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When she was found dead at 41, Carole Myers left a statement saying she had suffered Satantic child abuse at the hands of her parents. But did she?
At 9.02am Richard Felstead answered the phone; by 9.03am he was breathless with crying. It was the coroner's assistant in Battersea with the news that his sister, Carole, had died two weeks earlier. "I'm sorry it's taken so long to notify you," she said. "Carole's next of kin told us there was no family. But a letter was found – from you."
Two minutes later, the phone rang again. A different caller, with a strange voice, said, "I know you're not one of the ones that harmed Carole."
"Who are you?" said Richard.
"I'm Carole's next of kin."
"What's your name?"
"That's not important."
"How did Carole die?"
"She had a very difficult childhood."
"What? No she didn't."
"The cremation's tomorrow. People have taken time off work. It's very important it goes ahead."
Richard reacted furiously. The phone went dead.
The brothers gathered at their parents' Stockport home: Richard, David, Anthony and Kevin, whose principal memory of the morning of 14 July 2005 is his mother, "Finished. On the floor. Drained. Shattered. Gone." They began talking. Who was the mysterious caller who claimed to be Carole's "next of kin"? Why did she talk of a "difficult childhood" when Carole was happy and popular? She had a successful nursing career down in London. How could she die at just 41? Why had it taken two weeks to be informed? How could there be a funeral tomorrow?
Joseph, their father, stood up. "I'll put a stop to it."
"You can't stop a funeral, Dad!" said Kevin.
Joseph phoned the coroner's assistant. She brusquely informed him that, now the family had been discovered, the funeral would be halted. She mentioned a "life assessment", written by Carole. "It's very upsetting," she said. It was six pages, typed. It said: "My parents were abusive in every way imaginable − sexually, physically and emotionally. At three years of age, my mother smothered my sister. She sat me on top of her body and set the house on fire."
Joseph was astonished. "Had she been ill?" he said. "Had she been sectioned?"
The coroner's assistant replied: "Yes."
Over the coming weeks there came more questions. They were told the nameless "next of kin" had emptied Carole's flat and driven off in her car. Officials kept mentioning a "psychiatrist friend" who accompanied Carole to medical appointments. Joseph was speaking to a police inspector when something occurred to him. "This psychiatrist and this next of kin," he said. "Are they the same person?"
"That's right," said the inspector. "Dr Fleur Fisher."
The Felsteads' search for answers to the many mysteries surrounding Carole's decline is now in its sixth year. Endless letters and FOI requests, alongside hours of legal research and long nights on the internet, have resulted in the collection of hundreds of documents and the generation of yet more questions: angry ones about individuals they believe to have been malign presences in her life; strange ones about startling and little-known corners of human psychology; sad ones about the life and death of the kind and sparky woman they still miss every day.
When I tell them I'd like to write about Carole, they pass me the telephone number, discovered in Carole's phone records, of the woman whose role in the tale is, they're convinced, both sinister and central: that of the "next of kin", Dr Fleur Fisher.
"I'm not sure I want to talk about this," Fisher tells me. "You'll have to let me think about it. That family – they're bloody terrifying."
"You're frightened of them?"
"They're frightening people. And the things they've been saying," she says, adding confusingly: "I'm not a therapist!" She rings off, warning me darkly: "Tread carefully."
The house in which Carole grew up has mauve and dark-red rooms that are shadow-struck and decorated with golden candlestick holders, old family portraits and statues of dogs, birds and deer. Today Joseph sits glowering in the lounge, his patriarch's hands gripping his armchair. Kevin – a softer presence – informs me that Richard's at work, and Anthony's too distraught to speak. Their mother, Joan, passed away last year. David's here, though, friendly yet possessed of an anxious, wiry tension. Over the coming hours, he'll answer questions with flumes of facts and furious analysis, fossicking in boxes for the relevant document to illustrate his point.
For these men, Carole's life is as much a mystery as her death. She had been a friendly, bolshy and academically successful teenager, who loved watching M*A*S*H and wearing the tartan shorts beloved of her favourite band, the Bay City Rollers. She was popular at school and had a noted instinct for caring, going out of her way to play with Michael, the neighbour with Down's syndrome, and paying regular visits to a lonely old man down the road known as Mr Partridge. At 15 she got a weekend job in a home for the disabled. At 21 she qualified as a nurse at Stockport College and rented a nearby flat, making frequent visits back home to borrow milk and money, and sunbathe in the garden. And then, in the mid-1980s, there began a silent drift away from the family.
"Her attitude became hostile," says Joseph.
"You must have been worried?"
Joseph shifts in his seat.
"I was more cross than anything," he says. "It was ill mannered."
In 1986 they discovered Carole had moved to Macclesfield. She'd still send Christmas cards and ring occasionally, assuring them her career was going well. But by 1992 she had moved to London and changed her name from Carol Felstead to Carole Myers. They had to accept that Carole, for some reason, had chosen to stay away.
After her death they discovered Carole had become mentally ill. Her medical records revealed self-harm, alcohol abuse and stretches in psychiatric wards. She'd frequently been suicidal.
They felt shattered about the claims she'd made in her life assessment – and confused. She said she'd been abused by Joseph and his wife, who were the high priest and priestess of a satanic cult, and that during her teens she'd had six children – some fathered by Joseph – that she'd been forced to kill. She also said she had an implant in her eye that would explode if she spoke of the satanists, and that a friend she'd confided in was murdered in front of her.
Carole's charges were easily proven to be false. The sister, whose murder she'd apparently witnessed, actually died of heart problems two years before Carole was born. The house fire, too, predated Carole's birth. And yet, to the Felsteads' disbelief, it seemed the mental-health professionals rarely challenged these impossible horrors. Worse, they'd concluded that Carole's psychological problems came as a result of this fictitious abuse.
But the family is pointing the finger straight back at the clinicians. They believe the blame for Carole's psychological downfall lies with credulous, satanist-obsessed therapists who went along with her claims that she'd been sexually menaced. After all, they point out, it's happened before – most famously in Orkney in 1991, when nine children were forcibly removed from their homes following interviews by social workers led by an individual who was subsequently accused of being "fixated on finding satanic abuse".
I ask the Felsteads when the first mention of mental-health problems appear in Carole's medical records. In August 1985, it turns out, she received therapy for insomnia and nightmares related to "family abuse". Soon afterwards a 1986 letter mentions further "psycho-sexual counselling" by someone whose name sends a cold stun of recognition through me. It's her: the next of kin; the woman who baffled me by abruptly – perhaps defensively – announcing: "I'm not a therapist!" It's Dr Fisher.
Arriving back in London I'm in no doubt that Carole's abuse claims were untrue. But is it really possible, as the Felsteads insist, for a person to have memories "implanted" by a therapist? Professor Elizabeth Loftus, of the University of California, certainly believes so. In one famous study she sought to examine the process by which a therapist can generate a memory of an event simply by suggesting it. Loftus told 24 adults to write detailed descriptions of four childhood events supplied earlier on by a family member. Unbeknown to them, one of those events never actually happened.
But six participants – 25% of the group – remembered the false event. When asked to choose which memory was fiction, five got it wrong. "Since then," says Loftus, "I and many others have planted bizarre memories of accidents: animal attacks, nearly drowning, witnessing demonic possession. What we've found is absolutely stunning. False memories can be very detailed, and people can be very emotional about them. A lot of these therapists say: 'I believe she was abused because every time she talks about it she cries,' as if somehow the emotion is proof that it's true. It's not."
False memories don't even require a therapist. Any trusted source – a book, friend, TV personality – can suggest the possibility of abuse. Your mind might then produce a fragment – an image of something bad happening. What was that? You recall it again. You fill in the details. "Repetition makes it more vivid and familiar," explains Kimberley Wade, associate professor of psychology at Warwick University. "It'll start to feel like a memory."
Wade has generated false memories using doctored childhood photos. "On average 35% of our participants develop a rich memory of their fake event," she says. "They describe how it happened, where they were, how they were feeling."
In the journal Advances in Psychiatric Treatment I find a description of false memory syndrome, or FMS. Sufferers, it says, often make claims involving satanic abuse and are told to stay away from their family. FMS can take place as a result of "recovered memory therapy", an umbrella term for a witchbag of techniques, many involving dream interpretation and hypnotherapy, widely discredited in the 1990s.
The concept of repressed memories itself is, according to psychologist Chris French of the University of London, highly questionable. "There's a divide on this in psychology," he says. "But these 'recovery' methods are also used in the context of alien abduction accounts. If you're going to accept recovered memories of abuse, you should also accept the alien claims."
While chatting with French, I mention a psychotherapist who saw Carole called Valerie Sinason. Unexpectedly he lets out a guttural, melancholy groan.
"Oh Gooooodddd," he says.
If the Felsteads are right, Carole is likely to have had some form of recovered-memory therapy in the mid-80s – roughly the time her behaviour began to sour. But the only person I know who might be able to answer this question of whether she did is Dr Fisher. Since our last chat, she's vanished. She's changed her mobile number and has ignored several emails. Instead I arrange an interview with Valerie Sinason who, according to the records, saw Carole for psychotherapy biweekly for eight months in 1992. I want to know if she'll fit the description Professor Loftus gave of the therapists she's come across in legal cases who have involved false memory – that of a highly credulous believer in satanic abuse who has a tendency to believe ritual damage in patients.
Sinason arrives, in her north London counselling room, tanned and relaxed in a loose smock, dark leggings and trainers. There's a chaise longue with a crowd of teddies resting in its crook. On the floor, shoved beneath a table, a large cloth boy gazes sadly into space. We're joined by her husband David, who takes notes throughout our talk.
Sinason insists she doesn't use recovered-memory techniques. "I'm an analytic therapist," she says. "The idea of that is someone showing, through their behaviour, that all sorts of things might have happened to them." Signs that a patient has suffered satanically include flinching at green or purple objects, the colours of the high priest and priestess's robes. "And if someone shudders when they enter a room, you know it's not ordinary incest."
Another warning, she says, is the patient saying: "I don't know." "What they really mean is: 'I can't bear to say.'" A patient who "overpraises" their family is also suspicious. "The more insecure you are, the more you praise. 'Oh my family was wonderful! I can't remember any of it!'"
In the medical records, Sinason noted that Carole was her first chronic sadistic-abuse patient. Today, when I ask about her first patient, Sinason describes the arrival of two medical professionals – a nurse and a psychologist – one of whom was limping.
"I just had that nasty feeling," she says. "It's her, and she's been hurt by them."
"You could tell that from the limp?" I ask.
"Yep."
Soon, we get to the actual satanism. Sinason talks of a popular ritual in which a child is stitched inside the belly of a dying animal before being 'reborn to satan'. During other celebrations, "people eat faeces, menstrual blood, semen, urine. There's cannibalism." Some groups have doctors performing abortions. "They give the foetus to the mother and she's made to kill the baby."
"And the cannibalism – that's foetuses?" I clarify.
"Foetuses and bits of bodies."
"Raw or cooked?"
"The foetuses are raw."
"Not even a bit of salt and pepper?" I ask.
"Raw. And handed round like communion. On one major festival, the babies are barbecued. I can still remember one survivor saying how easy it is to pull apart the ribs on a baby. But adults are tougher to eat."
She describes large gatherings in woodlands and castles, with huge cloths being laid out. "That's normally when there's a sacrifice," she notes, "and because the rapes are happening all over the place. There's a small amount of cannon fodder in terms of runaways, drug addicts, prostitutes and tramps that are used. There's sex with animals. Horses, dogs, goats. Being hanged upside down. In the woods, on a tree."
"How do they get an animal to have sex with a human?" I wonder.
Sinason's husband thinks for a moment. "Well," he says, "plenty of dogs have a go at people's legs." "True," says Sinason, adding poignantly: "However horrible it sounds, the dog, at least, is friendly afterwards."
"Because at least the dog's had a good time," I say.
"And the child loves the pet," Sinason nods. "The pet is made to have sex with the child – but the pet, at least, is still their friend."
Having experienced the Sinasons' wild kaleidoscope of beliefs, it seems obvious to me that the Felsteads are right in suspecting that Carole's therapists had some dramatically unlikely views. But Sinason doesn't enter Carole's story until the early 1990s. Her abuse memories – at least the initial ones – cannot be blamed on her. I'm more determined than ever to ask Dr Fisher if Carole underwent recovered-memory therapy.
David Felstead emails me a home number for Fisher, but it goes to the answerphone of another family. When, out of desperation, I dial it a final time, someone picks up. To my astonishment, she says: "Yes, people call for Fleur Fisher sometimes. I'll give you her number."
Dr Fisher lives in Plymouth, and is a former head of ethics at the British Medical Association. She speaks with the all the authority that such a position suggests. Sometimes confident, sometimes wary, sometimes maudlin and resigned, she actually has good reason to fear the Felsteads. After discovering she'd taken Carole's possessions, they reported her to the GMC and the police. Neither found sufficient evidence to act against her.
Fisher admits she had no legal claim to be Carole's "next of kin", but denies the Felsteads' accusations that she stole her property. She emptied the flat, she says, because the property managers were demanding it. As she cleared up, she found the letter from Richard. "Honourably, I gave it to the police," she says. "Otherwise the family would never have known. Never, never, never!" The clearout happened on 7 July 2005, a date, of course, that became known as 7/7. The terrorist explosions crippled the public transport network, which is why she needed to take Carole's car to get home. It was soon returned to London.
I ask why she phoned Richard on the day the Felsteads were informed of the death. She did so, she says, because the coroner mentioned how crushed he'd sounded. "Concern for somebody else's distress sometimes overcomes you," she says. "I was foolish. Unwise."
Ironically, it was her discovery of Richard's letter that led to the funeral's cancellation. Was she upset when she heard it had been halted? "You can't even imagine," she says. "I just screamed and screamed."
Finally, we get to the question of whether Carole's memories of satanic abuse were recovered. Initially Fisher refuses to speak about Carole. "I have a duty of confidentiality, even after a patient has died. I was never her psychiatrist or psychotherapist or anything like that." She raises her voice. "I'm not a psychotherapist, for God's sake!"
"According to her medical notes, she saw you for counselling," I say.
"No."
"I have the letter here, dated 27 November 1986, that says: 'She required to see Dr Fisher for psychosexual counselling.'"
There's a silence. "Psychosexual is the wrong term," she says.
"What's the correct term?"
"Uh, I really don't know. People come and tell you things that have happened to them."
"Things like abuse?"
"Things that have happened to them," she repeats, crossly. "I'm not saying anything else. It's not right that this woman's privacy should be breached in this way." She's shouting now. "She's dead! She's goddamned dead!"
Was she ever worried that Carole had lapsed into fantasy? "Never," she says.
By 1997, I tell her, Carole was claiming a government minister had raped her with a claw hammer in Conservative Central Office. "That's not something I knew about," she says. "It may have been fantasy. I couldn't say. In general she was a common-sense woman."
"Are you aware of any evidence that any of Carole's claims actually happened?"
"I never looked for any evidence."
"Then what made you believe her?"
"She's not the only patient I've had who told the same kinds of stories."
"About ritual abuse?"
"It turned out to be that, yes. The people didn't remember at first. They weren't aware. They were memories they'd had a long time and they just came out."
And that, I decide, is as close as I'm going to get. Before I ring off, I ask Fisher what Carole was like. "She was a feisty, brave, intelligent woman. She was funny. A good laugh." And then, softly at first, she starts crying.
Finally, I seek advice from Dr Trevor Turner, a consultant psychiatrist at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. A former vice president of the Royal College of Psychiatry, Turner is an expert in schizophrenia. I wanted to speak with Turner because I've heard that delusions and paranoias like the ones Carole suffered are a common facet of the condition. Turner confirms this, adding: "Another thing that's a part of the schizophrenic illness syndrome is the idea that your body has been interfered with," he tells me. Carole's slow withdrawal from the family, it turns out, is also typical. "If you're thinking things are being done to you, you blame those around you," he says. "Families of people who have got schizophrenia are commonly accused of things by the patient."
Assuming that Carole was suffering from schizophrenia, I wonder what effect it might have had on her, having therapists validate her darkest delusions. What would it be like for a paranoid psychotic to have it confirmed that, yes, there really are satanists out there, trying to get you? "Absolutely terrifying," he says. "It's highly likely it would make it worse."
A week later I ask Sinason if Carole was the patient she'd described, with the limp. She denies this and refuses to answer questions about her, citing confidentiality. Despite the medical records, she insists she never treated Carole, admitting only to having seen her as part of a study into ritual abuse for the Department of Health. I put it to her that telling a patient with paranoid delusions that her fears are real would be extremely dangerous. "It would cause real damage," she concedes, but denies doing this. "The purpose of therapy," she says, "is not to act as judge or jury."
On 21 June 2005, after years of silence, Carole unexpectedly phoned her brother Richard, saying she was lonely and wanted to move back to the family in Stockport. Just over a week later, she died. That same day, Richard wrote the letter discovered by Dr Fisher that triggered the family's search for truth. He recounted the latest news – about his business, his brothers, his dad's heart attack – and finished with a flourish that, in retrospect, seems haunting and prescient. "One shouldn't maintain too great a distance," he wrote, "as once the moment is gone, it is gone."
Find more information at justiceforcarol.com or bfms.org.uk |
9 projects with 1 transistor
Everyday I receive one or two E-mail letter from the reader of my homepage. I understood that the easy projects of my homepage is loved better than the big one of my homepage. Therefore I made nine new projects and inform you about them. I used the usual parts on the projects. You can use any type of output transformer made for the transistor. You can use a 12V power supply of 9V battery for all projects. But only NO.5 " CUP BUZZER " is used with 3V battery.
1.INTER PHONE
I do not know how it is called in the USA. In Japan "Inter phone" means an electric communicater used inside of the house. See the circuit ! This is a transformer output transistor amplifier. Instead of the microphone , a speaker and the transformer is used. If you have a dynamic microphone, connect it to the 10 uF capacitor. Power output of this machine is 10mW. Yes it is very small. You can use it on the quiet room. If you set the speaker on the child's room and set the microphone on the living room, you can call your child from your living room.
My met friend MIke McCarty teached me as follows,
What you called an "interphone" is in English called an "intercom", which is short for "inter communications"
2.MW RADIO
If you connect the Diode radio before the audio amplifier , it becomes one transistor radio. You may use the poli variable capacitor for the VC. You may use the bar antenna for the T1. I used a 455kHz IFT for the T1. The copacitor of it is broken. I adjusted the capacitor and I could hear the local broadcasting station with 20pF of VC. The power output of this machine is very small. You had better use the head phone. But on the quiet room , you can hear with the speaker. This radio has not so good sensitivity. Therefore you must joint very long antenna for it. I used my 40m long wire antenna.
3.BUZZER
If you connect the output to input of the amplifier , that becomes the oscillator. You must joint reverse phase of the output transformer to input of the amplifier. The tone is changed by the connecting capacitor. C = 0.1 mycro farad , tone = 4kHz. C = 0.47 mycro farad , tone = 800Hz. C = 4.7 mycro farad , tone = 80Hz. This is broking oscillator. See the shape of the signal, if you have an oscilloscope ! Set the power switch on the wall beside the entrance door on your house ! Set the speaker on the kitchen room ! It is a usual usage of the bell. But the sound of this machine is very small , therefore you will not be able to hear it, while you watch the TV.
4.MORSE TRAINER
The circuit of this project is the same as it of the buzzer. Connect the Morse key instead of the power switch. It becomes the trainer of the Morse code. Use it with your friends! Learn the Morse code! Make contact with me by the 21MHz or 7MHz CW !
5.CUP BUZZER
All the Japanese electric child made the buzzer to know the water level of the bath. But it becomes automatically in these days. I wanted to make a bath buzzer. But the sound was too small to hear on the another room. Therefore I decided to call this project as a " Cup buzzer". If you cut the base bias circuit on the oscillator , the oscillate is stopped. Make a pair of terminal on the bias circuit! If the water comes between the terminals, small current flows between them. Then oscillation begins. Do not use the 100V AC to the power supply of this projects! If the power supply gets wet, you may get an electric shock. It may kill you. You must use a 3V or 9V battery for this project.
6.ELECTRIC MUSIC INSTRUMENT
If you joint the variable resister on the feedback line of the buzzer oscillator, the oscillating frequency is changed by the resistor. It becomes an electric music instrument. I could play a short program with this gear. It will be joyful machine ,if you make case for this circuit. Tone shall be written on the panel of the case.
7.NOODLE TIMER
If you make the long time charger for the base bias of the buzzer oscillator, it becomes a timer of 3 minutes. On the timing of power off, the timing capacitor must be reset with discharging circuit. Timing constant is changed by the C=1200uF or R=470k. It is useful.
In Japan, we like Cheinese noodle very much. We call it " Rahmyen " .
8.CW TRANSMITTER
Replace the transformer of the buzzer with the coil and capacitor! Add the crystal in order to make crystal oscillator! Insert the Morse key between the power supply and the circuit! It becomes the Morse transmitter. The power output of this machine is 10mW. It is QRP. But it can be used. You can change the frequency of this machine for 7MHz or 10.15MHz. You will be able to use it as the transmitter of amateur radio.
9.HF AM TRANSMITTER Joint the speaker as the microphone on the base of the CW oscillator. It becomes the base modulated amplitude modulated transmitter. The modulation rate of this machine is 10%. I heard the signal of this machine on the next room of my house. The signal strength is 9. But readability was 4.
１石式電子回路の９例の紹介
私のＥメールの受信箱には毎日１ないし２通の方から、このホームページに関しての感想のお便りが届きます。どうやら、簡単な１ないし２石の製作例の物が、読者の方々の創作意欲をかきたて、興味をひいている様です。そこで、きわめて簡単な、トランジスターを一つだけ使った、製作例を新たに試作して、紹介します。９例になりました。出来るだけ入手の易しい一般的な部品で作ってあります。トランスは、トランジスター用出力トランスなら何でもＯＫ。例えば、ＳＴ３２（１．２ｋ：８）でもよいでしょう。電源は１２Ｖの安定化電源または９Ｖの００６ＰでもＯＫです。ただし、５番のコップブザーだけは、乾電池２個の３ＶでもＯＫを確認しました。実態図は１番のインターホンだけかきました。他はそれに習ってください。気に入ったら、プラスチックのお弁当箱にでも入れて使ってください。
１．インターホン
回路図をご覧ください。普通のトランス入出力のトランジスタ電力増幅器です。ベタアース基板の上に四つめ基板を切って貼り付けて、これに部品を半田で付けて構成してゆきます。トランスの使わない中間タップは切ってしまいます。入力にはマイクの代わりにスピーカーを使用してこれをトランスで昇圧しています。ダイナミックマイクをお持ちなら、それを１０μのコンデンサーにつなげてもＯＫです。本機の回路図の中の、スピーカーだけを子機として、家の中の子供部屋等に取り付け、他の部分を電池を含めて、親機として、例えば台所に置いておけば、子供の呼び出しに使えるインターホンになります。ただし出力は１０ｍＷ程度と小さいので、静かなお部屋でしか使えない物です。
１Oct９９追記：マイクマッカーチィさんによると、インターホンはアメリカではインターコムというそうです。
２．中波ラジオ
低周波増幅器の入力にマイクでなくて、ゲルマニウムラジオを付けると、一石式のラジオになります。トランスの出力は小さいので。ヘッドホンで聞きましょう。静かな部屋ならスピーカーも鳴らす事ができます。ＶＣとＴ１は、中波受信機用のポリバリコンとバーアンテナを用意するのが簡単です。私は、Ｔ１には４５５ｋ用のＩＦＴを使い、底のチタバリコンを破壊して使用し、近所のＩＢＳ（茨城放送土浦支局１４５８ｋＨｚ）が聞こえる様に、Ｃ１をシグナルジェネレーターを使って、固定コンデンサーを取り替えて調節し、２０ｐＦでＩＢＳに同調しました。このラジオは感度が悪いので、立派な外部アンテナを必要とします。私は１．９ＭＨｚ用に立てた４０ｍのロングワイヤーアンテナを使って受信しました。
３．ブザー
増幅器の出力を入力に逆位相で戻してやれば、発振器になります。もし組んでみて、発振しなかったら、位相を逆にする為に、トランスの出力側の引きだし線を逆にしてみましょう。コンデンサーＣに０．１マイクロファラッドを使うと出力周波数は４ｋＨｚでピーという音でした。０．４７μでは、８００Ｈｚのプーという音色でした。４．７μでは、８０Ｈｚのブーという音です。オッシロスコープで波形を見ると、ブロッキング波形になっています。本機は、電源スイッチを回路本体から取り出して、別の遠い場所に置けば、呼び鈴として、使用できます。たとえば、家の玄関にスイッチを置いて、台所にスピーカーを置けば、一番一般的なブザーの使い方になります。ただし、音が小さいので、テレビが付いていると聞こえないかもしれません。
４．モールス練習機
ブザーと同じ回路ですが、呼び鈴スイッチの代わりに、モールスキーを接続すれば、モールス練習機になります。キーを押すと、スピーカーがピピーと鳴ります。２人で、一人がキーを押して、送信し、もう一人が聞き取りの練習をします。あるいは、テープレコーダーを使えば、一人で送信と受信の練習ができます。ぜひこういう機械でモールスを覚えて７ＭＨｚでＱＲＰ交信を私としましょう。
５．コップブザー
私を含め、多くの電気少年達は、「風呂ブザー」を作ったものでした。今では、お風呂も自動化されてしまい、一定温度のお湯が一定量だけスイッチ一つでセットされる、便利な世の中になりました。フロブザーを作りたかったのですが、音が余りにも小さくて、風呂の水音にかき消されてしまうので、「コップブザー」となりました。「コップの水位を計ってもしょうがない。」とおっしゃるでしょう。その通りです。ＨＩＨＩ。帰還発振器のベースバイアスを切って、ここに端子を入れて、この端子間が水で濡れると、わずかな電流が流れて、バイアス電流が流れ、発振が始まります。端子はビニールコードを剥（む）いて、水にいれてやるだけで十分実験になります。本機を実用される場合には、家庭用電源を電源とすると、それが水に濡れて、感電する危険があります。「フロブザー」はあくまでも、電池で使ってください。
６．電子楽器
ブザーの回路で、帰還コンデンサー０．１μの代わりに、コンデンサー０．１μと１ｋオームの可変抵抗を取り付けると、発生する音程が変えられます。この回路で、大体１．２ｋＨｚから２．４ｋＨＺまで、変えられました。２倍の周波数の変化は１オクターブに相当します。私は、ボリュームを回して、「ぽぽぽ、はとぽっぽ」を演奏しました。ちゃんと箱に入れて、図の様にドレミを書き込むとそれらしい電子楽器になるでしょう。それにしても、なぜいつも「はとぽっぽ」なんでしょうか。
７．ラーメンタイマー
ブザー発振器のバイアス回路に時定数を持たせると、電源ＯＮから３分間でブザーが鳴り出す、「ラーメンタイマー」が作れます。ＬＥＤと抵抗で２Ｖの定電圧回路が構成されています。この２ＶでＣ＝１２００μのコンデンサーを充電してやると、スイッチ投入から次第にコンデンサーの端子電圧が上がってゆき、ここが０．６Ｖを超えた時に、トランジスターが動作可能になって、発振がはじまります。電源スイッチに２回路の物を使用して、残りの１回路で、電源ＯＦＦと同時に時間コンデンサーを放電させて、タイマーをリセットします。時定数はコンデンサーＣでも、又Ｒ＝４７０ｋを変更しても調整できます。これは使えます。
８．ＣＷ無線送信機
最初の低周波増幅器の回路のトランスの所に同調回路を入れて、その同調回路の周波数にあった水晶をコレクタとエミッターの間に入れてやると、水晶発振器になります。これの電源をモールスキーでＯＮ−ＯＦＦさせると、発振信号が断続されて、ＣＷ送信機と成ります。日本では、この様な発振器自体をＯＮ−ＯＦＦする形式のＣＷ送信機は、その送信電波の質がよろしくないという理由から認可されないので、正式なアマチュア無線送信機としては、使用出来ません。あくまで、実験用の物としてお試しください。ですから、アンテナはつながずに、ダミーロードをつないで、漏れでた電波を、ＢＦＯの付いた短波受信機で受信します。これでもチャントしたアンテナが受信側につながっていれば、１００ｍは楽に送信可能です。同じ町内の友達と交信が可能です。また、モールス練習機としても、無線でやると感じが出てやる気になれると思います。尚、ＯＺＬ９というコイルに関しては、私のホームページのスモールヒントの項目をご覧ください。
９．短波振幅変調送信機
先ほどの、ＣＷ送信機に音声で変調をかけてやれば、ＡＭ送信機ができます。この場合、変調増幅器を作って、発振器の電源を変調してあげれば、強電力変調回路となって、きれいな変調波が得られるのですが、１石式という制約から、ベースに変調をかけています。マイク代わりのスピーカーの信号をトランスで昇圧して、ベースに加えています。実測の変調度は１０％程度でした。隣の部屋の受信機で聞くと、なにぶん１０％変調ですので、信号が強い割には、内容は「やっと何を言っているかが、判る程度」でした。マイク代わりのスピーカーに向かって、まるで劇場俳優の様に大きな声ではっきりと発音してください。もっと大きな声で！！！そんなに、大きな声を出したら、隣の部屋に直接聞こえてしまうって、ごもっとも。ラジオをかかえて布団に潜って実験してください。
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As a reaction to the whole Heartbleed thing two years ago, The Linux Foundation started its Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII for short) with the intention to help track down well used but still poorly maintained projects or at least detect which projects that might need help. Where the next Heartbleed might occur.
A bunch of companies putting in money to improve projects that need help. Sounds almost like a fairy tale to me!
Census
In order to identify which projects to help, they run their Census Project: “The Census represents CII’s current view of the open source ecosystem and which projects are at risk.”
The Census automatically extracts a lot of different meta data about open source projects in order to deduce a “Risk Index” for each project. Once you’ve assembled such a great data trove for a busload of projects, you can sort them all based on that risk index number and then you basically end up with a list of projects in a priority order that you can go through and throw code at. Or however they deem the help should be offered.
Which projects will fail?
The old blog post How you know your Free or Open Source Software Project is doomed to FAIL provides such a way, but it isn’t that easy to follow programmatically. The foundation has its own 88 page white paper detailing its methods and algorithm.
Risk Index
A project without a web site gets a point
If the project has had four or more CVEs (publicly disclosed security vulnerabilities) since 2010, it receives 3 points and if fewer than four there’s a diminishing scale.
The number of contributors the last 12 months is a rather heavy factor, which thus could make the index grow old fairly quick. 3 contributors still give 4 points.
Popular packages based on Debian’s popcon get points.
If the project’s main language is C or C++, it gets two points.
Network “exposed” projects get points.
some additional details like dependencies and how many outstanding patches not accepted upstream that exist
All combined, this grades projects’ “risk” between 0 and 15.
Not high enough resolution
Assuming that a larger number of CVEs means anything bad is just wrong. Even the most careful and active projects can potentially have large amounts of CVEs. It means they disclose what they find and that people are actually reviewing code, finding problems and are reporting problems. All good things.
Sure, security problems are not good but the absence of CVEs in a project doesn’t say that the project is one bit more secure. It could just mean that nobody ever looked closely enough or that the project doesn’t deal with responsible disclosure of the problems.
When I look through the projects they have right now, I get the feeling the resolution (0-15) is too low and they’ve shied away from more aggressively handing out penalty based on factors we all recognize in abandoned/dead projects (some of which are decently specified in Tom Calloway’s blog post mentioned above).
The result being that the projects get a score that is mostly based on what kind of project it is.
But this said, they have several improvements to their algorithm already suggested in their issue tracker. I firmly believe this will improve over time.
The riskiest ?
The top three projects, the only ones that scores 13 right now are expat, procmail and unzip. All of them really small projects (source code wise) that have been around since a very long time.
curl, being the project I of course look out for, scores a 9: many CVEs (3), written in C (2), network exposure (2), 5+ apps depend on it (2). Seriously, based on these factors, how would you say the project is situated?
In the sorted list with a little over 400 projects, curl is rated #73 (at the time of this writing at least). Just after reportbug but before libattr1. [curl summary – which is mentioning a very old curl release]
But the list of projects mysteriously lack many projects. Like I couldn’t find neither c-ares nor libssh2. They may not be super big, but they’re used by a bunch of smaller and bigger projects at least, including curl itself.
The full list of projects, their meta-data and scores are hosted in their repository on github.
Benefits for projects near me
I can see how projects in my own backyard have gotten some good out of this effort.
I’ve received some really great bug reports and gotten handed security problems in curl by an individual who did his digging funded by this project.
I’ve seen how the foundation sponsored a test suite for c-ares since the project lacked one. Now it doesn’t anymore!
Badges!
In addition to that, the Linux Foundation has also just launched the CII Best Practices Badge Program, to allow open source projects to fill in a bunch of questions and if meeting enough requirements, they will get a “badge” to boast to the world as a “well run project” that meets current open source project best practices.
I’ve joined their mailing list and provided some of my thoughts on the current set of questions, as I consider a few of them to be, well, lets call them “less than optimal”. But then again, which project doesn’t have bugs? We can fix them!
curl is just now marked as “100% compliance” with all the best practices listed. I hope to be able to keep it like that even with future and more best practices added. |
In Killing Them Softly, comedian Dave Chappelle explained how fearful he was to call the police when someone broke into his house. Now why would someone in a free country like America be afraid to call the police to their own home if they were the victim?
Although a modest home, the house was too nice, Chappelle joked, “and they’d never believe I lived there.” He then imitated a white officer attacking him and sprinkling crack cocaine on his Black body as a cover-up.
While that fear and scenario may seem strange to some, the reality of police terror is all too familiar to Black folk and other oppressed peoples in the United States. Yet many remain unconvinced that police brutality plagues our society due to their own biases. Skeptics argue reports of police brutality are exaggerated and sensationalized, and extreme force is justified to control crime. The lack of ‘evidence,’ or complete national statistics also makes this epidemic hard to prove.
Long before Michael Brown’s body was left for hours to bleed dry on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, Black people rang the alarm on racial profiling, the increased militarization of law enforcement, and being “staggered by the winds of police brutality” as Black bodies swung on trees like strange fruit.
Due to protests surrounding the August shooting by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, and the subsequent heavy-handed response by paramilitary police, issues of racial profiling and police terrorism have re-entered the national debate in a way not seen since the filmed beating of Rodney King by LAPD in 1991.
Police Brutality: From Denzil Dowell to Michael Brown
The Black Panther Party (for Self-Defense) formed in Oakland in 1966 in response to police repression. The Panthers demanded an “We Want An Immediate End To Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People.” The first issue of The Black Panther newspaper featured an investigation into the killing of Denzil Dowell by deputies in North Richmond. Oakland Police have shot and killed other young Black men like Lil Bobby Hutton (1968), Melvin Black (1979), Gary King, Jr. (2007). In Berkeley, police killed Black women like Anita Gay (2008) and Kayla Moore (2013). Earlier this year, two recent Black UC Berkeley graduates were attacked simply for “walking while Black.”
After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Police officers shot and killed survivors seeking food, shelter and water.
On January 1, 2008, Oscar Grant was shot in the back by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle while he laid face down on the Fruitvale BART platform. If it not for fellow passengers watching the cops with their camera phones – and the film Fruitvale Station – we might not know Oscar Grant’s name. Without massive protests, Mehserle would never have been arrested. Two other Black men – Adolph Grimes or Robbie Tolan – were attacked within 24 hours of Oscar, but their stories are less known, though no less important.
The groom Sean Bell was shot by undercover New York cops the night before his wedding. Seven-year-old Aiyanna Jones was shot in the head during a “no-knock” warrant at the wrong home in Detroit, during filming of First 48. And Atlanta police shot and killed 92-year-old grandmother Kathryn Johnson during a botched drug raid.
There are countless other Stolen Lives whose names we do not know.
The recent assassination of Michael Brown by was no isolated incident. Weeks before, NYPD – of “stop and frisk” fame – choked Eric Garner to death with his dying words: “I can’t breathe.” His filmed execution looked like a scene from Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. Days earlier, police in Ohio killed John Crawford inside a suburban Wal-Mart for holding a BB gun he’d picked up on a shelf inside the same store.
And just as the Richmond, California police department was touted for having no fatal officer-involved shootings since 2007, police shot and killed unarmed Richard Perez, III in September.
It’s not an exaggeration when activists charge genocide. Again. With all the recent media attention police brutality, you may wonder: is police brutality really on the rise or if communications technology has made documenting police use of force easier.
‘Operation Ghetto Storm’
In her book, No Doubt: The Murders of Oscar Grant, journalist Thandisizwe Chimurenga notes that despite the prevalence of state-sanctioned violence, data on police killings is incomplete.
The Stolen Lives project does exist, but has not been updated since 2007. There is also a Wikipedia “List of killings by law enforcement in the United States.”
While we ask, “How many Black Boys have to Die?” we must also ask: How many people are killed, tased or attacked by police every year and why?
Following the murder of Trayvon Martin by self-appointed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, in 2013 the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) released the groundbreaking report: “Operation Ghetto Storm: 2012 Annual Report on the Extrajudicial Killing of 313 Black People.” The report reveals the “deadly impact of systemic racism in the U.S.” and uses investigative journalism to contextualize the shootings, often justified by police and the stenographers posing as journalists who parrot them.
“Every 28 hours in 2012 someone employed or protected by the US government killed a Black man, woman, or child!” the MXGM report begins. These “outrageous rates of extrajudicial killings” would be condemned elsewhere in the world. “The same outrage inside the U.S. also demands immediate action.” This report only covered the year 2012.
The MXGM report was recently bolstered when public interest investigative journalism organization ProPublica published a staggering multi-year analysis of the deadly force in the United States, in black and white.
Analyzing federally collected data on police shootings, journalists found the likelihood of young Black males being shot by police was 21 times greater than for their white counterparts. The analysis of who gets killed, by whom, and for what purported reasons suggest police in the United States are still at war against Black America. However, the federal data leaves much to be desired. Absent a national police force, there are over 17,000 police agencies in the United States. Many never file the voluntary reports and many do so inconsistently. Thus, the FBI data is incomplete at best, flawed at worse. The data we have only shows the minimum.
‘Post-Racial’ Horrors
MXGM’s effort is not without precedent. Pioneering journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett crusaded against extra-legal violence at the turn of the 20th century. In 1892, she published the pamphlet, “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.” She documented the atrocities as she debunked the lies used to justify the lynching of Black men.
The Chicago Tribune and the Tuskegee Institute soon followed with their own annual tabulations of lynching statistics. In 1895, Wells published “The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States,” using the Tribune statistics and additional field reporting to uncover the truths behind lynch law.
When asked by friends how they could stop the shootings, hangings, and torture Black people, Wells always answered: “Tell the world the facts.”
While data on the deaths of fallen officers is readily available, no reliable and valid federal data exists documenting use of force by those officers have sworn to protect and serve.
The grassroots activism of Wells, the October 22 Movement, MXGM, and regular people–who under imminent danger film police–demonstrate the need for reliable quantitative and qualitative data.
Assessing the Damage
There are national statistics for car accidents, shark attacks, sexual assaults – albeit poorly investigated and enforced – and even the number of pigs living on this nation’s farms, yet no one knows how often police shoot people each year. And we know even less about other uses of force, like phone book interrogations, Taserings, and beatings like that of Marlene Pinnock by a California Highway Patrol officer this summer are routinely swept under the rug. Police terrorism is not a case of a few bad apples, but systemic dehumanization.
Having accurate data on police use of force could answer frequently asked questions: How often does use of force occur and where? Exactly how often do police shoot unarmed Black men? Which weapons were used and under what circumstances? More importantly, what can be done to eliminate officer-involved shootings and reduce use of force? Not to mention ways we can maintain officer safety, as well as restore trust in law enforcement?
Attorney General Eric Holder’s civil rights investigation into Ferguson must be expanded. The White House inquiry into police receiving more military-gear weapons is important. So is the need for more comprehensive data.
Hopefully, police and their supports will welcome this opportunity to increase trust. Children shouldn’t need bulletproof vests!
Local police forces should be required to report use of force opposed to voluntary submissions. In those cases where local police receive federal funds compliance should be mandatory. If Los Angeles School police want to keep those grenade launchers and rifles, they have to report. Those departments that fail to comply should be disarmed and disbanded. Compliance could require congressional action, but it is well warranted.
Many of the many police agencies are small and may lack capacity to collect and report data, but leveraging the resources of academic and research institutions could alleviate this obstacle. Research groups do exist, like the Police Executive Research Forum, and the libertarian Cato Institute’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project. Similar efforts have been attempted, but depend on media reports as sources, which often legitimate police violence.
Instead of not reporting use of force, we hope law enforcement would not have any use of force encounters to report. Open data on police use of force is not the cure, but one step towards eliminating violence in our society, improving public health, and protecting human rights.
If they gun me down today and sprinkle crack on me tonight, they may come for you in the morning.
And no one would even know.
Rasheed Shabazz is the author of “Police the Police: Melvin Black, Oscar Grant, and the Struggle for Civilian Oversight of Police in Oakland, California, 1979-2009.” |
The Works
of
Flavius Josephus Translated by
William Whiston
Antiquities of the Jews
Preface to the Antiquities of the Jews
Book I -- From Creation to the Death of Isaac
Book II -- From the Death of Isaac to the Exodus out of Egypt
Book III -- From the Exodus out of Egypt to the Rejection of the Generation
Book IV -- From the Rejection of that Generation to the Death of Moses
Book V -- From the Death of Moses to the Death of Eli
Book VI -- From the Death of Eli to the Death of Saul
Book VII -- From the Death of Saul to the Death of David
Book VIII -- From the Death of David to the Death of Ahab
Book IX -- From the Death of Ahab to the Captivity of the Ten Tribes
Book X -- From the Captivity of the Ten Tribes to the First Year of Cyrus
Book XI -- From the First Year of Cyrus to the Death of Alexander the Great
Book XII -- From the Death of Alexander the Great to the Death of Judas Maccabeus
Book XIII -- From the Death of Judas Maccabeus to the Death of Queen Alexandra
Book XIV -- From the Death of Queen Alexandra to the Death of Antigonus
Book XV -- From the Death of Antigonus to the Finishing of the Temple by Herod
Book XVI -- From the Finishing of the Temple by Herod to the Death of Alexander and Aristobulus
Book XVII -- From the Death of Alexander and Aristobulus to the Banishment of Archelaus
Book XVIII -- From the Banishment of Archelaus to the Departure of the Jews from Babylon
Book XIX -- From the Departure of the Jews from Babylon to FAdus the Roman Procurator
Book XX -- From Fadus the Procurator to Florus
War of the Jews
Preface to the War of the Jews
Book I -- From the Taking of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes to the Death of Herod the Great
Book II -- From the Death of Herod till Vespasian was sent to subdue the Jews by Nero
Book III -- From Vespasian's coming to Subdue the Jews to the Taking of Gamala
Book IV -- From the Siege of Gamala to the Coming of Titus to besiege Jerusalem
Book V -- From the Coming of Titus to besiege Jerusalem to the Great Extremity to which the Jews were reduced
Book VI -- From the Great Extremity to which the Jews were reduced to the taking of Jerusalem by Titus
Book VII -- From the Taking of Jerusalem by Titus to the Sedition of the Jews at Cyrene
Flavius Josephus Against Apion
Book I
Book II
Edited by the hard working men and women at
Sage Software |
National Lottery Region Republic of Ireland First draw 23 March 1987 Operator Premier Lotteries Ireland Chief executive Dermot Griffin Legislation National Lottery Act, 1986
National Lottery Act, 2013 Highest jackpot €18.9m (28 June 2008) Number of games 6 Shown on RTÉ One Website lottery.ie
The National Lottery (Irish: An Crannchur Náisiúnta) is the state lottery of Republic of Ireland. It was created when the Republic of Ireland government passed the National Lottery Act, 1986 to help raise funds for good causes. The eligible causes are sport and recreation, health and welfare, national heritage and the arts, the Irish language, and the natural environment.In 2005, at the E.U. gaming convention in Gent, Belgium, E.U. Legislation was passed prohibiting Irish residents playing any Irish National Lottery games while abroad in any E.U member state. This includes Tenerife.
National Lottery gaming operations began on 23 March 1987 with scratchcards, and the flagship drawing game, Lotto, began in March 1988. The National Lottery now operates three families of drawing games (Lotto, EuroMillions, and Daily Million), funds televised bingo and game shows, sells a wide range of scratchcards, and runs a number of Millionaire Raffles each year. National Lottery games are available online as well as through a network of over 3,700 retail agents nationwide.
By the end of 2013, the National Lottery had achieved over €12 billion in cumulative sales, had paid out €6.7 billion in prizes, and had raised €4.4 billion for the good causes it supports.[1] In 2011, 2.2 million Irish people (64 percent of the adult population) reported playing National Lottery games, with 1.5 million (42 percent) reporting that they played weekly.[2]
In 2013, due to a financial crisis that had left the Irish state running a large budget deficit, the Irish government agreed to sell the National Lottery licence for 20 years to a private operator, Premier Lotteries Ireland. The new operator took ownership of the licence on 27 February 2014. The government is receiving €405 million from the sale, some of which will finance the construction of a new National Children's Hospital.
Administration [ edit ]
From its inception until 27 February 2014, the National Lottery was operated under licence by the An Post National Lottery Company (Irish: Comhlacht Chrannchur Náisiúnta An Post), which was 80 percent owned by Ireland's state-owned postal services provider An Post and 20 percent by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.[2]
In 2011, in response to Ireland's financial crisis, the government included the National Lottery licence on a list of state assets that could be sold to assist the public finances.[3] In April 2012, the government announced that it would sell the National Lottery licence for a period of 20 years for an upfront payment, while ensuring that 30 percent of lottery sales would still go to fund its designated good causes.[4] The licence was valued at between €200 and €600 million, with some estimates putting its value in the region of €500 million.[5][6]
In May 2013, the Irish government enacted the National Lottery Act 2013 to allow for the sale of the National Lottery licence, provide for the establishment of a new independent lottery regulator, and eliminate some restrictions on Internet gambling to allow for the growth of online lottery sales.[7] The legislation also added the natural environment to the list of good causes eligible to receive lottery funding.[8]
On 3 October 2013, Minister Howlin announced that the government had agreed to sell the National Lottery licence for €405 million to Premier Lotteries Ireland, a consortium comprising An Post, An Post pension funds, and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (owner of the Camelot Group, operators of the UK National Lottery).[9] Dermot Griffin, head of the An Post National Lottery Company since 2006, was appointed chief executive of Premier Lotteries Ireland. Other existing senior management were also retained. Executives from the Camelot Group, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and An Post were appointed to the board of the new company.[10]
The process of finalizing the lottery contracts was delayed due to an industrial dispute involving the employees of An Post National Lottery Company over the terms and conditions of staff transfers to Premier Lotteries Ireland, but the dispute was resolved in February 2014,[11] and contracts were signed on 27 February 2014. Some of the funds paid to the Irish state will be used for a range of local infrastructural projects, including the construction of a National Children's Hospital.[12]
Games [ edit ]
The National Lottery began gaming operations on 23 March 1987, when it launched its first scratchcards. Since then, the National Lottery has expanded its product line to include the Lotto family of games, television bingo, televised game shows, regular "Millionaire Raffles," participation in the transnational EuroMillions lottery, and a daily €1 million game called Daily Million.
National Lottery tickets and scratchcards are sold by a network of over 3,700 agents around the country. In March 2009, the National Lottery began offering online sales of instant-win games, as well as key draw games such as Lotto and EuroMillions. Internet sales increased by 43 percent in 2012, to €8.7 million, with around 40,000 players registered to play games online.[13]
In 2012, total National Lottery sales were €734 million. A total of €406 million was distributed in prizes and €225 million was distributed to good causes.[13]
All cash prizes won in National Lottery games are paid as tax-free lump sums. All prizes in Lotto, EuroMillions, and Daily Million games must be claimed within 90 days of the applicable drawing dates. No minor under the age of 18 may purchase tickets for or claim prizes in any National Lottery game. Winners have the right to remain anonymous.
Lotto logo in use from 2008 onwards
Lotto [ edit ]
Lotto, which began in March 1988, is the National Lottery's flagship drawing game. It is currently a 6/47 lottery with an additional "bonus ball." Its starting jackpot is a guaranteed €2 million, which rolls over until it is won. The minimum play in Lotto has always been two lines of six numbers each. At Lotto's current cost of €2 per line, a Lotto ticket costs a minimum of €4. Lotto has produced two spinoff games, Lotto 5-4-3-2-1, which began in 1997, and Lotto Plus, which began in 2000.[14]
The largest ever Lotto jackpot of €18.9 million was won on 28 June 2008 by a syndicate of 16 colleagues at a quarry and concrete plant in Bennekerry, Carlow.[15]
Sales of Lotto fell from €379.1 million in 2011 to €339.7 million in 2012. The National Lottery said that this reflected lower jackpot levels during the year.[13]
History of Lotto [ edit ]
The first Lotto drawing was held on Saturday, 16 April 1988. In its original 6/36 format, six numbered balls were drawn from a lottery machine containing 36 balls. Players could win a share of a guaranteed £250,000 jackpot by matching all six numbers, or win smaller prizes by matching four or five numbers. If no winning ticket was sold, the jackpot rolled over for the next draw. Drawings continued each Saturday night until 30 May 1990, when the National Lottery introduced a midweek Lotto draw on Wednesday nights. Lotto draws have been held twice weekly since that time. The Lotto for Saturday if Christmas Day is falling on Saturday transferred to Christmas Eve, Friday or Wednesday draw to Tuesday (1991-2002) or Thursday in 2013.
In a 6/36 lottery, the odds of matching all six numbers and winning the jackpot are 1 in 1,947,792. At Lotto's initial cost of £0.50 per line, all possible combinations could be purchased for £973,896. This left Lotto vulnerable to a brute force attack, which happened when the jackpot reached £1.7 million for the May 1992 bank holiday drawing. A 28-member Dublin-based syndicate, organized and headed by Polish-Irish businessman Stefan Klincewicz, had spent six months preparing by marking combinations on almost a quarter of a million paper playslips. In the days before the drawing they tried to buy up all possible combinations and thus win all possible prizes, including the jackpot.[16]
The National Lottery tried to foil Klincewicz's plan by limiting the number of tickets any single machine could sell, and by turning off the terminals his ticket purchasers were known to be using heavily. Despite its efforts, the syndicate did manage to buy over 80 percent of the combinations, spending an estimated £820,000 on tickets. It had the winning numbers on the night, but two other winning tickets were also sold, so the syndicate could claim only one-third of the jackpot, or £568,682. Match-5 and match-4 prizes brought the syndicate's total winnings to approximately £1,166,000, representing a profit of approximately £310,000 before expenses. Klincewicz later appeared on the television talk show Kenny Live and wrote a self-published lottery-system book entitled Win the Lotto.
To prevent such a brute force attack from happening again, the National Lottery changed Lotto to a 6/39 game later in 1992, raising the jackpot odds to 1 in 3,262,623. The first Lotto 6/39 drawing was held on 22 August 1992. To compensate for the longer jackpot odds, the National Lottery doubled the starting jackpot to and added a "bonus number" to the drawings. Whereas players previously needed either a match-6, match-5, or match-4 to win, prizes were now also awarded for match-5+bonus, match-4+bonus, and match-3+bonus.
The National Lottery's corporate logo from the late 1990s– 2008. The original 1987 logo was similar, but with the text "National Lottery" in a serif font however (with the word "National" in mixed case), and the boxes were not rounded. [1]
Lotto became a 6/42 game on 24 September 1994, which made the jackpot odds 1 in 5,245,786. The National Lottery made this change to generate bigger rollover jackpots, partly so that people living near the border with Northern Ireland would not abandon Lotto when the 6/49 British National Lottery began operations on 14 November 1994. At the same time, the National Lottery introduced computer-generated "quick picks" as an alternative to marking numbers on paper playslips. Some retailers now only offer the quick-pick option.
For draws beginning on 26 September 1998, the National Lottery increased the cost of a line of Lotto from £0.50 to £0.75. At this time it also doubled the game's starting jackpot to £1 million and increased most of the game's smaller prizes by 50 percent.
With the introduction of the euro currency on 1 January 2002, the cost of a line of Lotto became €0.95, and the starting jackpot became €1.269 million (the euro equivalent of £1 million). For draws beginning 1 September 2002, the price of Lotto was rounded to €1 per line, and the starting jackpot was raised slightly to €1.35 million.
Core Lotto sales had declined steadily for six consecutive years up to 2006, falling from €314.9 million in 2000 to €255.1 million in 2006. Falling sales partly reflected public dissatisfaction with the game during the Celtic Tiger economic boom. As property prices and the cost of living escalated rapidly, particularly in Dublin, a €1.35 million starting jackpot was no longer seen as offering the transformed lifestyle promoted in lottery advertising.[17] In November 2006, the National Lottery changed Lotto to a 6/45 game to create bigger jackpots and combat falling ticket sales. It made the starting jackpot a guaranteed €2 million, increased the match-5+bonus prize from €12,000 to €25,000, introduced a match-3 prize of €5, and increased the price of a line of Lotto from €1 to €1.50. The company said that the structural changes were designed to produce about twenty Lotto jackpots of €5 million and over each year, and at least one jackpot over €10 million. The first 6/45 draw was held on 4 November 2006.
The odds of winning (in a 6/45 lottery) the Lotto jackpot are 1 in 8,145,060. The odds of getting a match-5+bonus are 1 in 1,357,510; the odds of a match-5 are 1 in 1,221,759; the odds of a match 4+bonus are 1 in 14,290; the odds of a match-4 are 1 in 148,995; the odds of a match-3+bonus are 1 in 579; and the odds of a match-3 are 1 in 14,190.
The Wednesday night Lotto draw on 4 February 2015 was postponed until the following night due to a technical problem with ticket machines. This marked the first time in Lotto history that a drawing was postponed.[18][19].
As of September 3, 2015, the cost of buying two lines increased from €3 to €4 and players must now choose from 47 instead of 45 numbers, lengthening the odds of winning the jackpot to almost 11 million (approximately 10.7 million) to one.[20][21] The odds against winning the second prize have increased also, but so too has the prize value, from €25,000 to an estimated €100,000.[22] There will also be a new prize for matching 2 balls and the bonus ball.
The current odds of winning (in a 6/47 lottery) are: Jackpot - 1 in 10,737,573; match 5 - 1 in 1,533,939; match 4 - 1 in 178,365; match 3 - 1 in 16,215.
Lotto Plus [ edit ]
In 2000, the National Lottery introduced Lotto Plus as an add-on to the main Lotto game. For an extra £0.25 per line, players could enter their Lotto numbers in an additional 6/42 drawing for a fixed, non-rolling jackpot of £250,000. The first Lotto Plus drawing took place on 25 October 2000.
In 2002, the National Lottery added a second Lotto Plus drawing, renamed the drawings Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2, and raised the cost of Lotto Plus to €0.50 per line. The jackpots were fixed at €300,000 and €200,000 respectively. The first drawings for Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2 took place on 1 September 2002.
In November 2006, when Lotto adopted a 6/45 matrix, the National Lottery raised the Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2 jackpots to €350,000 and €250,000 respectively. The cost of Lotto Plus remained at €0.50 per line.
In September 2015, following the increase of two extra balls in the machine, the top prize of Lotto Plus 1 was doubled to €500,000.
A Lotto Plus raffle was also introduced. Every player that matches the 4 digit raffle number wins €300.
As with the main Lotto game, Lotto Plus players can win smaller cash prizes for match-5+bonus, match-5, match-4+bonus, match-4, and match-3+bonus. The odds of winning these prizes are the same as for the main Lotto game.
On 30th August 2018, Lotto Plus was enhanced with the first price rise in 18 years now costing €1 per line to enter. The top prize on Lotto Plus 1 was doubled to €1 million and the raffle prize was increased to €500, with special €1 million raffle draws taking place at special points throughout the year. They offered free Daily Million quick picks for matching 2 main numbers plus the bonus ball. This meant that the odds were better at 1 in 10 at winning a prize.
Over 90 percent of Lotto players play Lotto Plus. Sales of Lotto Plus in 2012 were €74.3 million.[13]
Lotto 5-4-3-2-1 logo in use from 2008 onwards
Lotto 5-4-3-2-1 [ edit ]
Based around the main Lotto draw, Lotto 5-4-3-2-1 was introduced in February 1997. It allows players to win prizes by correctly matching one, two, three, four, or five of the drawn numbers. The more numbers players try to match, the greater the prize. Players may base their choices either on a six-number game (excluding the bonus number) or on a seven-number game (including the bonus number). Lotto 5-4-3-2-1 accounted for €13.1 million in sales in 2012.[13]
EuroMillions [ edit ]
Euromillions logo in use from 2008 onwards.
The National Lottery joined the transnational EuroMillions lottery on 8 October 2004. As of 2012, EuroMillions accounts for 24 percent of National Lottery sales. Several EuroMillions jackpots have been won or shared in Ireland:
On 31 July 2005, Dolores McNamara, a part-time cleaning lady from Limerick, won a EuroMillions jackpot of €115 million, which at the time was the largest lottery prize ever won in Europe. [23]
On 17 November 2006, two Irish winners each received a 5 percent share of an unwon €183 million jackpot when it was divided under the draw's 12-week rollover rule among all twenty tickets bearing five numbers and one lucky star. The winners received €9.6 million each. One winning ticket was purchased in Foynes, County Limerick and the other in Millstreet, County Cork. [24]
On 4 July 2008, a couple who chose to remain anonymous won a EuroMillions jackpot of €15 million on a €9 quick-pick ticket purchased in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. [25]
On 12 June 2009, a jackpot of €58.8 million was divided among two winning tickets, worth €29.4 million each. One of the tickets, a €6 quick-pick, was sold in Newcastle, County Dublin. The winning family chose to remain anonymous. [26]
On 29 January 2016, a jackpot of €132,376,632 was split amongst two winners, one in Ireland and one in France, each getting €66,188,316. There is no information about the winner currently.
Irish sales of EuroMillions were €131.5 million in 2012, a 3.2 percent increase on the previous year.[13]
Plus [ edit ]
In June 2007, the National Lottery introduced "Plus," an add-on to the main EuroMillions game available only to Irish players. For an extra €1 per line, players can enter their five main EuroMillions numbers in an additional draw for a fixed, non-rolling prize of €500,000. Players can also win fixed prizes of €2,000 for a match-4 and €20 for a match-3. The first Plus drawing was held on 15 June 2007. 76 percent of EuroMillions players now play Plus.[13]
Sales of Plus were €44.6 million in 2012, an increase of 3.7 percent over the previous year.[13]
Daily Million [ edit ]
In September 2012, the National Lottery introduced Daily Million to replace both Monday Million (a draw game with prizes up to €1 million, held once weekly on Monday nights) and All Or Nothing (a daily draw game with prizes up to €500,000). A 6/39 weekly lottery drawing with a fixed, non-rolling jackpot of €1 million, Daily Million takes place every day of the week, including weekends and bank holidays. It costs €1 per line to play. For an extra €0.50 per line, players can play Daily Million Plus for a top prize of €500,000. The Daily Million/Daily Million Plus draws take place twice a day, every day (2pm and 9pm) at the National Lottery Headquarters under the supervision of Independent observers and National Lottery draw personnel[27]. For some undisclosed reasons the National Lottery does not allow Daily Million Draws to be viewed by the public or streamed online.
All or Nothing [ edit ]
Introduced in October 2009, All or Nothing is the National Lottery's first daily draw game. Players choose 12 numbers from 24; if they get all the numbers correct, or none of the numbers correct, they win €500,000—a 1 in 1,352,078 chance of victory. The game has additional prizes of €5,000 for Match 11, €25 for Match 10, €10 for Match 9, and €4 for Match 8. Tickets cost €2 per line. The numbers are announced on RTÉ Two each night and also displayed through an animated draw on the Lottery website. The game had generated sales of €3.4 million by the end of 2009.
Millionaire Raffle [ edit ]
In the summer of 2008, the National Lottery ran its first Millionaire Raffle. These special, limited edition raffles have been held several times a year since then. Two Millionaire Raffle draws were held in 2011 and three in 2012.[13] For the Easter 2013 Millionaire Raffle, 200,000 tickets were available, costing €20 each. The raffle had a top prize of €1 million, a second prize of €250,000, and two third prizes of €100,000. Players could also win a range of smaller prizes ranging from €10,000 to €250. In 2016 this was increased to 500,000 tickets, still costing €20 each then increased to €25 a ticket in 2017 with a similar breakdown of prizes. Professional footballer Kevin O'Connor won the 2017 Christmas Millionaire Raffle.[28]
Telly Bingo [ edit ]
The National Lottery introduced Telly Bingo in September 1999. Players buy tickets with 24 randomly generated numbers, and can win prizes by matching the numbers drawn on a lunchtime TV show in a variety of patterns, with a prize of €10,000 for a full house. An additional €10,000 Snowball prize goes to someone who achieves a full house on or before the 45th number drawn. If not won, the Snowball prize rolls over to the next draw, allowing one additional number each time. In 2012, Telly Bingo sales were €17.3 million.[13]
Scratchcard Games [ edit ]
The National Lottery had a total of 30 scratchcard games on offer during 2012, ranging in price from €1 to €10, and offering instant cash prizes from €2 to €100,000. Sales of instant scratchcard games rose 3.2 percent to €163.5 million in 2012.[13]
Game shows [ edit ]
The National Lottery funds the prize money for two televised game shows. Contestants gain entry to the shows by getting three "lucky stars" on associated scratchcards and submitting them in special envelopes for televised drawings. Broadcast on Saturday nights on RTÉ One since 1990, the game shows have proven very popular, often featuring among the channel's top-rated programmes.
The National Lottery's flagship game show Winning Streak debuted in 1990 and screens weekly between September and early June. A summer companion programme Fame & Fortune was launched in 1996 and ran through the months of June, July, and August until 2007. It was replaced in 2007 by The Trump Card, which was replaced in turn by The Big Money Game, which was replaced by The Million Euro Challenge.
References in other media [ edit ]
In the 1990s, RTÉ produced a sitcom called Upwardly Mobile about a working-class family who won the Lotto and moved to an upper-middle-class area. It ran for three seasons between 1995 and 1997.
Waking Ned (known as Waking Ned Devine in North America) is a comedy film set in a tiny rural village, based on a fictitious winner of the Lotto. |
This article originally appeared on DeSmog Canada.
According to an internal memorandum obtained by Postmedia's Mike De Souza, the tailings ponds holding billions of litres of tar sands waste are leaking into Alberta's groundwater.
The document, released through Access to Information legislation, confirms groundwater toxins related to bitumen mining and upgrading are seeping from tailings ponds and are not naturally occurring as government and industry have previously stated.
"The studies have, for the first time, detected potentially harmful, mining-related organic acid contaminants in groundwater outside a long-established out-of-pit tailings pond," the memo reads. "This finding is consistent with publicly available technical reports of seepage (both projected in theory, and detected in practice)."
This newly released document shows the federal government has been aware of the problem since June 2012, without publicly addressing the information. The study, made available online by Natural Resources Canada in December 2012, was still "pending release" at the time Minister Oliver was briefed of its contents in June.
The study in question, co-authored by 19 scientists from both provincial and federal bodies including Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, the Geological Survey of Canada, was designed to distinguish naturally-occurring chemical substances from mining-related contaminants.
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) spokesman Travis Davies told Postmedia's De Souza the study's evidence of chemical seepage into groundwater did not come as a surprise.
"Their study isn't new in any way other than perhaps the laboratory methods and detection limits," Davies said. |
NEW DELHI: In a major setback to thousands of students who pursued engineering studies through correspondence courses offered by deemed universities in the last 16 years, the Supreme Court declared on Friday that the degrees were invalid, putting them at risk of losing jobs obtained on the basis of the certificates.A bench of Justices A K Goel and U U Lalit noted that the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) did not approve distance learning programmes in engineering studies and the approval granted by the Distance Education Council (DEC) for such courses was illegal.The SC decision exposes the extent to which the regulatory system was compromised as the courses were being run for more than a decade and a half without attracting serious scrutiny.The apex court directed the Centre to create an oversight mechanism to regulate deemed universities, saying that UGC completely failed to curb the commercialisation of education. It asked the government to review the deemed university status of various institutions.The court adjudicated a bunch of petitions on the validity of correspondence courses of four deemed universities — JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Institute of Advanced Studies in Education in Rajasthan, Allahabad Agricultural Institute and Vinayaka Mission’s Research Foundation in Tamil Nadu — which have been providing engineering education through correspondence since 2001 despite AICTE disapproval.The apex court restrained all deemed universities from offering correspondence courses without the approval of the AICTE and directed a CBI probe against officials who permitted the universities to run the programmes from 2001.The court passed the order after UGC’s counsel and ASG Maninder Singh and AICTE advocate Anil Soni informed the court that distance learning courses in engineering were not permitted.Holding the degree issued by universities invalid, the court, however, opened a small window for students who took admission between 2001 and 2005 to revive their degree by undergoing a fresh examination by AICTE. It said they should be given another chance as they pursued the course under the impression that the course is valid in the light of DEC’s approval.But the court had no sympathy for the students of the post-2005 batches as they were aware that the courses lacked sanction.“AICTE shall devise the modalities to conduct an appropriate test. Students (from 2001-05 batches) be given not more than two chances to clear the test and if they do not successfully clear the test within the stipulated time, their degrees shall stand cancelled,” the bench said suspending their degrees.“In respect of students admitted after the academic sessions of 2001-2005, the degrees in engineering awarded by the concerned deemed to be universities through distance education mode shall stand recalled and be treated as cancelled. Any benefit which a candidate has secured as a result of such degrees in engineering in the nature of promotion or advancement in career shall also stand recalled.However, if any monetary benefit was derived by such candidates, that ... will not be recovered by the concerned departments or employers,” it said and directed the universities to refund the money to students.“We restrain all deemed to be universities to carry on any courses in distance education mode from the academic session 2018-19 unless it is permissible to conduct such courses in distance education mode and specific permissions are granted by the concerned statutory/regulatory authorities,” the bench said. |
Video
Donald J. Trump called on Monday for the United States to bar all Muslims from entering the country until the nation’s leaders can “figure out what is going on” after the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., an extraordinary escalation of rhetoric aimed at voters’ fears about members of the Islamic faith.
A prohibition of Muslims – an unprecedented proposal by a leading American presidential candidate, and an idea more typically associated with hate groups – reflects a progression of mistrust that is rooted in ideology as much as politics.
Mr. Trump, who in September declared “I love the Muslims,” turned sharply against them after the Paris terrorist attacks, calling for a database to track Muslims in America and repeating discredited rumors that thousands of Muslims celebrated in New Jersey on 9/11. His poll numbers rose largely as a result, until a setback in Iowa on Monday morning. Hours later Mr. Trump called for the ban, fitting his pattern of making stunning comments when his lead in the Republican presidential field appears in jeopardy.
Saying that “hatred” among many Muslims for Americans is “beyond comprehension,” Mr. Trump said in a statement that the United States needed to confront “where this hatred comes from and why.”
“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Mr. Trump said.
Asked what prompted his statement, Mr. Trump said, “death,” according to a spokeswoman.
Repudiation of Mr. Trump’s remarks was swift and severe among religious groups and politicians from both parties. Mr. Trump is “unhinged,” said one Republican rival, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, while another, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, called the ban “offensive and outlandish.” Hillary Clinton said the idea was “reprehensible, prejudiced and divisive.” Organizations representing Jews, Christians and those of other faiths quickly joined Muslims in denouncing Mr. Trump’s proposal.
“Rooting our nation’s immigration policy in religious bigotry and discrimination will not make America great again,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, executive director of Interfaith Alliance, putting a twist on Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan.
Mr. Trump made his remarks a day after President Obama delivered a national address from the Oval Office urging Americans not to turn against Muslims in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
Experts on immigration law and policy expressed shock at the proposal Monday afternoon.
“This is just so antithetical to the history of the United States,” said Nancy Morawetz, a professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law, who specializes in immigration. “It’s unbelievable to have a religious test for admission into the country.”
She added: “I cannot recall any historical precedent for denying immigration based on religion.”
Putting the policy into practice would require an unlikely act of Congress, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of law at Cornell and a prominent authority on immigration.
Should Congress enact such a law, he predicted, the Supreme Court would invalidate it as an overly restrictive immigration policy under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
“It would certainly be challenged as unconstitutional,” he said. “And I predict the Supreme Court would strike it down.”
Mr. Trump has a track record of making surprising and even extreme comments whenever he is overtaken in opinion polls by other Republican candidates – as happened on Monday just hours before he issued his statement about Muslims. A new Monmouth University survey of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers found that Mr. Trump had slipped from his recent top spot in the state, which holds the first presidential nomination contest on Feb. 1. According to the poll, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas earned 24 percent of support, while Mr. Trump had 19 percent and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida had 17 percent. But another Iowa poll released on Monday, by CNN/OCR, showed Mr. Trump with a comfortable lead but Mr. Cruz gaining ground on him.
Mr. Trump, who boasts about his strong poll numbers at the beginning of virtually every campaign speech, launched an unusually stinging attack against Ben Carson, another Republican candidate, when Mr. Carson took a lead in Iowa polls this fall; Mr. Trump, citing Mr. Carson’s memoir about his sometimes-violent youth, called him “pathological” and compared his state of mind to a child molester’s.
Several Republican strategists and politicians said they believe that Mr. Trump’s maneuver against Muslims was partly a challenge to Mr. Cruz and other Republicans to stake out positions on terrorism that were as audacious as his own. But they also said that the ban reflected anxiety and anger among many voters that the federal government was not acting aggressively enough to protect them at home.
“I think Trump’s idea may be too strong, but I think something jarring is very helpful in leading to a national debate in how big this problem is, and how dangerous it is,” said Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House who ran for president in 2012. “Nine percent of Pakistanis agree with ISIS, according to one poll. That’s a huge number. We need to put all the burden of proof on people coming from those countries to show that they are not a danger to us.”
Tens of thousands of Muslims enter and stay in the United States each year as tourists or through the immigration system, experts say, with an estimated 100,000 Muslims becoming United States permanent residents in 2012, according to the Pew Research Center. The United States issued 680,000 green cards to migrants from Muslim-majority countries in the five-year period from fiscal year 2009 through fiscal year 2013, according to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, which cited data from the Department of Homeland Security.
At a rally at the U.S.S. Yorktown in South Carolina on Monday night, Mr. Trump drew sustained cheers from the audience as he outlined his idea for the ban.
“We have no choice,” Mr. Trump said. “Our country cannot be the victim of tremendous attacks by people who believe only in jihad.”
While several Republican presidential candidates have called for increased intelligence gathering and more aggressive investigations of suspected terrorists, as well as a halt to Muslim refugees entering the United States from Syria, Mr. Trump’s pointed suspicions about Muslims have been in a category by themselves.
At his campaign rallies, he has drawn strong applause from thousands of voters for his calls on the government to monitor mosques, and he has refused to rule out his earlier proposal to enter names of Muslims in America into a database. He has also made a series of ominous comments about President Obama’s leadership in fighting terrorism, suggesting that there was “something going on” with Mr. Obama that Americans were not aware of.
In his statement, Mr. Trump quoted a poll by the Center for Security Policy, whose president and founder, Frank Gaffney, has claimed that President Obama is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist political movement born in Egypt, and that agents of the Muslim Brotherhood have infiltrated the U.S. government, the Republican Party and conservative political organizations.
Barring non-citizen Muslims from the United States has drawn support from organizations like the Society of Americans for National Existence and the Daily Stormer, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as hate groups.
The proposal drew immediate condemnation from Muslim-Americans. Eboo Patel, the president of Interfaith Youth Core, based in Chicago, said, “I’m standing in a building right now where I am looking up at the Sears Tower, which was designed by Fazlur Rahman Khan,” a structural engineer originally from Bangladesh who was behind what is now known as the Willis Tower.
“What if we had barred Russians from America because of the Cold War? Who would have invented Google?” Mr. Patel asked, referring to Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin.
While many critics of Mr. Trump reassured themselves that neither he nor his idea would ultimately go anywhere, they were aghast that a mainstream presidential candidate would ever utter it.
“It would be particularly bizarre,” said Ms. Morawetz, “to have an immigration test based on religion given that the country was founded by people who were fleeing religious persecution.”
Donald Trump’s Republican Rivals Condemn His Call to Bar Muslims From Entering U.S. Donald J. Trump’s call to bar Muslims from entering the United States has drawn swift condemnation from his Republican rivals for the nomination, raising the question of whether the billionaire businessman has finally gone too far.
95,000 Words, Many of Them Ominous, From Donald Trump’s Tongue An analysis of 95,000 words Mr. Trump said in public in the past week reveals powerful patterns in his speech which, historians say, echo the appeals of demagogues of the past century.
Laurie Goodstein and Thomas Kaplan contributed reporting. |
Chris Trotman/Getty Images
Here we go again—another rumor regarding Dwight Howard. Apparently, the Magic are considering the possibility of a three-way deal with the Lakers and Cavaliers.
The Lakers, Magic & Cavaliers are discussing three-team deal that may send Dwight Howard to LA and Andrew Bynum to CLE: tinyurl.com/7mwggu6 — Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) July 14, 2012
This would basically be the same parameters of the three-way trade involving Houston, LA and Orlando. In this scenario, LA would receive Dwight Howard while Cleveland receives Andrew Bynum. Orlando would receive a package of draft picks and players.
This trade proposal makes sense.
LA gets the player that they want. Cleveland would get an All-Star center who would really complement Kyrie Irving. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, Bynum would be interested in going to Cleveland as a free agent in 2013. The Cavaliers would be getting a much better player than the previous deal. Orlando could take players (Tristan Thompson, Dion Waiters) and picks and let the other teams take back some other contracts.
There could be a hitch to this—Dan Gilbert.
He went off about superteams being formed. If this trade is made, a big superteam is made in LA. However, this trade would give him a young-duo nucleus for years.
For now, the proposal is in infancy. We'll see if this has legs in the days to come. |
Actor Val Kilmer's once illustrious career has grown dim in the past decade. But over tea at the Viceroy Hotel on an overcast Santa Monica afternoon, the blond and now slimmed-down actor revealed a light within him that is growing brighter and brighter by the day. In speaking about his newest project, Kilmer confessed, "hopefully I will be redeemed for all the years of people saying nasty or naughty things about me."
Not many people can see the similarities between author Mark Twain, a professional satirist, and Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science and a professed faith healer. The pair never met in person, and the famed American author was perhaps Eddy's most public critic, saying that the woman possessed a "crooked" character and was the founder of a "cult."
But Val Kilmer thinks that the antagonistic pair are cut from the same cloth. Twain "got to his insights by being an anti-religionist, if you will. But he never stopped studying." As for Eddy, "she too was a rebel. She rebelled against her own religion and she said of herself, 'My entire life I've been a heart wholly in protest.'"
For the past seven years, Kilmer has buried himself in the lives of Twain and Eddy, hoping to not only bring to light a fascinating and historically contentious relationship, but also to perhaps absolve himself of some spiritual burden. "It's very much like 'Amadeus.' It's a dual biography. I'm regretting that now, because it's really hard to do," Kilmer told The Huffington Post.
Just one week before the one-man show opens at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Kilmer, who is known for his roles in "The Doors," "Batman Forever," "The Saint," and "Heat," proved magnetic and acutely intelligent in person, and his fascination with Twain practically dripped from his very pores. "Twain's concept of autobiography was 'Don’t you want to know how I think? Whatever pops into my head is who I am.' I'm trying to give you a feeling about his soul and his spirit."
But no good story is without scandal. And because Kilmer is writing, directing and starring in this project, he has all of the creative freedom in the world. "At the heart of a lot of Twain's slander of Mrs. Eddy was shoddy journalism. He acknowledged it privately but never did publicly," explained Kilmer. "I think he was just jealous. That’s what his daughter said."
For tickets and information about the eight showings of Kilmer's "Citizen Twain," click here.
HuffPost: Where were you in your life when you decided to take this on?
Val Kilmer: I got to a place in my career where I wasn't getting scripts. I was getting sort of action stuff with "Batman" and "The Saint," and it's easy then to secure your position as only that if you do two or three more. I don't think I ever secured my position as a star by Hollywood's standards.
HP: Was that intentional?
VK: No. It would have been nice to have bags of dough. My career is very strange unless you put in the timeline the fact that I never had a business objective. I always had very singular aims as an actor to get better at my job. But it also got me into trouble.
One time I was involved in a movie and we had no second act. It was a gigantic budget and I kept mentioning it more and more loudly – "we have no second act." And I didn’t listen to my agent, who told me to stop. And he was right. I made a mistake. But I'm not embarrassed by how hard I tried to make the movie good. I wasn’t involved in a dynamic way about being a movie star. I was trying to be good in the role.
HP: How much freedom do you feel now that you're writing and starring in this project? You're making all the decisions.
VK: I am so much more the boss that I want to be. Right now I'm doing everything. I like my ideas about directing, and I am directing the one-man show. If you just imagine how silly it sounds, "I'm directing myself in a one-man show that I wrote." And then I try to do it and just fall down and cry.
HP: So how does it work? How does one do that?
VK: You have to video everything because you can't really know what you're doing. And then I listen to it all day long, so I've really turned into Rupert Pupkin in my basement laughing at my own jokes.
HP: Do you enjoy the process of writing?
VK: Before I let Twain out of the box I had him in, it really was hard. Now he's a giant irritant. When I was writing the movie, he just wouldn't shut up. And Mrs. Eddy, I think she would describe herself in this way – relentless.
HP: Who are some of your favorite writers?
VK: Shakespeare comes to mind. Just the ability to make jokes all through Macbeth. He was a genius with irony. I love James Joyce. And Twain's okay [laughs].
HP: Did Twain consider himself an artist?
VK: I think he would make a really funny joke about it. I don’t think Twain was intellectual about being brilliant.
HP: And were you good in school?
VK: No. And my son is 16, about to be 40. He's Huck Finn. He's tells me "Dad, I just can't do school." My daughter is 20 and loves learning, but she's a bossy-boots. She is a hellion. She's right a lot of the time.
I'm going to Missouri soon, and I can't say this without covering my face, but I'm getting an honorary doctorate. My brother is a doctor, he's a psychologist. And like a schmo, I called him up thinking he would be thrilled. But there was kind of a long pause and he said, "That's nice." I mean, seven years he's got to sweat for this and I goof around and fly around the world talking to funny, beautiful people and they give me a doctorate. He wasn’t that excited about it. I said, "I'll always tell people it's not real!"
HP: What was Twain's family like?
VK: One of the saddest things I've written into the play is when Twain says, "I never made my father laugh, not once." And it's true. He never made him smile. The first time he saw his dad touch someone was his dead brother. These guys were stoic.
HP: What do you personally connect with the most about Mark Twain?
VK: My little brother had epilepsy and so did Twain's daughter. They died the same way – drowned. I just added that to the play today.
I want to tell stories. And I'm very lucky, I got enough success - until I kept buying my neighbor's ranches in New Mexico, but that’s another part of my odd bunch of movies in the past five years. I was just paying rent. I decided I'm going to sacrifice the integrity of my career for the integrity of this land for my kids. It was from here to Malibu - that was the size of it. 6 miles. So I got a little carried away there [laughs]! And now I'm back.
On a personal level, because I spent so many years trying to keep it and ultimately not being able to, I have a lot of kinship with Twain, who lost his home. I don’t think I lost everything. I wasn’t ruined, I can still get a job, I got to keep what feels like a patio, but it's 140 acres. It's not nothing. It’s pretty great. A lovely view.
HP: Are you an LA transplant or a native Angeleno?
VK: Native Angeleno. But I don’t talk like I'm from Los Angeles, because I went to Juilliard and had it beaten out of me, by people with accents even though they were American. "Lie down on the floor now…" I was terribly abused there [laughs].
HP: What was growing up in Los Angeles like?
VK: I was raised in this traffic. It's all encompassing. I grew up grieving about LA. You see, I had some odd, instinctual feeling about the place – it's probably because my dad grew up in real wilderness. That’s where my affinity for New Mexico comes in.
I had this feeling that LA was off. And it is. "There is no there there," as Gertrude Stein said. There's no truer sentence about LA. When you get to downtown, it feels like the center is over there. You're never right there.
But we lived out in Chatsworth with wildlife all over the place, mountain lions and deer. It is the end of LA, literally. Our neighbors were the Mansons. Shorty, the one with the foot-long knife, used to give us rides occasionally. I have real weird LA cred. Another ranch my dad bought was Will Rogers' ranch. So we have both ends of the LA spectrum.
HP: And you live in Malibu now?
VK: Yes, and I can't say that without making a funny face. I have the right address, I bought the right car, I'm back! I'm wearing a Gucci jacket. I've got to get my hair cut. Of all the people who helped me love LA, it was Jim Morrison. He loved it! I was always asking all of his friends why?
What Jim Morrison loved about LA was the diversity. It's a shame he got addicted so early. Because he probably would have made a really good director. I think he had a great American novel in him. He used to drive around with his friend and look at all the great houses in the Bird streets. I just started doing it recently.
HP: Do you have a meal that will always remind of you LA?
VK: I'm trying to think of all the things I can no longer eat. I haven’t had a Pink's hot dog in awhile. But I remember them from when I was three years old. Pink's was there, with the line.
HP: Do you stay out in Malibu usually?
VK: Yes, it's nice there. This morning there was a seal lying on his back just clapping. For minutes and minutes. And its little face would pop out of the water, it was just so goofy. I have no idea what it was doing. I must find out from a marine biologist.
HP: You've chosen an iconic Los Angeles venue for your one-man show: The Hollywood Forever Cemetery. How did you decide on it?
VK: There aren't a lot of places in the country that have big white signs - like the HOLLYWOOD sign - that mean nothing. We're just celebrating ourselves. It's truly just an idea; there's nothing there on that hillside. That Hollywood sign is so much better than Hollywood and Vine.
So the idea of the cemetery is that it actually delivers. There's a beautiful feeling in there and there's just something silly and poetic about it. Like calling the one-man show "Citizen Twain." It's not even my favorite title, I just keep renaming it.
HP: What were some of the other names?
VK: "Validation." See, now that's silly. |
With Indiana Governor Mike Pence heading to the White House as Donald Trump‘s vice president, concern for the future of Planned Parenthood, which Pence spent his career trying to defund, is at a high among pro-choice supporters.
Donations to the organization were already skyrocketing in the wake of the election (Katy Perry announced she gave $10,000), but people across social media are encouraging friends to send their money with a twist — under Pence’s name.
Get push notifications with news, features and more.
When people give donations to Planned Parenthood, they can check a box to give their money in honor of Pence, with a certificate thanking the governor for the donation going to his office. Pence will not receive a tax deduction for the donations made in his name.
The idea is going viral on social media, with women and men pledging their support. And celebrities from Amy Schumer to Amber Tamblyn to Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino posted about donating in Pence’s name.
“You should donate no matter what but omg this is genius,” Cosentino wrote, along with a photo of Pence’s address in Indiana.
“Done and done,” Schumer added.
Just donated to Planned Parenthood in Mike Pence's name, it's easy & a certificate will be sent to his office: pic.twitter.com/GJx3GdyBZl — Gabrielle Moss (@Gaby_Moss) November 12, 2016
me: lol i'm so poor
internet: "u can make an honorary donation to planned parenthood in mike pence's name"
me: pic.twitter.com/MKUSgwPeP3 — h (@hanncassady) November 13, 2016
donate to planned parenthood in honor of indiana gov. mike pence#EnjoyYourCertificate pic.twitter.com/h97XJSL0EO — sam catalano 🥖🦆 (@dashspaceSC) November 13, 2016
The pro-life governor has tried to down and diminish Planned Parenthood’s funding throughout his career. As a member of Congress in 2007, he introduced the first bill to defund the non-profit organization because they provide legal abortions to women. His bill was unsuccessful.
He has also backed anti-abortion legislation in the past, as governor of Indiana, he famously championed HB 1337, which was described by the Daily Beast as the “most extreme anti-abortion bill yet.” The bill — which was approved by the Indiana Senate and House of Representatives in March — would require abortion providers to bury or cremate fetuses, ban women from seeking abortions due to fetal diagnosis of physical or mental disability, among other restrictions. In June, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law from taking effect, citing that it violated a woman’s right to choose.
“If Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing, they ought not be in the business of providing abortions,” Pence told Politico in 2011. “As long as they aspire to do that, I’ll be after them.”
RELATED VIDEO: Women Getting IUDs After Trump Elected President
Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, said the day after the election that they won’t back down under the Trump/Pence administration.
“Planned Parenthood’s been around for 100 years, we’ve been fighting for the right for reproductive healthcare for that long, and as we’ve said today, our doors stay open. And they will.”
The organization thanked people for their recent donations Saturday.
Thank you so much! We've been blown away by the support we've received. Many people are donating in Clinton or Pence's name. #WeWontGoBack — Planned Parenthood (@PPact) November 12, 2016
“Thank you so much! We’ve been blown away by the support we’ve received. Many people are donating in Clinton or Pence’s name. #WeWontGoBack“ |
Colorado Springs, Colo. --- San José State University's 18-game regular season Mountain West schedule was revealed by the conference on Tuesday. The Spartans open up conference play on the road at Nevada on December 28, and return to The Event Center to face Colorado State in the conference home-opener on January 4.
"We are excited to release our 2016-17 conference schedule as the Mountain West will once again become one of the toughest conferences in America," said Spartans' head coach Dave Wojcik. "We look forward to the challenges ahead, and expect to continue improving as we build our program into one of the most formidable in the league."
The schedule format for the 11-member league includes eight home-and-home series and two one-time opponents. In 2016-17, San José State will play Utah State once at home (2/22) and New Mexico once on the road (2/4).
The Spartans' oldest rival Fresno State, visits San Jose on January 7 before the team heads out for two on the road at San Diego State (1/11) and at Air Force (1/14). The Aztecs and Spartans collide again inside The Event Center on February 8.
Last season the Spartans and Runnin' Rebels of UNLV only met once, but this year the two teams will square off in San Jose on January 28 and in Las Vegas on February 11.
Boise State, which fell at the hands of San José State in last year's regular-season finale, comes back to The Event Center on January 21. It will be the second of back-to-back home games for SJSU as it welcomes Wyoming on January 18.
SJSU will play at Wyoming for the second year in a row on their senior night, which marks the regular-season finale for both teams on March 4. Three days before that, San José State will honor its seniors Isaac Thornton and Gary Williams, Jr. , in the home finale versus the Nevada Wolf Pack.
Today's release represents the first phase in the 2016-17 men's basketball schedule process. The Mountain West's national television partners CBS Sports Network and ESPN, and regional partner ROOT SPORTS, will go through a selection process lasting through the middle of August. The selections may shift Wednesday games to Tuesday and Saturday games to Sunday.
An announcement about television selections will be made on SJSUSpartans.com at the appropriate time.
Additionally, the Conference announced the format for the 2017 MW Men's Basketball Championship. The tournament begins with first-round games on Wednesday March 8 and the championship game is set for 3:00 p.m. PT on Saturday, March 11. |
For me, the PC arrival of PlayStation Now—Sony’s streaming service built on the back of OnLive and Gaikai that grants players access to over 400 PS3 games— raises three fundamental questions: which PlayStation exclusives are included as part of the service? Is it worth the money? And, crucially, does it actually work?
The Last of Us, the God of War series, and Journey are a few of the best included games that help answer the first question, and more games are coming over time. But your own Internet connection very much determines whether PlayStation Now is worth paying for, and if it'll work well at all.
PlayStation Now requires a minimum connection speed of 5 Mbps. I’m pleased to report that while my connection isn’t a great deal higher than the prerequisite, I’ve been able to stream every game with minimum lag and/or dropped frames, and have been thoroughly impressed by the responsiveness of every game I’ve sampled so far. Load times can take upwards of 60 seconds to connect to a server which is a bit of a bummer, and the absence of a search feature within the main hub is a strange oversight (games are however handily collated in alphabetical order, publisher, genre and so on).
Remote servers host games via 720p video streams running at 60fps, although it's worth remembering that, despite this, you're still playing PS3 games. The Last of Us, for example, is the original PlayStation 3 variation and not the remastered 60fps PS4 one. As such, dropped frames, in my experience, were often due to games being hamstrung by last-gen technology as opposed to under-performing streams. Some games exhibited compression artifacts—groups of blurry pixels caused by reduced video feed bit-rates to facilitate streaming—however never to the point where it spoiled the games in question.
Admittedly, these drawbacks aren't things that unduly phase me personally, but they're definitely worth bearing in mind before committing to the service. The introduction of scalable bandwidth is perhaps something that would benefit those with better connections too.
I first tried the PS3 HD remake of Team Ico’s Shadow of the Colossus—one of the PlayStation’s most prized assets—and quickly forgot I wasn’t playing a native version. Alternating between my wired Xbox 360 controller and wireless DualShock 4 (the service supports most controllers and Sony plans to ship a $25 wireless USB DS4 dongle in September), I booted up The Last of Us and reveled in its superb opening chapter, before jumping into God of War 3 where I guided Kratos into his first battle against Poseidon.
Given how well these games fared from a performance perspective, I was surprised to find the odd bit of macroblocking and the occasional stutter in Journey, and it was the only game were I noticed any degree of latency. The joy of wandering around its sprawling desertscapes while bursting into the air and surfing on sand dunes via my PC overshadowed those technical issues, though.
Which, for those players who’ve already experienced these games before, is the exact desired effect Sony hopes to achieve here—playing on the novelty of seeing one-time console-exclusives dancing around on PC. There are however obvious drawbacks to this. Expanding its audience is clearly Sony’s main drive, but of the 400 games available on the service, the vast majority are already obtainable elsewhere, and the PlayStation exclusives are the service’s most appealing feature.
For players who might’ve missed PS exclusives such as Resistance 3 or Ico or Heavy Rain the first time round, there’s a great deal of fun to be had, but for everyone who's played some of these games, the novelty may wear off quickly.
At £12.99/$19.99 a month (the US and Canada can opt for a $99 per year sub) you’re given access to the entire collection—you’re not required to rent or pay for anything over and above the subscription—which is nice, but I’m not entirely convinced players will sustain subscriptions long-term once they’ve exhausted the PlayStation exclusives. Just over 24 hours into my seven day free trial, and I’m a lot less excited to sink more time into Uncharted 2, Hohokum or LocoRoco than I first was this time yesterday.
Then again, while OnLive tried and failed to be the Netflix of games a few years ago, PlayStation Now is far closer to reaching that bar in its reliability and presentation. I also get the distinct impression Sony is playing the long game here, that perhaps this is the start of something bigger, that PlayStation Now in its current guise is but a taste of things to come as it grows its library of games into the future. The death of console gaming? Not quite, but the idea that cloud gaming done right could draw players away from the hardware isn’t unfathomable.
So does it work? Again, my connection isn’t much higher than the minimum required speed and I’ve found little issue performance-wise. Is it worth it? One of the obvious benefits of streaming services is that you don’t necessarily require high-powered machines to make them work—the recommended specs can be found here—and PlayStation Now delivers on that front.
If you’re new to PlayStation gaming and have a fast enough connection (and no data cap), PlayStation Now will add a host of timeless classics to your backlog for the price of buying two new games. |
WNT
CHICAGO (Aug. 18, 2014) – Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher has replaced Ashlyn Harris on the U.S. U.S. Women’s National Team roster that will face Switzerland on Aug. 20 in front of a sold-out crowd at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina.
Harris suffered a concussion playing with the Washington Spirit on Aug. 2. While she was expected to be fully recovered in time for the Switzerland match, the U.S. Soccer and Washington Spirit medical staffs determined she will need a few more days of rest and recovery.
Naeher, who is uncapped, has made 102 saves this season for the Boston Breakers (by far the league leader) and was named the National Women’s Soccer League Player of the Week for her stellar performance in her team’s 2-0 victory against Portland Thorns FC on Aug. 10.
U.S. Women’s National Team Roster by Position
GOALKEEPERS (2): Alyssa Naeher (Boston Breakers), Hope Solo (Seattle Reign FC)
DEFENDERS (6): Crystal Dunn (Washington Spirit), Julie Johnston (Chicago Red Stars), Meghan Klingenberg (Houston Dash), Ali Krieger (Washington Spirit), Christie Rampone (Sky Blue FC), Becky Sauerbrunn (FC Kansas City)
MIDFIELDERS (6): Morgan Brian (Virginia), Lauren Holiday (FC Kansas City), Carli Lloyd (WNY Flash), Allie Long (Portland Thorns FC), Heather O’Reilly (Boston Breakers), Megan Rapinoe (Seattle Reign FC)
FORWARDS (5): Sydney Leroux (Seattle Reign FC), Alex Morgan (Portland Thorns FC), Christen Press (Chicago Red Stars), Amy Rodriguez (FC Kansas City), Abby Wambach (WNY Flash) |
View Caption Hide Caption Here's one thing Josh Richardson never does on game days. (Getty Images)
Everybody wants an answer for this.
Josh Richardson was a dreadful 3-point shooter his first two years of college, decent after that and mostly a non-factor for the Heat early this season. Somehow, though, he is on an unbelievable tear and has hit 24 of his last 30 3-pointers.
There could be a lot of explanations for his hot streak, but here’s an interesting theory: Richardson game up playing videogames all day on Heat game days.
“I never do,” he said after practice today. “I did before, but after the All-Star break I stopped.”
Why?
“I don’t know, I just felt like it was kind of distracting me and wearing my brain out on game days,” he said. “So I stopped doing it, and the results– so I’m never going to do it again. I usually go home and play FIFA or something like that.”
He hit 20 percent of his 3s before the break and is at a league-best 64.4 percent since. |
The Ferrari 488GTB is as much a study in air management as it is a garage trophy. Twin turbos coax 661 horsepower from just 3.9 liters of V-8, which propels a form that provides 50 percent less drag with 50 percent more downforce than the 458, according to Ferrari. Here's how the new mid-engine Ferrari makes the air its ally:
Ferrari
Short Stack
Two-tiered rear-fender intakes route upper airflow to the engine. What's not ingested there exits next to the taillamps to feed the wake and trim drag, while the lower flow gets ducted through two intercoolers.
Ferrari
Playing Through
What Ferrari calls a "blown rear spoiler" is a narrow fixed wing created by a slot in the body just aft of the rear glass; it directs air through to the tail to produce downforce.
Ferrari
Vortex of the Cortex
Six curved fins on the underbody, mounted adjacent to the front tires, serve as vortex generators, increasing downforce.
Ferrari
T for Three
An "aero pillar" takes high-pressure air impacting the front of the car and deflects it beneath the flat floor and to the left and right radiators.
Ferrari
Flapping in the Wind
High-mounted exhaust pipes enable a wide rear diffuser with six curved fins to spread the flow. Three hinged flaps between the fins automatically descend 17 degrees at high speed to diminish the diffuser's downforce, thereby reducing drag and lifting top speed. Ferrari claims more than 700 pounds of downforce at 155 mph.
From the September 2015 issue of Car and Driver |
The Apache Directory Project is proud to announce the very first release of Fortress-core, the core library of the Fortress project. The Apache Fortress project provides a full ANSI RBAC compliant management and enforcement system that builds on existing open source applications like ApacheDS, OpenLDAP and Apache Tomcat. It is a standards-based and open source IAM system that provides ANSI RBAC (INCITS 359) management and enforcement capabilities to networked applications and systems. It's still a release-candidate, and will be follow soon by a GA. We are working on releasing Fortress-realm, Fortress-enMasse and Fortress-Commander in the next few weeks. Here is the list of fixed issues since the code has been injected into the ASF repository: Bugs : ------ * [FC-6](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-6) - delPermObjs causes LDAP 80 error * [FC-8](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-8) - Add SSD Constraint check to updateRole * [FC-9](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-9) - CreateSession error on ApacheDS and Ubuntu 32 * [FC-11](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-11) - MDB Error during deletion * [FC-12](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-12) - Delete descendant role error * [FC-37](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-37) - Accelerator jar is refering to a SNAPSHOT version of the released LDAP API * [FC-39](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-39) - Cleanup NPE during ldap pool init * [FC-47](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-47) - OrganizationalUnitDao create attribute syntax violation * [FC-49](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-49) - The J2eePolicyMgrImpl.createSession() class stores the wront type into the context * [FC-54](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-54) - Benchmark activities * [FC-57](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-57) - Fortress testCreateSession fails negative test * [FC-58](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-58) - Selenium Firefox Driver hangs on Ubuntu 14.04 * [FC-60](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-60) - Add RFC2307bis attributes to User @XmlType * [FC-63](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-63) - Search only returns 100 * [FC-64](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-64) - AdminRoleDAO.unload has NPE * [FC-65](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-65) - Turn off Fortress audit and pw policy test cases * [FC-67](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-67) - Fix config switch for slapd attributes * [FC-70](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-70) - remove dummy object from web lists * [FC-74](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-74) - DSD checking on hierarchical relationships incorrect * [FC-80](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-80) - Fix logout for unauthorized users Improvements : -------------- * [FC-7](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-7) - Enhance Role Assignment Func * [FC-22](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-22) - Switch to junit 4.11 * [FC-23](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-23) - Make the PasswordPolicy code to work with ApacheDS * [FC-24](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-24) - Add the missing serialVersionUID for Serializable classes * [FC-25](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-25) - Improve the way Factories create instances * [FC-31](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-31) - Add sortvals to slapd.conf * [FC-44](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-44) - Define a LdapPool configuration taht does not validate connections * [FC-45](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-45) - Normalize fortress test policies * [FC-48](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-48) - remove log4j from realm impl * [FC-55](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-55) - Backup Accelerator Session DB on recreate * [FC-56](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-56) - Fix Documentation * [FC-59](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-59) - Modify sample Fortress Rest Server policy * [FC-62](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-62) - Update ant dependencies * [FC-66](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-66) - add panel headers * [FC-68](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-68) - Rename config artifacts * [FC-69](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-69) - Sort lists in fortress web * [FC-71](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-71) - add description field to permission page * [FC-72](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-72) - display select to info panel * [FC-82](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-82) - upgrade CXF in rest component * [FC-83](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-83) - Cleanup core test processing * [FC-84](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-84) - Add console and cli to mvn * [FC-87](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-87) - mavenize jmeter tests * [FC-88](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-88) - Upgrade to JGraphT 0.9.1 New Features : -------------- * [FC-50](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-50) - Add password policy support * [FC-78](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-78) - add deserializer to realm policymgr Tasks : ------- * [FC-2](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-2) - Fulfill the IP Clearance form * [FC-30](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-30) - UnboundID SDK removal preparations * [FC-40](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FC-40) - Use the LDAP API constants instead of GlobalIDs constants when possible You can download the source and jars on http://directory.apache.org/fortress/downloads.html Thanks ! -- Regards, Cordialement, Emmanuel Lécharny www.iktek.com |
The Best Christmas Present Ever Is...
...the one bought at the Book and DVD Sale November 26-28th, 2015 sponsored by the Friends of the Library, South Chapter.
Does your Aunt Ida really want a scented candle for Christmas?
Does your best friend Tim really need another pair of socks?
Do you really want to give your niece a gift card?
No No No!
Instead, why not buy them a gently used, very good condition gift book, cookbook, children's book or previously viewed DVD or DVD sets. It's a cash only sale and all proceeds benefit Toronto Public Library.
Friends of Toronto Public Library, South Chapter
Thursday, November 26, 9:30 a.m - 8 p.m
Friday, November 27, 9 a.m - 7 p.m
Saturday, November 28, 9 a.m - 4 p.m
Beeton Auditorium, Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street
All proceeds benefit library programs.
For more info and volunteer opportunities, call 416-397-5948 or email
friendssouthchapter @ torontopubliclibrary.ca
To get in the mood please also visit the Half Price Sale at Book Ends North Chapter at the North York Central Branch.
If you can't make the sales, there are plenty of bargains at the two Friends' bookstores:
Did you know the Friends of Toronto Public Library have over 100 volunteers and that together, every year they dedicate over 11,500 hours of service? It is through their support and dedication that to date, the Friends of Toronto Public Library, North and South Chapters have jointly raised over $2 million in support of Toronto Public Library programs. You can buy both donated items and materials withdrawn from the library's collection. Money raised from sales is used to support library programs and services.
For further information, visit our website to volunteer or donate material. |
The sign language interpreter accused of "making up" hand gestures at Nelson Mandela's memorial service has faced charges of murder, rape, kidnapping and theft, it was reported today.
Court records uncovered by the South African news channel eNCA reported that Thamsanqa Jantjie has faced a string of criminal charges since 1994, and was accused of murder in 2003.
The conclusion of the murder case remains unclear, as the court files of the trial have been discovered empty. It has been alleged however that many of the charges brought against Jantjie were dropped due to him being deemed mentally unfit for trial.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
Jantjie, who stood beside world leaders including Barack Obama as they paid their tributes to Mandela last Tuesday, caused controversy after it was reported that he had interpreted the speeches completely inaccurately. Responding to the claims, Jantjie claimed that he was schizophrenic, and was suffering from a hallucination at the time.
The records uncovered by eNCA have now raised further questions over Jantjie participation in the service, revealing that he was acquitted for rape in 1994, but convicted for theft a year later, and sentenced to three years in jail.
The records also show that over nine years Jantjie faced seven separate charges, including rape, theft, housebreaking, malicious damage to property, murder, and kidnapping.
Video: Interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe now |
The West Aurora School District in Illinois is attempting to cut its school librarians to be replaced with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education. This move is shortsighted at best and lacks an understanding of the importance of Information Literacy Skills for students who are growing up in the “Information Age.” Not only do school librarians teach children to love reading, a critical foundation skill for education of all kinds, but they also teach students to critically analyze the information that they are being constantly inundated with. Without this skill, students will not have the skills they need to navigate an information saturated world.
PARCC Scores
What is even more frightening is that these cuts to the library are coming at a time when the students in West Aurora are drastically underperforming in the English Language Assessment of PARCC. It has been proven through a multitude of studies that a strong library program has a direct and drastic positive influence on student test scores in areas of reading, English, and literacy. This means that these cuts to the school library in West Aurora are even more devastating for the students and further ensuring that they will not gain the skills that they need in this district.
The Importance of School Libraries
School libraries staffed by full-time professional staff are incredibly important to academic life and study after study have proven that fact. Over the past 20 years, numerous studies have shown that elementary schools with at least one full-time certified teacher-librarian performed better on state tests. In a 2010 study conducted in Colorado, more children scored "proficient" or "advanced" in reading in schools with a full-time, credentialed librarian than those without. In an article published in 2015, the authors reviewed a multitude of studies that consistently show that students who have a full-time librarian in their schools perform better on their reading and writing scores than those who don’t have one. One study, "Pennsylvania School Libraries Pay Off: Investments in Student Achievement and Academic Standards", revealed that students with full-time librarians in their schools are almost three times as likely to have “advanced” writing scores, compared to those students without full-time librarians.
For more information about the importance of school libraries, please take a look at this website. |
The more social media you use, the higher the likelihood that you’ll be anxious or depressed.
At least according to the University of Pittsburgh Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health. In a study published online this month with more than 1,700 millennial adults, it found people who report using seven to 11 social media platforms had more than three times the risk of depression or anxiety than millennials who use zero to two platforms.
The participants were asked about the most popular social media platforms in 2014, the year the study was conducted, which included Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine, and LinkedIn. Those who used more than seven platforms showed higher levels of depressive symptoms, even when researchers controlled for factors like race, gender, relationship status, household income, education, and total time spent on social media. (All of which could also influence depression and anxiety.)
The lead author of the study, Brian A. Primack, clarified that the correlation is not certain. As he told PsyPost:
It may be that people who suffer from symptoms of depression or anxiety, or both, tend to subsequently use a broader range of social media outlets. For example, they may be searching out multiple avenues for a setting that feels comfortable and accepting. However, it could also be that trying to maintain a presence on multiple platforms may actually lead to depression and anxiety. More research will be needed to tease that apart.
According to the Pew Research Center, more than half of the adults online use more than one social media platform with favorites including Facebook, which more than 83 percent of millennials report using according to the Harvard Institute of Politics; Instagram, which 53 percent of female millennials use; and Snapchat, which is popular among younger millennials. According to Global Web Index, millennials report having an average of five social media accounts.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness found in a report that 5 million college-aged millennials alone suffer from depression, suicidal thoughts, and other mental illnesses. |
Mark Duffy, best known by his nom de plume “Copyranter,” has been fired from BuzzFeed, he tweeted on Friday.
“Got fired from BuzzFeed this week (my content wasn’t “BuzzFeedy” enough). Already freelancing, I want a full-time gig,” Duffy said.
Duffy was longtime copywriter for an ad agency whose anonymous “Copyranter” blog criticized the industry in which he worked. BuzzFeed took him on in April 2012, one of editor-in-chief Ben Smith’s first big hires as the site began to ramp up its journalism.
Also read: AOL Slashes Jonas Brothers-Founded Site Cambio in Layoffs (Exclusive)
At the time, Smith said Duffy was the perfect fit for the site: “Mark’s coverage of the ad industry has been provoking ‘OMG,’ ‘WTF’ and, often, ‘FAIL’ reactions for years, and have been all over my personal blog, BuzzFeed, and much of the Internet and the social web. He was here in spirit long before he started work, and I’m thrilled he’s joining us.”
Duffy has three more weeks at BuzzFeed, he posted on Facebook.
BuzzFeed declined comment, as did Duffy.
“I’ve got my own story to tell,” he told TheWrap. |
BILL Shorten insists he’s not a “rampant greenie” and believes coal has a place in Australia’s future.
The Opposition leader on Monday visited Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, where the Hazelwood coal-fired power station is set to close in early 2017.
“I am not a rampant ‘greenie’ who thinks there is no place for fossil fuel in our energy mix in the future,” Mr Shorten told reporters, adding the Government needed a plan to find jobs for workers as the power industry modernised.
“They need to make the power companies understand this should be a transition for the workforce affected by change,” the Labor leader said.
“Haven’t they learnt anything from the American election results — where you abandon hard working, working class communities and provide no support for them, that is when people get angry at mainstream politics.”
Mr Shorten suggested a system of voluntary redundancy for workers at the end of their career, and took the opportunity to push for the Government to “prioritise building Australian, buying Australian and employing Australian”.
He added if Australia was to take action on climate change, it would need greater support for renewable energy.
Australia will review its policies on energy and climate next year after the Government last week ratified the Paris agreement, which commits countries to work towards limiting global warming to two degrees and set five-yearly targets for cutting emissions.
Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop and Environment Minister Josh Frydenburg are in Marrakesh this week for UN talks on climate change. |
Beer brewers have some early mornings, but not usually this early. It's about 2 a.m. one day in November at Indie Ale House, in Toronto’s Junction district, and as you approach the brewing kettles it gets more and more humid. Water drips from the ceiling in the brewing room.
A new shift of brewers comes in at 6 a.m. to relieve the overnight crew. One pours himself a beer from one of Indie’s taps when he arrives. Indie’s head brewer is sleeping on the floor, on an air mattress he'd brought in for the occasion. By the time he wakes up, around 9 a.m., the air is thick and smells of sourdough bread. The beer is almost ready to go.
The brewers are pulling this all-nighter for a very special reason: to make a “wildly fermented,” Belgian lambic-style beer. Soon they'll start transferring the beer into kegs and loading it onto a truck, at which point they'll drive the beer out to a winery in Prince Edward County and unload it into "coolships" — large, open vessels — to let it cool outside overnight. (The brewers will spend their night in tents nearby.) In this way, the brewers say, the beer can collect the wild yeasts in the air.
Lambic beers are a type of sour beer, a variety that has popped up on restaurant and bar menus across Ontario in the last year and is gaining in popularity. Sour beers are one of the oldest styles of beer in the world. Before we had modern sanitation, all beers were slightly sour, because “good” bacteria and wild yeasts were added during the beer-making process. They give the beer a slightly acidic or tart taste.
Lambic beers in particular taste “a bit like a goat smells and draws in your cheeks as if you’ve seen something saucy happening in the pantry,” according to two beer writers at The Telegraph. “With their dryness, sourness and acute acidity, they’re closer in character to cider or fine sherry, while the method of their production is closer to winemaking than brewing.”
It’s a risky, time-consuming, and labour-intensive process. But “the idea is to do something hard,” says Jason Fisher, owner of Indie Ale House.
“This is a beer like no other,” says Fisher. “The process is very different in all aspects. It replicates what brewers did in a small region of Belgium hundreds of years ago.”
It’s also unusual in that it wasn’t just Indie Ale House working on its own beer. Three other Ontario breweries — Amsterdam Brewing, Great Lakes Brewery, and Sawdust City Brewing — were there, too, collaborating on this once-a-year project.
Making sour beers is complex. “You can do them quick and easy or you can do them properly,” says Fisher. He says you can turn around a low-quality sour beer in eight days, but a quality sour beer takes three years. Doing it right produces an “order of magnitude of difference,” he says.
Sour beers done right have a complex flavour that can be likened more to the layers of flavour of wine, says Fisher. For this wildly fermented beer, the aging in barrels will be closer to four years.
Read more:
These breweries started doing this four years ago. Their beer from that first batch is ready to go now, Fisher says — it just has yet to be blended.
It’s a riskier proposition than traditional ales or IPAs; there are more things that could go wrong in the making. Fisher says his loss rate is much higher on sour beers because while usually you know what you’re going to get when you put certain ingredients together, with sours “you have no idea.” That’s because this beer style is almost anti-scientific: the brewers have little control over how the bacteria or yeasts will affect the final product. It’s difficult to predict and even harder to replicate.
That also means it’s a terrible way to make money. Out of the five barrels of beer they brewed four years ago, Fisher estimates, they will probably end up using two. One barrel, he says, “tasted like rocket fuel.”
But the collaboration among these four brewers means that they can share the risk.
Some brewers in the United States have tried this, Fisher says, but he is not aware of any others in Canada.
Sour beer is expected to keep growing in popularity in Ontario: the LCBO reports that sales are growing at a brisk 89 per cent, year over year.
“We have committed to increased quantities on some products we purchase each year," says Genevieve Tomney, a media relations coordinator for the LCBO. "We are also seeing more sour beers being produced locally.” During Toronto Beer Week in September, Indie Ale House had a sour watermelon beer on tap at the Summerhill LCBO. “It was delicious and sold really well,” Tomney says.
Photo: Sarah Reid Fermenting in a brew kettle is just a small part of the years-long process of making sour beer. Photo: Sarah Reid Old hops are put in cheesecloths and then soaked in the fermenting beer. Photo: Sarah Reid Brewers watch the beer kettles overnight; at 9 a.m. it will be ready to pour into kegs. Photo: Sarah Reid The kegs being filled will be shipped to a special location for an odd but important step in the sour beer process. Photo: Sarah Reid. From Toronto, the beer will head to a winery in Prince Edward County to cool outside in large, open vessels overnight. Photo: Sarah Reid. Sour beer is so difficult to produce, there's no guarantee at the end of the years-long process that the beer will be drinkable.
The popularity of sour beers started to rise sharply in 2012 in the United States, says Matthew Miller, creator of sourbeerblog.com. “When these beers were obscure, people simply never had the opportunity to taste good examples,” he says. “As they slowly gained popularity amongst brewers, the market eventually reached a tipping point where many craft beer fans got the chance to try good examples and in turn developed a love for these beers.”
“The balance of sourness against malt sweetness or graininess is a flavour combo that people can relate to," he says, "much like wine or lemonade.”
Ontario beer trends tend to track about six or eight years behind the U.S., says Jason Fisher.
But the flavour is polarizing. It seems that beer drinkers either love it or hate it, and there’s not much middle ground.
“Sour beers, I think, still shock people,” says Fisher. “There’s a joke amongst writers and beer experts that if a brewery makes a beer that’s gone off they call it Belgian, and if it’s gone really off they call it sour. And that’s not untrue to some extent. But even a really good, world-class sour beer will still freak a lot of people out.”
Brewing lambic beer “requires a lot of planning and very specific weather conditions so we get the right temperature range,” he explains.
But beyond that, Fisher says they don’t know much more now than Belgian brewers did hundreds of years ago. “You don’t have enough data as a brewer to know it all yet. The process is a lot more wild and subject to variables you can’t control. In brewing you try to control every variable,” he says. “Sours, you’re like, ‘Leave it open, let’s see what happens, don’t clean that.’”
It’s a brewing process unlike any other, where you’re meant to do everything wrong. It will be four years before we know whether, instead, they did everything right.
Sarah Reid is a freelance journalist and a recent graduate of the Munk Fellowship in Global Journalism at the University of Toronto. |
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Paul Konerko has been an iconic player for the Chicago White Sox since 1999. I sat down with the “King” for a quick Q&A session.
Who is your favorite teammate of all time?
PK: A lot of guys come to mind but Mark Buehrle would have to be my final answer if you are holding me to one player. We were together for a long time, over 12 years as a matter of fact. Great pitcher and even better person.
Funniest teammate?
PK: That question is a little easier. Ross Gload always would make me laugh. He had a real dry sense of humor and his locker was next to mine. James Baldwin was hilarious in a different way you can’ t really talk about, but really in your face. Ross never smiles or laughs; he is total deadpan with his delivery.
How does Camp Ventura differ from the Guillen years?
PK: It’s been very good -- well run. I’d say a little more work on the fields and in drills, a little more sweat going on. Robin and the new coaches are well prepared. I have not seen any glaring mistakes that you might expect with a first-year staff.
Who is in charge of staring into the stands now that Ozzie is gone?
PK: It has to be a pitcher because they have so much down time between starts. My candidates are Jake (Peavy) or (John) Danks, but nobody can see everything like Ozzie did.
If you were Commissioner for a day what would you change about baseball?
PK: I would cut it down to 150-game season. They made a lot of changes in the past 20 years and that one would give every team at least one day off a week. I know that changes the gates and changes the money, but the players would be better rested and you may see a better product going down the stretch. You might see people more into it if it was not so smothering each day. |
Johannesburg - A magistrate has to pay R115 000 of damages plus interest out of her own pocket to a convicted fraudster after she refused to hear her bail application because it was in Afrikaans, according to Rapport.
North Gauteng High Court judge Cynthia Pretorius ruled that Magistrate Hasina Habib's dishonesty during the case of Annalize du Plessis, 43, in the Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court in 2009 was "blatant", the Afrikaans weekly reported.
Pretorius found that had Habib done her work properly, as was expected of her, she would have heard Du Plessis's bail application.
Du Plessis was arrested in 2009 for R5.2m fraud and appeared before Habib on 3 April, when she postponed the bail application till 9 April.
On the day, Du Plessis's lawyer told the court that her client's affidavit was written Afrikaans but that it would be interpreted for Habib.
Habib reportedly refused saying it was an English court and also told the lawyer her behaviour was arrogant.
Then Habib refused to listen to the lawyer because she was dissatisfied with her attire.
According to the report, Habib also ignored a plea to allow Du Plessis to present her own bail application and she postponed the matter to 14 April.
Pretorius found that Habib was not faithful to the oath she took as a magistrate, deliberately making Du Plessis spend the Easter weekend in jail.
The high court judge also ordered that the minister of justice and correctional services pay Du Plessis R30 000 in damages.
Habib's application for leave to appeal against Pretorius's judgment was dismissed. |
CLOSE Chris Cruz, Bradley Smith, and Phil Golobish talk about their arcade game Skycurser. Kelly Wilkinson/IndyStar
A screenshot of "Skycurser," a brand-new game built to look like an old-school arcade game. (Photo: Submitted by Skycurser)
The scene inside Tappers the Saturday night of Gen Con was exactly what you'd expect for a bar arcade during the biggest gaming convention in the country: more crowded than usual, but with a nerdier, more nostalgic rabble, largely made up of dudes in their late 20s to early-40s.
Every vintage arcade game inside the 5-month-old bar was occupied. Gamers with craft beers hovered and waited for their chance to play the likes of "Donkey Kong," "Galaga," "X-Men" and an unfamiliar game near the front of the barcade: "Skycurser."
Unlike those well-known arcade games of the '80s and '90s, "Skycurser" is only about two years old — but you wouldn’t have known by looking at it. The game has a slanted, all-caps block logo flanked by eyeballs with extraocular muscles and a red-eyed skull. The pixel-art, side-scrolling game features a protagonist on an alien-blasting jet.
"Skycurser" was far from out of place among its brethren at Tappers, and that’s how its three developers intended it to be.
"We wanted people to feel like in 2016 they had discovered a game that they had missed in the early ’90s," “Skycurser” technical director Brad Smith, 35, said. "That's what we wanted to really achieve."
"Skycurser" is more than a game to Smith, creative director Chris Cruz, 34, and producer Phil Golobish, 34. It's a representation of an effort to encourage other developers to make similar games. The trio want to spur an arcade revival and the social, in-person relationships arcades can create.
Buy Photo Phil Golobish plays Skycurser at Tappers Arcade Bar, Thursday, September 1, 2016. He is one of the three people who developed the arcade game. (Photo: Kelly Wilkinson /IndyStar)
"It builds community in a way the home console can’t build community," Smith says.
In an arcade, you can’t avoid interacting with the people around you.
Cruz and Golobish met more than 15 years ago through mutual friends and a mutual love of gaming. They created their first, but unoriginal, arcade game that summer. In 2013, when the two were coworkers at a digital marketing firm, the idea for "Skycurser" emerged.
"We went for a run, and then all through the run we just kept talking about all the things we wanted to do in a video game," Golobish said. "We nailed down the whole concept almost two and a half years ago, and after we went for a run, we probably almost definitely came straight to this bar and started drinking."
By February 2014, the pair reached out to Smith, a co-worker, and storyboarding for a video game began. This game, this new video game, would feature 8-bit graphics, tube monitors and, yes, a joystick.
***
Cruz: Nobody ever gets the name right.
Golobish: "Man, I really love that new Sky Cruiser game!"
Cruz: I wanted it to feel like something you would name a sword or a car.
Golobish: First it was "Sky Burst" because you burst the enemy. We were on the second floor of a mansion that I used to be that caretaker of. And we were looking out on the lake, and Chris and I were just pacing back and forth.
Cruz: Seriously pacing, like stressed.
Golobish: Pacing back and forth, stressed about what to call this thing, mostly because we were like, we gotta make sure it works in every country. We were, like, the Japanese gotta love it, the Germans gotta love, everybody’s gotta love this name. And we blew it because nobody can remember it. [laughing]
Smith: No, we didn’t blow it. Because people have to go figure out what it’s actually called.
***
Buy Photo Chris Cruz, from left, Bradley Smith, and Phil Golobish talk about arcade games at Keystone Sports Review, Thursday, August 25, 2016. The three are developing an arcade game called Skycurser. (Photo: Kelly Wilkinson /IndyStar)
Each left that marketing firm that year. Golobish now runs his own logistics service company. Smith is a senior software engineer at Oracle. Cruz is digital marketer at Bluelock, a cloud-based data management company. But they continued working and plotting "Skycurser" after hours, mostly at their neighborhood bars such as Keystone Sports Review or the Pawn Shop Pub.
The trio released the game in stages to specific arcades to get feedback and to feel out interest online from arcade owners and players around the world.
"When we got to a point when we had just barely enough to make a game, and we said it's going to be an arcade game, it instantly got international coverage," Cruz says. "There was just a huge reaction to the fact that these guys seem like they’re somewhat serious and they are 100 percent focused on the arcade as the platform. The response that we got just from the fact that we were committing to this arcade platform was so overwhelming that we were like, we might be onto something."
In July 2015, they sold their first cabinet to an arcade in Chicago. Now, the game is in 20 spots around the world, including two in Indianapolis, one in Germany and two in France.
They were onto something, said Adam Pratt, who has a "Skycurser" game in the old-school mall arcade he owns in Salt Lake City called Game Grid.
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"It does look like it came straight out of 1995," said Pratt, who also runs popular arcade website www.arcadeheroes.com. "Their art is really good in that regard. It's really just playing on the nostalgia of a lot of people who grew up in the '70s and '80s and '90s and just like that feel of the games."
Pratt, who wrote "The Arcade Experience: A Look At Modern Arcades and Why They Still Matter," said old games will always have a draw, but it's the new ones that will keep customers.
"As I've learned through the retro craze is that while there's a lot of hype for the old games and for memories, what people end up playing are the new games," Pratt said.
The new games still have the same challenges the old games do. "That's what all those games in the ’80s had: They had to convince these players in a few seconds that it was worth their quarters."
***
Smith: We're basically trying to tell a story. Guy Griffin is the hero. He's the last human on Earth. Is that what we were saying?
[Golobish nods.]
Smith: He basically has, through a series of events, realized that mutants are trying to consume the Earth’s resources, and he’s gotta be the last person to stand in the way so these mutants from outer space don't take over another world.
Golobish: And what’s his main weapon that he uses to fight off mutants, Brad?
Smith: I mean, well, he uses lots of different weapons.
Cruz: The Skycurser! Smith: Yeah, yeah, Skycurser. It’s the name of the jet.
***
A screenshot from "Skycurser," a modern-day arcade video game with an old-school feel. (Photo: Submitted by Skycurser)
There's a simple explanation why so many people are into the retro feel they get from a joystick, pixel art and loud arcades, Golobish said: "It's 'cause kids are old now, man. Everybody who was a kid is old now. And back then, their parents were like, 'No more quarters.' Now you're like, I have infinite quarters, and I can drink beer and I have irresponsible adult credit card money."
Making the game itself fulfilled a lifelong goal, but it's also part of a larger, much more noble endeavor to bring back the community they had when they went to arcades as kids.
"We grew up in the arcade," Cruz said. "I always wanted to be in the arcade. Especially in the late '80s and early-'90s, the games in the arcade were still way superior to what was at home."
They would socialize there. They would cheer, shake hands, laugh and interact, face-to-face. They would make friends.
“It's 'cause kids are old now, man. Everybody who was a kid is old now.” Phil Golobish
"The community aspect of it is way better than you could ever build," Smith said. "No matter how you could connect online with a console now, you’re still connecting face-to-face in the arcade."
Interaction thrives in an arcade environment, and they want to help bring that back.
"End goal is to have the arcade scene be vibrant again," Golobish said. "The arcade is still fun. Whenever you go to the arcade, do you ever see anybody having a bad time? I don't. I think end goal is the arcade as a viable platform for gaming. There’s no reason it can't be."
Bringing arcades back won’t be easy, and at-home consoles might still be a barrier, says arcade game collector Brian Ho, 41. The Noblesville resident started collecting in 2003 and has 16 games.
"Speaking to arcade machines and my collection of them, it's easy to see that arcades are downright scarce these days as compared to their heyday in the '80s and '90s," said Ho, a technical support specialist at DyKnow, a cloud-sharing company for educators. "I think this is largely driven by the fact that in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the games in arcades were usually superior to what you could play at home because they had the advantage of the specialized hardware contained in the arcade cabinet. But now computers and game consoles have gotten so powerful that it is easy for them to deliver a graphic and sound experience equal to (often better than) what you can play in an arcade."
Jeff Moulton, who co-owns Tappers, is banking on a revival. He says he often sees people crowd around any one of the 49 games in the bar, including “Skycurser,” and hears cheers as a player is doing well.
"They're amusement machines," Moulton said. "It's a part of our culture that we lost for a while."
***
Golobish: I’m going to go into some weird territory. Do we wanna do this? Are we gonna do this?
Cruz: Yeah, go for it.
Smith, shrugging: Why not.
Golobish: When we were growing up, when “Mortal Kombat” came out, it was like a political thing. They were like, “Oh no, we have to create this new rating system.” So you have this rating system that comes out to protect players against the game developers. So the game developers were like, “Oh, we’re going to make this really nasty, bloody thing.” And that’s really what it was. It was nasty and bloody. Arguably, and this is something that I don’t think people can really, there’s no way to plan this, but as soon as you started allowing players to interact via the internet on the same game where they were anonymous, the amount of bullying, name-calling, racism, bigotry, homophobia that becomes this new medium for players is, in my mind, I can’t even. How many times can you hear people say, like, truly nasty, truly horrific things to strangers via the internet. That is outrageous to me.
Cruz: I can go back to, like, times when you’d play “Street Fighter.” That was my game back in the day, and you’d wait in line and you’d play a guy and he’d beat you or you’d beat him and you’d literally shake hands because there was a level of mutual respect.
Golobish: Because it was like, oh, this person is standing next to me, am I going to say some weird, bigoted, homophobic racial things?
Cruz: Absolutely not.
Golobish: So bring back the physical.
***
The three knew that "Skycurser" alone can't bring back the face-to-face interaction afforded by arcades. They would have to create the hardware to allow other developers to make their own cabinet arcade games.
So they did.
"It was like, if we’re going to put the work in to make 'Skycurser' right, let’s do this the right way so that it can pave the way for other people to get involved," Smith said.
Golobish created a hardware "box" that can be shipped anywhere and fits into an arcade standard that allows most cabinets of the '80s and '90s to play it. It sells for $600, and it connects to Wi-Fi for updates and downloads. They'll build and sell the full cabinet, too, for $3,000.
"We make the game, the actual code that runs the game itself. But then, mostly because we’re crazy, we make the hardware that runs the game, too," Golobish said. "I was trying to explain it in the simplest terms the other day, and if you think of it as not only do we make 'Super Mario Brothers,' we also make the Nintendo."
They use old tube TVs, too, called CRTs, which now are very rare, Golobish said.
"It's an art form that if the technology doesn’t exist anymore, will just die, and that’s just kind of a bummer," he said. "There's nothing else like it. Nobody's making an LCD and trying to make it look like an old TV."
***
Cruz: I'm going to brag because I grew up with Sony products around me. We actually were just invited to join Sony's developer network a year ago, and we just literally sat on the invitation. It was one of the most surreal experience of my life because we’re so used to having intense business conversations.
Golobish: Oh man, we crushed these conversations we were having. We were just like, "What’s the ROI gonna be?"
Cruz: Yeah, and so we had this conversation with Sony …
Golobish: 'Cap tables, what do the cap tables look like?
Cruz: And after we got off the phone, I was like, did we just like, I was just expecting him to be throwing all these really, like, hard questions at us that we couldn’t answer. And we were just so overprepared that I was like, “Did we just, like, outbusiness Sony just now?” But, so we sat on that invite because we didn’t know what we wanted to do with it.
Golobish: Because the game’s not done.
***
Yes, the "Skycurser" team has some pretty lofty save-the-arcades goals, but they're also realistic about their future. They went on a quest to develop an arcade game that would make their 12-year-old selves proud, and they know they’ve got plenty of audiences outside the cabinet-playing gamers to reach. With some minor tweaks, they could have the game available on other platforms such as Playstation, Nintendo, Xbox or the iPhone.
"I would want you to be able to play ‘Skycurser’ on your phone or on your computer or wherever and be like, 'This is a great game,'" Cruz said.
Just creating an app would have been easier, but with such saturation in smartphone games, they knew they would have less of a chance of standing out.
"It's not like that we don’t like the home experience or the mobile experience," he said. "It’s just everybody's already servicing the home and mobile experience."
For now, they have accomplished their top goal: to create a badass, bloody video game.
"It's cool to see people from our community making stuff like this that we normally associate people out West in California making stuff like this,” said Nate Gonzales, general manager of the Sinking Ship bar on 96th Street, which has one of the games.
The game doesn’t draw as many players as when it arrived in the spring. Still, customers often ask about the gory new-school, old-school arcade game on the side of the bar.
The brainchild of Cruz, Golobish and Smith is getting attention.
"They did exactly what they wanted to do," Gonzales said. "They made an '80s arcade game that's super fun to play."
Call IndyStar reporter Amy Bartner at (317) 444-6752. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/2cFWGc0 |
File this one under “Grey’s Anatomy‘s Triangles We Never Thought We’d See.”
Series creator Shonda Rhimes tells TVLine that, in Season 11, Meredith, of all people — yes, Meredith, that Meredith — is going to throw a monkey wrench into Alex and Jo’s still-nascent romance.
“Jo is going to be horrified to discover how much time Alex is going to be spending with Meredith,” she previews, “and how much time Meredith is going to be spending [at their] house.”
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And, no doubt, Jo will ask the same question we have: Why is this happening? Why, when the drama returns on Sept. 25, will Alex and Mer be joined at the hip? The answer: Cristina.
“Alex feels responsible for her,” Rhimes explains. “He feels like Cristina didn’t just leave him a seat on the board and the shares, she left him Meredith as well.”
RELATED Grey’s Anatomy End Date Update: Will Season 11 Be the Show’s Last?
And, since Mer will not only be dealing with Cristina’s absence and trouble with Derek but also (eventually) the revelation that she has another half sister, she is going to need a (strictly platonic) shoulder to lean on and an ear to bend.
“The two people she talked to before — her husband and her best friend — are now not available to her,” notes Rhimes. “So she’s looking for someone to talk to. And Alex finds himself in the uncomfortable position of being the recipient of a lot of the stuff that Cristina would have been left listening to — sometimes in very funny ways.
“They’re the last men standing of those original interns,” Rhimes continues. “I wouldn’t say they’re becoming besties. [It’s more that] they’ve always had a very close relationship that didn’t ever need a lot of work because they always had a million other people there. Now, it’s sort of the two of them, and they do become closer.” |
These tangled carbon nanotubes can harvest energy directly from breathing and ocean waves
This yarn might not make the best sweater, but when pulled, it does something even better: It generates electricity. An international team of scientists made the new material, called “twistron harvesters,” by tying a carbon nanotube string into a tangled weave of carbon and submerging it into an electrolyte gel. When covered in the gel and pulled, the carbon nanotubes squeeze together and generate a small current—enough to momentarily light up a light-emitting diode (as you can see in the video above). The researchers found that the twistron could harvest power directly from ocean waves or—when sewn into a shirt—from the wearer’s breathing motion, they report today in Science . More power can be generated if the harvesters are hooked up together, with peak power generation reaching 250 watts per kilogram. Because of their scalable nature, the researchers say these carbon nanotube yarns could be used anywhere reliable kinetic energy is available. |
At a campaign rally in Mesa, Arizona, today, Donald Trump, discussing reports that several asylum seekers in Norway had images of ISIS flags on their cell phones, wondered how the refugees got access to mobile phones in the first place.
“First of all, why are people in a migration having cell phones?” Trump asked. “It’s sort of strange. Who’s paying for those cell phones? Where are they coming from? Who are they calling? These are people — can you imagine, many, many, many cell phones. Where do they get cell phones? Who pays their monthly bill?”
One woman in the crowd incessantly shouted, “Obama!”
Trump also declared that Syrian refugees in the U.S. are “all going back” if he’s elected president.
This led him to claim that he has the support of a majority of Hispanic voters because they don’t want to be “overrun by people pouring across the borders.” |
Joseph Schlichter performing Trisha Brown's "Man Walking Down the Side of a Building" in and around 80 Wooster Street, New York City, on April 18, 1970. Photo courtesy TBDC.
In 1970, choreographer Trisha Brown sent a man down the side of a building. Suspended from a single cable, he descended, not sprawled like Spiderman, but straight and fully perpendicular to the building's façade. The piece challenged our assumptions about the body's relationship to the city (and for that matter, gravity), but it was also a dance. Titled simply "Man Walking Down the Side of a Building," it took place outdoors, had no recognizable choreography beyond the imperative to "walk," and featured a performer, Joseph Schlichter, who wore street clothes. If this work could be considered a "dance," then almost anything could. That, in large part, was the point.
We have come to think of a dance performance as a set of carefully choreographed movements, set to music, executed with superb technique by amazingly sculpted bodies on a theatrical stage. But what if dance could be any movement, executed by anybody, anywhere? Would it still be dance? And how would we recognize it? By completely confounding expectations, Brown posed these fundamental questions, blurring the boundary between dance and the rhythms and movements of everyday life.
Video of Elizabeth Streb discussing "Man Walking Down the Side of a Building" as part of "Off the Wall: Part 2--Seven Works by Trisha Brown" at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2010 .
Now, such site-specific works are undergoing another fundamental shift: from the street to the museum. Three of Brown's early dances will be performed in April as part of a retrospective organized by UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance. Two of these will take place at museums: the Hammer Museum and the Getty Center. If taking dance off the stage blurred the boundary between art and life, inserting it into a museum gallery raises other questions. What is the difference between dance and performance art? Does installing it in a museum turn it into a living art object? Or perhaps just an artifact of its former, more radical self?
From March 30 to April 21, the Hammer Museum will display "Floor of the Forest," a work that also dates from 1970. It consists of a grid of ropes from which hang various pieces of clothing. At specified times, dancers will work their way over, across and through this network, climbing on the ropes and stretching out the clothing. Is it dance? Performance art? A sculpture? Or all three?
These questions are intriguing because in recent years, dance has become an increasingly vital part of museum exhibitions. Traditionally programmed as auxiliary events, dance performances are often now the main attraction, taking place in the galleries, not the theater.
For example, in 2010, the Hayward Gallery in London organized "Move: Choreographing You," which turned viewers into dancers with interactive works that explored the relationship between visual arts and dance. The following year, Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art mounted "Dance/Draw," about the relationship between drawing and dance. Last summer, choreographer Benjamin Millepied danced through the galleries at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art in a duet with Amanda Wells. And in the fall, New York's Museum of Modern Art presented "Some sweet day," a series of dance performances in the building's atrium.
Dance's ability to literally activate a space accounts in part for its appeal to museum curators. As museums are under increasing pressure to mount more relevant and crowd-pleasing exhibitions, they are exploring new ways to engage viewers. One strategy is to offer more participatory experiences, such as the Thai food stands, coffee bars, or playground slides created by artists like Rirkrit Tiravanija and Carsten Höller. Somewhat pompously dubbed "relational aesthetics," this work maintains that the art on view is not the installation, but the interactions it fosters between museum goers. In a more contemplative vein, Tino Sehgal turned the Guggenheim Museum into a venue for philosophical debate. His 2010 exhibition featured a work in which each viewer ascended the museum's signature spiral ramp accompanied by a series of interlocutors who ranged from very young to late middle aged. As they walked up the spiral, they initiated discussions on the notion and definition of "progress."
"Floor of the Forest" | Photo: Winarsh-Documenta 2007.
We may not think of these examples as "dance" per se, (and I don't believe the artists would claim that they are), but it is interesting to look at them in relation to the ideas that Brown and her contemporaries advanced in the early 1960s. As a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater in New York, Brown and artists like Yvonne Rainer, Meredith Monk and Steve Paxton asserted that any movement could be dance, that any person, regardless of body type or training, could be a dancer, and that dance could happen anywhere. Performances need not be choreographed, but could be wholly or partly improvised. It was these ideas, freeing dance from the stage, that made it possible to bring dance into the museum. So Sehgal's orchestrated progress up the ramp could be a dance. Perhaps even socializing in the café is a dance, with its rituals of cream and conversation. But what is the difference then, between dance and performance art? The line would seem vanishingly thin, and indeed, the members of Judson Dance Theater were aligned with the Fluxus and John Cage-inspired artists who created "happenings" at Judson Church. These semi-scripted experiments in organized absurdity set the template for performance art as we know it today.
I once participated in a re-enactment of a Judson Church happening in the mid 1990s. This involved throwing toilet paper rolls in the air, playing kazoos and other assorted mayhem. The details are a bit foggy now. The Fluxus artist Al Hansen had just passed away, and his grandson, the musician Beck, played a song. Another artist performed a Hansen work in which he wrapped his own head in tape. While I sensed it was an honor to be a part of this memorial, it also felt strange, as if I, and the other art students who participated, were inhabiting someone else's skin, someone else's memories. Perhaps at one time it was a radical absurdist gesture to stand on a stage and throw toilet paper into the air, but it no longer seemed so. It occurred to me that perhaps the thing about happenings is that they really only happen once.
"Floor of the Forest" | Photo: Egbert Trogemann Documenta VG Bild-kunst, Bonn 2007.
Looking back on it now, I see that I was a dancer, following a choreographed sequence, albeit a very loose, provisional one. But the conditions under which that choreography was created are long past. That's why the re-enactment felt inauthentic and nostalgic. (It was after all a memorial.) But that feeling perhaps points to a difference between dance and performance art. Traditional dance has always provided an empty form -- the choreography -- that could be occupied by any number of bodies. Ballet companies have been performing "Swan Lake" in more or less the same fashion for over a hundred years. But because of the era in which it arose -- the 1960s, when much emphasis was placed on breaking out of stale conventions and living in the moment -- performance art has been more closely tied to the identity and presence of the artist. Witness the title of legendary performance artist Marina Abramovic's 2010 MOMA retrospective: "The Artist is Present." (And indeed she was, literally sitting across from viewers at a table for the duration of the show. What kind of retrospective will be possible when she's gone?)
Although Brown's work is not so personality-driven, the early dances especially are tied to a very particular, exploratory moment. In fact, Brown soon moved on from her emphasis on the everyday and went on to an illustrious career choreographing works for stages all over the world. Re-performing her early pieces now is of course a homage, but it is also a sign of renewed interest in those formative days.
Beyond the need to bring more feet through the door, museums' current fascination with dance is also simply a function of time. Postmodern dance, as the work of the Judson generation is often called, is on the cusp of no longer being "contemporary." As it becomes a canonical part of the historical narrative, we want to know what it meant and how it relates to other forms, both past and present. In other words, it is ripe for museum-ization. But unlike a painting or a sculpture, which might survive the ravages of time relatively intact, dance only exists if someone performs it. Of course there is sometimes film, video, and other documentation, but the only way to give audiences a sense of what a live performance was like is to re-enact it.
Of course, the new performance can never be exactly like the original. Dance critic Marcia B. Siegal writes that much is lost in these re-stagings: "The ideas still hold, and it's good to have them before us, but I miss the blemishes, the uncertainty, the secret pleasure of eluding the formula." There's no substitute for having been there, of course, but museums preserve culture; they are not time machines. Even artifacts that have remained unchanged for thousands of years are continually seen in a different light by new generations. In some ways, dances are like ancient books that have only reached us after being copied by hand over and over again. There will have been countless omissions and errors, but we can only interpret the copy that we have in hand.
Yet sometimes a museum exhibition can give a piece new life, such as the adaptation of Brown's "Roof Piece" at MOMA in 2010. Originally performed in 1971, the work involved the transmission of dance movements from one dancer to the next, each standing on a different rooftop in New York's Soho neighborhood. Transplanted to the museum's six-story atrium, the dancers stood on different floors in a spiral formation. They were visible through the space's windows and openings, but also individually to viewers meandering through the galleries. Although the smooth white spaces of the museum were a radical departure from rough Soho rooftops, the piece reshaped itself to the site and still conveyed a lovely image of communication and communion as the dancers' movements rippled through the galleries. (It will be performed again, in yet a different context, atop the travertine buildings of the Getty Center on April 6.)
Video documentation of "Performance 11: On Line/Trisha Brown Dance Company" including the work, "Roof Piece Re-Layed" (2011) (based on "Roof Piece" [1971]) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2011.
When museums invite dancers into the galleries, ideally they are trying to understand how dance relates to visual art, how it reflects the same concerns, and fits into a shared cultural narrative. But sometimes it feels like visual art is an ever-expanding field, sucking everything willy-nilly into its gaping maw: dance, conversation, Thai food are all art simply because the museum says they are. But if we look back at what Brown and Rainer and many, many others were doing in those fertile, febrile years, we see a utopian belief that the lines separating all of these cultural forms could be stripped away. Perhaps the museum's expanding purview is not a callous land grab, but simply the late-dawning recognition that all forms are one.
TRISHA BROWN: FLOOR OF THE FOREST
March 30 - April 21, 2013 | Hammer Museum Courtyard
Free and open to the public
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Reason-Rupe, Reason magazine's polling arm, is out with a really in-depth survey looking at the political preferences of Millennials (defined here as adults aged 18-29). Understandably, given that Reason's a libertarian outfit, they're emphasizing findings suggesting Millennials think government is wasteful and abuses power, and as suggesting there'd be widespread support for a "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" (libertarian, in other words) presidential candidate.
You could read it that way. Or you could pick out other results and cite them as proof that the young 'uns are just down-the-line liberals. But probably the best way to read it is as confirming that Millennials, like other Americans, mostly don't have the kind of rigorous and consistent policy views associated with professional ideologues. Consider that these are all findings from the same report:
65 percent of Millennials think it would help the economy to cut spending…
…but 62 percent and 58 percent think it'd help the economy to boost spending on job training and infrastructure, respectively.
58 percent think that it'd help the economy to cut taxes…
…but 66 percent think it'd help the economy to raise taxes on the wealthy.
74 percent think the government should guarantee that everyone gets enough to eat and a place to sleep, 68 percent think it should guarantee a living wage, and 54 percent think it should guaranteed a college education…
…but 66 percent believe that "when something is run by the government, it is usually inefficient and wasteful."
If you don't mention the prospect of higher taxes, then they express support for a larger government with more services, 54 percent to 43 percent…
…but if you do mention the prospect of higher taxes, they support a smaller government with fewer services, 57 percent to 41 percent.
mention the prospect of higher taxes, they support a smaller government with fewer services, 57 percent to 41 percent. 55 percent say they'd like to start their own business one day…
…but a plurality (48 percent) say that businesses mostly get rich at someone else's expense.
61 percent cite "hard work" as a major reason for determining wealth and success in life…
…but only 31 percent cite "lack of work ethic" as a major reason for why people are poor.
73 percent agree that "people should be allowed to keep what they produce, even if there are others with greater needs"…
…but 58 percent agree that government should "spend more on financial assistance to the poor, even if it leads to higher taxes."
69 percent think the government should guarantee health insurance…
…but 55 percent are "unwilling to pay more for health insurance in order to help provide coverage to the uninsured."
Are all of these positions strictly logically contradictory? Of course not. It's theoretically possible to, say, support an overall tax cut that raises taxes on the rich too. But it's worth questioning the value of trying to force these answers into a coherent political framework rather than accept that Millennials, like most people, have much, much better things to do with their time than form highly nuanced and non-contradictory political opinions. Political nerds tend to really overestimate how much most people care about public policy, and how much they feel it connects to their daily lives.
One conclusion we can take away from the report, though, is that Millennials display a certain degree of economic self-interest. Just look at what happens to support for a living wage as you go up the income scale:
Same with closing the income gap:
And expanding the safety net:
And observe how support for socialism or, more mildly, an "egalitarian society" changes based on whether or not the respondent has experienced discrimination in their life:
It's silly to look over the poll's results and try to assign Millennials as a whole a coherent ideology, but it's safe to say that the role of one's own socioeconomic position in forming political beliefs is strong, just as it is with Americans as a whole. |
Four years ago, in a small sewing cooperative in Rwanda's capital city of Kigali, yoga instructor and author Deirdre Summerbell stepped in front of a class of a dozen frail women, each standing on a green or purple mat, and asked them to move their bodies in a series of twists and bends that make up the basic practice of Ashtanga yoga.
The women, HIV-positive survivors of the widespread rape that occurred during Rwanda's 1994 genocide, reacted with confusion and trepidation.
"Their jaws dropped, and they opened their eyes wide during my demonstration," Summerbell, 55, told The Huffington Post. "When I finished, a young woman put out her hand and said, ‘You know, that's for children, and we have already reached old age. We are sick.'" The woman was 28.
So began the first class offered by Project Air, an initiative that uses yoga to help over 400 HIV-positive Rwandan women and their families cope with the trauma they endured when an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in only 100 days -- and countless women were raped -- as the Hutu majority tribe tried to wipe out the Tutsi minority. Even after the violation, mutilation and murder were over and the machetes were sheathed, the bodies and minds of the Rwandan women Project Air serves remained battlefields. While their immune systems struggled to fight even the most common illnesses, their minds were warding off traumatic flashbacks of war.
Summerbell wasn't surprised by her students' early skepticism. In fact, when the non-profit Women's Equity in Access to Care and Treatment first approached Summerbell in 2007 to helm the project, she declined.
"I thought that it was silly and the last thing these women would probably need." said Summerbell, who grew up in Tanzania, where she witnessed what she describes as Westerners' attempts to institute ineffective foreign practices in African culture.
But when Summerbell, and then her students, decided to give the project a try -- despite the students' physical and emotional trauma and the fact that women's participation in physical activities of this nature is taboo in Rwanda -- they found the results were both immediate and profound.
"After the third lesson, a shy woman came up to me, took my hands and said that she had slept for the first time in the 14 years since the genocide," Summerbell said. "She wasn't alone. Women will tell you that before yoga, they were crippled with aches and pains; they felt old. Now they crave yoga because when they feel physically stronger, they feel more confident and optimistic."
Given these positive results, what began as a three-month experiment is now in its fourth year. It is the first yoga initiative to be endorsed by the United Nations and is the only yoga project to be partnered with UNICEF. Organizers are looking to expand the yoga program to other warring and post-conflict countries.
INTEGRATING MENTAL HEALTH WITH MEDICAL CARE
Project Air started as one aspect of the holistic treatment offered by WE-ACTx, which was formed to 2004 to provide a full spectrum of health care to HIV-positive Rwandans, with a special focus on serving female survivors of genocidal rape and violence and their children.
Although only approximately 5 percent of the Rwandan population is estimated to have HIV/AIDS, UNICEF suggests that the disease prevalence is 10 percent among women.
And while not all cases of HIV/AIDS in Rwanda are linked to the genocide, a 2004 Amnesty International report titled "Marked for Death" found the conflict contributed significantly to the proliferation of the disease. Of the 250,000 to 500,000 women who were raped during the genocide, Amnesty estimates more than 67 percent of the victims contracted HIV and AIDS. The UK-based Survivors Fund organization reported that many of the infections were systematically planned, and that HIV-positive men were used intentionally as a weapon of the genocide.
The purpose of Project Air's classes is not so much to ameliorate the physical symptoms of HIV and AIDS -- Summerbell is not a physician and could not point to scientific studies that link yoga to improving the immune system -- though she said she had seen her students' disease markers, including disrupted sleep patterns and poor appetites, improve.
The program works collaboratively with five local genocide survivors associations, the Rwandan Ministry of Health and the Rwandan National AIDS program, aiming to help its students cope with the emotional effects of the trauma they endured.
In the U.S., the Veterans Administration has used yoga to assist veterans coping with PTSD after returning from war, and a small 2010 study funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and conducted by Sat Bir A. Khalsa, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, found that veterans' symptoms improved after a 10-week yoga class.
According to Dr. Mardge Cohen, the medical director of WE-ACTx, who has researched the AIDS pandemic for more than two decades in Chicago, Boston and Rwanda, Project Air has had the same effect on its students.
An estimated one in three Rwandans suffer from PTSD as a result of the genocide, according to a 2009 study by the Rwandan Ministry of Health; that includes many rape victims.
"[WE-ACTx] makes sure that we integrate mental health," said Cohen. "Many of the women who have also attended [Project Air] yoga sessions say that the support they get from doing this with other women as well as the strength they gain from the physical exercise of the manipulation of yoga allow them to feel like they are able to move on and move forward from their PTSD," Cohen, 59, said.
Summberbell said Project Air yoga classes have allowed women who have felt stiff and elderly to experience dramatic and immediate emotional benefits, as they jump and play joyfully during the class.
"They are allowed to have an hour doing nothing else but lift their hands, jump up and do tricks that they thought only children can do, and this produces such an amount of glee," Summerbell said. "Everybody laughs, almost more when they fall than when they succeed; everybody plays. It is the most giggly group."
The services that Project Air provides its students aren't limited to the yoga mats.
"Rwanda is unbelievably expensive and the sick are very poor," Summerbell said. "The lucky ones eat every day, the unlucky every other day, and you can't ask people with a low caloric intake to do Ashtanga. So we feed them."
Project Air also has begun to provide clothing. While some of the wealthier students come to classes adorned in their finest and brightest clothing -- Summerbell has begun to discourage headdresses as they are not conducive to headstands -- the instructors began to notice that the women in cheaper shrouds were avoiding certain poses.
"They couldn't afford underwear, so we quickly regrouped and provided trousers," Summerbell said.
THE CHILDREN, THEN THE MEN
Even though Project Air focuses primarily on the traumatized victims of genocidal rape, it has quickly expanded in size and scope. When the program was only in its sixth week, Madonna heard of the program and donated $250,000.
Now, in addition to its work with adults, Project Air serves 300 to 350 HIV-positive children, most of whose parents are deceased. Rwanda has approximately 160,000 orphans as a result of HIV/AIDS.
According to WE-ACTx's Director of Clinical Systems, Chantal Benekigeri, many of these children face an overwhelming stigma.
"For children who lost their parents and live with other family members, sometimes their family members know [they] have HIV and stigmatize them," Benekigeri, a 47 year-old Rwandan, said. "Sometimes [the orphans] can't eat at the same table."
Summerbell said that without families to protect them, pre-pubescent orphan girls are more vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.
"They are sitting ducks," Summerbell said. "We are trying to put a special focus for them on Ashtanga yoga because it is very athletic and we want to develop their confidence and strengthen them so they are less likely to be a target and feel like they don't deserve this treatment."
But this new focus has presented new challenges. Soon after starting to work with girls and young women who were victims of domestic abuse, Summerbell and her colleagues realized they needed to take a broader approach.
"If you get a woman to feel strong and be stronger, and you don't help the men understand these changes, we can end up doing more damages," Summerbell said. "So we began with a large group of men [enrolling in the yoga programs]. They have become some of our most enthusiastic students and respond to it."
Through yoga, Project Air aims to change men's behavior and their mindsets.
"We teach them that self-control is a form of strength," Summerbell said. "Strength is when a body and mind are under the dominion of an individual, and when that individual loses control and descends into violence, that is a weakness of the mind and body."
BEYOND RWANDA
While Project Air currently operates only in Kigali, there are efforts underway to extend its reach beyond Rwanda's borders and beyond its original focus on populations with HIV or AIDS.
With the help of UNICEF, Summerbell wants to broaden Project Air's programming to reach other African conflict and post-conflict zones, extending services to vulnerable women and children who are not HIV positive. She has spoken to Heal Africa, an organization that provides holistic healing for people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the American Journal of Public Health, approximately one woman is raped every four minutes in the DRC.
"We want to expand this project to other vulnerable groups we work with, such as street children, former child soldiers, adolescent survivors of violence," wrote Francesca Morandini, UNICEF Rwanda's Chief of Social Protection and Governance for Child's Rights, in an email.
"There is so much more to do," Summerbell said.
To learn more about Project Air or make a donation, visit project-air.org.
View our slideshow below to see pictures of Project Rwanda in action: |
Apple can’t grow like this forever. No company can.
In a few short years, Apple has become the biggest company on the planet by market value — so big that it dwarfs every other one on the stock market. It dominates the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index as no other company has in 30 years.
Apple’s market capitalization — the value of all of the shares of its stock — is more than $758 billion, greater than any other company’s. Yet the Wall Street consensus is that Apple is still having a growth spurt. In fact, if Apple’s watches, phones, laptops and other gadgets and services keep generating favorable publicity — and if its quarterly earnings report on Monday is as strong as the market expects it to be — there’s a reasonable chance that Apple’s value will keep swelling. Not far down the road, it might even reach the $1 trillion level that some hedge funds predict.
But even if Apple still has some room to run, there are some early warning signs. After all, the company has already crossed a significant threshold. In February, it grew to twice the size of the next biggest company in the S.&P. 500, a rare feat of financial dominance, and one that hasn’t happened since Ronald Reagan was president.
I checked the numbers with Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S.&P. Dow Jones Indices. He found that the last market colossus to tower over its competitors by a two-to-one ratio was IBM, which did it in three successive years: 1983, 1984 and 1985. “That was when PCs were new,” he said, “and just about everyone thought IBM would rule the world.” |
(Reuters) - The parents of a Mexican immigrant fatally shot by police in Washington state have filed a wrongful death suit against local authorities and the officers who killed him, accusing them of excessive force, an attorney said on Wednesday.
Relatives of Antonio Zambrano-Montes carry his coffin after a funeral mass in Pomaro, in the Mexican state of Michoacan March 7, 2015. REUTERS/Alan Ortega
Antonio Zambrano-Montes, a farm worker in the small city of Pasco, 200 miles (320 km) southeast of Seattle, was shot by three patrolmen on Feb. 10, 2015 during a confrontation that was recorded by a passerby and posted online.
On the video, Zambrano-Montes was seen throwing rocks at the officers near a busy intersection before running away.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, Zambrano-Montes’ parents say their son’s death was a violation of federal law that prohibit police use of excessive force when making an arrest.
“In this case, it’s obvious that 17 shots, resulting in 7-8 bullet wounds in a man who was first fleeing and then attempting to surrender - was excessive in the extreme,” attorney Charles Herrmann said in a press release.
The killing was among a series of fatal incidents across the United States that have put law enforcement agencies under scrutiny over their use of force, particularly against minorities. It prompted demonstrations in Pasco, which has a Latino majority.
The lawsuit names the city of Pasco, its police chief, Robert Metzger, and the three officers who fired at Zambrano-Montes.
Two of the officers involved, Adam Wright and Adrian Alaniz, were cleared of wrongdoing in September and returned to duty following an internal police investigation. The third officer, Ryan Flanagan, resigned.
Police said the officers followed proper protocol and two stun guns failed to subdue Zambrano-Montes.
Zambrano-Montes’ widow, Teresa de Jesus Meraz-Ruiz, filed a federal wrongful death suit last year seeking more than $25 million in damages.
His parents’ legal action does not name an amount, but the Tri-City Herald newspaper reported that a claim was filed with the city of Pasco in advance of the lawsuit seeking $4.76 million. |
Peter Chase spearheaded an impressive Irish attack to an emphatic 203-run win in their final ICC InterContinental Cup match to beat Scotland with a day to spare in Dubai.
The Malahide speedster took 4 for 52 – his best figures for Ireland - as Scotland were dismissed for 178 chasing an unlikely 382 for victory.
Chase was well supported by the new-ball pair of Tim Murtagh (3-35) and Boyd Rankin (2-39) as Scotland were unable to build any substantial partnerships despite several batsmen getting starts.
Mark Watt top-scored with 43, while Calum MacLeod and Michael Leask hit 33 apiece.
Intercontinental Cup Result; @Irelandcricket win by 203 runs@Irelandcricket 251 (K O'Brien 78; Whittingham 3-23) & 271 (Singh 59; Whittingham 5-70) @CricketScotland 141 (Munsey 38; Rankin 4-45) & 178 (Leask 33; Chase 4-52)#BackingGreen — Cricket Ireland (@Irelandcricket) December 1, 2017
Chase reflected on the comprehensive win, but felt he hadn’t changed too much from the first two days when he went wicket-less.
"To be honest I didn’t really change much from the first innings. I felt I bowled well first up and I think I just got the rewards second time around. I’m very happy with how it went in both."
Earlier Simi Singh made his maiden half-century, top scoring with 59 as the Irish overcame the early loss of Kevin O’Brien to build a formidable total.
Singh shared a 7th wicket stand of 55 in 13 overs with George Dockrell who hit five boundaries in a breezy 40 from just 46 deliveries as Ireland scored 271.
The maximum points win takes Ireland to the top of the table, but Afghanistan will claim the crown for the second time if they avoid defeat against UAE on the final day.
That is a nailed-on certainty as the hosts are 112 runs behind Afghanistan with seven wickets left, having been forced to follow-on.
Ireland’s next red-ball match will be their inaugural Test match against Pakistan at Malahide on May 11th, but they are back on the field next week as they take on Afghanistan in a three-match ODI series in Sharjah.
The games give Ireland an opportunity to get revenge over Afghanistan who beat them 3-2 in a hard-fought ODI series in India earlier this year, and Peter Chase is hoping that the confidence gained from this week’s win will put them in good stead.
"I’m definitely looking forward now to the Afghan games. We’ve had a good rivalry of late with some close ODI series. Hopefully we can take the momentum from this game into that series and claim victory."
IRELAND 251 all out (81 overs; K O’Brien 78*, A Balbirnie 36, W Porterfield 28, G Wilson 21; S Whittingham 3-23, M Watt 3-60, C Sole 3-79) and 271 all out (68.4 overs; S Singh 59, G Wilson 56, G Dockrell 40, W Porterfield 29, A Balbirnie 21; S Whittingham 5-70, M Watt 2-37, C Sole 2-59)
SCOTLAND 141 all out (52.2 overs; G Munsey 38, S Sharif 26*, K Coetzer 22; B Rankin 4-45, K O’Brien 3-14, T Murtagh 2-24) and 178 all out (57.3 overs; M Watt 43, M Leask 33, C Macleod 33, C Wallace 21; P Chase 4-52, T Murtagh 3-35, B Rankin 2-39)
Ireland (20 pts) beat Scotland (0 pts) by 203 runs |
Published online 13 October 2010 | Nature 467, 775-777 (2010) | doi:10.1038/467775a
News Feature
…why scientific programming does not compute.
When hackers leaked thousands of e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, last year, global-warming sceptics pored over the documents for signs that researchers had manipulated data. No such evidence emerged, but the e-mails did reveal another problem — one described by a CRU employee named "Harry", who often wrote of his wrestling matches with wonky computer software.
"Yup, my awful programming strikes again," Harry lamented in one of his notes, as he attempted to correct a code analysing weather-station data from Mexico.
Although Harry's frustrations did not ultimately compromise CRU's work, his difficulties will strike a chord with scientists in a wide range of disciplines who do a large amount of coding. Researchers are spending more and more time writing computer software to model biological structures, simulate the early evolution of the Universe and analyse past climate data, among other topics. But programming experts have little faith that most scientists are up to the task.
A quarter of a century ago, most of the computing work done by scientists was relatively straightforward. But as computers and programming tools have grown more complex, scientists have hit a "steep learning curve", says James Hack, director of the US National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. "The level of effort and skills needed to keep up aren't in the wheelhouse of the average scientist."
As a general rule, researchers do not test or document their programs rigorously, and they rarely release their codes, making it almost impossible to reproduce and verify published results generated by scientific software, say computer scientists. At best, poorly written programs cause researchers such as Harry to waste valuable time and energy. But the coding problems can sometimes cause substantial harm, and have forced some scientists to retract papers.
As recognition of these issues has grown, software experts and scientists have started exploring ways to improve the codes used in science. Some efforts teach researchers important programming skills, whereas others encourage collaboration between scientists and software engineers, and teach researchers to be more open about their code.
A proper education
Greg Wilson, a computer scientist in Toronto, Canada, who heads Software Carpentry — an online course aimed at improving the computing skills of scientists — says that he woke up to the problem in the 1980s, when he was working at a physics supercomputing facility at the University of Edinburgh, UK. After a series of small mishaps, he realized that, without formal training in programming, it was easy for scientists trying to address some of the Universe's biggest questions to inadvertently introduce errors into their codes, potentially "doing more harm than good".
After decades griping about the poor coding skills of scientists he knew, Wilson decided to see how widespread the problem was. In 2008, he and his colleagues conducted an online survey of almost 2,000 researchers, from students to senior academics, who were working with computers in a range of sciences. What he found was worse than he had anticipated1 (see 'Scientists and their software'). "There are terrifying statistics showing that almost all of what scientists know about coding is self-taught," says Wilson. "They just don't know how bad they are."
Click for a larger version. SOURCE: G. WILSON
As a result, codes may be riddled with tiny errors that do not cause the program to break down, but may drastically change the scientific results that it spits out. One such error tripped up a structural-biology group led by Geoffrey Chang of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. In 2006, the team realized that a computer program supplied by another lab had flipped a minus sign, which in turn reversed two columns of input data, causing protein crystal structures that the group had derived to be inverted. Chang says that the other lab provided the code with the best intentions, and "you just trust the code to do the right job". His group was forced to retract five papers published in Science, the Journal of Molecular Biology and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and now triple checks everything, he says.
"How many fields have been held back, and how many people have had their careers disrupted, because of a buggy program?" asks Wilson.
More-rigorous testing could help. Diane Kelly, a computer scientist at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, says the problem is that scientists rely on "validation testing" — looking to see whether the answer that the code produces roughly matches what the scientists expect — and this can miss important errors2. The software industry relies on a different approach: breaking codes into manageable chunks and testing each piece individually, then visually inspecting the lines of code that stitch these chunks together (see 'Practicing safe software').
Click for a larger version.
Many programmers in industry are also trained to annotate their code clearly, so that others can understand its function and easily build on it. But scientists often lack these communication and documentation skills. Even if researchers lift a whole working code and reuse it, rather than writing their own, they can apply the program incorrectly if it lacks clear documentation. Aaron Darling, a computational biologist at the University of California, Davis, unwittingly caused such a mistake with his own computer code for comparing genomes to reconstruct evolutionary relationships. He had designed the program to work only with closely related organisms, but discovered that an independent group had used it to look at sequences far outside the code's working range.
"It was lucky that I came across it, because their published results were totally wrong, but they couldn't know that because I hadn't clearly documented how my code worked," says Darling. "It's not something that I am proud of, but I am careful to be more clear now."
Slaying the monster
Problems created by bad documentation are further amplified when successful codes are modified by others to fit new purposes. The result is the bane of many a graduate student or postdoc's life: the 'monster code'. Sometimes decades old, these codes are notoriously messy and become progressively more nightmarish to handle, say computer scientists.
"You do have some successes, but you also end up with a huge stinking heap of software that doesn't work very well," says Darling.
The mangled coding of these monsters can sometimes make it difficult to check for errors. One example is a piece of code written to analyse the products of high-energy collisions at the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. The code had been developed over more than a decade by 600 people, "some of whom are excellent programmers and others who do not really know how to code very well", says David Rousseau, software coordinator for the ATLAS experiment at CERN. Wilson and his students tried to test the program, but they could not get very far: the code would not even run on their machines.
Rousseau says that the ATLAS group can test the software only on the Linux operating system at the moment, but is striving to make the code compatible with Mac computers. This is important, he says, "because different platforms expose different types of errors that may otherwise be overlooked".
Some software developers have found ways to combat the growth of monster code. One example is the Visualization Toolkit, an open-source, freely available software system for three-dimensional computer graphics. People can modify the software as they wish, and it is rerun each night on every computing platform that supports it, with the results published on the web. The process ensures that the software will work the same way on different systems.
That kind of openness has yet to infiltrate the scientific research world, where many leading science journals, including Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, do not insist that authors make their code available. Rather, they require that authors provide enough information for results to be reproduced.
The search for Solutions
In November 2009, a group of scientists, lawyers, journal editors, and funding representatives gathered for the Yale Law School Data and Code Sharing Roundtable in New Haven, Connecticut, where they recommended that scientists go further by providing links to the source-code and the data used to generate results when publishing. Although a step in the right direction, such requirements don't always solve the problem. Since 1996, The Journal of Money, Credit and Banking has required researchers to upload their codes and data to an archive. But a 2006 study revealed that of 150 papers submitted to the journal over the preceding decade that fell under this requirement, results could be independently replicated with the materials provided for fewer than 15 (ref. 3).
Proponents of openness argue that researchers seeking to replicate published results need access to the original software, but others say that more transparency may not help much. Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society in London, says it would be too much to ask reviewers to check code line by line. And in his own field of astrophysics, results can really be trusted only in cases in which a number of different groups have written independent codes to perform the same task and found similar results. Still, he acknowledges that "how to trust unique codes remains an issue".
There are signs that scientific leaders are now taking notice of these concerns. In 2009, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council put out a call for help for scientists trying to create usable software, which led to the formation of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) at the University of Edinburgh. The SSI unites trained software developers with scientists to help them add new lines to existing codes, allowing them to tackle extra tasks without the programs turning into monsters. They also try to share their products across disciplines, says Neil Chue Hong, the SSI's director. For instance, they recently helped build a code to query clinical records and help monitor the spread of disease. They are now sharing the structure of that code with researchers who are trying to use police records to identify crime hot spots. "It stops researchers wasting time reinventing the wheel for each new application," says Chue Hong.
“Could your code stand up to attack?”
Another solution is to bring trained computer scientists into research groups, either permanently or as part of temporary alliances. Software developer Nick Barnes has set up the Climate Code Foundation, based in Sheffield, UK, to help climate researchers. He was motivated by problems with NASA's Surface Temperature Analysis software, which was released to the public in 2007. Critics complained that the program, written in the scientific programming language Fortran, would not work on their machines and they could therefore not trust what it said about global warming. In consultation with NASA researchers, Barnes rewrote the code in a newer, more transparent programming language — Python — reducing its length and making it easier for people who aren't software experts to understand how it functions. "Because of the immense public interest and the important policy issues at stake, it was worth taking the time to do that," says Barnes. His new code shows the same general warming trend as the original program.
In the long term, though, Barnes says that there needs to be a change in the way that science students are trained. He cites Wilson's online Software Carpentry course as a good model for how this can be done, to equip students with coding skills. Wilson developed the week-long course to introduce science graduate students to tools that have been software-industry standards for 30 years — such as 'version control', which allows multiple programmers to make changes to the same code, while keeping track of all changes.
Science administrators also need to value programming skills more highly, says David Gavaghan, a computational biologist at the University of Oxford, UK. "There needs to be a real shift in mindset away from worrying about how to get published in Nature and towards thinking about how to reward work that will be useful to the wider community."
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Gavaghan now uses the software industry's 'master–apprentice' approach to train graduate students in his lab. New software projects are split up into bite-sized chunks, with each segment assigned to a pair of programmers — one experienced and one novice — who work together on it. "It forces students to become consistent code-builders," says Gavaghan.
Bringing industrial software-development practices into the lab cannot come too soon, says Wilson. The CRU e-mail affair was a warning to scientists to get their houses in order, he says. "To all scientists out there, ask yourselves what you would do if, tomorrow, some Republican senator trains the spotlight on you and decides to turn you into a political football. Could your code stand up to attack?"
See World View, p.753
Zeeya Merali is a freelance writer in London . |
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Before the race, it was pure speculation. Steps before the line, it became a reality.
At the Armory on Friday night, Lopez Lomong stormed home to win the men’s 5000m in 13:07.00 and in the process, nipped Bernard Lagat’s American record of 13:07.15.
13:06.99 is what happens when Lopez counts the laps right. — Kevin Liao (@RunLiao) March 2, 2013
Race Splits for the Leaders
31.7 200m
64.8 400m
2:07.5 800m
3:10.7 1200m
4:14.4 1600m
6:19.0 2400m
6:49.9 2600m
7:21.1 2800m
7:53.7 3000m
8:25.1 3200m
8:56.9 3400m (rabbit off at 3500m)
9:29.0 3600m
10:01.3 3800m
10:32.5 4000m
11:03.3 4200m
11:34.1 4400m
12:05.1 4600m
12:36.4 4800m
13:07.00 5000m
The original race goal for Team Schumacher was to obtain the IAAF “A” standard of 13:15.00. The rabbits, Dan Huling and Travis Mahoney, were scheduled to run a consistent set of 63.6-second quarters.
As the race progressed, the pace was near immaculate. It wasn’t until Huling stepped off the track around 3500m that pre-race murmurs hinting at the American record turned into thousand-yard stares and crazed yelling from the Armory crowd.
Initially, Chris Derrick would take the lead, but not for long. Lopez Lomong surged to the front at the 4000m mark and for the second time in three weeks, the Armory’s spotlight shined on him.
You could visibly see the strain on his face each time he came down the homestretch, but his legs would not tire. A string of 31-second two-hundred meter splits turned the Armory arena into a deafening cathedral where records come to die.
Then we started having flashbacks. “Oh, he’s going to do it,” Flotrack said over its live feed for Galen Rupp’s indoor mile American record attempt. Maybe we jinxed it, maybe it was premature, but we didn’t care.
With 200m to go, “He’s going to do it!” was yelled so often that the Flotrack HQ became an echo chamber for the running obsessed. No one jumping out of their seat expected an answer or a response - we were all just hoping that he’d make it to the line in time.
His last lap was not smooth, but the end was an incredible sight.
13:07.00.
Not too long ago, Bernard Lagat held all five American indoor records from the 1500m to the 5000m.
Over the last week, he’s managed to lose two. The 3000m indoor record was the first to go with Galen Rupp’s 7:30.16 win in Stockholm, Sweden.
The second was tonight.
Men's 5000m run ========================================================================= Name Year School Seed Finals ========================================================================= 1 Lomong, Lopez Nike 13:07.00 2 Derrick, Chris Nike 13:12.00 3 Bumbalough, Andrew Nike 13:23.68 4 Heath, Elliott Nike 13:33.22 5 Jager, Evan Nike 13:33.37 6 Tegenkamp, Matt Nike 13:35.46 7 Mecheso, Girma Oklahoma Sta 13:57.06 13:45.61 -- Huling, Dan Nike DNF -- Mahoney, Travis New Jersey-N DNF 1k split 1 Mahoney, Travis New Jersey-N 2:38.88 2 Huling, Dan Nike 2:39.14 3 Jager, Evan Nike 2:39.40 4 Derrick, Chris Nike 2:39.63 5 Lomong, Lopez Nike 2:39.89 6 Bumbalough, Andrew Nike 2:40.10 7 Tegenkamp, Matt Nike 2:40.31 8 Heath, Elliott Nike 2:40.53 9 Mecheso, Girma Oklahoma Sta 13:57.06 2:40.78 2k split 1 Heath, Elliott Nike 5:16.67 2 Huling, Dan Nike 5:16.92 3 Jager, Evan Nike 5:17.17 4 Derrick, Chris Nike 5:17.40 5 Lomong, Lopez Nike 5:17.67 6 Bumbalough, Andrew Nike 5:17.89 7 Tegenkamp, Matt Nike 5:18.13 8 Mahoney, Travis New Jersey-N 5:18.37 9 Mecheso, Girma Oklahoma Sta 13:57.06 5:18.64 3k split 1 Huling, Dan Nike 7:53.46 2 Jager, Evan Nike 7:53.71 3 Derrick, Chris Nike 7:53.94 4 Lomong, Lopez Nike 7:54.18 5 Bumbalough, Andrew Nike 7:54.39 6 Tegenkamp, Matt Nike 7:54.70 7 Heath, Elliott Nike 7:55.05 8 Mecheso, Girma Oklahoma Sta 13:57.06 8:01.03 -- Mahoney, Travis New Jersey-N DNF 4k split 1 Lomong, Lopez Nike 10:32.64 2 Derrick, Chris Nike 10:33.26 3 Bumbalough, Andrew Nike 10:35.11 4 Jager, Evan Nike 10:35.82 5 Heath, Elliott Nike 10:44.68 6 Tegenkamp, Matt Nike 10:45.08 7 Mecheso, Girma Oklahoma Sta 13:57.06 10:53.16 -- Huling, Dan Nike DNF -- Mahoney, Travis New Jersey-N DNF
WATCH RACE VIDEO |
Victorian Government misses deadline to release business case for Westgate Distributor project
Posted
Victoria's Upper House could issue sanctions against the State Government after it failed to comply with a motion to provide documents about the Westgate Distributor project.
The Coalition pushed for more detail about Labor's promise to build new off-ramps on the Westgate Freeway to reduce traffic caused by trucks servicing the Port of Melbourne.
Last month, the Upper House carried a motion to compel the Government to release documents relating to the project, including the business case, planning reports and traffic modelling, by midday today.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the Government ignored the deadline.
"This is becoming a pattern of this Government - say one thing before the election and do something completely different after it," he said.
"I think people are absolutely and utterly sick of that kind of politics."
Failing to comply with the motion could lead to Parliamentary sanctions against the Government including the suspension of the Government's leader in the Upper House, Gavin Jennings.
The Government ignored a similar motion in February, compelling it to release the contracts for the East West Link.
The Government does not have a majority in the Upper House where the balance of power is held by the Greens and several minor parties.
Topics: state-parliament, federal---state-issues, vic |
One of the Obama administration’s final major labor regulations could deprive millions of retirement savers investment advice from financial professionals, according to a new report.
The Department of Labor proposed the Fiduciary Rule in April 2015, which would allow regulators to oversee the relationship between retirement account advisors and their clients to ensure that the former were completing trades for the sole interest of their clients. The rule was approved in 2016 under the leadership of Labor Secretary Tom Perez, now the head of the Democratic Party.
“In 2016, the Department took a historic step to protect the savings of America’s workers—the conflict of interest rule makes sure that professionals providing retirement investment advice have to give advice that’s in the best interest of their clients and not divert their clients’ hard-earned income into their own pockets through hidden fees and conflicted advice,” Perez said in an exit memo published on the White House website.
Read more |
Who Are The New Anti-Mormons
Since the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and even before, there have been those opposed to the Church. More aptly named “Critics of the Church” or “Enemies of the Church,” they have traditionally been known inside the Church as “Anti-Mormons.” Which, of course is short-hand for “Against Mormons.” And, as you might imagine, those who would be classified in that category, usually strongly object to the use of the term. But, nevertheless, the term prevails to this day.
Over the years, the folks who might be called Anti-Mormons have changed. Even though, for the most part, there has always been a religious overtone to those objecting to various things in and about the Church and its teachings, it has not always been about that. And in my observation, it might be even different today.
In many ways, the Internet has thoroughly changed the dissemination of information both for and against the Church. What used to be primarily through books, newspapers, pamphlets and word of mouth, is now instantaneously available in the privacy of one’s own home via an electronic device. One only needs to do a search on the word “Mormon” and droves of links are available both for and against the Church. Information, both historical and current, can be accessed and one is left on their own to interpret and evaluate it as they wish.
A Short History
The history of anti-Mormon activity hearkens back to the very origins of the Church itself. As many Church members know, Joseph Smith was ridiculed from the very moment he revealed his vision to others. In Joseph Smith – History from the Pearl of Great Price, we read,
“Some few days after I had this vision, I happened to be in company with one of the Methodist preachers, who was very active in the before mentioned religious excitement; and, conversing with him on the subject of religion, I took occasion to give him an account of the vision which I had had. I was greatly surprised at his behavior; he treated my communication not only lightly, but with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles, and that there would never be any more of them.
I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen and fifteen years of age, and my circumstances in life such as to make a boy of no consequence in the world, yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was common among all the sects—all united to persecute me.” (Joseph Smith—History 1:21-22)
That was only the beginning.
In New York, anti-Mormon behavior dealt mainly whether or not Smith actually had the gold plates, if Smith really had his visions, Smith’s treasure-digging episodes, and accusations of occult practices and the Book of Mormon as extra-biblical literature on equal footing with the Bible.
In Ohio, anti-Mormons focused on the ill-fated banking efforts of the Kirtland Safety Society and other failed economic experiments including the United Order.
In Missouri, once the chosen gathering place of the Latter Day Saints, Mormons tended to vote as a bloc, wielding “considerable political and economic influence,” often unseating local political leadership and earning long-lasting enmity in the sometimes hard-drinking, hard-living frontier communities. These differences culminated in hostilities and the eventual issuing of an executive order (since called the Extermination Order) by Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs declaring “the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State.” Three days later, a renegade militia unit attacked a Mormon settlement at Haun’s Mill, resulting in the death of 18 Mormons and no militiamen. The Extermination Order was not formally rescinded until 1976.
In Nauvoo, Illinois, persecutions were often based on the tendency of Mormons to “dominate community, economic, and political life wherever they resided.” The city of Nauvoo had become the largest in Illinois, the city council was predominantly Mormon, and the Nauvoo Legion (the Mormon militia) had grown to a quarter of the size of the U.S. Army. Other issues of contention included polygamy, freedom of speech, anti-slavery views during Smith’s presidential campaign, and the deification of man. After the destruction of the press of the Nauvoo Expositor and institution of martial law, Joseph Smith, Jr. was arrested on charges of treason against the state of Illinois and incarcerated in Carthage Jail where he was killed by a mob on June 27, 1844. The persecution in Illinois became so severe that most of the residents of Nauvoo fled across the Mississippi River in February 1846.
In 1847 Mormons established a community hundreds of miles away in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. Beginning in 1849, every federally appointed official left Utah under duress. In 1857 President Buchanan concluded that the Mormons in the territory were rebelling against the United States. In response, President Buchanan sent one-third of the USA’s standing army to Utah in 1857 in what is known as the Utah War. However, the main objection to the Mormons in Utah was driven by the faith’s open practice of polygamy. The United States government eventually outlawed the practice and Mormons abandoned it. But yet the persecution as a result of it continues to this day. (Wikipedia)
The term “anti-Mormon” first appears in the historical record in 1833 by the Louisville (Kentucky) Daily Herald in an article, “The Mormons and the Anti-Mormons” (the article was also the first known to label believers in the Book of Mormon as “Mormons”). In 1841, it was revealed that an Anti-Mormon Almanac would be published. On August 16 of that year, the Latter Day Saint “Times and Seasons” reported the Mormons’ confidence that although the Anti-Mormon Almanac was designed by “Satan and his emissaries” to flood the world with “lies and evil reports”, still “we are assured that in the providence of God they will ultimately tend to the glory of God—the spread of truth and the good of the church”.
The anti-Mormon newspaper certainly was not the first of its kind; Mormonism had been criticized strongly by dozens of publications since its inception, most notably by Eber D. Howe’s 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed. The Latter Day Saints initially labeled such publications “anti-Christian”, but the publication of the Almanac and the subsequent formation of an “Anti-Mormon Party” in Illinois heralded a shift in terminology. “Anti-Mormon” became, on the lips of the church’s critics, a proud and politically charged self-designation. . (Wikipedia)
In addition to Howe, some of the leading Anti-Mormons of that era were;
TBH Stenhouse “ Tell it All: the Tyranny of Mormonism”
John H. Beadle “Polygamy or The Mysteries and Crimes and of Mormonism”
Ann Eliza Young: “Wife No. 19” (an ex-wife of Brigham Young)
The Great Evangelical Attacks of the 20th Century
As was previously mentioned, throughout the 1800’s, the bulk of Anti-Mormon activity centered on regional, political, and economic issues rather than specific doctrinal issues. Even though the teachings of the LDS Church by the mid- 1850s had most certainly diverged from prevailing mainstream Christian thought. There were the on-going objections to the Book of Mormon standing alongside the Bible, the concept of a Living Prophet, continuous revelation and an open canon, and the practice of polygamy, doctrinal conflict amid renewed Anti-Mormon activity really blossomed beginning in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980’s.
A new crop of critics emerged with a similar, yet expanded set of complaints. And they used the available forms of communication to more effectively preach their message.
The deans of the modern Anti-Mormon activity were Jerald and Sandra Tanner, who founded the Modern Microfilm Company in Salt Lake City in 1964 to “”document problems with the claims of Mormonism and to compare LDS doctrines with Christianity.” In 1983 they turned their company into a non-profit organization and renamed it the Utah Lighthouse Ministry. (www.utlm.org).
Both Jerald and Sandra were members of the LDS Church with deep pioneer roots who converted to evangelical Protestantism. Ironically, many of the things they published were of deep interest to LDS people and were previously unpublished through normal sources. However, their critical interpretation of the documents, their argumentative tone and their publishing of copyrighted materials set them up as Anti-Mormons in the strictest sense, and paved the way for the others who followed.
The follow-ons to the Tanners took even a harsher tone against the Church Ed Decker (Founder of Saints Alive in Jesus), Richard Baer and Dave Hunt produced the most well-known piece of Anti-Mormon work, The God Makers and God Makers II, a book and then two movies. The film, which was launched in 1982 was a haunting tale with ominous music, interviews, a cartoon depiction of the Plan of Salvation and even an interview with a Mission President. It presented itself as a documentary. The film was shown in churches all across Americas as the authors toured around warning Christians of the threat posed by the growing LDS Church. The God Makers II was a poor cousin to the first movie made up of outtakes from the original and focusing primarily on the Temple Ceremonies.
I had the opportunity to see the film at a very large church in San Jose, which was highlighted by a lecture by Ed Decker. I also saw it again in a smaller Church, this time with Dick Baer as the presenter. In both cases, they answered questions from the congregation and of course, passed the donation plates for the support of “their work.”
One of the main selling points of these anti-Mormon critics was their “Mormon cred” – credibility. In other words, the Tanners, Decker and Baer had all been members so they had the inside scoop, the secrets, and the dirty details. However, none of them ever held any substantive leadership position to my knowledge (Update: I’m told Ed Decker served in a Bishopric in Washington.). In fact, one of the most interesting points about the Anti-Mormon industry was the propensity to quote each other as their sources of information. Hugh Nibley pointed this out in his book, “Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass – The Art of Telling Tales About Joseph Smith and Brigham Young,” In a chapter entitled “How to Write an Anti-Mormon Book (A Handbook for Beginners).
The most prolific Anti-Mormon of that period had to be Walter Martin, founder of the Christian Research Institute. Martin was the author of the landmark, “Kingdom of the Cults,” which profiled the various religions and denominations he classified as cults. The LDS Church was, of course, one of them. He also had a radio show known as the “Bible Answer Man” and had debated numerous Mormon apologists such as Van Hale. He died in 1989.
The mantra of these Anti-Mormons was pretty much the same, centering on these major points:
Mormons are Not Christians – Because the teachings of the LDS Church were not in line with what they called “Historic Christian Traditions” regarding the Nature of God, role of Satan, Living Prophets, continuing revelation, open canon and extra-biblical texts, and the truth of the Bible as far as it is translated correctly, etc., we are deemed by them as not a Christian Church despite claims to the contrary. This mainly because, in their minds:
– Because the teachings of the LDS Church were not in line with what they called “Historic Christian Traditions” regarding the Nature of God, role of Satan, Living Prophets, continuing revelation, open canon and extra-biblical texts, and the truth of the Bible as far as it is translated correctly, etc., we are deemed by them as not a Christian Church despite claims to the contrary. This mainly because, in their minds: Mormons worship a different Jesus – Because of our doctrine on the Nature of God as separate beings, with bodies of flesh and bone, because we believe that Jesus visited the Americas and because of our eternal view, we must be worshiping a different Jesus than they do. I’ve never quite gotten this point.
Because of our doctrine on the Nature of God as separate beings, with bodies of flesh and bone, because we believe that Jesus visited the Americas and because of our eternal view, we must be worshiping a different Jesus than they do. I’ve never quite gotten this point. Salvation by Works – Critics point to the many commandments and tasks that Mormons do in the course of their worship as evidence that Mormons believe they can “work” their way to the highest degrees of heaven. As opposed to the commonly held view by many other Christians of Salvation by Grace alone; That the shed blood of Jesus and confession of sins saves without regard to any acts, good or bad. This is usually coupled with a “once saved, always saved idea that one cannot lose their salvation having obtained it through confession and God’s grace. Latter-day Saints and many other Christians would disagree with this based on Bible teachings alone.
Here are some of the stated reasons why they engage in this work:
I’m here to tell you the Truth The Church is deceiving you The leaders are not what they purport to be. The Book of Mormon is fake and written by Joseph Smith The church is a cult I can help you escape it Most of all, I love the Mormon people
Which brings me to:
The New Anti-Mormons
Many of those folks have slipped by the wayside in terms of their real influence in the Anti-Mormon community. Sure there are a few others like James White, Bill McKeaver and Sean McCready. But the latest group of potential Anti-Mormons are different. Not only do they have the benefit of the Internet as their communications vehicle, they also have the benefit of being current and former members of the Church.
Yes, it’s true. That scripture in the New Testament is coming to pass:
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. (Matthew 7:15)
The new crop of Anti-Mormons speak to very different issues than the ones from the past. While many have doctrinal issues, most new critics focus on historical claims which they say the Church hid from them. That have problems with:
Blacks and the Priesthood issue
The role of women in the Church
The Patriarchal Order
The polygamy issue, particularly surrounding the practices of Joseph Smith
The historicity of the Book of Mormon
The historical treatment of Gays and Same Sex Marriage
And while many members have very legitimate questions and concerns about these issues and can take different positions from the Leaders of the Church on these issues and their resolution, these new Anti-Mormons take it a step further. They openly advocate against the Church because of these issues.
They say:
The Leaders were/are racists and the only reason the Blacks were allowed to receive the Priesthood was because of pressure applied to the Church by outsiders (like the Polygamy issue)
That the leaders are not inspired and too old to effectively understand and run the modern Church
That the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith or others and is not what it claims to be.
That the revelations surround the practice of polygamy are false and Joseph was wrong to begin the practice of polygamy and Brigham Young was even more wrong for continuing it.
That the Church and its General and Local leaders treat the women of the Church shabbily and will not give them the Priesthood or any autonomous responsibilities like in the old days.
To name a few.
Again, not to confuse those reading this. There is nothing wrong with the questions members might have about these issues and their legitimate concerns. We all have them. Church Leaders have publically stated that recently. The critics have acknowledged that it was said, but have also said that it’s not really true, adding fuel to the fire.
So who are these critics–The New Anti-Mormons. To begin with, there are several websites and chat sites for former members of the Church where they can converse about their grievances with the Church. The comments range from a single complaint to quite vile outbursts. Their stated mission is to inform those non-members and members with doubts about the “real” truth. Similar to the professional Anti-Mormons of the past.
There are also those with blogs and websites that disseminate information that can be construed as critical of the Church. The most prominent being Mormon Stories and its founder and proprietor, John Dehlin. Many here know John and are familiar with his situation and his websites. As you are aware, he was recently excommunicated from the Church for apostasy. And while many would disagree that he should have been excommunicated or was preaching openly against the Church, I found some of his recent rhetoric to be eerily similar to those of the Anti-Mormons:
This slide was taken from the 2014 Mormon Stories End of the Year Update. His stated beliefs echo many of the same things the traditional Anti-Mormons say.
I know many will not agree with me here. And I will also state that I have derived much benefit and knowledge from many of the Mormon Stories podcasts. John is one of a few who have recently come out in open defiance of the Church. Some, who were members, suffered Church discipline as a result.
So I ask you is John and those like him, the New Anti-Mormons? |
As a bibliophile and a TV/film fanatic, I’ve always tried to curtail my expectations for adaptation of books I enjoy. It’s always been my belief that a good adaptation tries to capture the essence of a book rather than mimic it. Blade Runner is a good example of this. The film bears little resemblance to Philip K. Dick’s novella, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but is excellent in its own right.
When it comes to George R. R. Martin’s epic Song of Ice and Fire, ten hours is simply not enough time to cover everything. More importantly, it would be foolish to even try even if more time was allotted. The show does cover most of the main points with min
or deviations, but that will likely change and the show progresses, even without taking into consideration that the final two books haven’t even been written yet.
There are many differences between TV and books, but the most important with regards to Game of Thrones is pacing. For a series that has hundreds of characters that covers thousands of pages, there’s a lot of downtime in A Song of Ice and Fire. We see this particularly with Daenerys Targaryen, who is given relatively little to do compared to the rest of the series’ major characters. The TV cannot have a character who sits around all season and thus deviation is required. We saw this in season two with the captured dragon plot in Quarth. People can criticize it for not being in the books, but without it we’d be left with a character who mostly roamed around with nothing to do all season.
The pacing also becomes increasingly more confusing with the fourth and fifth books, which take place over roughly the same amount of time and introduce several new POV characters. While the books can get away with this, keeping in mind that neither book received the kind of critical acclaim that the first three received, a TV show can’t. Television doesn’t just one day decide that the lead isn’t the lead anymore.
This requires the show to move certain plotlines along faster than the books do. Theon Grejoy is elevated to POV character in A Clash of Kings, only to disappear for the next two books before becoming important again inA Dance With Dragons. Game of Thrones can’t get away with this. If the producers tried to tell Alfie Allen that his character would be gone for two years, he would go find other work. Further more, people would naturally lose interest.
That’s part of what makes Game of Thrones such a groundbreaking show. Both the books and the show clearly have the Starks as the main protagonists when the story begins. The Starks are responsible for six of the eight POV characters (not counting the prologue) of A Game of Thrones, yet only three of the fourteen in A Dance With Dragons. The books show an increased effort to explore their depth and from the looks of season four, the show does as well.
As the depth expands, so will the deviation. For characters like Theon, Brienne, and Daenerys, we’re starting to get close to where they are in the series as a whole rather than just where they left off in A Storm of Swords.That’s going to anger some fan purists, who want a strict adaptation of the series. But it shouldn’t, especially since the show is going to catch up with the books sooner rather than later.
Game of Thrones should make plot decisions that work for the show and not strictly because that’s the way things happened in the book. Performances from actors like Charles Dance, Diana Rigg, and Richard Madden elevated their character’s significance and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Robb Stark may not have been a POV character, but it’s hard to argue that he isn’t a more interesting character to watch than his brother Bran.
The big advantage of having POV characters is that the reader is given access to the inner thoughts of a wide spread of characters. We get to see what the Starks and the Lannisters are thinking. In TV, we only get to see what they do. That’s not to say that the POV system isn’t without flaws either. Characters like Sansa are often passive characters in specific scenes between non-POV characters. We have to view these scenes through a biased source. The show doesn’t have those limitations.
The biggest problems with deviations occur when they don’t work. Talisa Stark wasn’t a figure of controversy, but Jamie’s rape of Cersei was a whole different story. While, “it didn’t happen in the book,” is far from the only point of objection to the latter scene, things like that are when the differences between book and show are fully exposed.
While personally, I’ll almost always prefer the book to the screen adaptation, I don’t make a comparison between the two a deciding factor. Book purists should avoid the show entirely, because anger at something for not limiting itself strictly to the confines of what came before it isn’t really fair. Books, movies, and television are all very different mediums that don’t flawlessly translate into one another and that’s okay. |
In a rapid offensive lasting less than a month, forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have recaptured the last opposition enclave in east Aleppo. On Monday evening, the army cleared street after street as artillery and air strikes pounded rebel positions northeast of Ramouseh district. By midnight, only a tiny speck of territory remained in opposition hands and celebratory gunfire lit the darkened skies over west Aleppo. On Tuesday evening, finally, news came of a deal brokered by Russia and Turkey that would see the remaining rebel fighters evacuate to opposition-held territory outside Aleppo, while civilians were to remain in the city under government control.
The collapse of the east Aleppo pocket marks the end of a four-and-a-half year struggle for control over northern Syria’s largest city, often referred to as the country’s industrial and economic capital.
To al-Assad loyalists, this is a great victory. In an email interview, a source close to the government in Damascus spoke of Aleppo’s “liberation from terror groups”, saying that the restoration of army control would “allow the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons to return to east Aleppo”.
There is clearly a sense of relief among government loyalists in Aleppo, who feel that their city may finally be on the path back to normality. On Monday night, the state broadcaster al-Ekhbariya ran loops of footage from street celebrations in pouring rain, where young men fired in the air and honked their car horns as television anchors handed out chocolates.
But to the Syrian opposition, the fall of east Aleppo is a political disaster that threatens to sap morale and undermine international support for the uprising. Yet opposition representatives struck a defiant tone.
“We can’t ignore the fact that the revolutionaries in Syria have been left alone to face a large group of enemies, including the regime, Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, the militias, and Iraq,” Omar Mushaweh, a Turkey-based leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, told IRIN in an online interview.
But, like other opposition sympathisers interviewed, Mushaweh gave no hint of wanting to surrender. Indeed, with the al-Assad government’s own weaknesses demonstrated by its recent loss of Palmyra to the self-declared Islamic State, no one is under any illusions: the war will go on.
Civilians at Risk
Beyond the political consequences, however, recent events in Aleppo mark the brutal conclusion to four years of human suffering. To Syrians with friends and family in the collapsing rebel enclave, the past weeks have been a nightmare. All through Monday and Tuesday, desperate messages and pleas for help trickled out from east Aleppo through private contacts and social media. Though many civilians had already managed to flee into government-held western Aleppo, the last days of the enclave saw tens of thousands of people thronging the streets.
“People are moving around and fleeing as they can in a very volatile situation, as front lines continue to shift on a daily basis,” Linda Tom, a spokeswoman for the UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, told IRIN in an emailed comment on Saturday. Tom estimated that more than 40,000 civilians had already been displaced at that point, with a further 100,000 still in rebel-held territory, though she stressed that all figures were uncertain.*
Médecins Sans Frontières has called the fall of east Aleppo one of the worst crises they have seen in years. For some of the displaced civilians, fleeing meant risking everything – not only their lives, but also their homes.
Though the Syrian government claims to welcome and protect civilians fleeing eastern Aleppo, many pro-regime militias are poorly organised and undisciplined, and they have a history of looting and destroying abandoned property. Even the governor of Aleppo, Brigadier-General Hussein Diab, recently complained about the waves of looting that tend to follow every successful army offensive in Aleppo.
Though the UN has reported allegations that rebel groups forcibly prevented civilians from leaving in an attempt to use them as human shields, UN officials have also received reports that military-age men are being arrested after crossing into west Aleppo. Indeed, many civilians in the rebel zone seem to have held off fleeing to government territory until they simply had no other choice. “They have been killing us for so long, why would they have mercy?” one resident told the Washington Post.
The Syrian government is eager to deny any such abuses.
“Men of military age leaving the east are being checked and having their details taken down as part of the amnesty and reconciliation process,” a Syrian colonel working for the man running military operations in Aleppo, Lieutenant-General Ziad al-Saleh, said in a statement provided to IRIN by an intermediary. The colonel stated that those guilty of “severe criminality” will be tried and judged, but insisted that “the state is open to these people returning to their normal lives”.
Indeed, as much as they may want to completely crush the opposition and avenge themselves on rebel fighters, al-Assad’s men seem to realise that a softer touch is in their interest. Aleppo will be seen as a major test case for the government’s strategy of imposing local truces and forcing the evacuation of rebel fighters to peripheral regions like Idlib, as al-Assad shores up control over central Syria and major cities elsewhere.
Nevertheless, as the rebel pocket finally collapsed on Monday and Tuesday, opposition media filled up with references to Srebrenica 1995 and Rwanda 1994, even to the Holocaust. These claims were not backed up by reporting and even overtly pro-rebel media channels had, at the time of writing, produced no evidence of anything remotely similar to these atrocities. According to a spokesperson, the UN had received reports about the killing of 82 civilians at the hands of pro-al-Assad forces on Tuesday. As horrifying as that is, it is no genocide.
That said, the fears of opposition sympathisers in the city are real. Other deaths may have gone unreported and at this point no one is quite sure whether the evacuation deal will hold or what the future will bring. With no outside monitoring of the situation or of the conduct of al-Assad’s forces, there are great and legitimate concerns about the mistreatment of prisoners and vulnerable civilian populations. This gruesome chapter in Syria’s history is still being written.
* A note on the population statistics: Throughout the conflict, the number of civilians in rebel-held eastern Aleppo has been hotly disputed. Until the rebel stronghold finally collapsed, the United Nations had put the number of people in the east city at 250,000-275,000. After the attack began, most UN estimates seemed to add up to around 140,000 civilians. On 9 December, I was told by UN OCHA spokesperson Russell Geekie that in the absence of definite information it would be premature to conclude that the UN number had been too high, though Geekie acknowledged that preliminary figures did seem to point in that direction. During my most recent visit to Damascus in October and November, Syrian officials provided wildly varying estimates that ranged from 97,000 people (according to Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem) to 200,000 people (according to al-Assad). On December 11, a Damascus-based source close to the Syrian government insisted, in an email interview, that the UN has allowed itself to be misled by opposition activists and told me that in a final count the total number of civilians in eastern Aleppo “will not exceed 100,000.”
(TOP PHOTO: The Masaken Hanano district of east Aleppo. Sevim Turkmani/ICRC)
al/as/ag |
tl;dr – Given the challenges around VR graphics performance, the Rift will have a recommended specification to ensure that developers can optimize for a known hardware configuration, which ensures a better player experience of comfortable sustained presence. The recommended PC specification is an NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD 290, Intel i5-4590, and 8GB RAM. This configuration will be held for the lifetime of the Rift and should drop in price over time.
The Rift is specifically designed to deliver comfortable, sustained presence – a “conversion on contact” experience that can instantly transform the way people think about virtual reality. As a VR device, the Rift will be capable of delivering comfortable presence for nearly everyone. However, this requires the entire system working well.
Today, that system’s specification is largely driven by the requirements of VR graphics. To start with, VR lets you see graphics like never before. Good stereo VR with positional tracking directly drives your perceptual system in a way that a flat monitor can’t. As a consequence, rendering techniques and quality matter more than ever before, as things that are imperceivable on a traditional monitor suddenly make all the difference when experienced in VR. Therefore, VR increases the value of GPU performance.
At the same time, there are three key VR graphics challenges to note: raw rendering costs, real-time performance, and latency.
On the raw rendering costs: a traditional 1080p game at 60Hz requires 124 million shaded pixels per second. In contrast, the Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second. At the default eye-target scale, the Rift’s rendering requirements go much higher: around 400 million shaded pixels per second. This means that by raw rendering costs alone, a VR game will require approximately 3x the GPU power of 1080p rendering.
Traditionally, PC 3D graphics has had soft real-time requirements, where maintaining 30-60 FPS has been adequate. VR turns graphics into more of a hard real-time problem, as each missed frame is visible. Continuously missing framerate is a jarring, uncomfortable experience. As a result, GPU headroom becomes critical in absorbing unexpected system or content performance potholes.
Finally, we know that minimizing motion-to-photon latency is key to a great VR experience. However, the last few decades of GPU advancements have been built around systems with deep pipelining to achieve maximum throughput at the cost of increased latency; not exactly what we want for VR. Today, minimizing latency comes at the cost of some GPU performance.
Taking all of this into account, our recommended hardware specification is designed to help developers tackle these challenges and ship great content to all Rift users. This is the hardware that we recommend for the full Rift experience:
NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
8GB+ RAM
The goal is for all Rift games and applications to deliver a great experience on this configuration by default. We believe this “it just works” experience will be fundamental to VR’s success, given that an underperforming system will fail to deliver comfortable presence.
The recommended spec will stay constant over the lifetime of the Rift. As the equivalent-performance hardware becomes less expensive, more users will have systems capable of the full Rift experience. Developers, in turn, can rely on Rift users having these modern machines, allowing them to optimize their game for a known target, simplifying development.
Apart from the recommended spec, the Rift will require:
Windows 7 SP1 or newer
2x USB 3.0 ports
HDMI 1.3 video output supporting a 297MHz clock via a direct output architecture
The last bullet point is tricky: many discrete GPU laptops have their external video output connected to the integrated GPU and drive the external output via hardware and software mechanisms that can’t support the Rift. Since this isn’t something that can be determined by reading the specs of a laptop, we are working on how to identify the right systems. Note that almost no current laptops have the GPU performance for the recommended spec, though upcoming mobile GPUs may be able to support this level of performance.
Our development for OS X and Linux has been paused in order to focus on delivering a high quality consumer-level VR experience at launch across hardware, software, and content on Windows. We want to get back to development for OS X and Linux but we don’t have a timeline.
In the future, successful consumer VR will likely drive changes in GPUs, OSs, drivers, 3D engines, and apps, ultimately enabling much more efficient low-latency VR performance. It’s an exciting time for VR graphics, and I’m looking forward to seeing this evolution. |
Who is investing?
Please give the legal name of the investing entity
Type of investing entity
Individual Trust Company
(includes funds, corporations, partnership, LLC's)
Do you or your company fall into any of these categories?
a person or partnership whose ordinary business or professional activity includes, or it is reasonable to expect that it includes, acquiring, underwriting, managing,holding or disposing of investments, whether as principal or agent, or the giving of advice concerning investments; a body corporate which has net assets in excess of €1,000,000 or which is part of a group which has net assets in excess of €1,000,000; an unincorporated association which has net assets in excess of €1,000,000; the trustee of a trust where the aggregate value of the cash and investments which form part of the trust’s assets in excess of €1,000,000; an individual whose net worth, or joint net worth with that person’s spouse, is greater than €1,000,000, excluding that person’s principal place of residence; a participant who has a current aggregate of €100,000 invested in one or more experienced investor funds; a participant who invests a minimum of €50,000 in an experienced investor fund and who has been advised by a professional adviser to invest in the fund and the fund’s administrator has received confirmation of such advice; a participant who is a professional client, as defined under the Financial Services (Markets in Financial Instruments) Act 2006; a participant in a fund that has re-domiciled to Gibraltar where the Authority has permitted the inclusion of such participant either in respect of a specific fund or generally in respect of funds or a category of funds from a certain jurisdiction;
Any bank as defined in section 3(a)(2) of the Act, or any savings and loan association or other institution as defined in section 3(a)(5)(A) of the Act whether acting in its individual or fiduciary capacity; any broker or dealer registered pursuant to section 15 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; any insurance company as defined in section 2(13) of the Act; any investment company registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 or a business development company as defined in section 2(a)(48) of that Act; any Small Business Investment Company licensed by the U.S. Small Business Administration under section 301(c) or (d) of the Small Business Investment Act of 1958; any plan established and maintained by a state, its political subdivisions, or any agency or instrumentality of a state or its political subdivisions, for the benefit of its employees, if such plan has total assets in excess of $5,000,000; any employee benefit plan within the meaning of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 if the investment decision is made by a plan fiduciary, as defined in section 3(21) of such act, which is either a bank, savings and loan association, insurance company, or registered investment adviser, or if the employee benefit plan has total assets in excess of $5,000,000 or, if a self-directed plan, with investment decisions made solely by persons that are accredited investors; Any private business development company as defined in section 202(a)22 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940; Any organization described in section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code, corporation, Massachusetts or similar business trust, or partnership, not formed for the specific purpose of acquiring the securities offered, with total assets in excess of $5,000,000; Any director, executive officer, or general partner of the issuer of the securities being offered or sold, or any director, executive officer, or general partner of a general partner of that issuer; Any natural person whose individual net worth, or joint net worth with that person's spouse, at the time of his purchase exceeds $1,000,000, excluding the value of the person’s primary residence, but including any excess liability between the value of the residence and the amount of any obligation(s) thereon; Any natural person who had an individual income in excess of $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with that person's spouse in excess of $300,000 in each of those years and has a reasonable expectation of reaching the same income level in the current year; Any trust, with total assets in excess of $5,000,000, not formed for the specific purpose of acquiring the securities offered, whose purchase is directed by a sophisticated person as described;
An individual who, alone or together with a spouse, owns financial assets worth more than $1 million before taxes but net of related liabilities; An individual who, alone or together with a spouse, has net assets of at least $5,000,000; An individual whose net income before taxes exceeded $200,000 (or $300,000 in joint income with a spouse) in both of the last two years and who expects to maintain at least the same level of income this year; An individual who currently is, or once was, a registered adviser or dealer, other than a limited market dealer; Financial institutions, governments and governmental agencies, insurance companies, pension funds, registered charities, certain mutual funds, pooled funds, and managed accounts; Companies with net assets of at least $5 million;
A person that has net assets of at least A$2.5 million; A person that has a gross income of A$250,000 for each of the last two financial years; A person has or controls gross assets of A$10 million;
An eligible investor. This is someone who can demonstrate that they have enough experience in buying and selling financial products, that they’re able to make informed decisions about the benefits, risks and values of different investment types.
If you’re an eligible investor, you will understand the type of information you need before making a decision to invest, and will be able to assess when you need to know more. Investment activity. You can show that within the past two years you’ve been involved in significant investment activity.
This means you have owned a financial portfolio worth at least $1 million; or, you have carried out transactions to buy financial products worth $1 million or more. A large investor. Your net assets, or consolidated turnover over the past two financial years, is $5 million or more. An investment business. If you have a professional certification or experience that shows in-depth financial knowledge you could qualify under this criteria. For example, you could be an investment manager, registered financial adviser, broker, underwriter or licensed insurer.
NET Personal assets exceeding SGD 2 million (or equivalent in foreign currency). Income in preceding 12 months of not less than SGD 300,000 (or equivalent in foreign currency). A corporation with net assets exceeding $10 million in value (or its equivalent in a foreign currency) or such other amount as the Authority may prescribe, in place of the first amount, as determined by — (A)the most recent audited balance-sheet of the corporation; or (B)where the corporation is not required to prepare audited accounts regularly, a balance-sheet of the corporation certified by the corporation as giving a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the corporation as of the date of the balance-sheet, which date shall be within the preceding 12 months; The trustee of such trust as the Authority may prescribe, when acting in that capacity; Such other person as the Authority may prescribe.
Trust corporations, with total assets of not less than HK$40 million or its equivalent in foreign currency; Individuals, either alone or with any associates on a joint account, having a portfolio of not less than HK$8 million or its equivalent in foreign currency; Corporations or partnerships having either a portfolio of not less than HK$8 million or total assets of not less than HK$40 million; A corporate investment vehicle that is wholly owned by any of the three categories above.
Institutional investors (pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, banks, portfolio managers, etc.); Large companies with equity exceeding ILS 50 million; Hold liquid assets (cash, deposits, financial assets, and securities) of at least ILS 8 million; Have received personal income of at least ILS 1.2 million in each of the two most recent years (or ILS 1.8 million in joint family income); Hold liquid assets of at least ILS 5 million and receive personal annual income of at least ILS 600,000 (or ILS 900,000 in joint family income).
Balance of financial investment instruments of at least KRW 500 million; Annual income of at least KRW 100 million.
Any person holding investments in securities during the prior year in average of approximately US$415,000, or that has obtained, during the two previous years, an annual net income equal to or exceeding approximately US$130,000. Any person holding investments in securities during the prior year in average of approximately US$830,000, or that has obtained, during the two previous years, an annual net income equal to or exceeding approximately US$270,000. |
A video of protesters banging pots and pans on Quebec streets is going viral on social networks.
Posted on Friday afternoon, the beautiful black and white film shows protesters of all ages taking to the streets to protest the emergency law Bill 78. The Vimeo video quickly began showing up all over Twitter and Facebook.
Bill 78 is being called a draconian attempt to quell massive student protests that have taken over Quebec streets for more than 100 days. The bill limits the ability to protest by requiring groups to get police approval for demonstrations and restricting where they can take place, among other provisions.
People took up the percussive protest Thursday night in several towns and cities including Sorel, Longueuil, Chambly, Repentigny, Trois-Rivieres and even in Abitibi -- several hundred kilometres away from the hot spot of Montreal.
They were still loudest in Montreal, where a chorus of metallic clanks rang out in neighbourhoods around the city, spilling into the main demonstrations and sounding like aluminum symphonies.
The pots-and-pans protest has its roots in Chile, where people have used it for years as an effective, peaceful tool to express civil disobedience. The noisy cacerolazo tradition actually predates the Pinochet regime in Chile, but has endured there and spread to other countries as a method of showing popular defiance.
Thursday's protest in Montreal was immediately declared illegal by police, who said it violated a municipal bylaw because they hadn't been informed of the route. They allowed it to continue as long as it remained peaceful.
Usually the nightly street demonstrations, which have gone on for a month, have a couple of vigorous drummers to speed them along their route. At the very least, someone clangs a cow bell.
But in the last few days, the pots and pans protest -- dubbed the casseroles by observers -- have acted like an alarm clock for the regular evening march, sounding at 8 p.m. on the nose in advance of the march's start.
With files from The Canadian Press.
Also on HuffPost |
55 Pages Posted: 19 Apr 2016 Last revised: 10 May 2016
Date Written: April 22, 2016
Abstract
This paper explores the institutional determinants of persecution by studying the intensity of the Black Death pogroms in the Holy Roman Empire. Political fragmentation exacerbated rent-seeking in the Holy Roman Empire. We argue that this fragmentation led to Jewish communities facing more intense persecutions during the Black Death. We test this argument using data on the intensity of pogroms, historical trade routes, ecclesiastical and political boundaries. In line with our model, we find that communities close to Archbishoprics, Bishoprics, and Imperial Free cities experienced more intense and violent persecutions than did those governed by the emperor. We discuss the implications this has for the enforcement of the rule of law in weak states. |
Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City's Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comedian, writer and filmmaker. She is the host of the Katie Halper Show on WBA1, writes for places like The Nation, Feministing, Jezebel and appears on places like MSNBC, RT, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once). Katie's had her photo taken with Rudy Giuliani and was called "cute and somewhat brainy" by the National Review.
image via youtube
James Brown served two tours in Iraq and was diagnosed with PTSD. In exchange for his service and sacrifice, the 26-year-old father of two died in a Texas jail, where prison guards in riot gear stormed his cell and ignored his cries that he was choking on his own blood and unable to breathe.
James Brown, who reported to an El Paso jail where he was supposed to serve a two-day sentence for driving while intoxicated, died in 2012. While his family suspected foul play, only recently was the local news station KFOX14 able to obtain video recorded by one of the prison guards. The footage, which is extremely disturbing and painful to watch, shows that Brown has started bleeding for unknown reasons. When he doesn’t respond to the prison guard, as many as five guards dressed in riot gear storm Brown’s cell, forcing him to the ground. At no point does Brown appear to be resisting the guards. He does, however, state repeatedly, “I can’t breathe” and, “I’m choking on my blood.” He’s then taken to the infirmary, where he has a mask placed over his face and is given an injection. He continues to state he can’t breathe and, as evident in this exchange, is denied all requests to change his position or have the mask removed:
SGT. JAMES BROWN: Now that’s blocking too much air. That’s over my nose and my mouth. Could you unhook my arm out of this? PRISON GUARD: You need to calm down first. SGT. JAMES BROWN: Can I lay on the floor? PRISON GUARD: No, sir.
SGT. JAMES BROWN: Well, you’re going to have to do one or the other to help my breathing. Please, that’s all I ask. PRISON GUARD: You got to calm down a little bit first. SGT. JAMES BROWN: I will. I just need the mask—please. PRISON GUARD: Relax. SGT. JAMES BROWN: Please. Please. I can’t breathe. I can’t relax. You’ve got to take this mask off, dude, please. PRISON GUARD: Can’t take it off, sir. I’m sorry.
By the end of the video, Brown is left naked in his cell in a non-responsive state. He is not blinking and his breathing is shallow. No ambulance is called. Ultimately, Brown would be brought to a hospital and pronounced dead. The autopsy determined Brown died of natural causes and cites “a sickle cell crisis” as the cause of his death. The El Paso County Sherriff released the following statement to Democracy Now!
Mr. Brown’s death was an unfortunate tragedy. The Sheriff’s Office has conducted a thorough review of the facts surrounding Mr. Brown’s death and, based upon all the evidence obtained, determined that his death was caused by a pre-existing medical condition.
B.J. Crow, the family’s attorney, is skeptical to say the least:
When a 26-year-old active military person checks in to jail for a court-imposed sentence on a Friday, and he leaves Sunday, you know, in a casket, something went horribly wrong there…. He was bleeding out the ears, the nose, the mouth. His kidneys shut down. His blood pressure dropped to a very dangerous level. And his liver shut down.
The tragic irony of Brown’s death was not lost on his mother, Dinette Scott, who told Democray Now!
In that video, I heard my son begging for his life on U.S. soil. This was not his enemy that he was facing. This was a U.S. citizen that was treating him like he was an animal. And it should not be allowed. That should not happen to anyone in the United States
The family has filed a lawsuit against El Paso County. |
A global ban on developing artificially intelligent robot soldiers is needed to protect the future of mankind, a letter from hundreds of leading scientists including Stephen Hawking has warned.
More than 1,000 scientists and businessmen signed the open letter from the Future of LIfe Institute, calling on world leaders to prevent artificial intelligence (AI) technology from being used in a "global arms race".
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk were also among the signatories of the letter, presented at a major conference in Argentina.
The letter warns that developing weapons beyond existing remote control drones, which could 'think' for themselves without human input, is "feasible within years" - and have the potential to become the "Kalashnikovs of tomorrow".
Launching a question and answer session on Reddit on the topic of AI, Prof Hawking said it was vital that scientists at the forefront of the technology keep the "human factor" at the "front and centre" of developments. |
We all know the Moto 360 is coming “soon”. How soon, you ask? Pretty soon, if you think that at least one tech journalist is wearing it right now, and on national television of all places.
Joshua Topolsky, the editor in chief of The Verge, is Jimmy Fallon’s resident tech guru. As a recurrent guest on Jimmy Fallon’s shows, Josh shows off new gadgets and sometimes demoes them together with Jimmy and his guests. Yesterday, Josh demoed a Lytro camera and Sony’s new VR headset, but what really caught our eye was the Moto 360 that he was so casually sporting.
You can clearly tell it’s a Moto 360, and, at one point, the device lights up with a sleek neon watch face. And, on its official Facebook page, The Verge appears to be teasing the device, so this could be a planned hype-building move, rather than a simple slip-up.
The Verge is in great relationship with Motorola and Google, and has received devices for exclusive advance testing several times before. This is probably what’s happening here, as well, meaning that the Moto 360’s official debut can’t be far. Google I/O, just start already! |
Way back in the spring, Mitt Romney called Donald Trump "a fraud" who "lacks the temperament to be president."
What a difference a couple of months makes. On Tuesday night, he was spotted at four-star restaurant Jean Georges in New York City having dinner with the president-elect. (On the menu: frog legs, scallops and sirloin.)
Romney is in the running to become Trump's secretary of state. The awkwardness of having to dine with a man you once called "a phony" was written all over Romney's face.
In fact, it brings to mind a certain paper salesman who also had to endure the crude jokes of an oafish man who, somehow, found himself in a position of power.
When Jim looks directly into camera pic.twitter.com/F6sJuFmQQk — Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) November 30, 2016
The photo of a resigned Romney inspired plenty of other jokes, too.
Mitt Romney is me every time I go on a first date pic.twitter.com/659nSst6rg — Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) November 30, 2016
I don't know what he's just agreed to do for Trump but it looks bad: pic.twitter.com/ysVSRROBDH — Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) November 30, 2016
*record scratch*
*freeze frame*
Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation ... pic.twitter.com/VC9XZblMGY — Hunter Walker (@hunterw) November 30, 2016
I found the uncropped version of that Trump and Romney photo. pic.twitter.com/VdeLh3QnB1 — neontaster (@neontaster) November 30, 2016
Romney having dinner with Trump. It's even more awkward than a stop-and-chat.
I had to see pic.twitter.com/h47bpJfar2 — Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) November 30, 2016 |
A poll worker in Queens, New York appeared on MSNBC with Chuck Todd last night and revealed that Democrats were submitting blank ballots rather than voting for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Why? Because they actually wanted to vote for Republican Donald Trump.
New York is a closed primary state, meaning voters must vote for somebody within their registered party. Some Democrats, however, are so disillusioned with the choices coming from their party that they preferred submitting a blank ballot as a way to support Trump.
More from The Political Insider
“What they’re basically doing,” explained the poll worker, “is they’re saying we want to vote for Trump and we say ‘but you can’t, you’re a Democrat.'”
She continued, “Then they say ‘well we won’t vote for anyone.'”
The poll worker relayed that “what they’re doing is they’re putting in a blank ballot.”
“A void?” asked MSNBC reporter Jacob Soboroff.
“A void ballot,” she responded.
Soboroff then concluded, “That is really interesting here in New York, especially if Donald Trump wants to walk out of here with the entire slate of delegates.”
Check out the entire exchange below …
The Political Insider was able to announce Trump’s impressive victory in New York’s Republican primary within seconds of the polls closing last night.
After his huge victory had been decided, Trump said his rivals in the Republican nomination contest cannot catch him, adding that “we don’t have much of a race anymore.”
He also claimed that Ted Cruz had now been virtually eliminated from the contest.
A poll released in January indicated that nearly a quarter of likely Democrat voters were willing to switch parties and vote for Trump in the general election.
Via the Hill:
About 20 percent of likely Democratic voters say they would buck the party and vote for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in a general election, according to a new poll. The willingness of some Democrats to change sides could be a major problem for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton this fall. The new figures were released by Mercury Analytics, a research company with clients that include MSNBC and Fox News, as the result of an online poll and dial-test of Trump’s first campaign ad. A smaller number of Republicans say they’d vote for Clinton — about 14 percent.
We’re not sure what self-respecting Republican would ever vote for Clinton, so the accuracy of that poll may be debated.
Comment: Is the Trump phenomenon so ‘yuge’ right now that he may even be able to get Democrats to cross over and vote for him?
Read this Next on ThePoliticalInsider.com ‘Avengers’ Star Compares Donald Trump to a Plantation Owner
Do you support Trump? Check out this page dedicated to all things Donald Trump. |
After over two decades of recovering cannons, gold coins, and jewelry from a 340-year-old Swedish shipwreck, marine archaeologists can now add a chunk of cheese to their list of finds.
While exploring the wreckage of the 17th century Swedish royal vessel Kronan, Kalmar Museum researcher Lars Einarsson noticed a small, tin jar buried in the mud at the bottom of the shipwreck. When he brought it to the surface, the decrease in pressure caused some of the contents to ooze out of the container.
“That’s when the smell hit us,” Einarsson told local media. “It’s a pretty good guess that it’s some kind of dairy product, and we think it is cheese.”
The fetid find was revealed on Wednesday along with several other discoveries from the expedition, including a diamond ring and a handful of gold coins.
The Kronan — a Swedish warship that was one of the largest in the world when it set sail in 1668 — was 53 metres long and was equipped with 110 large cannons. It sank off the coast of Ӧland in eastern Sweden in 1676, during a battle with the Danish-Dutch fleet. Historians believe that the ship capsized after making a sharp turn in bad weather, somehow causing a gunpowder explosion near the bow. Out of the roughly 850 people on board, only 42 survived.
The wreckage was discovered in 1980 and is still the largest marine archaeology site in Sweden. More than 30,000 artifacts have been found in the shipwreck, including a hoard of textiles that have given historians insights into how clothes were made in the late 1600s. During an expedition in 1997, divers discovered one of the world’s oldest violins, which likely belonged to one of the ship’s officers.
The latest, smelly find might say something about 17th century tastes, though despite what people often say about cheese and age, Einarsson has his doubts.
“It’s been in the mud, so it’s reasonably well preserved, but at the same time it has been at the bottom of the sea for 340 years,” he said. “I certainly don’t recommend tasting it.”
I think it smells quite nice, because I like exotic food
He described the smell of the substance as a mixture of yeast and Roquefort.
With nearly 90 per cent of the excavation completed, divers will continue to explore the Kronan for three more years. After that, Einarsson hopes that there will be a museum focused on the shipwreck.
For now, the cheese is being kept refrigerated to keep it from decomposing completely. Researchers hope to analyze the gooey substance to determine what its made from.
“I think it smells quite nice, because I like exotic food,” Einarsson added. “But I wouldn’t want to taste it.” |
Here's Matt Hickey on FetLife, Looking for "Sluts" in Vegas
This was posted 18 hours ago. FetLife/4eyez
A FetLife user account with multiple profile photos of Matt Hickey, the Seattle-based tech journalist recently accused by multiple women of rape and posing as a female porn recruiter online, put out a call last night for "sluts" in Las Vegas who are into "being naked, drinking booze, and having fun."
According to the profile, the user 4eyez is a screenwriter who's "going to be living in Vegas for the next few months doing some research." The same profile also says the user is "a photographer that specializes in fetish and pin-up style photos."
In addition to profile photos of Hickey, the 4eyez profile contains photos of women Hickey photographed—photos that were available in a portfolio on Hickey's website until he took it down.
4eyez's profile includes multiple photos of Matt Hickey and women he's photographed. 4eyez/FetLife
The profile's biography page describes 4eyez as "into equal rights and respect for all; if you're not then you probably shouldn't be talking to me."
Hickey did not respond to a text message or e-mail asking whether he was the person behind the 4eyez profile. But half an hour after The Stranger e-mailed and texted him about it, 4eyez's post about Las Vegas sluts was taken down.
UPDATE, 12:41 PM: The Stranger just received a text message response from Hickey confirming that he is, indeed, the 4eyez account.
"i was," he wrote. "Just deleted my account. thanks for that. what's the point in outing posts on a personals website anyway? i've made some good friends on there and plan on making more. I travel for work often and it's been a fun tool."
The account still appears to be up, despite Hickey saying he deleted it.
"and i'm not in las vegas," he continued, "to answer your question."
UPDATE, 1:28 PM: Hickey's profile appears to have been deactivated or removed from the site. |
The Most Visually Stunning And Intellectually Captivating Libraries Of The World
“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries” – Rene Descartes
Libraries have gotten a bad reputation over the years, particularly in popular media. They’re depicted as boring, quiet, stuffy places where people go by obligation to complete school work, or find an abandoned aisle in the upper floors for some…extracurricular activity.
Libraries are, however, one of the most captivating places to visit when traveling. Societies pride themselves on the aggregate whole of their cultural and intellectual knowledge, and their libraries are the storage receptacles for that knowledge, in a medium that we might be losing touch with: books.
Some people are describing tangible, physical books printed on paper as “old and outdated technology”, but I’ll take the smell, look, and feel of a newly minted book over a digital copy on a glass and plastic reader any day.
There’s no getting around it, there are people who simply refuse to give the written word the acclamation it deserves in human history, and actually flaunt the fact that they don’t read (we’ve all come across these deluded individuals on Facebook one time or another).
But for those of use who still value the inherent gold mine that are books, libraries can be amazing places, and it isn’t just about the books that are on the shelves either. To pronounce their collection of knowledge to the outside world, cities, municipalities, universities, and even countries as a whole implement marvelous architecture and design into the building of their libraries, to appropriately suit the wealth of knowledge that they hold.
Here are a few captivating libraries of the world.
The Royal Portugese Reading Library, In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Melk Monastery Library, Melk, Austria
Internet entrepreneur Jay Walker’s Private Library, complete with a Sputnik 1 satellite, and a chandelier from a James Bond movie.
Central Library, Seattle, Washington, USA.
For more images, check out a 65 page SlideShare presentation HERE.
And for those of you who wish libraries were decorated and adorned with more than renaissance style art and old books, here’s a video of Alison Brie doing some espionage at her college bibliotheca.
[jwplayer config=”1″ file=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMXnSFdiQYY&feature=player_embedded#at=25″ file.hd=” http://www.youtube.com/embed/FMXnSFdiQYY?hd=1″ image=” “] |
Intrusive thoughts are involuntary and unpleasant thoughts, images, or ideas that pop into our mind.
They are a common symptom in those with anxiety, depression, OCD, and PTSD; however, the truth is most people experience intrusive thoughts from time to time.
Common intrusive thoughts are usually associated with aggression, impulsive urges, and sexual fantasies. And although intrusive thoughts are rarely acted upon, they are often considered “inappropriate” by the person thinking the thoughts.
As a result, many intrusive thoughts can lead to strong feelings of guilt and shame, even when the person never physically did anything wrong. Fortunately, there are ways we can accept these thoughts without letting them have too much influence on our mental health.
Some intrusive thoughts you may have are:
Thoughts or impulses to harm or kill ourselves.
Thoughts or impulses to harm or kill a person, small child, or animal.
Thoughts or impulses to shout out or verbally abuse someone by saying something rude, inappropriate, nasty, or violent.
Thoughts or impulses to do something very risky or dangerous.
Thoughts or impulses regarding inappropriate sexual behavior.
Thoughts or impulses to do something we find morally wrong.
There are many different examples of intrusive thoughts, but these are some of the thoughts most commonly associated with the term. For the remainder of this post, I’m going to share 3 steps we can follow to let go of these types of thoughts and limit the power they have over us.
The first step toward letting go of our thoughts is by accepting them. It is pointless and unhealthy to pretend that we don’t have intrusive or negative thoughts every now and then. And by trying to run away from these thoughts we are only deluding ourselves.
In fact, we invest more energy in these thoughts when we try to avoid and suppress them, rather than just acknowledging that they are there. And by running away from intrusive thoughts, we actually give them more power over our well-being.
The purpose of thinking is for our minds to produce new and better ways to respond to our environment. Some of this thinking is conscious, but a lot of it is unconscious. Our brains are constantly working “behind the scenes” to think of new and better ways to behave.
Sometimes, as a byproduct of this creativity, our brains think of some really bizarre and inappropriate ideas – intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that surprise us and make us ask ourselves, “Did I really just think that?” because they seem so out-of-character.
The answer is, “Yes, you really did just think that, and that’s okay.” Intrusive thoughts can often be a side effect of a healthy mind. And just because you have intrusive thoughts from time to time doesn’t mean you have lost your sanity. It means your brain is being active and creative – although maybe sometimes a little too creative.
Remember, just because you accept the thought doesn’t mean you need to act on it.
As explained above, intrusive thoughts are a natural occurrence. Therefore we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves for thinking bizarre and spontaneous things once and awhile.
It’s common for intrusive thoughts to be followed by feelings of guilt and shame, but try to understand that there is nothing to feel guilty over. After you accept your thoughts, try to watch them in a non-judgmental awareness. Don’t necessarily react to them or judge them as “good” or “bad.” Just sit back and passively watch them as if you were watching a movie.
This perspective will help you disengage from the thoughts both physically and emotionally. You will be less likely to act on them, and you will be less likely to judge yourself negatively. The key is to just “watch your thoughts” from an objective and depersonalized point-of-view – almost as if a scientist was observing a specimen under a microscope.
Step 3: Ride out your thoughts until they subside
If you watch your thoughts long enough in a non-judgmental state of awareness, you’ll notice that they eventually “ride themselves out” without much effort.
This is because our thoughts are always changing. Our mind is always going in new directions. So if we can be patient and wait long enough, intrusive thoughts will often go away all on their own.
In mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, there is a technique known as urge surfing that operates on this same principle. The main idea is that our thoughts and emotions are impermanent – they are in a constant state of flux. Therefore, even negative thoughts and emotions will eventually subside when we allow them too.
Through urge surfing we can remain non-reactive to our intrusive thoughts until they eventually become less intense and disappear. It’s analogous toward “riding out” a wave in the ocean. If we can remain balanced within the ebbs and flows, we can more easily navigate safely through the waves. In the same way, if we can remain patient and calm in the midst of intrusive thoughts, we can better overcome them.
It’s not always easy to disengage from intrusive thoughts, but with practice we can learn how to more easily let go of them. Once we learn how to do this, it doesn’t mean we won’t ever have intrusive thoughts anymore, but they will at least have a lot less influence over our mental well-being.
Stay updated on new articles and resources in psychology and self improvement: |
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The secret is out.
And like Gators head coach Jim McElwain said earlier in the week, the Gators will start a quarterback in the season opener Sept. 3 against UMass.
McElwain announced Thursday afternoon that redshirt sophomore Luke Del Rio is that guy. Del Rio and fifth-year senior transfer Austin Appleby opened preseason camp competing for the job.
"Luke is going to work as the starter the rest of camp and start in the season opener barring any unforeseen development,'' McElwain said. "Our other quarterbacks remain in the plans and are ready to move forward and help the Gators any way they can."
Del Rio emerged as the front-runner for the job in the spring when he went 10-for-11 for 176 yards and two touchdowns in the Orange & Blue Debut. A fifth-year senior transfer from Purdue, Appleby joined the Gators in January but had significant ground to make up on Del Rio, who sat out a season ago after transferring from Oregon State.
True freshmen Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask arrived at the same time as Appleby and continue to factor into the mix during preseason camp. However, Del Rio's grasp of the offense and experience in the program gave him a clear advantage.
"He's about business,'' junior offensive lineman David Sharpe said at media day. "He comes in and works and tries to have fun with it. He just has those leadership qualities that guys respect."
The 6-foot-1, 213-pound Del Rio began his college career at Alabama as a walk-on in 2013 after graduating from Valor Christian (Colo.) High, where he shared the backfield with Stanford running back and Heisman hopeful Christian McCaffrey as a senior. McElwain, then coach at Colorado State, offered Del Rio his first scholarship.
After a season at Alabama, where he was tutored by Gators offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier , Del Rio left for Oregon State. He played in three games for the Beavers in 2014, completing 8 of 18 passes for 141 yards.
Following a coaching change, Del Rio transferred to Florida in the summer of 2015 and served as a scout-team quarterback and veteran influence in his position group. The son Oakland Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio, Luke has been around the game his entire life.
"It's definitely something I've looked forward to,'' Del Rio said last week of the opportunity to start at Florida. "Everybody is more comfortable in the offense. People say that a lot, but it really does matter. Summer workouts we really harped on the passing game."
"It feels like a totally different team, to be honest."
Del Rio, who was placed on scholarship recently, passed for 2,275 yards, 28 touchdowns and just four interceptions as a high school senior. He played previously at Episcopal High in Jacksonville when his father was head coach of the Jaguars.
Del Rio will try to stabilize a position that has been inconsistent for the Gators in recent years, marked by the transfers of six players who started at quarterback since 2011. |
In a bizarre, fawning letter, Oracle has given America's broadband watchdog, the FCC, the equivalent of a telco reach-around.
The letter [PDF] from Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz's office, and signed by senior VP Kenneth Glueck, appears to have been written solely to praise FCC chairman Ajit Pai and his recent actions: a situation made all the more bizarre by the fact that Oracle has nothing to do with the decisions it praises.
"We are optimistic that the FCC under your leadership will take a different approach and are encouraged by the actions you have already taken to date," the March 13 letter says, leaning forward for a kiss. "We look forward to working with you to reset America's technology policy in a new pro-growth, pro-jobs and pro-American leadership direction."
In particular, it congratulates Pai for killing off new privacy rules on ISPs that were due to take effect earlier this month, and for shutting down the effort to force cable companies to open up cable boxes to third parties. It also sides fiercely with Pai in criticizing net neutrality rules, in particular the decision to designate ISPs as so-called Title II carriers.
Quite why Oracle has decided to side so heavily with the ISP industry when it has virtually nothing to do with its business is something of a head-scratcher. And the vehemence of the argument makes it that much weirder.
On the effort to open up cable boxes, for example, it argues: "Adopting a technology mandate to force 'competitive' set-top boxes in 2017 feels a lot like mandating automakers to install 8-track cassette players in 2017."
Except it doesn't. Not by anyone. And why does Oracle care about cable boxes anyway?
Wheels on fire
The answer may come in the fact that the letter is also unnecessarily critical of Pai's predecessor, Tom Wheeler.
"The FCC under Chairman Wheeler routinely picked winners and losers in the complex and converging network ecosystem," it spits, later noting: "The Wheeler FCC's characterization of ISPs as gatekeepers was entirely outdated, especially when more than two-thirds of global computing power is mobile today."
Then later: "The Wheeler FCC took the extraordinary step of subjecting a flourishing 21st century network technology to a sprawling regulatory framework designed for the old telephone monopoly – all in service of imposing a maximalist version of 'net neutrality'."
Not that the letter doesn't make some fair points – and ones that we at The Register have consistently made when it comes to some of the decisions made by the FCC under Wheeler's reign: its use of arcane legislation to reach a desired goal; its clear bias for the viewpoints of companies like Google; its recognition that the regulatory structure as it currently stands is not designed for the modern, user-centric technological world.
But it is highly unusual for a large corporation to write such a fervent letter, praising one individual to high heaven and condemning their predecessor, especially when the topic has little or nothing to do with their business.
What next? Apple taking out an ad to complain about gun rights? Intel forcefully pushing its views on healthcare reform?
All about Trump
The only logical explanation is that the letter is another indicator of the weird new praise-lobbying that is becoming increasingly common in the early days of Trumpism.
Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz sits on President Trump's tech team and is serving as an advisor to him (something that a lot of Oracle employees are not happy about). It seems that one easy way of buying currency with the president these days is to wildly praise whatever he agrees with and fiercely condemn anything he doesn't.
Why does Catz need some Trump currency? Probably something to do with being sued by the US government over discrimination; a situation that puts some very valuable contracts at risk. Or maybe the fact that it is laying off employees (and lying about it), when the one thing guaranteed to give Trump a hard-on is a company saying it will hire more Americans.
Either way, the fact that the chair of the FCC is being pulled into this circus does not bode well for him or telecom policy. ® |
Back in 1980, just as America was making its political turn to the right, Milton Friedman lent his voice to the change with the famous TV series “Free to Choose.” In episode after episode, the genial economist identified laissez-faire economics with personal choice and empowerment, an upbeat vision that would be echoed and amplified by Ronald Reagan .
But that was then. Today, “free to choose” has become “free to die.”
I’m referring, as you might guess, to what happened during Monday’s G.O.P. presidential debate . CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Representative Ron Paul what we should do if a 30-year-old man who chose not to purchase health insurance suddenly found himself in need of six months of intensive care. Mr. Paul replied, “That’s what freedom is all about — taking your own risks.” Mr. Blitzer pressed him again, asking whether “society should just let him die.”
And the crowd erupted with cheers and shouts of “Yeah!”
The incident highlighted something that I don’t think most political commentators have fully absorbed: at this point, American politics is fundamentally about different moral visions.
Now, there are two things you should know about the Blitzer-Paul exchange. The first is that after the crowd weighed in, Mr. Paul basically tried to evade the question, asserting that warm-hearted doctors and charitable individuals would always make sure that people received the care they needed — or at least they would if they hadn’t been corrupted by the welfare state. Sorry, but that’s a fantasy. People who can’t afford essential medical care often fail to get it, and always have — and sometimes they die as a result.
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Watching Stranger Things, it was pretty obvious big things were in store for Millie Bobby Brown. But no one could have guessed it would be this big. Like, hundreds-of-stories big.
The actress just closed a deal to star in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the sequel to 2014's Godzilla reboot, which was directed by Rogue One’s Gareth Edwards. Edwards was originally going to helm this film too, but dropped out last year. Now Michael Dougherty (Krampus) is helming the film, which will tie into this year’s Kong: Skull Island leading up to Kong Vs. Godzilla.
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There’s no word who Brown will be playing, but considering she’s the first cast member revealed, chances are she’s one of the leads. She’s currently reprising her role as Eleven in the second season of Stranger Things, which will hit Netflix later this year.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters opens March 22, 2019. |
Chinese smartphone brands expanded their share of the Indian smartphone market in the June quarter (Q2) of 2017, continuing a trend seen over the past few quarters, shows the latest Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report by research firm IDC (International Data Corporation). This means brands including Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo now have a combined market share of as high as 54%, up from 51% in Q1 2017.
Samsung of Korea continues to be India's number one smartphone brand, but its market share has fallen from 28% in Q1 2017 to 24% in Q2 2017, the report suggests.
Xiaomi continued its good run in Q2 with a quarter on quarter growth of 25%. It occupies the second position with a market share of 17%. In Q1 2017, it held 14% of the market share. Xiaomi’s success can be attributed to the company’s expansion in the offline market through Mi Homes, Mi authorised stores and big format retail stores. The other factor contributing to its good run is the success of Redmi Note 4. The company has sold over 5 million units since its launch in January 2017. With more than 2 million shipments in Q2 2017 alone, it has become the highest shipped smartphone in India in a single quarter.
Vivo, which is stronger in offline market, holds the third position with a market share of 13%. It registered an impressive quarter on quarter growth of 26% in Q2 2017. In Q1 2017, its market share was 10.5%. According to IDC, aggressive investments on marketing activities and in-shop promotions contributed to the company’s growth.
Oppo and Lenovo are the fourth and fifth biggest smartphone vendors respectively, even though their market share has declined over the preceding quarter.
Oppo, like Vivo, is big on promotion and marketing. It controls 8% of the market in Q2, even as its shipments declined by 13%. It held 9.3% of the market share in Q1 2017.
Lenovo’s poor run continued. Its shipments declined by 25% in the last quarter and the market share shrank to 7% in Q2 from 9.5% in Q1. Surprisingly, smartphones sold under Lenovo's Motorola brand fared better than Lenovo branded smartphones, posting a quarter on quarter growth of 17%.
Indian companies are eyeing a comeback
Indian companies after three quarters of continuous decline have finally made some headway. They registered a quarter on quarter growth of 18% in Q2 2017, but their overall market share is still only 15%. “Indian vendors are putting all their efforts and second half of year will be crucial, either it will see a revival of Indian vendors or emergence of new dominance in the sub-$150 (Rs 10,000) segment from China-based vendors," says Upasana Joshi, Senior Analyst, IDC India.
Impact of GST
The IDC report also provides some data on the impact of GST (Goods and Services Tax) on smartphone market. A GST rate of 12% was implemented on smartphones from July, which affected shipments in the second quarter as the focus was on clearing out the existing inventory before GST kicked in. A total of 28 million smartphones were shipped in Q2 2017. This marks a modest quarter on quarter growth of 3.7% and a year on year growth of 1.6%.
However, phone makers' decision to absorb the increased price due to GST helped to stabilise the pricing and the impact on sales. |
It was the loss of his father nearly a year ago when he wandered away from his home in Coquitlam that led Sam Noh to team up with two other volunteers to create Silver Alert - a social media alert system to warn when people with dementia go missing. Sam's father Shin Ik Noh, 64 at the time of his disappearance last Sept. 18, suffered from Alzheimer's.
When news got out of his disappearance, people reported seeing the retired pastor but the reports came too late to help search efforts.
To compound the tragedy of his disappearance, Shin Noh has never been found. Sam continues to search for him, knowing that his search is now not for his father but for remains that may bring closure for his family.
His father's disappearance led Sam Noh to team up with Shawn Bouchard - who had a relative who was found dead of hypothermia after walking away from her care home - and search and rescue volunteer Michael Coyle to launch a silver version of the well-known Amber Alert for kids. The three are hoping their volunteer initiative will prompt the government to launch a Silver Alert system, similar to ones that have been adopted by 35 U.S. states and by New York City.
"The fact is, there isn't a very good alerting system out there," said Coyle, a search manager with Coquitlam Search and Rescue. "The RCMP, who we deal with a lot, and some of the other police forces are kind of confined to posting it on their website or Twitter and sometimes the media picks up on it."
By the time the news gets out, it can be too late, said Coyle.
"Mr. Noh went missing on the 18th of September - people saw him the day he went missing but by the time they reported their tips it was three or fours days later and the tips weren't good anymore."
Silver Alert is a website with Twitter and Facebook accounts and an email alert option. The site filters news releases and alerts issued by police and if the missing person fits the criteria for Silver Alert - that is, suffers dementia or some other cognitive impairment including autism - it will be posted on the site, BCSilverAlert.ca or through @BCSilverAlert on Twitter and on Facebook.
"We know citizens want to help out and this is just one tool we have developed," Sam Noh said of the Silver Alert website and social media initiative. "We still need the government to create an official Silver Alert program." Bouchard, who is one of the three volunteer founders of Silver Alert, works at Vancouver social media company HootSuite. While he's not working on Silver Alert as part of his day job, it was his experience with social media that led him to believe it could be used to improve the reporting of sightings when people go missing.
Bouchard's connection comes from his wife's distant cousin - who the family called Aunt Joan - who was living at Sunrise Senior Living in North Vancouver at the time of her death. |
The Maldives has been plunged into a fresh constitutional crisis after police halted a presidential election due to be held today and surrounded the offices used by officials for the poll.
On what was described as a “dark day for democracy”, police officers claimed that they would not allow the vote to proceed as it would be in breach of regulations issued by the country’s highest court.
But as protesters took to the streets in the capital of Malé, the Elections Commissioner Fuwad Thowfeek told reporters that the police, who mutinied against former president Mohamed Nasheed last year and forced his resignation, had “overstepped their authority”. He added: “We cannot proceed with the election if police are obstructing it.”
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
The halting of the vote is the latest drama since Mr Nasheed, who won the Maldives’ first free elections in 2008, was ousted amid violent protests in February 2012. He and his supporters said the “coup” was organised by the former dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
Under international pressure, the next government, led by President Mohammed Waheed Hassan, agreed to organise elections and, in a poll held on 7 September, Mr Nasheed secured the highest number of votes.
He then appeared to be well placed ahead of a run-off scheduled for 28 September. However, this was halted by the country’s Supreme Court after claims by two other candidates that there had been irregularities, despite election observers saying that the voting had been fair. To resolve the crisis, new polls were to take place today.
Today, a spokesman for Mr Nasheed claimed the country was now in a “confusing” situation. “They [the police] don’t want an election,” he said. In Malé, there were calls for the chief of police, Abdulla Nawaz, to be removed. But Mr Nawaz told a press conference that his officers had acted to stop the election because only one candidate had signed a voter register list that had to be approved and signed by all parties.
While Mr Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) signed the list, two of his rivals did not, claiming they had not had sufficient time to verify the data. Those two parties, the Jumhooree Party (JP) and the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) did not comment on yesterday’s dramatic developments.
The PPM’s candidate is Abdulla Yameen, the half-brother of Mr Gayoom. Meanwhile, the JP is headed by Gasim Ibrahim, a tourism and media tycoon who once served as Mr Gayoom’s finance minister.
Many observers believe the former dictator is influencing events from the sidelines – a claim he has denied – and institutions, including the judiciary, police and public services, are perceived as dominated by those loyal to Mr Gayoom.
Mark Lynas was the climate change adviser to former president Mr Nasheed. He said: “President Nasheed represented a real step toward modernity and progress in the Maldives. His removal and the events of today mean it’s slipping back into a dictatorship.
“The supreme court is stacked with appointees from the Gayoom dictatorship era. They are hand in hand with the police. The police force holds the real power in the Maldives – much stronger than the army.”
Farah Faizal, is the former Maldives high commissioner to the UK and a representative of the MDP. She said: “The current regime doesn’t want an election because they know Nasheed will have a majority win.
“The international community must issue a travel ban on the regime, and reimpose economic sanctions, as they did on Gayoom in 2004. Unless measures are imposed on the current regime, there’s no chance of a free and fair election.”
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Noor Kajol, 10, comes from Rakhine State, Myanmar, which she fled in recent weeks.
My name is Noor Kajol, and I am 10 years old. I was very happy in my old village because I was studying at the madrassa - I liked learning about the holy Quran, and I wanted to memorise all of it. I lived with my family; there were seven of us in total. The house was not very big, but I liked living there.
We had to flee our homes because the military started shooting us. I was inside the house with my father when they shot him through the window.
The bullet hit him in the head, he fell on the floor, and a lot of blood was coming out of his head.
I was really scared, and I was crying a lot. We ran away, leaving my father in the house. The military burned the house down, even though my father was still inside.
We had to run away to the forest and hide in the trees. We then walked for three days to get to Bangladesh. It was difficult for me because I was hungry and I missed my father a lot.
Other people helped us cross the border for free, which was very nice of them. We travelled in a boat with an engine, but I did not enjoy the boat ride because I still missed my father. He was a woodcutter, and everyone liked him. He was a good-natured man, and he loved me a lot.
I am very unhappy in Bangladesh because I miss my father so much. It is also very dirty here; there are no toilets or bathrooms.
I would like the world to help us get our own country back or offer us another country that we could live in.
*As told to Katie Arnold in Kutupalong new shelter camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
*This interview has been edited for clarity.
The plight of Myanmar's Rohingya
Nearly 400,000 Rohingya, mainly women and children, have fled to Bangladesh in the recent weeks as a result of indiscriminate violence against civilian populations carried out by the Myanmar army.
The UN and other human rights organisations have warned that the mass exodus following killings, rapes, and burned villages are signs of "ethnic cleansing", pleading for the international community to pressure Aung San Suu Kyi and her government to end the violence.
"The situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing," UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said on Monday, September 11.
Read more to find out who Myanmar's Rohingya are |
I’ll skip the dramatic and lengthy intro and just get right into it; is Cam Newton heading for the dreaded Sophomore Slump?
Three games into the season and Newton’s numbers have owners everywhere in a fit. In fact, through 12 quarters, Newton is
53-83 for 798 yards
2 TDs and 5 INT through the air
24 rushes, 84 yards and 2 TDs on the ground.
Let’s compare those numbers to his first three games a season ago where he was:
70-117, 1,012 yards
4 TDs and 4 INTs.
25 rushes, 98 yards and 2 TDs.
Now, just because his passing numbers don’t match up with last year shouldn’t be a concern. Don’t forget he was shattering records through three games a year ago, something you cannot expect any player to maintain year in and year out. Last season was also a pass-happy season, and ended up being one for the record books.
Also, it’s worth noting that last year, in his first three games, Newton faced Arizona (19th in total defense in 2011), Green Bay (last in total defense in 2011), and Jacksonville (8th in total defense in 2011, also his weakest game in his first three).
However, through the first three weeks Newton has faced Tampa Bay, New Orleans and the Giants, who rank 29-31st in total defense, in that order. So the stats say that Newton’s numbers should be better, but why aren’t they?
Carolina’s run game has been a non-factor thus far, averaging 96.3 ypg 19th in the NFL)
Carolina’s defense has continued to struggle, currently ranking them the worst overall defense statistically through three weeks. That puts Carolina behind early and often, making it obvious that Newton will throw.
Carolina has averaged 24 minutes of possession a game this season. That is less than 50% of games, therefore with less possession obviously comes less chances for offense plays, scores, and points.
Carolina’s pass offense currently ranks 11th in the NFL wit 267.3 ypg only 14 ypg behind Tom Brady and the Patriots.
In Conclusion,
Newton will not suffer the dreaded sophomore slump. He is far too talented, athletic, and a competitor to let that happen. Once his run-game actually becomes relevant, some of the pressure will be alleviated from Newton. In addition, his numbers this year haven’t been as terrible as everyone thinks (he currently ranks 8th overall and 5th among QBs in standard scoring leagues).
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Spoon continued their preposterously enjoyable run of very good records this year with the release of Hot Thoughts—one of 2017’s best albums so far—and today they’ve shared a video to accompany moody album cut “I Ain’t the One”. The somber blue, black and white tones of the video, which was directed by the duo of Ian Forsyth and Jane Pollard and features the Austin band performing the song in a subway station, jibe quite well with the star-crossed love vibe of “I Ain’t The One”, making for a very fitting visual. Watch it above.
In related news, Spoon’s announced a run of West Coast shows with White Reaper today, adding to their already packed schedule over the next three months, which sees the band hitting Europe in-between extensive North American dates. In addition to the busy tour itinerary, Spoon will also be reissuing their 2007 classic Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga via Merge Records on October 20th. To see Spoon frontman Britt Daniels’ thoughts on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (and the rest of Spoon’s records) check out our discussion on the band’s entire discography with the singer.
Spoon 2017-2018 Tour dates:
10/05 – Denver, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheater !
10/07 – Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits Music Festival
10/10 – San Antonio, TX @ Aztec Theater #
10/12 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues #
10/13 – Austin, TX @ Stubb’s
10/14 – Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits Music Festival
10/15 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues #
10/17 – New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues #
10/18 – Memphis, TN @ Minglewood Hall #
10/20 – Columbia, SC @ Music Farm #
10/21 – Jacksonville, FL @ Mavericks #
10/22 – Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore
11/02 – Brussels, BE @ Orangerie at Botanique
11/03 – Den Haag, NL @ Crossing Border Festival
11/03-04 – Wessenhauser, DE @ Rolling Stone Weekender
11/06 – Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2
11/07 – Liverpool, UK @ Invisible Wind Factory
11/09 – Cambridge, UK @ The Junction
11/10 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
11/11 – Basel, CH @ Kaserne
11/12 – Milan, IT @ Santeria Social Club
11/14 – Barcelona, ES @ Sala Apolo
11/15 – Madrid, ES @ La Riviera
11/16 – Porto, PT @ Porto Coliseum
11/17 – Lisbon, PT @ Coliseu dos Recreios
11/28 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
11/29 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
12/01 – Poughkeepsie, NY @ The Chance
12/03 – Stroudsburg, PA @ Sherman Theater
12/05 – Clifton Park, NY @ Upstate Concert Hall
12/06 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
12/30 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
12/31 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
1/12 – Seattle, WA – Showbox &
1/13 – Eugene, OR – McDonald Theater &
1/15 – Napa, CA – Jam Cellars &
1/17 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic &
1/18 – Santa Barbara, CA – Arlington Theater &
1/20 – Las Vegas, NV – Cosmopolitan &
! = w/ The Shins
# = w/ Mondo Cozmo
& = w/ White Reaper
Revisit the band’s recent performance of “Can I Sit Next To You” on Colbert below: |
House Committee Slashes International Family Planning The GOP Controlled House Appropriations Committee expanded the war on women globally yesterday. The committee slashed international family planning funding by $149 million, or 25%, reinstated the Global Gag Rule, and banned all US funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Nita Lowey (D-NY), Ranking Democratin the Committee, summed up the damage of the Committee's actions:
The counterproductive, harmful, and unnecessarily divisive cuts and policy riders...on international family planning programs will leave millions of women without access to critical and often life-saving health services, and will result in 1.4 million more abortions next year. It is unconscionable that the majority insists on including these provisions, which run counter to our shared goals of saving mothers' and children's lives, and reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
The Committee rejected on largely party-line votes three pro-family planning and reproductive health amendments that were offered by Lowey, Rosa DeLaura (D-CA), and Barbara Lee (D-CA), in an attempt to reverse the bill's attacks on women's health programs.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, which is scheduled to take up its version of a FY 2013 State Department-Foreign Operations bill next week, is expected to pass a bill that includes significant increases to international family funding, a permanent repeal of the Global Gag Rule, and a U.S. contribution to UNFPA.
The Guttmacher Institute analysis indicates that the House cuts to international family planning funding would result in 7.7 million fewer women and couples receiving contraceptive services and supplies, 2.2 million more unintended pregnancies, and over 1 million more abortions.
Media Resources: PAI Analysis; Friends of UNFPA Press Release 5/17/2012
© Feminist Majority Foundation, publisher of Ms. magazine If you liked this story, consider making a tax-deductible donation to support Ms. magazine . |
BOONE, NC – With the second Ice Age finally upon us, Chancellor Everts has yet to send an email cancelling tomorrow’s class and friends of the Chancellor have revealed that she has no plans to do so either.
“It’s just a bit chilly,” Everts told her friends in regards to the apocalyptic weather conditions, “And all the streets and sidewalks are salted so it shouldn’t be a problem! Remember, they wanted to go to school in the mountains!”
With the temperature hovering at around -56 degrees fahrenheit and sheets of ice and snow raining down, most students have elected to skip Tuesday’s class regardless of whether there is an email sent excusing them or not. The rest of the students, predominantly on campus residents, decided to brave the weather and go to class anyway.
“I lost my friend Brian along the way!” Local freshman and on campus resident Peter Evans yelled, “But my teacher grades on attendance and I really need that A! If I don’t make it, tell my mom I’m having a really good time!”
The winter weather has been even harder for off campus students. A police report recently confirmed that at least 35% of the residents of the Cottages of Boone perished when the roofs began caving in 32 seconds after the day of reckoning began. Those numbers are expected to rise considerably due to the survivors having to manage with no running water, electricity, or heat since it all shut off 4 seconds into the storm.
Amongst all the commotion and rising death toll, Appalcart has continued to be fully operational and running on time. “I literally cannot drive any worse,” said local Appalcart driver Victor Samuels, “And now there are no cars on the road so I can safely drive in both lanes without fear of someone getting in my way.” He did, however, express some concern for a few of the students who “dropped dead” before they could get on the bus and that the few that made it on the bus were shivering and turning blue, but as Samuels puts it, “that’s above my pay grade.”
As more reports are coming in, it appears the students that didn’t attend class or live in the cottages have mostly survived. “Yeah, I didn’t really need to put my life at risk for my Tuesday classes,” said local Sophomore on campus resident Jeremy McMichaels, “but I might have to on Wednesday. I think I have a test.” |
The ‘Last Hurrah Caucus’ Now Has The Power To Kill Trump’s Agenda In The Senate Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll use it. Filed under Congress
Republicans still have a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate. But they may no longer have a real governing majority on every issue.
Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake announced Tuesday that he will not seek re-election in 2018 — an acknowledgement that his more moderate stances on issues like immigration and his sharp criticism of President Trump had made him a heavy underdog in the state’s Republican primary. Freed from the need to satisfy a conservative base, Flake can now vote and act however he wants for the next 14 months.
And he’s not the only Republican with this kind of freedom. Tennessee’s Bob Corker is retiring rather than seeking a third term next year. Arizona’s other senator, John McCain, was recently diagnosed with brain cancer and seems unlikely to run for reelection when he’s up again in 2022.
These three men are now effectively free-agents — electorally unbound from GOP voters and interest groups — at a time when Republicans have only a narrow 52-48 majority in the Senate. If any of the three becomes more likely to break with the party, passing legislation gets that much harder for Trump and the GOP leadership. And any bill on which all three join with Democrats is dead.
Corker, Flake and McCain, moreover, are Republicans more in the mold of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney than the president. All three seem to really hate Trump.
Or, as Susan Hennessy of the legal blog Lawfare put it after Flake’s announcement: “Corker, Flake, McCain. It would seem that, for most intents and purposes, Trump has lost McConnell his majority.”
Here are some of the big issues on which this new Corker-Flake-McCain bloc could cause the party problems. (Note: “Could” is the operative word there — Flake’s announcement makes the math work so that these three senators have the power to block legislation; that doesn’t mean they will. There are also a great many things Trump can do without congressional input.)
1. Taxes
Corker has already said that he will vote against any tax bill that substantially increases the federal budget deficit. McCain has made less noise, but he voted against the tax cuts pushed by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, arguing that they disproportionately benefited the wealthy. And McCain’s enmity toward Trump may be the deepest of this trio. Voting down the tax cut would allow McCain to deny Trump a major legislative victory, just as he did in July by opposing a bill that would have repealed parts of Obamacare.
Flake too has spoken in the past of the rising budget deficit and national debt as a huge problem. Now relieved from having to face Trump’s voters, Flake could insist on a deficit-neutral tax plan. If he does, that could create major headaches for Republicans, who are struggling to find ways to pay for the large cuts they want. The three senators have the power to either kill Trump’s tax plan or force Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to change it. They could, in theory at least, push for a non-deficit-busting bill that benefits the middle-class more than the wealthy.
2. Nominations
Flake has more internationalist views on foreign policy than Trump. He was a strong advocate of then-President Obama’s decision to normalize relationships with Cuba, for example. McCain and Corker largely reject Trump’s more nationalist approach as well.
The trio could try to push policy in their favor by exercising oversight over who serves in the executive branch.
There is much speculation that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will resign in the next few months and that United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley would replace him. But Trump’s picks for Secretary of State or U.N. Ambassador, like any Cabinet post, would have to be confirmed by the Senate. The Flake-Corker-McCain triumvirate now has effective veto power over any nomination Trump makes, assuming all Democrats oppose it as well.
It’s not just the Cabinet. Corker and McCain care deeply about national security issues, and if Flake joins them, any appointment Trump wants to make — from ambassadors to the assistant secretaries at the Pentagon — could be subject to their whims. That could serve as a check on Trump picking non-traditional or controversial figures for national security posts.
Judicial nominations are also more interesting now. Corker, Flake and McCain are generally more conservative than, say, Maine Republican Susan Collins, who has also been willing to buck Trump and GOP leadership (including by repeatedly defending Medicaid during the Obamacare repeal process). They’re not going to demand liberal judges. But if one of the four justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who was appointed by a Democratic president either dies or retires, it’s possible to imagine this trio demanding that Trump push a more centrist nominee as a replacement instead of tapping the most conservative person possible.
3. Immigration
Flake favors legislation that would protect undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children by their parents from deportation, and he’s been critical of Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. McCain has similar views. It’s not clear if or when Congress will have a formal vote on either issue, and the real battleground will likely be in the House, which is more hawkish on immigration than the Senate. But if the border wall came up for a simple up-or-down vote, Flake would face no electoral pressure to vote yes. Similarly, he could easily back a pro-Dreamers bill.
Here’s the big caveat to a Corker-Flake-McCain coalition stopping Trump’s agenda: Their pro-Trump voting behavior so far this year. All three men backed two of Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks, Education Secretary Betsy Devos and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Corker and Flake supported Obamacare repeal. Overall, all three men have taken the same position as the Trump administration on the overwhelming majority of legislation to come to a vote since Trump’s inauguration, according to FiveThirtyEight’s Trump Score. (Corker 86 percent of the time; Flake 90 percent; and McCain 84 percent.) Even if they took these votes to support their party’s president and no longer feel the need to do that, we should not ignore their records.
Also, these three have been stalwart Republicans for much of their careers. On tax cuts, which is a huge priority of not just Trump but also the broader GOP, would they really vote down a bill that almost all of their other Senate colleagues want to see passed? McCain did that on health care. But will he do that again? And would Corker and Flake join him?
Here’s what we know for sure: Flake, Corker and McCain are likely to lean in a pro-establishment but anti-Trump direction, and McConnell and Trump can’t assume they will vote for bills just because they are Republicans. In some ways, Corker, Flake and McCain are now a three-person faction all their own — the Trump dissidents in the Senate, or the “Last Hurrah Caucus.” As a group, or individually along with moderate Republicans such as Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, they have a lot of sway over the nation’s legislative agenda. |
Exclusive: Amazon selling rape simulation game Rapelay BelfastTelegraph.co.uk A game that involves the player stalking victims and then raping them in a virtual world is being offered for sale by online retailer Amazon.com, the Belfast Telegraph's website can reveal. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/technology/exclusive-amazon-selling-rape-simulation-game-rapelay-28533501.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/migration_catalog/article25639900.ece/d96c6/AUTOCROP/h342/rapelay
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A game that involves the player stalking victims and then raping them in a virtual world is being offered for sale by online retailer Amazon.com, the Belfast Telegraph's website can reveal.
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The shocking 'rape simulator', Rapelay, is set in Japan and carries a sickening game description on the Amazon website. An MP said last night that he plans to raise the issue in Parliament.
Reviews by gaming websites have expressed horror at the basis for the game.
One website review describes "tears glistening in the young girl's eyes" as she is attacked in graphic detail.
Players begin the game by stalking a mother on a subway station before violently raping her. They then move on to attack her two daughters described as virgin schoolgirls.
Players are also allowed to enter 'freeform mode' where they can rape any woman and get other male game characters to join the attacks.
Pregnancy and abortion are listed as 'key features'. One review said: "If she does become pregnant you're supposed to force her to get an abortion, otherwise she gets more and more visibly pregnant each time you have sex.
"If you allow the child to be born then the woman will throw you in front of a train!"
Most of the descriptions and screenshots of the game are too graphic for publication here.
The game's producer, Illusion is a company from Japan famous for making similar 3D Hentai games.
The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, says: "Due to Illusion's policy, its games are not intended to be sold or used outside of Japan, and official support is only given in Japanese and for use in Japan."
Despite this policy consumers, including those in the UK and Ireland, are now able to buy the game through the Amazon website.
Last night Labour MP Keith Vaz said he was shocked that Amazon are allowing people to purchase such a game and plans to raise the issue in Parliament after being contacted by the Belfast Telegraph website.
Mr Vaz said: “It is intolerable that anyone would purchase a game that simulates the criminal offence of rape.
"To know that this widely available through a major online retailer is utterly shocking, I do not see how this can be allowed.
“I will be raising this matter in Parliament and hope that action is taken to prevent the game from being sold.”
Last year the MP for Leicester East was criticised for claiming such games exist.
Mr Vaz was speaking in support of of Conservative MP Julian Brazier's Private Member's Bill – which sought to introduce an official governmental body that can challenge rulings by the British Board of Film Classifications ( BBFC).
Vaz stated: "People who are watching a film at the cinema cannot participate in what is happening on the screen, or if they do they are removed from the cinema.
"However...when people play these things, they can interact. They can shoot people; they can kill people. As the honourable Gentleman said, they can rape women."
Vaz's claims were questioned by Tory MP for Wantage Edward Vaizey.
He told Parliament: "...the right honourable Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, mentioned that some video games allow the participant to engage in a rape act...
"I checked the point with the BBFC and found it to be completely unaware of any such video game.
"Is the honourable Gentleman aware of any video game that has as its intention the carrying out of rape or that allows the game player to carry out such an act? The BBFC and I are unaware of any such game."
At the time hundreds of gaming blogs slated Vaz for his comments. One blog poster said: "This guy has no idea what he's talking about he's more likey to of never even played a game in his life just plain stupid if you ask me."
Only one comment appears on the Amazon website. The user says: "1.0 out of 5 stars. The fact that this exists as a game makes me sad. I am saddened and appalled by the mere idea of this game. is this for real?"
Last year the Belfast Telegraph revealed that Amazon had listed a Barack Obama mask as terrorist costume. The online retailer said the offensive category was put there by someone using its "tag" feature and had removed it immediately.
Update
After being contacted by the Belfast Telegraph Amazon today removed the webpage (still viewable here from Google's cache). A screenshot is also available at this location. The company would not comment on the item or say why it had been offered for sale through their website.
The Amazon page
Rapelay Japanese PC game
by Illusion
Game description on Amazon
Rapelay is an offshoot of the Illusion series, Interact Play. You, like in previous installments, play as a public nuisance that gets away from captivity and starts scouting for new targets. This time around you find a family of a single mother and her two daughters. You quickly begin your hunt and capture each woman one by one. The gameplay involves an amusing training/disposition system with which to break each respective target to your liking....
An expert's opinion: Peter Hepper
Could games like this encourage people to commit illegal acts in the real world?
There have been high profile instances of individuals copying from TV and games. However I think these are the exception rather than the rule.
If one looked at the overall proportion of people who copy such things then it is likely to be very small. However to a potential victim even if one person does - that is one too many.
I don’t think that it would make someone not so inclined to commit an illegal act more inclined or likely to commit a specific act.
However if people are already inclined to view the world this way it may reinforce their views and make it more likely they would undertake an illegal act. I suspect the will to do this would need to be there in the first place.
Professor Peter Hepper, heads the School of Psychology at Queen's University Belfast
Belfast Telegraph |
A set of schematics by GeekBar on Weibo have been making the rounds today, claiming to show both NFC support for the iPhone 6 as well as ‘confirmation’ that the device will feature just 1 GB of RAM, like the iPhone 5s.
Although the site focuses on the 1 GB description at the top of the image, it turns out that the schematic is actually a design for a NAND flash component (a storage chip, the same memory used in iPhones and other mobile devices for storing user data like music and photos) rather than RAM for the SoC.
Todd DeRego, a SoC memory engineer, says that the schematic does not have enough signals for it to be a DRAM interface. He also points out that the AP_TO_NAND text refers to an application processor to NAND link, indicating this memory is actually used as a way of storing the booting firmware and not the main memory of the iPhone. Although the RAM claim is almost certainly untrue, the NFC claim cannot be so easily dismissed.
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The schematics, pictured above, clearly shows the ‘PN65V’ model number, which correlates to a Near-Field Communication chip by NXP Corp, which produces NFC components for a lot of other smartphone manufacturers already. NXP also manufacture the M7 coprocessor, which debuted in the iPhone 5s.
It is important to highlight, though, that there is no direct connection between these schematics and Apple, the iPhone or even Foxconn, aside from the post by GeekBar who has a mixed track record with Apple leaks.
NFC has been rumored for future iPhones for a while, although the validity of the claim has increased significantly in recent months with claims Apple is actively developing NFC for an upcoming mobile payments service. 9to5Mac reported earlier this year that Apple was talking with several retail chains about the mobile payments venture.
Hence, although the RAM claims are seemingly false, there is a reasonable chance that the documents show NFC is headed for the iPhone 6, especially with the other surrounding evidence. It is by no means concrete, of course, as there is no evidence in these schematics that link the NFC module to an upcoming iPhone device. |
Cheney Shielded Bush From Crisis
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 15, 2008
This is the second of two stories adapted from "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency," to be published Tuesday by Penguin Press. Original source notes are denoted in [brackets] throughout.
Vice President Cheney convened a meeting in the Situation Room at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, with just one day left before the warrantless domestic surveillance program was set to expire. Around him were National Security Agency Director Michael V. Hayden, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and the Gang of Eight -- the four ranking members of the House and the Senate, and the chairmen and vice chairmen of the intelligence committees.
Even now, three months into a legal rebellion at the Justice Department, President Bush was nowhere in the picture [1]. He was stumping in the battleground state of Ohio, talking up the economy.
With a nod from Cheney, Hayden walked through the program's vital mission [2]. Gonzales said top lawyers at the NSA and Justice had green-lighted the program from the beginning. Now Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was in the hospital, and James B. Comey, Ashcroft's deputy, refused to certify that the surveillance was legal.
That was misleading at best. Cheney and Gonzales knew that Comey spoke for Ashcroft as well. They also knew, but chose not to mention, that Jack L. Goldsmith, chief of the Office of Legal Counsel at Justice, had been warning of major legal problems for months.
More than three years later, Gonzales would testify that there was "consensus in the room" from the lawmakers, "who said, 'Despite the recommendation of the deputy attorney general, go forward with these very important intelligence activities.' [3] " By this account -- disputed by participants from both parties -- four Democrats and four Republicans counseled Cheney to press on with a program that Justice called illegal.
In fact, Cheney asked the lawmakers a question that came close to answering itself. Could the House and Senate amend surveillance laws without raising suspicions that a new program had been launched? The obvious reply became a new rationale for keeping Congress out.
The Bush administration had no interest in changing the law, according to U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, chief of the federal government's special surveillance court when the warrantless eavesdropping began.
"We could have gone to Congress, hat in hand, the judicial branch and the executive together, and gotten any statutory change we wanted in those days, I felt like," he said in an interview. "But they wanted to demonstrate that the president's power was supreme."
* * *
Late that Wednesday afternoon, Bush returned from Cleveland. In early evening, the phone rang at the makeshift FBI command center at George Washington University Medical Center, where Ashcroft remained in intensive care. According to two officials who saw the FBI logs, the president was on the line [4]. Bush told the ailing Cabinet chief to expect a visit from Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr.
A Senate hearing in 2007 described some of what happened next. But much of the story remained untold [5].
Alerted by Ashcroft's chief of staff, Comey, Goldsmith and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III raced toward the hospital, abandoning double-parked vehicles and running up a stairwell as fast as their legs could pump.
Comey reached Ashcroft's bedside first. Goldsmith and his colleague Patrick F. Philbin were close behind. Now came Card and Gonzales, holding an envelope. If Comey would not sign the papers, maybe Ashcroft would.
The showdown with the vice president the day before had been excruciating, the pressure "so great it could crush you like a grape," Comey said [6]. This was worse.
Was Comey going to sit there and watch a barely conscious man make his mark? On an order that he believed, and knew Ashcroft believed, to be unlawful?
Unexpectedly, Ashcroft roused himself. Previous accounts have said he backed his deputy. He did far more than that. Ashcroft told the president's men he never should have certified the program in the first place [7].
"You drew the circle so tight I couldn't get the advice that I needed," Ashcroft said, according to Comey. He knew things now, the attorney general said, that he should have been told before. Spent, he sank back in his bed.
Mueller arrived just after Card and Gonzales departed. He shared a private moment with Ashcroft, bending over to hear the man's voice.
"Bob, I'm struggling," Ashcroft said.
"In every man's life there comes a time when the good Lord tests him," Mueller replied. "You have passed your test tonight."
* * *
Goldsmith was out the door. He telephoned Ed Whelan, his deputy, who was at home bathing his children.
"You've got to get into the office now," Goldsmith said. "Please draft a resignation letter for me. I can't tell you why."
All hell was breaking loose at Justice. Lawyers streamed back from the suburbs, converging on the fourth-floor conference room. Most of them were not cleared to hear the details, but a decision began to coalesce: If Comey quit, none of them were staying.
At the FBI, they called Mueller "Bobby Three Sticks," playfully tweaking the Roman numerals in his fancy Philadelphia name. Late that evening, word began to spread. It wasn't only Comey. Bobby Three Sticks was getting ready to turn in his badge.
Justice had filled its top ranks with political loyalists. They hoped to see Bush reelected. Had anyone explained to the president what was at stake?
Whelan pulled out his BlackBerry. He fired off a message to White House staff secretary Brett Kavanaugh, a friend whose position gave him direct access to Bush.
"I knew zilch about what the matter was, but I did know that lots of senior DOJ folks were on the verge of resigning," Whelan said in an e-mail [8], declining to discuss the subject further. "I thought it important to make sure that the president was aware of that situation so that he could factor it in as he saw fit."
Kavanaugh had no more idea than Whelan, but he passed word to Card.
The timing was opportune. Just about then, around 11 p.m., Comey responded to an angry summons from the president's chief of staff. Whatever Card was planning to say, he had calmed down suddenly.
What was all this he heard, Card asked, about quitting?
"I don't think people should try to get their way by threatening resignations," Comey replied [9]. "If they find themselves in a position where they're not comfortable continuing, then they should resign."
"He obviously got the gist of what I was saying," Comey recalled.
It was close to midnight when Comey got home, long past the president's bedtime. Bush had yet to learn that his government was coming apart.
* * *
Trouble was spreading. The FBI's general counsel, Valerie E. Caproni, and her CIA counterpart, Scott W. Mueller, told colleagues they would leave if the president reauthorized the program over Justice Department objections [10].
Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray, who ran Justice's criminal division, stopped Comey in a hallway.
"Look, I don't know what's going on, but before you guys all pull the rip cords, please give me a heads-up so I can jump with you," he said.
James A. Baker, the counselor for intelligence, thought hard about jumping, too [11]. Early on, he got wind of the warrantless eavesdropping and forced the White House to disclose it to Lamberth. Later, Baker told Lamberth's successor that he could not vouch that the Bush administration was honoring its promise to keep the chief surveillance judge fully informed.
"I was determined to stay there and fight for what I thought was right," Baker said in an interview [12], declining to say what the fight was about, on or off the record. He had obligations, he said, to the lawyers who worked for him in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. "If it had come to this, if people were willing to go to the mat and tolerate the attorney general and deputy attorney general resigning, that's pretty serious. God knows what else they would have come up with."
* * *
At the White House on Thursday morning, the president moved in a bubble so tight that hardly any air was getting in. It was March 11, decision day. If Bush reauthorized the program, he would have no signature from the attorney general. By now that was nowhere near the president's biggest problem.
Many of the people Bush trusted most were out of the picture. Karl Rove was not cleared for the program. Neither was Dan Bartlett or Karen Hughes.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice had the clearance, but Cheney did not invite her to the meetings that mattered.
Bush gave a speech to evangelicals that morning and left the White House for an after-lunch fundraiser in New York [13]. In whatever time he took to weigh his options, the president had only Cheney, Card and Gonzales to advise him.
The vice president knew exactly where he stood, unswerving in his commitment to keep the program just as it was. Gonzales later told two confidants that he had broken with David S. Addington, Cheney's lawyer, urging Bush to find common ground with Justice. Card, too, told colleagues that he had urged restraint.
"My job was to communicate with the president about the peripheral vision, not just the tunnel vision of the moment," he said, deflecting questions about the details [14].
Did peripheral vision mean a broader view of the consequences?
"Yes," Card replied. "It was like -- I don't want to limit it to this particular matter, but that's part of a chief of staff's job. A lot of people who work in the White House have tunnel vision, and not an awful lot of people have peripheral vision. And I think the chief of staff is one of the people who should have peripheral vision."
Card didn't really need the corner of his eye to see a disaster at hand. Even so, Bush didn't know what his subordinates knew that Thursday morning.
Cheney, Addington, Card and Gonzales had plenty of data. Card had heard the news directly from Comey the night before. On Thursday, the FBI director delivered much the same warning.
For Cheney, it didn't matter much whether one official or 10 or 20 took a walk. Maybe they were bluffing, maybe not. The principle was the same: Do what has to be done.
"The president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer -- that was the Cheney view," said Bartlett, Bush's counselor, who was later briefed into the program and the events of the day. "You can't let resignations deter you if you're doing what's right."
Cheney and Addington "were ready to go to the mat," he said, and the vice president's position boiled down to this: " 'That's why we're leaders, that's why we're here. Take the political hit. You've got to do it.' "
* * *
Addington opened the code-word-classified file on his computer. He had a presidential directive to rewrite.
It has been widely reported that Bush executed the March 11 order with a blank space over the attorney general's signature line. That is not correct [15]. For reasons both symbolic and practical, the vice president's lawyer could not tolerate an empty spot where a mutinous subordinate should have signed. Addington typed a substitute signature line: "Alberto R. Gonzales."
What Addington wrote for Bush that day was more transcendent than that. He drew up new language in which the president relied on his own authority to certify the program as lawful. Bush expressly overrode the Justice Department and any act of Congress or judicial decision that purported to constrain his power as commander in chief. Only Richard M. Nixon, in an interview after leaving the White House in disgrace, claimed authority so nearly unlimited [16].
The specter of future prosecutions hung over the program, now that Justice had ruled it illegal.
"Pardon was in the air," said one of the lawyers involved.
It was possible to construct a case, he said, in which those who planned and carried out the program were engaged in a criminal conspiracy. That would be tendentious, this lawyer believed, but with a change of government it could not be ruled out.
"I'm sure when we leave office we're all going to be hauled up before congressional committees and grand juries," Addington told one colleague in disgust.
* * *
Bush signed the directive before leaving for New York around lunchtime on Thursday, March 11, 2004.
Comey got word a couple of hours later. He sat down and typed a letter.
"Over the last two weeks . . . I and the Department of Justice have been asked to be part of something that is fundamentally wrong," he wrote [17]. "As we have struggled over these last days to do the right thing, I have never been prouder of the Department of Justice or of the Attorney General. Sadly, although I believe this has been one of the institution's finest hours, we have been unable to right that wrong. . . . Therefore, with a heavy heart and undiminished love of my country and my Department, I resign as Deputy Attorney General of the United States, effective immediately."
David Ayres, Ashcroft's chief of staff, pleaded with Comey to wait a few days [18]. He was certain that Ashcroft would want to quit alongside him. Comey agreed to hold his letter through the weekend.
Bush was not a man to second-guess himself. By Friday morning, he would need new facts to save him. Somebody, finally, would have to tell him something.
It was Rice, largely in the dark herself, who threw the president a lifeline. She had a few minutes alone with him, shortly before 7:30 a.m., on the day after he renewed the surveillance order. She told Bush about Comey's agitated approach, the day before, to Frances Fragos Townsend, the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism. This was no way to keep a secret.
"It was a compartmented issue," Rice recalled in an interview [19]. "Obviously, there was a security issue here and not just a legal one, because you didn't want this sort of bumping around."
Rice made a suggestion.
Comey is "a reasonable guy," she told the president. "You really need to make sure that you are hearing these folks out."
An hour later, Comey and Robert Mueller arrived at the White House for the regular 8:30 terrorism briefing. They had a lot to cover: Bombs aboard commuter trains in Madrid had killed 191 people.
Both men told aides that this would be their last day in government. There would be no door-slamming, but the president had made his choice and they had made theirs.
Bush stood as the meeting ended, crossing behind Cheney's chair. Comey moved in the opposite direction, on his way out. He had nearly reached the grandfather clock at the door, two witnesses said, when the president said, "Jim, can I talk to you for a minute? [20]"
Bush nodded toward the private dining room a few steps from his desk, the one he shared with Cheney once a week. This time the vice president was not invited.
"I'll wait for you downstairs," Mueller told Comey.
* * *
By now, around 9:15 Friday morning, Bush knew enough to be nervous about what the acting attorney general might do. That did not mean he planned to reverse himself. One high-ranking adviser said there was still an "optimism that maybe you can finesse your way through this."
Afterward, in conversations with aides, the two men described the meeting in similar terms.
"You don't look well," Bush began.
Oldest trick in the book. Establish dominance, put the other guy off his game [21].
"Well, I feel okay."
"I'm worried about you. You look burdened."
"I am, Mr. President. I feel like there's a tremendous burden on me."
"Let me lift that burden from your shoulders," Bush said. "Let me be the one who makes the decision here."
"Mr. President, I would love to be able to do that."
Bush's tone grew crisp.
"I decide what the law is for the executive branch," he said.
"That's absolutely true, sir, you do. But I decide what the Department of Justice can certify to and can't certify to, and despite my absolute best efforts, I simply cannot in the circumstances."
Comey had majored in religion, William and Mary Class of 1982. He might have made a connection with Bush if he had quoted a verse from Scripture. The line that came to him belonged to a 16th-century theologian who defied an emperor.
"As Martin Luther said, 'Here I stand; I can do no other,' " Comey said. "I've got to tell you, Mr. President, that's where I am."
Now Bush said something that floored Comey.
"I just wish that you weren't raising this at the last minute."
The last minute! He didn't know.
The president kept talking. Not the way it's supposed to work, popping up with news like this. The day before a deadline?
Wednesday. He didn't know until Wednesday. No wonder he sent Card and Gonzales to the hospital.
"Oh, Mr. President, if you've been told that, you have been very poorly served by your advisers," Comey said. "We have been telling them for months we have a huge problem here."
"Give me six weeks," Bush asked. One more renewal.
"I can't do that," Comey said. "You do say what the law is in the executive branch, I believe that. And people's job, if they're going to stay in the executive branch, is to follow that. But I can't agree, and I'm just sorry."
If they're going to stay.
Comey was edging toward a breach of his rule against resignation threats.
This man just needs to know what's about to happen.
"I think you should know that Director Mueller is going to resign today," Comey said.
Bush raised his eyebrows. He shifted in his chair. He could not hide it, or did not try. He was gobsmacked.
"Thank you very much for telling me that," he said.
Comey hurried down to Mueller, who sat in the foyer outside the Situation Room. A Secret Service agent followed close behind. The president would like to see you, the agent told Mueller.
Comey pulled out his BlackBerry and sent a note to six colleagues at 9:27 a.m.
"The president just took me into his private office for a 15 minute one on one talk," he wrote [22]. "Told him he was being misled and poorly served. We had a very full and frank exchange. Don't know that either of us can see a way out. . . . Told him Mueller was about to resign. He just pulled Bob into his office."
The FBI director was no more tractable than Comey. This was a rule-of-law question, he told the president, and the answer was in the Justice Department [23]. The FBI could not participate in operations that Justice held to be in breach of criminal law. If those were his orders, he would respectfully take his leave.
And there it was, unfinessable. Bush was out of running room, all the way out. He had only just figured out that the brink was near, and now he stood upon it.
Not 24 hours earlier, the president had signed his name to an in-your-face rejection of the attorney general's ruling on the law. Now he had two bad choices. March on, with all the consequences. Or retreat.
The president stepped back from the precipice. He gave Mueller a message for Comey.
"Tell Jim to do what Justice thinks needs to be done," he said.
Seven days later, Bush amended his March 11 directive. The legal certification belonged again to the attorney general. The surveillance program stopped doing some things, and it did other things differently. Much of the operation remained in place. Not all of it.
* * *
Because Bush did not walk off the cliff, and because so much of the story was suppressed, an extraordinary moment in presidential history passed unrecognized.
"I mean, it would be damn near unprecedented for the top echelon of your Justice Department to resign over a position you've taken," Bartlett said.
There might be one precedent, he allowed. He did not want to spell it out.
"Not a good one," he said.
During the Watergate scandal, the attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned, refusing to carry out Richard Nixon's order to fire the special prosecutor. Nixon lost his top two Justice officials, and that was called the Saturday Night Massacre.
Bush had come within minutes of losing his FBI director and at least the top five layers at Justice. What would they call that? Suicide, maybe?
"You don't have to be the smartest guy to figure out that [mass resignations] would be pretty much the most devastating thing that could happen to your administration," said Mark Corallo, Ashcroft's communications director and, during Bush's first race for the White House, chief spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "The rush to hearings on the Hill, both in the House and Senate, would be unbelievable. The media frenzy that would have ensued would have been unlike anything we've ever seen. That's when you're getting into Watergate territory."
Long after departing as chief of staff, Card held fast to the proposition that whatever happened was nobody's business, and no big deal anyway [24].
"I think you're writing about something that's irrelevant," Card said. "Voyeurism."
Because?
"Nobody resigned over this," he said. It all boiled down to trash talk: " 'Oh, I was gonna swing at the pitch but it was too high.' "
That seems unlikely to stand as history's verdict. In the fourth year of his presidency, a man who claimed the final word was forced by subordinates to comply with their ruling on the law. Ashcroft, Comey, Goldsmith, Philbin -- believers, one and all, in the "unitary executive branch" -- obliged the commander in chief to stand down. For the first time, a president claimed in writing that he alone could say what the law was. A rebellion, in direct response, became so potent a threat that Bush reversed himself in a day.
"This is the first time when the president of the United States really wanted something in wartime, and tried to overrule the Department of Justice, and the law held," said Goldsmith, after studying similar conflicts under Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the aftermath, the White House senior staff asked questions. Was the president getting timely information and advice? Had he relinquished too much control to Cheney?
Bush, aides said, learned something he would not forget. Cheney was the nearest thing to an anti-politician in elected office. Bush could not afford to be like that. In his second term, his second chance, the president would take greater care to consult his own instincts.
"Cheney was not afraid of giving pure, kind of principled advice," Bartlett said. "He thinks from a policy standpoint, and I think he does this out of pure intentions. He thinks of the national security interest or the prerogatives of the executive. The president has other considerations he has to take into account. The political fallout of certain reactions -- he's just going to calculate different than Cheney does."
"He grew accustomed to that," Bartlett said.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
© 2008 The Washington Post Company |
Claudia Ng had recently purchased a 3D printer, and one of her first projects was to create the model for a Pokémon-themed planter for a friend. She posted it online, and it quickly went viral. The first version of the planter was a little rough, as you can see.
She then put the design on Shapeways, a site that allows you to create and share your own 3D-printed objects, and once again the design blew up. It's a simple idea, but one that we've yet to see in official merchandise. The game the design came from wasn't named, but the listing made a few winking references to the Pokémon franchise. Sales went well, but of course it couldn't last.
"Shapeways got a cease and desist from Pokémon International for infringement. They received this on Friday, and Shapeways took it down within the last hour," Ng told Polygon. "They are asking for all the money associated with this model and shapeways will not be printing or shipping any order for the past few days." She may be put in contact with Pokémon International, and she's not sure if anything will come from that potential meeting.
This outcome isn't very surprising for anyone involved. "I thought that this would fall under the boundaries of derivative and transformative work. I'm also not a lawyer, and I guess that is the least defined of rules and regulation," she explained.
"It's not that surprising. I just expected that they would go after people with more infringing designs," she continued. "Although I admit that it was inspired by my personal favorite starter Pokemon. It's generic-ness has been adored by people who are not Pokémon fans. Most commonly recognized as a Fat Cat. I've also had requests to do other animals and creatures."
It's a great idea for an official piece of merchandise though, so let's hope something comes of an official spin-off of the product. You can download the original model to print your own as well. |
The library covers a broad swath of applications that range from the highly technical Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems File Delivery Protocol, which transfers large files between the NASA ground systems and a spacecraft's control unit, to the whimsical like the Spacewalk game, which is exactly what it sounds like. There's everything from autonomous control packages to life-support system programs.
There are also a number of tools that can be applied to Earth-based photography, like JPL's Stereo Vision Software Suite for calibrating stereoscopic camera setups or the Video Image Stabilization and Registration program. The catalog also has 3D models and textures available. For drone enthusiasts, there's the Autonomous Precision Landing Navigation System, which was originally developed for use in cruise missiles, and the Formation Flying System for UAVs and Satellites if ever want to recreate Lady Gaga's Super Bowl Halftime show.
These are just a few of the numerous utilities available in the new catalog. You can find a searchable list of them here, at the NASA software page. |
On his first day back in the office after a lengthy overseas trip, President Trump made clear that he's not going to stop tweeting any time soon. In five tweets over less than four hours, the president again lashed out at Germany, again brushed off accusations that Russia interfered in the election, again called for blowing up the legislative filibuster, retweeted a photo of the crowd that gathered to hear him speak at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday and retweeted a Fox News article headlined “Jared Kushner didn't suggest Russian communications channel in meeting, source says.”
The tweets started at 6:40 a.m. on the East Coast, a bit earlier than usual, with a message that seemed aimed at German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been critical of Trump and said Sunday that the days of Europe being able to rely on other countries, especially the United States, is “over to a certain extent.”
“We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change,” the president wrote in a tweet from his personal account, @realDonaldTrump.
We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2017
[Donald Trump just threatened Germany over trade. Here’s what you need to know.]
Twenty-four minutes later came the next thought: “Russian officials must be laughing at the U.S. & how a lame excuse for why the Dems lost the election has taken over the Fake News.”
This isn't the first time Trump has ignored the intelligence community's collective conclusion that Russia tried to interfere in last year's election and painted the issue as simply a conspiracy theory invented by Democrats. But this tweet comes as the media continues to report on contacts between Russia and Trump associates, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, one of Trump's most trusted advisers.
Russian officials must be laughing at the U.S. & how a lame excuse for why the Dems lost the election has taken over the Fake News. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2017
The Washington Post reported Friday that Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring. This controversy has overshadowed Trump's presidency so far, and White House officials are trying to shift the focus back to policy while likely shaking up staff responsibilities.
What you need to know about Jared Kushner's ties to Russia. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)
[Trump considers major changes amid escalating Russia crisis]
But even as Trump and his inner circle try to dismiss the leaks as “fake news,” Russia seems to be taking them seriously.
In Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov complained that “the threat of leaks” from the White House undermines cooperation between the two countries. He claimed the Kremlin is now conducting only “basic level” exchanges with the Trump administration out of worry that details could be spilled to the U.S. media.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” Ryabkov told Russian journalists. “Maybe you’ll see what you discussed with your counterpart on the pages of Washington Post or on CNN.”
The president then took a nearly three-hour Twitter break, resuming at 9:59 a.m. with this message: “The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy. Dems would do it, no doubt!”
The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy. Dems would do it, no doubt! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2017
In response, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) noted through a spokeswoman that neither of those two measures is going through a process that would allow a filibuster. Each requires only a simple 51-vote majority under a process known as reconciliation.
“Senator McConnell agrees that both health care and tax reform are essential and that is why Republicans in Congress are using the reconciliation process to prevent a partisan filibuster of these two critical legislative agenda items,” said McConnell spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier in response to Trump's tweet.
This is not the first time the president has called for blowing up the Senate rules to allow legislation to pass by a simple majority — and to make it easier to get legislation that he supports approved.
McConnell stated earlier this year that under his leadership, the Senate would not seek to end the legislative filibuster. He said there is “no sentiment” to end the 60-vote threshold that most legislation must clear.
Following a similar comment in early May, McConnell told reporters at a news conference: “That will not happen.”
Soon after the filibuster tweet, the president retweeted two messages from others: One from Dan Scavino Jr., an assistant who handles his social media, that showed the crowd that gathered at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday morning to hear the president speak, and another from Fox News's “Fox & Friends” morning show that linked to a news article lacking an author and citing one unnamed source who challenged details of The Post's reporting.
President Trump pays respects and delivers #MemorialDay remarks at Arlington National Cemetery. pic.twitter.com/D5rl948J6u — Dan Scavino Jr. (@Scavino45) May 29, 2017 |
There is a young First Nations man in Thunder Bay who the province of Ontario has kept in a hole for 52 months. His name is Adam Capay. When he was 19 he was arrested on minor charges and sent to jail. There he got into a fight and another man died. We don’t know if Capay is guilty—he has been waiting an incredible four years for his trial.
While he has been waiting, he has been kept in solitary confinement, in a Plexiglas box, in an empty cellblock with no windows, and with the lights kept on for 24 hours. Capay has interacted with so few people over the last four years he is losing the ability to speak.
One thousand five hundred and sixty days in solitary confinement. To put this in perspective, consider that the United Nations has declared this form of segregation should never surpass 15 days. They did this because it is considered one of the worst forms of psychological torture.
How bad is it? In the 1950s, a well-regarded psychologist named Harry Harlow decided to find out. He placed rhesus macaque monkeys in solitary confinement for 20 days and recorded the effects. Every monkey emerged badly damaged. Harlow was universally condemned for his cruel and unethical experiment, and his reputation was permanently ruined. And yet the province of Ontario has effectively conducted this experiment on Adam Capay 78 times in a row.
We don’t know how many other cases there are like this. Incredibly, it appears that the politicians and officials responsible don’t either. Renu Mandhane, Ontario’s chief human rights commissioner has been trying to find out. So far, she has identified 1,383 cases of prisoners being held in solitary confinement for more than 15 days. Twelve of these people have been subjected to this for more than a year.
If this happened in a country that is notorious for violating human rights, like Saudi Arabia, we would be outraged. Discovering this is occurring in Canada is so shocking it is difficult to process.
To find out how this is possible, there are a few men who need to answer some questions. Bill Wheeler is the superintendent of the Thunder Bay jail. When his corrections officers put a prisoner in solitary, protocols dictate he must sign off on an extension after five days. How can he justify extending Capay’s torture week after week, for four years?
If a prisoner with mental health issues (like Adam Capay) is kept in solitary for more than 30 days, the provincial minister responsible for correctional services must be informed, in this case that is David Orazietti. But Mandhane told me she believes he only learned about the case when she raised it with him on Oct. 12. Why did his ministry fail to follow procedures? And what has he done since then to fix it?
Regardless, Orazietti has known about Capay for 13 days now, and yet he remains in solitary. When asked how this is possible he shamelessly told the legislature, “That is a decision that is made by the individuals operating our jails. I will not take individual action on a specific circumstance.”
There is a line that ministers are not meant to cross. Governments are elected to tell the bureaucrats what to do, not how to do it. In this case, Orazietti should not dictate how a particular inmate is treated. But he can tell his department: “You have 24 hours to ensure the province of Ontario is no longer violating the UN mandated limit of 15 days. I suggest you start with the most egregious cases first.” Why didn’t he?
I am informed that in the case of Capay, there is a readily available solution. St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre is specifically designed to house and treat prisoners like Capay who suffer from mental illness and may pose a threat to themselves or others. Superintendent Wheeler, and the senior officials who report to him, starting with deputy minister Matthew Torigian, need to explain why they failed to do so.
Another person who needs to answer questions is Attorney General Yasir Naqvi. How is it possible his ministry has allowed people to be held for four years without trial? How many people are in this situation? He too was informed of the Capay case 13 days ago. What has he done since then to address it?
I am sure each of these four men can explain to themselves and us why they are not responsible for the torture that Adam Capay has endured now for 52 months. They can tell us they didn’t know, that it isn’t their responsibility, that they don’t have the resources. Many times when something goes wrong, this is defensible. The system isn’t perfect. Mistakes are made. But when those mistakes are as horrific as the Capay case, these excuses won’t do. These men failed. They need to be held accountable and if found responsible, resign.
Canadian politics is filled with spurious and cynical demands that officials resign. But, as Adam Capay still sits alone in solitary, is there any way this could be a more obvious case of official incompetence and culpability? |
TEPID ON OBAMA
“If the election for president were to be held today, over half of Americans — 52 percent — would be unlikely to vote to re-elect President Obama, 2 in 5 would be likely to vote for him and 7 percent are not at all sure,” observes Regina A. Corso, senior vice president of the Harris Poll, which surveyed more than 2,000 Americans on such sentiments for a two-week period ending Friday.
Is this a reality check for the White House, where Republican spectacle makes for entertaining viewing? Despite all the Grand Old Party’s political theater, the state of the nation does not appear lost on Americans. Mr. Obama has work to do.
“Looking at this by party, 9 in 10 Republicans and over half of independents would be unlikely to vote for him, as would 20 percent of Democrats. Also, in the likely 2012 swing states, 53 percent say they would be unlikely to vote for the president,” Ms. Corso continues, adding that just more than one-third say Mr. Obama will be re-elected while 41 percent think he won’t.
THE PERSISTENT BREW
Certain glib Democrats predict every twist on the Republican campaign trail. Among other things, they map out the triumphant trajectory of Mitt Romney, followed by his convenient defeat on Election Day by President Obama. Yeah, well. There are still factors that even liberals can neither control or predict — such as the persistent tea party, which continues to flourish despite claims to the contrary in the mainstream media. Sarah Palin and now Herman Cain bolster interest while grass-roots tea partyers are still influential, and the presidential hopefuls know it.
Mr. Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were scheduled to face off Sunday evening in the Tea Party Patriots’ “Presidential Tele Forum” and follow-up straw poll of Florida tea partyers. The evening’s questions came from activists in the Sunshine State “tired of the media trying to force them to choose a particular candidate,” a spokesman says. Results of the poll will be released before voters head to the primary on Tuesday.
“The race has been heating up, and the tea party showed itself a dominant force in South Carolina. Florida will be no different, and the front-runners will have to display their grasp of tea party principles to earn the support of conservative Floridians,” observes Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Patriots, who represents 3,400 local groups nationwide. Hear the audio in the aftermath here: TeaPartyPatriots.org.
FOREVER REAGAN
While the GOP bickers over who or what upholds the Gipper legacy, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., is putting the finishing touches on the 101st birthday celebration of one Ronald Wilson Reagan, scheduled Feb. 6. The public event is now standing room only.
On hand for cheerful doings: the Camp Pendleton (Calif.) Marine Division Band and Col. Nicholas F. Marano, the commanding officer at Camp Pendleton. There also will be a color guard, a brass quintet, a 21-gun salute, a wreath-laying ceremony, a chaplain’s prayer and a keynote address by former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.
CANDIDATE TRACKER
Where the heck are they in the screaming finish leading up to the Florida Republican primary Tuesday? Newt Gingrich will be in Jacksonville, Pensacola, Tampa, Fort Myers and Orlando. Mitt Romney will be in Jacksonville, Dunedin, Tampa and the Villages. And Rep. Ron Paul? He’ll be in Colorado: Fort Collins, Denver and Colorado Springs.
ABOUT BELLA
“Thank you, Rick and Karen Santorum, for living the Christ-like example of sacrifice and right priorities. Nothing is more precious or important than the life of an innocent child.”
(Sarah and Todd Palin, in a message to the Republican hopeful and his wife Sunday after he left the Florida campaign trail to tend to his 3-year-old daughter Bella, hospitalized in Philadelphia for pneumonia.)
“Ann and I send prayers and best wishes for Bella’s good health to Rick and Karen Santorum and their entire family.”
(Mitt Romney, in a message to Mr. Santorum, via Twitter.)
LIBERTARIANS=CONSERVATIVES?
It is a vibrant but uneasy mix when libertarians and conservatives are at the same convention, or even in the same room. Now inquiring minds want to know: Are libertarians part of the conservative movement? The American Enterprise Institute puts this question to a formal debate, pitting syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg against Reason magazine editor Matt Welch to hammer out the conclusion.
Mr. Goldberg contends that libertarians are indeed part of the broader conservative movement’s push for limited government. Mr. Welch, however, insists that libertarians have a “unique” understanding of politics that makes them incompatible with the conservative mindset.
Organizers say seats for this Feb. 8 debate will go quickly; it will be followed by a wine and cheese reception, incidentally. POLL DU JOUR
• 67 percent of likely Republican voters in Florida “strongly support” their candidate and are unlikely to change; 71 percent of Mitt Romney fans and 68 percent of Newt Gingrich’s supporters agree.
• 42 percent of Florida GOP voters overall support Mr. Romney, 27 percent support Mr. Gingrich.
• 49 percent of liberal/moderate Florida Republicans support Mr. Romney, 20 percent Mr. Gingrich.
• 47 percent of conservative voters support Mr. Romney, 28 percent Mr. Gingrich.
• 24 percent of “very conservative” voters support Mr. Romney, 36 percent Mr. Gingrich.
• 39 percent of tea partyers support Mr. Romney, 32 percent Mr. Gingrich.
• 27 percent of those who “strongly support” the tea party support Mr. Romney, 40 percent Mr. Gingrich.
• 34 percent of evangelical Christians support Mr. Romney, 28 percent Mr. Gingrich.
Source: An NBC News/Marist poll of 2,795 registered Florida primary voters conducted Jan. 25-27.
• Querulous outcry, happy talk, annoyances to [email protected].
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. |
Why Foreign Affairs Policymakers are More Prejudiced than Economic Policymakers
Yesterday I was intermittently watching Janet Yellen’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, and I was struck by how often she relied on the guidance of "studies" to explain her worldview on monetary policy. By "studies," Yellen was referring to the policy-relevant academic literature.
This, in and of itself, is not extraordinary — you’d find the same trope when Ben Bernanke testified. But it got me to thinking,. and then to tweeting:
Fun exercise: imagine a SecState or NSC Advisor referring to "studies" — i.e., the literature — as much as Yellen has in Cong. testimony. — Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) November 14, 2013
My point is that no foreign policy principal, in testifying before Congress, would ever think of saying that the academic literature guides their thinking on a particular policy issue.
In response to that tweet, Chris Blattman — a strange economist in the stranger land of political science — offered a response:
[An] immense amount of what the best political scientists are doing is irrelevant to what State or the NSC does, and what is relevant is often of mediocre quality. I think this is improving but I’m not very sure. (emphasis added)
Now it’s possible that Blattman is correct — but I don’t think so. First, I’m unconvinced that political scientists are doing as much irrelevant scholarship as he suggests. More importantly, I’m extremely dubious of the implicit contention that a greater fraction of political scientists are doing policy irrelevant work than, say, economists.
I’d offer an alternative hypothesis — prejudice. The issue isn’t the poverty of political science research, but rather that foreign affairs policymakers view their relevant academic literature very differently from the way economic policymakers view their relevant academic literature. To repeat myself:
[T[he fundamental difference between economic policy and foreign policy is that the former community accepts the idea that economic methodologies and theory-building enterprises have value, and are worth using as a guide to policymaking. This doesn’t mean economists agree on everything, but it does mean they are all speaking a common language and accept the notion of external validity checks on their arguments. That consensus simply does not exist within the foreign policy community…. Many members of the foreign policy community explicitly reject the notion that social science methodologies and techniques can explain much in world politics. They therefore are predisposed to reject the kind of scholarship that political scientists of all stripes generate. This might be for well-founded reasons, it might be simple innumeracy hostility to the academy, or it might be a combination of the two. I’d love to have a debate about whether that’s a good or bad thing, but my point is that’s the reality we face.
For evidence to back up my assertion, see this forthcoming International Studies Quarterly paper by Michael Desch and Paul Avey entitled "What Do Policymakers Want From Us?" They find that senior foreign affairs policymakers are extremely dubious about the utility of political science scholarship. The interesting finding is why:
[T]he more sophisticated social science methods such as formal models, operations research, theoretical analysis, and quantitative analysis tended to be categorized more often as “not very useful” or “not useful at all,” calling into question the direct influence of these approaches to international relations. Indeed, the only methodology that more than half the respondents characterized as “not very useful” or “not useful at all” was formal models. As Table 4 shows, the higher the rank of the government official, the less likely he or she was to think that formal models were useful for policymaking (p. 11).
Now here’s the thing — as Desch and Avey note, these very same policymakers have a very different attitude about economics: "Respondents were more tolerant of ‘highly theoretical writings [and] complex statistical analysis of social science topics’ in the realm of Economics (p. 9)." Indeed, they note at the end of their paper that an outstanding question remains: "why is it that policymakers are relatively tolerant of complex modeling and statistical work in Economics and survey research but not in other areas of political science and international relations? (p. 35)"
Maybe this is because economists are really just far more sophisticated in their research than political scientists — but I don’t think so. Maybe, as Desch and Avey postulate, it’s because foreign affairs policymakers exaggerate how important these methodologies are to economic policymakers. Or maybe it’s something different: it’s that economic policymakers have imbibed the methodology and jargon of economists in a way that foreign policymakers have not with international relations. They don’t reflexively pre-judge such scholarship in a negative light.
What do you think? |
The great Jaguar stalwart and racer Bill was farewelled today at a moving ceremony held at Caloundra on the Queensland Sunshine Coast, close to his much loved home.
His sons Michael and Rob plus daughter Kym, and all of his grandchildren, were wonderful hosts at a ceremony which celebrated the extraordinary life of this incredibly modest racing champion.
His two most famous Jaguars were D-Type XKD526, and his works built racing ‘Mk1’ – one of very few of its kind built.
We will have a major tribute to Bill in our coming edition, but if you wonder just why he is so revered despite retiring from the track in 1963 – this will explain:
Winner: 24 Hour Race Mt Druitt 1954 – XK120 FHC – defeated C-Type of Peter Whitehead and Tony Gaze
Winner: Victorian TT – D-Type
Winner: Australian Touring Car Championship 1961
Second: Australian Touring Car Championship 1960, 1962
Winner: AJC Trophy ‘Mk1’
Winner: Queensland Touring Car Championship – twice
1957 Mobilgas Trial – MkVIII 7th outright – first non-Volkswagen home
Australian Grand Prix 1954 – 11th outright following puncture in the XK120-based Anderson Special (only race)
Bill was a competitive, brave and highly skilled driver – but if he had a failing – it was that he was too modest!
After all, it was he and a couple of fellow Jaguar ‘Mk1’ racers who established Australia’s love affair with touring car racing – and that is broadcast to the world today, of course.
Farewell to the great Jaguar devotee – and a truly good ever-smiling gentleman.
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The Right Suitor
A child was born about 6 decades ago
Into the hands of a waiting white suitor
She got nurtured and grew by the day
She crawled, leapt and walked in it time
She became a woman and then her crown left
From her, came thirty six offspring
Which she protected and fed unto maturity
A time came when she needed another crown
Suitors came from the north, east and south
She takes turn on each for at most eight years
Each one causing her miscarriages and agony
Who will bring her peace and joy?
Who will put a smile to her face?
The young clamours, the old clamours too
Who is the right suitor for this woman in agony?
Could it be you?
POETRY ANALYSIS
The poem “The Right Suitor” written by Akinjise Daniel in year 2018 is a free verse poem which has 16 lines broken up into 4 quatrains. It is themed or finds it thematic structure on the current situation in Nigeria, an African country. In stanza one, the poet talked about Nigeria, a country that got her independence some decades ago from the British Government (Britain). The poet chooses to describe the country as a feminine gendered character (a woman). The poet consciously made use of metaphoric words like woman, crown, suitor, offspring, and miscarriage, to mention a few in order to suggest a resemblance to the exact point.
In stanza two, the poet talked about a child that grew into womanhood, going through the different phases of human life-cycle to a point where she gave birth to about 36 offspring; which she took care of till the stage of maturity, after which she losses her crown (post-independence).
(Crown in this context means husband. In the African culture, a woman’s husband is regarded as her crown, without which she is incomplete). In stanza three, the poet talked about her (the woman) supposedly suitable suitors (suitors in this context mean politicians/presidential aspirants) coming from the different regions domiciled in the country; Nigeria, that is the Northern region (Hausa), the Eastern region (Igbo) and the Western region (Yoruba). The poet says that each of these aspirants after being voted into power remains in that post for a maximum of eight years without having something to show for it other than miscarriages. The poet intentionally uses the word “miscarriages” meaning bloodshed which comes from the Fulani herdsmen killing, Boko haram terrorist attacks which is evident in the occurrences happening in northern part of the country (Taraba, Plateau and Adamawa). The question then is who will bring that peace back to Nigeria; the peace that once existed.
In stanza four, the poet asked again a question:’ who will put a smile to her face?” the young clamor, the old clamors too. Not quite long, the young Nigerians requested that a bill: NOT TOO YOUNG TO RUN be passed. But they forgot that a young person was once given a chance and he messed it up. The old ones (Adult) too claims that power should remain with them with the notion that with adulthood comes experience. But there haven’t been reasonable changes since the power has been with them. The woman (Nigeria) then is thrown into a dilemma of who is capable of being her suitor.
In conclusion, the poet throws a question” who is the right suitor for this woman in agony?” Could it be you? The poet advises that both the young and old be given a chance and should make the right use of the chance given, even in the forth-coming general election.
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Donating Umbilical Cord Blood to a Public Bank
Your decision to donate umbilical cord blood, which is full of blood-forming cells, may potentially save the life of someone who has a life-threatening disease.
Donating cord blood to a public cord blood bank involves talking with your doctor or midwife about your decision to donate and then calling a cord blood bank (if donation can be done at your hospital). Upon arriving at the hospital, tell the labor and delivery nurse that you are donating umbilical cord blood.
After your baby is born, the umbilical cord and placenta are usually thrown away. Because you are choosing to donate, the blood left in the umbilical cord and placenta will be collected and tested. Cord blood that meets standards for transplant will be stored at the public cord blood bank until needed by a patient. (It is not saved for your family.)
By donating umbilical cord blood, you may be helping someone who needs a transplant.
On this page:
Talk with your doctor or midwife about your decision to donate umbilical cord blood. Find out if your hospital collects cord blood for public donation and save the phone number of the public cord blood bank.
Participating Hospitals
Cord blood donation doesn’t cost anything for parents. Public cord blood banks pay for everything which includes the collection, testing, and storing of umbilical cord blood. This means that cord blood donation is not possible in every hospital.
If a public cord blood bank is not collecting in your area, perhaps there is another way you can help.
Contact the public cord blood bank that works with your hospital (see above). Although each cord blood bank has its own instructions, they often include asking you to:
See if you meet basic guidelines for cord blood donation. These questions are similar to those asked of blood donors. You can usually donate if you are:
Healthy Pregnant with one baby (rather than two or more)
Finish forms about the health history of you and your family. This information is important. It means that your blood is free from diseases that can be given to another person.
Medical staff at the public cord blood bank will check to see if you can donate. If you have had a disease that can be given to another person through blood-forming cells, such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, or HIV (the AIDS virus), you will likely not be able to donate. However, other medical reasons may still allow you to donate, for example, hepatitis A or diabetes only during your pregnancy (gestational diabetes). The staff at the public cord blood bank will tell you.
Tell your type of expected delivery. Most public cord blood banks collect donations after a vaginal or C-section delivery.
Most public cord blood banks collect donations after a vaginal or C-section delivery. Sign a consent form to donate. This consent form says that the donated cord blood may be used by any patient needing a transplant. If the cord blood cannot be used for transplantation, it may be used in research studies or thrown away. These studies help future patients have a more successful transplant.
Keep a copy of the consent form in case you need to call the cord blood bank.
Each cord blood bank has different directions for returning the consent form. Some banks may ask you to mail the consent form along with the health history forms or to bring the original consent form with you to the hospital. Other banks may have you finish the form at the hospital. Follow the directions from your public cord blood bank. |
(NaturalNews) Deniers of the link between mercury-laden vaccines and autism are going to have a hard time denying the latest findings by the Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs (CoMeD). The nonprofit group has obtained critical documents via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that exposes the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) role in deliberately lying about and manipulating a key Danish study that showed a clear link between vaccines containing mercury and autism.In 2003, the journalpublished a study conducted in Denmark that observed a significant decline in autism rates following the country's elimination of Thimerosal, a mercury-based component, from vaccines. But thanks to the CDC's corrupting influence, the published version of the study inactually claimed the opposite, and alleged that removal of Thimerosal brought about an increase in autism rates.According to the documents, CDC officials removed large amounts of data from the study that showed a decline in autism rates following the removal of Thimerosal. The agency then twisted the remaining data to imply an increase in autism rates following the removal of Thimerosal, and suggested that there was no link between Thimerosal and autism.Upon submission of the CDC's tainted version of the study to, the study's authors contacted CDC officials to let them know that the agency had incorrectly interpreted the data. They tried to tell the CDC that its figures and conclusions were wrong, and that corrections needed to be made.The CDC allegedly responded by saying that it would take a look at the incorrect data, but proceeded to submit the corrupted version of the study toanyway. After encouraging the editors ofto perform an expedited review of the corrupted study, the CDC ended up convincing the journal to publish the fraudulent study, which it did in 2003.Now that this critical information has been officially released for the world to see, CoMeD is pressing the CDC to conduct a full criminal investigation into the matter, and make a formal declaration about whether or not scientific fraud was involved. CoMeD is also calling for a full, immediate retraction of the corrupted study from"This should not be tolerated by those who are entrusted with our children's health and well-being," says Lisa Sykes, President of CoMeD.To learn more, visit: |
After becoming the first sitting U.S. president to attend the U.S. Women’s Open golf tournament on Friday, President Donald Trump will again attend the prestigious tournament on Saturday.
The sport’s third major of the year is being held at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Trump, an avid golfer and golf fan, went to the second round of the tournament on Friday after he returned home from his two-day trip to Paris, France.
I will be at the @USGA #USWomensOpen in Bedminster, NJ tomorrow. Big crowds expected & the women are playing great-should be very exciting! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2017
Trump’s presence was welcomed by LPGA golfers even though there was some controversy before the event.
USA Today columnist Christine Brennan again tried to make herself the story by hounding female golfers about Trump—just like she did to Rory McIlroy at the Masters. She even wrote a column urging Trump to “stay away.” American golfer Brittany Lincicome revealed that she received some criticism from her fans on Twitter after she said she hoped Trump would not show up to the U.S. Open.
Though there were some anti-Trump protesters, most of the golfers welcomed Trump’s presence.
Even the New York Times conceded that “most of the players described his presence as a welcome distraction. By showing up, Trump elevated the profile of the women, whose attendance and television audience have not grown as fast as their talent pool, which is so deep that the first 18 events of the 2017 L.P.G.A. Tour season produced 17 different winners.”
American golfer Angela Stanford said she respected the office of the president and it was “pretty cool” that Trump would take the time to show up to the tournament.
“How many chances are you going to get to play on a president’s golf course during a U.S. Open?” Stanford said, according to the Times.
Stacy Lewis, who has consistently been one of the top American golfers for the last decade, said she was also excited that Trump was attending their most prestigious tournament.
“We never had an active sitting president at one of our events, so I was kind of excited about the prospect of, regardless of who it is, that he came here to watch us,” Lewis reportedly said, according to ESPN. “He tweeted about coming to the U.S. Women’s Open. Some people didn’t know it was going on.”
Left Paris for U.S.A. Will be heading to New Jersey and attending the#USWomensOpen, their most important tournament, this afternoon. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2017
American golfer Marina Alex said that “regardless of your political affiliation and whether you are a fan of Trump or you’re not a fan of Trump, having a president at a women’s golf event is pretty remarkable.”
“It’s going to draw attention to women’s golf that has maybe never been in our favor before,” she said, according to the Washington Post. “We have an unbelievable group of talented women playing golf right now. If it’s allowing more people to see us play our game, I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
As the Post noted, “Trump has long been a prominent supporter of the LPGA Tour, hosting several events and inviting top female golfers to play rounds on his courses.”
Earlier, the USGA issued a statement that read, “If the President of the United States decides to attend the U.S. Women’s Open championship, we welcome him. ”
China’s Shanshan Feng (-8) leads the field by two strokes before moving day on Saturday. She’s followed by three South Koreans, including Amy Yang, who many believe is due to win a major, at six-under par. 2015 U.S. Open winner In Gee Chun (-4), Se Yeon Ryu (-4), the world’s top-ranked player, Canada’s Brooke Henderson (-3), one of the most exciting players on tour, Australia’s Minjee Lee (-3), New Zealand’s steady Lydia Ko (-3) and American Marina Alex (-3) are in contention.
Americans Lewis (-2), Christie Kerr (-2) and Lexi Thompson (-1), who has played some rounds with Trump in Florida, are still in the hunt. |
Win tickets to see Save Ferris and Stacked Like Pancakes on Thursday October 26th, 2017 at Music Box!
Ticket Price: $25 advanced & day of show
Parking: Street parking and paid lot parking available.
TableReservations / VIP: [email protected] / (619) 836-1847
Box Office Hours Monday – Friday 11:00am – 4:00pm
Enter your email below for a chance to win! Contest ends October 23rd, 2017. Winner will be notified by email.
WIN TICKETS TO SAVE FERRIS WIN TICKETS TO SAVE FERRIS 0 Your Entries 35 Total Entries Ended Days Left Win tickets to see Save Ferris and Stacked Like Pancakes on Thursday October 26th, 2017 at Music Box! Contest ends October 23rd, 2017. Winner will be notified by email. This contest expired.
Good luck!
—
Save Ferris
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Save Ferris is a ska-punk band formed in Orange County, California circa 1995. Their name is a reference to the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Lead by the inimitable front-woman Monique Powell, the band enjoyed mainstream success in the late 1990s with radio hits, constant touring and appearances on a variety of television shows and movies.
The band released their debut EP “Introducing Save Ferris” on Powell’s own Starpool Records, in 1996. They ended up selling close to 20,000 copies of their EP out of the trunks of their cars, thanks to loyal fans and huge support from Orange County independent record shops. That same year, Powell provided vocals on the Reel Big Fish song “She Has A Girlfriend Now” on their album “Turn the Radio Off” (Mojo).
As favorites of KROQ radio’s legendary Rodney on the Rock, Save Ferris became a regular presence on LA’s KROQ radio.
Later that year, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave the band a Grammy showcase award for best unsigned band, earning them a recording contract with Epic Records (SONY).
The band released their debut full-length album for Epic in 1997. “It Means Everything” featured several re-recorded tracks from the EP, several new songs, a cover of Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come on Eileen,” which the band released as their first official single, and what was to become their most successful single.
With two singles in the Billboard top 100 and full rotation on alternative radio all over the world, “It Means Everything” went platinum internationally.
In April 1998, Save Ferris made made their seminal on-screen appearance in the cult classic teen film, “10 Things I Hate About You”.
After a thunderously successful main stage tour with the Vans Warped Tour, the band began writing their follow-up to “It Means Everything”, the appropriately-titled “Modified”. Released in October 1999, the album saw the band mix their ska-punk roots with pop-punk stylings.
After almost fifteen years, Save Ferris will make their long awaited return to the music scene in 2017. Following a successful PledgeMusic campaign, the band’s new EP – Checkered Past – will be released on February 10th. The EP, produced by Oingo Boingo bassist John Avila, embraces Monique’s ska and dub roots and also features a guest appearance by Neville Staple of the Specials on the first single “New Sound.”
February 10th also marks the start of the band’s first full tour of the United States. The tour will take the band’s energetic show around the country starting in Santa Barbara and finishing at the new House of Blues in Anaheim, California with support from Vista Kicks on the West Coast and Baby Baby on the East Coast.
“Since this incarnation of Save Ferris first played together, the band and I have been working on new music, arranging schedules and selectively playing local shows to get ready for a tour. I have had to tell our fans to ‘be patient, I promise it’ll happen’ for too long now! But now here we are. I can’t believe we’ve made it this far….and now you get to see us in a town near you. For the first time in 15 years, Save Ferris is coming to get you! Are you ready?”
– Monique Powell
Stacked Like Pancakes
Reinvigorating the sounds of classic ska, Stacked Like Pancakes (SLP) piles on boisterous horns and punk rock attitude to create high energy music synthesizing the vibes of Reel Big Fish, twenty one pilots, Foo Fighters, and an untraceable amount of other artists and genres. Since 2007, SLP has shared the stage with national and international acts, toured on the Vans Warped Tour, headlined their own self-booked tours, and in December 2015 released their latest crowd-funded 15-track monster-album THIS IS US.
The token with this group is their live performance. Concert venues and music patrons alike should be prepared for the stage to shake, the crowd to be wild and unpredictable, and the show to be a deliberate fusion of spontaneity and precision. Their community fan base – the #PancakeNation – is hungry for their band to grow. Stacked Like Pancakes epitomizes a tough DIY band despite a meaningless band name, and are rightfully on the rise to claim an international stage of their own. |
Arsene Wenger has turned his attention to the Spanish giants as he makes late-window attempts to bring marquee firepower to the Gunners' attack following a frustrating summer
'AN ARSENAL STAR IN THE MAKING'
Miguel Churruca | Goal Spain
"Despite his stunning arrival to the Bernabeu, Di Maria has never felt the starting player he was supposed to be. Too many big-name stars in his position, a couple of long injuries and the irregular form he has shown in the last two seasons have put him on the Madrid departures list.
"Predominantly a left winger, the Argentina international has fantastic dribbling ability but Real's deals for Isco and, moreover, the imminent arrival of Gareth Bale, have opened the door to an exit.
"If he does join Arsenal, Di Maria would undoubtedly take a leading role in Wenger’s side, with the potential to play on both wings in support of Olivier Giroud."
Follow Wayne Veysey on
By Wayne Veysey | Chief Correspondent Arsenal have opened preliminary talks with Real Madrid over a £26 million deal for Angel Di Maria but must play a waiting game for Karim Benzema as the Spanish giants consider a late-window move for Luis Suarez has learned.Madrid have indicated in early discussions with the Gunners that they are willing to off-load Di Maria, the Argentinian winger, as they prepare to announce the world-record signing of Gareth Bale.But Goal understands that Real chiefs have told Arsenal they will not sell French striker Benzema unless they first secure a replacement.Liverpool fear that Real are willing to make a bid for wantaway forward Suarez, who has spoken publicly this summer of his desire to move to the Bernabeu.Although the Merseysiders remain resolute in their determination not to let the Uruguayan depart in this window, it would be regarded as more palatable for the club’s supporters to sell the 26-year-old overseas than to an immediate rival like Arsenal.The chain of transfers involving the elite clubs will determine Arsene Wenger’s chances of landing one or both of Di Maria and Benzema.Given that there are only 10 days left in the window, Arsenal’s hopes of landing the France international in particular look slim – Benzema is Real’s only senior centre forward following Gonzalo Higuain’s sale to Napoli earlier this summer – but the move for Di Maria is believed to be more advanced.Wenger's audacious approach for the attacking pair comes in a week in which Arsenal have made a series of shock moves for players who were not on their target list earlier in the window.As reported by Goal, the Londoners made bids for Newcastle midfielder Yohan Cabaye and Schalke right-back Atsuto Uchida on Monday, and also made an enquiry for Sevilla midfielder Geoffrey Kondogbia Wenger also has his eye on Stoke City goalkeeper Asmir Begovic and is weighing up a short-term contract offer for former Gunner Mathieu Flamini, who is training at London Colney after being released by AC Milan.It is the search for marquee attacking talent that is Wenger's chief priority as he attempts to make use of the £100m transfer kitty at his disposal and turn Arsenal into genuine title contenders.The Frenchman has turned his attention to Spain after becoming aware of Bale's impending move to Real, a deal that is expected to be completed for around £86m by the end of the week.The Gunners have still not given up hope of landing Suarez, while they are also continuing to monitor the situation of Wayne Rooney, who is being openly pursued by Chelsea.Manager Brendan Rodgers admitted on Thursday that a bid this late in the window for Suarez "would be very difficult [to accept]", adding: "There might have been a point a few months ago where there was time to do it but, with 11 days to go, it would be difficult to replace him." |
MasterCard's global chief innovation officer, Garry Lyons, said earlier this month that the launch of Android Pay could be more significant for the future payments infrastructure than Apple Pay given the myriad devices they would work on in comparison to Apple's.
In an interview at the opening of ANZ's new Martin Place branch – which resembles one of Apple's retail stores with its three-storey glass frontage, light timber interior, feature staircase and elevated tables for customers to explore products – Mr Ohlsson said ANZ was close to revealing a new contactless, merchant terminal. It will be launched in the second half of this calendar year.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia was the first of the major banks to create its own modern, eftpos terminal with its Albert device, built with Wincor Nixdorf. So far, there are 25,000 Alberts in circulation, compared to around 800,000 point of sale terminals in Australia. The Albert is a wireless, seven-inch Android tablet with touch screen.
But Mr Ohlsson suggested that the new ANZ device would be smaller than an iPad and could be worn in a holster. "We think it will be more relevant and usable [than Albert] but time will tell," Mr Ohlsson said. "In a restaurant or on a shop floor, you might not want to carry a tablet around with you, but if you have something in a holster then it is with you the whole time.
"We are talking to lots of large retailers about that now. Everything we do now has to be mobile, and it has to be contactless," he said. |
NEW YORK — Patrick Brown is on an improbable mission: Make a burger Americans love, minus the meat.
Veggie patties have been around for decades, but Brown and others want to make foods without animal products that look, cook and taste like the real thing — and can finally appeal to the masses.
“We are not making a veggie burger. We’re creating meat without using animals,” said Brown, a former Stanford scientist who has been scanning plants in search of compounds that can help recreate meat.
Brown’s company, Impossible Foods, is part of a wave of startups aiming to wean Americans off foods like burgers and eggs, and their efforts are attracting tens of millions of dollars from investors. The goal is to lessen the dependence on livestock for food, which they say isn’t as healthy, affordable or environmentally friendly as plant-based alternatives.
The challenge is that most Americans happily eat meat and eggs. That means that, without a breakthrough, those seeking to upend factory farming risk becoming footnotes in the history of startups.
To understand the difficulty of their task, consider the transformation raw chicken undergoes when cooked. It starts as a slimy, unappetizing blob, then turns into a tender piece of meat.
LEARNING TO MIMIC NATURE
In its office in Southern California, Beyond Meat works on “chicken” strips made with pea and soy proteins that have been sold at places like Whole Foods since 2012. But founder Ethan Brown concedes the product needs work.
To give the “meat” its fat, for instance, canola oil is evenly mixed throughout the product.
“That’s not really how it works in an animal,” said Brown, a vegan. “The fat can be a sheath on tendons.”
To form the strips, a mixture is pressed through a machine that forms and sets the product’s texture with heating and cooling chambers. The method isn’t new in the world of fake meats, but the company says it fine-tuned the process to deliver a more realistic offering.
Brown dismisses the idea that fake meat might weird people out and says it’s a “desirable evolution.”
“It’s like moving from the horse-drawn carriage to the automobile, or the landline to the iPhone,” he said.
But Beyond Meat isn’t quite there yet; The Huffington Post described the strips as having an “unpleasant” taste that inhabits a “strange territory between meat and vegetable.”
At Impossible Foods, the patty is made by extracting proteins from foods like spinach and beans, then combining them with other ingredients. The company, which has about 100 employees, expects the product to be available in the latter half of next year, initially through a food-service operator.
Few have tasted it, but the vision continues to gain traction. In October, Impossible Foods said it raised $108 million in funding, on top of its previous $74 million. Among its investors are Bill Gates, Google Ventures and Horizons Ventures.
CULTURING MEAT, JUST LIKE YOGURT
Another startup isn’t totally ditching the cow.
With $15.5 million in funding, Modern Meadow in New York City takes cells from a cow through a biopsy and cultures them to grow into meat. At a conference in February, company founder Andras Forgacs likened the process to culturing yogurt or brewing beer.
“This is an extension of that,” he said.
Modern Meadow doesn’t have a product on the market yet either. The company says it doesn’t necessarily want to replicate steaks and burgers, and gave a hint of the type of foods it might make by presenting “steak chips” for attendees at a small conference last year.
Only about 200 people have tried the chips, which Forgacs describes as “crispy, crunchy beef jerky.”
Citing the demand for more openness about how food is made, he sees a day when people tour meat plants, as they do with breweries.
“There could be your friendly neighborhood meat brewery,” Forgacs said.
BANNING THE WORD ‘VEGAN’
In San Francisco, Hampton Creek’s mission is to replace the eggs in products without anyone noticing. In trying to appeal to the mainstream, co-founder and CEO Josh Tetrick has a simple rule.
“Number one, never use the word ‘vegan,'” he said.
To avoid perceptions its eggless spread Just Mayo won’t taste good, Hampton Creek even removed the V-word from the label. Tetrick says what makes the product different is that it tastes better and costs less — not that it’s made with a protein from a Canadian yellow pea instead of eggs.
“The egg-free thing is almost irrelevant,” he said.
Swapping out a single ingredient in a product may make it easier for people to swallow change. It may also make change simpler to achieve; Just Mayo’s consistency and taste are similar to mayonnaise. The product, which is available at retailers including Target and Wal-Mart, is gaining enough traction that the American Egg Board, which is responsible for slogans like the “Incredible, Edible Egg,” sees it as a “major threat,” according to emails made public through a records request.
So far, Hampton Creek has attracted $120 million in funding. It continues to screen plants for compounds that can help replace eggs in recipes and plans to eventually introduce a scrambled-egg product.
ON THE CUSP OF SOMETHING BIG?
For those looking to lessen the reliance on animals for food, there are encouraging signs all around.
Last year, Pinnacle Foods, the maker of Hungry-Man dinners, paid $154 million to acquire Gardein, which makes frozen veggie patties, nuggets and crumbles. Pinnacle CEO Robert Gamgort said he thinks meat alternatives are in the “early stages of a macro trend,” similar to the way soy and almond milk changed the dairy category.
But for now, vegetarian products remain a niche market. And even if people cut back on meat and eggs for health, environmental or animal welfare reasons, they might not want literal replacements.
Morningstar, a longtime maker of vegetarian products owned by Kellogg, says people are becoming more accepting of vegetables as main ingredients. As such, it wants to evolve from a maker of meat substitutes to a brand known for its “veggie cuisine,” such as bowls with brown rice and black beans.
Yves Potvin, Gardein’s founder, also thinks veggie alternatives don’t have to replicate meat, so long as they taste good. It’s why Gardein’s products are shaped to be reminiscent of meat, but don’t try to mimic their exact flavor and texture.
“What people like is the experience,” Potvin said. “They like the memory.”
——
Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi .
AP-WF-12-29-15 1605GMT |
On October 28th the Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg published a blog post accusing that Wix, a provider of competing services, has stolen code from the WordPress codebase. To be specific, it was about the use of a rich text editing component in the Wix mobile app:
If I were being charitable, I’d say, “The app’s editor is based on the WordPress mobile app’s editor.” If I were being honest, I’d say that Wix copied WordPress without attribution, credit, or following the license. The custom icons, the class names, even the bugs. You can see the forked repositories on GitHub complete with original commits from Alex and Maxime, two developers on Automattic’s mobile team.
– The Wix Mobile App, a WordPress Joint
There were some claims that Wix had not respected the GPL licensing in place for the component. They may or may not be valid, but what Matt is claiming about it being a copy is just what is going on with Open Source. It is supposed to be the exact same code, warts and all…
But with Matt Mullenweg being no stranger to petty litigation, it seemed like FUD driven by jealousy over use of Automattic code in a competing product. Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami soon replied, making it clear that it is the exactly the same code that is being used. And that component is available as open source on GitHub:
Yes, we did use the WordPress open source library for a minor part of the application (that is the concept of open source right?), and everything we improved there or modified, we submitted back as open source, see here in this link – you should check it out, pretty cool way of using it on mobile native.
– Dear Matt Mullenweg: an open letter from Wix.com’s CEO Avishai Abrahami
What Avishai fails to address are some of the accusations Matt Mullenweg makes against Wix and that the whole mobile application should be made available by complying to the terms of the GPL license. This is interesting, but the saga continues.
Update: It has now been confirmed that Wix will release the full source code to their mobile application:
Wix to release full mobile app source code, including the GPL disputed WordPress Rich Text Editor
Automattic themselves fail to comply MIT licensing
From a more technical post by the lead developer of the mobile app at Wix, it seems that the component that Mullenweg and Wix are quarrelling over is itself a wrapper for another Open Source project, ZSSRichTextEditor, licensed under the MIT license:
The WordPress GPL Rich Text component in question, is actually a wrapper around another Rich Text component named ZSSRichTextEditor which is licensed MIT. In retrospect it would have been easier to use it directly.
– How I Found Myself Accused of Stealing Code from WordPress
Now it is no longer clear whether the WordPress editor component itself has a valid license, at least when it comes to the iOS version of the Rich Text Editor. This is because on March 20th 2015, the Automattic team proceeded with removing the MIT license from ZZRichTextEditor and replacing it with a GPL one:
This is a violation of the MIT license terms from Automattic. So as it stands it seems quite unclear who actually has the right to do what as the MIT license requirement is no longer respected by the Automattic editor component:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
– ZZRichTextEditor MIT license
Maybe in the future it would be good not to shoot first and ask questions later. But I guess this is how they do it in Texas.
The only person who has not gotten credit for work is the original creator of the ZZRichTextEditor, Nic Hubbard. If this case moves beyond throwing words on the web, only one thing is for sure: Lawyers will be making a killing off it.
So for sure Open Source licensing continues to be a tricky subject, with keeping in mind that the underlying React library from Facebook has some unclear licensing itself.
UPDATE: Wix has now abandoned their work on the WordPress editor and are focusing on a direct fork of the ZZRichTextEditor: Wix abandons WordPress GPL editor fork in favour of original MIT library
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news National broadband provider iiNet and its subsidiary Internode have pledged to implement the limited child abuse Internet filtering scheme adopted as policy last week by the Federal Government, noting they had received independent legal advice advising them to comply with a new “compulsory” request by police to do so.
Last week, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced the Federal Government would abandon its highly unpopular and controversial mandatory Internet filtering policy in favour of a more limited scheme that will see Australian ISPs forced to block a much smaller list of child abuse sites supplied by international policing agency Interpol. The legal mechanism for the scheme to proceed is Section 313 of the Telecommunications Act, which allows the Australian Federal Police to request assistance from local telcos. Telstra and Optus implemented the scheme in mid-2011; Conroy said last week that it will now be extended to other ISPs.
In mid-2011, a number of ISPs, such as Telstra, Optus, iiNet and Internode, received such requests from the Australian Federal Police to implement such a filtering scheme for the Interpol list. At the time, Telstra and Optus complied with the request and have had their filters working for more than a year with no known public complaints, while a number of other ISPs, such as iiNet and Internode, declined to do so, citing uncertainty about the legality of the request.
However, posting on broadband forum Whirlpool this week, iiNet group chief regulatory officer Steve Dalby noted that the Section 313 notices received in mid-2011 by the ISPs had made it clear the scheme was “voluntary”. New notices issued to ISPs recently, however, he said, had the word “voluntary” removed from their text.
“… the AFP advised us that compliance was voluntary. As a result we declined to participate,” Dalby wrote. “Now it is clearly no longer voluntary and we are obliged to comply, which we will. As you will no doubt have read from the press release, all ISPs will be served notices by the AFP. I’m sure most will take legal advice on the effectiveness of the notifications and act according to that legal advice.”
Dalby noted iiNet had sought legal advice on the Section 313 notice, and added: ” … we are satisfied that both the advice and our obligations are clear.” However, he declined to release that legal advice to iiNet’s customers and the public, or to release the text of the Section 313 notice issued by the Australian Federal Police to iiNet.
“There’s no need for a press release,” he told Whirlpool users. “We see the matter as ‘business as usual’ – we comply with legitimate request or directions from law enforcement agency all the time. This is no different, now that the element of volunteering has been removed.”
“It’s not complicated,” he added. “The Act hasn’t changed, the section 313 notice has. Previously, it seems, some ISPs were prepared to act on the ‘voluntary’ s313. We declined. Now that it is no longer voluntary, we are complying … The word ‘voluntary’ was deleted from the MS Word document. Why is this such a hard concept to grasp?”
However, not everyone believes that the Section 313 notices which are being used by the Australian Federal Police to implement the limited Interpol filtering scheme are in fact legal.
For example, this week Australian free market thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs accused the Federal Government of relying on an “obscure” section of telecommunications law in a way that was never intended to implement its new limited Internet filtering scheme, and warned of the potential for scope creep under the scheme.
“The Gillard government is handing over control for the list of banned websites to the international police agency, Interpol, and is using an existing law in a way that was never intended,” said Simon Breheny, director of the IPA’s Legal Rights Project.
“The use of an obscure provision of the legislation raises serious legal issues – it is highly doubtful whether the law can be used to compel ISPs to block websites at the Minister’s behest. If the Minister always had the power to impose an internet filter without the need for new legislation section 313 would have been used from the beginning,” Breheny added.
Last week, most digital rights, political and telecommunications organisations in Australia – including Electronic Frontiers Australia, the Pirate Party of Australia, the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU), the Greens, the Opposition, the Internet Industry Association and others welcomed the Government’s backdown on the mandatory Internet filter and the implementation of the new scheme. However, some, such as ISOC-AU, noted that they still had concerns with the details of the new setup.
Delimiter has encouraged the Minister to hold an open press conference on the issue to take questions from the media, as well as to issue a discussion paper on the issue which would allow the public to comment on the scheme formally. In addition, we have invited the Minister to respond to the following questions in writing:
Given the wide-ranging nature of the Interpol filter — affecting most Australian Internet users — why was no public consultation held before the Government decided to take take this step? I note that the Government has never held a formal public consultation into Internet filtering in general.
How would the Government respond to the claim that there will be no civilian oversight of this Interpol filtering scheme, with key information about it only being released over the past several years through Freedom of Information requests filed with the Australian Federal Police?
ISPs such as iiNet, Internode, TPG and Exetel have declined to participate in this scheme so far over the past 12 months, with some citing uncertainty of the legal situation. How would the Government address the claim that the legal ground of this Interpol filtering scheme, notably the process whereby the AFP issues notices to ISPs, is not clear?
Which further ISPs will the AFP issue notices to? Has the Government already received support from those ISPs for the scheme? How will the Government react if an ISP declines the notice?
How would the Government respond to the claim that there is the potential for the AFP to issue notices beyond the Interpol list to ISPs, in an approach which could be dubbed ‘scope creep’?
Neither Telstra nor Optus explicitly notified customers that they had implemented the Interpol filter when they did so last year. What guidelines will the Government be placing around ISPs’ participation in this scheme?
Image credit: iiNet |
PSYKHE
Greek Name Ψυχη Transliteration Psykhê Latin Spelling Psyche Translation Soul (psykhê)
Psyche and Cupid-Eros, Greco-Roman mosaic from Samandağı C3rd A.D., Hatay Archeology Museum
PSYKHE (Psyche) was the goddess of the soul and the wife of Eros (Roman Cupid) god of love.
She was once a mortal princess whose extraordinary beauty earned the ire of Aphrodite (Roman Venus) when men began turning their worship away from the goddess towards the girl. Aphrodite commanded Eros make Psykhe fall in love with the most hideous of men but the god instead fell in love and carried her off to his hidden palace. Eros hid his true identity and told Psykhe she must never gaze upon his face. Her jealous sisters, however, tricked her into disobeying and the angry god forsook her. Psykhe searched the world for her lost love and eventually came into the service of Aphrodite. The goddess commanded her perform a series of seemingly impossible tasks which culminated in a journey to the Underworld. Psykhe was afterwards reunited with Eros and the couple were married in a ceremony attended by all the gods.
Psykhe was depicted in ancient mosaic art as a butterfly-winged woman in the company of her husband Eros. Sometimes a pair of Pyskhai (Psychae) were depicted--the second perhaps representing their daughter Hedone (Pleasure).
FAMILY OF PSYCHE
PARENTS
Mortal parents (Apuleius 4.28)
OFFSPRING
HEDONE (by Eros) (Apuleius 6.24)
ENCYCLOPEDIA
PSYCHE (Psuchê), that is, "breath" or "the soul," occurs in the later times of antiquity, as a personification of the human soul, and Apuleius (Met. iv. 28, &c.) relates about her the following beautiful allegoric story. Psyche was the youngest of the three daughters of some king, and excited by her beauty the jealousy and envy of Venus. In order to avenge herself, the goddess ordered Amor to inspire Psyche with a love for the most contemptible of all men : but Amor was so stricken with her beauty that he himself fell in love with her. He accordingly conveyed her to some charming place, where he, unseen and unknown, visited her every night, and left her as soon as the day began to dawn. Psyche might have continued to have enjoyed without interruption this state of happiness, if she had attended to the advice of her beloved, never to give way to her curiosity, or to inquire who he was. But her jealous sisters made her believe that in the darkness of night she was embracing some hideous monster, and accordingly once, while Amor was asleep, she approached him with a lamp, and, to her amazement, she beheld the most handsome and lovely of the gods. In her excitement of joy and fear, a drop of hot oil fell from her lamp upon his shoulder. This awoke Amor, who censured her for her mistrust, and escaped. Psyche's peace was now gone all at once, and after having attempted in vain to throw herself into a river, she wandered about from temple to temple, inquiring after her beloved, and at length came to the palace of Venus. There her real sufferings began, for Venus retained her, treated her as a slave, and inmposed upon her the hardest and most humiliating labours. Psyche would have perished under the weight of her sufferings, had not Amor, who still loved her in secret, invisibly comforted and assisted her in her labours. With his aid she at last succeeded in overcoming the jealousy and hatred of Venus; she became immortal, and was united with him for ever. It is not difficult to recognise in this lovely story the idea of which it is merely the mythical embodiment, for Psyche is evidently the human soul, which is purified by passions and misfortunes, and is thus prepared for the enjoyment of true and pure happiness. In works of art Psyche is represented as a maiden with the wings of a butterfly, along with Amor in the different situations described in the allegoric story.
Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
CLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES
Psyche (detail), Greco-Roman mosaic from Samandağı C3rd A.D., Hatay Archeology Museum
Apuleius, The Golden Ass 4. 28 - 6. 24 (Roman novel C2nd A.D.) :
"In a certain city there lived a king and with three notably beautiful daughters. The two elder ones were very attractive, yet praise appropriate to humans was thought sufficient for their fame. But the beauty of the youngest girl [Psyche (Psykhe)] was so special and distinguished that our poverty of human language could not describe or even adequately praise it. In consequence, many of her fellow-citizens and hordes of foreigners, on hearing the report of this matchless prodigy, gathered in ecstatic crowds. They were dumbstruck with admiration at her peerless beauty. They would press their hands to their lips with the forefinger resting on the upright thumb, and revere her with devoted worship as if she were none other than Venus [Aphrodite] herself. Rumour had already spread through the nearest cities and bordering territories that the goddess who was sprung from the dark-blue depths of the sea and was nurtured by the foam from the frothing waves was now bestowing the favour of her divinity among random gatherings of common folk; or at any rate, that the earth rather than the sea was newly impregnated by heavenly seed, and had sprouted forth a second Venus [Aphrodite] invested with the bloom of virginity.
This belief grew every day beyond measure. The story now became widespread; it swept through the neighbouring islands, through tracts of the mainland and numerous provinces. Many made long overland journeys and travelled over the deepest courses of the sea as they flocked to set eyes on this famed cynosure of their age. No one took ship for Paphos, Cnidos, or even Cythera to catch sight of the goddess Venus. Sacrifices in those places were postponed, shrines grew unsightly, couches become threadbare, rites went unperformed; the statues were not garlanded, and the altars were bare and grimy with cold ashes. It was the girl who was entreated in prayer. People gazed on that girl's human countenance when appeasing the divine will of the mighty goddess. When the maiden emerged in the mornings, they sought from her the favour of the absent Venus with sacrificial victims and sacred feasts. The people crowded round her with wreaths and flowers to address their prayers, as she made her way through the streets. Since divine honours were being diverted in this excessive way to the worship of a mortal girl, the anger of the true Venus [Aphrodite] was fiercely kindled. She could not control her irritation. She tossed her head, let out a deep growl, and spoke in soliloquy : ‘Here am I, the ancient mother of the universe, the founding creator of the elements, the Venus that tends the entire world, compelled to share the glory of my majesty with a mortal maiden, so that my name which has its niche in heaven is degraded by the foulness of the earth below! Am I then to share with another the supplications to my divine power, am I to endure vague adoration by proxy, allowing a mortal girl to strut around posing as my double? What a waste of effort it was for the shepherd [Paris] whose justice and honesty won the approval of great Jupiter [Zeus] to reckon my matchless beauty superior to that of those great goddesses! But this girl, whoever she is, is not going to enjoy appropriating the honours that are mine; I shall soon ensure that she rues the beauty which is not hers by rights!’
She at once summoned her son [Cupid-Eros], that winged, most indiscreet youth, whose own bad habits show his disregard for public morality. He goes rampaging through people's houses at night armed with his torch and arrows, undermining the marriages of all. He gets away scot-free with this disgraceful behaviour, and nothing that he does is worthwhile. His own nature made him excessively wanton, but he was further roused by his mother's words. She took him along to that city, and showed him Psyche in the flesh (that was the girl's name). She told him the whole story of their rivalry in beauty, and grumbling and growling with displeasure added : ‘I beg you by the bond of a mother's affection, by the sweet wounds which your darts inflict and the honeyed blisters left by this torch of yours: ensure that your mother gets her full revenge, and punish harshly this girl's arrogant beauty. Be willing to perform this single service which will compensate for all that has gone before. See that the girl is seized with consuming passion for the lowest possible specimen of humanity, for one who as the victim of Fortuna (Fortune) [Tykhe] has lost status, inheritance and security, a man so disreputable that nowhere in the world can he find an equal in wretchedness.’
With these words she kissed her son long and hungrily with parted lips. Then she made for the nearest shore lapped by the waves . . .
Meanwhile, Psyche for all her striking beauty gained no reward for her ravishing looks. She was the object of all eyes, and her praise was on everyone's lips, but no king or prince or even commoner courted her to seek her hand. All admired her godlike appearance, but the admiration was such as is accorded to an exquisitely carved statue. For some time now her two elder sisters had been betrothed to royal suitors and had contracted splendid marriages, though their more modest beauty had won no widespread acclaim. But Psyche remained at home unattended, lamenting her isolated loneliness. Sick in body and wounded at heart, she loathed her beauty which the whole world admired. For this reason the father of that ill-starred girl was a picture of misery, for he suspected that the gods were hostile, and he feared their anger. He sought the advice of the most ancient oracle of the Milesian god [Apollon], and with prayers and sacrificial victims begged from that mighty deity a marriage and a husband for that slighted maiden. Apollo, an Ionian Greek, framed his response in Latin to accommodate the author of this Milesian tale : ‘Adorn this girl, O king, for wedlock dread, and set her on a lofty mountain-rock. Renounce all hope that one of mortal stock can be your son-in-law, for she shall wed a fierce, barbaric, snake-like monster. He, flitting on wings aloft, makes all things smart, plaguing each moving thing with torch and dart. Why, Jupiter [Zeus] himself must fearful be. The other gods for him their terror show, and rivers shudder, and the dark realms below.’
The king had formerly enjoyed a happy life, but on hearing this venerable prophecy he returned him reluctant and mournful. He unfolded to his wife the injunctions of that ominous oracle, and grief, tears and lamentation prevailed for several days. But now the grim fulfilment of the dread oracle loomed over them. Now they laid out the trapping for the marriage of that ill-starred girl with death; now the flames of the nuptial torch flickered dimly beneath the sooty ashes, the high note of the wedding-lute sank into the plaintive Lydian mode, and the joyous marriage-hymn tailed away into mournful wailing. That bride-to-be dried her tears on her very bridal-veil. Lamentation for the harsh fate of that anguished household spread throughout the city, and a cessation of business was announced which reflected the public grief.
But the warnings of heaven were to be obeyed, and unhappy Psyche's presence was demanded for her appointed punishment. So amidst intense grief the ritual of that marriage with death was solemnized, and the entire populace escorted her living corpse as Psyche tearfully attended not her marriage but her funeral. But when her sad parents, prostrated by their monstrous misfortune, drew back from the performance of their monstrous task, their daughter herself admonished them with these words : ‘Why do you rack you sad old age with protracted weeping? Or why do you weary your life's breath, which is dearer to me than to yourselves, with repeated lamentations? Why do you disfigure those features, which I adore, with ineffectual tears? Why do you grieve my eyes by torturing your own? Why do you tear at your grey locks? Why do you beat those breasts so sacred to me? What fine rewards my peerless beauty will bring you! All too late you experience the mortal wounds inflicted by impious envy. That grief, those tears, that lamentations for me as one already lost should have been awakened when nations and communities brought me fame with divine honours, when with one voice they greeted me as the new Venus [Aphrodite]. Only now do I realize and see that my one undoing has been the title of Venus bestowed on me. Escort me and set me on the rock to which fate has consigned me. I hasten to behold this noble husband of mine. Why should I postpone or shrink from the arrival of the person born for the destruction of the whole world?’
After this utterance the maiden fell silent, and with resolute step she now attached herself to the escorting procession of citizens. They made their way to the appointed rock set on a lofty mountain, and when they had installed the girl on its peak, they all abandoned her there. They left behind the marriage-torches which had lighted their way but were now doused with their tears, and with bent heads made their way homeward. The girl's unhappy parents, worn out by this signal calamity, enclosed themselves in the gloom of their shuttered house, and surrendered themselves to a life of perpetual darkness.
But as Psyche wept in fear and trembling on that rocky eminence, Zephyrus' (the West Wind's) kindly breeze with its soft stirring wafted the hem of her dress this way and that, and made its folds billow out. He gradually drew her aloft, and with tranquil breath bore her slowly downward. She glided down in the bosom of the flower-decked turf in the valley below. In that soft and grassy arbour Psyche reclined gratefully on the couch of the dew-laden turf. The great upheaval oppressing her mind had subsided, and she enjoyed pleasant repose. After sleeping long enough to feel refreshed, she got up with carefree heart. Before her eyes was a grove planed with towering, spreading trees, and a rill glistening with glassy waters. At the centre of the grove and close to the gliding stream was a royal palace, the work not of human hands but of divine craftsmanship. You would know as soon as you entered that you were viewing the birth and attractive retreat of some god. The high ceiling, artistically panelled with citron-wood and ivory, was supported on golden columns. The entire walls were worked in silver in relief; beasts and wild cattle met the gaze of those who entered there. The one who shaped all this silver into animal-forms was certainly a genius, or rather he must have been a demigod or even a god. The floors too extended with different pictures formed by mosaics of precious stones; twice blessed indeed, and more than twice blessed are those whose feet walk on gems and jewels! The other areas of the dwelling too, in all its length and breadth, were incalculably costly. All the walls shimmered with their native gleam of solid gold, so that if the sun refused to shine, the house created its own daylight. The rooms, the colonnade, the very doors also shone brilliantly. The other riches likewise reflected the splendour of the mansion. You would be justified in thinking that this was a heavenly palace fashioned for mighty Jupiter [Zeus] when he was engaged in dealings with men.
Psyche, enticed by the charming appearance of these surroundings, drew nearer, and as her assurance grew she crossed the threshold. Delight at the surpassing beauty of the scene encouraged her to examine every detail. Her eyes lit upon store-rooms built high on the other side of the house; they were crammed with abundance of treasures. Nothing imaginable was missing, and what was especially startling, apart from the breath-taking abundance of such riches, was the fact that this treasure-house had no protection whatever by way of chain or bar or guard.
As she gazed on all this with the greatest rapture, a disembodied voice addressed her : ‘Why, may lady, do you gaze open-mouthed at this parade of wealth? All these things are yours. So retire to your room, relieve your weariness on your bed, and take a bath at your leisure. The voices you hear are those of your handmaidens, and we will diligently attend to your needs. Once you have completed your toilet a royal feast will at once be laid before you.’
Psyche felt a blessed assurance being bestowed upon herby heaven's provision. She heeded the suggestions of the disembodied voice, and after taking a nap and then a bath to dispel her fatigue, she at once noted a semicircular couch and table close at hand. The dishes laid for dinner gave her to understand that all was set for her refreshment, so she gladly reclined there. Immediately wine was delicious as nectar and various plates of food were placed before her, brought not by human hands but unsupported on a gust of wind. She could see no living soul, and merely heard words emerging from thin air: her serving-maids were merely voices. When she had enjoyed the rich feast, a singer entered and performed unseen, while another musician strummed a lyre which was likewise invisible. Then the harmonious voices of a tuneful choir struck her ears, so that it was clear that a choral group was in attendance, though no person could be seen.
The pleasant entertainment came to an end, and the advent of darkness induced Psyche to retire to bed. When the night was well advanced, a genial sound met her ears. Since the was utterly alone, she trembled and shuddered in her fear for her virginity, and she dreaded the unknown presence more than any other menace. But now her unknown bridegroom arrived and climbed into the bed. He made Psyche his wife, and swiftly departed before dawn broke. At once the voices in attendance at her bed-chamber tended the new bride's violated virginity. These visits continued over a long period and this new life in the course of nature became delightful to Psyche as she grew accustomed to it. Hearing that unidentified voice consoled her loneliness.
Meanwhile her parents were aging in unceasing grief and melancholy. As the news spread wider, her elder sisters learnt the whole story. In their sadness and grief they vied with each other in hastily leaving home and making straight for their parents, to see them and discuss the matter with them.
That night Psyche's husband (he was invisible to her, but she could touch and hear him) said to her : ‘Sweetest Psyche, fond wife that you are, Fortuna (Fortune) [Tykhe] grows more savage, and threatens you with mortal danger. I charge you: show greater circumspection. Your sisters are worried at the rumour that you are dead, and presently they will come to this rock to search for traces of you. Should you chance to hear their cries of grief, you are not to respond, or even to set eyes on them. Otherwise you will cause me the most painful affliction, and bring utter destruction on yourself.’
Psyche consented and promised to follow her husband's guidance. But when he had vanished in company with the darkness, the poor girl spent the whole day crying and beating her breast. She kept repeating that now all was up with her, for here she was confined and enclosed in that blessed prison, bereft of conversation with human beings for company, unable even to offer consoling relief to her sisters as they grieved for her, and not allowed even to catch a glimpse of them. No ablutions, food, or other relaxation made her feel better, and she retired to sleep in floods of tears.
At that moment her husband came to bed somewhat earlier than usual. She was still weeping, and as he embraced her, he remonstrated with her : ‘Is this how the promise you made me has turned out, Psyche, my dear? What is your husband to expect or to hope from you? You never stop torturing your self night and day, even when we embrace each other as husband and wife. Very well, have it your own way, follow your own hell-bound inclination. But when you begin to repent at leisure, remember the sober warning which I gave you.’
Then Psyche with prayers and threats of her impending death forced her husband to yield to her longing to see her sisters, to relieve their grief, and he also allowed her to present them with whatever pieces of gold or jewellery she chose. But he kept deterring her with repeated warnings from being ever induced by the baleful prompting of her sisters to discover her husband's appearance. She must not through sacrilegious curiosity tumble headlong from the lofty height of her happy fortune, and forfeit thereafter his embrace.
She thanked her husband, and with spirits soaring she said : ‘But I would rather die a hundred times than forgo the supreme joy of my marriage with you. For I love and cherish you passionately, whoever you are, as much as my own life, and I value you higher than Cupidos [Eros] himself. But one further concession I beg for my prayers: bid your servant Zephyrus (the West Wind) spirit my sisters down to me, as he earlier wafted me down.’
She pressed seductive kisses on him, whispered honeyed words, and snuggled close to soften him. She added endearments to her charms : ‘O my honey-sweet, darling husband, light of your Psyche's life!’
Her husband unwillingly gave way before the forceful pressure of these impassioned whispers, and promised to do all she asked. Then, as dawn drew near, he vanished from his wife's embrace.
Psyche's sisters enquired about the location of the rock on which she had been abandoned, and they quickly made their way to it. There they cried their eyes out and beat their breasts until the rocks and crags echoed equally loudly with their repeating lamentations. Then they sought to conjure up their sister by summoning her by name, until the piercing notes of their wailing voices permeated down the mountainside, and Psyche rushed frantically and fearfully from the house. ‘Why,’ she asked, ‘do you torture yourselves to no purpose with your unhappy cries of grief? Here I am, the object of your mourning. So cease your doleful cries, and now at last dry those cheeks which are wet with prolonged tears, for you can now hug close the sister for whom you grieved.’
She then summoned Zephyrus, and reminded him of her husband's instruction. He speedily obeyed the command, and at once whisked them down safely on the gentlest of breezes. The sisters embraced each other, and delightedly exchanged eager kisses. The tears which had been dried welled forth again, prompted by their joy. ‘Now that you are in good spirits,’ said Psyche, ‘you must enter my hearth and home, and let the company of your Psyche gladden your hearts that were troubled.’
Following these words, she showed them the magnificent riches of the golden house, and let them hear the voices of her large retinue. She then allowed them the rich pleasure of a luxurious bath and an elegant meal served by her ghostly maids. But when they had had their fill of the copious abundance of riches clearly bestowed by heaven, they began to harbour deep-seated envy in their hearts. So one of them kept asking with nagging curiosity about the owner of those divine possessions, about the identity and status of her husband. Psyche in her heart's depths did not in any way disobey or disregard her husband's instructions. She invented an impromptu story that he was a handsome young man whose cheeks were just darkening with a soft beard, and who spent most of his day hunting in the hills of the countryside. But she was anxious not to betray through a slip of the tongue her silent resolve by continuing the conversation, so she weighed her sisters down with gold artefacts and precious jewels, hastily summoned Zephyrus, and entrusted them to him for the return journey.
This was carried out at once, and those splendid sisters then made their way home. They were now gnawed with the bile of growing envy, and repeatedly exchanged loud-voiced complaints. One of them began : ‘Fortuna (Fortune), how blind and harsh and unjust you are! Was it your pleasure that we, daughters of the same parents, should endure so different a fate? Here we are, her elder sisters, nothing better than maidservants to foreign husbands, banished form home and even from our native land, living like exiles far from our parents, while Psyche, the youngest and last offspring of our mother's weary womb, has obtained all this wealth, and a god for a husband! She has not even a notion of how to enjoy such abundant blessings. Did you notice, sister, the quantity and quality of the precious stones lying in the house, the gleaming garments, the sparkling jewels, the gold lying beneath our feet and all over the house? If she has as handsome a husband as she claims, no woman living in the whole world is more blessed. Perhaps as their intimacy continues and their love grows stronger, her god-husband will make her divine as well. That's how things are, mark my words; she was putting on such airs and graces! She's now so high and mighty, behaving like a goddess, with those voices serving her needs, and Winds obeying her commands! Whereas my life's a hell; to begin with, I have a husband older than my father. He's balder than an onion as well, and he hasn't the virility of an infant. And he keeps our house barricaded with bards and chains.’
The other took up the grumbling. ‘I have to put up with a husband crippled and bent with rheumatism, so that he can succumb to my charms only once in a blue moon. I spent almost all my day rubbing his fingers, which are twisted and hard as flint, and burning these soft hands of mine on reeking poultices, filthy bandages, and smelly plasters. I'm a slaving nursing attendant, not a dutiful wife. You must decide for yourself, sister, how patiently or--let me express myself frankly--how menially you intent to bear the situation; I can't brook any longer the thought of this undeserving girl falling on her feet like this. Just recall how disdainfully and haughtily she treated us, how swollen-headed she'd become with her boasting and her immodest vulgar display, how she reluctantly threw at us a few trinkets from that mass of riches, and then at once ordered us to be thrown out, whisked away, sent off with the Wind because she found our presence tedious! As sure as I'm a woman, as sure as I'm standing here, I'm going to propel her headlong off that heap of riches! If the insulting way she's treated us has needled you as well, as it certainly should have, we must work out an effective plan together. We must not show the gifts in our possession to our parents or anyone else. We must not even betray the slightest awareness that she's alive. It's bad enough that we've witnessed the sorry situation ourselves, without our having to spread the glad news to our parents and the whole world at large. People aren't really fortunate if no one knows of their riches. She'll realize that she's got elder sisters, not maid-servants. So let us now go back to our husbands and homes, which may be poor but are honest. Then, when we have given the matter deeper thought, we must go back more determined to punish her arrogance.’
The two wicked sisters approved this wicked plan. So they hid away all those most valuable gifts. They tore their hair, gave their cheeks the scratching they deserved, and feigned renewed grief. Their hastily summoned tears depressed their parents, reawakening their sorrow to match that of their daughters, and then swollen with lunatic rage they rushed of to their homes, planning their wicked wiles--or rather the assassination of their innocent sister.
Meanwhile Psyche's unknown husband in their nightly conversation again counselled her with these words : ‘Are you aware what immense danger overhangs you? Fortuna is aiming her darts at you from long range and, unless you take the most stringent precautions, she will soon engage with you hand to hand. Those traitorous bitches are straining every nerve to lay wicked traps for you. Above al, they are seeking to persuade you to pry into my appearance, and as I have often warned you, a single glimpse of it will be your last. So if those depraved witches turn up later, ready with their destructive designs, and I am sure they will, you must not exchange a single word with them, or at any rate if your native innocence and soft-heartedness cannot bear that, you are not to listen to or utter a single word about your husband. Soon we shall be starting a family, for this as yet tiny womb of yours is carrying for us another child like yourself. If you conceal our secret in silence, that child will be a god; but if you disclose it, he will be mortal.’
Psyche was aglow with delight at the news. She gloried in the comforting prospect of a divine child, she exulted in the fame that such a dear one would bring her, she rejoiced at the thought of the respected status of mother. She eagerly counted the mounting days and departing months, and as a novice bearing an unknown burden, she marvelled that the pinprick of a moment could cause such a lovely swelling in her fecund womb.
But now those baneful, most abhorrent Furiae (Furies) [Erinyes] were hastening on their impious way aborad ship, exhaling their snakelike poison. It was then that Psyche's husband on his brief visit again warned her : ‘This is the day of crisis, the moment of worst hazard. Those troublesome members of your sex, those hostile blood-relations of yours have now seized their arms, struck camp, drawn their battle-line, and sounded the trumpet-note. Your impious sisters have drawn their swords, and are aiming at your jugular. The calamities that oppress us are indeed direful, dearest Psyche. Take pity on yourself and on me; show dutiful self-control to deliver your house and your husband, your person and this tiny child of ours from the unhappy disaster that looms over us. Do not set eyes on, or open your ears to, these female criminals, whom you cannot call your sisters because of their deadly hatred, and because of the way in which they have trodden underfoot their own flesh and blood, when like Sireni they lean out over the crag, and make the rocks resound with the death-dealing cries!’
Psyche's response was muffled with tearful sobs. ‘Some time ago, I think, you had proof of my trustworthiness and discretion, and on this occasion too my resolution will likewise win your approval. Only tell our Zephyrus to provide his services again, and allow me at least a glimpse of my sisters as consolation for your unwillingness to let me gaze on your sacred face. I beg you by these locks of yours which with their scent of cinnamon dangle all round your head, by your cheeks as soft and smooth as my own, by your breast which diffuses its hidden heat, as I hope to observe your features as reflected at least in this our tiny child: accede to the devoted prayers of this careworn suppliant, and grant me the blessing of my sisters' embraces. Then you will give fresh life and joy to your Psyche, your own devoted and dedicated dear one. I no longer seek to see your face; the very darkness of the night is not oppressive to me, for you are my light to which I cling.’
Her husband was bewitched with these words and soft embraces. He wiped away her tears with his curls, promised to do her bidding, and at once departed before dawn broke.
The conspiratorial pair of sisters did not even call on their parents. At breakneck speed they made straight from the ships to the familiar rock, and without waiting for the presence of the wafting wind, launched themselves down with impudent rashness into the depths below. Zephyrus, somewhat unwillingly recalling his king's command, enfolded them in the bosom of his favouring breeze and set them down on solid earth. Without hesitation they at once marched with measured step into the house, and counterfeiting the name of sisters they embraced their prey. With joyful expressions they cloaked he deeply hidden deceit which they treasured within them, and flattered their sister with these words : ‘Psyche, you are no longer the little girl of old; you are now a mother. Just imagine what a blessing you bear in that purse of yours! What pleasures you will bring to our whole family! How lucky we are at the prospect of rearing this prince of infants! If he is as handsome as his parents--and why not?--he is sure to be a thorough Cupidos (Cupid) [Eros]!’
With this pretence of affection they gradually wormed their way into their sister's heart. As soon as they had rested their feet to recover from the weariness of the journey, and had steeped their bodies in a steaming bath, Psyche served them in the dining-room with a most handsome and delightful meal of meats and savouries. She ordered a lyre to play, and string-music came forth; she ordered pipes to start up, and their notes were heard; she bade choirs to sing, and they duly did. All this music soothed their spirits with the sweetest tunes as they listened, though no human person stood before them. But those baleful sisters were not softened or lulled even by that music so honey-sweet. They guided the conversation towards the deceitful snare which they had laid, and they began to enquire innocently about the status, family background, and walk of life of her husband. Then Psyche's excessive naivety made her forget her earlier version, and she concocted a fresh story. She said that her husband was a business-man from an adjoining region, and that he was middle-aged, with streaks of grey in his hair. But she did not linger a moment longer in such talk, but again loaded her sisters with rich gifts, and ushered them back to their carriage of the wind.
Eros-Cupid and Psychae, Greco-Roman mosaic from Daphne C3rd A.D., Hatay Archaeology Museum
"But as they returned home, after Zephyrus with his serene breath had borne them aloft, they exchanged abusive comments about Psyche. ‘There are no words, sister, to describe the outrageous lie of that idiotic girl. Previously her husband was a young fellow whose beard was beginning to sprout with woolly growth, but now he's in middle wage with spruce and shining grey hair : What a prodigy he must be! This short interval has brought on old age abruptly, and has changed his appearance! You can be sure, sister, that this noxious female is either telling a pack of lies or does not know what her husband is like. Whatever the truth of the matter, she must be parted from those riches of hers without delay. If she does not know what her husband looks like, she must certainly be married to a god, and its is a god she's got for us in that womb of hers. Be sure of this, that if she becomes a celebrity as the mother of a divine child--which God forbid--I'll put a rope round my neck and hang myself. For the moment, then, let us go back to our parents and spin a fairy story to match the one we concocted a first.’
In this impassioned state they greeted their parents disdainfully, and after a restless night those despicable sisters sped to the rock at break of day. They threw themselves down through the air, and the Wind afforded them his usual protection. They squeezed their eyelids to force out some tears, and greeted the girl with these guileful words : ‘While you sit here, content and in happy ignorance of your grim situation, giving no thought to your danger, we in our watchful zeal for your welfare lie awake at night, racked with sadness for your misfortunes. We know for a fact--and as we share your painful plight we cannot hide it from you--that a monstrous Dragon lies unseen with you at night. It creeps along with its numerous knotted coils; its neck is blood-stained, and oozes deadly poison; its monstrous jaws lie gaping open. You must surely remember the Pythian oracle, and its chant that you were doomed to wed a wild beast. Then, too, many farms, local huntsmen, and a number of inhabitants have seen the Dragon returning to its lair at night after seeking its food, or swimming in the shallows of a river close by. All of them maintain that the beast will not continue to fatten you for long by providing you with enticing food, and that as soon as your womb has filled out and your pregnancy comes to term, it will devour the richer fare which you will then offer. In view of this, you must now decide whether you ware willing to side with your sisters, who are anxious for your welfare which is so dear to their hearts, and to live in their company once you escape from death, or whether you prefer to be interred in the stomach of that fiercest of beasts. However, if you opt for the isolation of this rustic haunt inhabited only by voices, preferring the foul and hazardous intimacy of furtive love in the embrace of this venomous Dragon, at any rate we as your devoted sisters will have done our duty.’
Poor Psyche, simple and innocent as she was, at once felt apprehension at these grim tidings. She lost her head, and completely banished her recollection of all her husband's warnings and her own promises. She launched herself into the abyss of disaster. Trembling and pale as the blood drained from her face, she barely opened her mouth as she gasped and stammered out this reply to them. ‘Dearest sisters, you have acted rightly in continuing to observe your devoted duty, and as for those who make these assertions to you, I do not think that they are telling lies. It is true that I have never seen my husband's face, and I have no knowledge whatsoever of where he hails form. I merely attend at night to the words of a husband to whom I submit with no knowledge of what he is like, for he certainly shuns the light of day. Your judgement is just that he is some beast, and I rightly agree with you. He constantly and emphatically warns me against seeing what he looks like, and threatens me with great disaster if I show curiosity about his features. So if at this moment you can offer saving help to your sister in her hour of danger, you must come to my rescue now. Otherwise your indifference to the future will tarnish the benefits of your previous concern.’
Those female criminals had now made their way through the open gates, and had occupied the mind of their sister thus exposed. They emerged from beneath the mantlet of their battering-ram, drew their swords, and advanced on the terrified thoughts of that simple girl. So it was that one of them said to her : ‘Our family ties compel us, in the interests of your safety, to disregard any danger whatsoever which lies before us, so we shall inform you of the one way by which you will attain the safety which has exercised us for so long. You must whet a razor by running it over your softened palm, and when it is quite sharp hide it secretly by the bed where you usually lie. Then fill a well-trimmed lamp with oil, and when it is shining brightly, conceal it beneath the cover of an enclosing jar. Once you have purposefully secreted this equipment, you must wait until your husband ploughs his furrow, and enters and climbs as usual into bed. Then, when he has stretched out and sleep has begun to oppress and enfold him, as soon as he starts the steady breathing which denotes deep sleep, you must slip off the couch. In your bare feet and on tiptoe take mincing steps forward, and remove the lamp from its protective cover of darkness. Then take your cue from the lamp, and seize the moment to perform your own shining deed. Grasp the two-edged weapon boldly, first raise high your right hand, and then with all the force you can muster sever the knot which joins the neck and head of that venomous serpent. You will not act without our help, for we shall be hovering anxiously in attendance, and as soon as you have ensured your safety by his death, we shall fly to your side. All these riches here we shall bear off with you with all speed, and then we shall arrange an enviable marriage for you, human being with human being.’
Their sister was already quite feverish with agitation, but these fiery words set her heart ablaze. At once they left her, for their proximity to this most wicked crime made them fear greatly for themselves. So the customary thrust of the winged Breeze bore them up to the rock, and they at once fled in precipitate haste. Without delay they embarked on their ships and cast off.
But Psyche, now left alone, except that being harried by the hostile Furiae (Furies) [Erinyes] was no solitude, tossed in her grief like the waves of the sea. Though her plan was formed and her determination fixed, she still faltered in uncertainty of purpose as she set her hands to action, and was torn between the many impulses of her unhappy plight. She made haste, she temperized; her daring turned more to fear, her diffidence to anger, and to cap everything she loathed the beast but loved the husband, though they were one and the same. But now evening brought on darkness, so with headlong haste she prepared the instruments for the heinous crime. Night fell, and her husband arrived, and having first skirmished in the warfare of love, he fell in to a heavy sleep.
Then Psyche, though enfeebled in both body and mind, gained the strength lent her by fate's harsh decree. She uncovered the lamp, seized the razor, and showed a boldness that belied her sex. But as soon as the lamp was brought near, and the secrets of the couch were revealed, she beheld of all beasts the gentlest and sweetest, Cupidos [Eros] himself, a handsome god lying in a handsome posture. Even the lamplight was cheered and brightened on sighting him, and the razor felt suitable abashed at its sacrilegious sharpness. As for Psyche, she was awe-struck at this wonderful vision, and she lost all her self-control. She swooned and paled with enervation; her knees buckled, and she sought to hide the steel by plunging it into her own breast. Indeed, she would have perpetrated this, but the steel showed its fear of committing so serious a crime by plunging out of her rash grasp. But as in her weariness and giddiness she gazed repeatedly on the beauty of that divine countenance, her mental balance was restored. She beheld on his golden head his luxuriant hair steeped in ambrosia; his neatly pinned ringlets strayed over his milk-white neck and rosy cheeks, some dangling in front and some behind, and their surpassing sheen made even the lamplight flicker. On the winged god's shoulders his dewy wings gleamed white with flashing brilliance; though they lay motionless, the soft and fragile feathers at their tips fluttered in quivering motion and sported restlessly. The rest of his body, hairless and rosy, and was such that Venus [Aphrodite] would not have been ashamed to acknowledge him as her son. At the foot of the bed lay his bow, quiver, and arrows, the kindly weapons of that great god.
As Psyche trained her gaze insatiably and with no little curiosity on these her husband's weapons, in the course of handling and admiring them she drew out an arrow from the quiver, and tested its point on the tip of her thumb. But because her arm was still trembling she pressed too hard, with the result that it pricked too deeply, and tiny drops of rose-red blood bedewed the surface of the skin. So all unknowing and without prompting Psyche fell in love with Amor (Love) [Eros], being fired more and more with desire for the god of desire. She gazed down on him in distraction, and as she passionately smothered him with wanton kisses from parted lips, she feared that he might stir in his sleep. But while her wounded heart pounded on being roused by such striking beauty, the lamp disgorged a drop of burning oil from the tip of its flame upon the god's right shoulder; it could have been nefarious treachery, or malicious jealousy, or the desire, so to say, to touch and kiss that glorious body. O you rash, reckless lamp, Amor's (Love's) worthless servant, do you burn the very god who possesses all fire, though doubtless you were invented by some lover to ensure that he might possess for longer and even at night the object of his desire? The god started up on being burnt; he saw that he was exposed, and that his trust was defiled. Without a word he at once flew away from the kisses and embrace of his most unhappy wife.
But Psyche seized his right leg with both hands just as he rose above her. She made a pitiable appendage as he soured aloft, following in his wake and dangling in company with him as they flew through the clouds. But finally she slipped down to earth exhausted. As she lay there on the ground, her divine lover did not leave her, but flew to the nearest cypress-tree, and from its summit spoke in considerable indignation to her. ‘Poor, ingenuous Psyche, I disregarded my mother Venus' instructions when she commanded that you be yoked in passionate desire to the meanest of men, and that you be then subjected to the most degrading of marriages. Instead, I preferred to swoop down to become your lover. I admit that my behaviour was not judicious; I, the famed archer, wounded myself with my own weapon, and made you my wife--and all so that you should regard me as a wild beast, and cut off my head with the steel, and with it the eyes that dote on you! I urged you repeatedly, I warned you devotedly always to be on your guard against what has now happened. But before long those fine counsellors of yours will make satisfaction to me for their heinous instructions, whereas for you the punishment will be merely my departure.’
As he finished speaking, he soared aloft on his wings. From her prostrate position on the ground Psyche watched her husband's flight as far as her eyes allowed, and she tortured her heart with the bitterest lamentations. But once the sculling of his wings had removed him from her sight and he had disappeared into the distance, she hurled herself headlong down from the bank of a river close by. But that kindly stream was doubtless keen to pay homage to the god who often scorches even the waters, and in fear for his person he at once cast her ashore on his current without injuring her, and set her on its grassy bank. The rustic god Pan chanced to be sitting at that moment on the brow of the stream, holding the mountain deity Echo in his arms, and teaching her to repeat after him all kinds of songs. Close by the bank nanny-goats were sporting as they grazed and cropped the river-foliage here and there. The goat-shaped god was well aware of the calamity that had befallen Psyche. He called her gently to him, lovesick and weary as she was, and soothed her with these consoling words. ‘You are an elegant girl, and I am a rustic herdsman, but my advanced years give me the benefit of considerable experience. If my hazard is correct--sages actually call such guesswork divine insight--I infer from your stumbling and frequently wandering steps, from your excessively pale complexion and continual sighs, and not least from your mournful gaze, that you are suffering grievous love-pains. On that account you must hearken to me: do not seek gain to destroy yourself by throwing yourself headlong or by seeking any other means of death. Cease your sorrowing, lay aside your sadness, and instead direct prayers of adoration to Cupidos [Eros], greatest of gods, and by your caressing attentions win the favour of that wanton and extravagant youth.’
Psyche made no reply to this advice from the shepherd-god. She merely paid reverential homage to his divine person, and proceeded on her way. After wandering with weary steps for a considerable distance, as night bell a certain path led her all unknowing to the city where the husband of one of her sisters had his realm. Psyche recognised it, and asked that her arrival be announced to her sister. She was then ushered in, and after they had greeted and embraced each other, her sister enquired why she had come.
Psyche began to explain. ‘You recall that plan of yours, by which you both persuaded me to take a two-edged razor and slay the beast who used to lie with me falsely claiming to be my husband, with the intention of later devouring my poor self with his greedy maw? I fell in with your proposal, but when the lamp which conspired with me allowed me to gaze on his face, the vision I beheld was astonishing and utterly divine; it was the son of the goddess Venus [Aphrodite], I mean Cupidos [Eros] himself, who lay peacefully sleeping there. I exulted at the sight of such beauty, and was confused by the sense of overwhelming delight, and as I experienced frustration at being unable to enjoy relations with him, the lamp by dreadful mischance shed a drop of burning oil on his shoulder. At once the pain caused him to start from his sleep, and when he saw me wielding the steel and the flame, he said : "This is a dreadful deed you have done. Leave my bed this instant, and take your goods and chattels with you. I shall now take your sister"--at this point he cited your name specifically--"in solemn marriage." At once he then ordained Zephyrus to waft me outside the bounds of his estate.’
Psyche had not yet finished speaking when her sister, goaded by mad lust and destructive envy, swung into action. She devised a lying excuse to deceive her husband, pretending that she had learnt of her parents' death; she at once boarded ship, and then made hot-foot for the rock. Although the wrong wind was blowing, her eagerness was fired by blind hope, and she said : ‘Take me, Cupidos, as your worthy wife; Zephyrus, take your mistress aboard!’
She then took a prodigious leap downward. But not even in death could she reach that abode for her limbs bounced on the rocky crags, and were fragmented. Her insides were torn out, and in her fitting death she offered a ready meal to birds and beasts. The second punitive vengeance was not long delayed. Psyche resumed her wandering, and reached a second city where her other sister similarly dwelt. She too was taken in by her sister's deception, and in her eagerness to supplant Psyche in the marriage which they had befouled, she hastened to the rock, and fell to her deadly doom in the same way.
While Psyche was at this time visiting one community after another in her concentrated search for Cupidos [Eros], he was lying groaning in his mother's chamber, racked by the pain of the wound from the lamp. But then the tern, the white bird which wings her way over the sea-waves, plunged swiftly into the deep bosom of ocean. She came upon Venus [Aphrodite] conveniently there as the goddess bathed and swam; she perched beside her, and told her that her son had suffered burning, and was lying in considerable pain from the wound, with his life in danger. As a result the entire household of Venus was in bad odour, the object of gossip and rebuke on the lips of people everywhere. They were claiming that Cupidos was relaxing with a leady of easy virtue in the mountains, and that Venus herself was idly swimming in the ocean, with the result that pleasure and favour and elegance had departed from the world; all was unkempt, rustic, uncouth. There were no weddings, no camaraderie between friends, none of the love which children inspire; all was a scene of boundless squalor, of unsavoury tedium in sordid alliances. Such was the gossip which that garrulous and prying bird whispered in Venus' ear, tearing her son's reputation to shreds.
Venus was absolutely livid. She burst out : ‘So not that fine son of mine has a girl-friend, has he? Come on, then tell me her name, since you are the only one who serves me with affection. Who is it who has tempted my innocent, beardless boy? Is it one of that crowd of Nymphae (Nymphs), or one of the Horae (Seasons), or one of the band of Musae (Muses), or one of my servant Gratiae (Graces)?’ The garrulous bird did not withhold a reply. She said : ‘I do not know, mistress; I think the story goes that he is head over heels in love with a girl by the name of Psyche, if my memory serves me rightly.’
Then Venus in a rage bawled out at the top of her voice : ‘Can it really be true that he is in love with that Psyche who lays claim to my beauty and pretends to my name? That son of mine must surely have regarded me as a procuress, when I pointed the girl out to him so that he could win her acquaintance.’
As she grumbled she made haste to quit the sea, and at once made for her golden chamber. There she found her son lying ill as she had heard, and from the doorway she bellowed out as loudly as she could : ‘This is a fine state of affairs, just what one would expect from a child of mine, from a decent man like you! First of all you trampled underfoot the instructions of your mother--or I should say your employer--and you refused to humble my personal enemy with a vile love-liaison; and then, mark you, a mere boy of tender years, you hugged her close in your wanton, stunted embraces! You wanted me to have to cope with my enemy as a daughter-in-law! You take too much for granted, you good-for-nothing, loathsome seducer! You think of yourself as my only noble heir, and you imagine that I'm now too old to bear another. Just realize that I'll get another son, one far better than you. In fact I'll rub your nose in it further. I'll adopt one of my young slaves, and make him a present of these wings and torches of yours, the bow and arrows, and all the rest of my paraphernalia which I did not entrust to you to be misused like this. None of the cost of kitting you out came from your father's estate.
‘Ever sine you were a baby you have been badly brought up, too ready with your hands. You show no respect to your elders, pounding them time after time. Even me your own mother you strip naked every day, and many's the time you've cuffed me. You show me total contempt as though I were a widow, and you haven't an ounce of fear for your stepfather, the bravest and greatest of warriors. And why should you? You are in the habit of supplying him with girls, to cause me the pain of having to compete with rivals. But now I'll make you sorry for this sport of yours. I'll ensure that you find your marriage sour and bitter.
‘But what am I to do, now that I'm becoming a laughing-stock? Where shall I go, how shall I curb in this scoundrel? Should I beg the assistance of my enemy Sobrietate (Sobriety), so often alienated from me through this fellow's loose living? The prospect of having to talk with that unsophisticated, hideous female gives me the creeps. Still I must not despise the consolation of gaining revenge from any quarter. She is absolutely the only one to be given the job of imposing the harshest discipline on this rascal. She must empty his quiver, immobilize his arrows, unstring his bow, extinguish his torch, and retrain his person with sharper correction. Only when she has sheared off his locks--how often I have brushed them shining like gold with my own hands!--nd clipped those wings, which I have steeped in my own breast's liquid nectar, shall I regard the insult dealt to me as expiated.’
These were her words. Then she bustled out, glowering and incensed with passionate rage. At that moment Ceres [Demeter] and Juno [Hera] came up with her. When they observed her resentful face, they asked her why she was cloaking the rich charm of her radiant eyes with a sullen frown. ‘You have come,’ she answered, ‘at a timely moment to fulfil my wishes, for I am seething inside. I ask you to search with might and main for that fickle runaway of mine called Psyche. I'm sure that the scandalous gossip concerning my household, and the behaviour of that unspeakable son of mine, have not passed you by.’ They knew quite well what had happened, and they south to assuage Venus' raging temper. ‘My lady, how is it that your son's peccadillo has caused you to war on his pleasures in this unrelenting way, and also to desire to destroy the girl that he loves? What harm is there, we should like to know, in his giving the glad eye to a nicely turned-out girl? Don't you realize that he is in the prime of manhood, or are you forgetting his age? Just because he carries his years well, does he strike you as a perpetual boy? You are a mother and a sensible one at that. Are you always going to pry nosily into your son's diversions, and condemn his wanton ways, censure his love-life, and vilify your own skills and pleasures as practised by your handsome son? What god or what person on earth will bear with your scattering sensual pleasures throughout the world, when you sourly refuse to allow love-liaisons in your own house, and you close down the manufacture of women's weaknesses which is made available to all?’
This was how the two goddesses sucked up to Cupidos, seeking to win his favour, though he was absent, by taking his part, for they feared his arrows. But Venus was affronted that the insults which she sustained were treated so lightly. She cut the tow of them short, turned on her heel, and stalked quickly off to the sea.
Eros-Cupid and Psyche, Greco-Roman mosaic from Zeugma C1st-2nd A.D., Gaziantep Museum
"Meanwhile Psyche in her random wanderings was suffering torment, as she sought day and night to trace her husband. She was restless in mind, but all the more eager, in spite of his anger, to soften him with a wife's endearments, or at any rate to appease him with a servant's entreaties. She spied a temple perched on the peak of a high mountain, and she said : ‘Perhaps this is where my lord dwells?’ She made her way quickly there, and though her feet were utterly weary from her unremitting labours, her hope and aspiration quickened them. She mounted the higher ridges with stout heart, and drew close to the sacred shrine. There she saw ears of wheat in a heap, and others woven into a garland, and ears of barley as well. There were sickles lying there, and a whole array of harvesting implements, but they were in a jumbled and neglected heap, thrown carelessly by workmen's hands, as happens in summer-time. Psyche carefully sorted them out and ordered them in separate piles; no doubt she reflected that she should not neglect the shrines and rites of any deity, but rather implore the kindly spirit of each and all.
Kindly Ceres [Demeter] sighted her as she carefully and diligently ordered these offerings, and at once she cried out from afar : ‘Why, you poor Psyche! Venus [Aphrodite] is in a rage, mounting a feverish search for your traces all over the globe. She has marked you down for the sternest punishment, and is using all the resources of her divinity to demand vengeance. And here you are, looking to my interests, with your mind intent on anything but your own safety!’
Then Psyche grovelled at the goddess's feet, and watered them with a stream of tears. She swept the ground with her hair, and begged Ceres' [Demeter's] favour with a litany of prayers. ‘By your fruitful right hand, by the harvest ceremonies which assure plenty, by the silent mysteries of your baskets and the winged courses of your attendant Dracones, by the furrows in your Sicilian soil, by Proserpina's [Persephone's] descent to a lightless marriage, and by your daughter's return to rediscovered light, and by all else which the shrine of Attic Eleusis shrouds in silence--I beg you, lend aid to this soul of Psyche which is deserving of pity, and now entreats you. Allow me to lurk hidden here among these heaps of grain if only for a few days, until the great goddess's raging fury softens with the passage of time, or at any rate till my strength, which is now exhausted by protracted toil, is assuaged by a period of rest.’
Ceres [Demeter] answered her : ‘Your tearful entreaties certainly affect me and I am keen to help you, but I cannot incur Venus's displeasure, for I maintain long-standing ties of friendship with her--and besides being my relative, she is also a fine woman. So you must quit this dwelling at once, and count it a blessing that I have not apprehended and imprisoned you.’
So Psyche, in suffering this reverse to her hopes, was now beset by a double grief. As she retraced her steps, she noticed in a glimmering grove in the valley below an elegantly built shrine. Not wishing to disregard any means, however uncertain, which gave promise of brighter hope, and in her eagerness to seek the favour of any divinity whatsoever, she drew close to its sacred portals. There she observed valuable offerings, and ribbons inscribed with gold letters pinned to the branches of trees and to the doorposts. These attested the name of the goddess to whom they were dedicated, together with thanks for favours received. She sank to her knees, and with her hands she grasped the altar still warm from a sacrifice. She wiped away her tears, and then uttered this prayer [to Juno-Hera] : ‘Sister and spouse of mighty Jupiter [Zeus], whether you reside in your ancient shrine at Samos, which alone can pride itself on your birth, your infant cries, and your nurture; or whether you occupy your blessed abode in lofty Carthage, which worships you as the maiden who tours the sky on a lion's back; or whether you guard the famed walls of the Argives, by the banks of the river-god Inachus, who now hymns you as bride of the Thunderer and as queen of all goddesses; you, whom all the East reveres as the yoking goddess, and whom all the West addresses as Lucina [goddess of childbirth], be for me in my most acute misfortunes Juno [Hera] Sospita (the Saviour), and free me from looming dangers in my weariness from exhausting toils. I am told that it is your practice to lend unsolicited aid to pregnant women in danger.’
As she prayed like this, Juno [Hera] at once appeared before her in all the venerable majesty of her divinity. There and then the goddess said : ‘Believe me, I only wish that I could crown your prayers with my consent. But shame prevents me from opposing the will of Venus [Aphrodite], my daughter-in-law whom I have always loved as my own daughter. There is a second obstacle--the legislation which forbids sanctuary for runaway slaves belonging to others, if their owners forbid it.’
Psyche was aghast at this second shipwreck devised by Fortuna (Fortune). Unable to meet up with her elusive husband, she abandoned all hope of salvation, and had recourse to her own counsel. ‘What other assistance can I seek or harness to meet my desperate plight? Even the goodwill of goddesses however well-disposed has been of no avail to me. Now that I am trapped in a noose as tight as this, where can I make for, under what roof or in what dark corner can I hide, to escape the unwinking eyes of mighty Venus? Why don't you show a manly spirit, and the strength to renounce idle hope? Why don't you surrender yourself voluntarily to your mistress, and soften her savage onslaught by showing a humble demeanour, however late in the day? You never know, you may find the object of your long search in her house.’
This was how she steeled herself for the uncertain outcome of showing obedience or rather for her certain destruction, as she mentally rehearsed the opening lines of the plea she was to utter.
Venus [Aphrodite] now despaired of a successful search for her by earthly means, and she made for heaven. She ordered her carriage to be prepared; Vulcanus [Hephaistos] had lovingly applied the finishing touches to it with elaborate workmanship, and had given it to her as a wedding-present before her initiation into marriage. The thinning motion of his file had made the metal gleam; the coach's value was measured by the gold it had lost. Four white doves emerged from the large herd stabled close to their mistress's chamber. As they strutted gaily forward, turning their dappled necks from side to side. They submitted to the jewelled yoke. They took their mistress aboard and delightedly mounted upwards. Sparrows sported with the combined din of their chatter as they escorted the carriage of the goddess, and the other birds, habitually sweet songsters, announced the goddess's approach with the pleasurable sound of their honeyed tunes. The clouds parted, and Caelus (Heaven) [Ouranos (Uranus)] admitted his daughter; the topmost region delightedly welcomed the goddess, and the tuneful retinue of mighty Venus had no fear of encounter with eagles or of plundering hawks.
She at once made for the royal citadel of Jupiter [Zeus], and in arrogant tones sought the urgent use of the services of the spokesman-god Mercurius (Mercury) [Hermes]. Jupiter's lowering brow did not refuse her. Venus happily quitted heaven at once with Mercurius accompanying her, and she spoke seriously to him : ‘My brother from Arcaida, you surely know that your sister Venus has never had any success without Mercurius's attendance, and you are well aware for how long I have been unable to trace my maid who lies in hiding. So I have no recourse other than that you as herald make a public proclamation of a reward for tracking her down. So you must hasten to do my bidding, and clearly indicate the marks by which she can be recognized, so that if someone is charged with unlawfully concealing her, he cannot defend himself on the plea of ignorance.’
With these words she handed him a sheet containing Psyche's name and other details. Then she at once retired home.
Mercurius [Hermes] did not fail to obey her. He sped here and there, appearing before gatherings of every community, and as instructed performed the duty of making proclamation : ‘If anyone can retrieve from her flight the runaway daughter of the king, the maidservant of Venus called Psyche, or indicate her hidden whereabouts, he should meet the herald Mercurius behind the metae Muriae. Whoever does so will obtain as reward from Venus herself seven sweet kisses, and a particularly honeyed one imparted with the thrust of her caressing tongue.’
Longing for this great reward aroused eager competition between men everywhere when Mercurius made the proclamation on these lines, and this above all ended Psyche's hesitation. As she drew near to her mistress's door, a member of Venus's [Aphrodite's] household called Consueto (Habit) confronted her, and at once cried out at the top of her voice : ‘Most wicked of all servants, have you at last begun to realize that you have a mistress? Or are you, in keeping with the general run of your insolent behaviour, still pretending to be unaware of the exhausting efforts we have endured in searching for you? How appropriate it is that you have fallen into my hands rather than anyone else's. You are now caught fast in the claws of Orcus [Haides], and believe me, you will suffer the penalty for your gross impudence without delay.’
She then laid a presumptuous hand on Psyche's hair, and dragged the girl in unresisting. As soon as she was ushered in and presented before Venus' gaze, the goddess uttered the sort of explosive cackle typical of people in a furious rage. She wagged her head, scratched her right ear, and said : ‘Oh, so you have finally condescended to greet your mother-in-law, have you? Or is the purpose of this visit rather to see your husband, whose life is in danger from the wound which you inflicted? You can rest assured that I shall welcome you as a good mother-in-law should.' Then she added : ‘Where are my maids Sollicito (Melancholy) and Tristie (Sorrow)?’
They were called in, and the goddess consigned Psyche to them for torture. They obeyed their mistress's instruction, laid into poor Psyche and tortured her with other implements, and then restored her to their mistress's presence. Venus renewed her laughter. ‘Just look at her,’ she said. ‘With that appealing swelling in her belly, she makes me feel quite sorry for her. I suppose she intends to make me a happy grandmother of that famed offspring; how lucky I am, in the bloom of my young days, at the prospect of being hailed as a grandma, and having the son of a cheap maidservant called Venus's grandson! But what a fool I am, mistakenly calling him a son, for the wedding was not between a couple of equal status. Besides, ti took place in a country house, without witnesses and without a father's consent, so it cannot be pronounced legal. The child will therefore be born a bastard--if we allow you to reach full term with him at all!’
Saying this, she flew at Psyche, ripped her dress to shreds, tore her hair, made her brains rattle, and pummelled her severely. She then brought some wheat, barley, millet, poppyseed, chickpeas, lentils and beans. She mingled them together in an indiscriminate heap, and said to her : ‘You are such an ugly maidservant that I think the only way you win your lovers is by devoted attendance, so I'll see myself how good you are. Separate out this mixed heap of seeds, and arrange the different kinds in their proper piles. Finish the work before tonight, and show it to me to my satisfaction.’
Having set before her this enormous pile of seeds, she went off to a wedding-dinner. Psyche did not lay a finger on this confused heap, which was impossible to separate. She was dismayed by this massive task imposed on her, and stood in stupefied silence. Then the little country-ant familiar to us all got wind of her great problem. It took pity on the great god's consort, and cursed the vindictive behaviour of her mother-in-law. Then it scurried about, energetically summoning and assembling a whole army of resident ants : ‘have pity, noble protégées of Terra (Earth) [Gaia], our universal mother; have pity, and with eager haste lend your aid to this refined girl, who is Amor's [Eros'] wife.’ Wave after wave of the sespedalian tribe swept in; with the utmost enthusiasm each and all divided out the heap grain by grain, and when they had sorted them into their different kinds, they swiftly vanished from sight.
As night fell, Venus returned from the wedding-feast flushed with wine and perfumed with balsam, her whole body wreathed with glowing roses. When she observed the astonishing care with which the task had been executed, she said : ‘This is not your work, you foul creature; the hands that accomplished it are not yours, but his whose favour you gained, though little good it's done you, or him either!’ The goddess threw her a crust of bread, and cleared off to bed.
Meanwhile Cupidos [Eros] was alone, closely guarded and confined in a single room at the back of the house. This was partly to ensure that he did not aggravate his wound by wanton misbehaviour, and partly so that he would not meet his dear one. So the lovers though under the one roof were kept apart from each other, and were made to endure a wretched night. But as soon as Aurora's (the Dawn's) [Eos'] chariot appeared, Venus summoned Psyche, and spoke to her like this : ‘Do you see the grove there, flanked by the river which flows by it, its banks extending into the distance and its low-lying bushes abutting on the stream? There are sheep in it wandering and grazing unguarded, and their fleeces sprout with the glory of pure gold, I order you to go there ate once, and somehow or other obtain and bring back to me a tuft of wool from the precious fleece.’
Psyche made her way there without reluctance, but with no intention of carrying out this task. She wanted to seek the cessation of her ills by throwing herself headlong from a cliff above the river. But from that stretch of stream one of the green reeds which foster sweet music was divinely inspired by the gentle sound of a caressing breeze, and uttered this prophecy : ‘Psyche, even though you are harrowed by great trials, do not pollute my waters by a most wretched death. You must not approach the fearsome sheep at this hour of the say, when they tend to be fired by the burning heat of the sun and charge about in ferocious rage; with their sharp horns, their rock-hard heads, and sometimes their poisonous bites, they wreak savage destruction on human folk. But one the hours past noon have quelled the sun's heat, and the flocks have quieted down under the calming influence of the river-breeze, you will be able to conceal yourself under that very tall plane-tree, which sucks in the river-water as I do myself. Then, as soon as the sheep relax their fury and their disposition grows gentle, you must shake the foliage in the neighbouring grove, and you will find golden wool clinging here and there to the curved stems.’
This was how the reed, endowed with human qualities of openness and kindness, told Psyche in her extremity how to gain safety. She did not disregard this careful instruction and suffer accordingly; she followed out every detail, and the theft was easily accomplished. She gathered the soft substance of yellow gold in her dress, and brought it back to Venus. But the hazard endured in this second trial won her no favourable acknowledgement from her mistress at least, for Venus frowned heavily, smiled harshly, and said : ‘I know quite well that this too is the work of that adulterer. But no I shall try you out in earnest, to see if you are indeed endowed with brave spirit and unique circumspection. Do you see that lofty mountain-peak, perched above a dizzily high cliff, from where the livid waters of a dark spring come tumbling down, and when enclosed in the basin of he neighbouring valley, water the marshes of the Styx and feed the hoarse streams of the Cocytus? I want you to hurry and bring me back in this small jug some icy water drawn from the stream's highest point, where it gushes out from within.’
Handing Psyche a vessel shaped from crystal, she backed this instruction with still harsher threats.
Psyche made for the topmost peak with swift and eager step, for she was determined there at least to put an end to her intolerable existence. But the moment she neared the vicinity of the specified mountain-range, she became aware of the lethal difficulty posed by her daunting task. A rock of huge size towered above her, hard to negotiate and treacherous because of its rugged surface. From its stony jaws it belched forth repulsive waters which issued directly from a vertical cleft. [The Greek geographer Pausanias' description of the Arcadian stream Styx is quite similar]. The stream glided downward, and being concealed in the course of the narrow channel which it had carved out, it made its hidden way into a neighbouring valley. From the hollow rocks on the right and left fierce snakes crept out, extending their long necks, their eyes unblinkingly watchful and maintaining unceasing vigil. The waters themselves formed an additional defence, for they had the power of speech, and from time to time would cry out ‘Clear off!’ or ‘Watch what you're doing!’, or ‘What's your game? Lookout!’, or ‘Cut and run!’, or ‘You won't make it!’ The hopelessness of the situation turned Psyche to stone. She was physically present, but her senses deserted her. She was utterly downcast by the weight of inescapable danger; she could not even summon the ultimate consolation of tears.
But the privations of this innocent soul did not escape the steady gaze of benevolent Providentia (Providence). Suddenly highest Jupiter's [Zeus'] royal bird appeared with both wings outstretched: this is the eagle, the bird of prey who recalled his service of long ago, when following Cupidos' [Eros'] guidance he had borne the Phrygian cupbearer [Ganymedes] to Jupiter [Zeus]. The bird now lent timely aid, and directed his veneration for Cupidos's power to aid his wife in her ordeal. He quitted the shining paths of high heaven, flew down before the girl's gaze, and broke into speech : ‘You are in all respects an ingenuous soul without experience in things such as this, so how can you hope to be able to steal the merest drop from this most sacred and unfriendly stream, or even apply your hand to it? Rumour at any rate, as you know, ahs it that these Stygian waters are an object of fear to the gods and to Jupiter [Zeus] himself, that just as you mortals swear by the gods' divine power, so those gods frequently swear by the majesty of the Styx. So here, hand me that jug of yours.’ At once he grabbed it, and hastened to fill it with water. Balancing the weight of his drooping wings, he used them as oars on right and left to steer a course between the serpents' jaws with their menacing teeth and the triple-forked darting of their tongues. He gathered some water in the face of its reluctance and its warning to him to depart before he suffered harm; he falsely claimed the Venus had ordered him to collect it, and that he was acting in her service, which made it a little easier for him to approach.
So Psyche joyously took the filled jug and hastened to return it to Venus. Even so, she was unable to conciliate the harsh goddess's resolve. Venus flashed a menacing smile as she addressed her with threats of yet more monstrous ill-treatment : ‘Now indeed I regard you as a witch with great and lofty powers, for you have carried out so efficiently commands of mine such as these. But you will have to undertake one further task for me, my girl. Take this box’ (she handled it over) ‘and make straight for Hades, for the funereal dwelling of Orcus [Haides] himself. Give the box to Proserpina [Persephone], and say : "Venus [Aphrodite] asks you to send her a small supply of your beauty-preparation, enough for just one day, because she has been tending her sick son, and has used hers all up by rubbing it on him." Make your way back with it as early as you can, because I need it to doll myself up so as to attend the Deities' Theatre.’
Then Psyche came to the full realization that this was the end of the road for her. All pretence was at an end; she saw clearly that she was being driven to her immediate doom. It could not be otherwise, for she was being forced to journey on foot of her own accord to Tartarus and the shades below. She lingered no longer, but made for a very high tower, intending to throw herself headlong from it, for she thought that this was the direct and most glorious route down to the world below. But the tower suddenly burst into speech, and said : ‘Pour girl, why do you seek to put an end to yourself by throwing yourself down? What is the point of rash surrender before this, your final hazardous labour? Once your spirit is sundered fro0m your body, you will certainly descent to the depths of Tartarus without the possibility of a return journey.
‘Listen to me. Sparta, the famed Achaean city, lies not far from here. On its borders you must look for Taenarus, which lies hidden in a trackless region. Dis [Haides] has his breathing-vent there, and a sign-post points through open gates to the track which none should tread. Once you have crossed the threshold and committed yourself to that path, the track will lead you directly to Orcus' very palace. But you are not to advance through that dark region altogether empty-handed, but carry in both hands barley-cakes baked in sweet wine, and have between your lips twin coins. When you are well advanced on your infernal journey, you will meet a lame ass carrying a load of logs, with a driver likewise lame; he will ask you to hand him some sticks which have slipped from his load, but you must pass in silence without uttering a word. Immediately after that you will reach the lifeless river [Acheron] over which Charon presides. He peremptorily demands the fare, and when he receives it he transports travellers on his stitched-up craft over to the further shore. (So even among the dead, greed enjoys its life; even that great god Charon, who gathers taxes for Dis [Haides], does not do anything for nothing. A poor man on the point of death must find his fare, and no one will let him breathe his last until he has his copper ready.) You must allow this squalid elder to take for your fare one of the coins you are to carry, but he must remove it form your mouth with his own hand. Then again, as you cross the sluggish stream, and old man now dead will float up to you, and raising his decaying hands will beg you to drag him into the boat; but you must not be moved by a sense of pity, for that is not permitted.
‘When you have crossed the river and have advanced a little further, some aged women weaving at the loom will beg you to lend a hand for a short time. But you are not permitted to touch that either, for all these and many other distractions are part of the ambush which Venus will set to induce you to release one of the cakes from your hands. Do not imaging that the loss of a mere barley cake is a trivial matter, for if you relinquish either of them, the daylight of this world above will be totally denied you. Posted there is a massive hound with a huge, triple-formed head [Cerberus]. This monstrous, fearsome brute confronts the dead with thunderous barking, though his menaces are futile since he can do them no harm. He keeps constant guard before the very threshold and the dark hall of Proserpina [Persephone], protecting that deserted abode of Dis [Haides]. You must disarm him by offering him a cake as his spoils. Then you can easily pass him, and gain immediate access to Proserpina herself. She will welcome you in genial and kindly fashion, and she will try to induce you to sit on a cushioned seat beside her and enjoy a rich repast. But you must settle on the ground, ask for course bread, and eat it. Then you must tell her why you have come. When you have obtained what she gives you, you must make your way back, using the remaining cake to neutralize the dog's savagery. Then you must give the greedy mariner the one coin which you have held back, and once again across the river you must retrace your earlier steps and return to the harmony of heaven's stars. Of all these injunctions I urge you particularly to observe this: do not seek to open or to pry into the box that you will carry, nor be in any way inquisitive about the treasure of divine beauty hidden within it.’
This was how that far-sighted tower performed its prophetic role. Psyche immediately sped to Taenarus, and having duly obtained the coins and cakes she hastened down the path to Hades. She passed the lame ass-driver without a word, handed the fare to the ferryman for the river crossing, ignored the entreaty of the dead man floating on the surface, disregarded the crafty pleas of the weavers, fed the cake to the dog [Cerberus] to quell his fearsome rage, and gained access to the house of Proserpina [Persephone]. Psyche declined the soft cushion and the rich food offered by her hostess; she perched on the ground at her feet, and was content with plain bread. She then reported her mission from Venus [Aphrodite]. The box was at once filled and closed out of her sight, and Psyche took it. She quietened the dog's barking by disarming it with the second cake, offered her remaining coin to the ferryman, and quite animatedly hastened out of Hades. But once she was back in the light of this world and had reverently hailed it, her mind was dominated by rash curiosity, in spite of her eagerness to see the end of her service. She said : ‘How stupid I am to be carrying this beauty-lotion fit for deities, and not take a single drop of it for myself, for with this at any rate I can be pleasing to my beautiful lover.’
The words were scarcely out of her mouth when she opened the box. But inside there was no beauty-lotion or anything other than the sleep of Hades, a truly Stygian sleep. As soon as the lid was removed and it was laid bare, it attacked her and pervaded all her limbs in a thick cloud. It laid hold of her, so that she fell prostrate on the path where she had stood. She lay there motionless, no more animate than a corpse at rest.
But Cupidos was now recovering , for his wound had healed. He could no longer bear Psyche's long separation from him, so he glided out of the high-set window of the chamber which was his prison. His wings were refreshed after their period of rest, so he progressed much more swiftly to reach his Psyche. Carefully wiping the sleep from her, he restored it to its former lodging in the box. Then he roused Psyche with an innocuous prick of his arrow. ‘Poor, dear Psyche,’ he exclaimed, ‘see how as before your curiosity might have been your undoing! But now hurry to complete the task imposed on you by my mother's command; I shall see to the rest.’
After saying this, her lover rose lightly on his wings, while Psyche hurried to bear Proserpina's [Persephone's] gift back to Venus [Aphrodite].
Meanwhile Cupidos, devoured by overpowering desire and with lovelorn face, feared the sudden arrival of his mother's sobering presence, so he reverted to his former role and rose to heaven's peak on swift wings. With a suppliant posture he laid his case before the great Jupiter [Zeus], who took Cupidos's little cheek between his finger and thumb, raised the boy's hand to his lips and kissed it, and then said to him : ‘Honoured son, you have never shown me the deference granted me by the gods' decree. You keep piercing this heart of mine, which regulates the elements and orders the changing motion of the stars, with countless wounds. You have blackened it with repeated impulses of earthly lust, damaging my prestige and reputation by involving me in despicable adulteries which contravene the laws--the lex Julia itself--and public order. You have transformed my smiling countenance into grisly shapes of snakes, fires, beasts, birds, and cattle. Yet in spite of all this, I shall observe my usual moderation, recalling that you were reared in these arms of mine. So I will comply with all that you ask, as long as you know how to cope with your rivals in love; and if at this moment there is on earth any girl of outstanding beauty, as long as you can recompense me with her.’
After saying this, he ordered Mercurius [Hermes] to summon all the gods at once to an assembly, and to declare that any absentee from the convocation of heavenly citizens would be liable to a fine of ten thousand sesterces. The theatre of heaven at once filled up through fear of this sanction. Towering Jupiter [Zeus], seated on his lofty throne, made his proclamation : ‘You gods whose names are inscribed on the register of the Musae, you all surely know this young fellow who was reared by my own hands. I have decided that the hot-headed impulses of his early youth need to be reined in; he has been the subject of enough notoriety in day-to-day gossip on account of his adulteries and all manner of improprieties. We must deprive him of all opportunities; his juvenile behaviour must be shackled with the chains of marriage. He has chosen the girl, and robbed her of her virginity, so he must have and hold her. Let him take Psyche in his embrace and enjoy his dear one ever after.’
Then he turned to address Venus [Aphrodite]. ‘My daughter,’ he said, ‘do not harbour any resentment. Have no fear for you high lineage and distinction in this marriage to a mortal, for I shall declare the union lawful and in keeping with the civil law, and not one between persons of differing social status.’
There and then he ordered that Psyche be detained and brought up to heaven through Mercurius's agency. He gave her a cup of ambrosia, and said : ‘Take this, Psyche, and become immortal. Cupidos will never part from your embrace; this marriage of yours shall be eternal.’
At once a lavish wedding-feast was laid. The bridegroom reclined on a couch of honour, with Psyche in his lap. Jupiter [Zeus] likewise was paired with Juno [Hera], and all the other deities sat in order of precedence. Then a cup of nectar, the gods' wine, was served to Jupiter [Zeus] by his personal cup-bearer [Ganymedes], that well-known country-lad, and to the others by Bacchus [Dionysos]. Vulcanus [Hephaistos] cooked the dinner, the Horae (Seasons) brightened the scene with roses and other flowers, the Gratiae (Graces) diffused balsam, and the Musae (Muses), also present, sand in harmony. Apollo sang to the lyre, and Venus [Aphrodite] took to the floor to the strains of sweet music, and danced prettily. She had organized the performance so that the Musae sang in chorus, a Satyrus (Satyr) played the flute, and a Paniscus (Young Pan) sang to the shepherd's pipes. This was how with due ceremony Psyche was wed to Cupidos, and at full term a daughter was born to them. We call her Voluptas (Pleasure) [Hedone]."
ANCIENT GREEK & ROMAN ART
SOURCES
ROMAN
Apuleius, The Golden Ass - Latin Novel C2nd A.D.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A complete bibliography of the translations quoted on this page. |
Image copyright AFP Image caption Critics say the state should not be involved in people's private lives
South Korea's top court has ruled that adultery is no longer a crime, revoking a 1953 law under which cheating spouses could be jailed for up to two years.
South Korea was one of only three Asian countries to criminalise infidelity - about 5,500 people have been convicted since 2008.
But out of the nine-judge panel, seven deemed the law unconstitutional.
Presiding judge Park Han-Chul said public conceptions of individuals' sexual rights had changed.
"Even if adultery should be condemned as immoral, state power should not intervene in individuals' private lives," he said.
'Surge in debauchery'
In recent years, while hundreds of people have been convicted under the law, very few have actually gone to prison.
"Recently, it was extremely rare for a person to serve a prison term for adultery," Lim Ji-bong, a law professor at Sogang University in Seoul, told the Associated Press. "The number of indictments has decreased as charges are frequently dropped."
The law has previously been reviewed four times by the court and upheld.
The most recent was in 2008, when actress OK So-ri petitioned the court after being given an eight-month suspended sentence for adultery.
Although she was unsuccessful, it was a narrow loss. Five of the judges deemed the law to be unconstitutional, saying that adultery could be condemned on moral grounds but not as a criminal act. Six judges needed to oppose the law for it to be revoked.
The Constitutional Court said on Thursday that anyone convicted since 2008 could have their case reconsidered.
But some in South Korea have defended the law, saying its loss would encourage sexual depravity.
Justice Ahn Chang-Ho, who read the dissenting opinion at the constitutional court, said that the statute was a key protector of family morals and warned that its abolition would "spark a surge in debauchery". |
If you witnessed someone walking on water, consistently and visibly healing the sick, casting out demons, spontaneously creating bread and fish, turning water into wine, calming storms, killing trees with a glance, and raising the dead--wouldn't you be convinced that the guy is the son of God? Even the most atheist of atheists would have to admit that is some pretty extraordinary evidence. It certainly meets my conversion standards Imagine if you were not only present, but you had a vested interest in believing this guy was the messiah. If he was one ofand fulfilled the prophecy you've been. Imagine you were a Jew in the presence of Jesus.Yet, many Jews did not buy what Jesus was selling. Many did, sure, but considering the Moses-level miracles...why not all? Or at least 99%? If there is something I'm not getting about history, please let me know, but the way I see it, how am I supposed to accept claims two thousand years removed with here-say records when so many of the contemporary neighbors weren't impressed.Maybe, just maybe, the "miracles" just weren't impressive. |
When listing all the ways humanity is going to ruin the future, one that doesn’t often come up is the sun being blocked out by a horde of drone advertising blimps. But that hasn’t stopped one Swiss firm from working hard to make it a reality.
Skye Aero is a project to build 10-foot helium-filled balloons, with small propellers attached to give better control than your average blimp. The benefits are a much bigger aircraft—useful when you want to advertise to people—and one that won’t crash the second it loses power, or bumps into anyone.
It’s not a totally new design—British band Muse have been using a fleet of similar drones on their most recent tour—but Swiss firm Aerotain’s design stands out, due to its soul-sucking practicality. The company thinks Aerotain will be a perfect, audience-engaging advertising platform, which is probably true, but a little too consumerist to get excited about.
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Moving away from its role as a replacement for the Goodyear Blimp, lighter-than-air drones are an interesting and underutilized concept. Provided they’re not filled with hydrogen, they offer increased safety for flying over crowds, and a much greater payload than traditional quadcopters. Hopefully, someone will find a better application for them than giant floating billboards.
[Aerotain via IEEE Spectrum] |
Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), one of the few openly gay members of Congress, blasted Republicans on Thursday for re-committing to spending taxpayer dollars on the legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
Republicans included language in the Rules of the House for the new 113th Congress that authorizes the House legal team, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), to continue fighting on behalf of DOMA in court. The House of Representatives has already spent $1.5 million to defend the law, which prohibits federal agencies from recognizing marriages between same sex couples.
“House Republicans in this rule are seeking to authorize lawyer fees for a costly federal takeover of marriage that would single out legally married couples for discriminatory treatment under federal law,” Polis said on the House floor.
Republicans directed BLAG to defend DOMA in 2011 after the Obama administration declared the law was unconstitutional.
Polis said Republicans were “sticking taxpayers with millions of dollars of unnecessary costs right on day one in the Rule of the House itself.”
“At least when Democrats spend money, we build roads and bridges, educate kids, provide health care,” he continued. “This Republican spending goes right into the pocket of lawyers. Big spending Republicans on day one spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money on a federal takeover of marriage and a lawyer stimulus — wrong foot to start off on.”
Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below:
[Image via TEDxBoulder, Creative Commons licensed] |
The Brooklyn Nets will be without Brook Lopez for the remainder of the season, but they have no plans on replacing him with a player outside the organization at this point.
"If there's a deal out there that we feel is going to make us a better team, we'll do it regardless of tax or the future, but we're not going to panic and do a move just to make a move because we feel we have to," Billy King said Sunday. "I still believe in this group. Brook's a big part of it, but we do have other guys, that's why we have depth."
The Nets do not expect to be a "seller" ahead of the deadline.
The Nets could sign a player with a disabled player exception, which they have applied for with the league office.
"Every team that has a big guy on the sideline calls to offer their services, but we had been in discussions with a lot of teams up to this point," King said. "There's not an imminent move, we're not looking to make any imminent move trade-wise. We've got 14 other guys that can step up, but we'll continue to discuss possibilities if it can make our team better." |
Friend can suggest an interesting feature? He would not work a lot with Xposed, it would be with the root itself. In the case would merge the current database with an old backup. For example you have a conversation with someone and formats the phone and install WhatsApp again without backing up, then you again talk with the person, able to merge the new conversation with the old would be very good, and can restore already deleted conversations of a backup/old database
And other, I think this would be more for the Xposed: the module save each image/audio/voice note/call each person in a folder with your number. I like to save pictures of friends who sent me (I have until 2014) and it would be very good a module that automatically organize all |
Marijuana varieties are displayed in West Salem Cannabis, a shop in Salem, Ore., on Sept. 27. (Andrew Selsky/AP)
Nearly 40 percent of people who use marijuana say they do so primarily to help them relax. New research from the University of Illinois at Chicago suggests that many of those folks may be overdoing it.
As it turns out, there hasn't actually been a whole lot of research done on the stress-mitigating effects of pot, according to Emma Childs, Joseph A. Lutz and Harriet de Wit of UIC. So they conducted a randomized, double-blind lab experiment involving 42 test subjects to see how different doses of THC — pot's main chemical ingredient — affected the subjects' responses to stressful situations.
The test subjects were divided into three groups. The first group received an oral dose of 12.5 milligrams of THC. The second group got only 7.5 mg, while the remaining students unknowingly received a placebo.
For reference, this is not a lot of THC. With the help of medical researchers, the publication the Cannabist recently calculated that a person smoking half a joint of weed could be expected to consume between 33 and 39 milligrams of THC. So the amounts of THC involved in this study are considerably lower than what a heavy user could conceivably consume in one setting.
Next, the fun part: The researchers placed each of the participants in a high-stress situation. They had to give a five-minute speech, followed by a five minute oral test of subtraction skills before two interviewers. For the final twist of an anxiety-inducing knife, the researchers videotaped the subjects while this was all going on, and included a video display of the interview in the room where it was happening.
The researchers then measured how well the subjects performed in the speech and arithmetic portions, and asked them to subjectively rate how stressful the experience was for them.
The burning question: Did the subjects who dosed on THC perform better in the tests and report less anxiety? And was there any difference in performance between the low and high doses?
They found that compared to the placebo, the low dose of THC “reduced the duration of negative emotional responses to acute psychosocial stress, and participants’ post-task appraisals of how threatening and challenging they found the stressor,” according to the paper.
But the higher dose of THC actually made things worse. “In contrast, the higher dose of THC (12.5mg) produced small but significant increases in anxiety, negative mood and subjective distress at baseline before the tasks began,” and throughout the tasks, the researchers found.
Conclusions? A low dose of marijuana is the way to go if you use it primarily for relaxation purposes.
There are, of course, some big caveats with this. The first is that the subjects ingested the THC orally. The interplay between THC and anxiety may work differently for smoked cannabis.
More significantly, the subjects received a dose of THC alone. The cannabis plant contains dozens of other psychoactive chemicals, some of which are known to produce anxiety-lessening effects on their own. Popping a THC pill in a lab is a very different experience than smoking or consuming whole-plant cannabis.
That said, much of the commercial marijuana market is fixated on producing strains of the plant with the highest possible concentration of THC, often to the exclusion of the other compounds that might mitigate some of THC's negative effects. So heavy smokers, particularly those looking for the biggest buzz, would do well to heed the warnings in the UIC study. |
AMD has reached its biggest marketshare milestone in over a decade, overtaking Intel in both units sold and revenue at Germany’s largest online retailer. The data pulled from the “Newegg” of Germany, Mindfactory.de, shows AMD’s Ryzen and Threadripper CPU sales growing over several months to finally overtake Intel in August.
AMD’s Threadripper CPUs in particular have done exceptionally well, generating a significant amount of revenue for the Sunnyvale California based chipmaker. The Ryzen Threadripper family was introduced just a month ago to great critical acclaim. The Ryzen Threadripper 1950X was AMD’s first processor in over fifteen years to be crowned the world’s fastest, outpacing Intel’s best by over 45%.
Related NVIDIA & AMD Graphics Card Prices Drop by up to 18% Across the Board
A Historic Milestone For The Perennial Underdog
The sales data, which Mindfactory.de makes public, has been collected and regularly catalogued by a redditor.
The data shows AMD with just 27.6% of the desktop CPU unit share in March, when Ryzen first came out. A figure that grew every month to hit nearly 49% in July, and finally surpassing Intel with over 56% of the unit share in August. AMD’s explosive share growth at the e-tailer amounts to a doubling of units sold in just six months.
AMD’s best seller appears to be the Ryzen 5 1600, which should be of little surprise considering the incredible value this six core processor offers at just $220. In close second, third and fourth are AMD’s Ryzen 7 1700, Ryzen 5 1600X and Ryzen 7 1700X.
In sharp contrast to AMD’s diverse lineup of highly popular chips, only a single SKU accounts for nearly half of all of Intel’s desktop unit sales and that’s the i7 7700K. This explains why the 7700K continues to maintain somewhat of a grip on Amazon’s #1 best seller spot, whilst AMD’s Ryzen chips often occupy the majority of the top 5.
Related AMD’s Open Source Vulkan Ray Tracing Engine Debuting In Games This Year – Radeon Rays 2.0
Breaking things up by revenue is more revealing. Unlike the AMD of old, the data clearly demonstrates that this incredible share growth hasn’t come at the cost of sacrificing profitability. As the company still manages to command the lion’s share of the revenue and not just the volume of units shifted.
The revenue data also reveals that whilst Threadripper accounts for only a tiny percentage of the company’s unit share, it actually represents a healthy portion of the revenue share. In the blue corner once again we see a single SKU, the i7 7700K accounting for the majority of the company’s desktop sales revenue.
The CPU War Is Heating Up And AMD Is Coming Out On Top
It goes without saying that different markets around the globe will react differently to the same product. And while this Mindfactory.de data represents a snapshot of sentiment in Germany, Europe’s biggest PC hardware market, it’s also a reflection of a wider reaction that we’ve seen take place all over the globe. It’s a reaction by consumers to a genuinely competitive product in segment of the PC hardware market that lacked meaningful competition for many years.
Ryzen has certainly taken the world by storm, but Intel is not sitting idly by. Unlike Skylake-X, which has largely been viewed as an underwhelming response to AMD’s Threadripper at best, Coffee Lake, which is only a month away, is shaping up to be a more formidable challenger.
The question of whether AMD will be able maintain its remarkable growth in the desktop channel will rely entirely on how consumers react to Coffee Lake. When all is said and done, one must appreciate the fact that for the first time in ages, fierce competition is back in the CPU market and if this sales data is anything to go by hardware enthusiasts are loving every minute of it. |
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