anyone taken that leap?
“I think the most memorable thing was Terrell Owens signing the ball,” Murphy said of the 2002 Monday night game when the San Francisco receiver autographed a touchdown ball and handed it to one of his advisers, who was occupying a suite rented by Seahawks cornerback Shawn Springs — whom he had just beaten for the score. Saints quarterback Drew Brees after New Orleans’ Dec. 2 loss at CenturyLink
Some say CenturyLink’s facing canopies resemble clamshells. That’s probably from the perspective of Northwesterners with the taste for bivalve mollusks. To outsiders, it might look like a pair of jaws or a huge Venus flytrap.
Teams have fretted about it for years, many practicing the weeks before Seattle games with loud sound tracks pumped into practice facilities.
Most alter their game plans somewhat because of the noise, going to silent snap counts or going with quicker snaps and fewer audibles. So the effect is not just in the disruption of the false starts, but also in how teams alter their scheme and mechanics.
In December, the Saints tried special ear plugs.
Coach Payton recalled how well that worked, as a miscommunication on their first offensive snap caused the play to be botched and end up in a 4-yard loss.
“That was not real smart of me,” Payton said this week. “You open the game with a play that should go left but might be able to go right ... it’s probably right after they just raised the 12th Man flag, so it’s as loud as the stadium can be.”
The reputation of Seattle’s home-field advantage has spread beyond the players, coaches and football fans. Time magazine did a feature on it in September titled: “The Science of Sound: How Seattle Got So Darn Loud.”
Well, it got so darn loud with a confluence of three factors: an exciting football team playing in front of fervent fans in a unique setting.
Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman warned visitors how difficult it is to prepare for this dangerous combination.
“Some (opponents) blare the noise from speakers, and if you play it loud enough, it’ll somewhat simulate it,” Sherman said. “But to simulate the noise, and to simulate our personnel along with the noise and everything that comes along with it, well, that is pretty difficult.”
It is not just the sound of CenturyLink, then, but also the fury within.
HOME-FIELD ADVANTAGE
Since moving to the NFC in 2002, the Seahawks have posted the second-best home record in the conference. The top five teams:
TeamRecordPercentage
Green Bay66-29-1.693
SEATTLE66-30.688
Atlanta60-36.625
Minnesota60-36.625
Chicago59-37.615
Dave Boling: 253-597-8440 dave.boling@
@DaveBoling |
At the same time the European Union bureaucrats in Brussels are trying to foist further gun controls on the continent, Europeans are exhibiting a newfound interest in acquiring the tools of self-defense. Though restricted by EU mandate and often severe national gun controls, following a series of high-profile attacks on women, Europeans are buying up whatever means of protection they can still legally obtain.
The surge in interest in firearms and other self-defense products dates back several months and relates in part to European unease surrounding mass immigration from the other parts of the world. In October, Fox News and others reported a marked increase in firearm sales in Austria. In the piece, Thomas Ortner, a spokesman for Austrian gun retailers, noted, “Nearly all shotguns are sold out because you don’t need to have a firearms permit to buy them… Registration courses for pistols are usually held only every five weeks but are now held weekly.”
By all accounts this trend has continued into 2016, spurred on by a scene of anarchic violence in the German city of Cologne. According to an account from the New York Times:
As 2016 neared on Dec. 31, however, some 1,500 men, including some newly arrived asylum seekers and many other immigrants, had instead assembled around Cologne’s train station. Drunk and dismissive of the police, they took advantage of an overwhelmed force to sexually assault and rob hundreds of people, according to police reports, shocking Germany and stoking anxieties over absorbing refugees across Europe.
As a January article from Reuters pointed out, a look at the best-selling products on the “Sport & Leisure” section of Amazon.de (the German Amazon.com) immediately following the attacks revealed brisk sales of defensive sprays. The report also noted that the president of German defensive spray manufacturer DEF-TEC told the news outlet that sales of the products had “rose seven-fold in the final three months of last year.” On January 15, NBC News reported that so far in 2016 over 300 people had applied to Cologne police for licenses to carry gas pistols and imitation firearms; while only 408 such licenses were granted in all of 2015. Further, the New York Post pointed out in an article titled “Europeans stocking up on guns after mass sex attacks,” actual firearms are also in great demand.
More recently, German state news agency Deutsche Welle noted this trend. According to the article, “most customers want a pistol that can fit easily into a handbag or a small drawer in the night table.” Moreover, a “social media expert” told the news outlet, “There has been an increase of at least 1,000 percent or more in Google search queries for gun permits since January.”
To their credit, rank and file German police officers appear to support the decision many Germans are taking to arm themselves. German Police Union Chief Rainer Wendt told Deutsche Welle that the police do not intend to obstruct citizens in their attempts to lawfully arm and that he does not support new laws that would make it more difficult for the public to obtain self-defense products.
As we pointed out back in November and December, this all comes at a time when the EU is seeking to crack down on firearm ownership in its member states. Pursuant to the European Firearms Directive, EU nations are already required to adopt a minimum threshold of gun restrictions. However, on November 18, in the wake of terrorist shootings and bombings in Paris, the European Commission announced that it was expediting previously contemplated gun control legislation. An extensive overview of current EU firearms law can be found at Library of Congress’ website.
Under EU legislative procedure, typically the transnational government’s executive branch, the European Commission, drafts and proposes legislation. The proposed legislation must then be approved by the European Parliament, which consists of members of parliament (MEPs) elected by the citizens of member states, and the European Council, which consists of the leaders of the various member states, in order to be adopted. These entities may also provide amendments to the proposed legislation.
The centerpiece of the recent proposal would place semi-automatic firearms in the same category as automatic firearms, barring civilian use. Other provisions offend the privacy rights of gun owners with stricter firearm registration requirements, and “standard medical tests” for firearm licensing. Additionally, firearms licenses issued by member states could not be valid for a period longer than five years.
Predictably, the gun control-crazed United Kingdom government, led by Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, offered their full-throated support of EU-wide gun control measures prior to a December 17-18 meeting of the European Council. In a December 13 press release that echoed the November 18 European Commission announcement, Cameron cited concerns over terrorism and noted, “I’ll be calling for a new EU-wide ban on all high-powered semi-automatic weapons.”
However, many EU member governments and shooting organizations have made clear they have no intention of caving to Brussels’ onerous dictates.
Revealing that many in the UK don’t agree with the efficacy of additional firearm restrictions, UK shooting organizations the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and Countryside Alliance have worked in concert to oppose the current EU proposal. A February 2 article from the UK’s Western Morning News noted that the groups have shared their concerns about the proposed rules with several MEPs and UK government officials. In conveying their position to the news outlet, a Countryside Alliance spokesperson explained, “We believe the current set of proposals will have a serious effect on sporting and target shooting, collectors, museums, re-enactors and the gun trade, resulting in heavy restrictions and a great deal more work for the already overburdened police force… In fact it appears that the only group that will not be affected by these proposals is terrorists.”
Similarly, representatives from German shooting organizations have met with German government officials to explain their opposition to the new restrictions. A December 21 Deutsche Welle article noted that the German Interior Ministry invited the groups in for a meeting. Following the session, Director of the German Federal Association of Shooting Ranges Joachim Streitberger told the news outlet, “The proposal contains things that the [German Interior Ministry] said would be difficult for them, and where changes would be called for,” adding, “After this conversation I do not expect the draft to come into force in the present form.” Streitberger also noted, “The criminal doesn’t care one bit what is in the law. The paradox is to try to use the law to avoid disadvantaging the law-abiding, while regulating the law-breaker, and that’s a paradox that a lawmaker can’t solve. Which weapon used in Paris was legally owned?”
Additionally, the article cites Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, which reported, “confidential EU reports suggest that the German government – along with its Austrian, Czech and Finnish counterparts – is keen to put the brakes on the EU’s plans.” Der Spiegel’s contention is in line with December statements made by Finland Security Minister Petteri Orpo regarding the importance of civilian semi-auto use to their national defense, and reports that the Czech Republic has significant concerns with the proposed changes. Further, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain have all issued formal comments on the proposal.
Having been adopted by the European Commission, the proposed changes to the Firearms Directive are currently under the jurisdiction of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), chaired by MEP Vicky Ford of the UK’s Conservative Party. IMCO has released a timetable for their work on the proposal. The next major event in the timetable is a scheduled “first exchange of views” on February 23, followed by a hearing on this matter March 14-15.
It is deplorable that the EU would seek to further restrict access to firearms when so many Europeans are finding it necessary to exercise their human right to self-defense. Thankfully, diverse members of the European shooting community, including shooting and hunting organizations, members of the firearms industry, and military officials are coalescing to oppose the changes to EU firearm law.
Know your gun laws. Click here to see them. |
A study by scientists from Peking University and University College London has provided an outline of the development of rice cultivation in central China between the seventh and first millennium BCE.
Zhenhua Deng, Ling Qin and Yu Gao, from the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University, and Alison Ruth Weisskopf and Dorian Q. Fuller from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, focused on the Baligang site in Nanyang Basin, in what is now Central China. A Neolithic site on the Northern tributary of the Yangtze River, Baligang provides a long arhaeobotanical sequence from the seventh to the first millennium BCE, offering insight into the development of rice and millet agriculture in the region.
Published in the open access journal Plos One, the study has the potential to clear up some long held ambiguities about the origins of farming practices in the region which is now China. Archaeologists generally agree that the prehistoric agricultural history of the region can be divided into two traditions: a northern one based on the cultivation of millet, and one centred around the Middle and Lower Yangtze basin based on rice.
The relationship between these two agricultural traditions is less transparent however, as the study explains, “Some have argued for a single origin, with either rice agriculture spreading north and encouraging millet domestication, or early millet farming in the north spreading south and kick-starting millet cultivation. Others have argued for more than (one) independent center of millet domestication across north China, unconnected to Middle and Lower Yangtze basin rice domestication episodes.”
For their study, the scientists collected flotation samples from pits and cultural layers during excavation seasons in 2004 and 2007. In total, 1700 litres of soil from 123 samples were floated in a flotation tank at the site, before plant remains were collected through sieves with 0.3 mm mesh. Following drying, samples from the 2004 study were sent for analysis at UCL’s facilities, while the 2007 samples were analysed at Peking University.
Selected seed and crop specimens were then chosen for direct radio carbon dating using Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS), which was combined with other data to form a chronology for the history of rice cultivation in the Baligang region. “Over the course of excavations, the chronology was initially based on material cultural affiliation. Fifteen dates were carried out on wood charcoal in support of this. In addition 18 radiocarbon dates were direct AMS dates on identified seed remains recovered from the archaeobotanical samples described in this paper.”
Thanks to the broad chronological scope of the data extracted from Baligang, the authors of the study have been able to construct a detailed picture of subsistence farming strategies in the region. They have confirmed, based on morphological characteristics of the rice, that rice had been domesticated in the region before 6300 BCE, although a lack of evolution in grain shape suggests that the people there were still a long way off from forming an agricultural economy.
The researchers have put together a broad overview of rice cultivation in the region around Baligang during the Neolithic period and beyond. “Baligang provides a long sequence that registers many of the key trends in the Neolithic agriculture of central China.” The effects of cultural factors have been charted, showing how the development of agricultural economies progressed in China. “As a response to cultural changes, crop assemblages varied in different periods along with the interaction between north and south China, with more millets grown in periods under the cultural influence of the north.”
Nevertheless, as is so often the case and as the authors of the study confirm, their results still leave a host of questions unanswered. “The tantalizing new evidence for domestication of rice at Baligang site before 6300 BC require data from other sites and periods to be put into an evolutionary trajectory from rice gathering to domestication.”
For more information: www.journals.plos.org
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user: Jialiang Gao |
Football, with its vast fortunes and off the pitch perks, has been targeted by con men from the boardroom to the pitch since it turned professional.
From the Sheffield Wednesday match fixing scandal of the 1960s to Ali Dia and his Southampton contract the sport has been plagued by people looking to swell their own bank accounts and make themselves famous.
One man stands out among the pack though. Carlos Henrique, “The Kaiser”, a man who played for some of the biggest South American and French clubs all whilst doing his utmost to avoid ever having to play a professional football match in his life.
Carlos had much the same dreams as anyone with a love of the game. Growing up as a football fan in the wake of Brazil’s stunning success in the 1970 World Cup, Carlos wanted to emulate his heroes on the pitch.
He showed some talent and was even brought on trial by Puebla FC, a then Mexican First Division side. The only problem with Carlos’ dream was that he wasn’t good enough to make the grade and was released without ever playing a match.
Determined to pursue his footballing career he returned to Rio de Janeiro and in the nightclubs of the city he befriended some of the brightest Brazilian talents of the era, among them Bebeto, Romario and Renato Gaucho. Carlos took well to the night life of a famous footballer and used his new-found contacts to further his career prospects.
Enlisting the help of his friends Carlos was able to secure a three-month trial contract with Botafogo that gave them the option of playing him in league matches. He had the physique and the natural fitness of an athlete so first impressions of him were favourable.
But Carlos knew that he would be required to play in a practice match soon and so came up with a simply but effective way of prolonging his Botafogo career, he feigned injury.
The story goes that Carlos asked for a few weeks fitness training before playing his first match. He told the club that he was a natural striker due to his speed and so the coaches gave him some time.
When the time came for a match Carlos asked for the first ball played to him to be played a number of yards ahead of him. He chased it and fell to the ground clutching his hamstring, insisting he had torn it. Medical technology being what it was in the 1980s there was no way of disproving the claim and so Carlos went to the treatment table.
As a ruse it worked well. He remained a Botafogo player on their payroll and, of course, during this period Carlos would hit all the nightclubs with his teammates and enjoy the company of the many women who were looking to meet a professional footballer.
He even enhanced his own reputation by pretending to speak English on his own mobile phone to admiring European clubs in front of his team-mates and the Botafogo staff.
This lasted until the club doctor, fluent in English, realised the now nicknamed Kaiser wasn’t able to speak English at all. Sneaking a look at the mobile phone, the doctor realised that it was nothing more than a toy.
Kaiser, like all great con men, had a knack of knowing when it was time to move on. He left Botafogo and used his footballer friends to secure him a new contract, this time at Flamengo. Using the same fitness to injury table routine he was able to gain months of employment and fame from the club before moving on again.
He would repeat his trick at clubs in Brazil, Mexico, the US and France, living for years as a professional footballer without ever playing a match.
Some of the stories of how he dodged line ups have become the thing of legend. At Bangu he was sent to warm up so he could be brought on as the side trailed. Instead he used the anger of Bangu’s fans to his own ends and jumped on to the cage separating them from the pitch so he could remonstrate with them.
The referee sent him off for inciting the crowd but afterwards Kaiser explained his actions as being that of a son sticking up for his proud father, the club’s chairman.
God gave me a father, who passed away. But He gave me another, and I’ll never allow anyone to say my father (the chairman) is a thief. But the fans were saying exactly that. That’s why I intervened.
At the French side Ajaccio he was horrified to see a crowd of fans waiting to witness the first training session of their new Brazilian superstar and so took every single football on the pitch and kicked them to his adoring spectators, all whilst kissing the club’s crest and proclaiming loudly about how much he means to them.
The team then could only do physical training like running as they had no footballs to kick around. Kaiser would play for Ajaccio however and would eventually retire back home in Brazil with a record of thirty games played in a career that spanned over twenty years.
Popular culture is full of people who chanced their luck for fame or fortune. From movies like Pain and Gain to Catch Me If You Can everyone loves hearing about a total fraud who gets away the deception, for a short time at least.
No doubt in the near future cinema will tell the story of football’s greatest fraud, Carlos Henrique Kaiser. |
Hi everyone! Riot Games Support has been busy the last couple months working on a new project to help players troubleshoot problems with League of Legends. Today we're happy to release our first set of help videos! This set of videos specifically focuses on one of the more prevalent causes for frustration: connection troubleshooting. Let’s be honest, wi-fi sucks, port forwarding sucks, and hell even accessing your router sucks. With these videos we hope to make complicated things easy. Our goal is for players to be able to solve a problem in an easy-to-follow and visual way, and also learn more about why problems are occurring in the first place. You can watch these videos on the new [Riot Support YouTube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyi6e6vg93m0VUyI05PGgow) and we'll also be embedding these videos in the [support site](https://support.riotgames.com) soon. In the near future more videos will be added to tackle a variety of problems, such as FPS optimization and crash prevention. We’re also working right now translating the videos into other languages, so that everyone can benefit from them. We’ll hang out in this thread for a while, share your thoughts and feedback. :D ***P.S.*** We know that not every issue is your fault, sometimes it's on Riot's end. That's why we have the [Server Status page](http://status.leagueoflegends.com). When stuff breaks on our end, we hustle to fix it as quickly as possible. For everything else we want you to have the tools and help to fix your problem as quickly and easily as possible.
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Solar start-up Solyndra LLC, succumbing to pressure from lower-cost Chinese rivals, said it has suspended operations and plans to file for bankruptcy, 15 months after President Barack Obama visited a company factory that was to be expanded with the help of a federal loan guarantee.
President Barack Obama tours Solyndra, Inc., a solar panel manufacturing facility in Fremont, California May 26, 2010. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The Chapter 11 filing, expected next week, will make Solyndra the third U.S. solar company to seek bankruptcy protection in the last month. Former Wall Street high flyer Evergreen Solar Inc filed for Chapter 11 two weeks ago, followed four days later by SpectraWatt Inc, a private company that was backed by Intel Corp.
Representative Henry Waxman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce said the bankruptcies “are unfortunate warnings that the United States is in danger of losing its leadership position in the clean energy economy of the future ... We should be doing everything possible to ensure the United States does not cede the renewable energy market to China and other countries.”
In a press release on Wednesday, Solyndra said it could not compete with bigger overseas rivals. Earlier this year, cuts to generous solar subsidies in No. 2 market Italy stalled development of solar projects and led to a global glut of solar panels that sparked a 25 percent drop in prices.
Even industry heavyweights such as China’s Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd and U.S.-based First Solar Inc are struggling with dwindling profits, while small, up-and-coming solar companies are finding it increasingly difficult to stay afloat.
Solyndra said it was evaluating options, including a sale of the business and licensing its copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) technology.
About 1,100 employees are being laid off immediately, it said in a statement.
A company spokesman said the bankruptcy filing would likely come early next week in Delaware.
“SWIMMING UPSTREAM”
Solyndra simply could not compete with “Chinese firms that have received billions of dollars in low-cost loans from state banks and have access to a well developed domestic supply chain for solar manufacturing,” GTM Research analyst Shyam Mehta said. The company’s relatively unproven CIGS technology was another key reason for its demise, he added.
“Solyndra has been swimming upstream ever since it entered the market,” Mehta said.
The announcement is the latest in a series of disappointments for Solyndra, whose fall from grace has been tracked closely because it received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy in 2009.
The company also made headlines in May 2010 when Obama paid a visit to the company’s Fremont, California, factory.
Solyndra was the first company to receive a loan guarantee under an advanced clean energy program created in 2005. The Energy Department came under criticism last year when the company postponed plans to expand the Fremont factory, cut jobs and withdrew plans for an initial public offering.
At the time, U.S. firms were just beginning to smart from the rapid influx of cheap solar panels from China.
In July, a congressional panel voted to subpoena White House documents related to Solyndra’s loan guarantee. Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee said they want to ensure that funds appropriated for the loan guarantee program were properly invested.
Slideshow (2 Images)
Solyndra also received some $1 billion in venture capital funds from investors including CMEA Ventures, Argonaut Ventures, Madrone Partners, Redpoint Ventures, funds affiliated with RockPort Capital Partners, and U.S. Venture Partners.
Prior to Solyndra, Evergreen Solar was the most high-profile U.S. solar company to collapse. Evergreen was once at the forefront of U.S. renewable energy technology and had planned to produce its solar wafers in Massachusetts. Ultimately, even a plan to shift manufacturing to Asia could not save it.
Solyndra had revenue of $140 million in 2010 and had said it planned to produce 300 megawatts of solar panels this year. |
PHNOM PENH: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened on Monday (Sep 11) that the main opposition party would be dissolved if it continues to back detained leader Kem Sokha, who has been charged with treason over an alleged plot to gain power with US support.
Kem Sokha was arrested on Sept 3 and is the only serious election rival to Hun Sen, a 65-year-old former Khmer Rouge commander.
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Western countries have criticised the arrest, which marked an escalation in a crackdown on critics ahead of a poll next year that could pose the toughest electoral challenge Hun Sen has faced in more than 30 years of rule.
The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) said it would continue to support Kem Sokha as leader and threatened to boycott the election if he is not freed.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen warned that the CNRP's stand could mean "the dissolution of the party".
"If the political party continues to blockade and defend this traitor, it means the party is also a traitor so there is no time to let this party operate in Cambodia's democratic process anymore," Hun Sen said.
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Parliamentarians from the CNRP went to the prison where Kem Sokha is being held to demand his release. They said his arrest was illegal because he should have been protected by parliamentary immunity.
"The party president Kem Sokha is the CNRP president now and will be in the future," one of his deputies, Mu Sochua, said outside the prison, adding that his release was an essential condition to allow a free and fair election.
"We can't participate in an election that isn't free and fair," she said.
PARLIAMENT VOTE
The opposition party boycotted a parliamentary vote on whether Kem Sokha should be prosecuted. It would not have been able to block approval as Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) holds a majority, and the motion in favour of prosecuting was passed unopposed. It was unclear whether that effectively overrode Kem Sokha's right to claim parliamentary immunity.
The evidence presented against Kem Sokha so far is a video recorded in 2013 in which he discusses a strategy to win power with the help of unspecified Americans.
His lawyers have dismissed the evidence as nonsense and said he was only discussing election strategy.
Western countries and human rights groups have condemned the arrest of Kem Sokha and raised doubts as to whether next year's election can be fair, given the crackdown on the opposition, activists and independent media.
However Hun Sen's main ally, China, has said it supports Cambodia's efforts to preserve its own security. Hun Sen was due to visit Beijing on Monday. He said he was going to ask for more aid for Cambodia's health sector. |
The salt equation taught to doctors for more than 200 years is not hard to understand.
The body relies on this essential mineral for a variety of functions, including blood pressure and the transmission of nerve impulses. Sodium levels in the blood must be carefully maintained.
If you eat a lot of salt — sodium chloride — you will become thirsty and drink water, diluting your blood enough to maintain the proper concentration of sodium. Ultimately you will excrete much of the excess salt and water in urine.
The theory is intuitive and simple. And it may be completely wrong.
New studies of Russian cosmonauts, held in isolation to simulate space travel, show that eating more salt made them less thirsty but somehow hungrier. Subsequent experiments found that mice burned more calories when they got more salt, eating 25 percent more just to maintain their weight.
The research, published recently in two dense papers in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, contradicts much of the conventional wisdom about how the body handles salt and suggests that high levels may play a role in weight loss. |
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last," goes the famous saying attributed to Winston Churchill. Of course, quoting Churchill will get you arrested in Great Britain these days. America isn't much better, thanks to the climate of intimidation created by, among others, the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Values Voters Summit is a gathering of social conservatives in Washington DC that features leading Republican politicians, including Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. The latter is interesting because apparently Paul feels he can break from his left-libertarian following on issues like gay marriage, but not on immigration. Of course, leading social conservatives have also been aggressively pushing amnesty of late, perhaps attempting to purchase a separate peace with progressive enforcers.
It doesn't seem to have worked. Along with other fundraising scams, er, "civil rights groups," the $PLC is now attacking even the RNC of minicon Reince Priebus.
In an open letter published in The Washington Post and The Hill, the coalition is reminding RNC Chair Reince Priebus that 15 years ago his predecessor told GOP officials to shun the Council of Conservative Citizens because of the group’s racist views. This year’s campaign is asking the RNC to do it again. “Will the GOP condemn anti-LGBT bigotry as vigorously as it opposed racism 15 years ago?” the letter asks. [Coalition Calls on RNC to Distance Itself From Values Voter Summit, SPLC, September 24, 2014]
Of course, the obvious counter is that this is precisely why the PC Cringe never actually works—it simply emboldens the enforcers to move the goalposts and create something new. If the Values Voters summit is ditched, it will just be something else, ad infinitum.
There's also the deeply dishonest implication that every speaker at a summit or conference must agree with every statement every other person or group at the conference has written or said. Certainly, this never seems to apply to the Left.
“White folks was [sic] in caves while we was building empires…. We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” — Rev. Al Sharpton [Should Al Sharpton be Fired From MSNBC For Making Racist Comments, by Mike Opelka, The Blaze, November 25, 2011] |
In captivity, tortoises often grow faster than their conspecifics in the wild. Here, we document growth (measured as change in body mass) in three individual Geochelone sulcata over an exceptionally long period of nearly 18 years and use growth data (measured as change in carapace length) from the literature on free-ranging animals for comparison. Body lengths almost reached a plateau in the animals due to the long observation period. After transformation of body length to body mass for data from wild animals, logistic growth curves were successfully fitted to all data. The resulting functions yielded a 1.4–2.6 times higher intrinsic growth rate in captive than in wild individuals. The logistic growth model estimated the inflexion point of the growth curve at 6–9 years for the captive animals. This coincided with age at sexual maturity, respectively observations of first egg-laying of a female and the masturbation of a male. The inflexion point of the growth curve for free-ranging individuals was estimated at 15 years. Raising tortoises on intensive feeding regimes in captivity may considerably shorten generation times during the breeding stage of restocking programmes, and slow-growing animals are more likely to thrive after release into the wild. Investigations on the health of offspring from fast-growing parents are lacking.
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AUSTIN, TX - NOVEMBER 14: Myles Turner #52 of the Texas Longhorns defends against the North Dakota State Bison at the Frank Erwin Center on November 14, 2014 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Chris Covatta/Getty Images)
On s uper teams: I'm a winner, man. I love to win. I appreciate the competitive side of basketball but if you're going to build a super team, it's going to suck if you're not on the team but I respect what these guys are doing. I respect what KD did. Man, he had the chance to do great things in Oklahoma city but saw a chance to do even bigger things, greater things in Golden State. That he did. A lot of guys look down upon him but... he literally held his own. He played incredible defense and it's not like he was just a role player.
On being the longest-tenured Pacer at age 21: Just being back home in Dallas it hasn't really hit me. When I go back it might but I'm groomed for this, been preparing for it my whole life to even be in this predicament. I'm now the longest-tenured Pacer. That's crazy. I'm looking forward to it, the ups and downs and everything. Being able to get this experience so young will help me moving to my prime in my veteran years.
Pacers star Myles Turner, a former top recruit at Euless Trinity and one-year player at Texas, joined 105.3 The Fan's Ben & Skin to talk Dirk Nowitzki, building his team and wanting to stay in Austin longer. Here are some highlights:
On taking less money for a better NBA chance: I feel like it depends on what I've accomplished in my career. If I've gotten my ring and gotten the things I had my sight set out to do then yeah I might take a little less money, let guys coming into the league make their impact.
But if I haven't accomplished everything I set out to do, I'm going to do whatever it takes to make that All-Star team, to get the ring, to be first-team all-NBA. It just depends on where I'm at in my career.
Even if you take less money and have accomplished everything you want to do from a business side of it, there's a business outside of basketball when you're done. Guys want to be surrounded by winners. If you're a winner and go over to other companies... you're setting yourself up for even greater things in the future.
On Dirk: I respect the hell out of Dirk Nowitzki. I grew up watching him, man, would watch him and then immediately after the games go to the driveway and mimic the fadeaways and mimic everything he did. The fact he was able to bring a ring and a championship to this city is unreal. You grow up and you watch the super team, the Big 3 of Wade, Bosh and LeBron. It was incredible to see how [Dirk] did it and just willed that team.
Are you a power forward, center or does it matter? I'm a basketball player. Positionless basketball, that's where the league is headed right now and my dad from a young age made me work on everything ... At the time I didn't appreciate or understand that, looking back on it now it sucked having to do all the drills with the guards, constantly getting ripped, constantly the slowest guy out there but now to do a little bit of everything, I'm thankful for it.
Who's taller - you or KD? I'm taller than him. He'd say he's a 7-footer but he's not a 7-footer. He's got a lot of length on him but he's ... 6-10. If you want to get really, really meticulous I'm 6-11 ¾ with my shoes. I just missed the little ceiling right there.
On leaving school early: I wanted to stay. Austin, TX is like my favorite city in the U.S. I've obviously traveled everywhere just playing basketball and I love Austin. I didn't want to leave the city, I didn't want to leave my teammates - we were building something great. I didn't even want to leave the classes, they were so interesting and intriguing, the incredible professors.
But my parents were like, "You got to go, man. Your name is hot right now, you have a chance to be a hot commodity in the draft class and have a chance to go out and work 10 times as hard as you've been working."
I didn't want to leave, man, I was a kid in a candy shop and I loved it - the whole college experience, admittedly being away from your parents a little while. But I knew business is business and do what I have to do.
On second annual Myles Turner back-to-school camp: I'm a little, little kid when I come to this stuff. I'm in every drill, hyped up ... playing defense, blocking shots.
Texas is an incredible football state but kids can make it out of here for basketball too and I want them to understand that. It's August 18-19. |
“The Big Bang Theory” edged “This Is Us” as the top non-sports show among adults 18-49 in same-day ratings for Oct. 9-15. With three days of delayed viewing, the shows switched spots.
“This Is Us'” 4.3 rating in the Live +3 chart is 0.2 better than “The Big Bang Theory’s” 4.1. “The Good Doctor” made the biggest three-day gain, rising from 2.0 to 3.6.
“Big Bang” (16.82 million), “NCIS” (16.4 million) and “The Good Doctor” (16.31 million) all overtook “Sunday Night Football” in total viewers with three days of DVR and on-demand catchup.
Below are the top 25 shows in Live +3 ratings; following that are the three-day numbers for the week’s other season and series premieres.
Top 25 broadcast shows in Live +3 adults 18-49 for Oct. 9-15, 2017
Rank Show Net L+3 18-49 rating Gain vs. Live + SD % gain vs. Live + SD 1 SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL – GIANTS/BRONCOS NBC 5.6 0.0 0% 2 THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL – EAGLES/PANTHERS CBS 4.6 0.0 0% 3 THIS IS US NBC 4.3 1.5 54% 4 THE BIG BANG THEORY CBS 4.1 1.2 41% 5 THE GOOD DOCTOR ABC 3.6 1.6 80% 6 GREY’S ANATOMY ABC 3.2 1.1 52% 7 THE VOICE – MON. NBC 2.9 0.5 21% WILL & GRACE NBC 2.9 1.1 61% 9 THE VOICE – TUES. NBC 2.8 0.4 17% 10 EMPIRE FOX 2.7 0.7 35% MODERN FAMILY ABC 2.7 0.9 50% 12 60 MINUTES CBS 2.3 0.0 0% 13 SURVIVOR CBS 2.2 0.5 29% 14 THE GIFTED FOX 2.0 0.8 67% SCANDAL ABC 2.0 0.8 67% THE GOLDBERGS ABC 2.0 0.5 33% AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE ABC 2.0 0.6 43% CHICAGO PD NBC 2.0 0.8 67% 19 THE ORVILLE FOX 1.9 0.9 90% STAR FOX 1.9 0.4 27% THE MIDDLE ABC 1.9 0.5 36% NCIS CBS 1.9 0.5 36% CRIMINAL MINDS CBS 1.9 0.8 73% LAW & ORDER: SVU NBC 1.9 0.7 58% CHICAGO FIRE NBC 1.9 0.8 73%
Top 25 broadcast shows in Live +3 viewers for Oct. 9-15, 2017
Rank Show Net L+3 viewers (000s) Gain vs. Live + SD (000s) % gain vs. Live + SD 1 THE BIG BANG THEORY CBS 16,822 3,682 28% 2 NCIS CBS 16,400 2,794 21% 3 THE GOOD DOCTOR ABC 16,306 5,613 52% 4 SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL – GIANTS/BRONCOS NBC 16,220 59 0% 5 THIS IS US NBC 15,325 4,308 39% 6 THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL – EAGLES/PANTHERS CBS 14,699 104 1% 7 BULL CBS 13,915 2,654 24% 8 60 MINUTES CBS 13,860 516 4% 9 THE VOICE – MON. NBC 12,713 1,799 16% 10 THE VOICE – TUES. NBC 12,620 1,534 14% 11 BLUE BLOODS CBS 12,470 3,489 39% 12 NCIS: NEW ORLEANS CBS 11,941 2,419 25% 13 HAWAII FIVE-0 CBS 10,904 2,389 28% 14 NCIS: LOS ANGELES CBS 10,866 2,213 26% 15 GREY’S ANATOMY ABC 10,727 2,644 33% 16 DANCING WITH THE STARS ABC 10,693 1,444 16% 17 SEAL TEAM CBS 10,442 2,421 30% 18 SURVIVOR CBS 9,710 1,685 21% 19 WILL & GRACE NBC 9,698 2,978 44% 20 WISDOM OF THE CROWD CBS 9,276 1,237 15% 21 CHICAGO FIRE NBC 9,270 3,113 51% 22 CHICAGO PD NBC 9,250 3,179 52% 23 MADAM SECRETARY CBS 8,943 2,580 41% 24 CRIMINAL MINDS CBS 8,822 2,956 50% 25 MODERN FAMILY ABC 8,583 2,310 37%
Here are the Live +3 numbers for other season and series premieres from Oct. 9-15.
Adults 18-49
Show Net L+3 18-49 rating Gain vs. Live + SD % gain vs. Live + SD THE FLASH CW 1.6 0.5 45% RIVERDALE CW 1.2 0.4 50% SUPERNATURAL CW 1.0 0.3 43% ARROW CW 1.0 0.4 67% LEGENDS OF TOMORROW CW 0.9 0.3 50% SUPERGIRL CW 0.9 0.4 80% JANE THE VIRGIN CW 0.5 0.2 67% DYNASTY CW 0.4 0.1 33% VALOR CW 0.3 0.0 0% CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND CW 0.3 0.1 50%
Total viewers
Show Net L+3 viewers (000s) Gain vs. Live + SD (000s) % gain vs. Live + SD THE FLASH CW 4,134 1,290 45% RIVERDALE CW 3,308 966 41% SUPERNATURAL CW 2,819 718 34% SUPERGIRL CW 2,803 936 50% LEGENDS OF TOMORROW CW 2,495 784 46% ARROW CW 2,417 895 59% DYNASTY CW 1,627 368 29% VALOR CW 1,600 402 34% JANE THE VIRGIN CW 1,228 543 79% CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND CW 803 178 28%
Source: The Nielsen Company. |
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio - LeBron James said "I didn't hold up my end of the bargain" to get the Cavaliers to the 2009 NBA Finals and thus forge a matchup against Kobe Bryant's Los Angeles Lakers that the world would've wanted to see.
James let loose a bevy of insight, emotion, memories and adulation Tuesday morning, regarding Bryant's announcement that this season would be the last of his illustrious 20-year career.
There were almost too many anecdotes from James about Bryant, whom now may be called an idol of James' given what the Cavs' superstar said. For Cleveland fans, though, perhaps the most poignant was James' near apology for, or at least his overt expression of regret, for the Cavs failing to reach the Finals to play Bryant's Lakers in 2009, despite winning a franchise-record 66 games during the regular season.
James and the Cavs were bounced in six games by the Orlando Magic, who were in turn dismissed by Bryant's Lakers in five games. Bryant averaged 32.4 points per game en route to being named Finals MVP.
Either James or Bryant have played in every Finals since 2007, but never against one another. They have five regular-season and four Finals MVPs between them.
"I know the world wanted to see it," James said, following the Cavs' morning shootaround in preparation for the evening's home game against Washington. "I wanted it, we wanted it, he held up his end and I didn't hold up my end, and I hate that. I hate that that didn't happen."
James answered the first question about Bryant - asked for his reaction to Bryant's retirement announcement - and spoke for four minutes without pause.
He called it "kind of sad" as he began to wax poetic about Bryant's impact on his own career, recalling the Bryant posters that hung on the wall and time Bryant gave him a pair of shoes to wear in a high school tournament against Carmelo Anthony's Oak Hill Academy.
Bryant, like James in 2003, entered the NBA in 1996 direct from high school.
"I mean, in high school I wore a nappy-ass Afro because of Kobe Bryant, because he wore it," James said. "I wanted to be just like him, man. And I always said my inspiration came from (Michael) Jordan, but I always thought Jordan was so out of this world that I could never get there. Kobe was someone that I just always kind of wanted to be like and play like."
Remember last week, when James could not (or would not) offer a single moment from Reggie Miller's Hall of Fame career that stood out to him?
Bryant memories rolled off James' tongue, as he maneuvered with ease from Bryant's career-high 81-point explosion on Jan. 22, 2006 against Toronto; his 62 points in three quarters against Dallas on Dec. 20, 2005; his game-winning shot from the right elbow in overtime against Phoenix in Game 4 of a first-round series; to James' own first game against Bryant during his rookie season with the Cavs.
"It was someone that I always knew I had to be in the gym," James said, attempting to put into words what Bryant meant to him once he became a pro. "I knew I had to be better because of Kobe Bryant. I knew he was in the gym and I knew he was working on his game. And I knew he was great.
"So every day that I didn't want to work out or every day I felt like I couldn't give more, I always thought of Kobe. Because I knew that he was getting better and I was like, 'Man, if you take a day off, he's going to take advantage of it. You cannot take a day off. You cannot take a day off.' And I used him for my motivation throughout my career because I always knew that he was working on something."
The last time James and Bryant shared the same court was Jan. 15 at the Staples Center, when James scored 36 compared to Bryant's 19 points and 17 assists in Cleveland's 109-102 win.
James, who still tunes into Lakers games on his tablet and watches "Bean" (Bryant's middle name, which James often shouts while watching those games) after Cavs games are finished, said he checked the schedule for when Cleveland and the Lakers meet this season (Feb. 10 at The Q; March 10 in L.A.).
"I think it'll be very emotional and very fun," James said. "Obviously I want to win and he wants to win, too. But some things about that will be much bigger than a win or a loss.
"It won't really make sense next year when you see the Lakers and you don't see Kobe in a uniform. Twenty years, 13 out of my career. It's almost half of my life I've seen him in a Lakers uniform as a professional. It's going to be pretty weird."
James and Bryant were teammates on two gold-medal Olympic teams. Bryant may still play for Team USA at the Rio Olympics this summer; James said Bryant's decision wouldn't affect his own on whether or not to make another run at gold.
Bryant will be remembered for his ultra-competitive streak, something James said he gained extra appreciation for during their time together with Team USA.
James ended his session with reporters with the following Olympic anecdotes to make his point.
"I would say our Gold Medal game in '08 against Spain was probably one of the most memorable games I've ever played with him," James recalled. "That was a really tough game for our team. It was our Redeem Team and late in the game it was a very close game. Rudy Fernandez had just come down and made a really big bucket. They went zone on us and we needed to make a big bucket. We swung it around the horn, Kobe caught it on the left wing and shot a three with no thought about it. Got fouled, four-point play and we put the game away from that point on. That was pretty cool.
"The other game that was very inspiring and at the same time I knew he was on another level was during our first game we played Spain in '08 in the preliminary rounds. The first play of the game he ran through the chest of Pau Gasol and got a flagrant. And Pau Gasol was his teammate with the Lakers. I was like, 'Yeah, this guy is on another level.'
"Yeah. I loved it. I mean, he wasn't my teammate, but I was like, you guys can find that clip and you'll see what I'm talking about. It was one of the first plays of the game. I was like, 'This guy's all about winning and whoever he's playing for or who he's playing with at that point in time. He really forgot Pau was his teammate. Like he really forgot that he was about to see him in like three weeks in L.A. I swear. It was crazy." |
It is always interesting to look at the fantasy football ADP (average draft position) values after the season and identify who were the biggest bargains. Players like Cam Newton, DeAndre Hopkins, David Johnson and Allen Robinson were huge values relative to their 2015 ADP. One of the most important jobs of a fantasy football analyst is to try to find those values in this year’s draft. It requires a lot of research and a ton of gut instinct. As we start to look at fantasy football ADP more closely, let’s match up the bargains from last year and identify their corresponding player in 2016. Then we will answer the question: If this season mirrors the 2015 fantasy season, could these players be the fantasy sleepers of 2016?
Fantasy Football ADP Crystal Ball: Best Buys
1) Chris Hogan (New England Patriots)
2015 Perfect Match: Allen Hurns (Jacksonville Jaguars)
ADP: WR 66
Total: 161 points, WR16
Why it will happen: The New England Patriots have made a history of finding average players on other teams and turning them into solid fantasy scorers. Players like Brandon LaFell (WR24 in 2014), Wes Welker (WR11 2007, WR12 2009, WR3 2011), and Corey Dillon (RB5 in 2004) all performed well above their average annual production after they arrived in New England. Hogan fits that mold perfectly as a solid wide receiver in Buffalo who had yet to breakout. Hogan’s nickname is “7-11” because he’s “always open.” If that moniker holds true in 2016, it would make him the perfect sleeper candidate with the Patriots.
Why it won’t happen: The Patriots may certainly make Hogan more productive, but it is also true that his situation is not ideal for a breakout. Jimmy Garoppolo is the starting quarterback for first four games, and there are a lot more mouths to feed than in the past, as Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, Dion Lewis, and now Martellus Bennett will all warrant targets. Hogan’s situation is not quite as optimal as the players that have come to New England before him. In addition, Hurns’ 2015 year was extremely fortunate: ten touchdowns on only 105 targets. It is next to impossible to see a repeat of a 10:1 target to touchdown ratio from the #66 drafted fantasy wide receiver.
Prediction: Bill Belichick didn’t spend $12 million dollars on a player he doesn’t plan on using. With his knowledge of the division and injuries to current wide receivers, Hogan could be a great value along the lines of Hurns last season. At such a low price, it is definitely worth the risk.
2) Mohammed Sanu (Atlanta Falcons)
2015 Perfect Match: Michael Floyd (Arizona Cardinals)
ADP: WR 51
Total: 120 points, WR 32
Why it will happen: Floyd was injured at the start the 2015 season, and didn’t start producing until Week 6 at Pittsburgh. From that game on, he averaged 12.9 fantasy points per game in standard scoring leagues. Floyd emerged from a crowded receiving group on a great offense and subsequently helped many owners win their fantasy leagues. Sanu has changed teams from Cincinnati to Atlanta, but is the clear number two receiver behind Julio Jones. After finishing tied for first in receptions with 136, Julio will draw a lot of attention from defenses, leaving Sanu in one on one coverage. Throw in a high octane offense led by Matt Ryan, and this is a great spot for Sanu to qualify as a sleeper.
Why it won’t happen: While the Falcons pass a ton (fifth in NFL in pass attempts), the majority of yardage goes to Julio Jones and Devonta Freeman. In addition, Ryan’s touchdown production has been mind-boggling poor (21st in TD passes in 2015). Last year’s Falcons offense was not kind to number two receivers; both Roddy While and Leonard Hankerson struggled with consistency. Throw in the fact that Sanu has never caught more than 56 balls in a season, and it is simply asking too much for him to repeat Floyd’s end of year explosion.
Prediction: Sanu was always the third option in Cincinnati. Marvin Jones one year, then Tyler Eifert the next. This is a legit WR2 opportunity. With the year Julio Jones had last season, Sanu will absolutely get a ton of chances. Tight end Jacob Tamme is average at best, and all he has to hold off is wide receivers Justin Hardy and Eric Weems. You are getting great value with Sanu, and with the inevitable Julio one or two game foot injury looming, this looks like a perfect comparison to me.
2015 Perfect Match: Brandon Marshall (NY Jets)
ADP: WR 22
Total: 230 points, WR 3
Why it will happen: While Marshall’s situation was not thought to be ideal, the Jets ran the ball so well that it gave him one on one coverage often and quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick had a very solid season. Eric Decker also provided a solid wideout on the opposite side to keep the pass defenses honest. Tate is now the best receiver in an offense that will have to throw the ball to stay competitive. Without Calvin Johnson, offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter has thrown out the playbook and revamped the offense completely. Look for more short passes and slants, which plays perfectly to Tate’s game. Finally, over the past two seasons, when Calvin Johnson was injured, Tate averaged 7.7 catches, 105 yards and one touchdown per game.
Why it won’t happen: Brandon Marshall was already established as a top ten receiver in the NFL before last season. He had monster seasons that Tate has never had. Losing a Hall of Fame receiver in Calvin Johnson cannot possibly help the offense. Stafford has always shown a tendency to force the ball into tight coverage. This was a habit that was compensated for by the presence of Johnson. Can Tate really thrive as a number one receiver? Are we even sure he’s better than Marvin Jones on the opposite side? A tough division and schedule looms as well.
Prediction: The Lions will almost certainly have trouble running the ball (last in total rushing yards in 2015). Plus, they figure to be behind in games and will need to throw the ball. Tate is the top receiver and is entering his third year in Detroit. He may not be top three, but I would be shocked if Golden Tate does not finish as a top 12 wide receiver, and therefore an official WR1 in standard scoring leagues.
2015 Perfect Match: Richard Rodgers (Green Bay Packers)
ADP: TE 18
Total: 109 points, TE 8
Why it will happen: Tight end is a fantasy position that people tend to draft very early or very late. It is always smart to take a close look at tight ends on pass heavy teams, simply because of volume. In Green Bay, quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been looking for a reliable tight end his entire career. Last year, second year player Richard Rodgers produced a top ten fantasy season despite being an after thought on draft day. Rodgers finished fifth in touchdowns for tight ends, outpacing Greg Olsen and Delanie Walker. This year, Clive Walford enters his second season in a passing offense as well. The 6’5″, 250 pound target is set to get a lot more looks from Derek Carr and drastically improve on this 28 reception, three touchdown year from 2015. Passing defenses will no doubt key on wideouts Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree, giving Walford room to roam in the middle.
Why it won’t happen: To start, Derek Carr is not Aaron Rodgers. Secondly, the Raiders are not the Packers. Carr not only has the wide receivers to feed, but also a great group of pass catching running backs with Latavius Murray, Taiwan Jones, Roy Helu and Marcel Reece. Despite being much improved, Walford will not crack the top ten at the position. Too many mouths for Carr to feed in this offense.
Prediction: Richard Rodgers earned his quarterback’s trust, and Walford will do the same. He will always get man to man coverage, and could easily replicate Rodgers’ eight touchdown production. Oakland has one of the best offensive lines in football, which will free up Walford to attack downfield. Out of all the “Buy” candidates listed, this is the easiest one to see happening.
2015 Perfect Match: Doug Martin (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
ADP: RB 18
Total: 199 points, RB 3
Why it will happen: When Anderson is healthy, he is a force. He came on strong with 27 fantasy points Week 12 vs. New England and then 13 and 15 standard fantasy points in Weeks 16 and 17. Anderson carried this right into the playoffs, and enters an ideal offensive situation in 2015. Gary Kubiak loves to run the ball, and will do so behind either Mark Sanchez or rookie Paxton Lynch. It will be a conservative offense, similar to the one Tampa Bay ran last year with Doug Martin. The Buccaneers didn’t want rookie quarterback Jameis Winston taking too many attempts downfield, and Martin was the beneficiary. If Anderson stays healthy, he is a lock for a top five running back finish. He can run with power, is elusive, and can catch the ball.
Why it won’t happen: There are too many mouths to feed between Anderson, Hillman, rookie Devontae Booker, and Juwan Thompson. Anderson is only 25, but has yet to demonstrate an ability to stay healthy. He failed to meet the preseason expectations, and his stats were skewed by the big home game vs. New England. If you just look at the metrics for running backs, there are many other better NFL running backs, even though he is in a potentially great situation.
Prediction: Kubiak is a run-first coach, and now has the security of a Super Bowl championship. Anderson is the best running back on the roster and is a solid contributor on third down as well. The key comparison is at the quarterback position. Either Paxton Lynch or Mark Sanchez will be under orders to not make mistakes. This offense will resemble the Chiefs with quarterback Alex Smith. Close one to call here, but with running back being a wide open fantasy position, I lean towards yes.
You can continue on to the most overrated ADP players of 2016. |
This industrial loft belongs to a co-owner of VM Central & Olive Studio Rupert Smith. Its design is a sum of the owner’s golden rules in creating a visual narrative.
First of all, he started with a black and white frame and then built and layered from there. Rupert started with a monochromatic canvas and layers textures, decor and design features from different time periods.
The second design rule that the owner swears by is maximizing available light. The loft’s airy double volume with large glass windows meant already an abundance of natural light, accentuated further with use of glass vessels, reflective surfaces and glossy finishes. It’s especially important because the shades of décor are rather dark, so light is necessary to keep its look not so moody.
Rupert loves industrial elements, so he included lots of them making industrial theme a part of this loft. He didn’t want a soulless, run-of-the-mill modern, cold space, and a proliferation of greenery means the industrial space is anything but sterile, whilst the taxidermy birds and skulls hint at Rupert’s ‘Touch of Gothic’ style. Rupert also added a lot of greenery to the loft, so he didn’t miss a garden at all.
The furniture you can see in this loft is a mix of modern and shabby chic chosen by the owner himself. Antique tables and vintage chests of drawers neighbor with modern leather chairs and black manyly stools. And with such an eye for detail, Rupert has ever-changing vignettes and displays.
The loft has a strong character and personality, this is definitely a home of a creative person. This loft reminds to me of a Victorian or steampunk space done in calm shades, with lots of unique details: the longer you look at them, the more details you see.
Source: elledecoration |
Much like Mayor Ed Murray before him, King County Executive Dow Constantine has expressed a willingness to support a modification in the MOU between the city of Seattle and arena investor Chris Hansen. Constantine echoed Murray's openness to an NHL-first amendment to the current agreement but, like Murray, reiterated that the numbers would have to pencil out financially.
In a statement released late Wednesday evening, Constantine said "The opportunity to bring NHL hockey to King County is one we should not miss. I am open to modifying the arena MOU if there is a proposal that is self financing, protects the public from financial risk, and does not rely on any new taxes. These principles guided the development of our existing MOU, and I remain committted to securing both an NBA and NHL team for our region, regardless of the order in which they arrive."
This is similar to what Mayor Murray said to KING5 last month, when he said "I believe there could be an adjustment for an NHL team first if there if a financial plan that pencils out for the city." The current agreement will only allow the public funding mechanism to go into effect if an NBA team is secured.
While Constantine has long been an advocate for the SoDo arena project, this is the first time he has vocalized support for an NHL-first modification. The more political support the better, and it's clear that both Constantine and Murray want to see this project through to the end. |
Earlier today a well-known community tester of USB devices reported that the 5" version of Google's Pixel phones was not able to pull more than 15 watts of power off the stock 18W USB-PD charger, despite Google's specification site for the Pixels implying heavily that both devices were capable of 18W charging.
Charging USB Type-C™ 18W adaptor with USB-PD 18W charging
We reached out to Google, and it turns out this was just a marketing materials mistake: the official specification page for the Pixel has been updated to correctly state that the phones support USB-PD charging from 15-18 watts, as opposed to simply 18 watts. The updated page, now live, reads:
Charging USB Type-C™ 18W adaptor with USB-PD 15W - 18W charging
Nathan speculates in his Google+ post that it seems Google may have reduced the maximum charging wattage on the smaller Pixel out of thermal concerns, though Google did not comment on their specific reasoning for the different charging speeds. The variance between the two devices accounts for a little over a 20% speed boost (on paper) at peak charging speeds for the XL compared to the standard 5" Pixel. However, the XL also has a battery around 20% larger, so it actually seems likely the XL probably still takes a bit longer to charge.
The reason I say "on paper" and "peak" is because a smartphone will not always utilize its maximum charging speed depending on conditions of temperature, whether the display is on, and the current capacity of the battery. All phones slow down charging very considerably as their lithium batteries near capacity (probably around 80% is where things start to crawl slower and slower) simply by the nature of the limitations of the battery chemistry. As such, while "20% faster" sounds like a lot on paper for the XL, the difference in 0-100% times between the two phones is realistically not going to be affected all that much by a gap of 3W at the peak charge rate, particularly given how much smaller the Pixel's battery is than the XL's.
If you want a sidebar opinion on this: my guess is that based on Nathan's post and Google's subsequent correction, the Pixel team may have adjusted the 5" model's maximum charging speed down some time late in development or right before the firmware reached final, and the marketing team just never got the memo.
If you feel this was a major omission by Google, well, I'd say you at least have a reason to return your phone in principle - Google did technically falsely advertise the peak charging speed of the smaller phone. But in reality, this is a fairly minor change to the product specification, and one that Google has admitted was more of an oversight, and not some major product change they were reluctant to acknowledge. I highly doubt Google intentionally misled anyone here, and they're making the situation right, immediately confirming Nathan's findings as accurate. |
A recent randomised, double-blind, placebo controlled study conducted by our research group, provided partial support for the efficacy of supplementation with a patented curcumin extract (500 mg, twice daily) for 8 weeks in reducing depressive symptoms in people with major depressive disorder. In the present paper, a secondary, exploratory analysis of salivary, urinary and blood biomarkers collected during this study was conducted to identify potential antidepressant mechanisms of action of curcumin. Pre and post-intervention samples were provided by 50 participants diagnosed with major depressive disorder, and the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology self-rated version (IDS-SR30) was used as the primary depression outcome measure. Compared to placebo, 8 weeks of curcumin supplementation was associated with elevations in urinary thromboxane B2 (p<0.05), and substance P (p<0.001); while placebo supplementation was associated with reductions in aldosterone (p<0.05) and cortisol (p<0.05). Higher baseline plasma endothelin-1 (rs=-0.587; p<0.01) and leptin (rs=-0.470; p<0.05) in curcumin-treated individuals was associated with greater reductions in IDS-SR30 score after 8 weeks of treatment. Our findings demonstrate that curcumin supplementation influences several biomarkers that may be associated with its antidepressant mechanisms of action. Plasma concentrations of leptin and endothelin-1 seem to have particular relevance to treatment outcome. Further investigations using larger samples sizes are required to elucidate these findings, as the multiple statistical comparisons completed in this study increased the risk of type I errors.
Crown Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. |
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When working on your business' presence on the search engines, we ensure that you not only get top rankings, but the traffic coming to your site is relevant as well. Through our proven targeting methodology, we target users who would be most interested in doing business with you. To do this, we identify the keywords that are most appropriate for your business. Google Analytics is one of the key tools we use to find out the keywords that your targeted audience is using to find businesses like yours. Moreover, we apply geographical targeting methodologies to get you the most specific traffic. Through these strategies, we strive towards increasing the click through rate, streamlining visitor inflow, minimising bounce rate and increasing conversions. Here you can get search engine marketing help. |
If you're all too familiar with the unbelievable pain of cluster headaches, then you know...
1. It's the worst kind of headache.
All sufferers of cluster headaches—and their doctors and loved ones—agree: The pain is brutal. This unique syndrome is so intense that in the throes of an attack, you might bang their head against the wall or even pull your hair out. The attacks are usually focused on one side of the head, and the pain is often a piercing sensation in the eye or temple, which is why some people refer to them as "ice-pick headaches." The attacks can occur daily (or even multiple times a day) for a few weeks or months; about 1.4 million Americans suffer from them, according to the American Headache Society.
2. Certain times of day suck more than others.
These headaches can occur like clockwork, literally: Some people experience them within a couple of hours of falling asleep, while others might only experience attacks in the mornings, afternoons, or evenings. For some, the pain can kick in at a frighteningly specific time of day, say at 2:30 pm every day. The headaches can also be seasonal, with the spring or fall signaling the onset of attacks.
3. You need a doctor who 100% gets it.
David Jakle/Getty Images
Although medical professionals once doubted the severity of cluster headaches, most appreciate just how painful and frustrating these maddening attacks can be. Good doctors will work patiently with you to determine the right combination of drugs and behaviors that can limit attacks or ease the severity of the pain. (Doesn't sound like your doc? Here are 10 more signs it's time to dump your doctor .)
MORE: 7 Weird Headache Triggers
4. You don't know what desperation is until you're looking for a treatment.
Living with cluster headaches means being on a continual search for respite. The laundry list of options you'll try is endless—in part because of the frustratingly vague origin of the head pain.
5. There's nothing like the sweet relief of oxygen.
One of the most effective treatments is pure oxygen, which is why many people with cluster headaches keep tanks around the house. According to the Mayo Clinic, inhaling 100% oxygen at a minimum rate of 12 liters a minute can head off an attack. A self-administered shot of a triptan drug such as Imitrex can also help; this class of drugs have been effective for migraines in general, and many people with cluster headaches benefit as well.
6. Home can feel like a prison.
Image Source/Dave Smith/Getty Images
When you're in the midst of a cluster, even leaving the house can be terrifying. You may not have the treatment you need with you should a headache come on, and the pain is so intense there's no way to mask what you're going through. Many sufferers complain of feeling almost agoraphobic.
7. You'll never stop hoping for a cure.
When the headaches keep reoccurring, you may turn to surgery to block nerve signals, implants that can stimulate certain centers in the brain, and even psychedelic drugs (a report in the journal Neurology suggested some patients' headaches cleared up after trying psilocybin mushrooms). Researchers continue to pursue possible cures and new treatments, which you can track at the National Headache Foundation, American Headache Society, and at support group-oriented sites such as ouch-us.org and clusterheadaches.com.
MORE: The 10 Most Painful Conditions |
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Treasurer tells National Press Club sceptics are welcome to doubt the trade benefits but the government is convinced of them
The treasurer, Scott Morrison, has ruled out conducting “rear view” analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, saying that the government is satisfied with its projected benefits.
The only analysis done on the massive 12-country trade deal was conducted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Consumer groups such as Choice had asked for independent review to be undertaken.
Trans-Pacific Partnership: four key issues to watch out for Read more
When asked by reporters during an address to the National Press Club, Morrison flatly refused.
“The work has been done ... in securing these agreements and the sceptics will always doubt the trade benefits of these sorts of deals,” he said. “They’re welcome to their scepticism. The government is convinced of it.
“Doing rear view analysis on these things after the work has been done – that can be contemplated – but we’re a bit more focused on getting on to the next set of issues that need to be addressed.
“We don’t intend to run the economy with a rear view mirror. We intend to look forward on what we have to do.”
The deal was struck in November and officially signed earlier this month. The 12 signatory countries are: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.
TPP trade deal will expand Australia's economy by less than 1%, World Bank reveals Read more
Morrison praised the trade minister, Andrew Robb, who announced his retirement last week and will hand the baton to Steve Ciobo at the swearing-in ceremony for the new ministry on Thursday.
“There is the outstanding record of the trade and investment agenda we have been pursuing over the last few years,” Morrison said.
“[Robb] has spearheaded that charge and delivered generations of prosperity for Australians from his great work and I want to thank Andrew on behalf of myself, and other colleagues here for the tremendous work he has done.”
Robb will take on the role of special trade envoy to ease Ciobo’s transition into the role, as Australia pursues free trade deals with Singapore and India.
Earlier this month, Robb rejected calls for a cost-benefit analysis of the 6,000-page deal, after it emerged that Australia’s economy would grow by just 0.7% as a result of signing the agreement.
The World Bank analysis showed that Australia fared worse than all other countries except for the US from the deal. |
Slow down, friend. The following content is incredibly perverted.
This manga is 18+, not safe for work, and is really rather sexual.
Should you be pure of heart, avert thine eyes.
ORYA—!!!
Ahh, MURCIÉLAGO (ムルシエラゴ, or Murcielago); a series that could perhaps be considered infamous in yuri circles. You know, I actually avoided reading it for a while. The premise seemed like something I would just hate. I assumed the worst of it and really, fans of the series in the West didn’t exactly help entice me to WANT to try reading it. I did read it, though. Why? Because of the author, Yoshimura Kana (よしむらかな); specifically his twitter account (@yoshimurakana).
Yoshimura-sensei’s twitter account is the bee’s knees. I stumbled on it while looking up a relatively obscure yuri series, and noticed this account was highlighting not only yuri, but a bunch of other manga I was interested in as well (or manga I hadn’t heard of yet/that had just debuted). It also had some hot and neat opinions, then I noticed “wait isn’t this the Murcielago author’s twitter account?” I followed him and have since enjoyed the fruits of his good taste, thinking “okay, eventually I have to read Murcielago for real”. So I did.
Murcielago is kinda like exploitation flick meets overt oddball comedy with lots and lots of lesbian antics. I think its best comparison series might be trash., except trash. really holds true to its title and it’s just a matter of how long you can endure it or how much the ridiculous nature of it amuses you. trash. is basically like if Murcielago had no restraint and was also just generally worse, but the idea behind both of them — insane action sequences that are executed by a strange pair of hyper competent girls with a lot of violence and humor — is about the same. trash. is also a lot more depressing about everything, while Murcielago is much more lighthearted. At any rate, despite a lot of misgivings I had going into the series, from the one shot onward I found Murcielago to be a real delight.
Using the Japanese covers because the English release covers are basically the same except they don’t have kana.
Koumori Kuroko is a murderer with a staggering body count. At the start of the manga, she’s been caught and is awaiting execution. However, she’s made an offer that if she becomes a government dog, she will be allowed to live. Apparently, Kuroko isn’t just a killer, but a highly skilled assassin-like one (although as far as I know, she was never actually an assassin and previously mostly killed normal people). She accepts, becoming a “National Executioner” for the police, tasked with killing the many freaks and bastards terrorizing society.
Her…handler? Partner? Her cohort that lives with her and who she cooks for is a junior high school girl named Tozakura Hinako who seems to have an innate beyond-expert understanding of all vehicles, but she also seems to have the firm and strange personality of a young child; smiling innocently through many of the horrors within the series.
And…yep! That’s it! The series does have an overarching plot of a sort and a kind of mystery element, as everything ends up being connected in this way and that (also individual arcs have little “can you figure it out?” parts), but the main appeal of the series is its episodic arcs. It starts off letting you know that it’s all going to be utterly absurd and not realistic at all. It also starts off letting you know that Kuroko is an incredibly lustful homosexual woman as chapter one pretty much opens with [this] (really, not safe for work).
However, although Kuroko is always thinking about how she wants to fuck every girl she sees (every one, even young ones) and there are some sex scenes, most of the sex is actually confined to the omake chapters that come at the end of each volume. They can get very lewd, yes, but I honestly think the main appeal of this series is the insane action and Kuroko’s overall bizarre character.
I would describe Kuroko as an impossibility. She’s an incredibly tall, incredibly thin, big-breasted and scummy woman who has no qualms killing people and can be very creepy yet somehow she causes panties to drop with but a few words. She hardly ever seems to give a shit and yet she never gets seriously hurt and always survives mortal danger. She has the CRAZY-ness of Dante from Devil May Cry and the slick acrobatic killer efficiency of Claire Stanfield from Baccano! (if you don’t know who that is and haven’t watched or read Baccano! yet, don’t spoil yourself and go watch the anime or something). While she possesses those traits, she’s undoubtedly her own character. Kuroko is Kuroko, and aside from describing her as an impossibility, I’d also describe her as smooth and infallible evil.
Not only is she evil because she’s a murderer and sometimes molester who preys on innumerable women despite allegedly being in a relationship (that’s a whole other thing you could talk about, but the only thing I’ll say is that Kuroko’s girlfriend, Chiyo, is way better than she initially appears), she’s evil because she’s a corrupting force. This isn’t really obvious at first; at first, you might even mistake her for being half-decent because she only kills bad guys and all that. As time goes on we get more reason to believe she’s just awful, usually in seeing the full extent of her brutality, or worse: how she actively encourages bad actions in other people. Hence a corrupting force. Kuroko is seriously messed up and probably shouldn’t have near as much freedom as she is allowed.
That said she’s pretty hilarious so it’s often easy to ignore these factors.
That does remind me, though; this is probably the only exploitation fiction I’ve gone through where I actually feel bad about people dying. I also think that’s intentional.
Since Kuroko works for the police, the police are a big part of this series. Think of them as the moral thread that is there to remind you that shit is fucked. They remind you that every life is precious, so when criminals and crazies show up you end up keeping in mind that every murdered civilian had a life that ended there, suddenly. They remind you that killing is a bad thing, since they don’t really ever do it and when they do they have serious moral dilemmas over it even if the person they killed was a mass murderer. They are pretty much the only characters in the series that absolutely don’t like Kuroko and wish she wasn’t “necessary” for the super-powered/skilled monsters they encounter regularly. Basically, they seem to be just about the only people in the series who are aware of how wrong things are, giving the series a surprising air of seriousness at times (there are a few others, but most of the cast is disturbingly unfeeling when it comes to matters of death). These aren’t minor characters, either; they show up often and they’re definitely major. I think that it’s an interesting choice Yoshimura-sensei made to have them be so significant, because I feel like any other trashy action series wouldn’t bother moralizing and would instead only ever delight in the wanton lusts and violence. “Turn your brain off, enjoy the ride”. There’s some of that here, but then the police show up. I like this aspect, and don’t see it getting talked about often enough.
Really do note how Kuroko seriously doesn’t give a shit although a little girl could be killed, and many have died already. She’s really a bad person! However because Kuroko is so relaxed so often, I found it easier to deal with the bad things happening and didn’t exactly find them “edgy” or something. It’s a weird vibe this series has.
Now then, winding down a bit… I don’t really have any complaints about this series, so I’ll just offer some more praises.
Murcielago is stylish as fuark.
God damn, seriously, Yoshimura-sensei just looooves playing around with weird perspectives, style choices, and absolutely insane choreography. His imagination is also wild, and there’s a lot of completely out there stuff that could never happen in reality happening in this series. Like, the stuff that happens in volume 9 for instance…aaagghhh what the HELL is that doing in this series!? But it’s awesome! Why is it here?? It’s awesome!
You may have also noticed he gets fancy often about where he puts the series title and chapter name/number for each new, well, chapter. Sometimes they get mega stylish panels dedicated to them, other times the title and chapter name are incorporated into the scene itself. My favorite of these occur in volume 9 again, for chapter 57. However I can’t show it, because it’s a big ol’ spoiler. It’s very cool, though, trust me.
Another cool thing about this series is Hinako in general. She’s kind of like a weird chaotic force that bounds around an arc mostly stumbling into doing something useful, but for all the wrong reasons. She’s just funny, really. Sure, she’s got a creepy vibe in that you can tell something’s…off about her (and not just because she’s childish), but she’s too funny so I mostly don’t even care. She’s often in a chibi-fied form that’s…really something, and she has a catchphrase of a sort in that she is often shouting オリャー！. So if you ever see オリャー！ know that she is yelling “ORYA—!”, often repeatedly, at the top of her lungs. She’s basically almost always hyped up, unless something has scared or upset her.
Other than that, Kuroko has a cadre of allies that sometimes help her out. These two are not part of that, actually, although they work together in the series’ second arc. They also rarely show up, and only until the most latest of chapters do they seem to have a somewhat more significant role again. They’re pretty cool and amusing, though, so I look forward to seeing more of them. Conrad’s design is rad, also.
That’s it. I don’t think I have anything more to say. I highly recommend this series. Go ahead and read it, mate. It reads fast, too, and the Japanese isn’t super hard to understand. On that note…
If you want to go about reading it in English officially, you’ll have some but not much luck as of right now. Yen Press has licensed the series and released volumes 1 and 2 in English as of this date. There are 9 volumes out, though… So! If you want to buy the series in the original Japanese, check out CDJapan, Bookwalker (guide), honto, or ebookjapan. Mhm, I’d say it’s worth your time.
Next manga up: another weird yuri series. Ciao. |
Allen West posted the racist American Renaissance article to his website before Dave Agema shared it on Facebook.
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
Former Republican Rep. Allen West posted a white supremacist article last December, and it’s helped create a huge headache for the RNC.
On Dec. 29, West pasted the text of a story called “Confessions of a Public Defender” on his website. That story was originally published at American Renaissance, a white supremacist magazine helmed by Jared Taylor, who seems to feel that “[w]hen blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.”
West gave the American Renaissance story a ringing endorsement.
“It will take you only 5 minutes to read this article—and I would bet you’ll read it again,” he wrote on his site. “Then ask yourself, is this something you hear Al Sharpton addressing? Or President Obama, Eric Holder, Jeh Johnson or Jesse Jackson?”
“The facts and observations in this are not shocking to me,” West continued. “They are quite well known, but the manner in which the writer so eloquently presents them is quite commendable.”
Here are some of the “facts and observations” in the story West shared, which was written by a guy, using a pseudonym, who claims to be a public defender:
“[E]verything I say to blacks must be at about the third-grade level. If I slip and use adult language, they get angry because they think I am flaunting my superiority.”
“Blacks…live in the here and the now and are unable to wait for anything.”
“Most blacks are unable to speak English well. They cannot conjugate verbs. They have a poor grasp of verb tenses. They have a limited vocabulary. They cannot speak without swearing.”
“Blacks often make bad witnesses.”
“It is my firm belief many black [sic] are unable to discuss the evidence against them rationally because they cannot view things from the perspective of others.”
And on and on and on. West pasted the full text of the story on his site without any caveat suggesting he disagreed with any of its contents. He did, however, say this: “I’m quite sure the progressive social left will criticize me for sharing this article—that’s just who they are—they hate the truth.”
As it turns out, many on the conservative right also hate the truth. After Dave Agema, the RNC committeeman for Michigan, shared the story on his Facebook page, many prominent Michigan and national Republicans called for him to step down or renewed their calls for his resignation. (He’s put lots of other bigoted stuff on his Facebook page, and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called for him to resign last January.)
Agema is now using West’s distribution of the article to defend himself, per MLive. He noted that West “is himself black.”
Agema’s battle with the RNC has drawn substantial media coverage. The committee’s top officers voted Wednesday to censure him, as reported in the Detroit Free Press, and are pushing the Michigan Republican Party to find a way to give him the boot.
Allen West isn’t the only prominent conservative figure wrapped up in the Agema issue. Mitt Romney’s niece, Ronna Romney McDaniel, is the committeewoman from Michigan, and she hasn’t denounced Agema yet. Agema endorsed Mitt Romney in the 2011 Michigan Republican presidential primary and was on his Michigan leadership team. Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has criticized Agema’s statements but also hasn’t said he should resign. And last weekend the national political director for Sen. Rand Paul’s RANDPAC spoke at a Tea Party event that Agema keynoted. Heritage Action and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy both withdrew their sponsorship of that event because of Agema’s involvement. |
Summary
Alan Watts began his training in writing and public speaking while attending King's College School in Canterbury, with the goal of becoming an Anglican priest. His interest in Eastern mysticism and religion began early and at the age of 16 he began writing for (and eventually became editor of) The Middle Way, the journal of the Buddhist Lodge in London.
In 1938, at the age of 23, Watts married and moved to the United States. He earned his Master's degree in Theology from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Illinois and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1944. He was also given an honarary Doctorate of Divinity from the University of Vermont. In 1950, while a chaplain at Northwestern University, Watts was invited to join the American Academy of Asian Studies (a predecessor of CIIS). He moved to San Francisco and became a lecturer, professor and dean at the Academy.
Watts wrote prolifically during the 60s and became a somewhat unintentional spokesperson for the counterculture movement. He was widely recognized for his zen writings, produced more than 25 books, and lectured extensively on individuality, self-expression, and spirituality. Alan Watts died in his sleep at his home in California in 1973 (we had previously written that he died of lung cancer. this appears to be incorrect, our apologies for the error). |
NEW DELHI: Accusing Pakistan of fomenting trouble in India, home minister Sushilkumar Shinde said it was helping terrorists to infiltrate into the country.
"We have information that Pakistan is helping terrorists to enter our territory. We have intelligence inputs. But we are alert," he told reporters here on Sunday.
The home minister said his ministry has directed all concerned to be extra vigilant during the ongoing festival season and ensure peace. "I also appeal people to be extra careful," he said.
Referring to Jammu and Kashmir, Shinde said security forces cannot be withdrawn from the Valley till the situation is completely peaceful there.
"When I was in Jammu and Kashmir, locals asked me to remove the Army from the Valley but I told them that we can't do it till the situation is peaceful. We will remove the Army when the situation is peaceful," he said.
Shinde said he had visited the Indo-Bangladesh border on Saturday and assessed the situation there. |
United's last match at Anfield was overshadowed by the Suarez-Evra row
Manchester United are likely to be given more than 6,000 tickets for the FA Cup fourth-round tie with Liverpool at Anfield this month.
United received a reduced allocation for October's league fixture because of fans blocking gangways at fixtures.
But Liverpool City Council has said its objections have now been lifted.
United may get the bottom tier of the Anfield Road stand, holding just under 6,400, but two seats at the end of each row, around 300, will not be sold.
"We have taken into account the improvement of the Manchester United supporters at the most recent Premier League fixture relating to the blocking of gangways and aisles," said Stephen Clare, Liverpool City Council's principal licensing officer.
"Liverpool FC will be responsible for determining the actual numbers that this will result in."
The fourth-round match takes place on the weekend of 28/29 January.
It will be the first time the teams have met since the 1-1 draw at Anfield on 15 October in which Liverpool striker Luis Suarez clashed with United's Patrice Evra.
Suarez was subsequently banned for eight matches and fined £40,000 after being found guilty of racially abusing Evra.
Additional security will be in place for the tie and it is expected the front row of the top tier of the Anfield Road stand will not be sold for the game, the first between the sides in the FA Cup at Anfield since 2006.
Suarez will still be suspended for the match, a date for which should be confirmed by the Football Association this week.
However, the Uruguay international would be available for any replay, and for the Premier League game between the teams at Old Trafford on 11 February. |
Here's the latest trade and signing buzz from around the league:
Gourriel bidding war will end up in the $55-75 million range
Yulieski Gourriel's workouts have gone really well, and his high-end skills are evident. When it comes to talent, most evaluators place him between Jose Abreu and Yoenis Cespedes, and they expect him to impact a pennant race starting August 1, assuming he signs during the All-Star break.
Gourriel has the ability to play second, third or left field with third base being his best position. He's also special at the plate; he can hit for average and power. On defense, he has an above-average arm and glove. He has poise, composure and competitiveness qualities.
It’s really difficult to get an asset like him. You either have to draft this type of talent in the top 10 or empty your farm system to trade for him. Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista and perhaps Cespedes headline a thin free-agent market this offseason, which only increases Gourriel's present value.
The thin inventory of third basemen makes him even more valuable. |
Delaware Forest Service to send help to Rocky Mountains
In response to Rocky Mountain wildfires the Delaware Forest Service is sending help in the form of a 20-person wildfire crew.
The crew will join four others from the east coast heading west to help crews in Colorado.
In response to increased wildfire activity, the National Interagency Fire Center upped its National Preparedness Level to 3 on a 5-point scale on June 28.
The crew being sent is a mix of volunteers and public agency personnel trained in woodland firefighting.
A representative of the Delaware Forest Service tells 47 ABC it means a lot for The First State to be able assist in this time of need.
"My hat goes off to the volunteers who take time away from their families and their jobs to help the Delaware Forest Service put a crew together and head to various parts of the country," said Kyle Hoyd, assistant state forester.
The firefighters are scheduled to fly to Grand Junction, Colorado on Sunday to pre-position for a pending assignment.
Their bus will leave from Smyrna Saturday at 1 p.m. for Harrisburg. |
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.
Back in September, Joshua Knobe of Yale University, writing here at The Stone, outlined a new experimental approach to doing philosophy in his post, “Experiments in Philosophy.” Philosophers, he argued, have spent enough time cogitating in their armchairs. Knobe described how he and a group of like-minded colleagues in the discipline have undertaken a more engaged approach, working with cognitive scientists and designing experiments that will “test” people’s intuitions about traditional philosophic puzzlers such as the existence of God, the objectivity of ethics and the possibility of free will. The result: new, empirically-grounded insights available to philosophers and psychologists.
Field philosophers leave the book-lined study to work with scientists, engineers and decision makers on specific social challenges.
The experimental philosophy movement deserves praise. Anything that takes philosophy out of the study and into the world is good news. And philosophy will only be strengthened by becoming more empirically-oriented. But I wonder whether experimental philosophy really satisfies the Socratic imperative to philosophize out in the world. For the results gained are directed back to debates within the philosophic community rather than toward helping people with real life problems.
Another group of philosophers, myself included, is experimenting with an approach we call “field philosophy.” Field philosophy plays on the difference between lab science and field science. Field scientists, such as geologists and anthropologists, cannot control conditions as a chemist or physicist can in the lab. Each rock outcrop or social group is radically individual in nature. Instead of making law-like generalizations, field scientists draw analogies from one site to another, with the aim of telling the geological history of a particular location or the story of a particular people.
“Getting out into the field” means leaving the book-lined study to work with scientists, engineers and decision makers on specific social challenges. Rather than going into the public square in order to collect data for understanding traditional philosophic problems like the old chestnut of “free will,” as experimental philosophers do, field philosophers start out in the world. Rather than seeking to identify general philosophic principles, they begin with the problems of non-philosophers, drawing out specific, underappreciated, philosophic dimensions of societal problems.
Growing numbers of philosophers are interested in this kind of philosophic practice. Some of this field work in philosophy has been going on for years, for instance within the ethics boards of hospitals. But today this approach is increasingly visible across a number of fields like environmental science and nanotechnology. Paul Thompson of Michigan State has worked with and challenged the food industry on the application of recombinant DNA techniques to agricultural crops and food animals. Rachelle Hollander, now at the National Academy of Engineering, worked for years at the National Science Foundation to integrate ethics and values concerns with the ongoing work of scientists and engineers. And at my own institution, the University of North Texas, we have worked with the U.S. Geological Survey and the small community of Silverton, Colo., on problems of water quality, the legacy of 19th- and 20th-century gold mines; helped the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission develop a management plan for the Great Lakes; and assisted the Chilean government in creating a UNESCO biosphere reserve in Cape Horn.
Sometimes what is needed is not the 7000-word scholarly article but rather a three-minute brief or a one-page memo.
Note further that “field” areas also include government offices in places such as Washington, DC and Brussels. So, for instance, my research group is in the midst of a three-year study funded by the National Science Foundation that is examining the process of peer review for grant proposals. Science agencies around the world are struggling to bring assessments of the larger societal impact of proposed research into the peer review process. In this study we meet regularly with the users of this research — the federal agencies themselves — to make sure that our research helps agencies better address societal needs. The “field” can even include the lab, as when Erik Fisher of Arizona State speaks of “embedded philosophers” who, like embedded journalists of recent wars, work daily alongside lab scientists and engineers.
Field philosophy has two roles to play in such cases. First, it can provide an account of the generally philosophical (ethical, aesthetic, epistemological, ontological, metaphysical and theological) aspects of societal problems. Second, it can offer an overall narrative of the relations between the various disciplines (e.g., chemistry, geology, anthropology, public policy, economics) that offer insight into our problems. Such narratives can provide us with something that is sorely lacking today: a sense of the whole.
Field philosophy, then, moves in a different direction than either traditional applied philosophy or the new experimental philosophy. Whereas these approaches are top-down in orientation, beginning in theory and hoping to apply a theoretical construct to a problem, field philosophy is bottom-up, beginning with the needs of stakeholders and drawing out philosophical insights after the work is completed.
Being a field philosopher does have its epistemological consequences. For instance, we take seriously the temporal and financial constraints of our users. Working with government or industry means that we must often seek to provide “good-enough” philosophizing — it often lacks some footnotes, but attempts to provide much needed insights in a timely manner.
The willingness to take these constraints seriously has meant that our work is sometimes dismissed by other philosophers. Across the 20th century, philosophy has embraced rigor as an absolute value. Other important values such as timeliness, relevance and cost have been sacrificed to disciplinary notions of expertise. In contrast, we see “rigor” as involving a delicate balance among these often competing values. To put it practically, field philosophers need to learn how to edit themselves: sometimes what is needed is not the 7000-word scholarly article but rather a three-minute brief or a one-page memo.
Related More From The Stone Read previous contributions to this series.
Make no mistake: field philosophy does not reject traditional standards of philosophic excellence. Yet in a world crying out for help on a wide range of ethical and philosophical questions, philosophers need to develop additional skills. They need to master the political arts of working on an interdisciplinary team. Graduate students need to be trained not only in the traditional skills of rigorous philosophical analysis but also in the field rigor of writing grants and framing insights for scientists, engineers and decision makers at the project level.
Finally, a field approach to philosophy may also help with the challenge facing the entire academic community today. Underlying the growing popular distrust of all societal institutions lies a social demand for greater accountability for all those who work in the industry of knowledge production. This is most obvious among scientists who face increasing demands for scientific research to be socially relevant. But with budgets tightening, similar demands will soon be made on philosophy and on all the humanities — to justify our existence in terms of its positive and direct impacts on society. Field philosophy, then, serves as an example of how academics can better serve the community — which after all is said and done, pays the bills.
Robert Frodeman is professor of philosophy and founding director of the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity at the University of North Texas. He is author of “Geo-Logic: Breaking Ground between Philosophy and the Earth Sciences (2003), co-editor of the “Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy” (2008), editor of the Oxford “Handbook of Interdisciplinarity” (2010). |
When Alicia Mahoney moved to the Royal City five years ago, she thought she was edging towards an empty nest. Her eldest, River, was graduating from high school and her daughter, Akaylah, was entering Grade 8.
“Honestly, I was planning my adult-no-children life,” Mahoney jokingly said in an interview with the Record.
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But then life happened – she got pregnant.
“I was a little shocked, but it turned out to be a blessing,” she said of now 17-month-old Jackson.
Becoming a mother for the third time, however, made her realize New Westminster was missing something “very important” – a good quality toy store.
“With teenagers, its clothes and electronics, but for the little guys, there was absolutely nothing here unless you go across the bridge to Queensborough, or out to Coquitlam to Toys R Us,” she said.
That’s when she decided to open her own – Shnoo and the Pachooch – at the Quay last fall. She knew she had a niche market because the River Market’s Pedagogy Toys had shut down in 2012. Some of Mahoney’s inspiration also came from the abundance of children’s stores on Commercial Drive, the neighbourhood she used to work and shop in prior to her business venture, as well as a Facebook group called New West Moms.
“A lot of moms were asking, ‘Where can I get this kind of toy? I don’t want to go to Toys R Us or Walmart,’ and they were getting sent out of the city,” Mahoney explained.
After some back-and-forth discussion with the River Market team, Mahoney launched the Shnoo and the Pachooch kiosk last October. She and another artisan, who was sharing the booth at the time, were then asked to move into a 100-sq. ft. retail space next door. Mahoney started operating solo at the start of this month because her colleague’s contract expired.
“The feedback’s been good,” she said. “I started out with things I would want my little guy (to have); then I thought about my niece, people I would buy for, and I just wanted quality toys.”
When shopping around for inventory, Mahoney said she looks for award-winning, eco-friendly and sustainable products, ones that “you’re not going to find in big box stores.”
Her shelves are home to bashful monkeys, checkout registers and peek-a-boo pandas. Besides toys, the New West resident is working on getting some locally-designed clothing into the mix; something she says is also missing on the shopping front.
If mothers can’t make it to the store, located at 131-810 Quayside Drive, Mahoney has set up a website (shnoopachooch.com) to order from.
“I’d like people in Canada, and even in the States, to be able to access my stuff because I know people are moving away from corporations and they’re more open to supporting small businesses,” she said.
Asked about future business plans, Mahoney said she hopes to expand but stay at the Quay.
“I thought about other areas in New West, and I just didn’t want to be anywhere else. It’s such a central location that kids come to,” she said.
As for the name Shnoo and the Pachooch, they’re nicknames Mahoney called her kids while they were growing up. |
This article is from the archive of our partner .
Mitt Romney's debate performance pushed him into a national lead over President Obama among likely voters, Pew Research Center reports in its latest poll numbers. Romney is leading Obama 49 percent to 45 percent in a poll taken over four days after the debate last week, even though in mid-September, Obama was leading Romney by 8 percentage points. There's a ton of good news for Romney in this poll:
Two-thirds of registered voters think Romney won the debate, while only a fifth think Obama did.
Romney's favorable rating hit 50 percent among registered voters for the first time.
Voters think Romney is the candidate of ideas by 47 percent to 40 percent.
Romney and Obama are tied as to who would be a strong leader—even though Obama had a 13-point lead on that question last month.
Romney has an 8-point lead on jobs.
Voters still think Obama is the candidate who's more moderate, honest, and consistent.
Other pollsters have found Romney crushed Obama in the debate, too -- Gallup says Romney was seen as the victor by the biggest margin in its history. But Gallup hasn't yet measured such a big swing toward Romney in national polls, showing Obama ahead 50 percent to Romney's 45 percent.
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected]. |
Julia Marquand was shopping in downtown Seattle on Oct. 12 when a man began following her closely, then reached out and grabbed her butt.
Instead of ignoring it, however, Marquand took the issue into her own hands. Thinking quickly, she snapped pictures of her attacker on her phone and reported the incident to the police, she told KING 5 News. When the cops didn't seem interested, she turned to social media and tweeted her purported offender's mug, where it went viral.
I have a pic of the man who groped me & the cops don't want it. @iHollaback @seattlish @seattletimes @seattleweekly pic.twitter.com/58JHEwjZvF
Her tweet also caught the attention of local media, which eventually led to the man being identified as Daryl Sharma, a "level 3" sex offender who had previously been convicted of groping another woman. Shortly thereafter, the Seattle Police Department arrested him for violating his supervision's terms.
Currently, social media is too often used as a tool to shame and threaten women online. Marquand's actions turned the tables on this trend, however, empowering herself and others in the process. Indeed, her tweets jump-started a conversation about women's experiences with street harassment, highlighting just how pervasive it is through the various stories others began to share.
have gotten several emails already from other women reporting similar experiences with the same groper #seattlegroper #gropergate
Pic of the ass groper #YesAllWomen #streetharassment #Seattle pic.twitter.com/u30sDSVOcR
Ladies, tweet me your own stories of groping and harassment - people need to realize how widespread this problem is #gropergate #yesallwomen
have gotten several emails already from other women reporting similar experiences with the same groper #seattlegroper #gropergate
i once witnessed a woman confront a man on the bus who had groped her in the past (on the bus), @JuliaMarquand. no one reacted at all.
Ladies, tweet me your own stories of groping and harassment - people need to realize how widespread this problem is #gropergate #yesallwomen
Ladies, tweet me your own stories of groping and harassment - people need to realize how widespread this problem is #gropergate #yesallwomen
Ladies, tweet me your own stories of groping and harassment - people need to realize how widespread this problem is #gropergate #yesallwomen
Looks like the groper is caught, but #streetharrasment still an issue. Was harassed on the way to 2 interviews today on street #gropergate
Marquand is right: Street harassment is very much a serious issue, and it doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.
As Mic previously reported, "harassment in public spaces is a significant problem in the United States, with 65% of women reporting they have experienced some form of street harassment in their lifetimes. Even worse, 41% reported physically aggressive forms, including sexual touching, following, flashing and being forced to do something sexual." It can even have deadly consequences.
Something so socially ubiquitous, like street harassment, demands an equally sweeping response, and Marquand is not the first victim to attempt to take justice into their own hands. Like Marquand, other women have been detailing their harassment online for months. This summer, a Minneapolis woman began recording and uploading videos of her harassers to YouTube, and a woman in New York City recorded the man she said exposed himself on the subway. Apps like Hollaback! have also made reporting harassment even easier.
So, take note, harassers: Think twice before catcalling, groping or otherwise assaulting women on the street. Yours might be the next face circulating on social media. |
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UPDATE: Van and dogs found safe. Click here for details.
CHICAGO -- A van with seven dogs from a day care center was stolen at gunpoint in the River West neighborhood.
Police say the carjacking happened around 3:50 p.m. Wednesday.
The van was at the intersection of Chicago, Ogden and Milwaukee.
Police say a driver for the doggie daycare facility Urban Outsitter was in the process of returning the dogs to their owners when the van was hijacked.
P olice say two men carjacked the driver at gunpoint. The driver complied and the men fled in the van.
The van hit two other cars in the process of fleeing the scene.
The van is a silver Town & Country with license plate R18-8668.
The men were between the ages of 18 and 25.
Anyone who has any information is asked to call police. |
There is simply no logic to the argument, no matter how it is interpreted”.
http://theduran.com/food-medicine-cant-get-passed-saudi-blockade-yemen-nikki-haley-thinks-missiles-can/
While many in the west are experiencing “war fatigue”, it would appear that they are also experiencing “protest fatigue” when it comes to the all important issue of peace.
February the 15th, 2003, is generally considered to be the biggest day of global protests in history. Anti-war marches and rallies took place on every populated continent, as millions came together to oppose George W. Bush’s war on Iraq, which ultimately broke out the following month.
In New York, upwards of 400,000 people gathered to try and stop the war while estimates of upwards of 1 million gathered in London, with two million marching in Madrid.
On that day, the streets of most major capital cities in the world staged events to reject war, with the most substantial demonstrations held in the large cities of Europe, North America, the Middle East and diverse parts of Asia ranging from Malaysia to India.
The protests did not stop the war, but they did help to set the stage for the failure of the war hawks to explain themselves out of the disaster that was and to an extent remains, the illegal 2003 war on Iraq.
Since that time, the US and its allies have successfully destroyed Libya while they continue to meddle in Syria after using proxy forces to instigate the present conflict in Syria starting in 2011.
Now, Iran is subject to much of the same defamatory statements that have been hurled at Iraq, Libya and Syria.
While many people are deeply opposed to the actions the US has taken to destroy sovereign states since 2003, there have been no repeats of the mass protests of that year.
In looking for an answer as to why this might be, there are some negative but also some positive answers.
Social Media
Social media has come a long way since 2003. In fact, the first major western social media network, Myspace, only launched after the Iraq war. In 2003, the internet was powerful, but nowhere near as powerful as it had become by 2011.
Today, people “protest” and “demonstrate” on a daily basis across a wide variety of platforms including, Facebook, VK, Twitter, Telegram, Instagram, Youtube and many others. Crucially, many popular social media networks are owned by companies based outside of the US, helping to make the corporate governance of major websites and apps far more pluralistic than was the case in 2003.
The power of social media to galvanise public opinion against war should not be underestimated. The fact that so many western corporations and governments try and often succeed in silencing online protest, is clear sign that the powers that be in war hungry western governments, believe that such mechanisms are turning public opinion against mainstream pro-war political groups.
Protest Fatigue
On the other side of the spectrum, seeing how the anti-Iraq War protests ultimately did not change the policies of the US and its war partners, it would appear that many have decided that the peaceful mobilisation of street protesters is not effective.
Since 2003, organic, big tent anti-war protests have largely been subsumed in the west by a combination of genuine protests over national or local matters and paid “protests” by sectarian foundations. When looking for an example of a genuine local protest, one can point to the frequent anti-economic austerity protests in countries like Greece. Examples of paid “protests” by sectarian foundations are typified by those organised by various bodies funded by and/or coordinated by George Soros. These protests never deal with broad unifying issues such as that of world peace.
Republican versus Democrat
While I believe that there is truth to a great deal of the previous two theories, the idea that anti-war activists are more likely to protest a Republican President in the White House going to war, rather than a Democratic one. seems to be an argument which has passed its use-by-date.
Donald Trump is a Republican US President who won an election based largely on an anti-war platform. The fact that in less than a year, he is creating as much global instability as his two war-mongering predecessors has not resulted in mass protests of the kind seen against Bush and his international partners in 2003.
While members of the political elite will always use party politics as a means of point-scoring against an opponent, the idea of a left-right divide in 21st century anti-war politics, is no longer apt.
Broken Promises
While it seems to be largely forgotten now, George W. Bush first ran for President on a platform of opposition to “nation building”, as he called it in 1999 and 2000. He even once said that he wanted to avoid being known as the “ugly American” for trying to impose American style governance on sovereign states.
Watching Bush’s campaign clips makes for a surreal experience, as Bush continues to epitomise the arch pro-war neo-con in most people’s eyes. During his campaign though, he expressed a degree of scepticism about Bill Clinton’s illegal war on Yugoslavia which his opponent, then Vice President Al Gore continued to extol as a “success”.
In 2008, Barack Obama’s anti-war message was vocal and visible. The now infamous “change” and “hope” posters were as much about opposition to the Iraq War and the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, as they were about domestic issues.
Long before his campaign, Obama frequently spoke out against Bush’s war, as a rising star in the Democratic party.
Obama ended up going to war with more sovereign states than George W. Bush, while also antagonising Russia and China far more than Bush ever did. Hope soon turned into “nope”.
Donald Trump Tweeted endlessly through Barack Obama’s Presidency about the disastrous Middle Eastern wars pursued by Obama.
What will we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2013
AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA – IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013
Many of the Syrian rebels are radical jihadi Islamists who are murdering Christians. Why would we ever fight with them? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2013
Don't attack Syria – an attack that will bring nothing but trouble for the U.S. Focus on making our country strong and great again! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 9, 2013
These online statements led Trump to eventually run for US President on a similar platform. Once in power, he escalated the war against Syria, threatened to destroy North Korea and is once again making threats against Iran.
In this sense, it seems apparent that people have grown numb from multiple US Presidents campaigning for peace and ruling through war. As such, few protesters seek to mobilise in order to hold lying leaders to account.
The peace is not meant to be won–it is meant to be continuous
George Orwell once wrote that “the war is not meant to be won–it is meant to be continuous”.
Decades of US wars from the invasion of Philippines in 1899 to the wars of 2017, have proved that for modern America, peace is the exception and war is the rule.
As such, many peace activists and those with a conscience have concluded that a single day of protests is not enough to rally support against a cycle of wars that is a perennial phenomenon.
Because of this, the social media model of constant global, digital mobilisation may well prove to be more effective in the long-term than putting millions of anti-war demonstrators in the streets on a single day. It is also less time consuming and more cost effective.
As it is with all opposition groups, the use of platforms from foreign countries may prove to be invaluable as US owned social media networks continue to crack down on those who oppose war, occupation and inhumane conditions.
There is no guarantee that this will work, but it is certainly the most clear option that those opposed to war in the 21st century must utilise as much as possible. |
The application of Dye Solar Cells (DSC's) in many technologies and new products is at least a year away, according to Dyesol, the leading company in the fast-growing DSC sector. DSC technology still has a way to go to catch up with nature. You see, DSC technology is based on the process whereby plants convert light into energy and store it. Plants that use photosynthesis operate 24/7, even when the sun is not shining.
Essentially, it's working those long hours that will prove DSC energy more efficient than silicon-based solar cells. The bio-inspired DSC is more powerful in a wider range of light and temperature conditions and its material flexibility makes it easy to be incorporated into many commonly used materials from steel in the building industry to fabric in the textile industry. DSC will also be far less expensive than silicon-based solar cells and will not leave the carbon footprint that current solar plants are making. In short, the application of DSC technology to existing and new materials is going to be revolutionary, changing the way we interact with many of our environments.
Dyesol, an Australian company, with an international board of directors and customer base, is creating the DSC's which will generate heat when incorporated into glass, steel, paint, nano fabrics and many other textures. DSC's are extremely flexible. Layers of dye are formed and then laid on layers of material from steel to fabric. The dyes can be colored or transparent.
Dyesol is now working with the Welsh Assembly Government on a project designed to see if roofing steel can generate electricity. Additionally, the University of Rome, the Italian companies ERG Renew and Permasteelisa, and the Australian Department of Defense have contracts with Dyesol for various applications of DSC technology.
DSC's, inspired by photosynthesis, will soon be coming to a roof or window or winter shirt near you. Probably not soon enough.
Sources: AskNature.org, Dyesol. SmartCompany.com Plant Photo: Forest & Kim Starr |
Image caption The photographs were taken while the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were on a private holiday
The editor of the Irish Daily Star newspaper has resigned over the publication of topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge.
Michael O'Kane was suspended from his post in September while an internal investigation was carried out.
The tabloid published pictures of the duchess and Prince William sunbathing on a private holiday in France.
Media tycoon Richard Desmond, whose Northern and Shell group co-owns the paper, had threatened to shut it down.
Best interests
The Dublin-based Irish Daily Star said in a statement: "As a result of the publication on 15 September 2012, issues arose with the shareholders of Independent Star Limited.
"Having considered those issues in tandem with Mr O'Kane, it is Mr O'Kane's decision to resign as editor of the Irish Daily Star, effective immediately."
It is Mr O'Kane's decision to resign as editor of the Irish Daily Star, effective immediately Irish Daily Star statement
Northern and Shell group co-owns the newspaper with the Irish-based Independent News and Media.
Independent News and Media said Mr O'Kane acted at all times in a highly professional and appropriate manner and in the best interests of the newspaper.
Criticised decision
He followed all editorial policies and guidelines, it added.
Both co-owners had criticised the decision of Mr O'Kane to publish the pictures, although Independent News and Media said closing down the title would be disproportionate.
The Irish Daily Star re-published the photographs in September after they appeared in French celebrity gossip magazine Closer.
The pictures were used by publications in France, Italy, the Irish Republic, Sweden and Denmark. No British newspaper has printed them.
They did not feature in the Northern Ireland edition of the Irish Daily Star. |
As Manchester United sell off another young talent in the form of Adnan Januzaj we take a look at 5 players that were tipped to be the next best thing to come out of the United system. But all they managed to do is fade into oblivion.
1. Nick Powell
Powell joined United in 2012 from Crewe Alexandra for a fee of £6 million. While everyone thought that United had paid way too much for a youngster but the club had full faith in Powell’s talents and the youth system of Crewe. United were confident that they had bought a potential superstar who would dazzle the United midfield for years to come.
He made his debut in September 2012 replacing the great Ryan Giggs. And within 10 minutes of his debut, the youngster scored a screamer of a goal from outside the box. But that was basically it for Powell. After that, the Englishman packed his suitcase and travelled all around England in various loan spells. But luck just refused to shine on him and everywhere he went, the now 23-year-old failed to make any sort of impact. Man Utd eventually sold off the player to Wigan Athletic in 2016, the same club against which he had made his debut.
2. Federico Macheda
Not many players can boast of making a title deciding impact on their debut. But Macheda is one of those few players who can say that. In 2009 the Red Devils were trailing to Aston Villa and that is when Ferguson decided to throw Federico Macheda onto the pitch, a player that you would never have heard of unless you were a United faithful that is.
While the whole world looked and possibly frowned at the manager’s decision, Ferguson knew exactly what he was doing. And as luck would have it, Macheda scored a brilliant goal in injury time helping United win the match 2-1. After that match, Macheda did manage to make a few starts for the team but failed to make any sort of impact. The Italian’s career graph started to dip from 2011 and he went on loan to as many as five clubs. And eventually in 2014 Man Utd released Macheda who then went on to join Cardiff City.
3. Chris Eagles
Eagles is now 31 years old and plays for Port Vale in the fourth tier of English football. But at the turn of the millennium, he was one of the most promising youngsters in the whole of England.
Eagles came to the United academy in 2000 from Watford, and Ferguson had really high hopes from this youngster. But like most of the players in this list, Eagles too failed to break into the first team and spent most of his time on loan spells. And United eventually sold him off to Burnley in 2008.
4. Bojan Djordjic
The Serbian signed for United in 1999 and was undoubtedly one of the most gifted youngsters of that time. But he was more inclined towards pubs and parties rather than the training grounds. And this ultimately affected his development, forcing United to release him in 2005.
Djordjic joined Rangers after being released by United and since then the Serbian has gone on to play for 8 different clubs.
5. Ravel Morrison
Sir Alex Ferguson mentioned Morrison as the brightest 14-year-old he had ever seen at the club, better than even the likes of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes. But the youngster was also the ‘saddest case’ during his managerial career at United.
And when Morrison finally left for West Ham in 2012, everyone at Old Trafford thought the exact same thing, “How could someone so talented be so reckless with his future?”
Morrison was not just talented but was better than Paul Pogba at one point of time. Yes, you heard that right. But unlike Pogba, the Englishman just refused to work hard. And his off-the-field actions did not help his career either. Morrison repeatedly kept getting into trouble with the authorities and finally United decided they had enough.
Did we miss out on someone? Let us know. |
Tokyopop's Stu Levy has talked to Publishers Weekly about the company's plans to get back into North American publishing business. In terms of manga, he reiterated what he said at Anime Expo, that they'd have to pursue "hidden gems" rather than big titles or incomplete series.
"We have to talk with licensors, asking them to give us another chance," Levy said. “Some are open-minded, and some are skeptical. Our role is to find people that want to work with us to make it work, and make it sustainable financially.”
They are also in talks with TV, movie, and video game companies about doing original manga, along the lines of the company's earlier CSI, Star Trek andBattlestar Galactica releases.
Levy is also working on new digital comics initiative, POP Comics. This is a mobile app for iOS and Android that allows creators to upload and promote their original comics, with a closed beta up at thttp://popcomics.com
The comics on POP Comics will be free to read, and supported by online ads. Creators will get 70-75% of the ad revenue, with 30% going to Tokyopop.
Levy cited similar online platforms like LINE's Webtoons as the inspiration for POP Comics. "This kind of thing is a trend in Korea and Japan. LINE has 10 million users, reading manga on their apps that's not seen in any magazine."
Read more, including Levy's statements on the creative rights for Pop Comics works on Publishers Weekly.
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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime. |
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday upheld the policy of Indian Airlines to ground overweight airhostesses.
A bench headed by Justice A K Sikri dismissed the petition filed by some Indian Airlines airhostesses, who were grounded due to putting on weight excessive to the limit fixed by the airlines.
The court had on May 5 reserved its judgement on a bunch of petitions of Indian Airlines' airhostesses challenging their grounding for being overweight.
The petitioners had also challenged the Airlines' circular of withdrawing permissible overweight limit of 3 kg over and above the upper limit as laid down for the cabin crew.
Challenging the grounding of air hostesses due to their weight, advocate Arvind Sharma appearing for the petitioners had contended that the action was arbitrary and illegal.
"There is no connection between weight and performance of duty when one is medically fit. Weight is not criteria of fitness," Sharma had contended.
The petitioners had challenged the judgment of single bench of the High Court which had upheld the Airlines' policy of grounding overweight airhostesses.
Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium appearing for the Airlines' had contended that the action taken against them was justified.
"It was clearly mentioned in their contract that their job could be terminated in case they put on weight above the permissible limit and they have just been grounded on a condition that they would be allowed to fly after losing weight," Subramanium had said. |
(Kaptain Carbon returns to NCS with a feature devoted to Dungeon Synth”. Kaptain Carbon operates Tape Wyrm, a blog dedicated to current and lesser known heavy metal. He also writes Dungeon Synth reviews over at Hollywood Metal as well as moderating Reddit’s r/metal community. We’ve heard that he is also a fantastic dungeon master and has some wonderful EDH decks.)
If you have been following my exploits and research into dungeon synth, this article should come as no surprise. For the past year or so I have taken a swan dive into this genre without any hesitation or thought of the consequences. If you are new to dungeon synth, allow me to give you a proper introduction.
Dungeon synth is the new name for a nebulous genre of music that was formed out of the merging of dark ambient electronic style music and the production aesthetic of black metal. It has existed in many facades over different decades and has provided a canvas for many underground metal musicians to pay tribute to the speculative worlds of their imagination. The early days of dungeon synth did not even hold its current name, rather the phrases “dark medieval,” “neoclassical,” and “dark ambient” would be placeholders for this style of music that would take years to be rediscovered and rebranded. Today, dungeon synth is still a relatively obscure style of music, providing joy to the few who celebrate its existence. In the dark corners of an already dark and underground style of black metal music lies a budding genre that is filled with bizarre wonder.
The underground metal scene of the late ’80s and early ’90s provided musicians with the resources to record music without the necessity of a large studio. Home and DIY recordings, coupled with the tape-trade scene, would make the production and destruction of music not necessarily easier but give it its own unique qualities. Dungeon music appeared out of the desires of musicians to continue their exploration into the atmospheres and landscapes created by black metal music but with the guide of synthesizers. Retaining the grim atmosphere of black metal, dungeon music would celebrate the worlds of fantasy and speculation at a slower pace and with more of a regal disposition. The use of the synthesizer allowed musicians to command and create many sounds from a center and acted as a canvas for vast speculative worlds to form. Black metal of the ’90s has a deep, inlaid history with Tolkien and other fantasy sources, and dungeon music was an extension of this fascination, just with a new sound. It was the musical version of fantasy stories written by anyone who had the means for its production.
Before you go any further, ask yourself what you want. If you enjoy the fantasy aspects of metal and would like to explore a unique splinter genre of metal that travels into some weird, nostalgic, and experimental territory, please pass through this gate. However, if you find the fantasy qualities irritating or unoriginal, then I would suggest you not pass through Khazad-dûm and turn back to whence you came. I do not know how this whole thing started, but at this point I am head-over-heels when it comes to my affection for this music. If you are like me, you will giggle at first but then slowly succumb to the allure of woodland magic until you are pushing up your glasses before explaining to others what this music really is.
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Introductory Releases
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MORTIIS – Ånden som gjorde opprør (1994)
Mortiis is one of the earliest and perhaps most important progenitors of dungeon synth. Originally the bassist for the band Emperor and appearing on the band’s earliest recording, Wrath of the Tyrant, Mortiis left the band to begin his own solo work, which was actually 4 separate projects. Mortiis, Vond, Cintecele Diavolui, and Fata Morgana were all under the umbrella of Mortiis and have little difference between them. Though his first record appears on this list, pretty much all side projects, and the first 7 releases from 1993-1999, are of interest for people who want to learn more about this style. Though the artist seemed entirely devoted to this “dark dungeon music” in the 1990s, all released past 1999’s The Stargate are a mix between electropop and industrial. Things are weird but they could always be weirder.
Summoning – Minas Morgul (1995)
Summoning is important to dungeon synth, as a genre, because it was the work of this Austrian black metal act that solidified the sound that would later influence the style a decade later. Minas Morgul not only was all-in on the Tolkien themes, but it also had space for synth backdrops and centerpieces. Summoning would eventually become more orchestral in their music style, but the retention of two members would continue their distinct synth sound throughout their work and carve out a very unique style for themselves. You can certainly listen to Summoning and not enjoy dungeon synth; however, the two entities are basically neighbors, and I wouldn’t see any reason not to at least give it a try if you are a Summoning fan.
Depressive Silence – The Darkened Empires / Depressive Silence (1995)
Depressive Silence was a German act and side project of a melodic black band called Mightest. The two members made more of an impression with their two self-released demos released in either 1995 or 1996. Both Depressive Silence demos are 40 minutes in length and fully embrace an icy synth atmosphere complete with full escapism. The Darkened Empire, aside from being more in tune with far-off lands, has a buried creaking voice that runs throughout the temperate music. I use Depressive Silence as an introduction to dungeon synth because their music is immersive in its sound, and the presentation of their world is complete and well-structured. These demos are a good first introduction to the world of demos, which will only get more varied from here.
Neptune Towers – Caravans to Empire Algol (1994)
Neptune Towers was a Darkthrone side project helmed by Fenriz in tribute to Kosmische Musik pioneer Klaus Schultz. I save Neptune Towers for a the later part of this article mainly because Caravans to Empire Algol, despite its fantastic themes, leans more towards drone/ambient than dungeon synth. Dungeon synth would eventually have aspects of drone and haze crawling within it, but Neptune Towers is bordering on astral in terms of structure. In fact, Fenriz called this project, “Deep Space Alien Astral Avant-garde Synth,” which surprisingly has very few other acts. The album spans two records, both released on the black metal label Moonfog, and remain those weird releases one can go to when black metal is not weird enough.
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Demos and Further Releases
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Lamentation – Fullmoon Over Faerhaaven (1995)
My research into some of these releases led me to figuring out names used and possible sources of inspiration. Fullmoon Over Faerhaaven is most likely dedicated to Castle Faerhaaven, an obscure location in the Dungeon and Dragons gothic setting of Ravenloft. Lamentation is a Greek act whose members played ambient music before eventually forming the NS black metal act Der Stürmer. Before their Nazi future, however, they concerned themselves with Transylvanian fantasies and music of foggy mists.
Dies Irae – Circle of Leth (1995)
Dies Irae was an obscure Norwegian ambient side project of an even more obscure black metal group called Cruciamentum (not the UK death act). Circle of Leth was the only release by Dies Irae and is 27 minutes of well-measured, regal-sounding dungeon synth. The band was clearly in love with classical music, using Italian musical descriptions for their music, which sometimes breaks into distorted instrumentation complete with harsh narration. If you ever wanted to be content with some of the more obscure releases in the past few decades, this would be a safe bet.
Erevos – My Black Desires (1994)
Erevos is the work of Prince Korthnage, who was a Greek guitarist in a local black metal scene during the early ’90s. Prince Korthnage participated in releases from Disharmony and Agatus before settling in for some deep dungeon synth, complete with harsh vocals. Aside from the harsh and creaking vocals of the Prince himself, the music for My Black Desires is quite wonderful and melodic. This is saying nothing of the DIY hand-scrawled xerox cover that hangs on it like a horrible costume.
Equitant – The Great Lands of Minas Ithil City of Isildur (1994)
At points, discovering older dungeon synth is just a marvel of uncovering artifacts whose creation is almost baffling. Way back in the ’90s, a guy from Texas decided that he would dive into the sounds of dark electronic music with two releases dedicated to the worlds of Tolkien mythology and historic fantasy. Equitant would continue his work with techno/EBM releases much later, but for these releases, Equitant was just some guy from Texas who loved fantasy and lo-fi recording. Everything I just said feels so weird.
Mournlord – Reconquering Our Kingdom (1995)
Mournlord is a Swedish creator by the name of Karl Beckmann, who has lent his talents to the viking/black metal group Mithotyn. Mournlord was created and operating at the time Mithotyn was still releasing demos. Mournlord travels along the same conceptual trail as Mithotyn, though he allows himself to frolic in the woods and pastures along the way. Reconquering Kingdoms also has the wonderful addition of soft and creaking vocals to accompany the synth melodies.
Cernunnos Woods – Tears of the Weeping Willow (1994)
Cernunnos Woods is actually one of the few artists still releasing music, even though they had a few decades of a hiatus. With enough digging, the US becomes a pretty decent landscape for some odd releases. Cernunnos Woods is a combination of lo-fi synth and croaking narration. It is not a release listeners should start with if they have never heard of dungeon synth, but it is a great release that should be listened to after months of discovery.
Emglev – Unreleased Demo (1994)
We have officially reached the wilderness of demos from projects that have been long forgotten. Emglev is a French project that made one demo that was never released. Even the people who somehow uploaded the music to the internet have been long forgotten, and this music now exists orphaned from any context. Emglev is now a ghost made of a few demos, a small logo, and a picture of, what I assume, is the creator standing on a rock. The two tracks that make up this 12-minute demo are interesting enough despite the level of obscurity. With some regal melodies and an atmosphere of calm and quiet, Emglev will still exist despite its desire to be forgotten.
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Ancillary Releases
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Pazuzu – And All Was Silent… (1994)
Pazuzu, at least this record, comes by way of more side projects from prominent bands. Pazuzu is connected to Summoning, also from Austria and also apart of this project. Summoning synth-driven music would provide a steady backbone for the interest in heavy synth music, but even before the band developed their sound on 1995’s Minas Morgul, Silenus and Protector participated in this oddball medieval orgy. Let me just be frank and say this shit is weird. From tinkling atmosphere to dialogue in French to sexual congress with demons, And All Was Silent is a wonderland of imagination which may not even qualify as music. What it is is interesting and perhaps the ore which was mined before smelted into later Summoning work.
Necrophorus – Sadness and Sombulence (1991)
Starting at Necrophorus is fitting as the dungeon synth was born out of the post /punk industrial qualities of dark ambient. Necrophorus is a swedish project which is the work of Peter Andersson, also more famously the creator of the dark ambient act Raison d’être. It is unclear if Peter Andersson envisioned the structure of this music to be eventually married with a fantasy aesthetic instead of an emotional forlonging.
Moevot – Abgzvoryathre (1993)
This is not dungeon synth but it is weird enough to be noted. Moevot was one of the projects under the Les Legions Noire (LLN) umbrella. LLN was a French black metal collective with a history and mythology larger than this paragraph. The music from LLN ranges from blistering black metal to weirdo dark ambient. Moevot put out 7 demos which go many places. Some of those places hit the formations of dungeon synth. Some of those places are just into the blackness of the void. |
Ahead of the 2016 presidential elections, a leading American Catholic prelate is saying that neither candidate is clearly better than the other, because both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have “astonishing flaws.”
“This is depressing and liberating at the same time,” Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput wrote in his Aug. 12 column for Catholic Philly, the news outlet of the archdiocese he leads.
“Depressing, because it’s proof of how polarized the nation has become,” Chaput wrote. “Liberating, because for the honest voter, it’s much easier this year to ignore the routine tribal loyalty chants of both the Democratic and Republican camps.”
In his column, Chaput argues that because of the financial reality of both candidates, with Trump being worth roughly $4.5 billion according to Forbes and Clinton $45 million, neither lives “anywhere near the solar system where most Americans live, work and raise families.”
Yet, he says, voters are asked to trust them.
The archbishop, who claims he still doesn’t know who he’ll vote for when the time comes, masks his personal opinion of either candidate by describing them through “the view of a lot of people.”
Hence Trump comes out as “an eccentric businessman of defective ethics, whose bombast and buffoonery make him inconceivable as president.”
Clinton, on the other hand, “should be under criminal indictment.”
“The fact that she’s not – again, in the view of a lot of people — proves Orwell’s Animal Farm principle that ‘all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others’,” Chaput writes.
Describing Friday’s column as “thoughts from a brother in the faith, not as teachings from an archbishop,” Chaput also goes after Vice President Joe Biden as well as Clinton’s VP running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.
According to Chaput the two, self-identified Catholics, “seem to publicly ignore or invent the content of their Catholic faith as they go along.”
The archbishop doesn’t mention them by name, but the references are clear.
The faith of both Biden and Kaine has been under the microscope lately, with Vice President Biden officiating a gay wedding and the Virginia senator’s pro-abortion rights and pro-gay marriage record.
As a matter of fact, Chaput is not the only Catholic bishop to speak about Kaine’s faith.
Writing on his Facebook page, Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence said July 23 that Kaine’s positions on these and other issues “are clearly contrary to well-established Catholic teachings,” adding that the senator’s positions have been “opposed by Pope Francis as well.”
“Senator Kaine has said, ‘My faith is central to everything I do.’ But apparently, and unfortunately, his faith isn’t central to his public, political life,” Tobin wrote.
Ahead of the November voting, “when each Catholic voter must choose between deeply flawed options,” and quoting the US bishop’s document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, Chaput invites the faithful to pray.
Chaput says that by “Catholic” he means those who “take their faith seriously,” placing it first “in their loyalty, thoughts and actions,” who submit their lives “to Jesus Christ, the Scripture and to the guidance of the community of belief we know as the Church.”
“Anyone else who claims the Catholic label is simply fooling himself or herself — and even more importantly, misleading others,” he writes.
Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president candidate, was raised a Catholic, but later gravitated to an Evangelical mega-church.
Chaput also says that when the bishops urge prayer, they mean more than mumbling a Hail Mary before voting for the perceived “lesser evil.” Prayer, he argues, involves “listening to God’s voice and educating our consciences.”
Further down in his column, Chaput says that God “will hold us accountable to think deeply and clearly, rightly ordering the factors that guide us,” yet American modern life, with its “pervasive social media” and the “relentless catechesis of consumption on our TVs” seems bent on “turning us into opinionated and distracted cattle.”
“Thinking and praying require silence, and the only way we can get silence is by deciding to step back and unplug,” Chaput writes.
He also argues that it’s “blasphemous” to assume God prefers any political party, yet “God, by his nature, is always concerned with good and evil and the choices we make between the two.”
For Catholics, Chaput writes, political and social issues aren’t isolated things, neither are all issues equal in their foundational importance: the right to life “undergirds all other rights,” and it can’t be contextualized “in the name of other ‘rights’.”
Chaput closes his column saying that the upcoming months will determine America’s next decade and urging his readers to think quietly, with heads clear of “media noise” because “none of us can afford to live the coming weeks on autopilot.” |
Through the Korean Celebrity X-files (X-Files created by people working in the finance industry in South Korea about celebrities) a dating rumor that involves Won Bin and Girls’ Generation’s Sooyoung is spreading like wildfire. Portal websites and news sources are reporting about the rumor.
This rumor has been festering since the morning on December 28, now it is spreading through different social networking services.
It appears that this rumor will be officially reported on by a news source on January 1.
A representative of SM Entertainment has expressed that the agency is surprised and will not give an official response because they find no need to.
Representative of the Korean entertainment industry are stating that many people seem to believe these “Celebrity X-Files” rumors because some of them turned out to be true. However, these representatives are stating that most of the time, these rumors are just that, rumors. |
The annual report of the International Energy Agency, based in Paris, noted that renewable energy was booming, with more capacity added in 2015 than for coal, oil and nuclear power combined. Still, fossil fuels will have a substantial role to play in the global energy mix for many years to come — especially natural gas, which is rapidly displacing coal.
“The era of fossil fuels is far from being over, even if the Paris pledges are fully implemented,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the agency. Today, he said, the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix is about 81 percent; if Paris goals are met, the share will drop only to 74 percent by 2040. This is in part because even though renewable energy sources are finding their way into electricity generation, oil is still an important source of power for transportation and petrochemical production.
Still, there are winners and losers within fossil fuels, Dr. Birol said. The biggest winner worldwide in the group’s projections is natural gas, and the biggest loser is coal. China, the world’s largest coal producer and user, has been pulling back and appears to have reached the peak of its coal use in 2013.
Dr. Birol declined to discuss the effect on the group’s projections of the election of Donald J. Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, and pledged to abandon the Paris deal and to promote a revival of coal. |
With the U.S. Senate recount still incomplete, attorneys on both sides have already armored up for the next pitched battle: over whether to reexamine thousands of rejected absentee ballots. With Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman clinging to a reed-thin lead over DFL challenger Al Franken -- 180 votes as of Saturday night -- the issue of how and when absentee ballots should be counted has election law experts everywhere closely tracking the Minnesota recount drama. In a race this tight, the difference could come down to clerical errors on absentee ballots or even a challenge of Minnesota's law governing such ballots. "Campaigns over the years have challenged anything and everything," said recount expert Timothy Downs, principal author of "The Recount Primer" who has been involved in most major recounts over the years, including the biggest: Gore vs. Bush in 2000. Downs' co-author, Chris Sautter, hit the ground in Minneapolis last week as part of Franken's recount team. On Wednesday, both sides will face off at a state Canvassing Board hearing that could prove momentous, with discussion and perhaps a ruling on whether rejected absentee ballots are in or out. Despite the mounting number of challenges being made to the regular ballots being recounted now -- more than 1,900 as of Saturday evening, almost evenly divided between the campaigns -- experts say that most of those disputes will be easily resolved by the five-member board. As a result, the challenges may in the end make only modest changes. But if the Canvassing Board decides to review rejected absentee ballots, many still unexamined votes could get thrown into the mix, adding far more uncertainty.
"Ultimately, if the number of rejected ballots start to make a large enough stack, it can cast some cloud over the regularly recounted ballots," said Edward Foley, who directs the election law center at Ohio State University's Mortiz Law College. Foley said the race has already taken enough twists and turns to merit its own chapter in his upcoming book on the history of disputed elections. A Star Tribune analysis of rejected absentee ballot lists collected from 25 of the state's 87 counties shows that 2,066 would-be absentee voters were excluded from initial vote tallies in just those counties. The total does not include Hennepin County, home to about one quarter of the state's population, or several other metro counties. More ballots, more errors The reasons for rejecting absentee ballots vary. Many voters failed to fill out voter registration cards or to sign the backs of absentee envelopes, as required by law. Those ballots, Downs and others say, could be dispensed with quickly at a review hearing. But other situations could require careful scrutiny. And the sheer volume of absentee ballots this year has changed the conventional wisdom on what role they could play. More than 288,000 Minnesotans cast absentee ballots this year -- nearly one voter in 10 -- essentially turning the state's absentee system into a type of early voting. Once an alternative for the infirm, affluent snowbirds and travelers, absentee balloting this year became a key element of Democratic voter turnout strategy. "We had lines out the door for absentee voting," said Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky. "The lines had blacks, whites, Hispanics, immigrants, young, old -- everything," Mansky said. With increased numbers come increased errors, both by voters and administrators, said elections expert Robert Stein, a political science professor at Rice University, in Texas. Stein's class on elections and voting behavior spent Friday monitoring Minnesota news sites, examining every twist and turn of a race that has given election junkies one last rush. "I don't mean to be disrespectful," Stein said, "but it's been a hoot to watch. Everybody thought this was the kind of thing that would happen in Florida or Texas."
In Washington state's protracted 2004 gubernatorial race, a hand recount found 561 administrative errors on what had been rejected absentee ballots in a contest where the winner had led by 129 votes at one point. "You're down to less than two thousandths of a percent difference," Stein said on Friday, when fewer than 150 votes separated Coleman from Franken. "That's infinitesimal." Board vs. court The vast majority of rejected votes will stay rejected even on close examination, Downs said. "But in a race that could come down to a handful of votes, if even a fraction are found eligible, that could affect the outcome." Downs cautioned that no one should be too sure who it would favor. "There is no profile of an absentee voter that holds up anymore," he said. "It used to tilt Republican, but it's changing so much it's not predictive." The Franken campaign has argued vigorously that rejected ballots should be reexamined immediately by the Canvassing Board, going so far as to present affidavits from voters whose absentee ballots weren't counted. Coleman recount attorney Fritz Knaak said the Coleman campaign is basing its objection on the fact that the current recount is an administrative process rather than a judicial one. An administrative recount, he said, echoing an opinion issued by the attorney general last week, is designed under Minnesota law to reexamine ballots already counted, not to scrutinize decisions made about the eligibility of voters or validity of ballots. Those questions, Knaak said, would properly be considered by a court in an election contest brought by voters or campaigns. But Raleigh Levine, an election law professor at William Mitchell College of Law, said boards elsewhere have decided otherwise. "There definitely are other jurisdictions in which defective absentee ballots are examined by the canvassing board," Levine said. In Massachusetts, she noted, registrars are instructed to reexamine rejected absentee ballots as part of the administrative recount. Stein, of Rice University, said that ultimately, Minnesota's contest is unlikely to be determined by anything as mundane as an administrative recount. |
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U.S. Navy scientists broke their own world record for the most powerful gunshot, firing a 23-pound projectile 5,500 feet in a second. (Watch video of the test below.) With the amount of power it generates, the experimental electromagnetic "railgun" can hit a target 110 miles away. What is this "sci-fi" super-cannon, how does it work, and what does it promise for the future of warfare?
How does a railgun work?
Instead of gunpowder or other explosives, the railgun uses an electromagnetic pulse to hurl a projectile along metal rails and on toward the target. The power comes from refrigerator-size capacitors, and it expels an aluminum shell in much the same way that a camera builds up, then sets off its flash, says railgun project manager Charles Garnett, at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va. The bullet is designed to smash and obliterate its targets with sheer force, not blow them up.
How powerful is the railgun?
A single megajoule is the amount of energy in a one-ton vehicle traveling at 100 miles per hour, says Navy researcher Roger Ellis. One of the shots fired on Friday generated 33 megajoules of force out of the barrel. The previous record was 10 megajoules, set in 2008 by the same railgun. Eventually, the Navy plans to have its railguns fire at 64 megajoules, which would theoretically send a projectile 200 miles in about six minutes. Current Navy artillery can shoot about 12 miles.
What's the advantage of a railgun?
The extra power and range, of course, but also safety. Because the railgun doesn't require explosives, ships can safely store 10 times more of the ammunition, and there are no moving parts to break down. The extra range means that a U.S. ship will be able to fire on enemy vessels that can't fire on it, and perhaps even shoot down cruise or ballistic missiles.
Is it battle-ready?
No — the Navy hopes to start testing the railguns on ships by 2018, and have them ready for use in the early 2020s. In this test, it took five minutes for the gun to power up, and the electromagnetic pulse needed to fire it still can't be generated from a ship's batteries. Safety is another issue. In this test, the 23-pound bullet was reduced to a "scalded piece of squat metal," says Spencer Ackerman in Wired, and the Navy wants to make sure the gun and ship carrying it don't "get as fried as the bullet under the intense power generated."
Is this powerful weapon a good thing?
"Depending on your proclivities," says Frank Kobola in Digital Trends, it's "either terrifying or incredibly awesome." Right now, all the applications are military in nature, he adds, but the same technology could one day propel space ships or even power nuclear reactors.
Sources: NY Daily News, Wired, Digital Trends, Mashable, Washington Post |
For those fighting and dying there – only Death is real. For the American people, Middle East Terrorism is a total fabrication.
A standard definition of War is that it is “a conflict carried on by force of arms”
We all know the old face of war in the classical days, where two sides in different coloured uniforms lined up and charged at each other until the sun set. Whoever had the most soldiers standing at the end of the day was the winner and they took over the territory of the losers. It was all about territory and redrawing borders.
This kind of warfare held up until around the time of the American Civil War. Since then lines have become blurred.
A standard definition of Guerrilla War is that it is “the use of hit-and-run tactics by small mobile groups of irregulars operating within a territory controlled by a regular military”.
By the the time of the Anglo-Boer War (circa 1900) the Boers had invented Guerrilla Warfare, where small bands went in and did as much damage as possible using what they had.
It was very effective. — An online register lists the names of 293,209 British Soldiers who had to be brought in to wage the war. However, adding in all the other Colonials it was probably closer to 500,000 who were needed to subdue about 30,000 rag-tag South African Boers.
Eventually the British found a very workable solution. They rounded up all the women and children remaining on the farms (who had been feeding and sleeping the rebels every night) and put them all in concentration camps. Their suffering was extreme. The men had to give up.
Guerrilla warfare is not about capturing Territory, but about demoralisation, damage to infrastructure, and forcing vast numbers of very expensive regulars to guard infrastructure.
A standard definition of Terrorism is that it is “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims”
By the 1960s another form of warfare was emerging. We called it, “Terrorism”.
We can all agree that none of the above methods are mutually exclusive. Modern mainstream Media spends a lot of time blurring these lines for the public, but I think we have a reasonably clear understandings of what the differences are.
Modern Terrorism is actually more complicated than this definition. It started as aircraft high-jacking; then evolved into small bands shooting innocent people at certain events; and has now evolved into its ‘classic’ contemporary form of suicide vests, suicide vehicles etc.
Terrorism is always an “Asymmetric Warfare” (for obvious reasons) where the powerful side, (usually a State or Country) has state of the art military equipment and the other side has very little other than hand held weapons and human bodies.
Suicide-vests are the quintessential weapon of terror. Because they are hidden they can have a kill ratio of ten or more to one. They are therefore extremely effective as psychological weapons.
Terrorists are almost by definition a very small group of disenchanted radicals who do not have access to modern sophisticated and expensive military equipment, so they have to resort to this sort of asymmetric terrorism.
Terrorism has a different aim and a different modus operandi from conventional war. For terrorists time and place of battle or time and place of victory are not a factor. Terrorists choose a target, and then over time slowly start infiltrating the area. They look like regular people. They remain as “sleepers” until called to action. They are unobtrusive and have no visible weapons; they often befriend and mix freely with the local population.
Once activated, they make sure that they terrorise the population.
Terrorism is not about capturing Territory; it is aimed at destroying economic infrastructure, about killing and wounding the local population in a game of demoralisation, economic destruction, discrediting the existing government, and sapping the morale of the local people, which can then lead to an economic collapse and/or making the State ungovernable.
History does not show many (if any) instances of a conventional military winning against Terrorism.
The British-Irish insurrection lasted from 1915 until 1998 without a military victory. Finally a political settlement had to be agreed upon.
The US’s standard duplicitous propaganda has given the American People a totally false view of what is going on in Syria and much of the Middle East.
Most of the mainstream media are in on the game of deceit about America’s war on Terrorism.
In Mosul, Raqqa, Aleppo, and all the others, the “terrorists” have magically acquired large numbers of tanks, howitzers, rocket platforms, cannon Vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, etc. They seem to have flags, uniforms, and badges. Somehow they all have the entire range of military equipment.
This is absolutely not asymmetric Terrorism, this is genuine conventional war.
The US and its surrogates are in a real military war. The American (and allied) politicians should be held accountable. US Politicians and mainstream media have allowed the US government to hide behind a false flag of “Terrorism”. This has fooled the people into supporting a conventional war without realising that that is what it is.
When the US announced its ‘War on Terror’, it was creating a subterfuge. When a country is put on a war footing, the powers-that-be understand well that under a condition of war the conventional laws-of-the-and can be modified and sidestepped. Lots of things which would never be acceptable in times of peace can be justified in times of war.
In the Middle East (and a few other places) the US cannot ever admit that they (and their surrogates) are in a military war. This would be unconstitutional .
By declaring a ‘War on Terror’, the US leadership has been able to legitimise its illegal war making and put its illegal acts in a pseudo- legal framework whilst without formally declaring war placing the nation onto a war footing.
The US has developed the habit of declaring anything and anybody they wish to hurt, anywhere in the world, as “terrorists” so that they can the use their loosened set of rules.
Somehow the American people have failed to hold their media corporations, or their elected and appointed officials accountable.
Instead they routinely allow them to subvert the Constitution by subterfuge and deceit.
When the government of a country allows the well being of its people to be compromised in this way, the outcome is usually civil disobedience and/or revolution.
In extreme situations, the final refuge of governments wishing to escape responsibility for their failures is War. |
This story has been updated with details of Martin Shkreli’s incarceration.
NEW YORK — A federal judge on Wednesday revoked the $5 million bail of Martin Shkreli, the infamous former hedge fund manager convicted of defrauding investors, after prosecutors complained that his out-of-court antics posed a danger to the community.
While awaiting sentencing, Shkreli has harassed women online, prosecutors argued, and even offered his Facebook followers $5,000 to grab a strand of Hillary Clinton’s hair during her book tour. Shkreli, who faces up to 20 years in prison for securities fraud, apologized in writing, saying that he did not expect anyone to take his online comments seriously, and his attorneys pleaded with the judge Wednesday to give him another chance.
“The fact that he continues to remain unaware of the inappropriateness of his actions or words demonstrates to me that he may be creating ongoing risk to the community,” said U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, in revoking his bond.
“This is a solicitation of assault. That is not protected by the First Amendment.”
[Martin Shkreli wanted to be an Internet supervillain. This time it cost him.]
Shkreli, wearing a lavender button-down shirt and slacks, was taken into custody immediately after the hour-long hearing. He did not appear to react at the judge’s decision though he appeared more nervous than when he entered court and refused to ride the elevator with one reporter because they were “fake news.”
By early Thursday morning, Shkreli had been assigned an inmate number at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Shkreli, 34, is best known for raising the price of an AIDS drug by 5,000 percent but he was convicted by a Brooklyn jury of defrauding the investors in his hedge funds. Shkreli lied to obtain investors’ money then didn’t tell them when he made a bad stock bet that led to massive losses, prosecutors argued. Instead, they said, he raised more money to pay off other investors or took money and stock from a pharmaceutical company, Retrophin, he was running.
Shkreli, who has indicated that he will appeal his conviction, argued at trial that he ultimately made money for his investors and did not intend to defraud them.
Instead of shrinking from the public outrage that has followed him for two years, Shkreli has mounted an erratic and sometimes outrageous online defense of himself, appearing to revel in the negative attention.
His 70,000 Facebook followers do not take his statements seriously, said Shkreli’s attorney Benjamin Brafman. “He did not intended to cause harm,” he said. “Being inappropriate does not make you a danger to the community.”
“He says things that are stupid. I don’t think stupid makes you violent,” Brafman said.
Shkreli’s lawyers compared his online comments to the political humor of Kathy Griffin, who once held up a photograph of a faux bloody head of President Trump. They also compared him to Trump himself. During the campaign, Trump used “political hyperbole,” Shkreli’s attorneys said, when he said that Clinton, his Democratic opponent, would abolish the Second Amendment if elected. “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know,” Trump said.
“He did not hold up the severed head of the president of the United States like Kathy Griffin,” Brafman said.
But prosecutors argued that Shkreli already had been given plenty of opportunities to act appropriately. His posts about Hillary Clinton and female journalists show an “escalating pattern of violence against women that is incredibly disturbing,” Jacquelyn Kasulis, the lead prosecutor said. “It is clear that he is reckless. He knew exactly what he was doing. He has to go in. … He doesn’t respect the rule of law.”
They noted his post was taken seriously enough that the Secret Service sought an interview with Shkreli and had to increase the security measures around Clinton.
After a person is convicted, it is up to them to prove that they should be out on bail pending sentencing, prosecutors argued. “He is not special by any stretch of the imagination. He should be incarcerated because he is a felon,” Kasulis said.
Matsumoto appeared particularly concerned that one of Shkreli’s Facebook followers could take his offer of $5,000 for a strand of Clinton’s hair seriously. Shkreli said he wanted the hair — with a follicle — to compare Clinton’s DNA to a sample he already had. His attorneys said the post was satire and could not be taken seriously.
“What is funny about that,” a visibly frustrated Matsumoto said. “He doesn’t know who his followers are. He doesn’t know if someone it going to take his offer seriously. … He is soliciting an assault on another person for $5,000.”
This is not the first time prosecutors have complained to Matsumoto about Shkreli’s conduct. During the trial, Matsumoto chastised Shkreli for speaking with reporters in the courthouse where jurors could potentially hear him. Prosecutors had complained Shkreli’s comments — including mocking them as the “junior varsity” — were inappropriate and could taint the jury pool. Shkreli apologized after that incident too.
“Shkreli has again proven he’s his own worst enemy [and]… doesn’t have the impulse control needed to keep him out of jail,” said James Goodnow, an attorney with Fennemore Craig, a corporate defense firm. “Shkreli’s conduct is a textbook case of everything you shouldn’t do as a defendant in a criminal case.”
[The fascinating legal argument at the heart of the Martin Shkreli ‘Pharma Bro’ trial]
Since his conviction, the loquacious executive has kept an active — and combative — online presence. In addition to asking for someone to grab a strand of Clinton’s hair, he has offered investment advice and announced the sale of the only known copy of “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” a Wu Tang Clan album, that he purchased for $2 million in 2015.
“I hope someone with a bigger heart for music can be found for this one-of-a-kind piece and makes it available for the world to hear,” he added.
The most recent bid is for $1,001,300 — a potential loss for Shkreli. |
After many months of hard, fun, frustrating & rewarding work, I am happy to announce the first public release of the OpenZoom SDK.
What Is the OpenZoom SDK?
The OpenZoom SDK is a free & open source toolkit for delivering high-resolution images and Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs) to the web and desktop. It is built on top of the Adobe Flash Platform which means you can use it in Flash, Flex, ActionScript & AIR projects equally well.
Showcase
Gigapixel Photography GigapixelPhotography.com — Dugg almost 5000 times on digg.com.
Alba Water AlbaWater.com.vn — Stunning microsite for Alba Water.
Is This Your Luggage? Remix of the famous IsThisYourLuggage.com. Powered by OpenZoom.
Development
While the development of the OpenZoom SDK originally started in Subversion on Google Code1, I have meanwhile successfully and happily migrated it to Git and GitHub.
Having the OpenZoom SDK hosted on GitHub means you can browse the history, fork the project, watch its progress, download tags & branches or just quietly enjoy the power & simplicity of the Git version control system.
Community
The OpenZoom project has a thriving community over at Get Satisfaction with 82+ topics posted, 95+ people participating and me answering questions and addressing bugs in matters of hours.
Unless there’s something confidential about your project or you plan to ask me for my bank account for donations, I promise you’ll get a quicker answer on Get Satisfaction than by emailing me.
License
In order to encourage a broad (ab)use of the OpenZoom SDK, I’ve added two additional licenses under which you can use it. The OpenZoom SDK is now licensed under MPL 1.1/GPL 3/LGPL 3.
This licensing model was adopted from the famous Mozilla foundation and their products I love so much: Firefox and Thunderbird.
Although I’m not a big fan of lawyers either, I strongly recommend you carefully read the licensing terms of the available licenses, choose the one that suits you & your project best and consult with a lawyer if you have questions. You should never assume anything.
With the current licensing model I want to encourage all kinds of projects & products powered by the OpenZoom SDK while ensuring the constant evolution of OpenZoom SDK, including third-party improvements.
Should your project require a different kind of licensing scheme, please contact me at [email protected].
Attribution
Besides publishing any source code as required by the license you chose, please attribute your use of the OpenZoom SDK by creating a context menu entry with the caption About OpenZoom... linked to http://openzoom.org/. Thanks.
Download & Documentation Get the latest OpenZoom SDK, including source code, documentation, SWC library and 14 examples for Flash CS3, Flash CS4, Flex & ActionScript projects. Download OpenZoom SDK (ZIP) After you’ve downloaded the SDK, please read the OpenZoom SDK API documentation.
Follow
Keep up with the development progress of the OpenZoom SDK through Twitter and Facebook:
Donations Support the future development of the OpenZoom SDK and other OpenZoom projects with a donation:
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What is it about communications equipment boxes that make the utilities responsible so reluctant to maintain them or even be identified? City streets are full of boxes in various shapes and sizes that contain wiring for telecommunications equipment, usually located on boulevards or even in front yards, although still within the municipal road allowance.
A battered communications equipment box at the northwest corner of Lawrence and Warden Aves. is falling apart, even though the wires it contains appear to be live. There's nothing on the box to identify the utility responsible. ( JACK LAKEY / Toronto Star )
They’re essential to facilitate the internet, cable TV service and land-line phones we all rely on. But you wouldn’t know it by the state of repair of a lot of them. Let’s be blunt: Many of the boxes are junk, with rusty or missing covers, wires spilling out and an overall appearance of neglect that suggests the utilities that own them aren’t the least concerned.
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If they were, they’d make sure every piece of on-street equipment is labeled with identifying markings that can easily be seen, as well as information on how the public can report damaged boxes. And they’d make sure their technicians are trained to keep an eye out for them and report damage whenever they see it. Or better still, get out of their trucks and fix things. But judging by a box at the northwest corner of Lawrence and Warden Aves., pride of ownership and community responsibility is not on the radar for whatever big utility is responsible. James Barrett sent us a note about the box, along with a series of photos that show how it has crumbled into pieces that are strewn around the boulevard, while the wiring is open and exposed to the weather and to idiots who might fiddle with them. “This has been in various states of disrepair for at least the past five years, and possibly 10. It’s been damaged so long its part of the scenery,” he said.
“This is the worst it has ever been and it’s been like this for months. It has been put back together before, but never properly,” said Barrett, adding that the last time it was fixed, a bunch of tape was wound around the thing. We went there and found a crumbling equipment box on the corner, but could not find anything on the pieces of the box or the wires inside that identifies the utility that owns it.
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And it’s hard not to conclude that that is no mistake. Status Jacqueline Michelis, who deals with media for Bell, emailed to say a technician will be dispatched to figure out who owns the box and will fix it if it belongs to Bell. If whoever the owner is really wanted to do the right thing, they’d make sure all their street equipment is easily identifiable. More on this in a couple weeks. |
Debugging a problem over email/irc/BTS is slow, tedious, and hard. The developer needs to see the your problem to understand it. Debug-me aims to make debugging fast, fun, and easy, by letting the developer access your computer remotely, so they can immediately see and interact with the problem. Making your problem their problem gets it fixed fast. As Simon Tatham puts it, "In a nutshell, the aim of a bug report is to enable the programmer to see the program failing in front of them." debug-me does just that!
A debug-me session is logged and signed with the developer's GnuPG key, producing a chain of evidence of what they saw and what they did. So the developer's good reputation is leveraged to make debug-me secure. If you trust a developer to ship software to your computer, you can trust them to debug-me.
When you start debug-me without any options, it will connect to a debug-me server, and print out an url that you can give to the developer to get them connected to you. Then debug-me will show you their GnuPG key, who has signed it, and will let you know if they are a known developer of software on your computer. If the developer has a good reputation, you can proceed to let them type into your console in a debug-me session. Once the session is done, the debug-me server will email you the signed evidence of what the developer did in the session.
If the developer did do something bad, you'd have proof that they cannot be trusted, which you can share with the world. Knowing that is the case will keep developers honest.
Debug-me is free software, created by Joey Hess and licensed under the terms of the Gnu AGPL version 3 or greater. |
Even as the Republican establishment continued to call for Representative Todd Akin of Missouri to drop out of his Senate race because of his comments on rape and abortion, Republicans approved platform language on Tuesday calling for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion with no explicit exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
The anti-abortion plank, approved by the Republican platform committee Tuesday morning in Tampa, Fla., was similar to the planks Republicans have included in their recent party platforms, which also called for a constitutional ban on abortions. The full convention is set to vote on the party’s platform on Monday.
While Republican officials stressed that the plank did not go into granular details, saying that they were better left to the states, the language of the plank seems to leave little room for exceptions to the abortion ban. It states that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”
“Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,” said the draft platform language approved Tuesday, which was first reported by CNN. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”
The timing of the approval of the Republican anti-abortion plank was awkward for Mitt Romney, who has denounced Mr. Akin’s comments about rape and abortion and who has said that he supports exceptions to allow abortions in cases of rape. And it comes as his selection of his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, was already drawing scrutiny for his support for a more absolute ban on abortions, even in cases of rape or incest.
But Mr. Romney would hardly be the first Republican nominee at odds with his party’s more absolute opposition to abortion. Just four years ago, the Republican Party adopted a platform with a similar plank seeking an unconditional ban on abortion, even though its nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, had urged the party in the past to allow certain exceptions. George W. Bush also supported outlawing abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the pregnant woman was in danger.
After this year’s abortion plank language was approved with little debate, the chairman of the platform committee, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, praised the committee for “affirming our respect for human life” and for doing so expeditiously.
The Republican platform committee waded into the abortion debate again later on Tuesday when it approved language opposing drugs like RU-486, which can terminate pregnancies. “We oppose approval of these drugs and similar drugs that terminate innocent human life after conception,” said Mary Summa, a delegate form North Carolina, who introduced a plank calling on the Food and Drug Administration not to approve such drugs.
A member of the committee from Alabama, Jackie Curtiss, sought clarification that the amendment would not apply to so-called “morning-after” pills, which prevent conception. “In light of the recent comments by Congressman Todd Akin, and in an attempt to reaffirm to the American people the party’s sensitivity on the subject of rape, I believe that we should not support an amendment which opposes approval of a method that’s been proven effective in preventing the pregnancy of rape victims,” she said.
Given assurance that it did not refer to such morning-after pills, the amendment passed.
The party also approved a plank supporting abstinence-only education, as it has in the past. (The current platform, from 2008, says, “We renew our call for replacing “family planning” programs for teens with increased funding for abstinence education, which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and expected standard of behavior.”) |
Tomorrow night’s episode of Dark Matter, “She’s One Of Them Now”, is directed by the lovable Jason Priestley. Some BTS pics of the man in action…
Aware of my notorious temper, he gets things off on the right foot, showing up with an excellent bottle of scotch.
Concept meeting. He and his right hand man, 1st AD Brandon Tataryn, run the room!
I would often find him in his office, with that quizzical look on his face that said: “This script doesn’t make any sense!”
Relaxing on set, wondering what they’re going to service for lunch.
Pictured above: about to enter transfer transit so his clone can direct second unit
Spotting mermaids off the port bow.
“Okay, guys, I want a good clean fight…”
Challenging Shaun Sipos to a grappling match.
Hey, check out this great interview with actress Melanie Liburd (Nyx Harper):
Dark Matter: Melanie Liburd On Buildilng Trust With Nyx
“I think they see something in each other; they realize their hardships and they’ve both gone through struggles. They identify in that way and I think they’re almost kindred spirits, which happens quite early on. Even in the prison, Nyx and Two come up against each other and fight, and they’re impressed by each other. They develop that mutual respect for each other, and that helps her trust Nyx.”
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The near-complete capture of the policymaking process by the very privileged is precisley why income and wealth inequality have accelerated rapidly in the US. The political party controlledby the extremely wealthy has a 5-4 advantage on the Supreme Court, which has the final say on most policy debates. Its 5-4 votes on the Citizens United and McCutcheon cases institutionalized what can only be correctly called "bribeocracy" instead of democracy in the US. The wealthy used their control of policymaking to block meaningful reforms of the financial system needed to correct the abuses that led to the Great Recession. The Republican Party has blocked any taxation changes that could help pay for stimulus and infrastucture spending. Taxation policy assurer that the super-rich get richer. Today in the US, the very wealthy pay a much lower overall tax rate than their accountants, secretaries and even car mechanics. They use the "1031 exchange" rule to pay zero tax on large gains from real estate sales; they pay zero tax on income from municipal bonds; they pay a lower capital gains rate on most other income they earn because in their privileged position, they live more off of sales of stock, companies, hedge fund "carried interest" than off of ordinary income. The question is hardly "unsettled" as the author suggests. The system is rigged. Corporations owned by the very wealthy get government subsidies, whether for agricultural pursuits or drilling for oil. To keep the poor in place, the Republicans have blocked any rise in minimum wage and starve the education system by opposing taxation. The very wealthy control enough of the government to block changes that could help lessen inequality. Obama was able to squeeze by the blockade with his universal health insurance initiative at the start of his presidency, but the vehemence with which the privileged's party has fought it shows the determination of the wealthy to oppose anything that might help the non-rich. How have they managed to accomplish this in a so-called democracy? Through the use of their money (Super-PACS) and skillful propaganda (of which Fox "news" is emblematic but by no means the only vehicle). These propaganda efforts have fooled enough non-rich white voters into voting against their own interests. They will wake up, eventually, and realize that the puppeteers who pull all the strings at the Republican Party don't really care if two lesbians have a wedding, jst as they didn't really belive Obama was a Muslim socialist without a valid birth certificate. The average Republican voter will someday realize that the GOP has been manitpulating voters with such issues as gay marriage and fears of a wave on illegal immigrants to dupe gullible and fearful voters. But the inequality gap will only grow wider until the duped white voter says "enough" and throws out the toadies of the uber-rich. Only when the Republicans are reduced to a size that lacks filibuster power and a majority on the Supreme Court will it be possible to have policies that allow the less privileged to seek and obtain the education necesasry to compete in a globalized economy. Reducing income equlaity will be a long, slow process, but a fair taxation system and fairer allocation of national resources is where it must start |
[digg-reddit-me]Who knew the Bush administration actually had a strategy in fighting Al Qaeda?
Robert Grenier, who according to Joby Warrick of the Washington Post is “a former top CIA counterterrorism official who is now managing director of Kroll, a risk consulting firm” explained that we were now winning the fight against Al Qaeda after losing so many battles because:
One of the lessons we can draw from the past two years is that al-Qaeda is its own worst enemy. Where they have succeeded initially, they very quickly discredit themselves.
And you didn’t think Bush had a strategy.
It’s the old “invade-two-countries-and-use-heavy-handed- tactics-to-rile-up-the-extremists- so-that- they- initially- have- public- support- but-then- pretend -to-have -an-incompetent- strategy- to-combat- the-extremists- so-that-they- succeed- which-will- then-lead- to-the- public- turning -on- them- because- they-are- evil- doers -after-all.” One of Sun Tzu’s classic stratagems.
And apparently one which is having some success – as Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank suggest in their important piece in The New Republic, “The Unraveling.” Bergen and Cruickshank attribute the ideological rifts within the Muslim extremist community to Al Qaeda’s strategic blunders – but they do not give Bush enough credit for his secret plan to let Al Qaeda succeed so that their empty ideology could be exposed for what it is by fellow extremists.
Bush’s secret plan to win the War on Terrorism bears a strong resemblance to Ronald Reagan’s plan to defeat the Communist Soviet Union. By convincing the public and most of his administration that the USSR had taken a significant lead in all sorts of military areas, he increased America’s military spending exponentially. As the Soviet Union tried to keep up, it eventually collapsed exposing it’s system’s hidden flaws. Although the CIA was caught by surprise by this development during George H. W. Bush’s first term, conservatives quickly confirmed that this was all part of Reagan’s secret plan to end the destroy the Soviet Union by spending like a drunken sailor in America.
George W. Bush – whose wisdom, like Reagan’s is often compared to that of the mythical hedgehog of Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay – has been blessed with authentically evil enemies. Even if he allows them to win, within their winning are the seeds of their destruction.
It is a cunning strategy.
Now we just have to make sure we don’t choose a president who screws it all up by going after Al Qaeda in a competent fashion – a competence that might even distinguish between the Muslim extremist groups that are fighting with one another. It might look like Al Qaeda’s recent troubles happened despite, rather than because of, Bush’s ingenious strategy. But that’s only because we didn’t give enough credit to Bush and John McCain for having this secret strategy.
Now that we know, it’s important to support the right American candidate for this American presidency in this American election against all those anti-Americans out there. Vote for the Bush-McCain Super-Secret Counterterrorism Strategy: Winning the War on Terrorism by Losing Every Battle and Letting Al Qaeda Defeat Itself!
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“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”
So began Barack Obama’s victory speech in Chicago on 4 November 2008. Eight years later, as the world watches the debacle of Trump vs. Clinton, the two most unpopular candidates in US history, it is fair to say that doubts about the greatness of US democracy are more widespread than ever.
Obama was elected on a campaign of “change” and “hope” in the context of mass revulsion at the Bush years of war, economic crisis and growing inequality. But while the US has changed, it hasn’t been in the way people were hoping for.
Income and wealth inequality is higher than when Obama took office, worse now than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s. More people live in poverty, while corporate profits have ballooned. The wealth and unemployment gap between Black and white has grown.
Obama has deported more people than any US president in history. War still rages in the Middle East, albeit more by proxy and drone strikes than US boots on the ground. Obama has prosecuted twice as many whistleblowers as all previous presidents combined. Guantánamo remains open.
From the earliest days of Obama’s ascendency, the warning signs were there for those who cared to look. As Socialist Alternative magazine, a predecessor publication to Red Flag, noted immediately after Obama’s election:
“Obama’s win is bitter sweet. The hated Bush may be gone, but the reaction to Obama’s victory from those who drove Bush’s policies – the mass media, the military and political establishment, big business – should give those who want ‘change’ pause to think. Why? Because almost without exception the rich and powerful cheered Obama on.”
The reasons for this were twofold. First, in Obama they had a man they could trust, despite a bit of election rhetoric, to uphold their interests. He had never been a radical, and was an established Democrat who had voted the same way as Hillary Clinton 90 percent of the time. Despite running for the Democratic nomination against Clinton, he never got the treatment Bernie Sanders did. He was an insider who raised record amounts of campaign contributions from Wall Street.
Second, the Bush years were a disaster not just for millions of working class US citizens, Afghans and Iraqis – they were a disaster for the US establishment as well. The ruling class had enthusiastically backed Bush’s dream of a few quick wars to reshape the Middle East, install compliant regimes and secure another century of global dominance.
That dream became a nightmare as Iraqi resistance to US occupation grew. As the wars dragged on, failure became obvious and the costs were rising – trillions of dollars added to the US debt, more than 4,000 US soldiers killed, public opinion both around the world and at home becoming increasingly hostile and the whole empire bogged down and weakened.
They needed an exit strategy, both practically and ideologically. Bush began the former, which Obama continued, steadily pulling troops out of Iraq. But, crucially, Obama provided the latter as well. Bush’s policy failings were magnified by his bumbling, idiotic, cowboy-Republican, oil-tycoon persona. He was the Tony Abbott of US politics. Obama was the anti-Bush: Harvard educated, articulate, a Black president in a country built on slavery, and he made liberals swoon – all while continuing the bulk of Bush’s approach. Indeed, one of Obama’s first acts was to launch a troop surge of 30,000 into Afghanistan. It was a sign of things to come.
Obama had pledged that he would rein in the atrocities of the “war on terror” Bush had launched in 2001. He channelled the opposition not only to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also to Guantánamo Bay and the mass torture program the Bush administration had unleashed around the world.
Instead, Obama has presided over a massive expansion of the shadowy national security state. Not a single purveyor of torture under the Bush regime was prosecuted. The practice of “rendition” continues, whereby torture is outsourced to US allies.
Sixty people remain prisoners at Guantánamo. Some have been there since it was first opened in 2002. Most have never faced any sort of trial, let alone a fair one. Others were officially approved for release several years ago but remain imprisoned. Thirty-one have officially been given the terrifying status of “a forever prisoner”. A huge expansion in surveillance has taken place, while whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden have been mercilessly persecuted.
In a twisted way, these could be considered the lucky ones. Obama has exponentially expanded the policy of extrajudicial assassination via drone strikes. Under his watch there has been a 700 percent increase in drone strikes in Pakistan, as well as increased use in Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The bulk of these strikes are now what are called “signature” strikes, whereby the CIA does not even know the identity of the target, but assumes, based on movements and associations, that they might be “terrorists” and therefore deserve to die.
At 14, Faheem Qureshi was a victim of Obama’s first drone strike, just three days after Obama became president. Two of Qureshi’s uncles and his cousin were killed in the blast, and he lost his left eye. Qureshi told the Guardian that all he knows about Obama “is what he has done to me and the people in Waziristan, and that is an act of tyranny. If there is a list of tyrants in the world, to me, Obama will be put on that list by his drone program”. Don’t expect these words to appear in the official histories.
Obama’s increased use of drone and other air strikes was part of his strategy to manage the US retreat from the Middle East. As troops were pulled out, bombs and an increased reliance on allies and proxy forces in the region became the dominant strategy to try to manage the mess the Bush years had created. Meanwhile, the Obama administration was trying to reorient US imperialism to deal with the bigger and longer term threat of the rise of China, with its “pivot to Asia”. These efforts were thrown into crisis again with the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011.
Caught off guard by an immense revolutionary wave of people demanding the fall of many of US imperialism’s favourite regimes, Obama paid lip-service to democracy while manoeuvring behind the scenes to aid the forces of counter-revolution, from Egypt to Syria to Bahrain and Yemen. He has increased weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, maintained $2 billion in annual aid to the Egyptian military, and just approved the biggest ever gift of military aid to the apartheid state of Israel.
Meanwhile, in Central and South America, the Obama administration backed the violent military coup that overthrew Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, helped to destabilise left wing Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolas Maduro and most recently supported the parliamentary coup by corrupt right wing forces in Brazil.
On the domestic front, faced with the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, Obama repaid his Wall Street donors many times over. Even before his election, Obama interrupted his campaign in September 2008 to fly to Washington to cajole any reluctant Democrats to vote for Bush’s $700 billion bank bailout. The money kept on flowing, with total support to the banks running into many trillions of dollars.
Meanwhile, millions lost their jobs and their homes. There was no bailout for them. When Obama moved to rescue General Motors with billions more in bailouts, he made sure it was not just taxpayers, but also GM workers, who would pick up the tab. His restructure plan included 21,000 lay-offs – a third of the workforce – a 50 percent pay cut for any new hires and cuts to pensions.
As the misery of the economic crisis grew, alongside increasing inequality, disappointment in Obama began to set in. Tens of thousands of young people who had voted and campaigned for “change we can believe in” were losing patience. In this context, inspired by the Arab Spring and mass movements in Spain and Greece, the Occupy Wall Street movement was born.
Declaring, “We are the 99 percent”, they occupied parks and squares in hundreds of US cities. The high point was a demonstration of 100,000 in New York City. Under Obama’s watch, the peaceful encampments were dealt with by a violent FBI-coordinated police crackdown that resulted in thousands being arrested, tear-gassed and beaten. He was with the 1 percent.
His most high profile achievement, the “Obamacare” health reform, has proven to be another neoliberal fraud. A publicly funded universal health care system would cost far less than the trillions spent on war and bailouts, but it was never even on the cards. Instead, Obamacare forces people to buy private health insurance. Unsurprisingly, coverage has increased, along with skyrocketing premiums, in a country where most workers’ real wages remain lower than they were in 1970.
One area in which people most hoped Obama could make a real difference was racism. And yet under the first Black US president, hundreds of thousands have had to mobilise under the banner of Black Lives Matter against an unending tide of racist police shootings. Obama has offered only the most token recognition for the protest movement’s concerns.
Many have made excuses for the appalling record of the Obama administration. As it draws to a close, the sycophantic praise for the Obama power couple will begin in earnest. The Guardian gave us a taste with a fawning review of one of Michelle Obama’s recent speeches:
“With the touch of a poet, her speech last night shamed the tat and the tawdry of populism and held out the possibility of something better … She can find words that make pictures. She brings passion and intellectual clarity. She has an actor’s sense of timing. This morning she seems the world’s most complete leader.”
Who needs Brangelina?
Barack Obama has maintained an uncanny ability to avoid being blamed for the situation the US finds itself in. Partly this is due to the superficial approach of small-l liberals, for whom an eloquent speech and a crocodile tear are enough to forgive any number of crimes. Partly it is the persistence of lesser-evilism. Obama benefited greatly from not being Bush. Then he was attacked throughout his presidency by a range of racist Republican nutters who simultaneously denounced him as a communist and a new Hitler. Now he benefits from the inevitable comparison with Trump and Clinton.
This serves only to highlight the bankruptcy of lesser-evilism. Obama’s likely successor will be Hillary Clinton, a candidate so unpopular it took the miracle of Donald Trump for her to be electable. It’s hard to see how she will be as successful a salesperson for poverty and war as Obama has been.
Obama leaves behind a United States even more plagued by poverty and inequality. He leaves an empire soaked in the blood of yet more victims. But he also leaves behind a population more disgruntled with US capitalism and more sympathetic to the idea of socialism than in decades. It is in their struggles, against every aspect of this unjust system, that genuine hope lies. |
Eight Delhi Police officers, including a joint commissioner and seven inspectors, will join the ACB.
The appointment of a joint commissioner-rank officer of the Delhi Police by Lt-Governor Najeeb Jung in the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the state government has taken a political turn with Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia sniffing a conspiracy in the posting.
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Sisodia alleged that the posting had been done as Jung had become nervous due to the reopening of the CNG fitness scam file. “Kya CNG ghotale ki file khulne se dar ke ghabrakar ki jaa rahi hai ACB ke new chief ki niyukti (Is the new ACB chief being appointed out of fear after the CNG fitness file has been reopened),” Sisodia tweeted.
[related-post]
Jung on Monday transferred Joint Commissioner M K Meena, who was in charge of the case of alleged suicide of Gajendra, the farmer who died at an AAP rally, to the ACB. After the Delhi government recruited officers from UP and Bihar in the ACB, which recently witnessed a fight between CM Arvind Kejriwal and Jung over the issue of jurisdiction, this is the first set of recruitment done by the Delhi Police in the anti-corruption unit.
Eight Delhi Police officers, including a joint commissioner and seven inspectors, will join the ACB. “The recruitment has been done to augment resources in fighting corruption,” Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said. Along with Meena, Inspectors Braj Mohan, Kumar Kant Mishra, Vivekanand Jha, Rajkumar, Rajendra Prasad, Ricchpal Singh Meena and Puran Chand have been transferred to the anti-graft body. Bhagat said more officers will be posted to the ACB as per requirement.
Meena was earlier posted with the security unit of Delhi Police and, after becoming the JCP of New Delhi range, he supervised the alleged maid torture case against former BSP MP Dhananjay Singh and his wife.
The Delhi BJP called Sisodia’s remarks a “compulsory habit to protest”. “Ever since they have come to power, protest is what they have been doing despite being in the government. The CM himself stated in public that they had sought officers from the Delhi Police and hoped that the L-G would direct the Delhi Police to send a few officers,” Satish Upadhyay, Delhi BJP chief, said.
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On Sisodia’s remark that the appointment of the officer who made Gajendra look like an accused reeked of a conspiracy, Upadhyay said, “There is no connection between that case and the appointment. They are sceptical of everything.” |
3000
I have returned from a week away at a festival in France to find finished UK editions of Half a King, and don’t they look lovely?
Ooh, they glitter and shine and feel velvety beneath the fingers. On the left, trade paperback for export, on the right, hardcover for the UK market. The hardcover’s an interesting size, what I believe they call a ‘Short Royal’ in the trade – same width as a standard hardcover but slightly shorter, slightly squarer. There’s also a rather lovely map on the endpapers…
I dropped into the publisher to sign a few copies for retailers, chiefly for Waterstones in the UK:
3000 copies. Those things on the tables? They’re books. Those white bags? They’re ten books each. It was what is called in the trade a metric fuckton of books. I once signed a thousand at the warehouse. This was a lot more. Three times as many, in fact. Here’s just a few of them, closer up…
It took me a day to do 2600, then I stopped back in the following day to do the other 400. There was some soreness in the elbow, shoulder and hand, but overall it was a good deal less painful than I was expecting, and my thanks to Natasha, Eleanor, Tim, Tom, and all the other folks who helped sticker, fold, pass, box, and otherwise achieve this not inconsiderable task of logistics.
Should YOU desire to own one of these 3000 entirely one off, utterly unique, personally inscribed editions of Half a King, you will find them available for pre-order right over here… |
Sitting down for the first time with reporters this year, House Republican Majority Leader Gerald McCormick accused the media of spending too much time talking about their guns-in-lots legislation.
The bill proposes to clear up confusion about whether guns are allowed in certain parks by removing local governments' power to ban guns in their parks. Here's transcript of the press conference with reporters and House Speaker Beth Harwell, Caucus Leader Glen Casada and Finance Committee Chairman Charles Sargent and McCormick.
Reporter: The guns-in-parks bill being amended, you're calling for a non-concurrence. Why is that?
Speaker Harwell: It was poorly drafted and it jeopardizes the entire bill.
Reporter: How so?
Harwell: It will put a fiscal note on it. We'll go back into Finance (Ways and Means Committee). I just feel it jeopardizes the entire bill.
Reporter: Do you think it makes it more likely the governor will veto it, the entire bill?
Harwell: I can't speak for the governor, you'd have to ask him that. But I would suspect that it would.
Reporter: What do you personally think of the idea though, of being able to carry guns in the Legislative Plaza and the Capitol?
Harwell: I think that should be a separate issue that we address in another bill.
Reporter: Why would it have had a fiscal note?
Harwell: All of the security that we have everywhere, it's not just the Capitol. If you read the bill, it's all the surrounding, all the buildings surrounding the Capitol are included. Obviously, it was not offered in a constructive fashion.
Reporter: So, the Supreme Court? Library and Archives?
Harwell: If you read the amendment, all of that is included.
Reporter: So the buildings across the street?
Harwell: Yes.
Reporter: Doesn't the security machines, wouldn't they detect that anyway?
Harwell: We'd have to have extra people down there probably to check and see if someone has a card on them, we'd have to verify the card is on the person. There's a lot of issues we would need to look at if we chose to go that route. Anything else?
Reporter: I just wanted to ask Chairman Casada, I think you said though, you think there is support within the caucus for this idea.
GOP Caucus Chairman Glen Casada: For the idea, that's exactly right. But when you have something that would, in essence, I think, set a real good chance of killing the bill, then all of the sudden, the mood is not to support it and to make sure we don't kill legislation that we have now.
Reporter: To continue on, you all have been in power for a number of years. Why hadn't you all done this previously?
Casada: We've been busy cutting taxes and growing the economy. This will come up, I guess, some day soon it will come up. But it just hasn't been a top priority for us. At least I speak for leadership.
House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick: I think it's of more interest to you guys, obviously than it is to us. (House leadership laughs.)
Reporter: Part of the point of the amendment, it appeared, was well, if we're going to do this across the state, shouldn't we do that here at home where we work?
McCormick: I think the point of the amendment was to kill the bill, is what the point of the amendment was. It wasn't to be constructive and to hold us accountable like the rest of the state. It was to kill the bill.
Casada: It was poorly written, I would submit to buttress Gerald's point. And I think it was intentionally poorly written to be vague and not precise and allow loopholes. And so, that's just not how we do business here.
Reporter: Of course, the critics of the bill itself say it's vague and it allows loopholes and has sort of arguments of you have a fake gun but not a real gun or a real gun but not a fake gun. Is their criticism warranted of the original measure to begin with?
Casada: Everything we do should and deserves, everything we do should deserve debate and criticism. I think they're wrong, but that's a democratic society.
Reporter: What's your understanding of how close you can carry a firearm to a school if it's next to a park, like as in Nashville?
Casada: 37-17-1309 is very clear. If a school owns, operates or maintains a park, it is very clear, you cannot bring your gun there. Even if you're a permit holder.
Reporter: But if it's adjacent to the park?
Casada: Again, it's pretty clear. Owned, operated or maintained. The feds do have 1,000 feet which would supersede our laws, so in addition to the feds you've got our Tennessee law, which is again is 37-17-1309, it's real clear.
Reporter: But there seems to be some thought, that the 1,000 buffer wouldn't apply to permit holders.
Casada: That is, I have heard that, and that may be true. But I can only speak intelligently, and that's questionable, on Tennessee code. And I go back to what's important to our county, which is if a park is maintained, owned or operated by a school, no permit holders can bring their guns.
Reporter: Mr. Chairman, you talk about the need for debate and there was fairly lots of discussion or talk from Democrats on the floor about this measure, but there was no debate or no questions at least from Republicans on the bill Monday. Do you know what that was or why?
McCormick: On the Senate floor?
Reporter: House, I'm talking about the House, the guns in parks passed in the House earlier in the week. There were plenty of, I think 11 Democratic amendments, and certainly they got up and talked about it and there can be issues with the way they talked about it, but there was no real discussion on the amendments or discussion on the bill at all once it actually came.
McCormick: We had almost an hour of discussion on those amendments and we had some discussion on the bill, but quite frankly the rules say that you can cut off debate after a reasonable amount of time. I thought we were very patient with them, listened to a lot silliness, quite frankly, and we were very patient through the whole process. They had a lot of time. We spent more time on that bill than any other bill that night, so the idea that we didn't have a debate on that bill is ridiculous.
Reporter: You had debate on the amendments, or were discussing them and tabled them immediately.
McCormick: And they were all over the place on the amendments. They didn't stick to their amendments when they were talking about it, they talked about the whole broad range of the bill.
Reporter: I think they might argue that a debate would involve two sides. I think --
McCormick: They talked more than we did. Maybe we should have talked more instead of just letting them do it. And remember, we have a supermajority. We could have walked in there and not had any debate on it.
Reporter: So was it by design then to just say, instead of even proceeding or discussing it, just to table things and then call for the question and not actually having the sponsor discuss what the bill did and why?
Casada: I would submit that in the House, this is why we're such sticklers on bringing amendment to the floor because all the heavy lifting, all the debate is done in subcommittee, committee, subcommittee, committee in that bill. So there was a lot of debate and a lot of give and take, but we do it in subcommittee where you have the flexibly to really dig deep on an issue. So when you get to the floor, gosh, what would you say, leader? About an hour or so we still, in addition to all the committee debate.
Reporter: What do you think it says that even though the House has passed it, there's still questions about, in terms of this 1,000-foot, exactly where guns are and exactly where that line is, that it's passed the House but we still don't have answers to that yet?
Casada: Oh, I think the answers are clear. I think if a park is owned, maintained or operated by a school no permit holder can bring a gun. And let's be clear, I'm of the belief -- and I'll just express my opinion -- is that right now there are guns in parks. There was a shooting two days ago in a park. Guns in parks today exist by law-breakers. What we're saying is we want those law-abiding citizens that have demonstrated the ability to operate a weapon to be there and to avert a crime, which has happened many times across this country and this state. So, I think we're being naive-like if we say there is no guns in park, and this is a guns in parks. This is not. This is letting permit holders there to defend unarmed citizens.
Reporter: At the amendment, again, though. It does mention this idea of exempting, or not allowing explosives or other items including imitation weapons within this 150 feet. So, I'm still confused as to why it's important to not allow squirt guns or fake guns within 150 feet of a school versus school property versus a permitted gun.
Casada: All you have to do is look at Cleveland, Ohio, about two weeks ago. A child, 16 years old -- maybe I shouldn't use the word child -- was waving a plastic gun. Police officers didn't know what that was and they acted accordingly in defending the people at that park that they thought the young man had a gun. We want to avoid the vagueness and having innocent people shot for police doing their duty.
Reporter: In Tennessee then, police have to go and check whether that person has a permit before they took action?
Casada: I think what the message says is if you're waving a gun around --
Reporter: Which as a permit holder you can do apparently, according to the Radnor Lake Rambo.
Casada: You couldn't. If you wave that gun around, you're acting irresponsibly. And if a permit holder waves that gun around, they're going to be in trouble quickly.
Reporter: There's been discussion in Nashville, though, with this person, this Radnor Lake Rambo who has a gun and under this law, even with this amendment, would still be allowed to walk around with a weapon if he's permitted, with a real, again an AR-15, some sort of rifle. But if he has a squirt gun, then he can be arrested.
Casada: I think the key is if he keeps that squirt gun hidden, right, he doesn't wave it around, right, no one's going to think he's waving a weapon around.
Reporter: But he's literally waving around a rifle right now. Like, a real gun, and he's allowed to do that.
Casada: Does he have a permit?
Reporter: Yes, he has a permit for this gun.
Casada: And I thought it was a concealed weapon, currently.
Reporter: No. You know Tennessee law does not require to be concealed.
Casada: OK.
Reporter: Hopefully you know that.
Casada: I did. And look, I think that the law's clear. I mean, we're debating something theoretical. We're talking practicalities here. I'd like for us to focus on the practicalities. We need to focus on the things we're doing right in Tennessee.
Reporter: Well the shooting you referred to, two days ago, was a person playing with his cat when he accidentally discharged the weapon. Are you prepared --
Casada: No, that's not what I'm talking about.
Reporter: Well, OK. There was a shooting two days ago when a person at Hadley Park was playing with this cat, accidentally discharged the weapon. Are you prepared that if there are more guns in the park there is a higher likelihood for accidents that there may be some person hurt by having the accidental discharge of a gun in a park?
McCormick: I would say that if we spent more time worrying about criminals carrying guns in parks instead of law abiding citizens, that that would be a better use of our time.
Reporter: There are some parks, and Chairman (Charles) Sargent, you know this, Grassland Park virtually surrounds Grassland Middle and Grassland Elementary Schools. That park is maintained by the county parks department and not the school. You could walk on greenway with a gun under this bill. Could you not?
House Finance, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Sargent: If they have a school function, no.
Reporter: What if they're not having a school function? What if they're not out on the playground, what if they're in the building?
Casada: The law is really clear. And this is an excellent example. Grassland has school functions there, cross country.
Reporter: Not all the time.
Casada: But the law is real clear, it doesn't say when, it says if. And current law is very clear. And so, in this case, because Grassland has school functions there, there cannot be a permit holder taking a gun on Grassland Park. Period, at any time.
Reporter: So, you're saying that, for example, so if a Nashville school had an event one time a year at a park, that there would never be allowed to have any permitted guns at that park?
Casada: I'm not a judge, nor do I pretend to be a lawyer. But if you look at the law, it says 'if.' If it said any other word, your point is valid, but it says 'if a school,' blah, blah, blah, blah. No.
Reporter: If the whole motivation of the law was to avoid confusion for permit holders who said they don't know which parks they're allowed to go in or not, how would that make it more clear for permit holders if they don't know that once a year there's the sack race by the elementary school?
Casada: I would only submit that those who want it to be confusion say it's confusing. I think the average public, good gracious, if Glen Casada can understand this, surely the good public can.
Reporter: But you as a permit holder would know, just as a matter of course, which parks allow guns and which don't, even under the new law?
Casada: I think, number one, if schools want to they can post. This is a school operated park. $5 maybe. That would be the logical conclusion.
Reporter: But Grassland Park is not owned or operated by the school.
Casada: But there's a third word, used. Owned, operated or used. Those are the three words in 37-17-1309.
Reporter: Why not just leave this to locals as it is now? Where they can address each individual situation?
McCormick: Are we answering questions or having a debate? I feel like the Democrats are here --
Reporter: I said, why not?
McCormick: And you haven't been elected.
Reporter: I said, why not? That's a question.
Casada: My response is, when it comes to constitutional questions, the state created federal government, the state created local government. So when it comes to constitutional questions, it's the state's obligation to guarantee the constitutional rights. Generally speaking, we do defer things to local. But generally speaking, this legislature believes in devolving power to the individual. Big, intrusive local governments. No redemption, we want to restore power to the individual.
Reporter: I'm not trying to debate, but these are the questions that we're being asked about this. And one of the things that keep getting pointed out to me, is you guys keep talking about criminals, but there are accidents. Permit holders have accidents.
McCormick: Certainly.
Reporter: So, if there's an accident and a permit holder is in a park, there's a high chance it's going to hit a child.
Casada: There's accidents with bicycles in parks. Should we outlaw bicycles?
Reporter: Yeah, but bikes very rarely kill people.
Casada: That's not true, I disagree with that statement.
Reporter: Guns are weapons. Are you saying a gun is as safe as bicycle?
Casada: If used properly I am. If used properly.
Reporter: In the event of an accident, which is more likely to kill someone?
Casada: Now we're back in theoretical. I think in Tennessee we're dealing with a lot more questions than guns in parks. I think this is a minor thing in the scope of what we're doing good in Tennessee.
Reporter: If someone is hit accidently with a bullet, you guys are fine defending this bill?
Casada: If someone gets run over by an automobile accidently, there's nothing I can do about that. These are things beyond, they're called acts of God, they're beyond our control.
Sargent: No one wants to see anybody get hit by a car or get hit by a bullet. So, I really take very great offense to that one. No one sitting at this table or standing around this table would ever want to see anybody hit by a bullet or a car.
Reporter: No one's suggesting that you want this to happen.
McCormick: Yes, I think that was suggested. It was suggested as you're advocating that side of the argument, which is what you're doing.
Reporter: I'm just trying to present.
McCormick: I don't think you're presenting, I think you're advocating. Is this the only thing that's important to you guys? I mean, seriously.
Reporter: You guys like to accuse the media of paying too much attention to this issue.
McCormick: You are. Right now you are.
Reporter: Well, it's an issue that has a lot of interest in the state and did not get a full debate on the floor.
McCormick: I would very much disagree. I don't think there's been a bill on the floor that had more debate than this one the whole year.
Reporter: The only discussion of the bill was the short statement by the co-sponsor reading a news story about something that happened in a different state. That was the only thing --
McCormick: That includes the amendments.
After the press conference ...
McCormick: You guys are brutal. Let me limp out of here. |
This article is over 2 years old
Philip Hammond has called on China to reduce steel production as the fate of Tata’s UK steel operations hangs in the balance.
The foreign secretary met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing on his way to Hiroshima for the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting. Hammond said the discussion had provided the opportunity to talk about “issues of mutual concern”.
“I urged China to accelerate its efforts to reduce levels of steel production. The UK’s focus is on finding a long-term sustainable future for steelmaking at Port Talbot and across the UK, and I welcomed the potential interest of Chinese companies in investment in UK steelmaking.”
As Chinese domestic demand for steel has fallen following a slowdown in the country’s economy, its steelmakers have been accused of dumping excess production on the global market.
China said on Saturday that plans to shut steel mills over the next five years would cut capacity to an estimated 1.13bn tonnes by 2020 – a figure that still far exceeds domestic demand.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Business secretary Sajid Javid talks to workers at Tata Steel in Port Talbot. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA
Cheap Chinese steel is one reason why UK-based producers, such as Tata, have found it harder to remain profitable. Higher energy costs in Britain compared with other countries are another factor.
Tata has decided to sell its UK steel plants, including Port Talbot in Wales and Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire. A deal to save the latter from closure could be announced early next week, the BBC reported.
The sale, to investment firm Greybull Capital, would involve a £400m investment package. The move would safeguard about 4,800 jobs and thousands more in supply chains and the local economy.
The Guardian view on Tata Steel’s pull-out: a national summons to get serious | Editorial Read more
On Friday, two Scottish steel mills that Tata had mothballed were formally handed over to their new owners, Liberty House, in a deal brokered by the Scottish government.
Production could resume at the Dalzell and Clydebridge plants as soon as August, creating 150 jobs. The plants had employed 270 workers before being closed last year.
Liberty House, which is led by Sanjeev Gupta, has been linked with a bid for the Port Talbot plant, the UK’s largest steelworks employing about 4,000 staff.
However, it is uncertain whether Liberty House has the resources to rescue Port Talbot and Tata’s other sites without large amounts of government funding.
Gupta said the government was committed to finding a solution for Port Talbot. “We don’t yet have a detailed proposition from them, but our feeling is that they are committed to finding a solution, including finding a solution to power.”
He said his company needed to examine any proposal carefully before deciding whether to make a bid.
Analysts at the investment bank Macquarie have said Tata Steel’s UK plants are not viable.
“Structural issues, such as high labour, energy and regulatory costs, make them unviable even over the longer term,” they wrote. “We think the possibility of a new buyer turning these assets around is also slim, as we saw with the Teesside facility [which SSI closed last year] and can be gauged from the prolonged discussion around the sale of its long product business [in Scunthorpe].
“Port Talbot has little future for its blast furnaces and will have to be ultimately shut down. Steelmaking in the UK under the current spread of steel and raw material makes no sense to us at all.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tata’s steel plant in Scunthorpe. Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP/Getty Images
The business secretary, Sajid Javid, travelled to Mumbai this week for talks with Tata management and has called on the Indian company to be a “responsible seller” of its UK plants.
Meanwhile, Hammond said he had also spoken to Wang about the UK’s continued concerns over the case of five Hong Kong booksellers who were detained by Chinese authorities.
Hammond said: “Our diplomatic and economic relationship with China is strong and delivering benefits for both countries.
“We are building on the global partnership established during last year’s successful state visit by President Xi Jinping, by working together closely on international challenges and strengthening our trade and investment links.
“Examples of our global partnership in action include new security and peacekeeping dialogues, a new fund on antimicrobial resistance, and cooperation on Syria, Iran and North Korea.”
The foreign secretary’s tour of east Asia will include a visit to Vietnam. |
There is an incredibly boring problem in the music industry for which Bitcoin offers a potentially fascinating solution. In fact, I think this might be one of the coolest and most immediately worthwhile applications of distributed ledger and payment network technologies such as Bitcoin.
The problem is simply that no central database exists to keep track of information about music. Specifically, there are two types of information about a piece of music that are critically important: who made it and who owns the rights to it. Right now, this information is fiendishly difficult to track down, to the great detriment of artists, music services and consumers alike.
Decentralized, open-source, global cyryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ripple (full disclosure: I am an investor in Ripple Labs, which is developing this currency) offer a model for how we might address this bedeviling status quo. By applying the technical breakthroughs of these networks, we can sensibly organize data about music for the first time in human history and, more importantly, reinvent the way artists and rights-holders get paid.
The Problems
1. The Credits Conundrum
The first category of interest is “credits.” Almost all recorded music is a collaboration between songwriters, singers, musicians, producers, recording engineers, mastering specialists, and others. Everyone knows who Adele is, but few people know that Chris Dave played drums on her bestselling album. And you won’t discover this great musician’s contribution by buying the song on iTunes or listening on Spotify or YouTube. It’s a shame.
In the past, the lusciously expansive packaging and liners of Vinyl records and later CDs were the paradise of behind-the-scenes talent. Anyone buying an album could page through the notes and find out who contributed what to the music. But in our digital-first market, these personnel are orphaned into obscurity. On today’s digital services, all one can see for a song is superficial data: the main artist’s name, who wrote the song, the name of the album it’s on, and the date of its release.
It’s much more difficult to get work if no one knows that you were responsible for that amazing drum performance or that brilliant mix.
As Spotify’s Artist-In-Residence, I’m extremely interested in fixing this problem for the unsung heroes of recorded music. But I’ve now witnessed the challenge from the inside. It’s not that services such as Spotify and other retailers don’t want to know about the music on our platforms; it’s that we struggle to obtain it. Artists and record labels have sent us over 30 million songs. Although we ask that they package it up for us in an organized and informationally rich package, what we actually receive varies widely.
Digital services rely on a number of third parties to help piece together better information about their catalogues. For example, ROVI has a massive database of credits information that it will, for a price, share with customers in a highly controlled manner. Others, such as MusicBrainz, crowdsource data and share it freely or at a small cost. A number of other corporations, unions, and nonprofits also keep a tight grip on music metadata. For instance, in the United States, the American Federation of Musicians and SAG/AFTRA are unions that represent large numbers of musicians and singers, and they attempt to keep tabs on their members’ every recorded performance. They care about this information because it allows them to ensure that their members receive union-negotiated fees (and that the unions themselves, in turn, receive their dues).
In short, the information about who did what on a given record almost always exists somewhere in the world, but it is typically fragmented between a large number of databases that don’t sync with each other, and whose owners have conflicting views about what should be public and what should be private. This forces digital services such as iTunes and Spotify to invest internally in cleaning up and organizing the information they receive, a burdensome administrative necessity.
Photo by Robyn Lee.
2. The Riddle of Rights
Though getting credit for one’s work is a big deal, getting paid for it is an even bigger deal.
Let’s look at Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse,” one of the biggest songs of the past few years, as a case study. From a legal point of view, the first thing to know about a song is that it’s not one thing. It encompasses a diffuse constellation of conceptual properties, each with numerous potential owners.
The biggest two buckets of rights are 1) rights in a song or composition and 2) rights in a recording of a song.
“Dark Horse,” for example, was written by Perry, Max Martin, Juicy J, Dr. Luke, Cirkut, and Sarah Hudson. Each of them theoretically owns a piece of the underlying song, although they can assign their ownership to one or more third parties. Because Perry first recorded the song, she owns that recording. Whenever someone else records the song after Perry, that individual will own that recording, but the six original writers will still own the song itself.
That being said, artists and songwriters often sell these rights to record companies and publishing companies. Perry, for instance, has a publishing deal with the company Warner/Chappell (a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group) and a record deal with Capitol Records (a subsidiary of the Universal Music Group). When these rights generate earnings, contracts between Perry and her partners determine how these earnings are shared.
But publishing and recording rights are just the beginning. When Perry and her collaborators wrote “Dark Horse,” they also originated additional rights in the public performance of the song. These rights entitle their owners to be paid when a song is publicly exhibited—when it is, say, played on the radio, performed live, or broadcast over the speaker systems at the Staples Center or Chipotle.
The slicing and dicing of rights doesn’t stop there. For example, Katy Perry might choose to sell one company the rights to her general publishing but another company the right to make sheet music for her songs. She can also assign rights to different owners in different countries.
In short, if someone writes and records a song, they effectively create a basket of rights, which they can sell to all sorts of actors all over the world.
How Royalties Work Today
(A Journey Into Unnecessary Complexity)
With that crash course in music rights complete, let’s talk about how a play of “Dark Horse” on a streaming service produces royalties for the owners of its rights:
You play “Dark Horse” on Spotify in the USA. Spotify keeps track of your and others users’ plays over a period of time and then pays out a share of its royalty pool proportional to the song’s popularity on the service during that same period. One percent of plays would equal one percent of total payouts, for example. This payout actually comprises multiple separate payments to the various owners of the rights in the song. These include:
The record company (Capitol) to compensate for usage of the master recording.
The performing rights organizations representing the song’s writers (ASCAP and BMI in the United States).
The Harry Fox Agency, which Spotify uses to administer another esoteric type of publishing royalties called “mechanicals.” These are statutorily-mandated royalties that compensate songwriters for the use of their songs within recordings that are being exploited, which is subtly different in a streaming context than in a performance. (If this is confusing, that’s because it is totally confusing.)
A similarly mind-boggling array of recipients exists in every market in which Spotify operates, and so every month, for a song with multiple writers, Spotify can conceivably end up writing checks to upwards of 20 distinct parties.
This situation creates an enormous administrative burden for a music service, but that’s not the big problem. The big problem is that money only makes it to artists after passing through all of these intermediaries, each with its own accounting processes, timelines, fee structures, and reporting standards. The result is that artists and songwriters suffer from a nearly complete lack of predictable, understandable income.
Having survived solely on my music for years, I experienced this firsthand. Checks for widely varying amounts randomly show up in the mail each month, from all sorts of different issuers. Each comes with some fashion of itemized receipt, but since all of the receipts represent different rights categories and earnings periods, it’s extremely difficult to piece together a clear picture of one’s financial life.
In public conversations about streaming music, many voices are passionately calling for “transparency.” The implication is usually that someone — a music service, record label, publisher, or rights society — is being dishonest and hiding money. This interpretation is understandable in light of the long history of artists’ being exploited for profit.
But having spent three years now in the trenches with Spotify and in conversations with executives across the industry, my assessment is that fraud is not the primary impediment to transparency. Complexity, outdated IT systems, and fragmentation are. Luckily, technology can fix this.
A Solution
These deep infrastructural inefficiencies around credits and rights information diminish the lives of creators and impose unnecessary administrative complexities and costs upon the entire music industry.
A new paradigm for music data management is sorely needed. One solution could be a decentralized, open-source global platform, owned and controlled by no single entity.
The platform would have two complementary functions.
It would contain accurate, real-time, global data encompassing credits and rights ownership. This would make it the universal, authoritative reservoir for these types of information, and it would be open to and accessible by anyone. It would serve as an instantaneous, frictionless payments routing infrastructure for all music usage fees and royalties.
The architecture of Bitcoin provides an instructive example of how this platform might work. Bitcoin is an extraordinary intellectual and technical achievement, and it has generated an avalanche of editorial coverage and venture capital investment. But very few people understand it. Here’s what’s important to know.
Bitcoin, abbreviated BTC, is the name of a digital currency, just as the U.S. Dollar is the name of the fiat currency in the United States. But more important, Bitcoin is a network. The Bitcoin network is instantiated by a bunch of separate people running the Bitcoin software on their computers. The software is open-source, meaning that anyone can check out its code, modify it and so on. Nerds love open-source applications because it means that no single company is unilaterally controlling the software’s development.
Even though Bitcoin is open-source, there is always a single current version of the software that almost everyone agrees to use, and when they use it, they create a network between themselves. If a group of people chooses to use a different version of the software for long enough, they “fork” the network, creating their own, separate network.
This network connects Bitcoin’s users to each other and enables them to do one thing very well: maintain a common “ledger,” or database, that keeps track of how many BTC each person on the network owns. Imagine that Mark, Jane and Sara are sitting around a table, and in the middle of the table is a book, the only purpose of which is to keep track of how much money each one of them has. This is exactly what the Bitcoin network does.
The technically marvelous thing about Bitcoin, however, is that not only can it keep an accurate accounting of this ledger, it can process real-time transactions between participants. |
Last summer we gave a long explanation as to why there is significant video evidence that would serve as suitable fodder for a highlight package pointing out the similarities between Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant’s game. Not just their game, really, but their facial expressions, between-play maneuvering, and overall oeuvre.
[Related: Kobe Bryant's surgery scar is pretty gnarly]
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A year later, a second clip has surfaced. Take a look:
Last year’s comments list was not kind to Kobe, which is frustrating. Because Kobe Bryant is supposed to be patterning his game after Michael Jordan. That’s sort of what you should be doing, as a 6-6 shooting guard. People of a certain age tend to emulate Michael Jordan. The difference between Kobe Bryant and the rest of us, though, is that he’s nearly as good as Michael Jordan, so he got to do it on basketball’s biggest stage.
From the gum chomping to the arched eyebrows to the actual inflection of his voice, you can tell that Bryant clearly watched tape after tape of Jordan while growing up in Italy. That aspect is legitimate, and just fine. It’s a habit that’s hard to break. I still inadvertently give off the MJ-styled inner-cheek chew and squinted-eye look while attempting to concentrate on what someone is saying. I’m not trying to be Michael Jordan, it’s just something I picked up after watching hours and hours of SportsChannel as a kid.
The on court aspects, though, don’t have to be just because Kobe Bryant watched a ton of Michael Jordan while growing up. Again, Kobe is supposed to be doing this.
Story continues
Both players are around the NBA’s average height and weight – 6-6 and 220 pounds – and both have similar skill sets. And when you pair those two factors with the athleticism and smarts that both boast, you get a similar game. And for that size, with those skills, jab-step jumpers and turnaround daggers off of a post-up are the most efficient way to go. For Bryant, our only longtime complaint is that he relies too heavily on that jab-step from 19 or 20 feet out, when Jordan would usually attempt to get to 15 feet.
[Related: Kobe Bryant's fans driven to hysteria]
The shooting guard position is the NBA’s least influential, and it speaks to Jordan and Bryant’s smarts and competitiveness that they’ve managed to dominate eras while playing a position that really doesn’t matter all that much in comparison to the other four spots. And this sort of play – again, those jab-steps, and those turnarounds and fadeaways – is how you get things down at the shooting guard position. Provided you have the skill, because we’d rather you focus on your other strengths, Tony Allen, instead of trying to cop Kobe.
In case you missed it last August, here is the first video in the series:
(Video via The Basketball Jones and Reddit.)
Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Frustrations will be forgiven once Derrick Rose takes the court again
• Dwight Howard in Twitter spat with woman
• Where Greg Oden fits in with the Heat
• Is competitive balance an oxymoron in the NBA? |
A generous 10-year-old from Pinner is celebrating Christmas as a time for giving by donating his birthday presents to London's homeless.
Big-hearted Sami Rock, who turned 10 on Saturday, will be giving his gifts to charity Shelter in the hopes of bringing a bit of festive cheer to people who might be spending the holiday on the street.
The Cannon Lane Primary School pupil said: "My whole year is invited and I didn't want to just end up getting lots of presents. I thought of giving them to Shelter because it's a homeless charity and it would be helping people who would be spending Christmas on the street.
"I also made a collection box and I've had a few donations already. I'd like to do more for charity, I've done things like a sponsored silence before - it's nice to do things like this sometimes."
Sami and his family, of Pembroke Avenue, Pinner, are holding a disco-themed party this weekend to celebrate his birthday.
His classmates are coming with presents to be donated to Shelter and Sami's collection box will also be in the church hall for anyone to make extra contribution.
Sami's efforts were commended in a school assembly last week.
His proud mother Babs said she had been approached by other parents whose children wanted to do something similar.
Babs said that the world around children today encourages them to be materialistic and she was glad Sami was developing a different outlook.
The 35-year-old said: "He came up with this all by himself. Whenever he sees one of these adverts on television, adopt a snow leopard or something like that, he always asks his dad if he can do it.
"He's quite a sensitive boy and he said he wanted to donate to Shelter because of this time of year, he's been thinking about what Christmas is. I think he feels quite lucky and he wanted to do something to help people less fortunate.
"I'm very proud of him, he's just amazing."
She continued: "We've had quite a few RSVPs to the party and parents have got in touch saying their children would quite like to do something similar. I definitely think he's inspired a few." |
As Christian clergy members, we place a high value on nonviolence. We are part of a national campaign that promotes proven solutions to reducing gun violence in our cities, and each of us has worked to achieve peace in our neighborhoods. But we know there has never been a time in American history in which movements for justice have been devoid of violent outbreaks.
Thanks to the sanitized images of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement that dominate our nation’s classrooms and our national discourse, many Americans imagine that protests organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and countless local organizations fighting for justice did not fall victim to violent outbreaks. That’s a myth. In spite of extensive training in nonviolent protest and civil disobedience, individuals and factions within the larger movement engaged in violent skirmishes, and many insisted on their right to physically defend themselves even while they proclaimed nonviolence as an ideal (examples include leaders of the SNCC and the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Mississippi).
The reality — which is underdiscussed but essential to an understanding of our current situation — is that the civil rights work of Dr. King and other leaders was loudly opposed by overt racists and quietly sabotaged by cautious moderates. We believe that current moderates sincerely want to condemn racism and to see an end to its effects. The problem is that this desire is outweighed by the comfort of their current circumstances and a perception of themselves as above some of the messy implications of fighting for liberation. This is nothing new. In fact, Dr. King’s 1963 “Letter From Birmingham Jail” is as relevant today as it was then. He wrote in part:
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action.”
National polling from the 1960s shows that even during that celebrated “golden age” of nonviolent protest, most Americans were against marches and demonstrations. A 1961 Gallup poll revealed that 57 percent of the public thought that lunch counter sit-ins and other demonstrations would hurt integration efforts. A 1963 poll showed that 60 percent had an unfavorable feeling toward the planned March on Washington, where Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. A year later, 74 percent said that since black people had made some progress, they should stop their demonstrations; and by 1969, 74 percent said that marching, picketing and demonstrations were hurting the civil rights cause. As for Dr. King personally, the figure who current moderates most readily point to as a model, 50 percent of people polled in 1966 thought that he was hurting the civil rights movement; only 36 percent believed he was helping.
The civil rights movement was messy, disorderly, confrontational and yes, sometimes violent. Those standing on the sidelines of the current racial-justice movement, waiting for a pristine or flawless exercise of righteous protest, will have a long wait. They, we suspect, will be this generation’s version of the millions who claim that they were one of the thousands who marched with Dr. King. Each of us should realize that what we do now is most likely what we would have done during those celebrated protests 50 years ago. Rather than critique from afar, come out of your homes, follow those who are closest to the pain, and help us to redeem this country, and yourselves, in the process. |
Human Capital Theory and Research Productivity A number of studies have successfully applied this human capital model to the research productivity of university faculty. Young faculty members often face intense pressure to publish but, as promotions are gained and years progress, research output often falls. McDowell (1982) finds humped-shaped relationships between age and research output for a sample of faculty members in a cross-section of disciplines. Diamond (1986) and Levin and Stephan (1991) find similar relations for mathematicians and scientists, and Goodwin and Sauer (1995) find the same for a sample of academic economists. Webber (2012) finds that the of years since terminal degree to have negative effect on publication, and Tien and Blackburn (1996) find that publication rates tend to rise as professors approach promotion and fall after promotion. Other authors report similar declines in research productivity in later life (Galenson and Weinberg 2000; Jones 2010; Jones and Weinberg 2011; Oster and Hamermesh 1998; Stroebe 2010). Stroebe (2010) notes several additional factors that might account for the apparent drop in output at later ages. For example, universities might reallocate resources away from older faculty members and toward younger researchers that they hope to attract and encourage. Also, if mandatory retirement looms in the near future, older faculty members might be less motivated to keep current and continue to produce as effectively. Finally, because older faculty members are likely to have the security of academic tenure, they might be more inclined to shirk and relax. Studies also find differences across disciplines and across genders. For example, the rate at which prior knowledge becomes obsolete probably varies by field. According to McDowell (1982) the rate of “literature decay” in hard sciences such as physics and chemistry is significantly higher than that in humanities such as history and English. He also argues that because women are more likely than men to interrupt their careers for reasons such as child care, they tend to gravitate to fields in which knowledge is more durable. If so, women might suffer less than men from declining productivity as they age.
Age and Teaching Effectiveness Although fewer researchers have studied the effect of age on productivity inside the classroom, human capital theory would predict a similar hump-shaped, non-linear relationship. As younger teachers gain experience their classroom performance should improve, but other factors should eventually push in the opposite direction. For example, the teaching prowess of older faculty members might suffer from an inability to stay current in their fields, or they might be allocating relatively more time to administrative rather than classroom pursuits (McPherson et al. 2009). Also, students might find it easier to connect with faculty members closer to their own age. Complaints by older faculty members about not understanding the younger generation certainly ripple through the halls of academia with some frequency. However, measuring the relationship between age and teaching productivity is challenging. The quantity and quality of research outputs can be measured with some objectivity, but defining, much less measuring, the effectiveness of classroom instruction surely ranks among the more controversial issues in education. Most researchers employ various measures of value-added, typically changes in student test scores, but others quarrel with this approach. For example, Corcoran (2010) argues that value-added measures can be biased by a variety of random factors such as family events, student health, the presence of disruptive classmates and even the effect of what students learn in other classes. Baker et al. (2010) find that teacher rankings based on value-added measures can fluctuate wildly from year to year. Since true teacher quality is unlikely to vary significantly from year, these measures probably are biased and unreliable indicators of classroom effectiveness. Rothstein (2015) adds that value-added measures across different tests in the same discipline correlation are only weakly correlated and that the correlation between changes in test scores and other types of performance measures is weaker still. He also contends that teachers can impact value-added measures by teaching to the test and that these measures ignore important non-cognitive skills. On the other hand, recent studies by Chetty et al. (2014a, b) find that such biases are small and that value-added measures correlate well with long-run student success. We do have extensive datasets that allow us to trace and analyze value-added measures through time for elementary and secondary school children and, when included in research studies, teacher experience almost always turns out to be a significant determinant of student achievement (Harris 2009). As predicted by human capital theory, productivity gains seem especially strong in the first few years of a teacher’s career (Clotfelter et al. 2007; Jackson and Bruegmann 2009; Rockoff 2004), but recent studies by Ost (2014), Papay and Kraft (2012), and Wiswall (2013) conclude that teachers continue becoming more productive for a larger number of years. Thus, to the extent that age correlates with experience, K-12 teaching effectiveness does seem to increase with instructor age for at least some period of time. The link between age and teaching effectiveness in higher education has proven to be more problematic. Judging the effectiveness of classroom instruction is quite difficult and the kinds of longitudinal data on test scores used in K-12 studies rarely exist for university-level students. Though quite controversial and subject to potential bias from a variety of factors, most schools rely on student evaluations of teaching (SET) as a primary measure of teaching quality (Denson et al. 2010). However, despite an enormous literature on the subject, the evidence supporting their use is mixed. For example, in his meta-analysis, Clayson (2009) finds a positive, albeit weak, correlation between SETs and various objective measures of value added across different sections of a course but finds no significant relationship for students within a section. In other words, students in sections taught by highly rated instructors do seem to learn more, but those students showing the largest gains in knowledge do not rate their instructors any better than do other students in the same class with smaller knowledge gains. Carrell and West (2010) find that SETs for a sample of instructors at the U.S. Air Force Academy are positively related to contemporaneous student learning, but were negatively related to student achievement in subsequent courses. Galbraith et al. (2012) identify a variety of methodological problems that might bias prior analyses and, using a large sample of business courses, find no significant relationships between SETs and achievement of student learning outcomes. They conclude that there is little reason to believe that SETs serve as a valid indicator of teaching effectiveness. But many other researchers do find positive and significant correlations between SETs and indicators of student learning (Beleche et al. 2012; Centra 1993; Davis 2009; Marsh 1984; Marsh and Roche 1997). Studying a sample of medical students, Stehle et al. (2012) find that SETs have a strong positive correlation with results on a practical examination, even though they were unrelated to scores on a multiple-choice test. Davis (2009) concludes that “students of highly rated teachers achieve higher final exam scores, can better apply course material, and are more inclined to pursue the subject subsequently” (p. 534) and Benton and Cashin (2014) write that “In general, student ratings tend to be statistically reliable, valid, and relatively free from bias or the need for control, perhaps more so than any other data used for faculty evaluation” (p. 12). Other studies have identified additional factors that impact SETs and several (Kinney and Smith 1992; McPherson et al. 2009; Wiswall 2013) have modelled SETs as a function of various instructor and course characteristics. Failure to control for these characteristics might create bias and probably accounts for some of disparate results found in the literature. For example, in addition to age, SETs might be impacted by an instructor’s gender and physical appearance. While there is some agreement that both male and female students tend to give higher ratings to instructors of their same gender (Centra and Gaubatz 2000), the overall effects are not clear. Some early research with high school teachers showed a slight bias for males to receive higher ratings (Bernard et al. 1981), but more recent studies find slightly higher ratings for females (Feldman 1993; Whitworth et al. 2002) or no significant difference at all (Feldman 1992). However McPherson et al. (2009) conclude that male instructors in their sample of economics instructors received higher ratings than females, For better or worse, physical beauty might also matter. According to Hamermesh and Biddle (1994) workers rated as striking or above average in attractiveness earn a wage premium of about 15 % over those rated as below average or homely. Beauty apparently impacts SETs as well. O’Reilly (1987) found that the physical attractiveness of dental school instructors affected student opinions of their teaching effectiveness. Professors at the University of Texas judged as better looking by students also earned stronger evaluations (Hamermesh and Parker 2005). Perhaps surprisingly, beauty had more of an impact on the ratings of male professors than females. Younger students also seem to prefer attractive instructors as even elementary school children tend to rate good-looking teachers more highly (Goebel and Cashen 1979). Feeley (2002) argues that this phenomenon results from a “halo effect” in which the beauty of the instructor creates a halo whose aura spreads to impact student perceptions of other, non-related characteristics. Course characteristics also impact SETs. Other researchers have found that variables such as class size (Green et al. 2012; Hamilton 1980; McPherson et al. 2009), course level (Braskamp and Ory 1994; Feldman 1978), and whether or not the course was an elective (Feldman 1978; McPherson et al. 2009) affect SETs. In addition, numerous authors have studied the relationship between SETs and course difficulty and expected grades. Bowling (2008) finds that SETs are contaminated by differences in course difficulty and that students give higher ratings to instructors in courses they consider to be easy. Moreover, the positive effect of easiness ratings on course evaluations is stronger in public schools with low academic rankings than in more highly ranked private institutions. Though not all studies agree (Centra 2003), many analyses also conclude that higher expected grades correlate with higher SETs (Blackhart et al. 2006; Braskamp and Ory 1994; Krautmann and Sander 1999; Langbein 2008; McPherson et al. 2009). To the extent that students expecting high grades are those who have learned more and rate their instructors highly as a result, SETs can be a valid indicator of teaching effectiveness. However, the more common interpretation is that instructors are able to buy better evaluations by awarding higher-than-deserved grades. In this interpretation, SETs are a biased indicator of teaching quality. Thousands of articles have been published on the validity of using SETs as a measure of teaching effectiveness, and a comprehensive review of these is beyond the scope of this paper. Many different views can be supported by at least one study. Nonetheless, many studies do conclude that SETs can be valid indicators of teaching effectiveness, at least when controlled for appropriate instructor and course characteristics. Moreover, the ubiquitous use of SETs in promotion and tenure decisions is evidence that administrators believe them to be a primary indicator of classroom performance. Indeed, one recent survey found that department chairs weighed SETs more heavily than any other factor in their overall evaluations of a faculty member’s teaching effectiveness (Becker et al. 2012).
Age and SETs Some studies using SETs as an indicator of teaching quality do find them to be negatively related to instructor age (Meshkani and Hossein 2003; Wachtel 1998), but the literature shows no consistent relationships (Blackburn and Lawrence 1986). Ragan and Walia (2010) find that new instructors get lower ratings, but that this disadvantage changes in a relatively few years. Hamermesh and Parker (2005) find no effect of instructor age in their sample of faculty members, nor do Mardikyan and Badur (2011). Spooren (2010) finds that age has a negative but non-significant effect on SET scores in his sample. The effect of age could be confounded with that of experience but, after adjusting for the positive impact of experience, McPherson et al. (2009) still find that age has a negative effect. They conclude that experience raises effectiveness, but older instructors with 20 years of experience do not fare as well as younger ones with 20 years of experience. In perhaps the most extensive study of age and teaching performance in higher education, Kinney and Smith (1992) find non-linear effects of age on SETs that vary across different academic areas. In their sample, SETs for faculty in the humanities tend to fall for faculty up to about age 50 and then increase slightly. They speculate that these departments might place more relative value on teaching effectiveness that, in turn, encourages faculty to continue honing skills through their later years. They claim also that older professors in these fields might start to become more concerned with the intellectual growth of their students relative to their own. On the other hand, they find that evaluations in the sciences rise until faculty age reached the mid-40 s and then decline continually after that. Their results are statistically significant, but the quantitative effects are small. These studies are suggestive but, because it is extremely difficult to obtain or compare faculty evaluation data from multiple schools, they rely on samples from a single university or, in some cases, a single department within that university. More importantly for our purposes, none used samples containing large numbers of faculty past the age of 64.
Rate My Professors Popular websites such as RateMyProfessors.com (RMP) publish student ratings for a broad and diverse sample of college and university instructors. The RMP site allows students to rate professors on three criteria: helpfulness, clarity, and easiness. The site also publishes an overall quality rating that is the simple average of the ratings for helpfulness and clarity. The site imposes almost no restrictions on who participates and, as Davison and Price (2009) report, fraudulent ratings are an issue. Students can log onto RMP under fake names and rate faculty members multiple times, and faculty members can enter the site and rate themselves or their colleagues as well. Moreover, since students with strong opinions about an instructor probably are more likely to take the initiative to log on and provide ratings, the sample of students rating a particular instructor could be unrepresentative of the population. Nonetheless, a growing body of evidence suggests that RMP ratings closely mirror those of university-run evaluations. Kindred and Mohammed (2005) conclude that student postings on the RMP website accurately reflect the opinions of students interviewed in focus groups about the quality of teaching delivered by their professors. Looking at a sample of 426 instructors at the University of Maine, Coladarci and Kornfield (2007) find a strong positive correlation between RMP ratings and those for corresponding questions on the university-administered evaluations and, based on their work with Brooklyn College faculty evaluations, Brown et al. (2009) conclude that RMP ratings are strong predictors of instructor SET ratings. Timmerman (2008) reports that overall quality ratings on RMP correlate highly with the summary ratings for evaluations in a sample of five different universities and, according to Otto et al. (2008), RMP ratings are consistent with “what would be expected if the ratings were valid measures of student learning” (p. 364). Despite their potential defects, RMP ratings apparently do closely track the SETs that, for better or worse, are commonly used to measure teaching effectiveness. |
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While the smartphone has, for many, supplanted dedicated GPS hardware in the car, Garmin hopes its latest navigation device, Garmin Speak, will change your mind. It brings together the company’s GPS navigation service with Amazon Alexa, providing voice-controlled music streams, audiobooks, news and weather, as well as access to compatible smart home devices.
Perhaps the major surprise is that the Garmin Speak delivers these features without the large, color touchscreen that you typically associate with in-car navigation. Instead, the device resembles a tiny Echo Dot that mounts to your windscreen and displays directions via a small, black and white OLED screen. Use voice commands to ask questions you need answered on the road about navigation, entertainment control, or the latest NBA results, and Alexa will get right on it.
Priced at $150 and, at launch, available only in the United States, Garmin Speak is a compact, well-constructed device that includes the iconic blue Echo LED ring and two buttons on the left for manual control (if desired – the idea is to use voice commands throughout, though). There’s a mic button at the top for privacy, while the action button on the bottom can be used to confirm instructions.
Garmin Speak delivers these features without the large, color touchscreen
Powered by your car’s 12V connector, the device is designed to affix to your windscreen via an adhesive, magnetic mounting pad. It holds the Speak firmly in place, but means you’ll be left with a dark blob on the windshield at all times, which is pretty ugly. Worse still, with no integrated battery, you’ll need to find a neat way to hide the long cable that connects the device to your car’s power socket. Garmin suggests unhooking your car’s ceiling panels and tucking the cord away, but it all feels a bit painful for what is, essentially, a wirelessly controlled device.
Once powered on, you pair Garmin Speak with your phone and car stereo over Bluetooth, allowing the device to respond to requests over your car’s speakers. Older cars without Bluetooth audio can connect to Speak using an AUX connection. If you’re desperate, Garmin has integrated a tiny speaker in the device, but you really wouldn’t want to listen to it for too long, The integrated speaker is small, and has lots of treble but little bass, as you’d expect on such a small device. Output is audible, but quite shrill and is an inferior option to connecting to your car’s stereo. From there, download and install the Garmin Speak app and you’ll be guided through configuration. Link up your Amazon Alexa account, enable the Garmin skill, ask Alexa to ask Garmin to activate your device and, some time later, you’re ready to go. Garmin has done its best to make setup as simple as possible – an achievement considering you’re hooking up three pieces of hardware to two distinct software services, but it’s still work and a great reminder why your smartphone is simply a magical device.
If you’ve previously used Amazon Echo or another Alexa-enabled device then you’ll be right at home with Garmin Speak. The device has full access to the Amazon assistant’s core features and third-party skills, so it offers a convenient way to play music from an Amazon library, Spotify or supported Internet radio service, hear the latest news and weather reports, switch on the thermostat at home and even stock up on Tide as you drive past the supermarket.
Here, a device like Garmin Speak proves how useful it can be to have Alexa (or another personal assistant) available in the car for certain tasks. Whether you need a dedicated, $150 microphone hooked up to your smartphone to perform these tasks, I’m not so sure. Many of these tasks can already be performed on the road by Google Assistant and, if you’re deeply integrated in Amazon’s ecosystem (and I’d suggest you’d need to be to really benefit from the Garmin Speak), you could always drop an Echo Dot into a cup holder for just $50. It’s not as cute, but it’s a heck of a lot cheaper.
Of course, alongside standard Alexa features, Garmin Speak is a voice-controlled navigational device. We’ve previously been a big fan of Garmin’s excellent in-car GPS devices, which are generally simple to use and offer intuitive features such as Real Directions, which uses landmarks to make turn-by-turn instructions clearer. Adding the Garmin skill certainly aces a standalone Echo Dot in the car – the question is how well Speak serves for in-car GPS.
Well, it works, but using Garmin Speak for navigation can be an awkward experience. First, GPS support is delivered through an Alexa skill. So that means you’ll need to ask Alexa to “ask Garmin” to find your location. It’s a double hop that can become wearing, like those times when you get into an argument with your other half and you stubbornly converse via the kids. “David, ask your mom whether we need to turn at the next block or the one after.”
Garmin Speak’s microphone does a decent job of picking up your voice, even on noisy roads, but attempting to set destinations using voice only can be tricky without the confirmation of a screen. If we missed the response to a destination command, we were immediately worried we were heading in the wrong direction. In cases where we needed to visit a particular store with several branches in the vicinity, we really missed the ability to bring up a list of potential locations and simply tap the one that we needed. With Garmin Speak, we found ourselves having to remember the store’s street address or intersection to be assured we would be directed correctly.
In these situations, you can open up the Garmin Speak app on your phone and check where you’re headed. Here you can also configure home, work and school addresses as shortcuts. But you’re back to using your phone as the GPS, making you question what Garmin Speak is really bringing to the table. Over time, perhaps we could re-learn how best to direct a GPS device via voice, or grow to trust Alexa/Garmin Speak a little more. But over the course of a few days with the device, we didn’t feel compelled to switch away from our integrated in-car GPS, or Google Maps and Waze on our phones.
In an attempt to reinvent the in-car GPS, Garmin Speak adds utility with a personal assistant but at the same time removes the simplicity and clarity of a touchscreen user interface. We have no doubt that personal assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant will become an essential feature in car entertainment systems of the future, but we’re not convinced a dedicated GPS device is the way to deliver them.
Our Take
Garmin’s imaginative reinvention of the GPS proves the benefit of a connected personal assistant on the move, but the loss of a touchscreen makes Garmin Speak less convincing than a traditional GPS, or your smartphone’s navigation app.
Is there a better alternative?
Certainly, Garmin Speak is a cheaper alternative than buying a new BMW or Mini with Alexa integration, but it’s three times the cost of simply dropping in an (admittedly larger) Echo Dot, if you really need Alexa in your vehicle. Depending on your smartphone, you may be able to replicate many of the device’s features with Google Assistant and have the bonus of a large touchscreen interface.
How long will it last?
Garmin Speak is undoubtedly a brave move to reinvent a category – dedicated in-car GPS – that’s in decline. Amazon Alexa is here for the long term, no doubt, but if Garmin Speak fails to gain traction, the question would be how long the hardware and Garmin Alexa service would be supported.
Should you buy it?
If you’re deeply committed to the Amazon ecosystem and you need Alexa as your co-pilot, then you can expect to see a range of in-car integrations heading your way over the next few years. Garmin Speak delivers many of the Amazon Echo’s features (and more) in a small, compact and mobile device. Just don’t be surprised if its novelty factor fades quickly. |
A brother of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of possessing child pornography, authorities said Wednesday.Bruce Paddock, 59, was arrested on a 20-count felony complaint, a police statement said.His relationship to Stephen Paddock was confirmed by a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation but not authorized to discuss it publicly.Bruce Paddock is not a suspect in the Las Vegas shooting.The child porn case predated the Oct. 1 shooting, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.It wasn’t immediately known if Paddock has an attorney. He was being held on $60,000 bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center.The felony complaint for his arrest alleges one count of possession of child or youth pornography and 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a child.The complaint signed Tuesday by a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney specified that between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30 of 2014, Bruce Paddock knowingly possessed more than 600 images of child or youth pornography involving use of a person under age 18 engaging in or simulating sexual conduct.The material included “10 or more images of a prepubescent minor or a minor who was under 12 years of age,” the complaint said.The police statement said Bruce Paddock came under investigation after evidence was discovered inside a business in the Sun Valley area of the city where he had been a squatter. The evidence was discovered after his eviction.At the time, Bruce Paddock was a transient and couldn’t be found, police said. He was recently located at an address in North Hollywood.Fifty-eight people were killed and hundreds more were wounded Oct. 1 at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on the Las Vegas Strip. Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel tower. Stephen Paddock was found dead.Another brother, Eric Paddock, spoke to media following the shooting but Bruce Paddock did not.
A brother of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of possessing child pornography, authorities said Wednesday.
Bruce Paddock, 59, was arrested on a 20-count felony complaint, a police statement said.
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His relationship to Stephen Paddock was confirmed by a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation but not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Bruce Paddock is not a suspect in the Las Vegas shooting.
The child porn case predated the Oct. 1 shooting, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It wasn’t immediately known if Paddock has an attorney. He was being held on $60,000 bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
The felony complaint for his arrest alleges one count of possession of child or youth pornography and 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
The complaint signed Tuesday by a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney specified that between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30 of 2014, Bruce Paddock knowingly possessed more than 600 images of child or youth pornography involving use of a person under age 18 engaging in or simulating sexual conduct.
The material included “10 or more images of a prepubescent minor or a minor who was under 12 years of age,” the complaint said.
The police statement said Bruce Paddock came under investigation after evidence was discovered inside a business in the Sun Valley area of the city where he had been a squatter. The evidence was discovered after his eviction.
At the time, Bruce Paddock was a transient and couldn’t be found, police said. He was recently located at an address in North Hollywood.
Fifty-eight people were killed and hundreds more were wounded Oct. 1 at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on the Las Vegas Strip. Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel tower. Stephen Paddock was found dead.
Another brother, Eric Paddock, spoke to media following the shooting but Bruce Paddock did not.
AlertMe |
Still think the War on Women isn’t real???
[Title edited for clarity]
Michigan House Representative Barb Byrum (D-Onondaga) was prevented from speaking on the House floor today by Republican leadership. She and other Democrats asked to speak on a package of pay equity bills that would address income inequality in Michigan.
They were rebuffed.
From a statement by House Democrats:
State Representative Barb Byrum (D-Onondaga) and other House Democrats today took House Republicans to task for repeatedly failing to recognize the needs of women in Michigan. So far this year, House Republicans have repeatedly shown they don’t share women’s priorities in matters such as pay equity, women’s health care, middle-class taxes and teacher retirement. Today, little more than a month after she was barred by House Republicans from speaking on the House floor after voicing opposition to an anti-choice bill, Rep. Barb Byrum once again tried to speak in the House, this time in favor of a package of bills that would address pay equity. Again, she was denied the chance to speak.
“House Republicans decided again to not let me speak today on the House Floor, but they can’t stop millions of Michigan women from speaking out in November,” Byrum said. “The women of this state want leaders who share their priorities, including fair pay, access to women’s health care and a fair tax system for their families. These are values House Republicans don’t share with us.”
According to House Dems, so far this year, House Republicans have:
Refused to allow debate or committee testimony on pay equity bills on the House Floor (House Bills 4611-4614)
Refused to allow discussion of bills that would undo tax changes that disproportionately hurt middle-class families, such as the elimination of the child deduction, the reduction of the homestead exemption and earned income tax credits and the senor tax (HB 5640)
Railroaded through sweeping anti-abortion measures, including the over-regulation of clinics that perform abortions (HB 5711)
Pushed through changes to the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) that will result in no pensions for future teachers and that disproportionately affect women, who comprise 73.7 percent of the current teachers in the system and 70 percent of the retired teachers (SB 1040)
Rep. Dian Slavens of Canton said, “It is time this Legislature demonstrates that they understand the needs of women and middle-class families in this state. I believe that the people of Michigan deserve elected leaders who do get it. We have been speaking to women around the state about the things that matter most to them, and we understand their concerns.”
Michigan Republicans, drunk with power, continue run roughshod over the rights of women and Democrats in general and, as was revealed yesterday, over the rules and basic ethics standards we should be able to expect from our lawmakers.
If Michiganders didn’t already have enough reasons to get out the vote & get out and vote, their treatment of the women in our state, including their female colleagues should be ample reason to push them over the edge.
We don’t just need change in Michigan. We need revolutionary change.
Our Democratic legislators are certainly ready. “We have been working so hard to promote measures that help the people of this state, not just corporate special interests,” Representative Stacy Erwin Oakes (D-Saginaw) said in a statement. “We will continue fighting for the things that matter, because the people of Michigan have told us that’s what they want us to do.”
[Byrum photo credit: Anne C. Savage]
P.S. If you are getting value from what you find here at Eclectablog, please note that we are in the middle of our third quarter fundraiser (more info in our post this morning “Day Three – Third Quarter fundraiser – “We’re going to the Democratic National Convention” edition”.) If you can make a contribution to help us continue to fight the good fight, we’d really appreciate it. You can do so using this convenient Paypal link (you can change the default $25 donation amount to whatever you’d like it to be). Thanks.
Chris, Anne, and LOLGOP
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Andrew Hozier-Byrne's voice is so rich, so vital and so soulful, I'm certain I'll follow his music for a long time to come. The 24-year-old Irishman, who performs under the name Hozier, opens this set with the brilliant and instantly grabby song "Take Me to Church," about passion, sex and religion.
Hozier's music is based in the blues, and you'll hear the singer-guitarist's love for Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker during the second song he performs here. His band — piano, guitar, percussion — steps aside for the swampy "To Be Alone," in which the blues provide a starting place for his high, yearning vocals and deep questioning. Hozier has just two EPs out, and both have me yearning to hear more.
Set List
"Take Me To Church"
"To Be Alone"
"Cherry Wine"
Credits
Producers: Bob Boilen, Denise DeBelius; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Denise DeBelius, Olivia Merrion; Production Assistant: Alex Schelldorf; photo by Alex Schelldorf/NPR |
UFC 213 took place this past Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and the main card on pay-per-view was headlined by Robert Whittaker becoming the interim middleweight champion with a decision victory over Yoel Romero.
Prior to the main card on pay-per-view, the televised preliminary card aired on FS1 and featured a heavyweight bout as Oleksiy Oliynyk scored his 52nd career victory as he submitted Travis Browne in the second round.
When it comes to the television ratings for the preliminary card, the two-hour portion of the event averaged 675,000 viewers and peaked at 732,000 viewers during the Oliynyk vs. Browne matchup (9:30-9:45 p.m. ET). Prior to the live fights, the pre-fight show came in with 219,000 viewers and once the pay-per-view concluded, the post fight show on FS1 came in with 206,000 viewers.
Now it should be noted that the UFC 213 prelims did go up against stiff sports competition on Saturday night as NASCAR on NBC Sports Network drew 2.7 million viewers, the MLB game on FOX came in with 2.5 million viewers, and the NBA Summer League game on ESPN between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics delivered 1.1 million viewers.
The UFC will return to FOX Sports on Sunday for UFC Fight Night: Nelson vs. Ponzinibbio and the six fight main card will begin at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT on FS1. |
1. Missouri and Duke making history for the wrong reason
Since everything that can be said has already been said about Missouri and Duke losing to 15-seeds within a few hours of each other, I’d like to direct your attention to a prediction that a certain someone made last week about the 1- or 2-seeds that were most likely to get upset early.
(And no, I don’t think it’s relevant to mention that I picked Missouri to go to the Final Four after the bracket was announced.)
2. Draymond Green’s second career NCAA tournament triple-double
On Sunday afternoon, CBS gave Green the love he deserved for recording his second career NCAA tournament triple-double against LIU two days earlier, but it seems like fans and the media as a whole haven’t given this accomplishment its proper respect. I’m guessing this is because people are less impressed because Green did it against a 16-seed, but that shouldn’t matter. The bottom line is that there have been hundreds of guys who played against 16-seeds, yet only Green, Magic Johnson, and Oscar Robertson have multiple triple-doubles in the tournament. Anytime you’re in an exclusive group with Magic and the Big O, you’ve accomplished something.
3. Jae Crowder is the emerging star of the tournament
It’s not very often that the Big East player of the year flies under the radar in the discussion of the country’s best players, but that has happened all year long with Crowder. I’m not sure how much longer it will last, though, because against Murray State on Saturday Crowder showed that he is the most versatile player in the country and that he can carry a team to the Final Four. As excited as I am to see Florida and Marquette race to 100 points on Thursday, I think I’m more excited about a possible Crowder-Draymond Green matchup in the Elite Eight, because both of those guys do more for their teams than any other player left in the tournament.
4. Syracuse looking good after a scare
Syracuse needed a combination of luck, incompetent refs, and a few big plays to escape a historic loss to UNC-Asheville in their first tournament game, and many people put the Fab Melo-less Orange on upset alert in their next game against Kansas State. But ‘Cuse sent a message to the rest of the field that even without Melo, they won’t be an easy out.
5. Redemption for Louisville and Wisconsin
Big things were expected from Louisville and Wisconsin this season, but in late December and early January both had stretches that made it easy to wonder why their preseason rankings were so high. Losing over the weekend wouldn’t have necessarily made their respective seasons failures, because both the Cardinals and Buzzcuts won a lot of games, but Sweet 16 berths give them something extra to validate the lofty expectations placed on them in November.
6. Redemption for Jordan Taylor
Taylor’s individual season mirrored his team’s season. As a first team preseason All-American who averaged 18 points per game a season ago, the bar was set very high for Taylor this year. And like the Buzzcuts as a whole, Taylor wasn’t exactly bad this year — he averaged fewer points, rebounds, and assists than last season, but with more turnovers per game than a season ago, he certainly didn’t live up to expectations. Of course, none of that is important now that he’s playing well when it matters most and just hit the game-winning shot to beat Vanderbilt and send the Buzzcuts to the Sweet 16.
7. The Big Ten is 9-2 and the state of Ohio is 8-0
As a proud alum of the only Big Ten school located in Ohio, let me just take a second to politely say, “Suck it, every other state and conference.”
8. Kentucky’s stretch to end the game against Iowa State is why they are overwhelming favorites to win it all
At the under-16 media timeout in the second half, with Kentucky holding on to a two-point lead, my friend who was watching the game at my place stood up from the couch and said he was going to run to Subway because he didn’t want to miss the game but he was too hungry to wait for the end. When he came back 10 minutes later, Kentucky’s lead was 16, prompting him to ask, “What the hell happened in the 10 minutes I was gone?”
All I could respond with was, “Kentucky happened.”
9. After all these years, Ashley Judd still gets interviewed during Kentucky games for some reason
“I don’t think I can fully understand how good this Kentucky team is until I hear what the chick who starred alongside The Rock in The Tooth Fairy has to say about them.”
—Nobody
10. Indiana is back in the Sweet 16
With the season they had, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the Hoosiers are in the Sweet 16 for the first time in 10 years. But when you consider the expectations at the start of the season and the fact that VCU outplayed them for most of the game Saturday, Indiana should feel proud to make the Sweet 16. College basketball is at its best when all of the blue bloods have good teams, so it’s encouraging to see the Hoosiers doing well in the tournament during what was supposed to be a tune-up year before IU’s great recruiting class arrived in Bloomington next season.
11. Did we see Shaka Smart’s last game at VCU?
Most Illinois fans have pegged Smart as their pick to fill Bruce Weber’s shoes, and rightfully so. He’s a young Midwesterner with a Final Four and a prestigious CBI championship on his résumé in just three years at VCU. But despite how badly Illini fans want him, the truth is that Smart likely wouldn’t get that much more money from Illinois, and he definitely wouldn’t get the job security at Illinois that he has now, which is why I think he’ll ultimately stay with the Rams. That said, he’d get better recruits in Champaign and would have a better opportunity for sustained success, so it wouldn’t be crazy if he decided to leave.
12. Colorado’s karmic run coming to an end
Karma always seems to get a bad rap, what with everyone calling it a bitch all the time and the Jersey Shore cast regularly starting fights and exposing their genitals inside of it. But thanks to the Colorado athletic department, karma is slowly restoring its name. First the Buffalo athletic department offered all-expenses-paid trips for 50 students to travel to Los Angeles for the Pac-12 tournament, where their sixth-seeded Buffs made an improbable run to the championship. That alone is above and beyond what most athletic departments do for their students, but Colorado followed that by offering another great deal to all Colorado students for the NCAA tournament. In what should come as no surprise, the 11th-seeded Buffaloes won their opening-round game against UNLV and then had third-seeded Baylor on the ropes in front of a heavy pro-Colorado crowd before the Bears got hot and pulled away late.
13. Brady Heslip’s shooting display against Colorado was a thing of beauty
Being a Canadian who parts his hair, Heslip looks like the kind of kid who knocks on your door to sell candy bars for his Little League team and is so innocent that he doesn’t realize $4 for a king-size Kit Kat is a complete rip-off. But then you see him play and you realize that he’s infinitely cockier than you thought, as evidenced by the fact that he’s a flagrant violator of the premature loose butthole monocle. That said, against Colorado on Saturday night, he had every right to throw up as many loose butthole monocles as he wanted because his shooting performance (9-for-12 from behind the arc) was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the NCAA tournament.
14. Charles Barkley is delightfully bad in the studio
I know that the same can be said about him when he’s working NBA games, but it’s especially true during March Madness. What makes it that much better is that Barkley is usually the last of the analysts to chime in with his thoughts, so by the time it’s his turn to talk all of the obvious points have been mentioned. As a result, Barkley, who clearly hadn’t watched a single college basketball game before the tournament, ends up saying things like, “I think the team that (insert something obvious, like “plays defense” or “scores a lot of points”) will have a good chance at winning the game.”
15. The officiating has been awful
Being an official is a thankless job, but it’s also a job that completely deserves any and all criticism when done terribly, so here are some memorably bad calls that potentially changed the outcomes of games so far in this year’s tournament:
• Notre Dame getting called for a bogus lane violation late in the game against Xavier
• Trevor Releford not getting the foul call when he was clearly hit on the elbow as he shot the potential game-winner against Creighton
• Pretty much everything that happened in the final two minutes of Syracuse vs. UNC-Asheville
As if that’s not bad enough, there were handfuls of other terrible calls that weren’t directly responsible for deciding games, such as all of the technicals called for hanging on the rim, and every single call Ted Valentine has made.
16. Carolina looked dominant against Creighton
I’ve said for a few weeks now that the national title is Carolina’s to lose because they are basically just a more experienced, offensive-minded Kentucky, and Sunday’s performance against Creighton only solidified this opinion. The Heels are relentless offensively and really just need to play a tiny bit of defense to dominate their opponents. In fact, the only way I can imagine Carolina not winning the title this year is if a key player gets injured. You know, for example, an injury like
17. Kendall Marshall’s broken wrist
It can’t be overstated how much the availability and effectiveness of Marshall impacts North Carolina’s title chances, but I’ll try anyway: North Carolina might as well forfeit against Ohio if Marshall can’t play the rest of the tournament, because Duke will have as good of a chance to win the national championship as they will.
18. North Carolina State is no Cinderella
Based on their seed, it’s easy to label NC State a Cinderella team, but Cinderella teams typically look out of place and win because of luck, uncharacteristically hot shooting, or uncharacteristically cold shooting from the opposition. NC State, on the other hand, looks every bit like a 4- or 5-seed and is a legitimate threat to make it to New Orleans. The phrase “peaking at the right time” is beaten to death this time of year, but if there was ever a team that that phrase described perfectly, it’s the Wolfpack.
19. The end of the Robbie Hummel Era
Fact: The last time Hummel wasn’t on Purdue’s roster, Michael Jackson was alive, Bob Barker was the host of The Price Is Right, and the iPhone hadn’t been released yet. No words could accurately express what Hummel has meant to Purdue during the last five years, and as one of the nicest guys in the sport, it was impossible not to cheer for him, especially with all he had to endure because of his two ACL tears. It’s a shame that he didn’t get to play in the NCAA tournament with JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore the last two years, when Purdue would’ve been Final Four contenders, but at least he was able to end his career on a somewhat high note by lighting up Kansas for 26 points and nine rebounds.
20. The Buick Verano commercial featuring the band whose name I don’t care to know is my own personal hell
If you would’ve told me on Thursday that the Buick Verano commercial with the tour buses following a girl to the dry cleaners would run away with the title of “most annoying commercial of the 2012 tournament,” I would’ve considered it an upset. But in retrospect, it was the obvious choice all along because the overall premise of the commercial is ridiculous, and it features a song that gets stuck in your head and a guy whose face is just asking to be punched. I’m not sure who the band in the commercial is, but I do know that while it may have started with a whisper, it’s going to end with me putting car bombs in all those buses if that commercial continues violating my ears. |
This game is to this day my real golden year and a half of gaming. It was unlike anything else out there and for its age, it was truly most-expansive and complete kind of MMO RPG.
I started playing it in 2002 just when it was on the 3rd expansion and was probably the game’s all-time peak of quality. Half a year later the 4th one came out and the changes were drastic enough to make half the old community to quit.
This whole genre was a brand new experience for me and I capitalized on all its opportunities. You could have absolutely anything you could imagine in a game- houses, boats, mounts, plethora of crafting and combat skills and various hybrid combinations of the two, excellent dungeons and huge boss spawns, the list can go on and on. It was also one of the very few games that was skill point based rather than character levels, so you could virtually never ruin a character and could always rebuild it into anything else you wanted.
I started up a guild and we all had a pretty successful run over the year and a half that I played prior to moving on myself. Closer to my second half of playing UO I finally managed to organize a player-run town- several houses in the same area designed under the same guidelines and owned by a common group of players, which was one of the hardest feats to achieve in any game like this.
————————————————————————————————–
And so, this was the very beginning of my lovely guild. We held early meetings in one of the castles in the main city, Britain, Trammel.
Britain bank was the major social and commerce spot, always very crowded.
I even got lucky enough to catch the culminating official event for the 3rd expansion- Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge. We all collectively fought him and got to see the official iconic characters of the main story-
Past that I had a plethora of other adventures. At one point, tamers of my guild sold various mounts near the bank for very decent prices and made enough pocket change after a day. In fact, animal and monster taming system was extensive and fun. Some critters had pack stats, so the more you had with you, the more damage they did. You could train critters too and even bond them such that after they died, they would follow you as ghosts until you resurrected them. For early 2000s, what other game had even a portion of everything that UO offered?
The champion spawns were the meat of the game for the longest time and featured a final boss of bosses type as well. You would fight huge waves of monsters until the boss appeared, take him down, get a champ skull (that you needed to summon the final spawn) and lots of high-end items. The main sought items were skill point cap scrolls that allowed you to go past the standard 100 point cap, and they would come in increments of 5 until 120. Every character could have a grand total of 700 points, which typically entailed being Grandmaster in 7 skills or Legendary level (120) in any 5 and have a 6th supporting skill.
You would kill waves of monsters until the altar filled with skull candles and then the boss would finally spawn.
These typically took from 2 extremely skilled players to 10 or more depending on the spawn and its difficulty. Here is one of the power scrolls-
Here is how skill raising worked- per uses bases with certain time-caps until the next point could be earned, unless you really used the tits out of it.
You would typically set arrows up for skills you wanted raised and down for those you didn’t need. You could also lock skills at any desirable amount for some truly hybrid builds.
The last expansion that I played, The Age of Shadows, added a Sims-like ability to build completely custom houses instead of being stuck with stock designs. This opened up amazing heights for style and was the foundation of my player city.
Items could be stacked to create some really amazing mock-furnishings as well, so at one point I had a pool, a piano, and various other improv decor in my humble abode.
All in all, these were truly the best gaming days of my life thus far and I’m really glad that I can now share even if a tiny bit with the rest of you.
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If creatures exist on planets with twin suns, they would have to be extremely adaptable.
The most detailed look yet at the energy from stellar pairs shows there are more potentially habitable worlds in the galaxy than we thought. But the planets’ denizens must be able to adapt quickly to wild temperature shifts and unpredictable seasons.
Most stars in the galaxy come in pairs or more. Until recently, astronomers assumed the regions around many of these binaries would be too gravitationally chaotic to host planets (see “Binary star apocalypse“).
Now that view has changed. A handful of planets have been discovered orbiting two stars, including some that appear to be in the habitable zone, where liquid water can exist.
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“This means we cannot dismiss binary stars as being inhospitable,” says William Welsh of San Diego State University. “That opens up a vast number of possibilities that were previously considered too hostile for life.”
Early models assumed the brightest star in a binary pair was the only one that mattered for habitability, and no one modelled systems in which both stars were equally bright. “What we’ve done for the first time is say, ‘let’s take both stars into account and see what the habitable zone really is’,” says Stephen Kane of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “It becomes much more complicated.”
Kane and Caltech colleague Natalie Hinkel modelled a variety of binary systems and calculated the combined light contributions at every point in the stars’ vicinity. In some systems, they found distinctly lopsided habitable zones, especially when the stars were widely separated (see diagram). “It surprised me how asymmetric some of the habitable zones can be,” Kane says. “Some of them end up looking like peanuts.”
Planets in other systems, including the first confirmed binary world, Kepler 16b, would move in and out of their habitable zones over the course of a year, possibly forcing cycles of freezing and thawing. “The climate is much wilder on these planets than on Earth,” says Welsh, who was not involved in the work. “Life would have to be able to cope with very large and rapid changes in temperature.”
That creates challenges for land walkers, Kane says. “It would be very difficult to predict weather patterns, or when to plant your crops, or anything like that.”
It’s less of an issue if the planet has oceans, says Frank Drake, one of the first researchers to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It takes a greater energy flux to heat or cool water compared with air, so marine creatures would be protected from quick-change seasons. “The ocean is a wonderful, very cosy blankie for life,” Drake says.
What about the most famous planet with two suns, Tatooine, of Star Wars fame? Kane says that the stars are so far apart they would create a lopsided habitable zone – and the planet wouldn’t be in it.
“If one were to calculate the [habitable zone] boundaries for the Tatooine system based on film footage, there’s a very real possibility that the planetary system as depicted is unphysical,” Kane says. “This would not be a big surprise, since the film was produced far before any of this kind of research took place.”
Journal reference: The Astrophysical Journal, doi.org/j36
Binary star apocalypse Not all two-star systems have stars close enough for one planet to orbit both. In some cases, the stars are so far apart that planets could orbit one star, while the other lurks hundreds of billions of kilometres away. You might think such worlds would be as serene as those around solo stars. But the second star could spell doom, says Nathan Kaib of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. In the outer reaches of our solar system, objects in the Oort cloud are nudged to and fro by galactic tides and the gravity of passing stars. This sends some of them, which we see as comets, careening into our neighbourhood on highly elongated orbits. In a series of simulations, Kaib and his colleagues showed that the same is probably true for widely separated binary stars. At some point, gravitational tweaks will almost inevitably send one star hurtling towards its partner – and the brief encounter would wreak havoc on any planets. In about half of the simulations, at least one planet ended up getting ejected from the star system. In 20 per cent of cases, the star lost all its planets (Nature, doi.org/j56). “You wind up with a naked star,” says Kaib. “It can be very devastating.” |
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“One could easily say this is an execution because they were not being attacked,” Burris, Family Attorney for the deceased.
Another Black man joins the police ‘execution list’ as cops will never cease taking Black lives. The victim, who is identified as Joseph Mann, is described as a peaceful young man, who has had no records of violence in the vicinity.
Joseph Mann, 50, used to work for the Department of Corrections until he had a mental breakdown in 2011 after the death of his mother. Since then, this mentally ill man has peacefully lived on the streets of Sacramento — until last month when he was shot 18 times and killed as he fled from police.
A wrongful death suit has been filed by the family of the deceased against the Sacramento police. But surprisingly the police have narrated a totally different story about the murder of Mann.
Luckily a recorded phone video on that fateful day has refuted claims and narrations by the police that Joseph Mann was armed with a knife and a gun. That is a blatant lie as no gun was found at the scene of the incidence. Well, the video speaks for itself and tells how incredibly well the police Department can fabricate lies to cover up their irresponsibility and total negligence.
As to the evidence the video brings out, it is a dangerous path the police has taken. They now shoot their vulnerable innocent victims in the back. What is it, cowardice or lack of professionalism?
Honestly, the “back-shooting” position of the victim is a proof of a wrongdoing. A man, who is facedown or is running away, cannot be a deadly threat in any way possible. Just like Joseph Mann, many other Blacks have been killed in the same position proving the helplessness of the victim, yet the police will tell a completely different story.
Kindly SHARE this article on any social media of your choice to combat Police brutalities and racism. |
’91-’92 Pittsburgh Penguins (39-32-9, 87 points (3rd in Patrick), STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS) ’90-’91 Pittsburgh Penguins (41-33-6, 88 points (1st in Patrick), STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS) ’08-’09 Pittsburgh Penguins (45-28-9, 99 points (2nd in Atlantic), STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS) ’07-’08 Pittsburgh Penguins (47-27-8, 102 points (1st in Atlantic), Lost in Stanley Cup Final) ’12-’13 Pittsburgh Penguins (36-12-0, 72 points (1st in Atlantic), Lost in Conference Final) ’95-’96 Pittsburgh Penguins (49-29-4, 102 points (1st in Northeast), Lost in Conference Final) ’00-’01 Pittsburgh Penguins (42-28-9-3, 96 points (3rd in Atlantic), Lost in Conference Final) ’94-’95 Pittsburgh Penguins (29-16-3, 61 points (2nd in Northeast), Lost in Conference Semifinal)
The ’12-’13 Pittsburgh Penguins were the 10th seed in the inaugural Ultimate NHL Playoff. They had a First Round Bye, but were then swept in the Second Round by eventual Quarterfinalists, the 23rd-seeded ’79-’80 Buffalo Sabres.
Players to Watch:
F – Mario Lemieux – He’s “Super Mario” for a reason. 690 goals, 1,033 assists and 1,723 points in 915 games.
– He’s “Super Mario” for a reason. 690 goals, 1,033 assists and 1,723 points in 915 games. RW – Jaromir Jagr – Second in Penguins history in scoring to only Mario. He has 1,079 points in 806 games.
– Second in Penguins history in scoring to only Mario. He has 1,079 points in 806 games. C – Sidney Crosby – This is quite a trio. He’s gonna pass Jagr soon for second all-time in franchise scoring and it’s only because of recurring injury issues that he’s not already second behind Mario.
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Reading the Israeli headlines lately, one can see why many American Jews are convinced that ultra-Orthodox extremism is getting worse. On Monday, the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties got the coalition to pass legislation barring non-Orthodox converts from using state-run ritual baths for their conversions; earlier this month, the Haredi-dominated rabbinical courts refused to recognize conversions by an esteemed American Orthodox rabbi, Haskel Lookstein; and for months now, the Haredi parties have blocked implementation of Natan Sharansky’s sensible compromise on non-Orthodox worship at the Western Wall. Yet to look only at these headlines is to miss a crucial part of the story: Younger Haredim, while remaining passionately committed to Orthodox Judaism, are increasingly rejecting their rabbinic leadership’s hardline positions on numerous issues, including work, army service, academic study, and communal isolation.
Let’s start with work. Officially, the rabbinic leadership still holds that men should study Torah full-time. But the proportion of Haredi men entering the workforce is rising steadily, and last year, it exceeded 50 percent for the first time since Israel started tracking the data. It’s now 51.2 percent, and the government hopes to raise it to 63 percent by 2020.
As for Haredi women, anyone who thinks they’re confined to the kitchen is way behind the times. Last year, 73.1 percent of Haredi women worked, up from 61.5 percent just five years earlier; that’s already far above the government’s target of 63 percent by 2020. And since the Haredi community can’t provide enough jobs for all these women, they are increasingly integrated into the broader economy, including high-tech. This obviously entails more contact with non-Haredim.
New attitudes toward work are also influencing a new generation of Haredi politicians. Today’s Haaretz has a fascinating profile of Yisrael Porush, the 36-year-old mayor of the Haredi city of Elad, whose father and grandfather were prominent Knesset members and deputy ministers. The elder Porushes focused on traditional Haredi concerns. But the young mayor has a different goal: In the words of reporter Meirav Arlosoroff, it’s “for as many of the city’s residents as possible to work.” To this end, he has not only brought business ventures like a software development center into town, but has negotiated agreements with two neighboring local governments–a secular Jewish one and an Arab one–to create joint industrial parks.
On education, the change is equally dramatic. Not only did the number of Haredim in college jump by 83 percent, to 11,000, from 2011-2015, but attitudes toward secular studies in high schools are also changing.
You wouldn’t guess this by looking at the older generation of politicians: On Sunday, at the Haredi parties’ behest, the coalition agreed to repeal a law imposing financial penalties on Haredi schools that don’t teach the core curriculum.
But the next day, the Jerusalem Post quoted a new survey which found that 83 percent of Haredi parents would like their sons to attend high schools that teach secular subjects alongside religious ones, as Haredi girls’ schools already do. Another 10 percent would consider this option. Moreover, the article noted, the number of Haredi boys attending yeshiva high schools, which prepare students for the secular matriculation exams, has doubled since 2005. Though the number remains tiny (1,400 enrollees last year), the survey results indicate that this may be due less to lack of demand than to lack of supply: Today, just over a dozen such schools exist.
The survey also lends credence to Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s claim that coercive legislation isn’t necessary to solve the secular studies problem. Helping other such schools get started, instead of putting obstacles in their way, might be equally if not more effective.
On army service, too, change is apparent. In 2014, 2,280 Haredim enlisted – about one-third the number that would have enlisted if all Haredi men joined the army at 18. And in some places, the numbers are higher: In Porush’s Elad, about 40 percent of men do army service.
Moreover, the stigma against army service is rapidly crumbling. As Rachel Levmore, a member of the government panel that appoints rabbinical court judges, noted recently, until this month, Israel’s highest rabbinical court had never included a judge who served in the army. But following this month’s round of appointments, fully half its judges are now veterans, including two Sephardi Haredim and one Ashkenazi Haredi. The latter is particularly noteworthy because army service is much less common among Ashkenazi Haredim.
As Levmore wrote, these appointments send an important message: Army service no longer disqualifies Haredim for prominent rabbinical positions. Today, you can serve and still be appointed to the Supreme Rabbinical Court, with the unanimous approval of a panel that includes the Haredi chief rabbis and a Haredi Knesset member.
Admittedly, these changes in Haredi society won’t lead to changes in attitude at the top anytime soon. The leading Haredi rabbis are in their nineties, and their replacements will be men of similar age. In other words, they are products of a very different world – one where the Holocaust had wiped out most of European Jewry, where Israel’s army and school system actively sought to create “new Jews” in the mold of the ruling secular elite, where rebuilding the Torah world was the overriding imperative, and where isolation from secular knowledge and secular society was deemed essential for achieving this goal. This is the worldview they imbibed in their formative years, and they won’t abandon it in their old age.
But younger Haredim grew up in a very different world–one where Torah study is flourishing, the religious population is growing, and state institutions from the army to the universities now welcome Haredim without trying to make them stop being Haredi. Consequently, this generation feels less threatened by the secular world; it’s confident of its ability to work, attend college and even do army service without losing its Haredi identity.
Bottom-up change is usually slower than the top-down version, but it also tends to be more lasting. And therefore, the headlines of recent months are misleading: Developments in Haredi society as a whole actually provide strong grounds for optimism. |
October 16, 2013 — A news analysis in The New York Times this month neatly summed up the conventional wisdom that drives the proposals and rhetoric of a broad political spectrum from Tea Party Republicans to Democratic centrists, wins grudging acceptance even among some elements of the center-left, and is constantly reinforced in the media: “the United States must confront the rising costs of the benefit programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid but also Social Security.”
Savings for old-age health costs are estimated to account for a full 11 percent of the country’s private wealth.
But the “unsustainability” argument — presented by the reporter as an unchallengeable fact — ignores completely another perspective: that a focus on reducing financial insecurity instead of reducing benefits would likely yield not only important psychological benefits to millions of senior citizens but also important gains for both national and local economies in the medium and short term.
For example, a growing body of economic research shows that the risk of high medical and long-term care expenses makes retirees in the U.S. uncommonly unwilling to spend such retirement savings as they have. With greater financial security, seniors would be less likely to deprive themselves of enjoyable activities or to defer needed medical care.
Moreover, if retirees were freed from their concerns about health-related expenses, they would likely spend far more of what turns out to be, in the aggregate, trillions of dollars in untapped capital. This change in habit would represent a great economic boon to the U.S. and to the localities where retirees live.
The implications work both ways: if the safety net is restricted further, seniors will be even more compelled to hang on to their money, and the communities that rely on their spending will suffer as a result.
Yet these considerations and others like them are absent when there is talk in Washington about the need to be “realistic.” The AARP Public Policy Institute, for instance, recently released a report tracking the effects of Social Security spending throughout the nation, finding that every dollar generates two in economic output for an added total of $1.4 trillion. But Gary Koenig, the Institute study’s principal author, said it’s difficult to get a word in edgewise in a budget-obsessed debate.
“It seems to me that we’re in a world right now where spending is characterized as bad, and high taxes are characterized as bad, and both are characterized as disastrous to the economy,” Koenig said. “And that leads you to one conclusion, which is that we need to achieve fiscal balance in our budget only through spending cuts.”
“It’s a very narrow, limited focus,” Koenig added. “I think it misses the bigger picture.”
You Can’t Take it With You
American retirees are notoriously thrifty. Data from the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study on median household net worth illustrate the point. As of 2006, heads of household aged 90 had a median household net worth of about $75,000. This is higher, as a proportion of net worth at age 65, than in most other industrialized countries. Among economists who study patterns of saving and spending across lifetimes, this has always been something of a puzzle. If, as the saying goes, there are no pockets in a shroud, then why do the elderly hold on to their money instead of spending it?
The desire to leave an inheritance is one explanation, though it has been found to be a relatively minor concern among households that aren’t very wealthy. Instead, a number of recent studies have found that a more significant factor is the potential of having to pay large sums out of pocket for medical and long-term care, the fear of which compels retirees to leave their nest eggs undisturbed.
The countries with higher retiree spending rates were those where public insurance programs reduced or eliminated the risk of health-related expenses.
In a working paper funded by the Retirement Research Consortium, Irina A. Telyukova and Makoto Nakajima, economists at the University of California, San Diego and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, respectively, compared the spending rates of American retirees to those of several other countries, mostly European. Focusing on relatively liquid financial wealth (rather than housing assets), they found that, consistently, the countries with higher retiree spending rates were those where public insurance programs reduced or eliminated the risk of health-related expenses.
Telyukova and Nakajima zeroed in on a comparison between the U.S. and Sweden in part because the retirement picture in the two countries is similar: ratios of savings to income upon retirement, homeownership rates, and so forth. They key difference is in social programs. While Swedish retirees, regardless of income, have free access to medical and long-term care, Americans have only limited medical insurance through Medicare and, except for Medicaid assistance to the very poor, no public coverage of long-term care.
Telyukova and Nakajima found that, by the time they’re pushing 90, American households have spent down only about one third of their financial assets, while Swedes have spent nearly three quarters. They found, moreover, that the majority of this difference — around 70 percent — can be accounted for by the disparities in the countries’ healthcare safety nets. |
The day we’ve all been waiting for has arrived—Wilson’s Heart is officially here! Drawing equal parts inspiration from classic monster movie horror and Twilight Zone bizarre, this narrative-driven first-person adventure lets you star in your own psychological thriller. Thanks to neo-noir cinematic flair and a cast of voice actors including Peter Weller, Rosario Dawson, Michael B. Jordan, and Alfred Molina, combined with the immersive power of VR, you can step inside a mystery like never before.
We’re taking a break from speedruns and exploratory playthroughs to celebrate with a new installment in our Touch Tuesdays series. Today’s in-depth Q&A features Twisted Pixel Games CEO Bill Muehl and Chief Creative Officer Josh Bear.
What motivated you to bring your character-driven approach to narrative games into VR?
Josh Bear: We’ve always enjoyed making character interactions feel engaging and responsive—bringing that approach into VR expanded what we could do narratively, especially from the first-person perspective. As an example, when we were prototyping Wilson’s Heart, we quickly found that the immersion of VR let us influence players’ moods and reactions through the placement of NPCs relative to the players’ personal space. That unique ability to affect the player through character interactions, paired with the natural controls that Touch provides, opened up a lot of narrative opportunities that couldn’t have been done outside of VR.
What’s your favorite part about designing for Touch?
Bill Muehl:As a studio, we’ve always loved finding ways to be creative with new technology. Touch is such a big leap forward in terms of natural interactions, we feel fortunate to have had such early access to the prototypes so we could design Wilson’s Heart to take advantage of the new interface. We’ve really enjoyed the way Touch let us design the game so that people who would normally be intimidated by a traditional controller with tons of buttons can instead put their attention toward exploring the environments, solving puzzles, and advancing the narrative in an intuitive way.
Did you encounter any obstacles while designing for VR?
BM: A big challenge was the fact that we had to give up camera control to the player, but that’s something all developers face as they make the transition to VR. We saw right away that we’d need to put a lot of attention into our sound design and subtle visual cues to guide the player without breaking immersion.
JB: There was also the challenge of locomotion in VR. We decided early on to commit to a solution that fit our gameplay and narrative design, and the natural use of Touch controllers helped a lot toward solving that. Our node-based teleportation has the added benefit of ensuring that Wilson’s Heart is comfortable experience.
How do you think VR will continue to impact the way we play and tell stories moving forward?
BM: This is clearly just the beginning of an entirely new way to experience alternate and enhanced worlds, characters, and social interactions, and we’re excited to be part of the whole movement. As the hardware and platforms evolve, we’re looking forward to even more ambitious ways to create interactive narratives.
What’s the craziest reaction you’ve seen while demoing the game?
JB: We often get a great reaction to the mirror sequence near the beginning of the game—a mix of shock and amazement as players come face-to-face with their virtual self, Robert Wilson, who’s a man in his mid-60s.
BM: It’s also great to witness the moments when players have to do something that would normally be pretty gross like reaching into a bathtub full of nasty, sludgy water, or something very painful like reaching down to pull their heart out of their own chest. Scenarios like those often create a really visceral reaction in the player.
Any particular Easter eggs we should be on the lookout for?
JB: We hope players feel like the narrative and puzzle designs provide a bunch of unexpected twists and turns, but the game also includes variety of side areas for players who want to explore deeper context of both the story and characters. Some of these include interactive comic books, newspapers, photos, and radios with plays and period music. Also, try tuning the station dial on the radios—you may get more than you bargained for.
Thanks for the eerie insights, Bill and Josh—we can’t wait for everyone to tap into the supernatural chills of WIlson’s Heart.
And NVIDIA has a surprise to make launch day even more exciting! Now through June 13, you can score Wilson’s Heart, SUPERHOT VR, and The Unspoken for free with the purchase of Rift and Touch plus any GeForce GTX 1080, 1070, or 1060 graphics card, system, or laptop. Please visit Amazon or Newegg for more information. Prices may vary, so check with your local retailer for details.
Already have your rig set up? Get Wilson’s Heart today on the Oculus Store and unravel its unsettling mysteries.
— The Oculus Team |
The Lich King commands you
Looking to start collecting the new Heroes of the Storm action figures? Well, look no further!
Here’s all of the information we currently have on this exciting new figure line.
Why should you care?
Well let’s see here.. BECAUSE THIS IS A BLIZZARD FAN’S DREAM COME TRUE! Aside from the World of Warcraft toy line manufactured by DC Unlimited (and since ended in 2012) there really aren’t many good Blizzard figures out there. Good luck finding the original StarCraft figures.
Heroes of the Storm (the game) is Blizzard's take on the "MOBA" (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) or "Hero Brawler" genre. You can think of it like Blizzard’s All-Stars. The game takes all of Blizzard’s best characters from all of their best properties (Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo) and brings them together with a unified design aesthetic. The in-game characters feel like awesome action figures and now they have become awesome action figures!
Manufacturer:
NECA
Who is NECA?
NECA is an American manufacturer of licensed action figures and collectibles. They have built a reputation on having highly detailed figure work at consumer-friendly price points. Their ongoing Predator line is insane. You can check out their current offerings at necaonline.com
What figures are out now?
Series 1, Wave 1 (released September 2015)
Nova Terra
Illidan Stormrage
Series 1, Wave 2 (released December 2015)
Arthas
Tyrael
Series 1 Deluxe (released December 2015)
Stitches
Upcoming Figures
Series 2, Wave 1 and 2 (sometime in 2016)
Thrall
Jim Raynor
Sylvanas
Murky
Brightwing
Series 2 Deluxe (sometime in 2016)
Series Two Deluxe - Diablo Classic (2016)
The Future
Aside from the confirmed Series 2 characters, there is no further confirmation of future figures. Video game website Kotaku had reported that NECA planned to make all 36+ figures but I have not found a source on that. When I asked NECA on twitter how early sales were going the response was “well” so feel free to read into that how you will.
Where to Buy:
All of the regular-class figures are currently available for $21.99 USD on the official Blizzard gear store. Stitches is considered a deluxe-class figure and is selling for $49.99 USD.
Outside of the official store there are number of brick-and-mortar/online sellers. Supply of Wave 1 (Illidan, Nova) seems to be dwindling and may have finished production/shipping.
Don't Sleep on These
NECA figures are known to command high after-market prices once they finish their production run. If you're a true Blizzard fan I recommend getting these figures ASAP. Plus we need to show NECA and Blizzard the demand for these so they have incentive to finish the rest!
Seriously, look at these photos of my Arthas :)
Anyone else have these figures? Please share your thoughts in the comments below! |
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