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Domino Worldbuilding and the Brilliance of Mass Effect
By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 14, 2020
Gamers Aren't ToxicPrevious Post
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If you’ve spent any time reading my work or watching my videos, then you know I tend to be kind of negative. So I want to change things up this week by talking about something I love. The problem is that I don’t really have a good word for this thing. So I’m going to do what all pretentious and self-important critics do, and make up my own term. And then I’ll explain what it means, why I love it, and why I think the first Mass Effect game is one of the most interesting fictional worlds I’ve ever visited.
To explain what makes Mass Effect so interesting to me, let’s talk about how other game worlds are developed. Different writers have different approaches to creating their fictional worlds, but the overwhelming majority of them are built in a needs-first kind of way.
Link (YouTube)
The writer thinks to themselves, “I need the hero to go on a quest for a magic sword to defeat the bad guy who lives in a hellish wasteland.” They start with that premise as the base and they only add details when they need to.
Then a self-important critic like me will come along and start asking annoying questions like:
Why do the bad guys want to take over the world?
How do they obtain supplies in a lifeless wasteland?
Why are the heroes the only people doing something about them?
Where did the sword come from?
“Don’t worry about it”, the author tells you. “The bad guy is just evil. He doesn’t need supplies because he has magic. The good guys have to do the fighting because of destiny or something. The sword was made by the gods or whatever. Stop over-thinking it. We’re here for an adventure, not to learn a bunch of made-up history and geography.”
And that’s fine. It’s totally reasonable to make a world that focuses on characters and leaves all the background details vague. In fact, if you’re making something like a movie or a TV show then you’re probably dealing with some severe time constraints. You can’t burn ten whole minutes of screen time explaining the history of the world to the audience. I mean, sometimes you can get away with it, but it definitely goes against modern movie making sensibilities. You usually need to introduce the characters and cut to the action as quickly as possible.
In The Fifth Element, we don’t need to worry about what makes Fhloston Paradise such a unique planet. We don’t need to know about its economics, or leadership. The screenwriter doesn’t tell us how the planet was settled or who lives there. The filmmaker shows us some really obvious Polynesiann imagery when we arrive and the audience immediately gets the idea, “Oh okay. This planet is space-Hawaii. I get it.”
This is a perfectly valid way to tell stories, but for me it’s not the most interesting way to build a world.
A World of Consequences
If your story has a flashback, that scene would be connected by, 'Hang on, I forgot to mention...'
On YouTube you can find a talk from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone where they explain how they construct their stories. The first advice they give is to avoid writing stories where scenes or plot points would be connected by the words “and then”. Instead, your story beats should be connected by the words “and therefore”. That makes each scene a consequence of the previous scene. The other option is to have the points connected by the word “however”, which takes the audience through an unexpected turn.
Parker and Stone were talking about how to construct a story, but their advice could just as easily be applied to coming up with a setting and building worlds. That’s what backstory is. It’s the story that took place before your story.
And with that, I want to tell you about the backstory of…
I really loved Kirahee before he was Flanderized into the line-holding guy.
There’s this race of tadpole looking dudes called the Salarians. They’re really smart but they don’t live very long, which means they’re really good at coming up with brilliant short term solutions to serious problems.
There are these huge machines called mass effect relays. At this point in the story, nobody knows who built them or how they work. Their origins are part of the ongoing mystery of the setting. These relays allow instant travel all around the galaxy. The thing is, relays are initially deactivated. You can turn it on to connect your current location to a new, unknown star system somewhere else in the galaxy, but there’s no way to turn it off again. It’s like opening a door you’ll never be able to close. The Salarians are inventive and naturally curious, so they fly around the galaxy opening up relays to see what’s on the other side.
Therefore, they stumble on the home planet of beings called the Rachni. The Rachni are space bugs that communicate through some form of telepathy, so there’s no way for the Rachni and Salarians to talk to each other. It’s not even clear that the Rachni understand or care that Salarians represent an intelligent species. Therefore the Rachni pour through the now-open relay and begin spreading through the rest of the galaxy, wiping out anyone they find.
The galaxy fights back, but the Rachni are like space cockroaches. It’s really hard to kill them, and even if you do there’s always more.
However, there’s another race that the Salarians have discovered in their exploring. These guys are called the Krogan. Their homeworld is a hellhole filled with building-sized apex predators. The Krogan have thus evolved to be really tough and aggressive. Their females lay 1,000 eggs in a single clutch, they grow up quickly, they have super tough skin, they’re really strong, and they’re not afraid of anything. They have some industrial technology, but they’re not a spacefaring species. Their technology development has stagnated due to their constant infighting.
An invasive species of near-invincible space-turtles will fix everything!
Therefore, the Salarians give the Krogans some spaceships and zap guns in exchange for help with the Rachni. The Krogan love this job, since this is a chance to enjoy war on a grander scale than ever before. [Therefore] They wipe out the Rachni, and [therefore] as a reward for saving the galaxy, the Council races grant them some planets to colonize.
[therefore] After the war ends, the Council makes a new rule: Nobody is allowed to open new mass effect relays, just in case there’s another Rachni-like species hiding behind one of these doors.
So we have peace, right? It seems like we ought to have peace at this point, however… the Krogan are prolific breeders. Outside of the horrific conditions of their homeworld, there’s nothing keeping their numbers in check. Therefore their population explodes. Pretty soon they run out of space to live. They’re overcrowded and they’re pretty much born with itchy trigger fingers, so war is inevitable. [therefore] They attack the other races to claim more space.
Once again, the Salarians solve today’s problems by creating tomorrow’s problems. They come up with the Genophage – a disease that will infect the Krogan and inhibit their ability to breed. They want to use it as a deterrent. They figure maybe they can threaten the Krogan into backing down.
No caption required.
However, one of the other Council races isn’t nearly so shy about using biological weapons on a planetary scale. The Turians are militaristic and disciplined. They also have a strong bureaucratic streak. They’re less interested in haggling for peace and more interested in gaining the upper hand in a military sense.
So [therefore] the Turians use the weapon, Krogan birth rates fall, and the war sputters out as attrition finally takes its toll on the Krogan population.
Things are peaceful until Humanity shows up. Humans build their first spacefaring ships and begin exploring the mass relay network with no idea of who they’re going to encounter. They don’t know anything about the Council or the law prohibiting opening new relays. Therefore they’re not shy about opening the first relay they find. The Turians find the Humans in the middle of opening a new relay and decide to stop them. A battle ensues. Humans do really well considering their status as newcomers, but they’re totally outmatched by the superior technology, fleets, and experience of the Turians. Eventually the misunderstanding is cleared up and humanity joins the galactic community, but [therefore] the battle leaves a lot of hard feelings all around.
All of that – everything I just told you – is just the backstory to Mass Effect. That’s what happens before the start of the game. What I love about it is that this is a series of consequences. All of that stuff happened for a reason. Galactic history was shaped by both the technology used and the personalities of the races involved, and each event was a consequence of the things before it.
I call this style of worldbuilding…
Domino Worldbuilding
Next we get to fight about which games use this type of worldbuilding and which don't. WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE, HUH SHAMUS?
Looking back, you can see that a lot of it was sort of inevitable. The Salarians were bound to run into the Rachni eventually, and that would lead inevitably to war, which would lead to the prohibition against opening new relays, which led to the violent first contact between Humans and Turians.
People made mistakes, sure. But everyone involved made decisions that were understandable based on who they were and what they knew at the time. Nobody had to be cartoonishly evil or painfully stupid to make this story happen. Yes, the Krogan and Rachni were incredibly destructive, but their actions are still understandable from a species and character standpoint. And just to be clear, sometimes it’s fine to have cartoon evil bad guys and idiotic blunders in your story. It depends on the tone of the story you’re trying to tell. I just really appreciate it when the storyteller takes the high road and makes something more nuanced.
More importantly, this history isn’t just background flavor. This stuff is all directly related to the events of the game. Your crewmate Ashley is dealing with some family-name guilt for how her grandfather acted during the first contact war with the Turians. Your buddy Wrex is wise enough to see that his people are dying out due to the Genophage and he’s trying to come up with a way to change that. Kaiden was deeply affected by the prejudice and abuse that humanity suffered at the hands of the Turians. The start of the game deals with an attack on a Human colony, which is part of Humanity’s ongoing struggle to expand geographically and politically and carve out their own place in the galaxy. Everyone is a product of the environment they grew up in, and everyone’s thinking – good or bad – is shaped by the events of the past. You don’t need to sit through all that exposition and read all those codex entries if you don’t care, but those details are there if you want them and that additional understanding can make the world richer and more interesting.
Yes, those are the Protheans in the upper left. Yes, I know the Mass Effect 3 writer claimed otherwise. The two games disagree, and I'm siding with Mass Effect 1.
And despite all this depth, I actually skipped over a ton of details. I left out the important histories of the Protheans and the Asari. I also skipped over the stories of the Volus, Elcor, Quarians, Hanar, and Geth. There’s so much here and it’s all really good, but I think you get the idea.
The setting of Mass Effect is a masterwork of worldbuilding. It’s inventive, incredibly ambitious, beautifully detailed, and filled with interesting moral conundrums that resist simplistic good / evil binary analysis and instead forces you to really think about the people involved. This gives the setting an incredible level of verisimilitude. It’s a brilliant piece of writing, and we don’t get nearly enough of this sort of thing in video games.
So why does this matter? What makes Domino Worldbuilding better than just leaving things vague? As it happens, I have a numbered list that will answer that question:
A Numbered List
5. Because I really like it.
First off…
1. Games can (and should) have more details than movies.
We often compare games to movies because both are visual mediums, but in terms of plot density and story length, games are actually a lot closer to books.
Even short linear shooters take somewhere in the ballpark of five hours to finish. This means the shortest AAA games are longer than even the longest Hollywood blockbusters. And those are just shooters! Your average RPG is probably something in the neighborhood of 40 hours long. That’s enough time to watch the extended editions of all three Lord of the Rings movies, back-to-back… three times in a row. And you’ll still have enough time left over for the double-feature of Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame. Plus a random episode of Star Trek!
Since Games are so much longer than movies, the writer isn’t under such severe time pressure. Sure, they can do everything the brute-force way and turn the game into a movie with lots of cutscenes, but the author also has a lot of other tools to communicate setting details to the player. There are player-directed expositional dialogs, ambient NPC chatter, radio chatter exposition, and lore items like books, codex entries, and datapads.
The point is that there are lots of ways to passively communicate setting or plot details to the player and plenty of time to do it in.
2. It’s useful for avoiding plot holes.
The audience is going to spend more time thinking about and questioning your world. You know how some movies make sense at first, but then after the movie is over you’re getting something out of the fridge and you suddenly think, “Hang on, if Buzz Lightyear thinks he’s a real space ranger and not a toy, then why does he act like a toy when humans are around?” This phenomenon is called Fridge Logic because it doesn’t hurt the movie while you’re watching it. It doesn’t bother you until later.
The problem is that in games, players spend a lot more time with your story. You usually don’t plow through an entire game in one sitting. They’re going to take breaks to eat and sleep and maybe go to some sort of job. Which means there are a lot more chances for the player to reflect and discover a fault that would have gone unnoticed in a two-hour movie.
Making your setting a series of consequences will force you to think things out ahead of time, which makes it less likely that you’ll create confusion or immersion-breaking inconsistencies.
3. It makes things easier on future teams.
We live in a world where endless sequels are the norm. Maybe you’re fine with that or maybe that bothers you, but that’s how the entertainment business works these days. Any halfway successful game is going to have a sequel, whether it needs one or not.
More importantly, why hasn't anyone come up with a coherent meta-narrative in the 13 years since the original game?!
Since sequels are inevitable, it would be really smart if the initial designer would create some sort of framework. Putting in the effort to establish a coherent setting makes the world more interesting now, and it also makes things easier when another writer takes over later. If you can establish a clear set of events, characters, rules, and get a firm grasp of the tone, then it can act as a guide for future writers so the setting doesn’t immediately fall apart into a meandering pile of retcons and plot holes with no coherent theme. It means the story can feel intentional instead of feeling like a disjointed mess because nothing was planned out and the team had to make things up as they wentOf course, the later writers aren’t obligated to respect your guide. I’m sure there are examples of games where later writers ruined a series by ignoring the intention of the original author, but I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. I know there was a goofy space game a few years ago that had this problem, but I can’t remember what it was called..
4. Makes the setting more real.
The most important reason to use a domino approach to building your world is because it gives the setting a sense of verisimilitude. It feels more real.
In our world, Hitler didn’t rise to power because the story of planet Earth needed a bad guy. He rose to power because of the many interactions and consequences that preceded him. We’re used to living in a complex world, and having a similar level of complexity in our fictional worlds can make it easier for us to immerse ourselves in them.
So that’s what made the first Mass Effect game special. I don’t know why more games aren’t designed this way. Now that so many franchises are embracing the 40-hour open world collect-a-thon grindfest template, it would be really nice if we could spend some of that time discovering a rich world with a complex and well-thought-out history.
Barring that, it would be great if some of our gameworlds could be a little less lazy, boring, or aggressively stupid.
EDIT: In the video and the text above, I had “lazy” refer to Fallout 4 and “aggressively stupid” refer to Rage 2. This is 100% backwards. Rage 2 is a lazy world with little effort put into the setting. Fallout 4 is a big pile drooling nonsense that conflicts with itself, other Fallout games, and common sense.
[1] Of course, the later writers aren’t obligated to respect your guide. I’m sure there are examples of games where later writers ruined a series by ignoring the intention of the original author, but I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. I know there was a goofy space game a few years ago that had this problem, but I can’t remember what it was called.
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156 thoughts on “Domino Worldbuilding and the Brilliance of Mass Effect”
Tuesday Jan 14, 2020 at 6:06 am
I was rereading your Mass Effect retrospective not too long ago. I got to the end of ME1, the part where you analysed all the work put into setting up the sequels, that was thrown out and wasted in 2 and 3, and I had to stop reading there. It just made me so sad. So much potential wasted.
I wrote the above before watching, assuming it would end up being sorta about this, more fool me! :) But yeah, Mass Effect, brilliant at both ends. And in most of the middle bits. Pity. Ya made me sad again, Shamus.
ShivanHunter says:
This, above everything else, is what disappointed me about ME:Andromeda. They definitely seemed to be promising a return to ME1 after the disaster that was ME3. Then the game came out, and it turned out that what they thought we liked about ME1 was… exploring planets in the Mako. The worldbuilding nerds got two paragraphs’ worth of stock descriptions and told “OK that’s the setting, go shoot things”.
And it’s been over a decade now since ME1 and still no one has scratched the itch. Outer Worlds had good writing and some very lovable characters, but it was was more satirical than a serious attempt at worldbuilding the way Mass Effect was.
I really dunno whether to be hyped for Starfield. On the one hand, it’s not made by Bioware’s carcass, and I really, really want to get hyped for another Mass Effect. On the other hand, it’s being made by Bethesda. They (…sometimes) write Elder Scrolls well, but their Fallout writing is extremely spotty, and the FO76 fiasco rightly has everyone worried.
Duoae says:
I really enjoyed this video! Kudos to Shamus and Isaac! :)
Maybe I am missing something but there’s no link to the youtube video in the blogpost?
Anyway, I wanted to add onto ShivanHunter’s thought about Andromeda.
I think it’s really telling that the writers just jumped ship and abandoned all the lore to make Andromeda but then completely lacked any sort of creativity when it came down to it. I think you could have made essentially the same game with the idea I’m about to posit below on where they could have gone whilst still retaining all the world-building of the first three games.
– Have a single canonical ending to ME3 (it’s not like they didn’t like to ignore player choice anyway!)
– Have the result of the war against the Reapers be that the factions begin to open relays in order to find new words to inhabit. Et voila! New worlds, new cultures – you could explore the effects of the reaper invasion on other spacefaring civilisations which maybe had an isolated Mass Effect relay network. (Maybe I’m misunderstanding how the relays worked here :) )
I mean, didn’t humanity find their relay in a moon of Pluto (Charon)? Aren’t primary relays in pairs? If so, there could be other non-Citadel space closed relay networks managed by other uncontacted species….
Whoops. Fixed.
Taellosse says:
Sunday Apr 26, 2020 at 12:32 am
Possibly my memory is fuzzy at this point, but I’m pretty sure the relay network doesn’t work that way. You could possibly have a relatively small multi-system civilization unconnected to the Citadel, but the overall network was designed in a hub-and-spoke format, and hub systems always have a relay that leads to the Citadel, which is basically the Ur-hub. Not all spoke systems lead directly to a hub, of course, but if they don’t they probably lead to one that does.
So any given system with a relay is only ever a handful of jumps from the Citadel itself. Any species capable of reaching a relay and activating it will be able to traverse the distance to the Citadel – or a major regional hub – in short order, and stop being isolated (by design, of course. This was how the Reapers ensured that each iteration of galactic civilization developed along the lines they wanted, both technologically and geographically). The only way that doesn’t happen is if key relays are damaged, destroyed, or knocked too far out of alignment for their automated systems to correct for it.
That said, a game, or even major side quest, set in a region of the galaxy whose hub system relay to the Citadel was taken out like this could’ve been quite interesting. It’s something that could happen, just not something common.
Gethsemani says:
Disco Elysium most certainly scratches that itch. That entire game is a masterclass in Domino World Building and gradual reveals to keep it coherent for the player. You start with the easy to grasp idea that large corporations and the unions are at each others throats and that you are in a city still carrying the scars of a failed revolution and before you know it you’re knee deep in lore about zones of entropy and the half-century old events of the revolution. On top of all that, the game finds ways to make all of it relevant, either to the main plot or to some really significant side quests.
But then again, Disco Elysium is doubtlessly the best RPG of the 2010’s (and if you disagree I will fight you, as Ron Burgundy said).
Trystan de Lyonesse says:
I disagree about Disco Elysium being game with Domino World Building. I think it’s just coherent, and we don’t have this in a lot of videogames lately. Events in the DE lore happened one after another, but there’s logic between them, and these events are very believable, because writing relies heavily on real event from our history.
Yes, in the end all events and lore intertwines, everything what happened is connected to each other event and has significance.
I think, it’s more tree-like structure. You have a trunk – chain of events that lead you to beginning, roots – history and lore, that together formed this trunk, and branches – current events that you experience through the game, consequences of this “trunk”.
At first it’s full of blank points, but slowly they are filled from both ends, and in the end you’ll discover the “main” chain of events.
At the start you have your case as the mystery, but in the end all world became a mystery that you solved. I think Disco Elysium is unique and good because of this, while it’s not flawless and hardly even can be called a RPG.
The Puzzler says:
Tuesday Jan 14, 2020 at 11:10 am
Well, that could also be characterised as one of those more elaborate branching domino chains where they split up and join together again.
Tbh I’m not hopeful about Bethesda. The last thing of worth the did was Skyrim, and even then very little of that rises above bland. My personal favourite is Neloth, from the Dragonborn DLC. Mostly cos he’s a completely unrepentant, selfish, self-absorbed arsehole. And he’s NOT your enemy.
Also he’s really well voice acted. Other than that, Skyrim has some good mechanics for ragdolling people, making them fight each other while you giggle in a corner, and other fuckabout activities like that. But there’s almost nothing there in terms of good story or characters, compared to the total volume of stuff that there is.
Also I hated Fallout 3, never bothered with 4, but loved New Vegas to death.
camycamera says:
Well Bethesda did finally shake up the team at BGS (who traditionally have always been roughly the same team) by expanding them a lot, having more “a” and “b” teams IIRC etc. Now, so far it hasn’t turned out great… they released Fallout 76 and some crappy mobile games. BUT, maybe with that team shakeup, a take on a new IP with a new engine, reevaluating the criticism they’ve received for their storytelling in the past… Hey who knows, maybe they will knock it out of the park?
Yeah I know, fat chance. In any case, we’ll see with this E3 (they will undoubtedly be showing Starfield off) what they have, and hopefully people will be way more sceptical of their killer marketing team this time. Like, at the Fo4 E3 reveal people were cheering over the Dog being able to pick up items you look at for you, or Codsworth being able to say your name. Useless gimmicks made for marketing purposes. Prove me wrong Todd, prove me wrong…
Sleeping Dragon says:
Thursday Jan 16, 2020 at 5:11 pm
I have to say I did have “oh, this is pretty cool” moment when Codsworth said my name, didn’t help the game in the long run but did improve the first impression.
On the other hand if their next announcement does not contain phrases “single player”, “no microtransactions” and “mod support” without qualifiers…
Platypus says:
Saturday Jan 18, 2020 at 11:20 pm
This piece is really good and encapsulates the best and most frustating thing about mass effect-its an incredibly rich, well written and detailed world with game design that does nothing to take advantage of it. Playingt through it in 2019 for the first time(and despite my grieveances i will probably give it another shot for an 100 percent run at some point)i remember spending alot of time listening to interesting conversations and learning about a carefully thought out world only to be asked to participate only to be allowed to say either generic good guy response or bad guy response with little opprurtunity to use what i had learned meaningfully. Really i think the industry bearer for making this sort of deep worldbuilding work whilst connecting it meaningfully to gameplay is New vegas as every single town has a reason for existing, a history with a plausible if often wacky chain of events, connections with other places and so much of the flavour dialogue is useful on a gameplay level both in making story decisions and in gameplay hints. Honestly a mix of that sorta game design with Mass effects sci fi worldbuilding would be the best thing since sliced bread buttered both sides, I guess the Outer Worlds is the closest we will get to that for now.
Karma The Alligator says:
No link to the video anywhere? Had to go on your channel and browse to find it.
Anyway, I also happen to like that approach to worldbuilding, and it’s what made me like Horizon Zero Dawn so much, as we discover the events that led, and shaped, the current world.
EwgB says:
Wednesday Jan 15, 2020 at 3:50 am
Yeas, Horizon is exactly what I thought about when reading this. It was the absolute highlight of 2018 for me (I know that it came out in 2017, but that’s not when I got it), and definitely one of my favorite games overall. What makes it even stronger than Mass Effect in my opinion is that the worldbuilding is not done through codex entries that explain everything like some space Wikipedia. Instead it is done more organically through scraps of information from the old world. You find a letter from a son to his mother, a memo from a manager to his secretary, an ad from a magazine, and they all form a picture of what led to the world you see. And what is an additional delight is that you as a player know or can imagine what all those things mean because you’re familiar with the technology and culture, but the protagonist Aloy and the other characters interpret it in a kind of cargo cultish manner.
+1 for Horizon and how it does world-building. I just played it the year, so I won’t judge someone making it their 2018 GOTY pick.
It’s a shame the game is a PS exclusive. I would have loved to be able to mod it.
Wednesday Jan 15, 2020 at 11:42 am
Hey, I got it in 2019, so don’t worry about being late.
Personally I think the worldbuilding in HZD works so well because it’s the focus of the game. It’s the big mystery we have to unravel to solve our problem and we know nothing when we start, while in Mass Effect the only mystery is the disappearance of the Protheans (which turns out to be important), we know all the backstory of the current cycle.
DeadlyDark says:
Thursday Jan 16, 2020 at 2:02 am
Horizon is a weird one for me. Backstory of the world – done awesome and the easily the best part of the game. World itself (tribes, characters, villains) – not so much, and rather bland. I guess, that their priorities here were to set up things in a satisfying matter, starting with the explanation of why the world the way it is, and the next game will flesh out the story of tribes and such.
I would disagree. I found most of the characters quite compelling and believable, especially by video game standards. Some were a little one note maybe, but the most had actual motivations for their actions and not just plot driven contrivances. But your mileage may vary.
What I also loved is that the writers didn’t felt the need to cram a love story in it, and possibly even hung a big lampshade on it. When Olin flirts with Aloy in the beginning it just goes miles over her head, which makes sense given her upbringing with regards to the total lack of social interaction with her peers. But later when Avad pretty much spells it out, she just goes “Nope, ain’t nobody got time for that, I’ve got a world to save!”.
In a vacuum each character is fine. The problem comes from Aloy antagonizing everyone and there only being two responses: either “I respect you”, or “I hate your class/race/gender and therefore hate you”. Your game gets one bigot unless you’re building the whole story around bigotry. HoZeD is a coming-of-age story, but it has three separate bigots in the starting town.
(Also the Zaid quest was frustratingly dumb and was the point I stopped expecting anything from the game story-wise.)
Friday Jan 17, 2020 at 2:22 am
I think this is a matter of perspective. I didn’t interpret it as a coming of age story (not saying I am right, just that I didn’t see it that way). And the various bigotries of the respective societies I saw as an essential part of the worldbuilding – human societies reforming after the fall of civilization and building new forms of the same old crap, in-groups and out-groups, racism, sexism, xenophobia etc; a study on psychology and sociology if you will. It is all certainly painted with a broad brush, and I would not have accepted this from a movie, TV series or book. But considering the overall rather lackluster quality of plots and characters in video games, I found this quite good and refreshing.
And as far as Zaid goes, I honestly had to look up what the quest was, I didn’t even remember. :-)
Friday Jan 17, 2020 at 4:27 pm
By “coming of age” I mean “mostly or fully from the perspective of the main character, who goes through a small arc of overcoming a local challenge, followed by the main arc of learning the world is bigger and more complicated than they thought, and also finding they have the power to affect it.”
Lino says:
A very well-made video! I also think it’s the best-edited one yet. It’s a shame they aren’t getting as many views. I wonder: would making a Twitter account help? Because apart from collaborations and click-baity titles/thumbnails, Twitter’s probably the best bet for getting your videos noticed.
I only played AssCreed 1 and 2, and from what I saw they did have some plan (or at least that how it appeared to me) with the golden apples and aliens and templars vs assassins. Did that get abandoned at some point? Because I thought that was a pretty good setting.
It is pretty obvious that they had a vague plan for the first few games, what with the reveal at the end of AC2 and the shock twist when Desmond kills his mission control at the end of whichever game that was (3? Retribution?). It was mostly dropped following the negative reception of the meta-story in AC3. However, Odyssey is obviously looking to kickstart it, what with the end reveal and DLC focusing a lot more on the Precursors, modern times and how they connect. From what I hear, the tie-ins (comics mainly) have also been doing quite a lot with the premise. Whether the stories being told are worthwhile, is highly subjective however.
Shen says:
The thing that hurts me most about the Desmond-side of the story was that they set up the exciting finale set-piece perfectly in the first game and then never delivered. The bad guys found the magical football and want to put it on top of a rocket. What better way to cap out the series about climbing on top of dangerous things could there possibly be than climbing on top of a rocket as it takes off? But no, his story comes to an end based on whether or not he should press the scary button while his nagging space-aunts bicker.
It bothers me that I can never tell if the first writers planned the finale and later writers ruined it or if it never occurred to any of them. I just can’t possibly see an executive vetoing “woosh crikey rocket times” in favour of standing around talking, so it had to be the writers’ decision.
To me, Assassin’s Creed is proof that over-explanation can ruin a story. As a huge Prince of Persia fan, I eagerly anticipated the first AC, and I replayed it many times. What I loved the most was the cryptic ending, and how you had to piece the backstory on your own. The second game didn’t do much for me, however, and I haven’t played any of the games past the third installment, because the more explanations they piled on to the mystery, the duller it became to me.
Just like monster movies have the rule of “Wait for an hour before you show the monster”, so too should mystery stories be careful how much they pile onto their mystery. At some point you need to do a big reveal and call it quits, otherwise you’re just adding clutter to an otherwise good story.
I think there’s a fine balance for the amount of mystery for me, but there’s also the nature of it. I don’t personally care that much for stories that involve mysteries of not even understanding what’s happening on a general level (think David Lynch), even though a lot of people tend to like “open to interpretation” stories of this kind.
On the other hand, I’m ok with not finding out about some character’s backstory, unless it’s incredibly relevant to what’s going on now, or what will happen. For example, knowing what happened to Jaime Lannister in his past is relevant, knowing how Nick Fury lost his eye or Han Solo got his dice isn’t.
Then you have the typical Abrams “Mystery Box” issues, which is more of a problem just because it screams “This Is A Mystery!, want to hear more?” which is a whole other ballgame.
Tuesday Jan 14, 2020 at 3:21 pm
I wouldve disliked it if it stopped at AC1. Yes the final reveal of the blood was interesting, but implying everything myserious in the world (pyramids, the figures in the desert, some weird code written on the floor) is somehow connected and leaving no clues other than that would make me feel robbed. At least make it a bit clearer, you can leave some mysteries in, but at least make it a bit understandable how all the pieces fit.
At the time people assumed Assassin’s Creed would be a trilogy and the third game might be playing as Desmond in the modern day.
It was at the turning point of games becoming forever franchises and it clearly wasn’t built to go on forever. But they quickly realised AC was a perpetual goldmine. From that point the meta story was dead, however it was received. It’s too difficult to make a continuous meta story across games that are never going to end. It doesn’t fit with annual releases where people can’t be expected to play every game.
They planned it from AC1 to AC3. AC3 was supposed to come out with the 2012 apocalypse, it being a solar flare that would destroy modern tech (which almost happened). However making AC2 a mini trilogy inside of a trilogy and having a bunch of extra threads they tried to weave into the story weakened it.
Then AC4 they were like “yeah we got this big thing that makes a shitload of money and gives us freedom to pick any timeframe” and then they just made yearly releases and seemingly nailed random stuff onto it.
Yup, Juno in AC3 is utterly perpendicular to the story and an asspull in a desperate attempt to create a sequel hook. The series has been increasingly theme-parky and recent games have been moving away from even that pretense towards “ancient history (techno)fantasy”, which is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself but clearly divorced from the original idea.
SidheKnight says:
Kind of. The main conflict of AC 1 through 3 (the “Desmond saga”) got quickly solved and rather poorly in AC 3.
The next 3 or 4 games mostly wandered aimlessly, setting some kinda interesting stuff up only to drop it later by unceremoniously resolving it in a tie-in comic.
And the latest games, from what I’ve heard, barely have any overarching plot and the modern day stuff is almost gone.
As a lit major, I can only tell you that we learned depressingly little terminology pertaining to the effective creation of new literature, and a staggering amount pertaining to interpreting works that had already been written (often with the aim of taking a dump on it.)
Maybe the Creative Writing graduates can help you out?
So I wasn’t very satisfied with this rather glib contribution, and I decided to reach back into the decades of my past and try to dredge up something from my studies that was actually relevant to Shamus’s argument. Here’s what I managed to find:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yZMmVLI3CAAC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA43
You may receive an error message; if you scroll up or down a bit you should be able to get the page to load.
It’s from Ford Madox Ford’s critical writings, specifically his essay On Impressionism. To fully grok what ‘Impressionism’ means to Ford isn’t vital for our purposes here, although it is interesting and the whole essay (in which he expands upon just that) is worthwhile.
What’s most relevant is the thrust he begins under the heading ‘IV’. He outlines the criteria for maintaining a world in which the reader can be fully immersed, what he terms ‘the illusion’. He gives some important ‘dos’ and ‘don’t’s’. (Here the poet’s invocation of the Muse is akin to if Commander Shephard were to turn and wink at the camera; fourth-wall stuff.) He considers reasons for rejecting immersion as a goal (it’s hard work.) And he talks about consequentialism, specifically giving the example of the tragedy of someone’s distaste for a rabbit pie.
He maintains that in order for the reader to feel the tragedy of the rabbit pie, you generate much of an effect from simply stating that ‘Mr Jones didn’t like rabbit pie.’ Rather, you have to establish the details which inform the circumstances by which a distaste for rabbit pie can become the central symbol in a tragic domestic scene:
‘In order to produce an illusion you must justify; in order to justify you must introduce a certain amount of matter that may not appear germane to your story or your poem […] and the point is this, that if your tragedy is to be absolutely convincing, it is not sufficient to introduce the fact of Mr Jones’s dislike for rabbit-pie by bare statement.’
‘And it is quite possible that a dislike for one form or other of food might form the integral part of a story. Mr Jones might be a hard-worked coal-miner with a well-meaning wife, whom he disliked because he was developing a passion for a frivolous girl. And it might be quite possible that one evening the well-meaning wife, not know her husband’s peculiarities, but desiring to give him a special and extra treat, should purchase from a stall a couple of rabbits and spend many hours in preparing for him a pie of great succulence, which should be a solace to him when he returns, tired with his labours and rendered nervous by his growing passion for the other lady.
The rabbit-pie would then become a symbol – a symbol of the whole tragedy of life. It would symbolize for Mr Jones the whole of his wife’s want of sympathy for him and the whole of hi distaste for her; his reception of it would symbolize for Mrs Jones the whole hopelessness of her life.’
(The point being that, while the tragedy turns on the dislike of rabbit pie, that distaste has to be justified in some way to really sell it to the reader. And that’s where world-building comes in.)
He even goes on to discuss using racial justifications (in a way that might seem old-fashioned but don’t worry, isn’t actually racist) as a way to develop the background circumstances on which the plot turns, in the same way that Shamus praises Mass Effect for doing!
It is, in effect, a mini-essay on world building. He goes on to consider the expedience of whether world-building is truly expedient on a few criteria: he concludes that it may not be interesting, but it is necessary if the final effect is to be convincing. He also concedes that ‘if the final province of art is convince, its first province is to interest […] to the extent that your justification is uninteresting, it is an artistic defect.’ And further allows that a story will have to have moments that excite interest as much as it does moments that prepare the groundwork that will convince.
It’s only some five pages of criticism, but interesting, densely packed and (I think) quite relevant to the matter at hand.
D’oh, typo: you CAN’T generate much of an effect from simply stating that Mr Jones didn’t like rabbit pie.
That’s interesting. Skimming over it, it feels like he’s talking more about character development, but if you think about it, what is worldbuilding if not character development for the world the characters inhabit?
Pax says:
As a Creative Writing graduate… nope. They just made us write a bunch of stuff and then told us why it sucked.
Hmmm… Has anyone ever thought of making Creative Writing students write stuff that then gets analyzed by Lit majors? And if the Creative Writing majors disagree with the Lit majors’ critique, the two students fight to the death to see who’s right! And then we make the other students bet on who’s gonna win!
Excuse me, I need to call Shark Tank…
No, but now I want to write a story about Creative Writing Deathmatch.
Algeh says:
You probably actually want a communication major for this. We spent a lot of time analyzing pop culture using fancy terms in one or two of my communication classes. Unfortunately, it’s been 20 years since I needed to be able to do that, so all I remember from the “fancy qualitative terms” part of that major right now is a vague dislike of semiotics. (I remember more useful things from other parts of that major, but doing formal qualitative analysis was not my favorite part. If I was going to be that rigid and precise in my terminology, and spend that much time classifying things into specific categories, I was going to pick a quantitative way to be rigid instead so I could do more interesting things with my data.)
For what it’s worth, I feel like I use more of the things I learned in my communication classes than things I learned in my computer science classes when I teach computer game design to high school students now. (I studied both things in college, with the original plan of being a computer science professor doing research into human/computer interaction as a career path. That plan lasted until my first quarter of computer science grad school, when my new plan became not being in computer science grad school anymore.) I know communication is seen as a joke major, but there are actually a lot of interesting ideas in there even if it is much harder to fail a communication class than a math class for most people.
Wednesday Jan 15, 2020 at 1:56 pm
Wait, is this where I pipe up and say he probably wants a philosophy major, since semiotics and defining the way we think and write is our department?
However, similar to you, I haven’t used any of it in nearly 20 years, so, erm, yeah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy
Thursday Jan 16, 2020 at 10:50 am
I tried having a philosophy minor for a while! Then I took a 400 level seminar about Plato’s Republic where we had over 100 pages of reading each week, we met once a week late at night (so I’d have trouble staying awake in this 10-people-around-the-table class), and we were all eventually going to spend a class period reading our final papers aloud to the class (rather than writing something designed to be a speech that would be not-boring to hear read aloud), and I realized that I could also *not* be a philosophy minor since I’d already decided not to go to law school by then and it wouldn’t be particularly important to computer science grad programs anyway. (I’d been debating between going to grad school for human/computer interaction or going to law school with a focus on computer/high tech law my first couple of years in undergrad. I was trying to figure out how to turn “something with computers, but also talking to people, but definitely not tech support” into a career path.)
The only particularly memorable thing I got out of that philosophy class at this point is that I had about half of the first book of Plato’s Republic re-written as a Pokemon battle in my head. (“Thrasymachus , use your elentic attack!”) I chose not to share this particular insight with my professor, though. (I liked several of the lower-level classes I’d taken before that, but I was just not enjoying that particular upper-level class.)
Wait, why is it called “Communication” when it’s about analyzing pop culture? Where I’m from, “Communication” refers to Telecommunication or stuff like International Relations. Here, pop culture analysis is what they do in Art-related disciplines.
So what do you guys study in Communication?
At the school I went to, Communication was considered to be one of the “Social Sciences” (like Sociology or Anthropology). It’s the department that oversaw the debate team, the school newspaper, the school radio station, and things like that. I took classes about specific things within film (I took an entire class about documentaries as a form), classes that taught public speaking skills, and classes about how to do various kinds of analysis, among other things. There were other classes available that focused more on the classics (I know there was one on on classical rhetoric), or more on other things that I don’t remember now (it is hard to remember specific classes that you didn’t take because they didn’t sound interesting at the time).
Those analysis classes often had a pop-culture skew to them for things to analyze. I remember being assigned to a group project in my Rhetorical Criticism class that involved analyzing some X-Men comics, for example, and I remember doing a big paper looking at the different cover choices for a specific SF novel that had been reprinted several times with different covers. I also remember doing a quantitative research project that involved whether people would ascribe different themes to a song based on listening to it versus just being given the lyrics to read, and whether that changed if they were more familiar with the song’s genre. (Sadly, that was in another group project, where 2 of us cared and one of us did not, and she kept contaminating the data with her lazy sampling techniques so we didn’t get anything usable out of that project in the end. Basically, two people who were double majors in both a math-related discipline and communication were put with a senior who was terrified of math and put off the required communication quantitative methods course until spring of her senior year for a quantitative research project. Her goal was to get a C so she could pass the class and graduate on time, so she she just wanted to get her third of the surveys “done” without putting in much effort rather than use the sampling methods we’d designed.)
Thursday Jan 16, 2020 at 11:48 pm
Wow, that sounds very intereting! So, it’s basically a combination of traditional social sciences, using examples based on pop culture so that it’s more interesting to the students.
Also, what parties?
GargamelLeNoir says:
So I want to change things up this week by talking about something I love. The problem is that I don’t really have a good word for this thing.
Mr BTongue called this strange process “reverse complaining” I believe, but it never really caught on. Too unfamiliar.
Ah, the old twentysided-a-roo.
It’s called “praise”. I know it’s an unfamiliar concept on the ‘net, but it’s usually extremely well received by recipients.
Wait, I’m confused. You’re telling me is there’s something that’s like complaining, but it doesn’t make the recipient feel like shit? Then what’s the point of putting it on the Internet?
Those recipients clearly need to be straightened out; it sounds like their way of thinking is all wrong. If they were smarter they’d realise how constructive and healthy criticism is for them.
I’m a worldbuilding nerd too. It’s difficult as a writer because sometimes I’m actually *trying* to just write a schlocky action story, but I get distracted working out all the details for, say, how two spaceships built in different solar systems can dock to each other (their ports weren’t immediately compatible, so they had to use docking port adapters. It’s irritating having to spend mass on that, but getting everyone to standardize on one docking port model would be impossible because of the intra-system politics involved…and now the reader who just wanted an exciting ray gun fight is long gone).
Buzz Lightyear acting like a toy when he doesn’t know he is does bother me. Plus all the op sec the toys are constantly violating. There’s a scene where they have a whole conversation out loud while Andy’s mother is carrying them (in a box, but still).
One of the things that bugs me most in kid movies is trying to figure out what language the characters are speaking. In Finding Nemo, I can buy that the Tank Gang understands spoken English, having all come from pet stores and the like, but how does *Nemo* understand it? What, he learned it in the three seconds he went to school?
LadyTL says:
if it helps, there is a market for expansive worldbuilding sci fi that sometimes has shooty bits. One of my favorite series that I reread alot spends ages of the series talking about how the world and tech works and why it works the way it does and I love every bit of it. Damn now I have to go back and reread the whole thing again. Thank you!
Man, if you love “domino worldbuilding”, then you would LOVE LOVE LOVE the ASOIAF book series, yes the one that that really popular show that threw everything away about what made it good in the first place was based on. Domino worldbuilding GRRM’s jam. Character’s actions (and deaths) still echo even long after they’re no longer relevant to history. It’s mostly why it is far and away my favourite world/lore in any piece of media ever, hands down. It is so ridiculously detailed yet always somewhat relevant to something else and/or current events. And fingers crossed for book 6 this year to wash away the pain of the show. Please.
Fallout 4 is a big pile drooling nonsense that conflicts with itself, other Fallout games, and common sense.
We’re still waiting on that “The blistering stupidity of Fallout 4” series, Shamus!
Yes! That would be awesome! As for A song of Ice and Fire, I’ve only read the first two books, and even though I’ve played myself into not reading the rest of them, I have to admit that Martin really does have a very engrossing writing style, and you just don’t feel how swiftly the pages go by.
I love Shamus skewering a terrible story with his logic and his ability to think beyond the immediate / inability to turn off his brain.
It’s also an excuse to dust off that Golden Riter award and hand out another.
The closest we have so far is the Spoiler Warning season about FO4. It’s a start, but not enough.
Tuesday Jan 14, 2020 at 12:05 pm
I’d like to read it too.
Still it’s hard to imagine how something so nonsensical as Fallout 4 could be analyzed, it’s bizarre Blade Runner fanfic in post-apocalypse written by seven years old.
Chad Miller says:
That’s why it’s so ripe for material. Any part of the game makes less sense the longer you look at it.
“Why are the Gunners openly announcing their tactics?”
“Why do those tactics themselves not make any sense?”
“Hang on, why are the Gunners shooting at me at all? Where is the profit for them here?”
“Wait a minute. Who hires the Gunners ever in this game? Do these writers even know what a ‘mercenary’ is?”
Oh my God, my brain hurts when I’m thinking about F4 writing.
F3 at least had some salvageable plot points, characters, quests and maybe even themes.
And in F4, the second you start thinking about anything in game, it all falls apart.
Hey, F4 had one good bit where a couple of NPCs are arguing about the edge cases of what technically counts as a sandwich.
It’s terribly faint praise when I say that that was my favorite bit of writing in the game. The most disappointing part is that they’re not even real characters, it’s just a scripted bit the writer dropped on some no-name NPCs who have nothing to say to you and no interaction with the plot.
While I consider Fallout 4 the death of the franchise, even I will admit that I liked the Human Error sidequest; even with it’s flagrant flaws I’d go so far as to say I’d actively like a version of Fallout 4 where everything else lived up to that standard.
I’ve only read the first two books [of ASOIAF], and even though I’ve played myself into not reading the rest of them, I have to admit that Martin really does have a very engrossing writing style, and you just don’t feel how swiftly the pages go by.
Oh, don’t worry. If you ever make it to book five, you’ll start noticing EVERY page you have to slog through.
It’s known as the ‘ARRRGGHH WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE CLOWNS AND WHY AM I READING ABOUT THEM INSTEAD OF TYRION OR ARYA OR ANY OF THE OTHER CHARACTERS YOU’VE ALREADY ESTABLISHED AND ARE DOING FAR MORE INTERESTING THINGS SOMEWHERE ELSE?!’ stage.
Kylroy says:
I think ASoIaF demonstrates one of the major perils of domino worldbuilding – you can end up more concerned with accurately tracking dominoes than telling a compelling story.
MelTorefas says:
Ahh, yes. Also known as “The Wheel of Time Effect”.
On a more serious note, I think Domino Worldbuilding is an interesting term/idea and reminds me of something else I’ve thought about. I usually think about stories depending on what drives them, and I’ve heard the terms Setting First, Character First, and Plot First used to describe the main focuses. Shamus’ example of Mass Effect I would call Setting First, while his made up example of the magic sword I would call Plot First. Something like Avatar: The Last Airbender I would call Character First. Any one of those could employ Domino Worldbuilding in theory.
I tend to enjoy Character First stories the most; I find Setting First stories far too likely to run into the exact problem talked about above, and Plot First stories (like Shamus’ example with the magic sword) often fail to have enough coherence or depth to satisfy me. Character First stories, on the other hand, focus on what I care about: the individual people, the choices they make, the consequences of those choices, and their personal character arcs and how they intersect. I feel like Character First stories might lend themselves more to a Domino style, simply because action and consequence are the domain of people (even in the other types of stories, somewhere along the line the plot got shaped by some characters and their choices; that just isn’t as much the focus).
…Anyways, this is a big tangent and probably a wild oversimplification. But I have always found analyzing stories in relation to these different focuses really interesting, and thinking about how they chain cause and effect domino-style will be a fun thing to add into the mix. In other words, good post! I liked. >.>
Dewwy says:
You have to remember to have your line of dominoes eventually wrap back around to its beginning, where hopefully you’ve had chance to reset the line.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but I think it works.
I disagree slightly for my personal feels of the books, but I think it’s a matter of time. At the time it was released, and for the first time reading it, I’m sure that A Feast for Crows was seriously annoying to many readers, because it’s more of an interlude or Act 2, but doesn’t really clue you into this. And then there wasn’t another book for 6 years. However, upon reread, knowing the general gist of where it’s going and that you’re not expecting the stories of the main characters, I think it’s more enjoyable and a brisker pace of reading than the first time. I also think A Dance with Dragons will be retroactively better with the publication of The Winds of Winter.
That being said, there is a problem with A Dance with Dragons being mostly set-up, with the payoffs to come in the following book.
Biggus Rickus says:
I actually like the fourth and fifth ASOIAF books, but I’m a sucker for world building. I didn’t even mind the middle of The Wheel of Time series, and it is far worse about delving into the stories of unnecessary side characters. The downside of that needless expansion being that Jordan died before finishing the series. While Sanderson did an okay job of concluding it, it wasn’t great.
Jordan was much worse for digressing than Martin, in my opinion. My personal theory is that he would experience writer’s block in how to wrap up all of the disparate plotlines he had started, and then decide that he would go “Double or Nothing” by adding more, in the hope that some new plot would provide the answer to solving the old plot.
And then you have the abomination known as the Crossroads of Twilight, which was a stunning miscalculation rarely seen in other epic stories.
I also think Sanderson did an “ok” job with completing it, but don’t agree with the huge amounts of praise he seems to get. He got the plot moving, but it didn’t feel like quite the same story to me. Which really isn’t his fault, but was just the nature of the assignment.
Crossroads was the only one in the series I think fully deserves to be called “tedious”. Jordan did get back on track with Knife of Dreams before he died, and I would have liked to have read his own conclusion to the series. But that’s life.
Crossroads is easily the worst since there’s like one plot point in a thousand pages, but Lord of Chaos adding all the Forsaken back into the pool was the one that really bugged me. They’re down to five by the end of the fifth book, and then suddenly they’re back up to eleven.
I liked Sanderson’s first two books, though I think he got Mat wrong. But the last book was one big battle, and that never ever works.
It didn’t help that he couldn’t get Mat right, as he was central to that book-long battle.
Saturday Jan 18, 2020 at 1:54 pm
Agreed. Mat was so weird in those books. You could tell it was a different author.
Oh yeah, that was literally the point I stopped reading. I was somewhat into it up till that moment but then I was like “oh, so the author is basically going to reset them and start the whole circus anew, oookay then, he’s gonna die before he wraps this up” and being a big fan of stories that have an ending I gave up on the series (for the record I don’t know if Jordan’s condition was already public knowledge but I had no idea at the time).
Some people really liked the last book, I guess. But it just was so wearying to me. At the time I was reading, I remember the battle starting up about 25% of the way through the book or so, and was thinking “Wait a second, this can’t be right, we can’t be starting yet, can we?”
That point about three separate duels with Demandred too was just so annoying to me as well.
And if you’re talking about Egwene getting captured, it’s such a blink and you’ll miss it plot point, whereas the rest of the book is just tedium. It was an experiment by Jordan to write a book of nothing but reaction shots to the event of the previous book, “Where were you when X happened”, but that meant that virtually everything described in the book was meaningless to the actual plot because it’s just filler until each point where the character gets to react to the event in question. It was an experiment that horribly failed.
This video was fun! It was cool to have the Mass Effect story laid out like that and I was convinced by the theme. I want to apply this to other world-building and see how well the idea transfers to settings I love
tmtvl says:
I know there was a goofy space game a few years ago that had this problem, but I can’t remember what it was called.
Yeah that one! What was it again… Miss Event or something like that?
I heard, that some guy wrote a very long retrospective about it, somewhere on internet.
I’d be very interested to read Shamus’ take on the series. It would be good for the blog – he might be able to get about 2 or 3 articles out of it.
But I doubt it would be suitable for a long-running series. I mean, who in their right mind would read (or WRITE!) 50 chapters about Mass Effect! Could you imagine?!
Dan Efran says:
Mess Effort
Philadelphus says:
No no, Star Control 3 is clearly the space game Shamus was thinking of, where the sequel abandoned the masterful Domino Worldbuilding of Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters which made it one of the best games of all time (to be ever-so-slightly fair, the sequel was made by a completely different company and writing team who just didn’t have the same knack for worldbuilding or writing as Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III). (Also, all the aliens were puppet FMV in their appearances? Talk about goofy.)
Seriously, the events of Star Control 2 are all just the latest dominoes in a series that started falling over 20,000 years years before the start of the game (or even more if you consider the Precursors and their effects on the galaxy), and you get to piece it all together throughout the game from various sources, including the Big Bad Evil Aliens themselves.
Olivier FAURE says:
Okay, you have to read A Practical Guide to Evil.
The story is basically dedicated to explaining the logistics of how an empire of evil and treachery located in a barren wasteland would function (and also boring YA stuff like a heroine rising through the ranks and fighting for the sovereignty of her country, but who cares).
beleester says:
It’s got a pretty good example of domino worldbuilding, now that I think about it.
1. The Dread Empire of Praes is, due to a past Empress’s bad decision-making, living in a barren wasteland. Their farmland is poor and barely sustained by sacrificial rituals.
2. Therefore, they declare war on the fertile kingdom of Callow. In fact, they try this many times, whenever the population pressure gets bad enough.
3. Therefore, Callow has a long history of fighting off oppressive evil empires, and they’ve gotten very good at it. Almost every invasion has either failed, or succeeded *just* long enough for a band of plucky young heroes to rise in rebellion and kick the invaders out.
4. However, the newest villains in charge have studied their history, and noticed this pattern.
5. Therefore, many years of reforms to stop being dumbass Disney villains, develop a bureaucracy capable of running an empire efficiently, and train the orcish hordes into a professional military.
6. Therefore, the villains successfully conquer Callow this time, and have been ruling it in an efficient, evil-but-makes-the-trains-run-on-time sort of way.
7. However, bands of plucky heroes are becoming increasingly common, and the Black Knight’s current solution of quietly assassinating any heroes he can find before they become a problem is unsustainable.
8. Therefore, the Black Knight wants to train up a Callowan villain to support the Empire, to try and break the pattern of young, idealistic Callowans becoming heroes and starting rebellions.
…and now we’ve arrived at the start of the story, where the Black Knight offers Catherine a role as his Squire.
(You can also insert a few more “therefores” in other places that provide worldbuilding details or set up conflicts in later books. Almost everything in Callow – the design of their cities, their army doctrine, the general attitude of their citizens, their songs, the presence of various MacGuffins – can be traced back to their long history of getting conquered and rebelling.)
Agreed! And I definitely second the recommendation of PGtE. I LOVE that story. The update schedule going down to twice a week is killing me.
Man, reading about the Genophage reminded me of how Bioware used to craft grey moral quandaries well. Listening to Wrex and the female Krogan from the third game discuss the effect it’s had on their race was great.
I also loved the dynamic between Mages & Templars (or Mages & Everyone Else) in the DA games, even though it got done to death. But it was really one of those situations with no clear right and wrong.
One side shouts ‘See? THIS [horrible disaster] is why we need to lock Mages up and persecute them!’
The other shouts ‘If you hadn’t locked [mage] up and treated him like shit, [disaster] wouldn’t have happened!’
And they’re both right. And wrong.
Merril in DA2 was a good example: the ostracisation she received from her tribe was the exact reason for her dangerous magical research, which only made them dislike her more, which pushed her further into it…and it all ended in the death of the one person EVERYONE in the tribe liked.
Just bone-headed stubbornness all round, ending in tragedy.
I’m pretty sure Star Wars is now a good example of a series ruined by the idiocy if later writers… who were ironically brought in to fix Lucas’s supposed mistakes.
People have been arguing over exactly which director or writer is responsible, but for my money the culprit is corporate, which went off to do something without ever having a plan and has since served wildly in reaction to every movie.
It could also be used as an example of how a series can be ruined by leaving it in the hands of the original writer…
I’d say it’s lack of vision in both instances. In one, it was one man with some vague ideas, but without vision, unchallenged by his peers and subordinates. And in later, it was lack of vision typical for big corporations, where everything is evaluated by statistics, checkboxes, marketing researches etc.
I’d agree that Lycas jumped into his prequels without enough develop, yet he did clearly have a vision for the series and improved greatly over time. He had failures as well as success, but he was always moving forward.
Disney, on the other hand, is spinning its wheels because they don’t really know what they’re after except making money. Of course they mean well, but I’m not sure they even understand why they keep running into narrative walls.
I’ve said that the prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy are bad in completely opposite ways.
The prequels (well, OK, episodes 2 & 3…) have a story that could be real interesting if done well. Instead we get a story of a hero throwing everything away for the woman, where he’s never particularly heroic and has zero chemistry with his alleged lover. It could have been entertaining – I still maintain Obi Wan’s half of episode 2 is good stuff – but the moment to moment execution keeps taking you out of the story.
Conversely, the sequels have excellent entertainment value in the service of a story that is either derivative, threadbare, or pointlessly iconoclastic. Turning Luke into a grumpy coward was irritating, but damned if Hamill didn’t sell me on it being true.
Higher_Peanut says:
I like Obi-Wan’s stuff in the prequels. The internet (that mysterious hive mind) kept trying occasionally to get Ewan Mcgregor to come back for a spin off movie. Star Wars movies are probably due for a bit of a cooldown though.
The prequels had some cool scenes that completely failed to fit together. Pod-racing is cool. Space chariot death races should have been amazing but how they got there was weird. A bet because the one person with the part has plot mandated immunity to force powers? I’ll never get over the way no one on the planet seemed to be amazed an 8 year old was a master mechanic (+ droid builder) and so good at racing he won (and was the sole finisher of) a race where he was lapped by every single opponent before he even started.
The main story with the decline between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy is that Lucas is bad at writing shooting scripts and everyone knew that, including himself, but in the prequel trilogy he was less willing/able to try to get someone else to write the scripts.
djingdjan says:
I don’t think Lucas ever understood what made Star Wars so great in the first place, going back to his interviews from the 70s and he’s going off on how the massive appeal of Star Wars could be solely traced to the droids
Bookwyrm says:
Shamus mentioned Mass Effect! Drink!
I can’t, I’m at work. Also, I would be dead by the end of the article.
Is this the new Twenty Sided drinking game? How much do we drink if he mentions the original fallout?
Here I have to point out the plot hole/fridge logic/whatever in Mass Effect’s backstory. The Krogan’s impact on the story only makes sense because the writer indicates two dimensional thinking treats this like a land war. The Krogan being fast-breeding and good in a fistfight just shouldn’t matter in a setting with spaceships. Unless they’re also really good at setting up spaceship factories, they shouldn’t have had much to contribute in the Rachni war, and once the war was over how exactly did they threaten the existing races who all had established fleets and factories?
Maybe you could fix the problem by writing some codex entries about why actually this was like a land war, but instead the codex gives us dozens of pages on spaceship combat and nothing to suggest it would ever matter who has the best shock troops. By default, whoever has the better spaceships has air superiority and can bombard the surface of a planet from a safe distance: even if you can somehow land troops without winning the space battle, your troops are going to get vaporized from orbit.
This is something that’s bothered me about Mass Effect forever! Everything in every game is built around the idea that physical combat is the dominant method of warfare, even though that doesn’t make sense in the games setting.
Solarians are rubbish at fighting because they’re smart and fragile, Krogans are good because they’re dumb and strong. What?? How does that make sense in space.
The Rachni as you see them in these games are these vicious scuttling monsters – but what actually made them a threat is they’ve got fantastic shipyards.
Fantastic shipyards…and a hive mentality, and a massive workforce of drones who work all day every day.
As well as soldiers who wouldn’t think twice at kamikaze attacks or diving in front of the enemy’s guns if it helped the greater force.
They didn’t necessarily have the best spaceships, but I bet you they had the most spaceships in any war.
…which might even apply to the Krogan? Similar to Warhammer 40k’s Orks – Orks’ spaceships are terrible, but there’s just so MANY.
A traditional orky tactic (‘Tactikal Finkin’ ‘) is to attach crude spaceworthy engines to 100+ asteroids and then launch them at a planet – sure, some’ll get destroyed before they land, but not all. And each one is teeming with orks…
That could work for the Krogan? Though they definitely suffer from the Klingon scientist problem.
That might work. Some kind of equivalent of the basilisk drop ship. That’s a pretty important area to never even touch on though. I don’t think we see a Krogan ship in the entire game? And when we got to Tuchanka they’re struggling to maintain their all-terrain vehicles
It was obviously a land war. As far as we know, the Rachni don’t use spaceships (or at least not propietary ones) and they’re the invading force. Any air attack is only going to damage the surface of the planets populated by the invaded races, because that’s where the Rachni will be. Land war is simply the best choice, otherwise you’d be damaging your own home.
Sure, the US won against Japan by bombarding them with atomic bombs, but note how they used those bombs in Japan and not in US soil. And the US had the advantage of knowing where Japan was. When the Salarians opened the mass relay that led them to the Rachni world, the Rachni attacked long before they had a chance to study which worlds contained Rachni life, which would have taken at least several months of not being attacked, which was obviously not going to happen.
It was obviously a land war. As far as we know, the Rachni don’t use spaceships
What? How do you think they travel through space? This isn’t Stargate, they need some way of getting from their planets to our planets. And I’m pretty sure that the completely uncontacted race doesn’t somehow have a fleet of Generica-brand Alliance cargo vessels. This naturally leads to the question of “Why don’t our ships blow up their ships before they land on our planets?”, the obvious response is “because their ships blew up our ships”, and suddenly we have a conflict where technology and industrial base matters far more than how fast you breed or how well you can take a punch.
Rachni definitely was spacefaring race, that’s right.
Maybe they had a way to conceal their ships, they might be organic, non-detectable by some scanners, or visually might look like asteroids.
And the main advantage, that rachni had, they need to deliver one or few queens to the planet and they’ll have reinforcements as long, as queens are intact.
Well, I’ll agree that there is definitely lack of proper explanations in game for this, but it’s rather a shallow point in the lore and not a plot hole.
The Rachni were 100% a spacefaring race with their own fleet of starships. Think the Buggers/Formics from Ender’s Game (which it seems to me they were based on).
How much was discussed of the spaceships? I had it in my head that they space-traveled by some biological means like the Zerg.
To quote the wiki “The rachni used their extensive research on element zero to reverse-engineer the FTL drives of the explorers’ starships. They proceeded to construct FTL vessels of their own and rapidly expanded into the galaxy, ushering in the Rachni Wars.”
See, this is where Mass Effect is weird. In the game they present them as scary because they spit acid. In the lore the Rachni are scary because they’re good scientists.
Rachni are essentially arachnids from Starship Troopers. And we’ve seen in ME 1, that they can submerge under ground, and we’ve been told that they can survive in extreme conditions for a long time, so orbital bombardment isn’t the best measure against them. Also rachni were attacking Citadel worlds, and as I know bombardment of your own cities isn’t right thing to do.
Also as I understand, salarians gave krogans weapons and ships and they adopted technologies and start to produce their own equipment and vessels. And they had a lot of manpower and a lot of resources from the worlds, that was given to them.
The Krogan were “uplifted” which also means they were given the understanding of how to properly make/maintain spaceships. With the knowledge of how to do so and the resources available from fast colonization efforts, it seems that they had a fleet that was able to match the Turian/Salarian/Asari competition. Does that make perfect sense? Eh, maybe not, but my understanding is that the Krogan were bombing the home worlds of the other races or taking them over in ground war. Yeah, you could then orbital bombard your own planet that’s being invaded but… that’s clearly stupid and self defeating.
CountAccountant says:
The original Mass Effect did make an effort to address your concerns. They aren’t perfect explanations, and they are buried in codex entries, but they do exist. They may or may not satisfy your suspension of disbelief. I’m providing them as information in an attempt to be helpful.
According to the codex, the most destructive planetary bombardment doesn’t need fleets OR soldiers. It just involves towing an asteroid into a collision course with the planet. This is a war crime when used against habitable planets because it ruins the planet.
Fleets themselves are used to gain orbital superiority. They are not analogous to Earth fleets because the weaker fleet can always retreat with no consequences. You don’t (usually) destroy the enemy’s fleets, you just temporarily gain orbital superiority wherever your fleet happens to be.
Ground forces are needed to actually follow up on the advantage gained by the fleet and occupy the spaceports, industrial facilities, and major population centers. Kinetic bombardment is prohibited against habitable worlds because, again, it risks destroying the habitability of the planet. If you are willing to destroy the habitability of planet, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble and just used an asteroid.
The result is that war is a careful interaction of fleets, ground defenses, and reconnaissance. It may not be an air tight explanation, but at least it’s an explanation.
From the codex:
Battles in open space are short and often inconclusive, as the weaker opponent generally disengages.
Once a ship enters FTL flight the combat is effectively over; there are no sensors capable of tracking them, or weapons capable of damaging them. The only way to guarantee an enemy will stand and fight is to attack a location they have a vested interest in, such as a settled world or a strategically-important mass relay.
Planetary assaults are complicated if the target is a habitable garden world; the attackers cannot approach the defenders straight on.
The Citadel Conventions prohibit the use of large kinetic impactors against habitable worlds. In a straight-on attack, any misses plough into the planet behind the defending fleet. If the defenders position themselves between the attackers and the planet, they can fire at will while the attacker risks hitting the planet.
Successful assaults on garden worlds hinge upon up-to-date intelligence. Attackers need to determine where the enemy’s defenses are, so they may approach from an angle that allows them to fire with no collateral damage. Note this is not necessary for hostile worlds.
Once control of orbit has been lost, defensive garrisons disperse into the wilderness. An enemy with orbital superiority can bombard surface forces with impunity. The best option for defenders is to hide and collect reconnaissance in anticipation of relief forces.
Given the size of a planet, it is impractical to garrison entire conquered worlds. Fortunately, colonization efforts tend to focus on building up a dozen or fewer areas. Ground forces occupy the spaceports, industrial facilities, and major population centers. The wilderness is patrolled by unmanned aerial vehicles1 and satellite reconnaissance. If a defender unit is spotted, airmobile rapid deployment units and satellite artillery are used to pin down and destroy them.
I’m having trouble locating the codex entry on acceptable and unacceptable forms of planetary bombardment (e.g. asteroids) online, but I promise it existed when I played Mass Effect 1 in the codex itself.
Ah, here’s the entry on asteroids and other weapons of mass destruction. It was under “Citadel and Galactic Government” instead of “Space Combat”. Again, FYI only.
The Conventions regulate the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction. A WMD causes environmental alteration to a world. A bomb that produces a large crater is not considered a WMD; a bomb that causes a ‘nuclear winter’ is.
Use of WMD is forbidden on ‘garden’ worlds like Earth, with ecospheres that can readily support a population. If a habitable world is destroyed, it will not be replaced for millions of years. The Conventions do not forbid the use of WMD on hostile worlds or in sealed space-station environments. Many militaries continue to develop and maintain stockpiles.
The Conventions graded Weapons of Mass Destruction into tiers of concern; Tier I is the greatest threat to galactic peace.
TIER I: Large kinetic impactors, such as asteroid drops or de-orbiting space stations. Effectively free and available in any system (in the form of debris left over from planetary accretion), kinetic impactors are the weapon of choice for terrorists and ‘third galaxy’ nations.
TIER II: Uncontrolled self-replicating weapons, such as nanotechnology, viral or bacteriological organisms, ‘Von Neumann devices’, and destructive computer viruses. These weapons can lie dormant for millennia, waiting for a careless visitor to carry them on to another world.
TIER III: Large energy-burst weapons, such as nuclear or antimatter warheads.
TIER IV: Alien species deliberately introduced to crowd out native forms necessary for the health of an ecosystem. Ecological tampering can take years to bear fruit, making it difficult to prove.
Leviathan902 says:
Thanks for posting all this.
It’s SO FREAKING GOOD
GoStu says:
I don’t see this as a major plot hole, but I appreciate the chance to debate it.
I think the ME1 codex mentions something about space warfare in the setting: it’s pretty much impossible to force the other fleet to commit to it. Unlike other space-war settings where the rules are ambiguous (Star Wars, Star Trek) or there’s tech to make the other guy stand and fight a little (Elite), in Mass Effect fleets are pretty free to just go to FTL and run for a long time. Eventually they’ll have to discharge hull charge and take on supplies, but they can lead you on one hell of a merry chase. My conclusion: Scouring the Galaxy to purge every Krogan warship is not plausible.
So even if the Krogan aren’t great at making warships, they can make life hell for your civilians just about anywhere with guerrilla actions. The scale of the galaxy kind of prohibits keeping such a tight grip around every possible occupied planet that the Krogan could never slip a transport through, nor does it permit you to stop & search every ship to make sure it’s not a bunch of Krogan pretending to be someone else. They will get to your planets and civilian populations and they will make it a ground war unless you really feel like mucking up the entirety of intra-galactic trade and travel. Even if you patrol the Mass Relays, Krogan are long-lived and “conventional” FTL is a thing. You can go from one system to another the “hard way” and get there. (Cryo-sleep is a thing established in the setting too).
Space superiority in Mass Effect makes me think of air superiority in real life. You can bombard the hell out of an area, but you don’t own it until you’ve got infantry on it. The best you can do is render it uninhabitable – and guess what? The Krogan thrive on bombed-out hellscapes, unlike your own civilian population. So unless you’re prepared to meet them in ground combat and scour them off the surface of your worlds without turning it into smoking craters, you’re not going to be rid of them.
Devil’s advocate though: Maybe the authors really never thought of this. Seriously doubt the ME3 team would have, but I give a lot of credit to the ME1 writing team.
They should really hire Batman to write these long worldbuilding-based stories. He always has a plan for everything.
Well, if your intention was to fool me into re-reading your Mass Effect Retrospective for a third time, you might just have triumphed. Have you considered releasing it in audiobook form, though?
I think this is one of your best columns yet, Shamus.
I love your writing, because you make me see things in new ways and understand connections I never noticed even in works I am very familiar with. But I also tend to dread reading your perspectives on things that I love. There’s always a risk that I will never be able to enjoy it again once the veil has been lifted. You aren’t negative – you’re accurate, and that’s far worse for my ability to continue to enjoy something with previously unnoticed flaws.
This column is the best of both worlds. It brings your trademark Shamus insight in a way that makes me more excited about the subject instead of less. Very well done.
Trevor says:
I am also impressed with the way Mass Effect 1 introduces the world to you. As Shamus laid out here, the world building is great, but it also delivers it to the player in a great way. And this is all the more impressive because the world building about the Rachni and Genophage is not completely relevant to your quest to track down and stop Saren. The world of, e.g., Pillars of Eternity and other RPG worlds are similarly detailed, but BioWare outdoes all of them in ME1 because it did a really good job parceling out their world building.
There’s the Codex which they used a non-zero amount of budget to voice. Instead of just walls of text to read on your screen, there’s someone reading the big stuff to you (and I like the guy’s voice). That makes it much more dynamic and interesting than just a miniature book to read. They thought to separate the big stuff (which is voiced) and the filler or color stuff that is not, so if you’re not a completist you can still get a lot of the story by just listening to the audio entries. They have the Avinas you can interact with as you explore the Citadel who will infodump in the disguise of tourism. And then, as Shamus pointed out, you have your companions. BioWare did an excellent job layering in world building with their characters. If Wrex (Shepard) were just an encyclopedia of Krogan facts and history, he would be boring to talk to. But in his little stories he gives you bits of the world and its history and so the world is built for the player organically.
Man, I was really hoping that the link in “Any halfway successful game is going to have a sequel, whether it needs one or not” was going to lead to Kane & Lynch 2.
Geebs says:
Doom (2016) is Domino Worldbuilding with, like, two dominoes. Hell literally exists AND humanity are giant dumbasses THEREFORE…..
You are huge! THEREFORE you have huge guts!
Rip and tear!
Alberek says:
But I have some gripes
“Looking back, you can see that a lot of it was sort of inevitable” It’s kind of a weird way to look at history as a whole, deterministic if you will. Which in a way, I think, it’s opposite of what you are trying to say.
What makes ME1 so great is what makes any story great, it has well defined characters with personalities, goals and problems. And when you throw interesting characters at each other DRAMA happens…
Okay you probably need a backdrop for all the story to happen, the cultures, the places, the technology and weirds.
The thing is, the Mass Effect backstory wasn’t written the way you tell it, with “therefore”.
It was backwritten to meet the plot requirements: “We need a race of really violent but kinda dumb aliens, we’ve got this concept art, what made them really violent but kinda dumb? Why haven’t they taken over the universe already? We’ve got this idea for instant transport networks that the player can unlock and discover brand new areas… why hasn’t someone else already unlocked all of them?”
It’s still a backstory and world built to gameplay requirements, but with the added requirement “Must continue to make sense after it’s been questioned.” The key feature is that the writers specifically asked all of the questions you are asking about the world and altered the story to have satisfactory answers, and then left information about the answers around the world.
When refining a story in this manner, sometimes you have to unwrite large portions of the world, because the implications of the thing you wrote to justify one plot point or gameplay element end up conflicting with a different one in a way that’s hard to patch.
The same is true of (good) book plots/settings et al.
The writer (usually) has a particular story to tell, and so sets up the world so that story makes sense. If they’re really good, they can make the story they wanted to tell seem to be the almost-inevitable, yet non-obvious, result of the history they created without idiot balls or nonsequitors..
Backtracking the therefores and howevers is basically the only way to set up the world the way it needs to be for the story they’re trying to tell. The tough part is making sure each of desired trouserlegs of time the most probable, or at least pretty likely.
It’s almost always painfully obvious when a writer hasn’t done that – it makes the denoumént feel like a deus ex machina, or perhaps worse, “WTF didn’t [HERO/VILLIAN] do that earlier?”
I can handle some really unlikely results, as long as none of the mandatory results is missing.
Putting in the effort to establish a coherent setting… makes things easier when another writer takes over later.
Disagree. The more integrated you make the details of your setting, the harder it will be to integrate new things in the future. That’s what creates retcons. Making a sequel easier is just about leaving some loose ends.
Mako says:
Disagree right back. It’s just the matter of sticking to the established principles, and then the sequel basically writes itself. The hard part is to bother to be constrained by the guidelines laid by the original.
I’m with Mako. If the setting is well-written, integrating new things is easier because you already have ground rules. You can toss out all the characters, start the story 50 years down the line when the previous lot are passing into legend – and it’ll still work.
The real world has history and ground rules, yet all kinds of things really happen. New technology is invented, people justify inexcusable actions because of %possibly_misremembered_historical_event%…
FTL travel is possible, yet difficult – this immediately explains why anyone needs Mass Relays and why they’re possible to use in the first place.
Couple of Really Big things that could have been done in Mass Effect to create a new conflict:
– What if somebody figures out how to build a spacecraft that can FTL for noticably longer than before?
– What if somebody figures out how to build a Mass Relay?
Do you have an example of a domino story skipping ahead fifty years and still working?
The real world has glaring plot holes, contrivances, a bad habit of reusing old plots, and no idea when to stop introducing new characters. I don’t recommend it unless you’re getting it on sale.
The galactic races are established as not wanting to open existing relays because of the Rachni War, what would they want with a new one? It would have to either be the Krogan or the humans as the ones who don’t care about the Rachni, or someone specifically trying to chase down the Reapers. Krogans and humans doing it doesn’t compete with the previous story’s “blow up a Reaper to prevent galactic genocide”, so they’re trying to chase Reapers. I guess the conflict would be about whether they were indoctrinated or not and deciding whether to stop them.
So what’s the conflict for Part 3? Remember you’re competing with stuff like Conan the Barbarian and its fourteen hundred sequels. Conan’s setting is loose enough that you can just say “then he went over there” and do mostly whatever you want.
Off the top of my head, the four-part Hyperion Cantos – books 3 and 4 take place more than 200 years after the original. Some of the fans really dislike the latter books (although, going by review scores, they’re a minority), one of my favourite parts of books 3 and 4 is seeing how the world has changed in these 200 years, and how the new characters deal with it. It’s also really nice seeing what happened to the old characters – some are dead, and are now spoken of with reverence.
Agree with Mako, disagree with Syal.
If you have a comprehensive (and sensible) setting, it gives a lot of guidance to future writers if they want to use it. Setting up the factions, the resources, the history, and the like can half-write the story for you: a competent writer can pick up and make something that fits.
Video Game Analogy: An experienced Civilization player could tell you some very plausible stories of a game based solely on the map and the starting positions. If I see a long-term powerhouse sitting in rich land on turn 0, with an aggressive early civ sitting in comparatively poorer lands, I can come up with a narrative of how the aggressors attacked just to ensure they had a future. Or I could tell you a story about the rich society choosing to push around the poorer one, feeling threatened and jealously guarding what they had. In either case I can reach a coherent narrative, and someone seeing the general shape of things at any point could probably come to a similar story.
Tabletop Analogy: I DM a table of D&D and play at a couple others, and I can say with great confidence that these shared settings of the D&D worlds have lent themselves to great stories. The setting is established and the motives of factions are clear(ish) – so numerous authors, both professional and homebrewing amateur DMs, can tell a story from that strong framework a lot more easily and coherently than working from pure homebrew.
Agree with Mako.
But I should add, that we’re talking about good, solid writing in the first place. Which exclude needlessly overcomplex or convoluted ideas, that might hold next writer’s hand, I think.
True, it is also entirely possible for the first set of writers to completely screw over all that come after.
I’d say that more commonly done by either introducing glaring plot holes (if people can XXX, YYY makes no sense!), or by ‘destroying the universe’ – a denoumént that significantly breaks the setting (changes all the rules, kills everyone etc).
Both of those then have to be retconned for the next installment – ZZZ prevents XXX under certain circumstances, not everybody died, only one rule changed etc.
Which is often extremely difficult to do in a believable fashion.
I’m sensing Another Funeral for Mass Effect approaching…
Also, nitpick: using the post ME3/Andromeda image as a poster for krogan in an article singing the (well deserved) praises of ME1 feels wrong.
Speaking of Mass Effect, have they announced Andromeda 2 yet? Or was it ME4? Whichever.
They’re desperately trying to remake Anthem for unknown reasons, so no ME or DA in nearest future.
I’m willing to bet the reason is close to sunk loss fallacy from the higher ups. Our designated cash cow we sunk all this money into isn’t paying out, go fix it and quickly.
To some extent this, if we’ve already spent 100m dollars on this project it would really be a shame to drop it if all it needs is another patch, or a few more dungeons, or a new game mode that can be done fairly cheaply now that the assets, mechanics, engine, servers etc. are all in place. Also I have no insider knowledge but I think them liveservice games from big publishers tend to start with a buffer budget that can keep them going for even as much as a couple years, and since nobody wants to be the guy who pulls the plug they just kind of peter out with updates getting delayed, features getting canned, eventually the patching stopping and finally the servers getting quietly shut down by the point where pretty much nobody cares.
evileeyore says:
TFW Shamus doesn’t call it Sequential Worldbuilding.
This kind of worldbuilding is the difference between a STORY, and a PLOT. A story is just a sequence of events in chronological order (or maybe not even that). A PLOT is a LOGICAL series of INTERCONNECTED events that proceed step by logical step, therefore by therefore, consequence by consequence.
Stories are driven by outside events that may be causeless (the bad guy is just evil) or random (coincidence, accidents, etc.) Plots are driven by motivations, which are created by *ideas*.
Stories are about events. Plots are about IDEAS.
Tonich says:
Typo:
but the author also as a lot of other tools
I guess it should be “the author has”
Also, I saw this article published while I was having a discussion with a friend about game characters with backstories, and we were referring to Mass Effect… now I have a weird feeling of being watched. :)
MarsLineman says:
The below quoted/ linked article is about sociological vs psychological story-telling, and it neatly fits your definition of domino world-building (specifically sociological story-telling). Although the article is arguing the case that Game of Thrones shifted from sociological story-telling to psychological (when the books ran out), this argument could easily be applied to the Mass Effect trilogy (ME1 = sociological, ME2-3 = psychological)
“At its best, GOT was a beast as rare as a friendly dragon in King’s Landing: it was sociological and institutional storytelling in a medium dominated by the psychological and the individual. This structural storytelling era of the show lasted through the seasons when it was based on the novels by George R. R. Martin, who seemed to specialize in having characters evolve in response to the broader institutional settings, incentives and norms that surround them.
After the show ran ahead of the novels, however, it was taken over by powerful Hollywood showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Some fans and critics have been assuming that the duo changed the narrative to fit Hollywood tropes or to speed things up, but that’s unlikely. In fact, they probably stuck to the narrative points that were given to them, if only in outline form, by the original author. What they did is something different, but in many ways more fundamental: Benioff and Weiss steer the narrative lane away from the sociological and shifted to the psychological. That’s the main, and often only, way Hollywood and most television writers tell stories.
This is an important shift to dissect because whether we tell our stories primarily from a sociological or psychological point of view has great consequences for how we deal with our world and the problems we encounter.”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/
I have an issue with the whole idea of separating sociological and psychological storytelling. Personal growth, drama between characters, etc. all this can be considered “psychological storytelling”, or drama-first approach, as we knew it. But it should have “sociological” elements as background, or to be more precise, as a context of characters interactions, feelings and emotions. Almost the same goes for the opposite, without compelling characters, developing in response to environment they put in, we have no vessel to experience this environment, no matter how detailed and thought-out it is.
Also I have even bigger issue with soap opera-esque writing being called “psychological”.
Hm. Article even says the same thing, almost as I did. I think here is the flaw in it, author tries to give a broad social commentary in a click-bait article and whole point about storytelling became muddled.
If I remember correctly, somewhere on this site Shamus already wrote about difference between drama-first and details-first approaches and how writer can’t switch between two in the middle of the story. And, I think, everybody agree, that one type is neither worse nor has more tropes, than the other.
Only thing I have to add to conclude, that I think, full drama-first storytelling is more suited for relatively short, self-contained stories within established and well-known settings.
That was a very interesting article, thanks for linking it.
This is very interesting – the “therefore vs and then” is one of those things I knew subconsciously on some level in terms of story structure at least, if not world-building, and this articulates it nicely.
I managed to guess several of the links this time :D Fellowship otR is a masterpiece of an introduction. Especially as the book itself dragged greatly for the first 40-100 pages. I wonder if there is any similarity in its structure to The Good the Bad the Ugly – possibly the only film I’d ‘rank’ even higher than FotR.
This morning I was thinking I’m sure that is the case in how the Sequel Trilogy felt to me. A lot of things happening a propos of nothing. Or at least as the Mr Plinkett review pointed out the ‘therefore’s rely on character foolishness.
Zekiel says:
Hooray! I love Shamus detailing why he likes something even more than I love him complaining.
This made me think about why I enjoyed Pillars of Eternity so much. I understand the criticisms that the worldbuilding isn’t presented in the greatest way, but the backstory itself is brilliant. Its not Standard Fantasy Europe. Instead we have Fantasy America, which the Fantasy European analogues colonised hundreds of years ago, predictably leading to conflict with the natives. And not just one war either, two distinct wars, with different (believable) triggers. Plus the Colonists declaring independence from their forebear nation. And a really interesting war in the recent past. And all of these bits of history affect the companions, and the factions you interact with.
Interesting. I never got that much of a sense that the world was that coherent. I loved Pillars because it came up with a central theme – finding meaning in a complicated, fundamentally meaningless world – and stuck with it.
The sidequests, the companion characters, it all stuck to that main issue, constantly re-examining it.
Obsidian did a good job of not making the different nations / countries contradict each other, but to me it always seemed like a fairly standard grab-bag of your basic fantasy tropes (unsurprising, givn the way the game was Kickstarted).
Sure, they put a new spin on their dwarves, elves and halflings…but they’re still dwarves, elves and halflings at the end of the day.
Wednesday Jan 15, 2020 at 12:41 pm
Oh absolutely. I could happily have done with them cutting dwarves and elves; humans, Orlan and aumaua (?) would have been great. I think the fantasy world is refreshing because it has character but doesn’t fall into the old fantasy-Europe schtick.
But I’m probably overly generous to it… I don’t think it’s as clever as Mass Effect 1’s.
I keep seeing that argument about “boring Standard Fantasy Europe” on and on. So I have a question, did we actually have that many game settings in it in last 15 years? And more important, what games, except Witcher series, and maybe to some extent DA:Origins have done “Standard Fantasy Europe” right? By right, I mean something more elaborate than “It’s a castle, there’s a knights and here’s some magic, now go and kill something”.
Mike P. says:
Late to the party here, but as someone who really enjoys coherent worldbuilding, I should suggest you play some of the “Trails” (meta)series of JRPGs; Unlike many games these days, they actually use the same setting, history, and sometimes characters not only across multiple games but across multiple…sub-series? Their writing is pretty much their strongest selling point. Characters. World. Plotting.
Sure, they’re linear games and there are sometimes anime tropes. But so what? If you’re looking for games that take worldbuilding seriously, they’re top of the class.
pseudonym says:
Friday Jan 17, 2020 at 12:47 am
Hey, seems your comment was posted, but not visible at the time when I posted. Thanks for the suggestion.
What I like about good writing is that it allows to emerge myself in another world. Mass effect had that quality, but also the Harry Potter books for example. So any linearity is not really a problem for me. I will check it out. Thanks again!
For maximum story goodness, I recommend starting at the beginning, with Trails in the Sky FC (“First Chapter”); But if that feels too dated (which it does for some people, though I think it holds up pretty well) then the other logical entry point is Trails of Cold Steel 1. Both are available on Steam, and Skies will run on basically any PC that runs Windows, while… actually, honestly, so will Cold Steel at this point.
The feeling when playing mass effect is so unforgettable. There was lore everywhere: in planet descriptions, party banter in the elevator, terminal entries, codex entries, planet descriptions, conversations. It had great replay value, even for completionists. There were always parts of the conversation tree left to discover, or party banter unheard as you can only take two party members etc.
Nothing compares! A true sequel was never made.
Ther is another game with a 2000 years backstory: Kingdoms of Amalur – Reckoning. Before the game was created, Gathering of Developers (GoD) created the world with roughly 2000 years of history, hoping to make a lot of games in this world. Tough luck: It wasn’t presented very well with no rememberable characters. The game was fun for a while (and stretched out at the end), but soon to be forgotten as the credits rolled. GoD quitted and there weren’t any Kingdoms of Amalur games made since.
Kingdoms of Amalur was a decent game, but it sure made me appreciate games like Dark Souls or Dragon’s Dogma that keeps all that history shit to the minimum. Amalur clearly wanted to show that work they put into the world, so every single character just kept presenting lore exposition.
Mass Effect did it well, ’cause while they sat down and thought about the world, you can learn about most stuff fairly organically. If you just play through the story, what happened in the past informs everyone’s actions here so it all feels relevant. And it’s kept to a handful of events without even any names to keep track of outside of the races. It showed remarkable restraint for a talky trekky RPG – besides the whole Citadel section early on where it’s easy to get sidetracked listening to people tell you everything about the universe, Amalur-style.
I always thought Mass Effect’s background story was good, but not as good as people make it out to be. And I stand by that.
Because I don’t compare it to Rage, I compare it to The Commonwealth Saga. Or Mistborn. Or Old Man’s War.
In case these titles don’t ring a bell: These are multi-volume book series by somewhat famous Sci-Fi/Fantasy authors. They are all easily at the same level of Mass Effect. It’s not that Mass Effect is bad. It’s about as good as a decent book. That’s of course heads and shoulders above 99% of games, but it’s not superb. It’s only good.
I don’t think this kind of world-building deserves a special name, because this is just basic writing. After you know how grammar works, this is how you write any kind of fictional story.
Timothy Coish says:
It’s way too late to comment on this, so I won’t go much in depth, but it’s worth mentioning that the early part of Game of Thrones was exactly like this. All these forces in the world, great houses, personalities, militaries, supernatural forces. And you can see them shape the world like erosion slowly shapes the landscape. It just felt very real, and sort of like the conflict or at least the setup to the conflict was very real.
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The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork
This is an excellent collection of papers which celebrates the best of traditional approaches to fieldwork, whilst also looking to its future. The Handbook will quickly become essential reading for the novice and experienced fieldworker across many of the social sciences' - Chris Pole, University of Leicester. Fieldwork is widely practiced but little written about, yet accounts of the exotic, mundane, complex and often dangerous are central to not only sociology and anthropology but also geography, social psychology and criminology. In all these - increasingly overlapping - fields, experience underlies any comprehensive understanding of social life. The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork presents the first major overview of this method in all its variety, introducing the reader to the strengths, weaknesses, and 'real world' applications of fieldwork techniques. Its 22 carefully chosen chapters are each based on a substantive field of empirical enquiry, written by an acknowledged expert in the field. The range is impressive: from the traditional to the virtual, concerning subjects as diverse as emotion, sexuality, sport, embodiment, identity, self-narrative, fieldwork in organizations, science and technology. Specifically intended for use in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in qualitative research design and methodology in sociology, anthropology, criminology, urban studies, social geography, public health and education, the handbook will also prove beneficial to academic researchers in these and other disciplines.
icon backBack to table of contents
Knowing Sexuality: Epistemologies of Research
By: CHRIS HAYWOOD & MAIRTIN MAC AN GHAILL
In:The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork
Subject:Field Research, Research Methods for Criminology & Criminal Justice (general)
Keywords:empiricism; epistemology; lesbianism; sexual activity; sexuality; sexuality research; standpoint
[Page 184][Page 185]
CHRISHAYWOOD AND ...
Fieldwork on Urban Male Homosexuality in Mexico
Researching Sex Work: Dynamics, Difficulties and Decisions
HAYWOOD, C., & AN GHAILL, M. (2006). Knowing sexuality: Epistemologies of research. SAGE Publications Ltd, https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848608085
HAYWOOD, CHRIS, and MAIRTIN MAC AN GHAILL The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork. : SAGE Publications Ltd, 2006. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848608085.
HAYWOOD, C. and AN GHAILL, M., 2006. The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork. : SAGE Publications Ltd. Available at: <https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848608085> [Accessed 1 Feb 2023].
HAYWOOD, CHRIS and MAIRTIN MAC AN GHAILL. The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork. : SAGE Publications Ltd, 2006. SAGE Knowledge, 1 Feb 2023, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848608085.
HAYWOOD, CHRIS, and MAIRTIN MAC AN GHAILL. The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork : SAGE Publications Ltd; 2006. doi:10.4135/9781848608085
https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-handbook-of-fieldwork/n12.xml
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Brownstone » Brownstone Institute Articles » The Economic Meltdown Has Roots in Lockdown
The Economic Meltdown Has Roots in Lockdown
By Jeffrey A. Tucker June 13, 2022 June 14, 2022 Economics 7 minute read
American’s capacity for denial is truly a thing to behold. For at least 27 months, it should have been obvious that we were headed for a grave crisis. Not only that: the crisis was already here in March 2020.
For weird reasons, some people, many people, imagined that governments could just shut down an economy and turn it back on without consequence. And yet here we are.
Historians of the future, if there are any intelligent ones among them, will surely be aghast at our astounding ignorance. Congress enacted decades of spending in just two years and figured it would be fine. The printing presses at the Fed ran at full tilt. No one cared to do anything about the trade snarls or supply-chain breakages. And here we are.
Our elites had two years to fix this unfolding disaster. They did nothing. Now we face terrible, grim, grueling, exploitative inflation, at the same time we are plunging into recession again, and people sit around wondering what the heck happened.
I will tell you what happened: the ruling class destroyed the world we knew. It happened right before our eyes. And here we are.
Last week, the stock market reeled on the news that the European Central Bank will attempt to do something about the inflation wrecking markets. So of course the financial markets panicked like an addict who can’t find his next hit of heroin. This week already began with more of the same, for fear that the Fed will be forced to rein in its easy-money policy event further. Maybe, maybe not; but recession appears impending regardless.
The bad news is everywhere. Even in the midst of very tight labor markets and very low unemployment (mostly mythical when you consider labor force participation), companies have started to lay off workers. Why? To prepare for recession and the prospect of more economic chaos ahead.
High-flying tech giants are curbing their enthusiasm too. Facebook apparently got tricked into paying big-time news outlets to let FB users have free access to articles — no doubt to those that reinforced government propaganda, since Mark Zuckerberg volunteered his entire company to be messengers for the regime back in 2020. FB got robbed and is now rethinking. No more freebies.
This might as well be the theme of American life. No more charity. No more kindness. No more doing something for nothing. In inflationary times, everyone becomes more grasping. Morality takes a back seat and generosity is no more. It’s every man for himself. This can only get more brutal.
There was something of a psychological break last Friday on the news of the CPI. It was not better than last month. It was not the same as last month. It was worse: 8.6% year-over-year, the worst it has been in 40 years. Honestly, everyone sort of knew this already in their heart of hearts but there is something about the official announcement that codified it.
But let’s say we stack the data at two years rather than one year. What does it look like? It comes in at 13.6%. We have never seen anything like that. And it is truly starting to hurt as never before. Gas is above $5 and rents are more than $2,000 a month on average. The raises at work have stopped coming too. On the contrary, employers are expecting more productivity for ever less money in real terms.
Prices have a very long way to go to wash out the paper sloshing around the world economy. Here is the wave of printing compared with current price trends. No way is this getting better before it gets much worse.
Put it all together, especially with declining financials, along with supply-chain breakages and other economic dislocations, and this is why it feels like the walls are closing in. It’s because they are. And there truly is no way out for anyone at this point.
No one should be shocked by any of this. It was all in the cards, an outcome guaranteed by ghastly policy over two presidential administrations, all enacted by a government that knows nothing about economics and cares nothing for basic commercial and human rights. You dispense with these things and you court disaster.
And this is how you get the worst consumer confidence rating ever recorded.
What makes today different from the 1970s is the pace at which this has all unfolded. Even a year ago, administration officials were claiming that everything would be just fine. Many people believed them, despite every bit of data pointing to exactly the opposite. Truly it feels like our lords and masters believe that their fantasies are more reality than reality itself. They say it and it somehow becomes true.
Can you imagine that only last month, the Biden administration concocted the idea of establishing a “Disinformation Governance Board”? It was designed to script the truth to all social media and mainstream media outlets, censoring all dissent. The plan blew up only because it was too overtly Orwellian for public consumption. What matters here is the intent, which is nothing short of totalitarian.
Politics is good fun for many people, a real sport and a good distraction from real life. But politics becomes a very serious business once personal finance makes the good life ever less viable. Right now everyone is searching for someone to blame and most people have hit on the old guy in the White House, who they somehow believe should do something about all these problems despite a lifelong career of knowing nothing and doing nothing about anything.
What an astounding thing to see unfold before our eyes, and so quickly! The “malaise” of 1979 was a long time coming but the meltdown of 2022 has hit many people like a hurricane that somehow evaded detection from the radar. And yet it might be far from over.
In 2020 and following, money appeared like magic in bank accounts all over the country. A third of the workforce had gotten used to languishing at home, pretending to work. Students started Zooming instead of learning. Adults who had spent a lifetime embracing the normal disutilities of labor gained for the first time a vision of a life of luxury without work.
One result was a huge boom in personal savings, if only for a brief time. Some of the money was spent on Amazon, streaming services, and food delivery but also much of it landed in bank accounts as people started saving money as never before, most likely because the opportunities to spend on entertainment and travel dried up. Personal savings soared to over 30 percent. It felt like we were all rich!
That feeling could not last. Once the economy opened up again, and people were ready to get out and spend their new riches, a strange new reality presented itself. The money they thought they had was worth far less. Also there were strange shortages in goods they once took for granted. Their new riches turned into vapor in a matter of months, with each month worse than the previous month.
As a result, people had to deplete their savings and turn to debt finance just to keep up with the decline in purchasing power, even as their income in real terms turned dramatically south. In other words, government took away what it gave.
The long period of denial seems suddenly over. People of all political persuasions are fuming in anger. The crime everywhere these days is not incidental or accidental. It is a mark of civilizational decline. Something has to give and will give at some point. The ruling class in this country and their friends around the world have caused tremendous wreckage.
Here is the purchasing power of the dollar since 2018. Behold what our rulers have done!
And yet, what do our rulers have to say to us? They tell us to rely more on wind and sun — Janet Yellen’s exact words to the Senate last week. I used to think she was a smart cookie but I guess power turns even good minds to mush. Mush is exactly what they have created out of a once prosperous and hopeful nation.
The most frustrating aspect of all of this is the rampant failure to connect cause and effect. The cause should be clear: this was all kicked off by the most egregious, arrogant, irresponsible, foolhardy, and brutal policies ever perpetrated on the whole of American life, all in the name of disease control. I’ve yet to see evidence that any of the people and agencies who did this to us are willing to reassess their decisions. Quite the contrary.
There must be a reckoning. It was not the poor, the working classes, or the person on the street who did this. These policies were not an act of nature. They were never even voted upon by legislatures. They were imposed by men and women with unchecked administrative power under the mistaken belief that they had it all under control. They never did and they do not now.
The West Must Never Again Go Totalitarian
By Joakim Book / January 26, 2023 January 26, 2023 / Economics, Policy
We might still have food on the shelves — though of worse quality and at much higher prices. We might still have the ability to…
Where Did All the Workers Go?
By Bret Swanson / January 20, 2023 January 20, 2023 / Economics
How can you generate far more deaths in 2021 – ascribing them to unvaccination – with a dramatically smaller number of unvaccinated people? In 2021,…
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Politics & Economy
Zitamar Daily Briefing, 31 January
Maputo port’s record cargo reflects South Africa’s freight turmoil
Insurgents come in peace to Mocímboa da Praia village
Intelligent news from Mozambique
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Eni publishes new offshore tender as project approval nears
Eni published two new tenders for companies to support its operations offshore Mozambique in the…...
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8. December, 2015 1
New country head for Eni Mozambique as Trilli heads for the US
Eni, the operator of Offshore Area 4 in the Rovuma Basin, will welcome new country…...
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27. January, 2023
Analysis: IS-M propaganda highlights insurgents’ own deficiencies
World Bank digs deep to fund private deals in Mozambique gas-to-power
Rwanda’s Mozambique deployment expands to southern Cabo Delgado
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The Amazing Race 19
Amazing Race unbelievably wins another Emmy
The Amazing Race won its eighth Emmy for outstanding reality TV competition last night, its streak interrupted only by Top Chef‘s win last fall that suggested members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences might actually started watching reality television. This year, the CBS reality competition’s all-star season beat Top Chef, which had a …
Read More about Amazing Race unbelievably wins another Emmy
Amazing Race cast announced along with a new game element, the hazard
The cast of The Amazing Race 19 was announced this morning, and it includes, as we’ve known since June, Survivor winners Ethan Zohn and Jenna Morasca. The race debuts Sept. 25 and will also feature two new elements: a double elimination and an element called the hazard. The cast of 11 teams includes other “teams …
Read More about Amazing Race cast announced along with a new game element, the hazard
Survivor’s Ethan Zohn, Jenna Morasca on Amazing Race 19
Survivor winners and couple Ethan Zohn and Jenna Morasca are among the teams racing on The Amazing Race 19, which started production yesterday. This is the second crossover between the two shows; the first was Rob Mariano and Amber; Big Brother‘s Jeff Schroeder and Jordan Lloyd raced during season 16, and we’ll just pretend Alison …
Read More about Survivor’s Ethan Zohn, Jenna Morasca on Amazing Race 19
Phil Keoghan stays on as Amazing Race host, adds executive producer credit
Phil Keoghan will stay on as host of The Amazing Race, and as part of that deal, he has become a co-executive producer of the show and signed a development deal with CBS. Like Jeff Probst, whose behind-the-scenes work on Survivor has led him to now share billing on the show with the executive producer …
Read More about Phil Keoghan stays on as Amazing Race host, adds executive producer credit
Amazing Race has been renewed, but it should be cancelled (temporarily)
CBS has renewed The Amazing Race for a 19th season. This is not a surprise: the one-season order is typical for the series, and the show is doing well, and CBS noted in the press release that the fall season “[matched] the prior year in viewers while posting gains in both adults 25-54 (+2%) and …
Read More about Amazing Race has been renewed, but it should be cancelled (temporarily)
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HomeGaming‘Undead Horde 2: Necropolis’ Coming to PC, Consoles, and Mobile Next Year
‘Undead Horde 2: Necropolis’ Coming to PC, Consoles, and Mobile Next Year
Developer 10tons Ltd. is probably most well-known for their extensive library of excellent top-down shooters, and I am for sure a fan of pretty much all of those, but when it comes down to picking my all-time favorite game from them that honor has to go to Undead Horde. Ok, mayyybe Dysmantle would actually take that crown, but I can’t deny just how much fun I had with Undead Horde when it launched for mobile back in 2019. It’s an action RPG where you play as a Necromancer who can raise the dead and command them to do your bidding for you in a war against the living. It’s part action game as you can hack and slash your way through enemies, and part strategy game as you direct your undead horde into battles in a very lightweight real-time strategy way. The mashup of genres actually works very well together, and we picked Undead Horde as our Game of the Week when it hit mobile a few years back.
Now this week 10tons is finally lifting the lid off of an ambitious sequel titled Undead Horde 2: Necropolis. The basic premise is the same but there are three major areas where Undead Horde 2 expands upon the original. First, and possibly most exciting, is that you aren’t limited to reanimating the same enemy type that you just defeated. There’s now something called a “Raise Wheel" that lets you decide what class of undead you’d like to raise and add to your army. This opens up all sorts of strategic possibilities and leads to the game’s second big difference which is in variety of unit types. There will be more than a dozen unit types ranging from the more standard like skeletons and zombies all the way to more exotic units like hierophants, liches and death knights.
The third major change in Undead Horde 2 is right there in its subtitle: Necropolis. Whereas in the first game you had a central hub area that was sort of an underground crypt, in this sequel you’ll get an entire city called Necropolis. The living have razed Necropolis to the ground and stolen all of the souls of the undead citizens (those jerks!) and so throughout the game you’ll be slowly rebuilding and repopulating the city. Each new building your revitalize will also award some type of benefit like new abilities, perks, or stat bonuses in addition to just making the city seem more lively. Heh, imagine that, a city of undead being described as lively.
You can find all of these details and more in the announcement on the Undead Horde 2 Steam page, and there you’ll also find a link to the Discord server for the game where 10tons will eventually be looking for alpha testers for the PC version. The plan as of now is to get an Early Access version out on Steam before the end of the year, with the full game launching on PC and consoles sometime in 2023. And then of course bring out a mobile version sometime after console and PC, which in the past has usually only been a matter of months in between. If you have somehow not played the first Undead Horde yet it’s an easy recommendation from me and it’s available on pretty much every platform, and keep an eye out for Undead Horde 2: Necropolis when it launches sometime next year.
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Hon Julia Gillard (Ducere)
Holding Redlich - Level 8, 555 Bourke Street Melbourne, 3000 Melbourne
Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 6:00 PM (AEST)
To celebrate our new global education partnership with Ducere - an online education startup with the content taught by the world's greatest leaders we are proud to announce our launch event with Australia's first Female Prime Minister - Hon Julia Gillard
We are kicking off the partnership with the ENTREPRENEURS MINI MASTERS (Sept. 30th @Collective Campus) this is a workshop brought to you by Ducere valued at $299 that we are offering to Startup Grind for $149 and including a ticket to Startup Grind x Hon Julia Gillard on August 27th!!!
BUT THIS IS AN INTIMATE EVENT AND LIMITED TO 60 SPOTS SO BE QUICK!! THE ENTREPRENEURS MINI-MASTERS AGENDA: - Trend Analysis - Opportunity Identification - Rapid Bus Model Prototyping - Guerilla Marketing - Pitch Preparation This 3 hour workshop gets you a new venture business model with a draft pitch for investment. Materials developed and supported by insight from Entrepreneurial Leaders such as Founders of SEEK, 500 Startups and Atari.
Admired across the rank and file for being intelligent, clear thinking and politically strategic and for her effectiveness on her feet, Julia Gillard was the first and, to date, only female Australian Prime Minister. As Prime Minister and in her previous role as Deputy Prime Minister, Gillard was central to the successful management of Australia’s economy during the Global Financial Crisis and as Australia positioned to seize the benefits of Asia’s rise. Gillard developed Australia’s guiding policy paper, Australia in the Asian Century. She delivered nation- changing policies including reforming Australia education at every level from early childhood to university education, creating an emissions trading scheme, improving the provision and sustainability of health care, aged care and dental care, commencing the nation’s first ever national scheme to care for people with disabilities and restructuring the telecommunications sector as well as building a national broadband network. In foreign policy, Gillard strengthened Australia’s alliance with the United States, secured stronger architecture for the relationship with China, upgraded Australia’s ties with India, and deepened ties with Japan, Indonesia and South Korea. Gillard has represented Australia at the G20, including winning Australia’s right to host the 2014 meeting, the East Asia Summit, APEC, NATO-ISAF and chaired CHOGM. Under Gillard’s leadership, Australia was elected to serve on the United Nations Security Council. In 2014, Gillard was appointed chair of the Global Partnership for Education, a leading organization dedicated to expanding access and quality education worldwide. In February 2015, Gillard was appointed Chancellor of Dūcere, Australia’s leading education provider for business and management courses from Diploma levels through to a world’s first MBA program. On her appointment Gillard said ‘the connection between higher education, industry and government is vital to the future success of academic institutions. So too are the links between academic underpinning and real world learning at all levels of education which is one of the main reasons for my involvement with Ducere’.
Hon Julia Gillard
Ducere
Thursday, Aug 27
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM (AEST)
Level 8, 555 Bourke Street
Level 8, 555 Bourke Street Melbourne, 3000
Chris Joannou
DREAMPUSHERS
Chapter Director
Mohammad Akmal Rakib
APAC Startup Grind Australia
Daniel Malkinson
ASX is excited to be partnering with Startup Grind. Startups are essential to the future economic growth and prosperity of the nation, so it is important that ASX, as Australia’s primary capital market, plays its part in supporting the ecosystem. The ASX market gives companies exposure to a broad investor base in Australia and across the world; over 2,100 listed companies access retail and institutional investors to help them achieve their growth ambitions. We look forward to sharing in your growth stories and hope that you follow in the footsteps of many other great companies by listing and raising capital on ASX. Find out more at www.asx.com.au/listings
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Jets back york feel that continuity Wood’s
– Ryan Garcia dazzles when the lights shined the brightest.
Shaqiri’s perfectly-weighted pass split the defence and Andy Robertson crossed into the middle for Firmino to finish.
”Overall, we’re trending the right way.
Cliff Pu, Sam Miletic and Max Jones all served as alternates and – they too – were shipped out of town.
And they know that playing Shane Dowling in a two-man full forward line – like they did out of necessity against Clare – is not going to work if you expect him to come out the field and win his own ball.
The win marked Machida’s fourth in a row and makes him 26 in his career.
I think he is showing us that he will be a good football player.
The beauty of it is, if you have a traditional arena, it would dominate the landscape and overtake the campus, DeBonis says.
4 team in the Eastern Conference and facing the No.
William Byron will start second.
However, if utilized properly Oliver can be a unique, dynamic weapon in the front seven due to a rare blend of athleticism and quickness.
If the Sharks want two of the three, the trimming is modest.
They tried to beat him to spots.
According to Synergy’s database, the Rockets superstar is posting an incredible 1 points per possession when he takes a shot in an iso.
Walker has been a mixed bag chasing shooters around staggered screens, alternating instances where he’s struggled to negotiate picks with highlights where he covers a lot of ground in a split-second and explodes off two feet to block jumpers – saving final possessions in the games against Florida State and Louisville.
He wants to make sure he plays, and I’m sure he will.
There are certainly roles Bradley fits into in which he’s extremely helpful, but those aren’t quite the plug and play type ones his reputation suggests.
https://www.elitenfljerseyswholesale.com signed to Tennessee’s active roster Saturday, John Glennon of The Athletic reports.
Don’t expect them to be playing elsewhere next year.
We got some good weather.
True, the Cowboys are guilty as charged for not having that position stocked sufficiently to at least somewhat survive.
At least not yet.
is starting at third https://www.viajerobloguero.com and batting eighth in Sunday’s game against the Cardinals.
U20 Euro Championship B.
The fictional pound for pound rankings have always been of great interest and a talking point for fight fans across the globe.
It was the most important game of the campaign for the team as it needed to win in regulation to advance to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
He has waited patiently for this moment.
I don’t sense there’s going to be an offensive overhaul.
We need more production, for sure.
Fleury may still be one https://www.jmbanknotes.com fastest goalies in the NHL, but playing consistently beyond the edges of his crease, both in terms of being above the blue ice and beyond his posts laterally, leaves more distance to cover when the puck is moved from one side to the other.
A suite for a 2018 Avalanche game brought in the most money during the https://www.interzem.com auction, as it went for $4.
Brown said he didn’t want to do that, especially on the first night of a back-to-back but felt he needed to.
Kind of slowed will start soreness Jaleel Johnson Womens Jersey
Welker have told afar admired to account Frank Gore Authentic Jersey
Radio icon rewind icon right then 16 first Dimitri Patterson Youth jersey
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Nemean Meteor?
An item up at Fortean Times about Ernst Chladni caught my eye a couple of days ago because it included this paragraph:
In fairness to the Age of Reason’s meteorite debunkers, an awful lot of superstition and folk tales fell from the sky. The large meteor that came down on Ensisheim, Alsace, in 1492 was housed in the local church as an example of the “wrath of God”, while practically any stones that looked odd – from fossil shark’s teeth to prehistoric flint tools – were touted as “thunderstones” that had fallen during thunderstorms. The statue of the goddess Diana at Ephesus (probably carved from a meteorite) “fell from the sky”, as did the Nemean Lion, which Hercules had to defeat as the first of his 12 Labours (an association preserved in the constellation of Leo and the Leonid meteor shower). The Council of Claremont in France, which proclaimed the First Crusade in 1095, was preceded by portents including an ominous shower of meteors.
via: Meteor Man | Fortean Times
We should point out that the claim about the image of Diana ‘falling from the sky’ only appears in the Acts of the Apostles (19.35), as far as I’m aware, and otherwise I think the image most of us associate with Ephesus was originally made of wood. The second assertion made above — about the Nemean Lion somehow being associated with a meteor shower — is a new one to me, although one can follow a line of thinking which would go something like: Constellation Leo (which the Greeks associated with the Nemean Lion) -> Leonid meteor shower -> Nemean Lion as meteorite. Fred Schaff’s The Starry Room mentions in passing:
Gertrude and James Jobes mention a version of the tale of Hercules in which his foe the Nemean Lion is said to have fallen from the moon (“in the form of a meteor”, the Jobeses write).
This is presumably from the Jobes’ Outer Space: Myths, Names, Meanings, Calendars, which I do not have access to. Has anyone read of a version of the Nemean Lion tale which does make this lion-meteorite connection?
And nobody will really know where lieth those little things with the sort of raffia work base, that has an attachment …
ANA-MPA just set the record, I think, for vagueness in archaeological reporting:
A clay vessel and a large fragment of pottery were located at the bottom of the sea by two foreign nationals on board the French flag leisure boat “ISALIO” that had anchored at Garitsa Bay off the Ionian Sea island of Corfu.
The findings were brought to the surface on Tuesday after the local Coast Guard was informed of the discovery and will be handed over to the responsible authorities.
via Foreign tourists discovered antiquities in the sea region of Corfu.
Another Cleopatra Beauty Secret?
We’ve heard of assorted beauty secrets from the Egyptian queen before, but this one is — as far as I can tell — absolutely new:
The cosmetics industry is always creating rejuvenation and beauty products. Historical beauty icons often provide inspiration for new formulas to be created. Such is the case of gold lifting, a treatment inspired in one of the rituals of Egyptian queen Cleopatra. “Some historical records show that she used to sleep wearing a gold mask to prevent aging,” says cosmetologist Jana?na Lacava, who is in charge of development and treatment at the Deep Laser advanced aesthetics centre, in the city of Sao Paulo.
… and absolute B.S..
As Fair As Cleopatra.
Citanda: The Deadly Styx River and the Death of Alexander
I don’t think we mentioned that, subsequent to all the news coverage about the possible poisoning of Alexander, Adrienne Mayor’s ‘working paper’ on the subject became available at the Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics site:
The Deadly Styx River and the Death of Alexander (pdf)
Here’s the abstract:
Plutarch, Arrian, Diodorus, Justin, and other ancient historians report that rumors of
poisoning arose after the death of Alexander in Babylon in 323 BC. Alexander’s close
friends suspected a legendary poison gathered from the River Styx in Arcadia, so
corrosive that only the hoof of a horse could contain it. It’s impossible to know the real
cause of Alexander’s death, but a recent toxicological discovery may help explain why
some ancient observers believed that Alexander was murdered with Styx poison. We
propose that the river harbored a killer bacterium that can occur on limestone rock
deposits. This paper elaborates on our Poster presentation, Toxicological History Room,
XII International Congress of Toxicology, Barcelona, 19-23 July 2010, and Society of
Toxicology Annual Meeting, Washington DC, March 2011.
CONF: Clash of the Titans – Leeds colloquium
Seen on Classicists (please send any responses to the people/institution mentioned in the post, not to rogueclassicism!)
In the week of its official DVD release, the Classics Department at the University of Leeds is pleased to ‘Release the Kraken’ with a half-day colloquium on Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans on Friday, 29 October 2010.
Schedule and details of speakers are given below:
12.00 – 12.30 p.m.: Coffee in Staff Common Room (Parkinson 119)
12.30 – 12.40 p.m.: Welcome (Steve Green)
12.45 – 1.30 p.m.: Steven Green ( Leeds)
Between Heaven and Earth: Perseus and the Triumph of Humanity
1.45 – 2.30 p.m.: Gideon Nisbet (Birmingham)
God Mode: Unlocking Clash of the Titans with Sony’s God of War
2.45 – 3.30 p.m.: Dunstan Lowe (Reading)
"What do we need the gods for?" Olympian Mythology in 21st century
3.45 – 4.30 p.m.: Concluding Discussion and Future Developments
4.30 – 6.30 p.m.: Drinks and Early Dinner
There is no fee for attendance, but those interested in attending should notify Steven Green (s.j.green) so that I can ensure adequate seating/ coffee provision.
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Barcelona has a fascinating and ancient story to tell. Some legends say it was founded by Hercules, a powerful hero from Greek mythology. Historical facts tell us that the city was founded over 2,000 years ago by the Romans. At that time it was called Barcino and not of great consequence. But slowly the importance of the city grew thanks to its location on the Mediterranean Sea, which was important for trade with its strong, protective city walls.
The importance of the city for trade was one of the reasons it became a flourishing Jewish centre. The Jews at the time were very involved in trade all around the Mediterranean. And so the city of Barcelona grew bigger and more important and the Jewish community grew with it, contributing to the economic success and development. By the 13th Century Jews made about 15% of the population of the city.
In the combined tour, we will dive into both the history of Barcelona as a whole and the city’s Jewish history, reflecting on how these two histories are tied together and influenced one another. The tour includes all the highlights of the Jewish tour and the historic Jewish Quarter, plus two hours exploring the Gothic Quarter and the vast history of Barcelona as a whole. For those passionate about learning about and witnessing a city’s transformation over time, the combined tour is an incredible chance to experience it from two angles and a great package deal.
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"Dear Patriot: It's Now or Never for Conservative voters."
I get email from Rick Santorum, who ran even with Mitt Romney in last night's Iowa Caucuses (or do you want to say he lost, when he "lost" by 8 votes?):
It's Now or Never for Conservative voters. We can either unite now behind one candidate and have a conservative standard bearer in 2012, or have the GOP establishment choose another moderate Republican who will have a difficult time defeating Barack Obama in November.
I don't think that's what you want. Neither do I. My name is Rick Santorum, and I am the only authentic, passionate conservative who can unite the GOP.
I need an URGENT contribution of at least $35 today to unite conservative voters and win the Republican nomination.
We shocked the world last night in Iowa. We did it with a coalition of conservatives, Tea Party members, and values voters who recognized that my successful conservative record gives the GOP the best chance to defeat Barack Obama.
No more sitting on the sidelines. Now is the time to act or get stuck with a bland, boring, career politician who will lose to Barack Obama. Tomorrow will be too late. Will you unite with me, merge conservative support, and help us hold our banner high? Your contribution of $35, $50, or even $75 can make sure this happens.
The next test is New Hampshire … a state Mitt Romney has campaigned in for over four years. This is why I need your immediate support. I’m counting on conservatives around America to respond to this call for help. If we are divided in New Hampshire, we will lose this opportunity to keep the momentum.
I will be the most conservative President since Ronald Reagan. I am not going to Washington to blend in and hope people like me. I am running to dismantle the Obama Agenda and lead--like Reagan did.
The Washington Post said, “Rick Santorum was a tea-party kind of guy before the tea-party even existed.” As a conservative U.S. Senator from the swing state of Pennsylvania, I led the overhaul of welfare that moved millions from welfare to work. I authored the bill banning partial-birth abortion, and I passed legislation that protected America from Iran’s growing nuclear threat.
If you want a President who will stand up for conservative values, who is consistent on the issues, and who has a record to back it up, then I need you to join my campaign.
I need you to join me today. Right now. Not tomorrow or next week. If you want to roll back the Obama Agenda with a real conservative, this is your chance. The future of our country depends on what conservatives like you do in the next 72 hours.
Will you join us today with a generous contribution of whatever you can afford?
I give Republicans the best option to put a full-spectrum conservative in the White House. Help me make history!
P.S. I went from longshot to the Iowa Caucus “surprise candidate” overnight. Now conservatives must unite or be defeated. Please donate today and take a stand with my campaign. Join the fight!
Posted by Ann Althouse at 7:15 AM
Tags: 2012 campaign, Mitt Romney, Santorum
harrogate said...
All this apocalyptic language while pressing the recepient that the only way tostop said apocalypse is if you give him money.
And yet, amazingly, Althouse does not say "Back off!" Really, I find this so INTERESTING.
Daniel Fielding said...
Santorum, remember, couldnt get reelected to his Senate seat in PA. His brand of politics may sound good, but, he cant get elected.If he goes up against Obama, he is just ensuring that Obama get a second term easily.
remember, the number of people who voted in Iowa yesterday is about the size of the average crowd in Michigan Stadium every football saturday in the fall. Doesnt say very much.
Toad Trend said...
"All this apocalyptic language while pressing the recipient (fixed) that the only way to stop (fixed) said apocalypse is if you give him money."
Um, this is standard operating procedure for political candidates soliciting donations.
Not.
wv - psyms
"Um, this is standard operating procedure for political candidates soliciting donations."
Yes, yes it is.
"Not.
Interesting."
No it isn't.
jrberg3 said...
"We shocked the world last night in Iowa."
Has there ever been a phrase so overused and underwhelming in most situations? No you didn't, you didn't even shock the people the Iowa! And to use it in a campaign fundraising letter...pathetic.
BO declaring he wants to repeal Obamacare on the same day he strikes Iran's nuclear facilities while curbing the FDA's and EPA's regulatory authority, now that would shock the world!
Santorum is the eternal Eagle Scout expecting to be honored for being good... and good for what exactly?
He is just as tricky of a professional politician as the others, but his trick is to use a "trust me because I am naive persona."
Hoosier Daddy said...
"... Santorum, remember, couldnt get reelected to his Senate seat in PA..."
That reminds me that if Al Gore could have carried his home state in 2000 he would have been President.
Brennan said...
"Santorum, remember, couldnt get reelected to his Senate seat in PA"
He ran against a Casey. Not just any Casey, but Bob Casey Jr. Bob Casey Sr. is one of the most popular PA politicians in history. He's so popular that "Bob Caseys" that aren't even related to him get elected to public office in Pennsylvania.
Santorum lost in 2006 too. This was one the worst times for a Republican incumbent to win.
KCFleming said...
Iowa picked Obama, too.
And demands ethanol subsidies.
They are more concerned with social conservatism than the fiscal type.
Fickle big gubmint conservatives.
No names, please said...
The Iowa result is, again, a testament to the power a few preacher men have over their faithful flocks. In the bigger picture, Iowa is not very important at all.
Because someone eventually has to post it:
http://spreadingsantorum.com/
Iowa caucuses are irrelevant. We saw that in the last election, and I don't that'll change this time around. Having said that, I do believe that Romney is going to coast through the rest of the primaries, and then will likely lose the general election.
Dear Patriot: ...
Methinks the Patriots were all about Liberty. Santorum is about theocracy. None of my money for you, Rick.
Sign me - Libertarian.
Lyssa said...
Here's what I know about Rick Santorum:
* Single, unremarkable Senate term in PA, lost re-election. The "led welfare reform" bit is new to me, but leaves me skeptical- when, exactly, did this happen?
* Speaks profoundly on social conservative issues. Good, I guess, but not what I'm looking for in a president. He talks a lot about needing to save the family, but if he's proposed any actual policies by which the gov't could do that (unlikely), I haven't heard them and I doubt that I'd support them if I did.
* Pissed off that 13 year old gay guy Dan Savage somehow. About this I do not care.
Any business experience, leadership in any role, anything economic, any significant foreign policy experience? Unless there's something big in his bio that I'm missing, there's no way that I could imagine supporting this guy.
I certainly don't think he'll get the nom, but if he does and I don't learn anything huge, I'm out.
Christopher in MA said...
". . .I do believe that Romney is going to coast through the resty of the primaries and then will likely lose the general election."
Spot on. And not only lose, but lose big, while the 'mainstream' GOPers pick their noses and wonder how such a non-threatening moderate could lose. "He must have been a too extreme Tea Partier!" they will cry and go back to looking for the next Nelson Rockefeller, while all the time grateful some icky conservative didn't take the trough away from them.
rhhardin said...
He should ask Arlen Specter.
"while all the time grateful some icky conservative didn't take the trough away from them."
Just curious, who do you feel the conservative is in this crappy crop of Republican candidates?
And not only lose, but lose big, while the 'mainstream' GOPers pick their noses and wonder
Whereas, what, Santorum would really kick Obama's butt? Really?
Christopher in MA: "He must have been a too extreme Tea Partier!"
I know I've already responded, but I'm feeling procrastion-ish. Here's the thing, as far as I can tell, Romney's more conservative, at least on issues that matter to me, then Gingrich or Santorum. I don't know if anyone's choosing to support Romney because he's more "moderate" and some other guy is too "conservative", but that's not at all why I'm supporting Romney. The exact opposite.
It never ceases to amaze me how TEH ESTABLISHMENT gets to pick the GOP nominee. TEH ESTABLISHMENT certainly didn't pick Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and a few others for thir respective senate races in 2010 with nearly half of them losing.
Even Ranger Rick endorsed that great ESTABLISHMENT senior senator Arlen Spector on a few occasions. Santorum is the biggest loser of them all getting beat by nearly 20 points in his unsuccessful re-election bid in 2006.
A complete garden variety non-entity whose only claim to fame is he ran a close second in a caucus state where any crackpot can show up to vote. As long as he panders to the evangelicals with a lot of empty platitudes.
David Gray said...
Everything being said about Santorum vs Obama was said about Reagan vs Carter. Biggest difference was Carter had a much bigger polling edge over Reagan at this point of the campaign than Obama does over Santorum. Yes, Reagan was an extremist wild man who hated women because he didn't want children to be dismembered and he was a rigid idealogue who would bring on war with the Soviets.
Joe Schmoe said...
Bob Casey Sr. is one of the most popular PA politicians in history. He's so popular that "Bob Caseys" that aren't even related to him get elected to public office in Pennsylvania.
Yet Bob Casey's legacy as a Democrat pro-lifer has pretty much been scrubbed from the Democratic party. No room for him at the alleged party of diversity. At least on the national level. Glad to hear he's still revered at the local level.
If you ever want to read some incredible writing on the right to life, read Bob Casey Sr.'s writings on the subject. A conservative couldn't have said it better.
ABO.
Let's not screw this up, people.
Brian Brown said...
Single, unremarkable Senate term in PA, lost re-election.
Santorum was in the senate for 2 terms.
David Gray: Santorum vs Obama was said about Reagan vs Carter.
If Santorum manages a term or two as governor of California, then maybe I'll consider him.
Santorum's not only inexperienced, but he's weak and whiny. No one would have ever called Reagan weak or whiny.
Santorum is about theocracy
Hysterical.
I bet you could give us two examples of this.
My bad then. Did he do anything of note then?
Reagan had eight years as governor of California. Santorum had twelve years in the US Senate. Make of that what you will.
Lyssa,
The one real thing of note for Santorum was managing the 1996 welfare reform bill in the Senate.
He was the R Conference Chairman too.
caseym54 said...
Except that he can't unite the GOP, since he can't get me to vote for him. I *might* vote Republican against Obama, but never, ever FOR Santorum. Young Bob Dole with a moralistic bent.
Paddy O said...
David Gray, that's true, but the difference is that Reagan also had substantive experience as the governor of California -- which was not far from where we are now when he started. He turned around the state as the executive. He had immense personal charm, a great speaker, a great overall communicator, an actual star. He could take difficult concepts, and deliver them in a sometimes folksy, sometimes dramatic way, that helped the broader public want to take part.
Santorum has neither significant executive experience nor immense personal charm. That means Reagan and he just aren't at all comparable as candidates.
chickelit said...
Is Romney's edge over Santorum strong enough? I don't think I could stomach a garage mahal demand for a recount just so that he could say he was prescient.
jimspice said...
8 votes? You can count that on two hands with two fingers left over. Santorum Shocker!
ricpic said...
Bachmann and Perry conservatives: get behind Rick. United we win. And anyway, all Ricks are great!
It doesn't appear the GOP has any candidate that can "unite" them.
At least at this point.
Though as the ecomony continues to stumble and Europe meltsdown and the Taliban declares victory of the US in Afghanistan this year, I wonder if that will change.
People should go back into the archives and see how Reagan was being described in 1980. People are having difficulty viewing him in that context instead seeing him through the hue of his time as President. One thing Reagan and Santorum have in common is the ability to appeal to the working class voter, a real Obama weak point. Romeny is probably the least capable candidate when it comes to speaking to the working class.
David Gray said: Reagan had eight years as governor of California. Santorum had twelve years in the US Senate. Make of that what you will.
The role of senator is in no way comparable to the role of governor. Someone aiming for an executive role needs to have executive experience.
Santorum was the Senate Republican Conference Chairman. He was the point man on the Democratic Senators spending proposals.
I think Santourm's defense of Specter is a huge negative going forward, but it won't be what will sink him.
I kept telling myself that some viable, GOP candidate would run...and then it didn't happen. Huntsmann was the only one I thought would have a good shot, but he's polling at near-zero (although 10% in NH, somehow).
I guess we'll see how it shapes out. Regardless, we won't see a Republican in the White House until 2016, at the earliest.
"One thing Reagan and Santorum have in common is the ability to appeal to the working class voter"
That appeal sure didn't show itself when he lost his Senate seat to Casey now did it?
Please stop bringing up Reagan when speaking of Santorum.
The country's big problems right now are fiscal.
You need a fiscal conservative or, at least, a fiscal competent.
Evidence that Santorum is either?
a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...
David Brooks has called Santorum a working class conservative, a Volokh post a big gubmint conservative, Ann can spell, heh, heh, heh. It was interesting to see him cite his grandfather's leaving Italy in the 20's when Mussolini came to power as to my not real informed speculation Mussolini was also a big gubmint conservative in a way; probably just went a tad far for the pops. Anyway, Santorum is kind of a Catholic Social Welfare kind of conservative apparently; so at least in a religious social sense it's nice that the evangelicals would have him. It's interesting how Iowa broke - quite polar with Santorum and Ron Paul, the latter a simplistic libertarian true enough but also simplistic enough to be antilibertarian also.
"That appeal sure didn't show itself when he lost his Senate seat to Casey now did it?"
No. It didn't. Would it have helped then?
2006 is an outlier. It was an election year with an electorate that was immensely dissatisfied with the direction of the nation, largely do the Iraq War at the time, and voter punished Republicans for it.
You can see what the result was. It put the Democrats in the spending drivers seat with President Bush riding shotgun approving nearly everything they sent to his desk.
BACHMANN CANCELS TRIP TO SC, SETS PRESS CONFERENCE FOR 11 AM EST...
Interesting, and it looks like Perry's going to drop out, too. Do both of them throw their support to Santorum? Does that do much for him?
(As an aside: Such a shame that Perry wound up such a bad candidate.)
machine said...
Congratulations to President Obama on last night's victory...
Right is right! said...
Romney is not a fiscal conservative, he is a Big Government Republican. Have you even heard of Romneycare? It was the blueprint for Obamacare. Romney is a joke and many of you here are just supporting him because you are being manipulated by the mainstream media.
[We] need a fiscal conservative or, at least, a fiscal competent.
Freeman is right. Santorum is a strong social conservative, but that's not what this country needs.
(I also disagree with several of Santorum's claims--he's just making stuff up now. He's not a tea party guy; this is a guy who wants to use the power of government to push his social conservative agenda.
Finally Rick Santorum voted for No Child Left Behind. That is not conservatism in any way, shape or form.)
Romney was largely responsible for turning the Massachusetts deficit into a surplus. That's what this country needs, not more idealogs who yack and strut around, but end up just making things worse.
this is a guy who wants to use the power of government to push his social conservative agenda.
I would amend that to "social agenda" and using the power of government to achieve it would push him left. Most social "conservatives" don't like to hear that, but it's true in almost all cases.
I totally agree with Freeman and Joe.
BTW, please ignore "Dane County Taxpayer." He has a long history of moby-ing under various names.
Perry and Bachmann supporters will get behind Santorum. Newt all but endorsed Santorum in his speech last night while calling Romney out as a weasel.
We now have the race down to liberal Romney and conservative Santorum. The Big Government Republians and the media clearly want Romney. I believe regular Americans will rise up for Santorum who is a conservative real Christian man. The nation's soul hangs in the balance.
Romney was largely responsible for turning the Massachusetts deficit into a surplus.
Abstract question. Would you accept Obamacare if it meant the rest of our shit got fixed? I am NOT suggesting Obamacare will do anything holistic in fixing our debt and employment problems. I'm asking if you would accept it in total if it meant the aggregate of all the other shit going on got fixed or at least pointed in the right direction?
I'm not suggesting Romney is the guy to do that. I'm just positing a question to be discussed.
(or do you want to say he lost, when he "lost" by 8 votes?)
Isn't it a three-way tie? The projected outcome is that Romney, Santorum, and Paul will each get 7 delegates, while Gingrich and Perry each get 2.
edutcher said...
Santorum has always tried hard to make himself sound more important than he ever had any chance of being. This is no exception.
As I say, the lightest of weights
Santorum, remember, couldnt get reelected to his Senate seat in PA.
Elected in '94, re-elected in '00. Voted out because he was a big earmarker.
Baloney.
Casey was popular among more Conservative Democrats, but he was PA's Harold Stassen, running 4 times before being elected Governor.
Bobby Casey prevailed in an election where calling out the incumbent on his earmarking would have gotten almost any Democrat elected.
Phil 314 said...
“Rick Santorum was a tea-party kind of guy before the tea-party even existed"
I would qualify as socially conservative.
I wish the Tea Party would reclaim its brand.
Wasn't the Tea Party about deficit reduction, lower taxes and fiscal responsibility?
The Crack Emcee said...
Daniel Fielding,
While I'm not sold on this Santorum message either - and I kinda like the guy - your "logic" is even worse:
Who wants four more years of what we've had?
So where is this groundswell of support for Obama supposed to come from?
You talk nonsense,...
A healthy chunk of the support won't be "for" Obama. It will be against the GOP.
traditionalguy,
Exactly, so can we please get on to electing Newt, now? There's absolutely no trickery (or naivety) there,...
"Who do you feel the conservative is in this crappy crop of Republican candidates?"
Excellent question. Frankly, none. Perry occasionally comes closest, but his immigration policy frosts me, just as it did with Dubya. I find the throw-up-your-hands attitude of "well, they're all here, what are you going to do?" to be self-defeating. It admits that the bulkhead has been breached and all we can do is slow the flooding rather than plug the leak. A "path to citizenship" should be encouraged, but there must be penalties for breaking the law; real, painful penalties. And assimilation MUST be demanded.
I believe abortion to be a mortal stain on this nation, but Santorum doesn't merit "conservative" bona fides by claiming to make it illegal. Turn RvW back to the states and let them deal with it at the local level. Don't use the force of the government to impose a social agenda.
Bachmann's a fool, Gingrich is a loudmouth, Huntsmann an establishment tool and Paul an anti-semitic disgrace. Romney? Besides the fact that he's a lying weasel, anyone using the force of government to make me buy a product casts himself out of the ranks of conservatives, no matter how much he boasts of his success as a businessman.
And that's just of the top of my head. As DBQ and I said in a different thread, I think this country deserves another term of Little Black Jesus just to pass out in the gutter of Marxist statism. If that doesn't wake up the 52%, nothing will, and all of the crowing about Tea Party congresses and defunding NPR will be rearranging the Titanic's deck chairs.
YMMV, of course.
MayBee said...
Rick Santorum seems like an incredibly decent man.
Romney is a an incredibly competent man, almost uniquely competent among presidential contenders as of late. I think he presents a real opportunity to have someone who knows how to manage, how to execute, and with long and short term vision, finally in this country.
He does not have every position I like but man oh man, how I long to have someone who knows what he's doing at the helm of this ship.
John Stodder said...
I agree with Freeman Hunt, which it pleases me no end to say after 10+ months away. Santorum seems like a wonderful guy, but poorly-equipped for the election in front of us.
Boy, Newt is sure coming off poorly, the whining brat of liberal caricature. Liberals are going to lap it up now, though, so long as his narcissistic tantrum is aimed at Romney.
I noted in the Santorum e-mail that weird logic the right has adopted lately: "If you want to win over independents, you need a hard-core conservative!" Why do they keep peddling that?
Uh-oh. it looks like "because we know, I know, the one who gives miracles” didn't help much.
Funny how that happens.
Christians and other believers, please make a note of it.
And yes, I expect this reminder of God's disappearing act to be ignored by other believers, just I expect it to be ignored by the media and Bachmann herself. Living in a country of belief:
Unbelievable,...
knox said...
Not now or never, but Now or Never!
And why capitalize Conservative?
Scott M,
Again, you're imagining things:
Obama barely squeaked out a win last election - with a full-on cult of personality working for him.
Stop tripping, guys,...
"(or do you want to say he lost, when he "lost" by 8 votes?)"
I want to say he lost, even if there really is more of a delegate tie. Santorum needed Iowa much more than Romney did. Iowa is where social conservatives find the most support, so if this is where Santorum should be strongest and he didn't quite make it, that means he really doesn't have momentum.
Certainly he has more than Bachmann or Perry, who were after the same votes, but Santorum is in a much weaker position than Huckabee was during last election.
I've never been a Romney guy, but he's stuck it out without falling off to the side like the others, so he's getting the pick.
He's also very much not like George W Bush, which gets us past Obama trying to run against a Bush-like candidate.
Romney could win California.
There, I said it.
John Stodder,
Because it's true:
People can be swayed to/by someone who solidly stands for something, not by some wishy-washy fabrication.
Santorum lost me when he endorsed Spectre after he himself was re-elected with Toomey's help.
Paddy O,
Jesus, man, he's stuck it out because he's got the money to do so. Proof?
John Huntsman's also still in the race!
Deal in reality, guys, please,...
Sure, but gay-bashing isn't high on the electorate's list of priorities this year.
"I expect this reminder of God's disappearing act to be ignored by other believers, just I expect it to be ignored by the media and Bachmann herself."
If you're going to have a sophisticated attack on faith, it's funny to use an example of something the Bible itself brings up almost throughout its entirety. God doesn't show up right when people want him to, or do all the stuff they want him to. Yeah, start in Genesis and keep going, you'll find a lot better examples than Bachman.
Maybe God doesn't like Bachmann for the same reasons other voters don't.
God isn't a vending machine, after all, no matter who is trying to put in the coins.
John Stodder said: I noted in the Santorum e-mail that weird logic the right has adopted lately: "If you want to win over independents, you need a hard-core conservative!" Why do they keep peddling that?
You know, I actually do think that that can be correct, up to a point. It's not really so much about the person being a "hard-core conservative" as it is about the person being solid and articulate in his or her positions. Not that I want to defend the professor on her McCain position, but recall what she said about how he didn't make the effective case for conservatism. McCain was a waffler who came across as weak on a lot of issues, and I think that really hurt him - it was associated with his being "moderate" but not exactly the same. Contrast him with someone like Reagan, who could clearly and firmly state his positions.
(This is in no way a support of Santorum, who does not make this case, where Romney, despite the flip-flopping, usually states his positions without appearing weak and equivocating. Bush, also fairly moderate, usually did the same, which earned him the reputation of being more conservative than he was, and, I think, also won him 2 terms.)
I'm babbling, but my point comes down to strength in conservatism being important, which is associated with being a hard-core conservative.
Imagining what? That there are people on the left that don't like Obama, but hate the right more? Do you believe those people don't exist?
No need:
God NEVER shows up.
I repeat:
Deal in reality, guys,...
"he's stuck it out because he's got the money to do so."
Crack, money certainly helps, and that's an important issue in the general election too, as Obama has all manner of money to spend, and hasn't had a primary to waste it on yet.
But, more than that, there's the manufactured scandals and/or unforced errors that have brought down other candidates. Romney just hasn't had those problems.
Again, though, I would have never picked him, and would still vote for Palin, but of the bunch left standing, I lean towards being okay with Romney.
No, they do exist. But now they're demoralized, and let down, and politically empty. Plus, it's INDEPENDENTS - not liberals - who we need to sway.
Stop tripping.
I gotta go to work - stay in reality, people,...
I should add:
As difficult as that seems to be for you,...
I'm Full of Soup said...
Iowan Repubs must be odd when almost 50% voted for either Santorum or Paul.
No, they do exist. But now they're demoralized, and let down, and politically empty.
And they are still going to vote against the GOP, those that do vote. Sure, a small percentage will stay home, but the more "the most important election of our lifetimes" is trumpeted, by both sides, that percentage will shrink. Likewise, the bigger booster, if even a nose-holder, of Obamacare a person is, the greater the chance they will vote as a defensive measure.
Santorum is no conservative. He is Mike Huckabee all over again. He favors statist solutions to problems and the use of government authority to enforce morality. Santorum as president would be a disaster.
Crack,
God shows up. That's reality. That's my reality. That's the reality of so many people I know.
Sometimes he doesn't show up when or how we like. But sometimes he shows up even better than what we would have ever expected.
That's the trouble with talking about faith though. We can't really share the weight of our own experiences of reality.
You think you're right. I know you're wrong. God shows up. Indeed, I'm packing up my apartment right now, precisely because God showed up and opened up an amazing place to live, just when we really needed it.
I bet the people hereabouts have their own stories, and countless other stories.
You haven't experienced it (or called it what it is), so you're extroverting your reality to everyone else.
Sort of like what Bachman does, thinking her world is the one that matters most.
That being said, I still respect your honesty much more than so many other false expressions of false faith.
I'm going to say this one more time - your formulation of this is all wrong:
This is not a contest for who will be "okay" but for what we want.
I say Newt will give us what we want, so his negatives don't matter - I'll fight for the results he'll deliver and Romney won't.
They're worth fighting for.
We don't have room to maneuver anymore - it's truthfully now or never.
Laters,...
Well, we know how the religious right votes. But this didn't touch the INDEPENDENT VOTERS at all!
It's still the "funny Underwear Man" ... or worse.
And, it's the advantage Obama needs to win a second term.
How will 2012 look?
Perhaps, like 2004? Where Kerry lost. But the "win" went to Bush's empty head. And, he caused more havoc than good.
While no one on the right cars to blame McCain for anything. Heck, he's just another Bob Dole. But unlike Dole, McCain retained his senate seat.
I still think we're gonna have Donald Trump coming out as an Independent on May 21st. Sure. It will take everybody by surprise. (And, no, Sarah Palin won't be his veep pick.)
But, you bet, there's lots of voters out there who haven't been heard from, yet.
Bender said...
Although he too will be (falsely) smeared as "anti-choice," Romney is a much safer pick for the pro-aborts and for those who do not care how many millions of innocents get sacrificed for their own craven political expediency.
Romney will NOT fight for social issues and will be quite reliable in appointing Anthony Kennedy like moderate squishes to the Supreme Court. In fact, a Romney Administration would spend more time blasting and fighting fellow Republicans than it would spend taking on and stopping the Dems.
write_effort said...
Really, a significant chunk of the GOP wants to make birth control a campaign issue? Santorum is a niche-of-a-niche candidate. The unifying anti-Romney candidate, if there is to be one, is still yet to be crowned.
I'm 42. The only likely conservative voters I know of in my extended family and friends that have mentioned social issues are all at least 54 or older. I don't know why that is, but that's what I've seen so far. Everyone else is firmly fixed on $$$. And why wouldn't we be? That's the real threat.
So, None of the Above wins in November?
Romney will NOT fight for social issues and will be quite reliable in appointing Anthony Kennedy like moderate squishes to the Supreme Court.
Just an observation: Anthony Kennedy was appointed by Ronald Reagan.
Seriously, though, anyone going into the 2012 elections caring about social issues is crazy. Economics and government growth: those are the pressing problems we face today.
Santorum also lost his Senate race because he didn't even live in Pennsylvania any more. His kids didn't go to school in PA. How can you represent a state you don't live in?
There were many reasons that Santorum was not re-elected, and none of them bode well for a Presidential Campaign.
sakredkow said...
IMO this is exactly what the Dems will be happy to run against if Santorum wins - a VERY conservative GOP who will be raising the banner and reigniting the culture wars.
Call it concerned trolling if you want, but I think only Romney (or Huntsman) has a snowball's chance. And you conservatives seem deeply divided.
Who we really need to elect is the guy whose biggest claims to fame are --
--being an event planner
--enacting far-left legislation during his only term in office
--getting rich, not by running a company that actually creates tangible products or otherwise actually creating wealth, but by participating in the very industry that caused the economy to crash in 2008, manipulating existing assets and trafficking in artificially-bundled funds
--demonstrating his competency, influence, and leadership skills, after running for president for over six years, by managing to increase his level of support from 20-25 percent four years ago to 20-25 percent today
--laying low whenever a new issue or problem arises, waiting until he sees which way he thinks the political winds are blowing before taking a position, and in the process managing to have taken the opposite positions on most issues of consequence over the years
Yes, this is the guy we need to elect.
mccullough said...
All of the candidates are going to be conservative on some things and not conservative on others. This was true of Ronald Reagan as well.
Reagan ran deficits as a percent of GDP that were the same as FDR during his first eight years in office. Reagan jacked up Social Security taxes. Reagan appointed O'Connor and Kennedy to the Supreme Court.
As governor of California, Reagan signed pro-abortion legislation and gun control laws.
There is no perfect conservative. You can look at any of these candidates records and find things that are not conservative and things that are conservative.
Romney worked in private equity. He did not work on or for Wall Street. Private equity firms and private equity funds had nothing to do with the financial collapse. You need to become better informed. You can dislike Romney as much as you want, but you should do it based on facts, not on ignorance. Progressives can be careless, not conservatives. Don't be careless.
write_effort said: a significant chunk of the GOP wants to make birth control a campaign issue?
Has Santorum (or anyone) taken a position on birth control? (not abortion)? I'm honestly asking - if they have, I'm not familiar with it, and I'd be interested in knowing.
Lyssa-
I don't have a link, but Santorum has specifically said his anti-birth control stance is personal, and it would be ridiculous to try to make contraceptives illegal or not coverable by insurance.
Not only that. He's an ex-Senator. That has to count for something. Against him.
Technically, shouldn't Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, also be 100% personally against it?
Technically. Just as technically Reid is against abortion.
But Democrats only want to force their secular lifestyle choices upon us. They may be against contraception, but understand the importance of making it illegal to sell insurance that doesn't provide it with no copay. Because they don't want a theocracy. And it's perfectly secular to not impose any moral code, but to keep people from eating corn syrup and buying 100 watt lightbulbs.
That's a long way of saying, I think Dems like Pelosi think as long as there is no religious component to a behavior, it's perfect valid to legally compel it.
Under socialism, all personal beliefs are automatically contrued as ex post facto law threats.
Under their system, they want the whole man.
“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7WfIZh690&feature=youtube_gdata
He goes on to state that while he is not running for "preacher," these are important "public policy issues."
"The Iowa result is, again, a testament to the power a few preacher men have over their faithful flocks. In the bigger picture, Iowa is not very important at all."
It's quite encouraging for ecumenical progress, however, that they chose to make a Catholic their standard-bearer, albeit one who dissents on some of the practical issues with which evangelicals most strongly disagree.
"Whereas, what, Santorum would really kick Obama's butt? Really?"
You have to realize that many of the tea party types really believe that they represent "we the people," just like the occup people really believe that they represent the 99%. It's not rhetoric for them. They actually believe it. And if you believe that the tea party speaks for the vast majority of Americans, what conceivable sense could it make to nominate anyone but a true blue conservative, given how the vast majority of the country is absolutely pissed at Obama's socialist administration and yearns for a REAL CONSERVATIVE? It's not their analysis that's wrong, it's their premise.
shu said...
"Santorum is about theocracy."
If you wrote this with a straight face, you have no idea what a theocracy is.
"Romney will NOT fight for social issues and will be quite reliable in appointing Anthony Kennedy like moderate squishes to the Supreme Court."
Let's stipulate that you're correct. So what? The alternative is President Obama's second term, in which he will be absolutely reliable in appointing Ruth Ginsburg like liberal extremists to the Supreme Court. What kind of idiot voluntarily trades the frying pan for the fire?
"Really, a significant chunk of the GOP wants to make birth control a campaign issue?"
They don't. The legality of birth control is a concern only to a small number of Catholics—a subset of a subset of a subset of GOP voters. It's not a ridiculous policy (it was once the law in most states) but teh Church's teaching on the use of birth control doesn't oblige the faithful on the point of the legality of birth control.
"Technically, shouldn't Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, also be 100% personally against it?"
I truly doubt Nancy Pelosi is a Catholic in anything but name.
Has Santorum (or anyone) taken a position on birth control?
Actual quote: "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.... It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."
Start at 17:35 mark.
gadfly said...
Chris said:
Dittos
Santorum stated in an interview with CaffeinatedThoughts.com that the dangers of contraception are an important public policy issue (at the 18 minute mark on YouTube). He goes on at length about the results of weaking the procreative aspect of sex.
I posted a link earlier, but it was removed.
LilEvie said...
Obama's groundswell of support comes from the 47% that pay no taxes but collect government benefits. Add to that academia, the press, Hollywood, and some soccer moms, and voila!
And here's some reality for Crack: women won't vote for Newt. I would, but most won't.
We don't like crybabies and we don't like cheaters (except good-looking ones like Clinton).
Only a crybaby complains about activist judges and then sues Virginia to get on the ballot.
The alternative is President Obama's second term, in which he will be absolutely reliable in appointing Ruth Ginsburg like liberal extremists to the Supreme Court.
That's an argument to not vote for Obama.
But it is not an argument to vote for Romney.
If Romney is not going to fight and is instead going to appoint the same mushy moderates that have destroyed any legitimacy that the Court may have had, like Souter, Kennedy, et al., then the answer is to not vote for either one of them.
The argument to elect Romney esentially amounts to the lesser evil argument -- sure he's crap, but at least he's not as bad as Obama. That someone is not as bad as something worse is not a reason to vote for him. Doing the lesser of two evils is still doing evil.
No. I will not do it. Not again. Not yet again. That is the same BS argument that the GOP foists upon people year after year after year.
You know why there are no good conservatives available to run this year? Because the GOP told us for years that, instead of electing solid conservatives to governorships and Congress, we had to elect squishy moderates that appealed to independents.
The Republican establishment forcing us to choose between a douche and a crap sandwich each election is why we don't have any really good candidates for president.
Sigh. Do these tiny minority of anti-birth control people realize how much more difficult they make life for the rest of us who just want people to stop killing babies?
He's an ex-Senator. That has to count for something. Against him.
Well, unlike last time, when the choice was two sitting Senators (and look how swell that choice was!), at least he's an ex-Senator. One point in his favor. Against all the other many many points, the myriad, lengthy list of points, against him.
You know why there are no good conservatives available to run this year?
Because Rand Paul's dad was already running and he didn't want to be rude.
You have to realize that many of the tea party types really believe that they represent "we the people,"
That may or may not be true, but what's it got to do with Santorum? The Tea Party movement is about runaway government spending and growth. Santorum is one of the worst candidates in the race in both of those areas.
Which is why the quote about him being a "tea-party kind of guy" comes from a left-wing newspaper instead of from somebody affiliated with the Tea Party movement.
"Santorum stated in an interview with CaffeinatedThoughts.com that the dangers of contraception are an important public policy issue (at the 18 minute mark on YouTube). He goes on at length about the results of weaking the procreative aspect of sex."
I don't have a problem with him believing that contraception is bad, and making a public case for that position. I don't have a problem with him believing that public policy ought to be structured in such a manner that it discourages premarital sex rather than just "unprotected" premarital sex. There's a wide gap between doing such things and trying to overturn Griswold.
"[simon said that the alternative is President Obama's second term, in which he will be absolutely reliable in appointing Ruth Ginsburg like liberal extremists to the Supreme Court.] That's an argument to not vote for Obama. But it is not an argument to vote for Romney."
Not voting for Romney is voting for Obama. Obama is going to win unless the GOP nominates someone who can win and gets him elected, and only Romney fits that bill.
"No. I will not do it. Not again. Not yet again. That is the same BS argument that the GOP foists upon people year after year after year."
Year after year, people continue to foist on us the argument that gravity pulls us down toward the center of massive objects. Why won't they ever say something different?
"You know why there are no good conservatives available to run this year? Because the GOP told us for years that, instead of electing solid conservatives to governorships and Congress, we had to elect squishy moderates that appealed to independents."
To win the Presidency, we have to nominate candidates who appeal to independents. That's simple math. In states where you can elect solid conservatives, run solid conservatives. But you can't win elections in states like Wisconsin with candidates who appeal only to solid conservatives. I'm sorry if I'm the first to break this to you but we aren't a majority.
"Sigh. Do these tiny minority of anti-birth control people realize how much more difficult they make life for the rest of us who just want people to stop killing babies?"
They believe what they believe and that's fine so lnog as they're practical about it. My problem is with people who have the same mentality about it as Bender—folks who refuse to take baby steps forward on abortion. They refuse to vote for a bill that has a rape/incest exception because they're more concerned about keeping their own hands clean ("I refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils!") than they are about doing something oractical to help. The best trick the devil ever played on the world was convincing it he didn't exist, but the second best trick he played was convincing people to be so prissy about "the lesser evil" that they let enormous evils slide rather than doing something about it.
Methadras said...
Santorum is about theocracy.
Really? Santorum wants to set up a theocracy or would like one? Do you have proof of this?
Simon said: I don't have a problem with him believing that contraception is bad, and making a public case for that position. I don't have a problem with him believing that public policy ought to be structured in such a manner that it discourages premarital sex rather than just "unprotected" premarital sex. There's a wide gap between doing such things and trying to overturn Griswold.
I generally agree with you, but I'm going to go ahead and take the position that I do have a problem with a politician making the case that contraception is wrong, even absent a specific case that it should be illegal.
I don't like that position I'm taking, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people, probably a majority of the country, simply cannot comprehend the difference between saying something is wrong and making it illegal. It's less of a problem if the person doesn't have a policy-related role, such as a religious leader, but when it comes from a politician, it sounds bad.
I'm not saying that Santorum, even if he had the full ability to do so, would make contraception illegal. What bothers me is that the pro-abortion folks can look at him and make the case that he would and wants that. They can make that case so well that they can (and do) say that the anti-abortion goal is to eradicate BC, and they can direct the conversation away from the horror that is abortion, thus hurting the ability to make that case against abortion.
Known Unknown said...
Politicians should send out flash emails.
I can just hear Elvis belting our "It's Now or Never" as you open it ...
"Public Policy."
Hideous words, indeed.
Cracky - "While I'm not sold on this Santorum message either - and I kinda like the guy - your "logic" is even worse:
One of the dumbest things to emerge recently in conservatives is the faith-based belief that the public HUNGERS for someone as far-right as possible...combined with a twin faith-based belief that Obama, Harry Reid are so unpopular that NOW IS THE TIME!! to nominate a "true believer".
We saw the wreckage of Sharron Angle who went down in Goldwater-like flames of Purity.
No, the country does NOT hunger for a Goldwater. Before she quit, (I should specify quit being considered a 2012 Prez Prospect..) right wing Goddess Palin was polling 26 points behind Obama in several national polls. Gingrich was about 20 points behind. (Which is a more accurate reflection of his national prospects than the not-Romney delusions of right-wingers in search of the Hero in Newtie.
One of the dumbest things to emerge recently in conservatives is the faith-based belief that the public HUNGERS for someone as far-right as possible
You mentioning it here today is the first I've heard of this. Do you have some backup?
Who writes the idiotic Obama campaign e-mails about extremism??
Could be any of a number of people commenting here (especially on their apocalyptic alarms that Santorum wants a government ban on contraception).
McCullough - Reagan ran deficits as a percent of GDP that were the same as FDR during his first eight years in office. Reagan jacked up Social Security taxes. Reagan appointed O'Connor and Kennedy to the Supreme Court.
There is no perfect conservative.
Just like FDR has morphed into America's savior, and JFK became a bedwetting liberal enshrined in Camelot - the "narrative" of Saint Ronald Reagan has substantially altered by his supporters.
Then for the next 40 years after they go - voters are "treated" to pols endlessly saying how much like FDR, JFK, or Reagan they are...and we hear the narrative of how the nation hungers to go back in time and have the country run "just like" Holy FDR did, the King of Camelot did, or Saint Ronnie did.
We still have another dozen years of hearing how America would be perfect if we could only ignore the last 30 years and go back to 1980...
McCullough was actually a little generous with Reagan - Of particular interest is the “Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982,” the largest of Reagan’s tax increases, and generally considered the largest tax increase — as a percentage of the economy — in modern American history. Though people more often cite the 1986 FICA boost and the elimination of tax shelters that allowed many of the superwealthy to pay no Fed income taxes (like Reagan as his filings showed for most of the 70s)
In fact, between 1982 and 1984, Reagan raised taxes four times, and as Bruce Bartlett has explained more than once, Reagan raised taxes 12 times during his eight years in office.
Add that Reagan pushed Amnesty for illegals through. And for 8 years ran deficits that were as large as a percent of GNP since pre-WWII FDR. (economists except WWII deficits as extraordinary and not originating in normal gov't taxing and budgeting).
It does get bad when the narrative becomes so accepted that the King of Camelot is credited with royal love of the Negro and the full suite of affirmative action benefits - even though he sicc'd the FBI to do warrantless monitoring on MLK and other 'trouble makers' 24/7 and JFK personally thought the problem of black poverty was as much from black stupidity, criminality, and laziness as from 'discrimination".
And when the Reagan narrative becomes so simplistic with shallow conservatives that "tax cuts and big deficits creates jobs" becomes enshrined as dogma. And "freedom for the plutocrats of Wall Street to do as they please unregulated" - becomes new conservative dogma Saint Ronnie decreed it be so!!
especially on their apocalyptic alarms that Santorum wants a government ban on contraception
Americans overwhelmingly view contraception of a good thing. The same is true of Republicans in particular.
There are, therefore, exactly two reasons why Santorum is yammering on about his desire to "talk about" the "dangers" of contraception:
1. He wants to restrict contraception.
2. He's a moron who decided to tell the American people his loony opinions despite them being completely irrelevant to his campaign.
The correct answer is "1", but "2" doesn't actually make him sound any better.
Pragmatist said...
Dear Dummy
It wasnt moderation that caused McCain to lose last time, it was you and your fellow travelors. It is extremists like Palin who scared away the moderate voters into Obama's camp (that and the fact that after 8 years of Republican rule we had a failed economy and two wars and large deficits).
If you want to win, convince people that you are not nuts but willing to do whatever works to solve our problems. Be a problem solver and not a mess maker. Or show us that you learned nothing from 2008.
Cedarford wrote: We saw the wreckage of Sharron Angle who went down in Goldwater-like flames of Purity.
Goldwater lost by something like 38% to Johnson's 61%
Angle lost by something like 6%. Not even Reid was gloating, but Cedarford does.
Face it Cedarford, you've had it in for the Tea Party since day one. You've railed against every single idea they've raised, every single positive shred of grassroots energy they've given off, and especially against every female candidate they offered up.
There's something inherent in the Tea Party which you loathe. What is it, exactly?
Scott, Chickenlittle, he may have it in for the tea party, but that doesn't make him wrong. For once , I agree with him. Not about the tea party generally, I mean, but as I said above, there are a lot of folks in the tea party who believe that they represent untold multitudes, and that those untold multitudes are yearning for a real conservative candidate. That's basically what Cedarford said above, and he's right. He's also right, I think, that among many conservatives (especially among those who tend to mistake themselves and their peer group for the views of America at large) there is a "belief that Obama, Harry Reid[, et al] are so unpopular that NOW IS THE TIME!! to nominate a 'true believer,'" because those few Americans who aren't themselves conservatives are so desperate to get rid of Obama that they'll vote for anyone to do it.
The reality is that the tea party represents a subset of the Republican electorate (who knows how large?), which is itself a minority of an electorate that, with some state-by-state variance, comprises roughly equal numbers of Democrats, Republicans, and "independents." Tea partiers + non-TP Republicans !> Republicans! That's no math at all. To win, the GOP candidate must appeal to independents, a group that comprises a large number of self-deluding Democrats, a lot of moderates, and very few people for whom the GOP is simply too milquetoast. Simple math says that in the average state, a GOP candidate appeals to moderates or s/he loses. Yet folks like DaneCounty abound, and they prove Cedarford's point.
"Americans overwhelmingly view contraception of a good thing. The same is true of Republicans in particular. There are, therefore, exactly two reasons why Santorum is yammering on about his desire to "talk about" the "dangers" of contraception: 1. He wants to restrict contraception. 2. He's a moron who decided to tell the American people his loony opinions despite them being completely irrelevant to his campaign."
There's nothing loony about it. Catholics don't believe in contraception. Nor is it loony to believe that public policy should be structured to promote moral behavior and discourage immmoral behavior, and it's not even loony to believe (although I would argue that it shouldn't be done in the case of contraception) that some immoral behavior should be proscribed by law.
"It wasnt moderation that caused McCain to lose last time, it was you and your fellow travelors. It is extremists like Palin who scared away the moderate voters into Obama's camp…."
Two wrongs don't make a right, and while Dane's analysis is flawed, yours isn't correct either. What pushed the moderate voters who were still on the fence—one must acknowledge that independents were already leaning toward Obama for reasons we don't need to get into today—into Obama's camp was McCain's feckless performance, especially when the financial crisis hit, coupled with the media's ferocious and wildly successful campaign to convince Americans that Sarah Palin was the devil in nice shoes.
@Simon: First, thanks for your thoughtful response.
It seems to me that Romney's problem is that he cannot generate enough enthusiasm sua sponte. If he does, show me.
I argued on Twitter as long ago as a year that the Tea Party (or what's left of it) needed to join forces with Romney. The defeat of Obama will surely not happen with one side trying to marginalize the other. It just won't happen. It may even be a nefarious plan.
I respectfully disagree with your tarring of some Tea Party leaders as religious extremists--Palin especially. The problem is that in some people's minds, all personal beliefs are automatically construed as ex post facto legal threats. Despite whatever personal feelings Bachmann or Santorum may have about people's predilections, they are not calling for pogroms or vendettas against them.
Loathers and haters could do everyone a favor by providing examples where candidates (any candidate) actively legislate to control behavior. Otherwise it just looks like people are pissed-off because they're not getting approval and warm hugs.
chickenlittle said...
"@Simon: First, thanks for your thoughtful response. It seems to me that Romney's problem is that he cannot generate enough enthusiasm sua sponte. If he does, show me."
I think Romney's problem is that a large percentage of Republicans don't really like him, and even among those who aren't distinctly hostile to him, he doesn't generate much enthusiasm, as you point out. I agree with that.
"I argued on Twitter as long ago as a year that the Tea Party (or what's left of it) needed to join forces with Romney. The defeat of Obama will surely not happen with one side trying to marginalize the other. It just won't happen."
I completely agree with that, too.
"I respectfully disagree with your tarring of some Tea Party leaders as religious extremists--Palin especially."
Wait, what? Where did I do that?
Simon wrote: Wait, what? Where did I do that?
6:46: He's also right, I think, that among many conservatives (especially among those who tend to mistake themselves and their peer group for the views of America at large) there is a "belief that Obama, Harry Reid[, et al] are so unpopular that NOW IS THE TIME!! to nominate a 'true believer,'" because those few Americans who aren't themselves conservatives are so desperate to get rid of Obama that they'll vote for anyone to do it.
I was conflating you with Cedarford and I apologize for that. But I also was folding in months (years) of tweet-watching--including yours. But don't take it personally. I was directing my remarks more at Cedarford.
There's nothing loony about it. Catholics don't believe in contraception
The second sentence is unrelated to the first. "Catholics believe it" does not contradict "it is insane".
Besides, most Catholics DO believe in, and use, contraception. I guess you could say "those aren't real Catholics", but try telling them that.
For the record, neither my 18:46 comment nor anything else I've said here or anywhere else, ever, whether separately or cumulatively, was intended to tar Tea Party leaders or Sarah as religious extremists.
All I said above was that many conservatives and many conservatives overestimate the degree to which America at large agrees with their views, and from that faulty premise make the entirely rational mistake of thinking that America at large is waiting for the same true blue conservative candidate that they are.
Are you getting that from "true believer"? I didn't understand that to be a reference to religious belief but political—"true believer"="a rock-ribbed supporter of 100% of the goals, methods, and views of the tea part.
"The second sentence is unrelated to the first. 'Catholics believe it' does not contradict 'it is insane.'"
Sure. I'm sure there are Catholic birthers; their being Catholic doesn't make them sane. But "the Catholic Church teaches it" contradicts "it is insane."
"Besides, most Catholics DO believe in, and use, contraception. I guess you could say 'those aren't real Catholics,' but try telling them that."
I do. If they are in dissent from Humanae Vitae, they need to reconcile themselves to it and get to a confessional—rapidly. I've heard the same stories you have, seen the same numbers, but I just don't believe them. Are there soi-disant Catholics who are openly in dissent from Humanae Vitae? You bet. Are there Catholics using birth control? You bet. Are there Catholics using birth control who really don't know in their hearts that what they're doing is wrong? You bet. But "most"? Doubt it. I think those numbers are cooked by people who don't agree with the teaching.
Carol_Herman,
It's still the "funny Underwear Man" ... or worse.
And, it's the advantage Obama needs to win a second term.
The first comment after I leave and it's a reiteration of the same tired argument - we aren't going to beat a proven loser. Incredible.
Older people care about social issues because they are mature enough to understand a presidential election is NOT a one issue proposition. Say you focus exclusively on electing a money man, and then a true social crisis comes up - what have you done? You've fucked yourself, that's what. And that's EXACTLY what you're planning on doing with Romney.
Being in the I-want-people-to-stop-thinking-with-their-privates crowd, I don't know,...
Cedarford,
I was thinking about this thread today and it did occur to me that the communication problem we're having is that some of you guys DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M SAYING, and this comment is evidence that's the case - it's only half right:
I NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, EVER, EVER said "the public HUNGERS for someone as far-right as possible," and you're admitting you're delusional to imagine I did - in a "faith-based" manner or otherwise.
But the "faith-based belief" charge is the worst - just like Ann recently claiming I'm leading a "cult" of hypermasculinity.
When are some of you going to stop trying this reverse-smear of me with my own topics - when you KNOW I'm into no such things?
Why can't you just admit you can't keep up with my reasoning?
Oh yeah - because then you'd also have to admit you're not that smart yourselves. My bad.
I sit here, reading all this conventional wisdom and it's heartbreaking - especially from Ann - because you're all supposed to be so smart. Ann was top of her fucking class and the best she could come up with is THE CRACK EMCEE IS A CULTIST?
That approach is so lame she should be offering to give her degree back - or her college should be demanding it.
And the idea that I - a person who has made his feelings about "beliefs" very clear for YEARS now - should be charged with harboring a "faith-based belief" is just as ignorant, if not more. I'm talking serious bottom-of-the-barrel stupidity.
You really need to grow up.
Now, instead of saying, "the public HUNGERS for someone as far-right as possible," I'm saying that's the answer to our problem (whether they get it or not) and, if we elect such a person as our standard bearer, the public will be boxed into going along with that decision because they know - yes - four more years of Obama and Harry Reid spells obvious disaster.
Back in the day, nobody thought Reagan could be president - except he faced Jimmy Carter. That's where we are today. Nobody thought Carter was a bad guy (at the time) but they did know we couldn't endure four more years under his "leadership," and that's where we are now with Obama.
It's the biggest open secret in politics.
So go on pretending we have to pick another loser to replace him - when we don't. We can pick someone who can actually accomplish what's necessary - whether the general public "likes" him on Facebook or not - and, if we don't, we're fucked.
That's all I'm saying,...
el polacko said...
if santorum should, somehow, become the candidate then obama wins. there are SO many of santorum's past statements that are mis-informed, i'll-informed, willfully ignorant, often loony, and sometimes downright hateful that there will be ample ammunition to make him a national laughingstock and worse.
one thing that can be said for romney is that his baggage is light. you can only beat up on him for 'flip-flopping', state healthcare, and mormonism so much before they become superfluous attacks.
Scott, Chickenlittle, he may have it in for the tea party, but that doesn't make him wrong. For once , I agree with him. Not about the tea party generally, I mean, but as I said above, there are a lot of folks in the tea party who believe that they represent untold multitudes, and that those untold multitudes are yearning for a real conservative candidate.
That's not true. I attended my last Tea party event on New Years and I didn't meet one person who fit that profile. Tea Partiers are people looking at problems and trying to solve them - they are not ideologues by a long shot.
They do recognize that conservatism is better than liberalism, but beyond that, there's not a word you're saying that's true. Like this smearing of me as a "cultist," when are you guys going to get out of your own head's projections and deal with reality? Hardly anything said about the Tea Party is true, and it's been that way from the day it emerged - when is some truth going to come out of you guys?
Am I the last honest man around here?
el polacko,
Nobody said Romney can't win - we're saying he shouldn't.
I find it incredible, as you guys keep displaying conventional wisdom at it's finest, you can't even articulate any argument but your own - which can be found in any nightly newscast nation-wide.
You're a bunch of parrots, and it's pathetic.
ut "the Catholic Church teaches it" contradicts "it is insane."
Not even slightly.
"[Simon said that there are a lot of folks in the tea party who believe that they represent untold multitudes, and that those untold multitudes are yearning for a real conservative candidate.] That's not true. I attended my last Tea party event on New Years and I didn't meet one person who fit that profile. ¶ Tea Partiers are people looking at problems and trying to solve them - they are not ideologues by a long shot."
Tea partiers are, in the main, people who believe that we have problems to solve: That liberalism is a problem to solve, or that liberalism has created a number of problems for us to solve. Those are ideological claims. They are ideological positions with which I happen to agree, but they are ideological positions. If you disagree, the ticket price is the name of a tea party group supporting Democratic candidates. Name one.
"Like this smearing of me as a cultist"
Who called you a cultist?
"when are you guys"
Who's this "you guys" kimo sabe?
"get out of your own head's projections and deal with reality"
Kind of my point. The reality is that a unified GOP needs roughly 18% of independents to win, varying a little by state. They won't get it by nominating someone unappealing to those independents who are up for grabs.
Hardly anything said about the Tea Party is true, and it's been that way from the day it emerged - when is some truth going to come out of you guys?
None of these candidates is a perfect conservative. Perry has probably the most consistently conservative record. But I'm astonished you think Gingrich is better than Romney. Gingrich thinks he has the answers to all the problems. He is a faddish thinker with no discipline. He's too lazy to build a campaign organization to make a serious run. Part of the reason Reagan won is that he had a good personality. He was like able. Gingrich is extrremely dislike able. He's arrogant, brusque, and a whiner. His personality alone will ensure Obama's reelection.
If you disagree, the ticket price is the name of a tea party group supporting Democratic candidates.
You falsely assume there are small-government liberals running for office as Democrats. There aren't, so the lack of Tea Party support for liberal candidates is unsurprising.
On the other hand there are plenty of big-government conservatives who have drawn the ire of Tea Partiers: Orin Hatch, John Boehner, and Richard Lugar are obvious examples.
"You falsely assume there are small-government liberals running for office as Democrats."
No, I don't. On the one hand, there are no "small-government liberals," which, given the modern connotation of "liberal" is a contradiction in terms. But even if I did, that wouldn't undercut my point. If the tea party would back small government liberals (or an abominable snowman, cars that run on rainbows and unicorn kisses, or attractive Victoria's Secret model), that's great, but it underscores my point: They would do so because such a candidate would share their belief that government is too big. Well, that government (or at least outsized government) is a problem, and a concomitant belief that shrinking it is the solution, are ideological claims. Again, they're claims that I happen to agree with—I'm not faulting them or disputing them—but they are ideological claims.
I thought Carol_Herman was the only person who had a problem with Boehner. She even got over it, I think.
If you disagree, the ticket price is the name of a tea party group supporting Democratic candidates. Name one.
You went from a line of questioning I find interesting (whether finding liberalism is a problem can be limited to ideology after 50 years) to one I find cheap, juvenile, and silly (semantic criticism when merely engaging with colloquial language) and did it so fast, I lost interest.
mccullough,
I'm astonished you think Gingrich is better than Romney.
List Gingrich's political accomplishments on one side of paper and Romney's on the other. Which is longer? Which is more substantial? Which has inspired people - people who don't even like Gingrich - to say he changed American politics "forever"?
Do you seriously think I'm going to choose a man who, before RomneyCare, was best known for managing a sporting event - over a man of true political achievements?
Are you serious about politics? About our country? I don't think so - listen to yourself:
Gingrich thinks he has the answers to all the problems.
Oooh - that's a bad trait for the guy you hire to fix shit, huh? Better to hire an incompetent, right? Or a guy who thinks he's an incompetent? President Dumbass - that's who we need,...
He is a faddish thinker with no discipline.
Who gave us a list of political accomplishments the length of my arm. I know - you're talking about his mouth - but guess what? I say he can talk as much as he wants while fixing the problems of this country.
He's too lazy to build a campaign organization to make a serious run.
Oh - performing in your dog-and-pony show is more important than just putting someone in office who's proven he can do what's necessary. I get it now,...
Part of the reason Reagan won is that he had a good personality. He was likeable. Gingrich is extrremely dislikeable.
He's running for president - not your Facebook friend. Either we have serious problems to deal with or this is actually a try out for Miss Congeniality - your choice.
He's arrogant, brusque, and a whiner.
Hey, man, it ain't easy dealing with the pathology of delusion day-in-and-day-out. You know, like people who say, "Wow - we have incredible problems in this country - the answer is to look for someone LIKABLE!!!"
His personality alone will ensure Obama's reelection.
No, that will be the result of extreme immaturity - and it won't be Gingrich's,...
"You went from a line of questioning I find interesting (whether finding liberalism is a problem can be limited to ideology after 50 years) to one I find cheap, juvenile, and silly (semantic criticism when merely engaging with colloquial language) and did it so fast, I lost interest."
Great way to distract attention from your inability to answer the point! I don't think anyone noticed. Doubtless they were all distracted by the faux outrage; way to go.
What are Gingrich's accomplishments? Bill Clinton handed Gingrich his ass. Clinton ran in 1992 on welfare reform and got the welfare reform he wanted. Clinton jacked up income taxes and cut capital gains taxes, which helped lead to almost a balanced budget. If Gingrich weren't such a blowhard, he'd have gotten more credit. But Clinton gets it. Gingrich got thrown out of the Speakers chair by his colleagues and then quit his Congressional seat to work in the private sector as an influence peddler. Did you see Gingrich's speech last night. He was a total whiner. Again. Romney is handing Gingrich his ass just like Bill Clnton did. Gingrich is a clown. He's going nowhere. You need to shift to another candidate.
It doesn't matter. The end result is the same.
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Elon Musk now in charge of Twitter, CEO and CFO have left, sources say
TWTR
CEO Elon Musk is now in charge of Twitter
, CNBC has learned.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and finance chief Ned Segal have left the company’s San Francisco headquarters and will not be returning, sources said. Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust and safety, was also fired, The Washington Post reported.
Musk had until Friday to complete his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter or face a court battle with the company.
The billionaire tweeted “the bird is freed” in an apparent reference to the takeover being completed.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In April, Twitter accepted Musk’s proposal to buy the social media service and take it private. However, Musk soon began sowing doubt about his intentions to follow through with the agreement, alleging the company failed to adequately disclose the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform.
When Musk said he was terminating the deal, Twitter sued the billionaire, alleging he “refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”
SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk takes part in a joint news conference with T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert (not pictured) at the SpaceX Starbase, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., August 25, 2022.
Adrees Latif | Reuters
In the ensuing months, Twitter and Musk would trade barbs via their attorneys as the two parties were slated to head to Delaware’s Court of Chancery to determine the fate of the company and whether it would end up in the Tesla chief’s hands.
Earlier in October, Musk had a change of heart and said he wanted to pursue his acquisition of Twitter at the original price of $54.20 a share if the social messaging service dropped its litigation. Distrustful of Musk’s motivations, Twitter’s lawyers said the Tesla CEO’s “proposal is an invitation to further mischief and delay.”
A Delaware Chancery Court judge eventually ruled that Musk had until Oct. 28 to cement the Twitter deal or head to trial.
It is still unclear how Musk will finance the deal. Earlier this year, he secured some debt financing from a number of investment banks. He also got the backing of some high-profile investors including venture capital firms and technology CEOs.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance, one of the original backers, confirmed to CNBC on Friday that it is an equity investor in Musk’s Twitter takeover.
“We’re excited to be able to help Elon realize a new vision for Twitter. We aim to play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together in order to broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a statement.
Web3 is a term the technology industry uses to refer to the next generation of the internet.
On Thursday, Musk wrote a message intended to reassure advertisers that social messaging services wouldn’t devolve into “a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk said in the message. “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far-right wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
Musk arrived at Twitter headquarters earlier this week carrying a sink, and documented the event on Twitter, saying “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!”
Musk also updated his Twitter description to “Chief Twit.”
— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.
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Laurel Bowden of VC firm 83North on the European deep tech and startup ecosystems
RecoLabs hopes to secure enterprise collaboration
June 7, 2022 ENR
Capital One announces hack affecting 106 million U.S. and Canadian customers
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BACKYARD BROADCASTING APRIL 20, 2021
ADDITIONAL CHARGES STEMMING FROM STAND-OFF
Late Monday afternoon, additional felony charges were lodged against Shaheed Gindraw, the 32-year-old man who held city police at bay for more than six hours Friday night at Newberry Estates, 2500 Federal Ave. According to the SUN Gazette, initially jailed on $10,000 bail, Gindraw was recommitted in lieu of $175,000 bail following his arraignment on the new charges before District Judge Christian Frey.
RIVER VALLEY TRANSIT INVESTIGATION
The Office of Attorney General Josh Shapiro has been investigating the use of multi-million dollar grants over the past decade at River Valley Transit, and discovered upwards of $65 million in state Department of Transportation grants were received by the bus system throughout the recent decade and, according to details uncovered by SUN Gazette, this doesn’t include monies provided by the Federal Transit Administration. The Attorney General’s Office investigation continues.
PASSHE NOT INCREASING TUITION RATES
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) will not increase tuition rates for the third consecutive year. According to an online news outlet, the move keeps basic in-state tuition for undergraduate students for the 2021-22 academic year at $7,716. The technology fee for students will also remain at $478 for the upcoming academic year. Lock Haven University, Dr. Bashar Hanna, LHU’s interim president noted this was a very positive move for students and community and for all 14 universities involved in the program.
Shots fired in Flannigan Park brought officers from Old Lycoming Township, Williamsport, South Williamsport, and Pennsylvania State Police to downtown Williamsport around 8 pm last night. According to Northcentralpa.com, crime scene tape was used to mark off the basketball court and metal detectors were used in conjunction with the Williamsport Fire Department for lighting and manpower. During this time, an individual was transported to the Williamsport Hospital, however it is unknown if the reason was due to this incident.
DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE
A domestic in the parking lot of Sheetz in Bloomsburg on March 19 began as two people argued over money from the ATM. Willis Vance Person, 57, of Bloomsburg allegedly became physical and assaulted the accuser. According to a media outlet, Person was charged with multiple misdemeanors stemming from the incident, assigned $25,000 monetary bail and confined to the Columbia County Prison on April 13. His preliminary hearing scheduled for April 28 with Judge Russell Lawton.
Pennsylvania State Police in Bloomsburg are looking for a 16-year-old, last seen Saturday night at 11pm. Sage Rossi, Bloomsburg, did take her cell phone, which provided a ping that placed it within in a three-mile radius of 1345 Mount Road, Huntington Township, Luzerne County. According to Troopers, they searched the area with negative results. According to Northcentralpa.com, the report says there has not been any activity on the phone or Rossi’s social media accounts since the ping. Anyone with information should call the Bloomsburg State Police.
COVID-19 NUMBER TODAY
The Pennsylvania Department of Health today provided updated COVID-19 totals for our area: Locally, Lycoming 16; Clinton 8; Tioga 7; Sullivan 2 and Northumberland 8.
LOCK HAVEN ALL IN DAY OF GIVING
Lock Haven University’s All In Day of Giving, the 24-hour fundraiser, held from 10 a.m. Thursday, April 15 to 10 a.m. Friday, April 16, was set to support academic and athletic scholarships for LHU students. According to Northcentralpa.com, this year, the effort raised more than $150,000 in support. During the event, various challenges were announced with donors having a chance to unlock additional funding for the academic or athletic programs they care about most. Some of these included; the LHU Foundation First-Time Donor Challenge, the LHU Foundation Soaring Higher Challenge and the PSECU Most Money Raised Athletics Challenge.
ACCIDENT ON SR 15
An overturned tractor-trailer truck, carrying wood, rolled down an embankment, when negotiating a turn on the Route 15 South spur yesterday around 12:45pm. According to an online media source, the driver, Jose Diaz, 55, New Jersey, was transported and treated at UPMC for injuries sustained. Although not fully blocked to traffic, the area was reduced to a single lane during clean up. Fire police from area departments responded and assisted with traffic direction.
GOVERNOR WOLF VACCINE
Governor Tom Wolf received his first COVID shot yesterday at Family First Health in York. In keeping with his word, Governor Wolf waited until all Pennsylvanian adults were vaccine eligible. He sent a message on Twitter saying he was excited to be just one of more than 2.7 million Pennsylvanians who have received at least one dose. It is not known which does he was given.
CROSSCUTTERS FAN CUTOUTS
With state mandated capacity limits and social distancing expected to be part of the Williamsport Crosscutters upcoming season, the team has announced the availability of Fan Cutouts for the 2021 campaign. All orders will be verified by the Williamsport Crosscutters, as there is a short list of things not permitted on the photo. Fans wishing to order a cutout can do so by visiting Crosscutters website and following the easy step by step process. To have your cut out in the stands for Opening night, May 25th, orders must be in by May 13.
South Williamsport shut out Towanda 18-0
Montoursville over Mifflinburg 6-4
Canton over Wyalusing 5-4
Wellsboro defeated Coudersport 16-6
Galeton over Port Allegany 8-7
Cowanesque Valley defeated Oswayo Valley 17-3
Williamsport shut out Jersey Shore 5-0
Muncy over South Williamsport 3-2
Central Mountain shut out Danville 5-0
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Carl Gunn Blog
Another Great Categorical Approach/Divisibility Case.
Hanging Out with Carl Gunn
By Carl GunnHanging Out with Carl Gunn
BLOG BULLETS:
The Ninth Circuit has recently held – in Ramirez v. Lynch, 810 F.3d 1127 (9th Cir. 2016) – that the California child abuse statute doesn’t qualify as a crime of violence under the categorical approach and can’t be subjected to the modified categorical approach because it’s nondivisible.
Ramirez also reminds us of several categorical approach principles, including that we must presume the conviction rested on the least serious acts, that the modified categorical approach is just a “tool” that retains the focus on elements rather than facts, and that the “force” required for a crime of violence is intentional force.
Ramirez also illustrates a three-step approach to analyzing divisibility, first using the language of the statute, then looking to the conviction documents, and finally looking to case law and model jury instructions defining the offense.
NOW THE BLOG:
We got another great categorical approach/divisibility case out of the Ninth Circuit a couple of months ago that I thought I’d post on. It’s Ramirez v. Lynch, 810 F.3d 1127 (9th Cir. 2016). Initially, the bottom line holding is good to keep in mind. It’s that the California felony child abuse statute – California Penal Code § 273a(a) – which we do see from time to time, (1) isn’t categorically a “crime of violence” under 18 U.S.C. § 16 (or, by extension, a “crime of violence” under the career offender guideline or a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act, which use the same portion of the 18 U.S.C. § 16 definition at issue in Ramirez) and (2) isn’t a divisible statute for which the modified categorical approach can be used. Just this bottom line holding is good to keep in mind, since treating “child abuse” as not a “crime of violence” may not be one’s initial intuitive reaction.
The opinion also provides another nice illustration of some of the general principles of and approaches to the categorical approach and divisibility. First, it nicely restates some general principles about the categorical and modified categorical approaches. It reminds that “we examine what the state conviction necessarily involved, not the facts underlying the case” and that we “must presume that the conviction ‘rested upon [nothing] more than the least of th[e] acts’ criminalized.” Id. at 1131 (quoting Moncrieffe v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 1678, 1684 (2013)) (emphasis added in Ramirez). It then reminds that the modified categorical approach may be used only in a “narrow range of cases,” when the statute is “divisible.” Ramirez, 810 F.3d at 1131 (quoting Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276, 2283-85 (2013)). It also reminds that the modified categorical approach is just a “tool” which “‘retains the categorical approach’s central feature: a focus on the elements, rather than the facts, of a crime,’ as well as its ‘basic method.’” Ramirez, 810 F.3d at 1132 (quoting Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2285). Finally, it reminds that the “use of force” prong of the “crime of violence” and “violent felony” definitions requires intentional use of force, not reckless or negligent use of force. Ramirez, 810 F.3d at 1132 (citing and discussing Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1 (2004) and Fernandez-Ruiz v. Gonzales, 466 F.3d 1121, 1132 (9th Cir. 2006)).
The opinion then nicely illustrates how to analyze whether a statute is divisible. It first describes the “three-step process,” outlined in an en banc opinion first filed last December.
In Almanza-Arenas v. Lynch, we recently outlined a three-step process for conducting this divisibility analysis under Descamps. [809 F.3d 515, 521-23 (9th Cir. 2015) (en banc), amended, ___ F.3d ___, 2016 WL 766753 (Feb. 29, 2016).] First, we examine the text of the statute of conviction to determine whether it contains multiple crimes with distinct elements, or instead describes alternative means for accomplishing a single crime. We next examine the conviction documents to determine whether we may confirm our statutory analysis. Finally, we verify that our reading is consistent with the way in which state courts have construed the statute of conviction.
Ramirez, 810 F.3d at 1134.
The opinion then illustrates these steps. It first looks to the statutory text and notes the statute enumerates the ways in which a person can criminally abuse or endanger a child by using the disjunctive. It reminds that “[t]he mere use of the disjunctive term ‘or’ does not automatically make a statute divisible,” id. at 1135 (quoting Almanza-Arenas, 809 F.3d at 523 n.11), and concludes that in this case the text suggests not separate offenses but separate means of committing a single offense, id.
The opinion acknowledges this is not clear on the face of the statute, however, so it turns to the conviction documents. It notes the charging information “simply repeats the text of the statute, listing all four prongs and alleging violations of each.” Ramirez, 810 F.3d at 1135. (Note that this is typical of California charging documents, at least in Southern California.) The opinion then notes the abstract of judgment also draws no distinction between the prongs and there are no jury instructions in the record that suggest anything.
The court then takes the third step in the three-step process – “examin[ing] California state law, including model jury instructions.” Id. at 1135. First, it points to general California jury unanimity case law which “leaves room for disagreement as to exactly how the crime was committed.” Id. at 1136 (quoting People v. Russo, 25 P.3d 641, 645 (Cal. 2001)) (emphasis added in Ramirez). The court goes on to cite two specific child abuse cases in which the courts expressly held the two main forms of conduct covered by the statute – directly inflicting injury on the child and negligently allowing the child to be injured – are simply “different legal theories” a jury doesn’t need to agree on. See Ramirez, 810 F.3d at 1136-37 (quoting People v. Vargas, 251 Cal. Rptr. 904, 909 (Cal. App. 1988) and also citing In re L.K., 132 Cal. Rptr. 3d 342 (Cal. App. 2011)). In discussing these cases, the court notes that “[a]fter the court’s decision in Vargas, a defendant like Vargas, charged with both direct and indirect infliction of section 273a(a), would have no reason to argue that she did not hit her child, but instead failed to get the child adequate medical care,” which is one of the “risks [of] unfairness” the divisibility requirement is meant to prevent. Ramirez, 810 F.3d at 1137. Finally, the court supplements this California case law with a citation of the California model jury instruction, which “explicitly state[s]” there does not need to be juror unanimity on whether there was intentional infliction of injury or negligent allowance of injury.” Id. at 1138.
There is one caveat to keep in mind, namely, that this is all subject to the Supreme Court’s decision in the pending case of Mathis v. United States, No. 15-6092, cert. granted, 2016 WL 207258 (Jan. 19, 2016), which I mentioned in another categorical approach post a couple of months ago. (See the caveat at the end of “More on Those Great New Categorical Approach Cases” in the February 2016 link at the right.) The Supreme Court granted cert in that case to resolve a split in the circuits over the question of whether a statute listing alternatives in the disjunctive has to require unanimity in order to be divisible. The analysis in Ramirez – and other Ninth Circuit divisibility cases decided after Rendon v. Holder, 764 F.3d 1077 (9th Cir. 2014) – depends on this requirement and will need to be revisited if Mathis is decided against us. Hopefully that won’t happen. We should know by July, since Mathis is being argued later this month.
← It’s a Mandatory Ten Years Total, Not a Mandatory Ten Years Federal.
An Update on the Extension of Riley to Probation Searches. →
Shortly before I moved on after 28 years of work as a Federal Public Defender, one of the younger attorneys I had the honor to mentor forwarded me an e-mail he’d received from an Assistant United States Attorney. The e-mail complained that my younger colleague was being extremely frustrating, that my colleague was making far too much of a “simple little case,” that the client in the case was going to be deported no matter what, and that my colleague was forcing the prosecutor to “expend a tremendous amount of effort” on what the prosecutor characterized as a “silly issue.” He ended his e-mail by asking, “Have you been hanging out with Carl Gunn?”
Some people would have been insulted by this, but I felt rather proud. Making as much as we can out of what the government sees as “simple little cases,” litigating issues despite the government’s view that they might be “silly,” and “expend[ing] a tremendous amount of effort” on behalf of clients who have the full weight of the government thrown up against them – often with the government’s view that the case is open and shut, or “simple” – is our calling as public defenders and defense attorneys. We all have our different reasons for doing it, but it’s a crucial task – for our clients, our system, and ourselves. As Sir Thomas More was said to say in “A Man for All Seasons” in response to his future son-in- law’s exclamation that he’d “cut down every law in England” to get at the devil: “Oh, and when the last law in England was down and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, all the laws being flat?”
I’m proud if “hanging out with Carl Gunn” means not just accepting the government’s view that cases are “simple” and “little,” that issues are “silly,” and that we shouldn’t expend resources on our clients. Hence the name of this blog: “Hanging out with Carl Gunn.” I hope to offer some thoughts and ideas that the government may think are “silly,” but I respectfully don’t; that you can use in cases that the government may think are “simple,” but aren’t so simple when looked at more critically; and that are an entirely appropriate way to expend our resources. And in the spirit of this being a “hanging out” together, there might be guest bloggers from time to time with their “silly” ideas to offer. I hope you find some of the ideas on this blog helpful and offer whatever comments you might have to add to them.
Not a Single Washington Conviction Counts as a Crime of Violence or Controlled Substance Offense Under the Guidelines! And the Same for Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.
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Supreme Court Approval of “50 State Surveys”
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Those Were the Days, . . . . Still, There Might Be a Bone They’re Throwing Us . . .
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Fake Cop “Experts”: Yes, Daubert Applies to Them Too – Sort of Sort of.
Fake Cop “Experts”: Yes, Daubert Applies to Them Too – Sort of.
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More or Less Advanced than Mutt and Jeff? And Not Advanced Enough in Any Event?
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Cell Light, Cellebrite, First Cell Phone Search I See Tonight . . .
Some Success in Arizona and Still Waiting in California
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DOJ Cares About Accurate Eyewitness Id’s as Well (Unless “Making America Great Again” and “You’re Fired” Changes That)
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An Update on If I Wasn’t Completely Entrapped, I Was Entrapped At Least This Much
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Batson Basics: Identifying Pretext
Construing “Great” in “Make America Great Again”
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Batson Basics: Who Does the Protecting and Who are Jurors Protected From?
Batson Basics: What Are Jurors Protected From?
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Those Great Discovery Opinions From a Couple of Years Ago Are Still Being Followed.
A Glimmer of Hope Glimmers Again.
Exciting News About Divisibility Challenges to the California Drug Statutes!
Some Further Thoughts on It’s a Mandatory Ten Years Total, Not a Mandatory Ten Years Federal
Some More Ammo for Deconstructing the Career Offender Guideline.
Another Circuit Supports the Argument that the California Drug Statutes Aren’t Divisible.
An Update on Mathis’s Effect on the Ninth Circuit Case Law Holding the California Drug Statutes Divisible
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Mathis May Open Up More Doors Than You Think.
Even the Supreme Court Agrees With Us!
Johnson and Johnson Not Only Makes Band-Aids But – Along with Leocal – Make a Good Argument that Even Bank Robbery Isn’t a Crime of Violence.
When to Repeat Yourself and When Not to Repeat Yourself
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things (Hearsay Principles and Exceptions): Exceptions
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things (Hearsay Principles and Exceptions): Principles
An Application of One of the Recent Guidelines Amendments.
An Update on Waking Up to Reality and Coming Down to Earth.
A Glimmer of Hope (Maybe More than a Glimmer?) on the Indivisibility of Overbroad Drug Statutes.
There May Be More Viability – or at Least More Impact – in Your Fair Cross-Section Challenge than You Think.
In Case You Were Scoffing at Those Prior Posts . . .
An Update on the Extension of Riley to Probation Searches.
It’s a Mandatory Ten Years Total, Not a Mandatory Ten Years Federal.
Some Case Law Backing Up a Prior Post
A Caveat on Last Week’s Post About What a Defendant Has to Prove at a Suppression Hearing.
When Do You Get a Hearing on Your Motion?
A Second Prop 47 Opinion to Use in Challenging Enhancements.
More on Those Great New Categorical Approach Cases
A Couple of Great New Categorical Approach Cases.
A Breaking (Well, Almost Breaking) News Bulletin on Changes to the Career Offender “Crime of Violence” Definition.
The Different Rules for Prior Inconsistent Statements and Prior Consistent Statements
The New (Well, Sorta New) Rule on Prior Consistent Statements.
Some People in Congress Agree with Us About Our E-Mails with Clients.
State Authorities Are Still Violating the Wiretap Law
Some Prop 47 Ideas – and Even One Opinion – Floating Around Out There
Just a Little Reminder.
Johnson Can Help Your Guy Even If He’s Out.
Reaffirmation and Clarification of the Categorical and Modified Categorical Approaches
Waking Up to Reality and Coming Back Down to Earth.
Sometimes Even the Judicial Committees Are Wrong.
Stop and Frisk or Just Stop?
Stuff Your Stupid Regulation: I Have the Constitution.
Detention Based on ICE Detainers Is Melting in the Ninth Circuit Too
Maybe We Don’t Need to Worry. . . . Well, if They Do What Their Bosses Say.
Throw Off Those Chains!
If You Want to Do Even More More Dreaming . . .
If You Really Want to Dream . . .
The Blindness of Blind Mule Experts
The Supreme Court’s Half Step Toward Supporting the Ninth Circuit on Overbreadth of Controlled Substance Schedules
More than a Residual Victory
Beware of Winking and Nodding with Informants
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Some More Observations on Their Own Discovery Policies
Remind Them of Their Own Discovery Policies
It’s Not All About the Money.
An Update on the 2015 Guidelines Amendments
Bad Cases Be Gone!
Using Descamps to Narrow the Use of the Shepard Documents
Don’t Give Up on the Challenge to the California Drug Statutes’ Divisibility
Rendon Remains Standing
The Swings Over the Years
We Can Keep on Dreaming.
Wait a Minute, That’s Not All I Said!
How to Decide When Two or Three Convictions Are Just One
Who Gets to Decide When Two or Three Convictions Are Just One?
When Are Two or Three Convictions Just One?
Was It Obstruction of Justice, an Honest Mistake, or Just Wishful Thinking After the Fact?
Does "Trafficking" Really Mean "Trafficking"?
It's Not Too Early to Start Thinking About the Future: The Upcoming Guidelines Amendments
How About an Extension of Riley to Probation Searches?
Another Source for Arguments About the Need for Computer Search Protocols
An Application and Extension of Riley v. California on Cell Phone Searches
A Half Step in Our Favor on State Wiretaps
More on Reading Attorney-Client Mail (and E-Mail?)
Some Caveats on Last Week's Case
A Nice Breach Case
Some Enlightenment in Federal Law Enforcement?
Sometimes (Though Perhaps Not Often) Relevant Conduct Can Be a Good Thing
Another Possibly Overlooked Evidence Rule: Impeaching Those Not Present
An Update on a Not So Recent Discovery Post
An Update on a Recent Discovery Post
The Ninth Circuit Agrees With Us on What Divisibility Means Under Descamps
Does Riley v. California Affect United States v. Cotterman Even More?
Does Riley v. California Affect United States v. Cotterman?
They Don't Seem to Know Their Rule 16 Obligations Either
Making Them Give Immunity to Your Witnesses as Well as Theirs
I Have Some Questions of My Own I'd Like to Ask the Venire, Judge!
Do They Get to Read Your Attorney-Client E-Mail Just Because They Say They're Going To? What If You Tell Them In the E-Mail They Can't? Or Get a Court to Tell Them?
Single Felony or Multiple Misdemeanors?
A Prediction Come True (Well, a Little Bit Anyway)
Can You Keep Rule 404(b) Evidence Out With a Stipulation? (Part 2)
Can You Keep Rule 404(b) Evidence Out With a Stipulation?
Another Thing Prosecutors Think They Can Do That They Can't
They Don't Get to Impeach Something They Knew They Were Going to Get
Government Confessions! Or at Least Admissions
Booker's Creeping Effect: Some Slowly Developing Good News on Sentencing and a New Milestone of Sorts
Another Descamps Angle on a California Drug Statute
A Summary and Some Further Nuances of Descamps's Divisibility Requirement
More More on What's a Divisible Statute Under Descamps: An Application of Last Week's Post to the Offense of Burglary
More on What's a Divisible Statute Under Descamps
A Wrong Approach to the Categorical Approach for Conspiracy - and a Hope It Might Be Corrected.
The Right Approach to the Categorical Approach Applied to Attempt
The Right Approach to the Categorical Approach
Some Movement in the Real Change that Might Happen Out There
Even Competency Examinations Can Open Up a Can of Worms; Think About the Potential Taint There
Prosecutors Need to Be Careful What They Ask For: The Trap They Create By Asking for a Mental Health Evaluation of a Defendant and How to Use the Trap Against Them
Prosecutors Aren't Always Entitled to the Mental Health Evaluation of the Defendant They Think They're Entitled To
Computer Searches Out in the Internetsphere: A Case and Some Thoughts
The Holder Memo: Is It a Double-Edged Sword?
Is There Some More Real Change Going to Happen Out There?
In a Land Far, Far Away: Challenging Remote Detention
Is Global Warming Melting ICE's Immigration Detainer Glaciers?
A Brady Dissent that Gives All the More Reason to Push for Brady Material Pretrial
Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Sentencing Guidelines Part 5: We Can Build Our Own
Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Sentencing Guidelines Part 3: How Do We Do It?
Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Sentencing Guidelines Part 4: Some Examples of Deconstruction
Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Sentencing Guidelines Part 2: A Dirty Little Secret
Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Sentencing Guidelines: Part 1
Some More on Breaches of Plea Agreements
They Don't Get to Decide on Their Own that You Breached; It's Up to the Judge
Even More Reason to Insist on a Conditional Plea When You've Got a Good Issue for Appeal
You Need Just an Eeesy-Weensy-Teensy Bit of Evidence - Well Maybe Just a Touch More - to Get That Defense Instruction
If I Wasn't Completely Entrapped, I Was Entrapped At Least This Much
The Ice ICE Is Using to Ice Your Client Is Melting a Bit
More on the Brave New World of Computer Searches at the Border
Returning Once Again to the Brave New World of Computer Searches: Another Case on Search Protocols
Still More on Descamps: An Application of Last Week's Post
More on Descamps
A Return to McNabb and Mallory
What Fury Hath Descamps Wrought?
Still More Still More Still More (Sorry) on the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination: How Long Does It Last?
Still More Still More on the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination: What Does It Apply To?
Still More on the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination: What Do You Do if the Witness Claims It?
The Rest of My Own Little Supreme Court Update
My Own Little Supreme Court Update
More on the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination: How Do You Claim It?
More on Fifth Amendment Rights from the News: On the Scope of the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination
More on Bad Wars Make Bad Law: Some Judicial Warnings
Bad Wars Make Bad Law: An Extension of the War on Terrorism and Its Creeping Infringement on Civil Liberties
It's Not Just Differences in Elements You Need to Consider in Applying the Categorical Approach; Think About Differences in Sentencing Factors and Affirmative Defenses as Well
Some Good News on Crack, and a Call for the Government to Come Through on Its Rhetoric About Fairness and Injustice
If They're Giving Us the Report, Why Not Give Us the Notes?
A DOJ Acknowledgment of Discovery in the Brave New World of Computers
Have You Thought About the Discovery that Word Processing Might Produce?
Aren't Notes a Written Record Too?
Interview Reports: The Difference Between Them and Us
To Report or Not to Report, That Is the Question (With Apologies to Shakespeare)
The Timing of Reciprocal Jencks: What's Sauce for the Goose Is Sauce for the Gander, But the Gander's Not Entitled to Better Sauce
The Case Law They Cite Is About the Abuse of Discretion, Not the Exercise of Discretion
Back to the Brave New World of Computer Searches: A Good (or at Least Improved) New Ninth Circuit Decision
Last Week's Post and Eyewitness Identification Expert Testimony
I Told You So: The Double Jeopardy Bar to Government Appeal of a Midtrial Judgment of Acquittal Revisited
The Constitution Is All Fine and Good, But Don't Forget the Rules of Evidence
They Can't Use Your Silence Against You Here. But They Can There. And There. So What About This Other Place?
Is the Government Actually Minimizing Wiretapped Calls?
Hope Springs Eternal in the Heart of an Ex-Public Defender
Applying Old Word Principles in the Brave New World of Computer Searches
Another Visit to the Brave New World of Computer Searches
Sometimes They Can't Appeal Even When the Judge Is Wrong
Don't Just Ask to Suppress the Involuntary Statement and the Evidence That's Fruit of the Poisonous Tree; Ask For a Full Kastigar Hearing
More on State Cops Counting as Federal Cops Under McNabb-Mallory
When Do State Cops Count as Federal Cops Under McNabb-Mallory?
If You Don't Have Miranda or Misconduct, Think About McNabb and Mallory
Materiality and Intent to Influence in 18 U.S.C. § 1014 Prosecutions
Materiality Is Also Misdefined in the Ninth Circuit Model Instructions
One Last Piece (at Least for Now) of Good News on the Modified Categorical Approach
Did You Know that "And" Really Means "Or"? (At Least Every Now and Then)
They May Reverse the Ninth Again! (But This Time We Want It)
Intent to Defraud Is Misdefined in the Ninth Circuit Model Instructions
Acceptance of Responsibility With a Trial: You Can Get It if You Really Want It
Objecting to a Conditional Plea to Prejudice the Jury: Prosecutorial Bad Form (and Even Bad Faith?)
They're Doing You a Favor by Agreeing to a Conditional Plea? Wait a Minute!
Why Do We Sign Plea Agreements? Or Who Needs the Government Anyway?
You Can Make Them Fix That Breach! Really Fix It
Did You Know This? The Drug Testing Error Rate Could Be One in a Hundred But the Chances of Your Client's Dirty Being a False Positive Could Be One in Two
Getting Even Braver in a Brave New World: Computer Searches Part 3
Getting Braver in a Brave New World: Computer Searches Part 2
The Brave New Fourth Amendment World of Computer Searches
Computer Discovery in Child Pornography Cases: You May Not Be Entitled to Everything, But You're Entitled to More Than They Usually Give
So You Think You Speak Spanish, Officer? Well, Give Us a Sample Then
A Fourth Government Misunderstanding: About Its Brady Obligation Again
Codifying the Brady Standard to Help the Prosecutors Understand
A Third Government Misunderstanding: About Its Basic Brady Obligation
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Some Good News and Some Bad News on Who Controls What's a Controlled Substance
Who Gets to Tap Your Phone: Just the DA Himself or His Assistants Too? Maybe Even His Secretary? How About the Janitor?
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A Government Misunderstanding: About Pretrial Detention
Love May or May Not Be in the Air, But the New Sentencing Guideline Amendments Are
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Who Controls What's a Controlled Substance?
Enhance Your Litigation Skills by Challenging Enhancements
"Draft" Transcripts? Or the Better Originals?
"These cases do not constitute a guarantee, warranty, or prediction regarding the outcome of your legal matter."
Wrongful Imprisonment
List of Crimes
975 East Green Street . Pasadena CA 91106 . p 626 844-7660 . f 626 844-7670
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Adelphic Adds $10M, Led by Google Ventures, to Merge Big Data & Mobile Ads
If the names m-Qube, Enpocket, Third Screen Media, Quattro Wireless, and Where mean anything to you, well, you are well-versed in the recent history of Boston mobile advertising companies. (All of the above were acquired in the past six years.)
If Adelphic Mobile means anything to you, well, perhaps you know the future of the field.
The Waltham, MA-based startup said today it has raised a $10 million Series A round led by Google Ventures, with seed investor Matrix Partners also participating. The round brings Adelphic’s total funding to $12 million. (Google general partner Rich Miner is a busy man around Boston these days; he’s also speaking at Xconomy’s Mobile Madness New York conference today.)
“This money will allow us to go to market in a big way,” says Adelphic co-founder and president Jennifer Lum. “We’ve spent a lot of time with our partners and customers, making sure [our platform] is valuable to their businesses. Now we can put it in their hands.”
Adelphic is part of a newer wave of Boston-area mobile companies that are trying to use techniques around big data, analytics, and rich media to help brands and agencies create and serve up better-targeted (and more relevant) ads to consumers. Lum, a veteran of m-Qube, Quattro, and Apple, says Adelphic’s technology reflects a shift from a “legacy focus on devices” by advertisers to being able to reach “real people.”
What that means is Adelphic’s software works behind the scenes to crunch loads of data on how mobile consumers are interacting with content and ads. It knows which people in a given city at breakfast time, say, might respond favorably to an ad from Dunkin Donuts or McDonald’s displayed through a media partner.
“We can identify segments of users that are important,” Lum says. “We’ll tell you how many are available, the price we can acquire them for you, and help you launch a campaign.”
But any real-time targeting of consumers raises the specter of … Next Page »
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Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile say they’re not blocking Apple’s iCloud Private Relay
Apple says their iCloud Private Relay is now available to all carriers, but Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are still blocking it. With the release of iOS 12.2, Apple announced they’ve updated their iCloud Private Relay feature to be compatible with more network providers around the world. The update includes support for Verizon Wireless (Verizon), AT&T (AT&T), and T-Mobile (TMobile). However, when trying to set up an account on these networks after updating your iPhone or iPad device to iOS 12.2 you will find that your carrier does not offer this service yet—despite being listed as a supported provider by Apple's website.
The three biggest US cellular carriers have all confirmed that they aren’t blocking Apple's new iCloud Private Relay feature. This is great news for people who want an extra layer of protection when browsing online, as well as those with unlocked devices like smartphones or tablets running on different operating systems such AT&T.
AT&T and Verizon are two of the biggest carriers in America, but they have different policies when it comes to this new feature. AT&t will not be blocking Private Relay from functioning on both cellular or Fios internet connections while Verison says that their policy is simply not allow any other form if communications over someone else’s network so there isn't really anything stopping users from using P carve out some private space with these types services.
T-Mobile’s situation is a little more complicated. For the majority of customers, iCloud Private Relay should work just fine and they won't have any issues with their account being compromised by this bug! But those who use content filtering services like Family Controls will be unable to take advantage because Tmobile tells us that these types blocking apps in order for users not get exposed information from other third parties such as advertisers or hackers who may want access your personal data stored online.
T-Mobile customers who choose plans with content filtering (e.g., parent controls) won't be able to access iCloud Private Relay, which would allow them use these services as designed if they're a member of the cellular network operator's subscriber base according T mobile spokesperson Bennet Ladyman." This echoes Apple’s messaging around this feature - networks requiring audit traffic or perform network based filtration will block out any attempts at communicating via their private relay service; however it remains unclear how many other wireless providers have put up similar barriers against connectivity between devices on different carriers' infrastructures.
T-Mobile’s spokesperson also told The Verge that the carrier did find an issue with Apple’s recent iOS 15.2 update that caused iCloud Private Relay to be toggled off following the update. “Overnight our team identified that in the 15.2 iOS release, some device settings default to the feature being toggled off. We have shared this with Apple. This is not specific to T-Mobile.
Some customers are experiencing connection issues after updating their phone software. This could be because it's not an Apple issue at all, but rather something caused by the update to your carrier’s system that needs attention from management team members in order resolve these problems quickly and efficiently before they escalate out of control!
That said, it’s possible that carriers may sour on supporting Apple’s privacy feature in the future. The Telegraph reports that Vodafone, Telefonica, Orange, and T-Mobile have all signed a joint letter asking the European Commission to block Private Relay, arguing that the feature is “cutting off other networks and servers from accessing vital network data and metadata, including those operators in charge of the connectivity.”
If you're looking for a way to protect your privacy online, then iCloud Private Relay is an excellent option. This service works in much the same manner as VPNs do by automatically masking all traffic from Apple and anyone else trying surveillance on what YOU'RE doing while browsing or searching through different sources!
Private Relay is a new feature for Apple users that lets them privately chat and share files with people on other devices without having their information being seen by others. The beta version of this app currently only works in Safari, but it has been made available internationally through paid subscriptions to iCloud plans—even though the company doesn't keep Private Access enabled by default just yet! There are also some limitations: you cannot spoof your internet connection from outside its rough geographic area (a popular use case when using VPNs) ,and link-ups only occur within apps created under iOS 12 onwards such as Snapchat or Facebook Messenger.
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Home Bus From Worcester To Nyc
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What is Japanese painting style called?
Nihonga, a general term for traditional Japanese painting, means, literally, “Japanese painting”. Now in common use, this term originated during the Meiji period, to distinguish Japanese painting from Western-style oil painting.
1. What is the old Japanese art style called?
2. What is Shodo art?
3. What are Japanese artists called?
4. What are Korean paintings called?
5. What are common themes in Japanese art?
What is the old Japanese art style called?
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries.
What is Shodo art?
Japanese calligraphy is one of the most well known and popular of the traditional arts of Japan. It’s called shodō (書道) in Japanese, which literally means way of writing. Shodō has a very long history. However, it’s still practiced today and it’s a popular class in school, from elementary school throughout university.
What are Japanese artists called?
Utamaro 1753–1806 Printmaker, Painter
Koryusai 1735–1790 Printmaker
Hokusai 1760–1849 Ukiyo-e painter, woodblock print artist, Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
Toyokuni 1769–1825 Printmaker, associated with the Utagawa school
What are Korean paintings called?
Chaekgeori is a genre of still-life painting from the Joseon period of Korea that features books as the dominant subject.
What are common themes in Japanese art?
Reoccurring themes in Japanese art include many subjects related to nature like birds, flowers and animals. Landscapes have long been popular, sometimes with an emphasis on changing seasons. Scenes of life in palaces and homes are common, as are a wide variety of human figures, often stylized and elongated.
Japanese sumi-e landscape painting with ink and watercolour
Japanese Landscape Painting
Japanese Style Watercolor Painting
What is circle art called?
Does Galkyd make oil paint dry faster?
How do you paint mermaid acrylic?
Why is Yoshitomo Nara so popular?
What is alcohol ink painting?
Is there a difference in welding gloves?
Does Honda make boat engines?
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Funk D'Void
What an absolute pleasure it is to have this techno legend on the label. It’s not often that dance music producers can stay relevant and revered highly in the game for as long as Lars Sandberg (aka Funk D’Void, Francois Dubois, Chaser and his more recent project, Joyless).
Recently he has played in Berlin, Moscow, Beirut, Bali, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Belfast, Newcastle, Nice, Liege, Lisbon, Glasgow, Wroclaw, London, Latvia, Boston, Orlando, Calgary, Winnipeg, Skopje, Luxembourg, Miami, Detroit, Toronto, Taipei, Tokyo, Guanajuato, Split, Buenos Aires, Shanghai, Vienna, Kotor, Linz, Stuttgart, Madrid, Vancouver and of course his home town of Barcelona where he does his monthly residency at Macarena Club and regular appearances at Moog as well as playing at global clubs Pacha and Space.
Here’s a list of labels that he’s released music on Bedrock, Cocoon, Electrik Soul, Lucidflow, Komplex De Deep, Missile, Octopus, Soma, Suruba, Thoughtless, Tronic, Tulipa and Urbantorque.
A discography spanning over 20 years has included remixes for New Order, Underworld, Kevin Saunderson, Deetron, Laurent Garnier, Paul Van Dyk, Steve Rachmad, Shlomi Aber, Stephan Bodzin, Scott Grooves, Ian Pooley, Slam, Technasia, Christian Smith & Tony Lionni.
Also, he has provided timeless mix compilations for the Balance Series, Soma’s Sci-Fi Hi-Fi and Cocoon.
He continues to release timeless tracks on Soma records and on his own imprint, Outpost Recordings.
His Joyless project has already been released on Housemeister’s AYCB imprint and Martyn Hare’s respected Emetic label and recently a new LP on Nachtstrom Schallplatten. He’s also keeping busy with Kein Mainstream (his Detroit Electro project) and more recently his Synthwave moniker Chordstomper, plus he continues to release on his own label and carefully selects his remix projects.
LUKE&FLEX
Liberated Turmoil
Mike Turing
Copyright © 2023 Wirelab Records
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Wedge Antilles Will Return in Rise of Skywalker
Wedge Antilles Will Return in 'The Rise of Skywalker'
The greatest rebel pilot in the galaxy makes a comeback.
By Dom Nero Published: Oct 8, 2019
Lucasfilm/Disney
At the end of The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker tells Kylo Ren that the "Rebellion is reborn today." We don't know exactly what he means in this moment. The Resistance, a scruffy crew of good-intentioned fighters cobbled together by General Leia Organa for the purpose of defending a now-defunct Republic, is all but destroyed by the end of Jedi.
After barely evading the unfathomably-powerful First Order throughout Force Awakens and Jedi, General Leia's gang of do-gooders was reduced to just around a dozen surviving members, including Leia, Poe Dameron, Finn, Rose Tico, and Rey. Even when Leia put out a call to any allies of the Resistance in Episode VIII, no one in the entire galaxy came out to help.
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Andit's been confirmed that Carrie Fisher's iconic character will be seeing a farewell of her own in The Rise of Skywalker. So it's hard to believe Luke Skywalker when he says "The Rebellion is reborn," especially since the footage of the upcoming film has shown a First Order arsenal that seems bigger and more powerful than ever before.
But a long-rumored fan theory was confirmed recently that proves the Rebellion may not be toast after all. Over on Rebel Force Radio, representatives for actor Dennis Lawson allegedly confirmed that the fan-favorite Original Trilogy actor would be returning for The Rise of Skywalker. That's right. Wedge Antilles is coming back. And with footage of Billy Dee Williams aka Lando Calrissian in Skywalker already on the web, it looks like some huge figures from the old-school Rebellion have come out of retirement to kick the First Order's ass. You have to admit–the Resistance is going to need all the help it can get.
LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT THING. We just received a solid “YES” from a representative for the actor, Denis Lawson will be in #StarWars #TheRiseOfSkywalker reprising his role as Wedge Antilles. pic.twitter.com/ESoB0JhA1L
— Rebel Force Radio: Star Wars Podcast (@RFRRebelForce) October 5, 2019
Wedge Antilles was an X-Wing pilot and close friend of Luke Skywalker who appeared in all three of the Original Trilogy films. He was there when Luke destroyed the first Death Star, and he helped blow up the second one as well. Outside of the films, Wedge has been a huge fan-favorite figure, showing up in the Rogue Squadron games in addition to a number of extended universe stories, and recently, comic books and animated TV shows. He's not force sensitive or a Skywalker descendant or anything like that–but that's kind of what makes the character so fucking cool. He's just one of the good guys, and he's a killer in the cockpit.
Star Wars Rebels: Meet Wedge Antilles
The return of Wedge and Lando just lends more credence to the looming suspicion that J.J. Abrams is going to be doing some serious reminiscing about the old days of Star Wars for his big finale to the Skywalker saga. Long have fans expected that Abrams would try to tie off some big loose ends–and Abrams himself has said as much in his elusive interviews about the film. We already know that The Emperor will be returning in Rise of Skywalker. There have been toy announcements for so-called Sith Troopers, and we've seen in trailers that the First Order's arsenal is looking more Imperial these days than ever. So, it's not hard to imagine that the Empire, not the First Order, will taking over in the upcoming film. It only makes sense that some figures from the Rebellion would rise up to shoot them down again.
Like the Rebellion and the Resistance, the Empire and the First Order, despite bearing some very striking resemblances, are not the same groups. The Resistance is a splintered military force of Republic-era fighters, some of which were around during the Rebellion, started by General Leia Organa. She believed that the new order that was created at the end of Return of the Jedi would need a powerful peace-keeping force if anyone sought to threaten and take it down. Turns out, she was right, because the First Order, taking cues from the then-destroyed Empire, had been growing in power in plain sight. When they enacted their planet-destroying Starkiller Base in Force Awakens, not even the Resistance was enough to stop them from completely decimating the Republic and sending the galaxy into disarray.
With the First Order more powerful than ever at the end of Last Jedi, Kylo Ren at the helm, Luke Skywalker dead, and the Emperor resurrected, the stage is set for the forces of good to be put to the test. Hopefully Wedge, Lando, and the Resistance have what it takes.
The Rise of Skywalker debuts on December 20, 2019.
From: Esquire US
Dom Nero
Dom Nero is a staff video editor at Esquire, where he also writes about film, television, tech, and video games.
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Investors by location /
The Gothenburg
Venture Capital Investor & Angel Investor in Gothenburg
We've compiled thousands of venture capitalists, angel investors, venture funds, private equity investors, and angel groups filtered by industries, and investment stages. Please take a look at the Gothenburg investors below, along with some of their data, such as locations where they focus investing, markets in which they have investment focuses, and type of investors data.
This is the internet's largest database of the Gothenburg investors. You can try using Angel Match for free below. Premium data & filtering are redacted until you subscribe.
Sophia JohanssonDetails
Venture Capital,
Water Purification,
B2B,
Sustainability,
Coworking,
Accounting,
Industrial Manufacturing,
Patrik Sj�EstrandDetails
Government Office,
J�Ergen BodinDetails
Emanuel AnderssonDetails
Katarina StaafDetails
Fuel Cell,
Semiconductor,
Media and Entertainment,
Innovation Management,
Network Hardware,
Virtual Reality,
Consumer Electronics,
Electronics,
Gunnar Fernstr�EmDetails
CleanTech,
Stefan S�EderlingDetails
Klementina �sterbergDetails
Eyewear,
Recycling,
Johan RnnbladDetails
Margareta Alestig JohnsonDetails
Private Equity Firm,
FAQ & Useful Tips
Our users often ask us questions about who are angel investors, how to get connected with them and how to secure funding from them. That's why, we've created a little section below where you can find some of the most frequently asked questions and answers to them about angel investors.
We hope that these useful tips will help you get connected with relevant investors, secure funding, and also get the most out of your fundraising journey.
Q: Are angel investors easy to find in Gothenburg?
A: Well, yes, angel investors are pretty easy to find now. Gone are the days when you needed to search high and low for them. We have a huge database of investors looking for opportunities to invest in Gothenburg.
Also, there are now a variety of websites, networks, and organizations that can help connect potential investors with businesses. These include venture capital firms, angel investor networks, and private equity firms.
You can read our in depth blog post to learn more about the different ways you can find an angel investor in Gothenburg
Q: How long does it take to get funding from an angel investor in Gothenburg?
A: It all depends on the amount of effort you put into your search, the type of investor you are looking for, the amount of capital you need to raise, and the size and location of your business.
Generally speaking, it can take anywhere from four weeks to six months to secure funding from an angel investor.
Finding an investor can be difficult, so we have prepared a guide for you on finding an investor for free.
Q: How much funds should I ask an angel investor to invest?
A: The amount of funding you should ask an angel investor will depend on the size of your company and its growth potential.
As per my research, most startups ask angel investors to invest anywhere between $100,000 to $1 million in a startup, and in exchange, they receive a small percentage of the company's equity.
There are a lot of things angel investors look for in a startup, and we have explained everything in this separate guide of ours.
Q: How much do angel investors usually invest?
A: This totally depends on the angel investor, the company and its stage, and most importantly, the risk involved.
But on average, most angel investors invest anywhere between $25,000 to $100,000.
To attract angel investors, you need a fantastic business model, a solid team, and growth potential. We've also prepared a guide on how to attract angel investors.
Q: What is the best way to find an angel investor?
A: The best way to find an angel investor is by using different resources and networks. Networking with like-minded people, attending events, and using social media are great ways to find potential investors.
You can also use online platforms and crowdfunding websites like AngelList, EquityNet, and Crowdfunder to find angel investors.
We've also written a comprehensive guide on the best to find angel investors that will help you get started.
Q: How do I get connected with an angel investor in Gothenburg
A: It's a fact that attracting angel investors in Gothenburg requires a lot of research, networking, and effort. You must identify potential angel investors interested in funding your business, reach out to them, and build strong relationships.
You can use websites and networks like AngelList, EquityNet, and Crowdfunder to find potential investors. Check out our guide on how to get angel investors for more detailed information on the process.
Q: How many angel investors are in Gothenburg
A: The exact number of angel investors in Gothenburg is hard to pinpoint. According to the Center of Venture Research of the University of New Hampshire, the total number of angel investors in the US is 334,680 as of 2020.
Q: Where can I find angel investors in Gothenburg
A: There are a lot of ways to find angel investors in Gothenburg. You can start by exploring online investor directories like AngelList and EquityNet. They provide comprehensive lists of all the accredited investors in the area.
You can also attend local investment events and networking meetups. These are great places to meet angel investors and learn more about their investing criteria.
Check out this list of the best angel investor networks in Gothenburg for more information.
Q: Who are called angel investors?
A: Angel Investors are high net worth individuals who invest their own money in early-stage companies. They usually invest in exchange for an equity stake and may provide additional assistance such as mentoring and advice.
They are also known as angel investors, private investors, or seed investors. Here's what you need to know about angel investors.
Q: What is the characteristic of an angel investor?
A: Angel investors are usually high net worth individuals who provide much more than just money – they also offer advice and mentorship to entrepreneurs. They often have extensive business experience, contacts, and networks that they can leverage to help the businesses they invest in succeed.
Check out the ten things they look for in startup evaluation.
Q: What are the advantages of angels investors?
A: The benefits angels investors provide are just invaluable. They provide not only capital but also mentorship, advice, and access to networks.
They implement what is known as 'smart money, meaning that their investment comes with experience and expertise that can benefit the startup.
For more information on the advantages of angel investors, read this blog post.
Q: Who can be an angel investor?
A: An angel investor can be anyone with the capital and the willingness to invest in early-stage businesses. They should be willing to take risks, have a passion for startups, and be in it for the long haul.
They usually have prior business experience, but this is not a requirement. We have a comprehensive guide if you want to know more about angel investors.
Q: Are angel investors entrepreneurs?
A: Well, that's not really true. Angels Investors are not entrepreneurs, although they do have a lot in common with them.
Angel investors provide capital to startups and entrepreneurs in exchange for a stake in the business.
If you want to know more about angel investors, check out this guide. It outlines everything you need to know about them.
Q: Who is the most famous angel investor?
A: There are a lot of famous angel investors, but one of the most notable is Marc Andreessen. He is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and software engineer.
He co-founded Netscape, the first popular web browser, and has invested in startups since the late 1990s.
Want to know more about the famous angel investors out there? Check out this list of the top 8 angel investors of all time.
Q: How do angel investors work?
A: Angel Investors usually invest in early-stage businesses, such as startups and small companies.
They provide capital in exchange for an equity stake in the business and offer additional assistance, such as mentoring and advice.
If the startup becomes a success, they get a good return on their investment. Find out more about how angel investors work with this guide.
Q: How do I contact angel investors?
A: Angel investors can be difficult to contact, but there are a few ways you can reach out to them.
You can join an angel investor network or attend conferences and trade shows to meet angel investors in person.
You can also research angel investor directories to find their contact information. Email, however, is the most common way to contact them.
Want more details? Check out this guide.
Q: Who is an eligible angel investor?
A: An eligible angel investor is someone who has a net worth of at least $1 million and an annual income of at least $200,000.
Check out our in depth guide to find out more about angel investors.
Q: How do I ask angel investors for money?
A: The first thing you should do is ensure you have a well-researched and solid business plan outlining your goals, strategies, and financial projections.
You should also prepare an elevator pitch to explain your business idea in just a few sentences. When contacting angel investors, ensure you are professional, confident, and clear about your goals.
Find out more about how to ask angel investors for money in this guide.
Q: How many angel investors are in the United States?
A: It's no surprise that the United States is home to a large number of angel investors. According to my research, more than 360,000 active angel investors are in the United States.
These investors are spread out across the country, but many reside in major cities such as San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles.
We have a list of the best angel investors in 2022 that will surely blow your mind.
Q: What is the best website for angel investors?
A: Undoubtedly, there are uncountable websites for angel investors, but none can match the quality and versatility of AngelList.
AngelList is a platform that connects entrepreneurs with investors, and it has over 300,000 active angel investors from around the world.
Want to know more about AngelList? Have a look at this guide for more information.
Q: How do I find an approach to angel investors?
A: Finding and approaching angel investors can be challenging, but it's not impossible. Here are a few tips to help you get started:
Create a professional business plan
Develop an elevator pitch
Research angel investors and contact them directly
Attend conferences and events
Network with other entrepreneurs
Leverage social media
For more details about finding angel investors, check out this guide.
If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected] and we will try to answer all your questions. We'll add the most interesting and relevant questions to our frequently asked questions section.
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Plans begin for a new sculpture in Spearfish
SPEARFISH, S.D. — The City of Spearfish will be displaying a new sculpture in the fall of 2021, in conjunction with Black Hills State University.
The 20-foot sculpture will be installed in the new roundabout at the intersection of Jackson Street and Ames Street in Spearfish.
Sturgis resident and well renowned artist, Dale Lamphere, created a model for the sculpture that will honor the ongoing collaboration of the Spearfish community and Black Hills State University.
Titled ‘The Hive’, the sculpture will be made of all stainless steel and will also serve as a way to greet visitors and students to the University.
Laurie Nicholas, BHSU President, says, “And while that particular intersection is not quite at the University, it is getting very close, it is within blocks and so it seemed like it was a more visible and a natural way to let people know that they are coming on to campus.”
Nichols added that this new sculpture will complement the many impressive public art pieces throughout Spearfish and add to the already strong arts community.
Nicholas says, “Sculptures are beautiful and they are wonderful pieces of public art, but they draw people. People are very attracted to public art and if we could do that and convert an image of the University we knew we could really promote BH and we really wanted to do that in the process if we could as well.”
Lamphere said he studied the structure of a natural hive and wanted to created something that represents the home of the BHSU Yellow Jackets, saying, “We’ve gone through two iterations at this point of dozens of drawings and got it closer to an appliance of a real hive. Also included are the school colors gold and green and we will have some really interesting lighting that will take place and it will serve as an entrance point to Black Hills State University.”
BHSU is seeking grants and donations for the project. As travelers visit Spearfish, the art work hopes to benefit the entire community.
Lamphere says, “I do think it transcends just the University and becomes an interesting visual object a beautiful sculpture for the city as well. I want it to be timeless and iconic and represent the University in the years ahead.”
Recent works by Lamphere include the Dignity of Earth and Sky at Chamberlain and the Arc of Dreams in Sioux Falls.
Categories: ConnectCenter1-Culture and Art, Local News
Tags: art, Artist, BHSU, Black Hills State University, Dale Lamphere, Laurie S. Nichols, round about, Sculpture, Spearfish, The Hive, Yellow Jackets
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Archives For Haiti
celebration, Christmas, Dominican Republic, generosity, Haiti, Malawi, Rwanda, traditions, Ukraine
Global Christmas traditions: from Feliz Navidad to Noheli Nziza
This post was originally shared in 2019 and was updated and re-published in December 2022.
Traditions abound at Christmas time. Though each family celebration is unique, we wanted to offer a glimpse into how those served by the HOPE network around the world may be joining together with family, friends, and neighbors to rejoice in Christ’s arrival. We marvel at the beauty of so many countries and cultures celebrating the gift of Jesus’ birth and invite you to pause and reflect on the meaning behind your own familiar traditions.
church, Haiti, resilience, savings groups
Why the Church is the herald of hope in Haiti
by Ricot St. Paulin, HOPE Haiti country director
My fellow Haitians are a resilient people. Their strength to face and recover from any type of challenge is exceptional. But when it comes to institutions or organizations at a global level, there is none more resilient than the Church.
Jesus declared, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18). The early Church believers were united and shared a common vision. They had great fellowship, devoted themselves to the teachings of the apostles, and had everything in common (Acts 2:41 – 42).
church partners, COVID-19, crisis, disaster, disaster response, dream investor, earthquake, Haiti, leadership, pray, prayer, rebuilding, relief, support
An update and 3 ways to uplift Haiti
Featured image: A church partner’s building damaged in the earthquake
Our hearts continue to break as we hear about the ongoing challenges in Haiti: the culmination of a global health crisis, heightened political tensions following the assassination of the country’s president in July, escalating gang violence that’s affected 1.5 million people, the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck the southern portion of the country in August, and the tropical storm that followed it.
We grieve with our neighbors in Haiti—and we know that out of our ache, we’re called to respond in love, prayer, immediate action, and ongoing support to help shoulder the burden they are carrying. Continue Reading…
Peter Greer
bad news, enduring hope, Gift of Disillusionment, Haiti, idealism, leadership, savings groups, service
Hope for Haiti—leaders who choose to stay
This blog was originally posted on Peter Greer’s website in July. Since posting, southwestern Haiti has experienced a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on August 14 that killed over 1,200 and injured more than 5,700. Our staff members are safe, and we’re still assessing the impact on our church partners and savings groups. In the face of yet another natural disaster and ensuing humanitarian crisis, the main tenet of this post is as poignant as ever: Courageous Haitian leaders who have decided to stay in their country are bringing hope to communities where many might not see much cause for optimism.
Haiti catapulted onto the international stage last month when its president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his home by a group of gunmen wielding assault rifles. His wife, Haitian First Lady Martine Marie Étienne Moïse, was wounded in the attack. This latest tragedy plunges Haiti further into chaos with shootouts in the streets, widespread fear, escalating tensions, rising gang violence, and political turmoil.
Haiti doesn’t often make international headlines, and when it does, it’s rarely good news: a devastating earthquake … a deadly cholera outbreak … another violent coup. But underneath the chaos, there is another story that needs to make the headlines: the faithful men and women who choose to stay and serve. Continue Reading…
News Spiritual Integration
Haiti, In the news, Poverty Alleviation, savings groups
Headlines from Haiti don’t tell the full story.
Life in Haiti hasn’t been easy for a long time. More than half the population lives on less than $2.40 a month, while wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a select few. For the last several months, government corruption, fuel shortages, spiraling inflation, contaminated drinking water, and food scarcity have caused many Haitians to rise up in protest against a government that has been largely deaf to their cries. These protests are making international headlines. Continue Reading…
Photos / Media Stories we love
Burundi, entrepreneurs, farmers, growers, Haiti, harvest, Malawi, Moldova, Rwanda
Photo gallery: the harvest season of 5 HOPE growers
At HOPE International, we have the joy of joining hardworking men and women as they glean the fruit of their labors—literally! From plantain farmers to greenhouse owners, see people rejoicing in this season of abundance. Continue Reading…
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HomeMaking that Climb
Making that Climb
January 19, 2022 January 15, 2022 JoeRover Dogboy Chronicles, Short Tailscontent creator, ebook, mind control, scifi action adventure, scifi books, scifi fantasy adventure, scifi stories, short stories, ssf, superhero, theater, TV show, variety show, writing, ya scifi
“Hey, folks, and welcome back to The Overlord Show!” said the host. He pointed to a digital counter above the stage. “We’re making that slow climb to 6.6k subscribers. Once we reach that goal, the world gets a big surprise! One that’ll change the world. But now, we have a brand-new act brought to you by our most recent addition to the mindless slave, I mean, player theater. All the way from Boise, whether they want to be here or not, is the Glayd Brothers.” The host clapped as he walked off stage.
Two young men dressed in overalls that didn’t look like they fit stepped on the stage. The way the brothers, who did not look similar in any way, moved suggested that they’d never worn the overalls. They started to bounce in time to some music.
“Hey, Jeb,” said one.
“Yeah, Sam,” said the other awkwardly turning his head towards his brother.
“Do you know why Farmer Brown was banned from the Farmer’s Market?”
Jeb turned his head towards the audience/camera. It was a jerky movement. “No, I do not know. Why was he?”
“Because his jokes were too corny.”
A comical rift played while the two danced in slow movements. They looked like animated characters that had their pages flipped slowly.
Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Adventure. What More Could You Want?
The name is Joe Rover. Gamer. Writer. Superhero. With the help of my friends, I protect Megaton City from all sorts of villains whose only desire is chaos & destruction.
← Knockout at the Playground Blacktop
The Moon vs. The Aliens →
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Todays Though > News > Dalen Terry logs double duty with G League Windy City as the Chicago Bulls seek more minutes for the rookie – Boston Herald
Dalen Terry logs double duty with G League Windy City as the Chicago Bulls seek more minutes for the rookie – Boston Herald
posted on Nov. 14, 2022 at 2:40 am
Dalen Terry had little time to rest this weekend.
The Chicago Bulls rookie debuted with the Windy City Bulls on Saturday, then logged another G League game Sunday afternoon in Iowa before driving back to Chicago to suit up for Sunday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets at the United Center.
For Terry, two days stuffed with basketball was the epitome of a perfect weekend.
“It felt good to go against somebody besides the imagination in my head,” Terry said. “I’d been asking to go down (to the G League). I just like to play basketball. I’m not a guy that’s here for the money or anything like that. I just want to play. If I can’t play up here or if there’s limited time, then I’d rather go down there and play and go work on something.”
Entering Sunday, Terry had tallied 22 minutes over seven NBA games in the first month of his rookie season. His playing time actually increased because of a schedule front-loaded with back-to-backs and injuries to Zach LaVine and Coby White.
But as the Bulls enter a more relaxed period of their schedule, they wanted to find more minutes for Terry with their G League affiliate. He logged more than 30 minutes in both games against the Iowa Wolves, finishing with 18 points, nine assists and eight rebounds Saturday and 14 points and 10 rebounds Sunday.
“We’ve had a pretty condensed schedule and we had some guys out, so it was good for him to get his feet wet in some of these (NBA) games,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “But you need significant and impactful minutes on a regular basis like (he’s gotten) in the last two days.”
Moving a player to a G League affiliate can be tricky — some players see it as a demotion or a downgrade from the top competition.
But Donovan said that wasn’t a concern with Terry, who specifically requested a move to Windy City to ensure he stays in game shape during any lulls in playing time with the Bulls.
“It’s all your perception,” Donovan said. “For him, he’s eager to play. He wanted to play. He likes that. If he sees an opportunity for himself to improve and get better and get the opportunity to play, he’s going to feel pretty good about doing that.”
Terry spent his summer seeking out pickup games in Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle. He trained with any NBA player he could connect with, including Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Harrison Barnes and Jamal Crawford.
During one of his first pickup sessions before his pre-draft workouts, Terry landed a two-on-two game with Irving and Durant. As the pairs lined up to start the scrimmage, Irving gestured to Durant, then back to Terry.
“You got him?” Irving asked.
Terry said his response was immediate: “All right, bet.”
It wasn’t an even matchup. Terry said Durant pulled out every trick in his bag — including hitting half-court shots — but Terry cheerfully described the matchup as a valuable learning experience.
“I mean, I was guarding him a little bit,” Terry said. “I think I stole the ball from him one time and then he got to talking. That’s KD, so he got to doing what KD does. … Nothing I could do about it, but he had to guard me too.”
Although the Bulls want Terry to use the G League as an opportunity to improve himself, Donovan emphasized the importance of Terry fitting seamlessly into the Windy City lineup rather than jacking up a high volume of shots or playing selfishly.
Terry said he focused on cohesive basketball in his first two games with Windy City.
“I’m not a player that goes down and tries to score 40 or something like that,” he said. “I just want to play a complete game.”
Donovan added that scoring isn’t always the focus for rookies and other developmental players during stints with the G League affiliate.
Terry is already a defensive-minded player. Much of his playing time with the Bulls has revolved around his ability to provide defensive energy on the perimeter. Donovan wants Terry to continue developing that side of his game with Windy City.
“For younger players, when you look at their shots at the end of the game, they spend probably three or four more times on defense than they do offense,” Donovan said. “So part of their development needs to be defensively — how they’re guarding the pick-and-roll, off ball screens, blocking out, being in the right position defensively.”
Terry likely will continue to cycle between Windy City and the Bulls throughout his rookie season, especially when White has recovered from a left quadriceps injury.
Regardless of where Terry earns his minutes, Donovan said the Bulls are confident in the rookie’s ability to grow through these early games.
“He’s a very, very competitive guy,” Donovan said. “He’s a good worker. He’s eager to get better and learn a lot more. And he will just because of his spirit and his disposition.”
Margaret Rood November 14, 2022
How mistakes doomed what should have been an easy Chicago Bears win – Boston Herald
More Justin Fields fireworks — and another missed opportunity. The Chicago Bears’ latest loss adds to the confusion. – Boston Herald
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Madre de Dios, Minería ilegal
[NOTICIÓN] Se constituye alianza científica para recuperar los bosques de Madre de Dios
Hace unos días comentaba con ustedes la necesidad de generar consensos y articular iniciativas alrededor de una estrategia cuya capacidad de ordenar el desmadre socioambiental en Madre de Dios (y alrededores) fuera reconocida por todos, tirios y troyanos (ver “Instalan puesto de vigilancia para combatir minería ilegal en Reserva Nacional Tambopata”). Sé que llegar a ese punto de no retorno nos vas a tomar un tiempo más, son tantos los enfrentamientos y los conflictos generados que la solución va a pasar irremediablemente por la construcción de una nueva arquitectura social para la macro región sur del país.
Pero como el viento empieza a soplar en esa dirección, a pesar de los exabruptos de algunos candidatos, es momento de festejar noticias como las que detalla esta nota llegada desde los Estados Unidos. Se trata del anuncio público de la creación del Centro para la Investigación Ambiental y Sostenibilidad Amazónica (ACERS, por sus siglas en inglés), una iniciativa que tiene como objetivo desarrollar soluciones transformadoras para promover el uso sostenible de los paisajes tropicales, la lucha contra la deforestación y la mejora de la salud humana en el departamento de Madre de Dios, que agrupa a un número importante de instituciones peruanas y del extranjero lideradas por Wake Forest University.
En otras palabras, la pronta construcción y puesta en marcha de un centro de altos estudios amazónicos dedicado a construir soluciones que propicien, entre otras cosas, la regeneración y la restauración de los territorios impactados por la minería ilegal, la recuperación de la salud de las poblaciones contaminadas por el mercurio y la sostenibilidad ambiental de estos bosques tan importantes para la salud del planeta.
El Dr. Francisco Román (en la foto principal en el área degradada de Manuani en la Zona de Amortiguamiento de la Reserva Nacional Tambopata), premio Nacional del Ambiente 2015 y uno de los artífices de un proyecto que agrupa a instituciones públicas y privadas del Perú y los Estados Unidos, nos había adelantado en Puerto Maldonado las intenciones de USAID, Amazon Aid Foundation, Ecosphere Capital Partners/Athelia Climate Change Fund, ESRI Global Inc., World Wildlife Fund (WWF) y la Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC), de crear un fondo de diez millones de dólares para ese propósito. Estábamos deseosos de conocer el anuncio oficial para festejar un proyecto que pretende agrupar a los especialistas de todas partes con el fin de aportar soluciones definitivas a un problema global.
Disfruten la noticia.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced the award of $2.5 million to help establish ACERS, an alliance of U.S. and Peruvian institutions led by experienced scientists, conservationists and affiliates. An additional $7 million in support, including cash and in-kind contributions, will come from the Amazon Aid Foundation, Ecosphere Capital Partners/Athelia Climate Change Fund, ESRI Global Inc., World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC).
International hub promotes collaboration and scientific capacity
In Peru, this research center will be known as Centro de Innovación Científica Amazónico (CINCIA). The official announcement of the launch of ACERS was made on Earth Day, April 22, during a celebration event hosted by the U.S. Ambassador to Peru, Brian A. Nichols, at UTEC in Lima, Peru.
ACERS will serve as an international hub for Peruvian and foreign scientists and affiliates to collaborate on critical priorities in Madre de Dios – restoration and reforestation, the reduction of human health threats from environmental mercury, detection of deforestation threats, and sustainability.
The goal of ACERS is to build scientific capacity needed in the local communities to face the growing environmental threats to the people and the region’s rainforests.
Through collaborative research, innovative education programs and apprenticeships, ACERS aims to inspire and groom future local scientists while also engaging with the local community to create needed change and sustainability to turn the tide of destruction in the rainforest province.
ACERS will operate in partnership with the region’s primary research institutions – the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute (IIAP) and the National Amazonian University of Madre de Dios (UNAMAD), the sole national university in the region. IIAP is a governmental research entity under the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment with a 35-year history of scientific investigation in the Amazon.
The vision for this project was inspired by the work of Sarah DuPont, founder of the Amazon Aid Foundation and her work to build awareness of the Amazon through her film River of Gold. ACERS will be led by the efforts of Wake Forest conservation biologist and CEES director Miles Silman, who will serve as the associate director for science; longtime colleague and a leading expert on mercury in the Amazon Luis Fernandez, who will serve as executive director; and Michelle Klosterman, director of academic development and assessment in the Office of Global Affairs at Wake Forest who will serve as associate director for outreach and communication.
Fernandez, a tropical ecologist who is one of the world’s leading experts on the MDD region, has led similar research efforts in the Amazon Basin in previous positions at Stanford University, the Carnegie Institution for Science, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA).
«There are critical issues facing Madre de Dios which is one of the most important areas of Amazonian biodiversity on the planet and is home to the last vestiges of indigenous tribes that still live unconnected to modern society,» Fernandez said.
Fast Facts: Madre de Dios
MDD is a region in the Peruvian Amazon the size of South Carolina and covered by the most biodiverse and pristine tropical rainforests in the Amazon Basin.
172,000-plus acres of virgin tropical forests have been clear-cut over the last 10 years by illegal gold mining and logging creating vast, barren wastelands, some of which is located in national protected areas.
40 tons of toxic mercury every year are released into rivers and lakes by mining, contaminating air, water, soils, wildlife and people, including several recently contacted indigenous communities.
Three of every four people in MDD have mercury levels above maximum health limits recommended by the World Health Organization indicating a looming public health crisis.
Environmental and health risks in MDD continue to rise as the rate of deforestation and contamination grows unchecked.
Informing sustainability issues from public health to governance
«ACERS is about making sure that the local people and institutions in one of earth’s last best places have the scientific, technical and entrepreneurial capacity to make sustainable decisions on issues from development to public health to governance,» said Silman, who has conducted research in the region for more than 20 years, focusing on understanding biodiversity and the response of forest ecosystems to climate and land use changes over time.
«We’re faced with big challenges, but ACERS will help us apply the knowledge we’ve gained over the last 20 years and use it to address one of the major environmental issues of our time,» he said.
Klosterman is tasked with working with the research apprenticeship program to strengthen career pipelines for science, conservation and restoration, as well as enhancing the two-way flow of information between the scientific community and the general public, especially women and indigenous populations.
«We need to be able to communicate the science and the conservation efforts and their broad impacts to many different audiences, especially to the local population most affected as well as the officials in position to effect change through policy,» she said.
The establishment of ACERS will bring together vast academic knowledge and resources gathered over the last decades to solve very real and very immediate environmental and social problems and to do it in a way that builds enduring institutional and human infrastructure.
«For me, personally, I feel like we’ve been given a great opportunity and we have a chance to bring our expertise to bear, to help a country-sized region of the Amazon develop sustainably,» said Silman. «Wake Forest houses a lot of expertise that is working to make the world a better place. If ever there was a project we’ve been involved with that embodies the University’s guiding principal of Pro Humanitate, this is it.»
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US conveys its 'strong position' to Greece over freed Iranian tanker
The Grace 1, which was released by authorities in Gibraltar, is believed to be headed for Greece
Grace 1, which was seized by the British Royal Marines has since been renamed Adrian Darya 1 and now sails under an Iranian flag. Reuters
The United States has conveyed its "strong position" to the Greek government about an Iranian tanker that sailed for Greece on Monday after it was freed from detention off Gibraltar and Washington says is carrying oil to Syria, a State Department official said.
Any efforts to assist the tanker could be considered as providing material support to a US-designated foreign terrorist organisation, which has immigration and potential criminal consequences, the official said.
The Grace 1, now renamed the Adrian Draya-1 and re-flagged as Iranian, cast off late on Sunday for Kalamata in Greece despite an 11th hour attempt by the US to block its departure from the British overseas territory.
Earlier on Monday Iran warned the United States against a second attempt to impound one of its tankers.
Speaking in the Finnish capital Helsinki, Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denounced US attempts to halt the ship’s progress as “politically motivated” while Tehran warned against a new effort to halt the ship’s progress.
Gibraltar seized the Grace 1 on the grounds that the vessel was transporting oil against EU sanctions imposed on Bashar Al Assad's regime but ordered the release of the vessel on Thursday after assurances the load would not end up in Syria.
Iranian tanker seized last month leaves Gibraltar despite US opposition
US issues warrant to seize Iranian supertanker Grace 1 as it prepares to sail
The US-issued warrant issued on Friday sought the forfeiture of the tanker, its 2.1 million tonnes of oil and £1 million (Dh3.6 million) in a US bank account.
It cited the tanker’s links to oil sales to Syria, and links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated foreign terrorist organisation.
The warrant, issued after Gibraltar ordered the release of the vessel, said an inquiry was also under way over the alleged unlawful use of the US financial system to sell Iranian oil.
Marine tracking services indicated it the ship was due to arrive in Greece on Sunday and it was not immediately clear if the US would make a fresh attempt to seize the ship.
Mr Zarif told reporters that Iran was not interested in direct talks with the United States over the ship. He added that any mediation between Tehran and Washington should be focused on bringing the US back to the 2015 nuclear deal from which it withdrew last year.
Relations between the Iran and the West have been in disarray since May 2018 when the US withdrew from the nuclear deal that had lifted economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for the Iranian government committing to give up its nuclear weapons programme.
Europe, on the other hand, has attempted to salvage the nuclear deal, attempting to soften the blow of US sanctions on Iran.
A crew member takes pictures with a mobile phone on Iranian oil tanker Adrian 'Darya 1', now renamed the 'Adrian Darya-1'. Reuters
Finnish foreign affairs minister Pekka Haavisto emphasised after his meeting with Mr Zarif that Europe remained committed to the 2015 deal.
The split between Washington and European capitals has been brought into sharp relief by the seizure of the Iranian tanker.
Gibraltar said European laws did not provide grounds for complying with the US warrant. Senior IRGC officials are on EU sanctions lists but governments have stopped short of designating the entire organisation.
Sweden, one of the stops on Mr Zarif's northern European tour, is involved in negotiations over the fate of the Stena Impero. The British-flagged vessel, owned by a Swedish company, was stopped by Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz on July 19.
The seizure of the ship was viewed as a direct response to the detention of the Grace 1.
Mr Zarif’s arrival in Europe has been harshly criticised by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exiled opposition group viewed by Tehran as a criminal network.
Supertanker Grace 1 off the coast of Gibraltar. AFP
The group, which has strong backing from Iran hawks in Washington including president Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton, accused Tehran of being a state sponsor of terrorism.
The exiled Iranian opposition group also accused Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, who counts Tehran amongst his principal military allies, of carrying out a “massacre of the Syrian people”.
Grace 1 was commandeered by British marines on July 4 after officials in Gibraltar were made aware the cargo was heading towards the Baniyas refinery in Syria, under the control of the Assad government.
The Gibraltar government said on Thursday that navigation charts, emails and voyage plans all confirmed the final destination was Baniyas.
Prior to the ship's release leaders in the British territory said they had been given written assurances by Iran the crude oil on the Grace 1 would not travel to Syria or any other anywhere else under EU sanctions.
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News and Bookings
Ross Wooldridge
Calendar of Shows
Life Among Giants featuring Brenda Brown
Dixie Demons play for the Foresters International Convention in Toronto
"Thanks to the Dixie Demons for the fabulous entertainment. We have received so many compliments for the event! It was a wonderful night! Thanks again to you and the band!"
L.E.Bullard - The Foresters Toronto
Letter from Local 226, Canadian Federation of Musicians
Hello Dixie Demons!
I hope this finds you well. Let me begin by thanking each and everyone one of you for helping to make our Annual General Meeting a great success! Right from downbeat I knew we were in for a treat. It was very apparent that not only do you fellows have great passion for traditional Jazz but your vast knowledge of the history and genre shone through. Going back and forth between standards and original compositions made for a most impressive performance. As you mentioned putting certain tunes through the Dixieland Machine such as Caravan, it was clear that conceptually speaking, all of you approached this music with the precision of those who first created it.
Your sense of ensemble playing combined with exciting arrangements as well as exemplary compositions were certainly attributes that set the Dixie Demons apart from the crowd.
The Dixie Demons are not only a well-honed Dixieland machine but the 6 individual musicians display amazingly high proficiency on each of their respective instruments….let’s not forget the smooth vocal stylings of Mr. Dan Douglas.
The Demons didn’t just play the songs and explain the origin of the songs - they gave us an opportunity to actually get to know them a little with their relaxed, personable banter and no pretense stage presence.
Thank you again for playing our event and we will most certainly recommend you fellows to anyone looking for top shelf entertainment ideas.
Paul Mitchell,
President, CFM/AFM Local 226
Central Ontario Musician's Association
Excerpt from Glen Silverthorne's club listings column, May 21, 2014:
While interviewing Ross Wooldridge at The Old School Restaurant, where he frequently provides excellent piano stylings during the restaurant's Sunday brunches, he revealed his excitement about his May 14 concert at the Sanderson Centre.
With thanks to Gus Iliopoulos of the Old School, I was able to attend this fabulous concert. By 1:30 p.m., large crowds were arriving on buses and lining up at both entrances.
After about 800 eager concert-goers finally got settled a young cleaning woman dressed in 1930s attire came onstage pushing a broom while the curtain was still closed. She put a record on an old-fashioned player and we heard a dated chorus of the tune, Don't Be That Way.
Suddenly, the curtain sprang open and the Ross Wooldridge Galaxy Orchestra flooded the theatre with big sound completing the number.
This had been the first tune that the Benny Goodman band played at his legendary 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall, The Night That Jazz Went Mainstream. This tribute to that concert featured many remarkable solos such as Steve Crowe's amazing rendition of Shine during a set with the Dixie Demons. Harry James was the trumpeter back in 1938. Throughout the afternoon we heard fantastic clarinet playing by Ross on Blue Room and many others where he produced slides, trills, and other artistic improvisational material that kept one totally captivated by his performance.
Between numbers, he often referred to various musicians of Goodman's day, such as vocalist Martha Tilton and mentioned that Goodman broke the racial barrier by featuring artists such as pianist, Teddy Wilson, guitarist, Charlie Christian and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton.
With Wooldridge's tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet we heard the brilliant Don Thompson on vibes. The group performed seven tunes, including Avalon, I Got Rhythm, really cooking on China Boy and Running Wild.
Known as Canada's Sweetheart of Swing, Alex Pangman took on tunes done by Martha Tilton and Peggy Lee's Why Don't You Do Right?
The orchestra closed the last set with Bugle Call Rag, Stealin' Apples and relived the Gene Krupa days with Sing Sing Sing, Parts 1 and 2. The audience response to this show was swift with a roar of approval and a demand for encores.
A swinging version of After You've Gone and When You're Smilin' closed the show. We hope that Wooldridge, who is mighty proud of this all-Canadian band of extremely fine musicians, will bring them back to Brantford very soon.
Comments from Jaymz Bee, Radio Host, JAZZ.FM 91 regarding "Tribute to Benny Goodman Sextet" Concert at The Old Mill Inn, February 11, 2013.
Ross Wooldridge and his band blew away the sold-out show for JAZZ.FM91 at The Old Mill Inn recently. I’m still getting calls and emails from people thanking the station for presenting this concert. With over a thousand dollars in CD sales...I think it’s pretty obvious that everyone loves his Tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet!
- Jaymz Bee
JAZZ.FM91
Comments from Karen Hine, Events Coordinator for the Brantford Club regarding "The Ross Wooldridge Trio"
EXCEPTIONAL! Such a talent! Our club truly did well in having an event with this level of superior entertainment! Ross and his trio came highly recommended and it's without hestitation that we will book them again for another spectacular evening of Jazz soon.
Karen Hine
Events Coordinator, The Brantford Club
Comments from Brantford Club Members:
What a terrific evening! The Jazz Night was a great opportunity to catch up with friends, enjoy some of Eric’s delicious food, and then relax to some cool jazz! Thanks for continuing to offer a variety of special events at our Club!
Regards, Mara
In a word, charming. Ross did an excellent job. This is the sort of evening which is so nice at our Club. Ross' piano playing at dinner was excellent! This sort of music during dinner greatly helps the spirit of the evening.
With the trio later, the music was about perfect, and again, very appropriate for our setting. Very good choice of tunes, much appreciated by the audience. Ross on piano and reeds was very good, and Warren Stirtzinger on guitar was absolutely superb. He and Ross interacted so well.
J. Crawford Reid
Comments from Allan MacMillan regarding "The Benny Meets Artie Show" with the Galaxy Orchestra at Stage West, November 12/12
A truly remarkable production, featuring outstanding musicianship of the highest quality.
The Galaxy Orchestra led by Ross Wooldridge was a pleasure to work with and put on a very good show. Our guests who attendant the production had nothing but positive feedback regarding the show.
Allan McMillan
Technical Director/Lighting Designer
Stage West Theatre Restaurant
Comments from Laurie Wallace-Lynch regarding "The Benny Meets Artie Show" with the Galaxy Orchestra at Stage West, November 12/12
Thank you for an incredible show! Rave reviews all around! As always Ross, you exceed expectations!
Laurie Wallace-Lynch – Director of Marketing/PR, Stage West
Article from Glen Brown of the Hamilton Musician Online Magazine regarding "Tribute to Benny Goodman Sextet" Concert at Arthouse Oct 27, 2012
ArtHouse Festival Series Presents Ross Wooldridge and His Tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet
ArtHouse for Children and Youth is on the right track when it comes to embedding social outreach into a great concert experience.
On Sunday, October 27, 2012 Ross Wooldridge and his Tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet entertained a sizeable audience at St. Luke's historic church in Burlington.
Walking through the church grounds, past the old headstones of the cemetery, we approached the historic church and appreciated the precision and quality of the exterior architecture and interior workmanship. Everything at St. Luke's is painstakingly preserved or restored to its original state. Wooldridge has accomplished a similar feat with his authentic performance of the Benny Goodman style and sound.
From the first note we were transported to the heyday of The Swing Era, the 1930s and 40s, when riffs and rhythms reigned. Wooldridge has achieved success not only with his authentic transcriptions and original arrangements, but also by employing the talent of some of Canada's top players.
Wooldridge's clarinet work was extraordinary. He wrapped his solos around the chord changes effortlessly, using the full range of his instrument. Wooldridge was backed up by Danny McErlain on piano, Jesse Barksdale on guitar, Glenn Anderson on drums, Chris Banks on bass and Don Thompson on vibraphone.
Wooldridge is establishing himself as a leader in this unique and specialized niche of "retro-music." Similar to the audiophile's relentless pursuit of the perfect analog recording methods and equipment, Wooldridge is pursuing the orchestrations, instrumentation, articulations, embellishments and timbres unique to the style, and confirmed by existing recordings from the Swing Era. The fruit of his efforts is satisfied audiences everywhere he plays. Many are already convinced of the beauty and excitement of the music, while others are being convinced for the first time.
Enraptured is not too strong a word to describe the degree of attention and enjoyment given as the audience drank in every note. Selections included Airmail Special, Honeysuckle Rose, Slipped Disc, Running Wild, and A Handful of Keys.Special guest vocalist Alex Pangman completed the show with authentic renditions of Slow Boat to China, A Hundred Years From Today, and I've Found a New Baby.
The event was a perfect way to set an upbeat tone for what promises to be a worthwhile concert series.
ArtHouse is an organization providing cost-free after-school, Saturday and summer programs in creative and visual arts, singing, improv and theatre and dance performance to children aged 7 to 11. The program has recently expanded into Burlington from its Oakville base, and this year will employ 50 volunteers and several paid instructors. Equal access to the arts is foundational for ArtHouse, and this year the organization intends to serve 600 kids.
The ArtHouse Festival Series Five 2013 will present some of Canada's greatest musicians and finest young rising stars. Each concert will bring CMC National Prize winners to Oakville and Burlington stages. For $150 patrons of ArtHouse will be entitled to four concerts and two post-concert receptions where they will meet the artists.
Click here to see the article at Hamilton Musician.com
Comments from Don Pangman regarding "Tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet" Concert at ArtHouse Oct 27, 2012
Last night was our final concert in a series of five this year - this year, and I believe we hit the top of the scale consistently with your Tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet. Thank you for bringing such energy and talent to the St. Luke's "stage" - it truly was a "happening in the sanctuary"!! Your warmth and contact with the audience was evident throughout the performance, and your historical travels back to an era that should never be taken for granted was indeed a treat for us all - it brought those decades to life – Alex Pangman was a bonus - I am so grateful that you made this happen.
A truly great "gig" with the best in the country.
Don Pangman – Founder, ArtHouse and the ArtHouse Festival Series
Comments from Frank DiFelice, Brantford Jazz Festival
“A wonderful, incredibly talented Musician. Great to have had Ross Wooldridge performing at the 2012 Brantford International Jazz Festival”
Frank DiFelice, Chairperson
Brantford Downtown Jazz / Brantford International Jazz Festival Inc.
Comments by Bernie Turcotte regarding Ross's new CD
Bernie Turcotte is a Music Consultant (retired) for the Ontario Ministry of Education for Toronto, and is the Central Ontario Region Executive Director of the IAJE Canada (International Association of Jazz Educators), and Past President of the OMEA (Ontario Music Educators Association):
July 7th, 2012 - ROSS WOOLDRIDGE IS THE BEST JAZZ CLARINETIST THAT CANADA HAS EVER PRODUCED...AMEN! read more
Posted by Bernie on Facebook July 10, 2012:
CD Tribute to BG is a masterpiece...better than Peanuts, Daniels and DeFranco tributes...you and your guys really swing...WOW! What a Tour de Force! Bravo!
Bernie Turcotte wrote in a letter to jazz enthusiast Larry Paikin:
August 7, 2012 - Larry, check out Ross Wooldridge's new CD which is a Sextet recording of a Benny Goodman Tribute. It was done in 2010 in Ancaster at an outdoor concert at the Fieldcote Museum. It's a wonderful recording and Ross is playing at the top of his game. He is without a doubt in my not very humble opinion the best clarinetist this country has ever produced in the jazz idiom...bar none... read more
Review by Glen Brown on HamiltonMusician.com
How To Play Tribute To Benny Goodman, And Make For A Perfect Summer Evening. Ross Wooldridge and His Sextet Shows How It’s Done at Music at Fieldcote
Sunday, July 8, 2012 - Everything was right, musically speaking, at the Fieldcote Museum Bandshell in Ancaster. The volume, the blend of instruments, the beautiful singer, the swing style, the solos, the place and the time were spot on. With all the pieces in place, the audience travelled back in time 70 years, and may as well have been listening to Benny Goodman himself. Ross Wooldridge and his Benny Goodman Tribute ensemble made it all happen. The July 8 concert was a special encore performance... read more
Review: Irv's Point of View
London Jazz Hot Stuff
Monday, November 15, 2010 - One of the best gigs ever performed for the London Jazz Society nearly brought the rafters down in London's Mocha Shrine Centre yesterday (Nov. 14). A sold-out performance... read more
The Ancaster News promotes a concert at Fieldcote
Ancaster Native Returns With a Tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet
Ancaster News July 8, 2010 - When Ross Wooldridge picked up a clarinet as an Ancaster High School student, he knew he was destined for a career as a professional jazz musician. Wooldridge, 48, headlines a July 11 performance with his Tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet, next week’s installment in the Music at Fieldcote outdoor concert series. Jazz enthusiasts can enjoy... read more
The Brantford Expositor promotes a concert at the Sanderson Centre
April 10th, 2010 Swing is His Thing
Brantford Downtown Jazz: A Benny Goodman Tribute on April 21, 2010
Ross Wooldridge figures he's been a jazz musician at heart for almost his entire 48-year life. "I've always just really loved it," said Wooldridge, noting that his interest in swing music took root when he grew up in the Jerseyville- Ancaster area listening to his parents' records. "I've been involved in music... read more
More Comments from various reviews
“Wooldridge did some incredible Goodman solos on clarinet”…
Harry Currie - Kitchener Record
“…You were right about Ross Wooldridge’s “tour-de-force” on (Artie Shaw’s) Carioca...superb…”
John Stewart - The Mississauga News
“Benny Meets Artie is a real treat of a show, and the Galaxy Orchestra, under the direction of Ross Wooldridge, were a pleasure to present. The ensemble are consummate musicians, recreating the sound of the big band era and handling solos with aplomb. It's a high energy show and Wooldridge is definitely the leader in that department, playing his clarinet in a manner that would have received nods of approval from the show's namesakes, Shaw and Goodman."
Rob Saunders - General Manager, Huntsville Festival of the Arts
“The All-Canadian Jazz Festival in Port Hope regularly closes the weekend with a Big Band that represents the finest exponents of the genre. The Galaxy Orchestra, featuring Ross Wooldridge, presented an absolutely perfect portrait of the music of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. The band was very tight.
Ross Wooldridge is probably the finest clarinet player in the country. Ross is intimate with the material and its’ history, and he took the audience to a place many hadn’t visited in years. They were a huge hit, and a perfect way to end a great weekend. Oh that we could have had a dance floor!”
John McGuirk - Director, Port Hope All Canadian Jazz Festival
Ross Wooldridge Music
"ROSS WOOLDRIDGE IS THE BEST JAZZ CLARINETIST THAT CANADA HAS EVER PRODUCED...AMEN!" - Bernie Turcotte
"CD Tribute to BG is a masterpiece... better than Peanuts, Daniels and DeFranco tributes... you and your guys really swing... WOW! What a Tour de Force! Bravo!"
"Wooldridge is a magician pulling a scarf from the hat, which turns out to be an endless stream of beautiful licks." - Brantford Expositor
Site design: Hamilton Musician Media
Theme images by fpm. Powered by Blogger.
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Chester in Windsor County, Vermont — The American Northeast (New England)
Merritt Austin Edson
Photographed By Kevin Craft, October 23, 2017
1. Merritt Austin Edson Marker
Merritt Austin Edson. . {North Side} Was born in Rutland Vermont on April 25, 1897. Soon after his birth, the Edson family returned to their native Chester. In 1915 he graduated from Chester High School. While attending the University of Vermont, in 1915, he joined the Vermont National Guard., {West Side} Military Service Summer 1916 Mobilized with National Guard to pursue Poncho Villa. Eagle Pass, Texas June 1917 Enlisted in the Marine Corps during world war one October 1918 Deployed to France with 11th Marines June 1922 Earned wings as naval aviator 1928-1929 Led the Coco River patrol in Nicaragua 1937-1939 Served with the 4th Marines in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War February 1942 Formed the 1st Raider Battalion August 7-8, 1942 Battle of Tulagi in the Solomon Islands September 12-14, 1942 Battle of Lunga Ridge on Guadalcanal November 1943 Chief of Staff, 2nd Marine Division Battle of Tarawa
December 1943 Promoted to Brigadier General June-August 1944 Assistant Division Commander 2nd Marine Division Battles of Saipan and Tinian July-December 1945 Commanding General Service Comand Fleet Marine Force Pacific August 1, 1947 Retired from the Marine Corps as Major General, {South Side} Medals and Awards Medal of Honor Navy Cross with Gold Star Silver Star Medal Legion of Merit with Combat Distinguishing Device (Bronze V) and Gold Star Combat Action Ribbon Presidential Unit Citation with two Bronze Stars Mexican Border Service Medal World War I Victory Medal with France Clasp Second Nicaraguan Campaign Medal China Service Medal with Bronze Star American Defense Service Medal with Fleet Clasp Asiatic – Pacific Campaign Medal with Silver Star American Campaign Medal Victory Medal world war two Medal of Merit with Silver Star British Distinguished Service Order Distinguished Rifleman Badge, {East Side} Civilian Life 1947 Testified before Congress against the unification of the Armed Services July 1, 1947 Formed the Vermont State Police 1949–1951 President of the National Rifle Association July 1951 Executive Director, National Rifle Association 1952–1954 President, Marine Corps War Memorial Foundation (erected Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington VA) August 14, 1955 Died in Washington DC. . This historical marker was erected in 2015 by Chester Historical Society. It is in Chester in Windsor County Vermont
{North Side}
Was born in Rutland Vermont on April 25, 1897. Soon after his birth, the Edson family returned to their native Chester. In 1915 he graduated from Chester High School. While attending the University of Vermont, in 1915, he joined the Vermont National Guard.
{West Side}
Mobilized with National Guard to pursue Poncho Villa. Eagle Pass, Texas
Enlisted in the Marine Corps during WWI
Deployed to France with 11th Marines
Earned wings as naval aviator
Led the Coco River patrol in Nicaragua
Served with the 4th Marines in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War
Formed the 1st Raider Battalion
Battle of Tulagi in the Solomon Islands
Battle of Lunga Ridge on Guadalcanal
Chief of Staff, 2nd Marine Division
Battle of Tarawa
Promoted to Brigadier General
June-August 1944
Assistant Division Commander
2nd Marine Division
Battles of Saipan and Tinian
July-December 1945
General Service Comand Fleet
Marine Force Pacific
Retired from the Marine Corps as Major General
{South Side}
Medals and Awards
Navy Cross with Gold Star
Silver Star Medal
Legion of Merit with Combat Distinguishing Device (Bronze V) and Gold Star
Combat Action Ribbon
Presidential Unit Citation with two Bronze Stars
Mexican Border Service Medal
World War I Victory Medal with France Clasp
Second Nicaraguan Campaign Medal
China Service Medal with Bronze Star
American Defense Service Medal with Fleet Clasp
Asiatic – Pacific Campaign Medal with Silver Star
American Campaign Medal
Victory Medal WWII
Medal of Merit with Silver Star
British Distinguished Service Order
Distinguished Rifleman Badge
{East Side}
Testified before Congress against the unification of the Armed Services
Formed the Vermont State Police
President of the National Rifle Association
Executive Director, National Rifle Association
President, Marine Corps War Memorial Foundation (erected Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington VA)
Died in Washington DC
Erected 2015 by Chester Historical Society.
Topics and series. This historical
marker is listed in these topic lists: Air & Space • War, World I • War, World II. In addition, it is included in the Distinguished Service Cross/Navy Cross/Air Force Cross Recipients, and the Medal of Honor Recipients series lists. A significant historical date for this entry is April 25, 1897.
Location. 43° 15.861′ N, 72° 35.925′ W. Marker is in Chester, Vermont, in Windsor County. Marker is at the intersection of Main Street (Vermont Route 11) and School Street, on the right when traveling east on Main Street. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Chester VT 05143, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 5 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies. Chester Vietnam Conflict Monument (a few steps from this marker); Chester Civil War Memorial (a few steps from this marker); Chester World War I and II and Korean Conflict Monument (within shouting distance of this marker); Chester Academy / District No. 20 Central School (within shouting distance of this marker); Chester Depot (approx. half a mile away); North Chester (approx. 0.8 miles away); Hugh Henry Family Homestead
(approx. 1.2 miles away); Stellafane Observatory (approx. 4.1 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Chester.
Also see . . . Wikipedia - Merritt Austin Edson. (Submitted on August 7, 2018, by Kevin Craft of Bedford, Quebec.)
Credits. This page was last revised on December 24, 2019. It was originally submitted on August 6, 2018, by Kevin Craft of Bedford, Quebec. This page has been viewed 255 times since then and 31 times this year. Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. submitted on August 7, 2018, by Kevin Craft of Bedford, Quebec.
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Uff Da
I've posted my share of stores about cringy lefty folks looking for guns.
Yesterday, a gun nut group I'm in had someone way on the other side that just made me twitch.
Older than my parents boomer. Morbidly overweight. Lost all his guns to a burglar years ago. Purpleish city in a red state. Asking what to get now. Thinks civil war is coming. Wants to defend home and family. Also wants to, direct quote, "suppress self-styled liberals."
I did my best to be nice. I don't like picking on people. I really don't like picking on scared people. I don't like telling people that they're dipping their toes into tinfoil hat lake. Nor do I like telling someone that their tactical assessment is about as fucked up as a cobra at a mongoose convention.
But seriously, the fuck?
What I did say was thus:
"Since you asked, and given what you've described?
Preference and Effective are ships that sailed long ago.
Find the closest thing to comfortable you can afford in a shop that has two boxes of rounds to go with it. Shoot off one box to familiarize yourself, keep the other box handy near wherever you're locking up the weapon.
Then relax. In any but the worst case scenarios, you're not even going to be in the same grid square as anyone needing suppression. Getting used to salads and getting to know your neighbors are gonna do a whole lot more to keep you alive than anything else at this point."
About the best I could hope for actually being paid attention to, given most of the thread was touting brand loyalty like it was last year or something.
Look folks, not to suck my own dick here, but I got a resume any guerilla wannabe would drool over. Know what the top four things I did to keep me alive in the last six months?
Number one, wore a mask.
If you're an antimasker, spare me your degree in virology from Facebook U. It ain't perfect, but paired with distancing and some hardcore hygiene practices, it beats the shit out of pretending we're back to normal. And if you think it's security theater, fine. It's not the bullshit disarming you security theater of the TSA. It's the security theater that keeps the 320 million other scared and angry people you're sharing this country with from panicking. Panicky crowds are deadly enough on their own. Do your part to keep them from happening.
Number two, bought an exercise machine I actually use.
I'm strong as fuck, but I'm also paunchy and not getting any younger. I never thought rowing would be my thing, but here we are. It's smaller, quieter, easier to use and more fun than the elliptical I had. Thus, I'm using it at least twice a day.
Number three, snuck in some portion control.
Dropping my morning omelet from four eggs and three meatballs to three and two respectively doesn't sound like much, but when you have a few a week, it helps.
Number four, cuddled the cats.
World's on fire, emotional care is a thing.
I've said before, I don't think we're entering a new civil war.
I do think we're in for some election day fuckery regardless of who wins, so if you're in a contentious area, visiting elsewhere for the week of election day may be a smart idea.
But even at our worst I don't see communist hordes invading flyover country as a significant threat to the cornfed ass of the OP.
We got a long way to go and nowhere near out of the woods yet, folks. Let's not stop to squat in thornbushes along the way, eh?
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Home > Cloud PRWire > Writing For Toddlers Kindle Tips | Beginner Book Selling PDF Guide Launched
Writing For Toddlers Kindle Tips | Beginner Book Selling PDF Guide Launched
By downloading the latest version of the guide, anyone can begin their career as a children’s author either on a part-time or full-time basis. It covers fundamental writing and publishing strategies and teaches readers how to drive sales through Amazon.
More information can be found at: https://childrensbookformula.com
Written by Jay Boyer, the updated guide covers key aspects of writing for the children’s market in detail. It highlights the need for research and how to gain insights from the Kindle marketplace.
Other elements of the guide discuss illustrations and how important images are in a book for children. Finding an illustrator to create engaging and eye-catching artwork is one of the most important elements to consider for any self-published children’s author.
Readers will also get tips and guidance on promotion, the best channels to use, and how to use Amazon to connect with more readers. This process is fully repeatable and works for books on any subject.
The beginner children’s book writing PDF guide is designed for anyone wanting to publish books on Kindle and gain bestseller status. Marketing tips also include how to increase audience retention and drive more sales with free offers, which can be linked through Kindle to open in any browser.
Writing a children’s book is an aspiration for many people around the world, especially new parents. However, it can be difficult to know where to begin. By downloading the guide and joining the program, anyone can tap into a proven formula to write their first book within 48 hours.
Jay Boyer has years of experience writing and publishing kindle ebooks for children and now has turned his attention to helping others to achieve success in the field. He takes pride in guiding aspiring authors and encouraging them to achieve their dreams.
He states: “I have had thousands of students come through this program, most of which have never published a children’s book before. Some of which have gone on to be even more successful than I have been. I have one student who last year was in the KDP newsletter.”
Interested parties can learn more at: https://childrensbookformula.com
J.J. Fast Publishing
https://childrensbookformula.com
3298 North Glassford Hill Road
Cronulla NSW Window Repair/Replacement Contractor – Glazier Services Launched
UNice Hair Celebrates May Brand Day By Launching More Deals And New Arrivals
Palm Beach Vivid Colored Diamond Auctions: Oval Cut Stones For Rings Announced
Terry’s Natural Market Declares The Opening Of Its New Joint Store Location
Silkman Law Firm Injury & Accident Lawyer Shares an Infographic of 10 Common Motorcycle Accidents and How to Avoid Them
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Beaverdam, VA
The 9 Best Sports Centers in Virginia!
Legacy Park, Ruther Glen, VA
The Legacy Park in Ruther Glen, Virginia, offers tournaments, camps, and rentals for all kinds of sports. Camps include clinics for high school freshmen and invite only underclass reviews. Regular…
The Legacy Park in Ruther Glen, Virginia, offers tournaments, camps, and rentals for all kinds of…
Christopher Run Campground on Lake Anna, Mineral, VA
Christopher Run Campground is perfect for kids. With a game room, pavilion, picnic shelter, snack bar, Laundromat, swimming, volleyball, horseshoes, shuffleboard, and playground, there’s no…
Christopher Run Campground is perfect for kids. With a game room, pavilion, picnic shelter, snack…
Best New Year's Eve Activities In Virginia
New Year’s Eve at King’s Dominion’s WinterFest, Doswell, VA
King’s Dominion is rolling out an extravagant New Year’s Eve celebration for all ages, making this amusement park a top family-friendly destination for the holidays. WinterFest offers…
King’s Dominion is rolling out an extravagant New Year’s Eve celebration for all ages,…
The 9 Best Sporting Goods Stores in Virginia!
Green Top, Ashland, VA
Green Top in Ashland, Virginia, has been in business for over 60 years. What began as a gas station and gun store in 1947 has grown to a massive 55,000-square-foot behemoth, selling everything you…
Green Top in Ashland, Virginia, has been in business for over 60 years. What began as a gas station…
The 9 Best Public Golf Courses in Virginia!
Mattaponi Springs Golf Club, Ruther Glen, VA
Mattaponi Springs has been featured in Golf Digest’s top 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses twice. Unlike other golf courses, Mattaponi Springs isn’t part of a larger community, meaning…
Mattaponi Springs has been featured in Golf Digest’s top 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses…
The 10 Best Animal Shelters in Virginia
Bark Bandit’s Adoption and Rescue K-9s, Ashland, VA
Bark Bandit’s Adoption and Rescue K-9’s, known as BARK, in Ashland, Virginia, helps to rehome animals that were orphaned or abandoned in the Richmond area. BARK helps families adopt…
Bark Bandit’s Adoption and Rescue K-9’s, known as BARK, in Ashland, Virginia, helps to…
10 Best Marijuana Dispensaries in Virginia
GLeaf Short Pump, Glen Allen, VA
Open seven days per week, gLeaf Short Pump is a reliable place residents of Glen Allen and beyond can trust for all their medical marijuana needs. Check it out for edibles, tinctures, extracts,…
Open seven days per week, gLeaf Short Pump is a reliable place residents of Glen Allen and beyond…
The 6 Best Skate Parks in Virginia!
Laurel Skate Park, Glen Allen, VA
The outdoor Laurel Skate Park offers 6,700 square feet of free skate area equipped with ramps, rails, a half-pipe, and bowl. Skateboards, in-line skates, and freestyle bikes are most welcome.…
The outdoor Laurel Skate Park offers 6,700 square feet of free skate area equipped with ramps,…
Mona Lounge and Cigar Bar, Glen Allen, VA
The Mona Lounge and Cigar Bar offers a more old-fashioned lounging experience. Puff on a fine cigar, enjoy a nice drink, and reminisce with old friends before heading over for a fine…
The Mona Lounge and Cigar Bar offers a more old-fashioned lounging experience. Puff on a fine…
The 10 Best Science Centers in Virginia!
Mad Science of Central Virginia, Glen Allen, VA
Mad Science of Central Virginia in Glen Allen prides itself on providing fun as well as education. In addition to the elementary and preschool workshops, camps, and birthday parties, Mad Science…
Mad Science of Central Virginia in Glen Allen prides itself on providing fun as well as education.…
Best Things In & Around Beaverdam, VA
Featured in The 15 Best Camping Spots in Virginia!
Christopher Run Campground is perfect for kids. With a game room, pavilion, picnic shelter, snack bar, Laundromat, swimming, volleyball, horseshoes, shuffleboard, and playground, there’s no… Read More
Featured in The 9 Best Sporting Goods Stores in Virginia!
Green Top in Ashland, Virginia, has been in business for over 60 years. What began as a gas station and gun store in 1947 has grown to a massive 55,000-square-foot behemoth, selling everything you… Read More
Have a ghostly encounter - or two
With its history (especially linked to the Civil War), Fredericksburg also touts itself as one of America's most haunted cities. Do some ghost-hunting either via horse-drawn ghost tour, or a walking… Read More
Featured in 10 Best Marijuana Dispensaries in Virginia
Open seven days per week, gLeaf Short Pump is a reliable place residents of Glen Allen and beyond can trust for all their medical marijuana needs. Check it out for edibles, tinctures, extracts,… Read More
La Petite Auberge, Fredericksburg, VA
La Petite Auberge Restaurant and Lounge has been a Fredericksburg staple since 1981. The restaurant serves traditional French cuisine. The menus are composed daily. Take a walk down the historic… Read More
Ukrop’s Monument Avenue 10K, Richmond, VA
The Ukrop Monument Avenue 10K race winds through the capitol, Richmond, Virginia, and has been featured as one of the best races in the country by USA Today. Thousands of runners take down Monument… Read More
Circle Square Salon, Richmond, VA
Featured in 10 Best Hair Salons in Virginia
Cutting, styling, coloring, retexturizing - Circle Square Salon is the go-to spot in Richmond for spectacular hair. This salon also has a reputation for doing positive works throughout the local… Read More
Fresca on Addison, Richmond, VA
Featured in 10 Best Vegan Restaurants in Virginia
Fresca on Addison is a favorite choice in Richmond for vegan and vegetarian cuisine. This cherished local treasure offers vegan pizzas, stuffed pitas, and its legendary white bean and pumpkin burger… Read More
Central Park Funland, Fredericksburg, VA
Featured in The 9 Best Arcades in Virginia!
Central Park Funland in Fredericksburg, Virginia, is newly renovated and ready to go. We recommend the unlimited ride and attraction wristband to truly enjoy this massive campus. Attractions are… Read More
Events around Beaverdam, VA
Asphalt Angles Car Show
Hanover County Courthouse, Hanover, VA
The Tin Pan, Richmond, VA
Adam Hawley
David Bromberg
Lee DeWyze
Trevor Gordon Hall and Mike Dawes
The 5th Dimension
Find it Fast Near Beaverdam
Kings Dominion
16000 Theme Park Way, Doswell, VA
Conserving and caring for wildlife and wild places has been our mission and our passion for more than 40 years.Busch Gardens is committed to provid... Read More
Laurel Skatepark
10301 Hungary Spring Road, Glen Allen, VA
Laurel Skate Park is a fun and safe place for both youth and adults to skate. The Skate Park has a free skate area of 6,700 square feet with ramps,... Read More
Louisa County Agricultural Fair
Post Office Box 1064, Louisa, VA
With an ever growing population in Louisa County, we strive to continue with the traditions of a truly agricultural fair. You will not find rides a... Read More
Three Lakes Park and Nature Center
400 Sausiluta Drive, Richmond, VA
Three Lakes Park and Nature Center bring together the three worlds of air, water, and land for visitors to explore. The Nature Center is a 6,500 sq... Read More
Fredericksburg Area Museum And Cultural Center
1001 Princess Anne Street, Fredericksburg, VA
The Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center is a resource for the region, a place where, through exhibitions, programs, and outreach activit... Read More
Agecroft Hall
4305 Sulgrave Road, Richmond, VA
On the rolling banks of the James River stands a remarkable Tudor estate. And by Tudor, we're not simply referring to an architectural style. This ... Read More
Science Museum of Virginia
2500 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA
Mission: Inspiring Virginians to enrich their lives through science. About Us: Gone are the days when science sat idle in a textbook. Since its ... Read More
G-Force Karts
4245 Carolina Avenue, Building B, Richmond, VA
At G-Force Karts, we are all about high octane racing action, intense competition, family fun and pure adrenaline! We have four “experiences... Read More
2908 W Cary St,, Richmond, VA
Founded in 1993, the French Film Festival located in Richmond, Virginia is an American-led initiative. Richmond, the capital of the Commonwealth of... Read More
Bumpass, VA
Partlow, VA
Montpelier, VA
Ladysmith, VA
Ruther Glen, VA
Doswell, VA
Mineral, VA
Thornburg, VA
Rockville, VA
Ashland, VA
Milford, VA
Gum Spring, VA
Oilville, VA
Woodford, VA
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Home Tags St. Elizabeth Denton MD
Tag: St. Elizabeth Denton MD
Father Sean Loomis, guest homilist, among highlights at St. Benedict/St. Elizabeth...
The Dialog - 30 November 2021, 13:57
RIDGELY, Md. — About 125 members and friends of Saint Benedict/St. Elizabeth Parish in Ridgely and Denton, Md., turned out for a Solemn 40...
125th anniversary Mass at St. Benedict includes final official ceremony by...
Connie Connolly, For The Dialog - 12 July 2021, 14:18
RIDGELY, Md. — A celebration of a “welcoming community” of the faithful formed the theme of a well-attended Mass and reception on Sunday afternoon,...
‘One of Us’ podcast: Fellowship, work guide Lori Parks and her...
Kaitlyn Firmani - 4 November 2020, 06:17
“One of Us” is brief snapshot of people who support the church in various ways in the Diocese of Wilmington. We will regularly feature people who...
Parishioners help St. Benedict-St. Elizabeth dedicate flagpole in Ridgely, Md.
Parish administrator Father Brian Lewis with support from parishioners helped erect a flagpole in time for Veterans Day at St. Benedict-St. Elizabeth of Hungary...
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Craft & Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA
The Craft & Folk Art Museum is a little gem that packs a big punch.The small size of CAFAM allows for more intimate, accessible exhibitions than its neighbors across the street, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and LaBrea Tar Pits & Page Museum. Walking down Museum Row on Wilshire Boulevard, we need only take a quick sidestep to enter a whole other world.
Founded by collector Edith Wyle as a gallery in 1965, it became a museum eight years later. Back in the day, it was fun to walk through fabulous tapestry exhibits either before or after a delicious brunch at The Egg and the Eye restaurant on the third floor. That eatery has since been replaced by gallery space, beloved Edith has passed on, and the museum has been through a chaotic period. Thanks in large part to former longtime director and board chairman Patrick Ela, CAFAM survived and is now thriving under the new leadership of Suzanne Isken, former Education Director of LA's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
Teaching the public in fresh new ways has been one of Ms. Isken's major goals since taking up her new position a few years ago. In this case, we walk off the street, over the threshold, and into the magical world of a contemporary shoemaker whose studio is set up for months (through September 6) right there in the front window.
Photo: Betsy Winchell
Combining a rocker artist's vision with rapidly disappearing, time consuming, old-school techniques, what Chris Francis does with a flat piece of leather is awesome. Meeting and talking with the personable artist, it was hard not to get caught up in his passion for the art and craft of shoemaking.
It's easy to think of wild boots like these kickin' it onstage, which is often the case.
Taking inspiration from teepees and nomads, textiles, twine, and tassels invite a closer look at the time-consuming workmanship that goes into each fantasy for feet.
Embroidery, natural dyes, and hand stitching are celebrated in these shoes.
Richard Neutra inspired a house for feet.
And the Bauhaus influenced these architectural beauties.
"How amazing would it have been to make shoes for Carmen Miranda?", asked Francis in an Instagram post. "I made these (right) for her in spirit, while listening to Xavier Cugat and thinking of the beautiful technicolor and geometric world of Busby Berkeley."
At first glance, the barkcloth shoes look relatively tame next to the vibrant odes to Carmen Miranda. But look closer. Not so.
These fantastic creations (above) were featured in the invitation and press materials.
As a former scuba diver and in more recent years, an avid snorkeler, I dislike walking on the beach with ungainly fins; but I imagine the wearer of these extrusions would make that exercise look like a cakewalk.
High fashion.
Checkers, anyone?
Fancy! Glittery party shoes dare the wearer not to have fun in them.
We leave the whimsical world of out-there shoes behind with each step up the stairs to the third floor. Here, we are confronted with art depicting situations where trippy shoes are unnecessary.
The somber Art and Other Tactics: Contemporary Craft by Artist Veterans is a 180 degree change. An excellent, in-depth review was written by Julian Stern for Savant Garde. Viet Nam veteran Michael Aschenbrenner (above), who suffered traumatic injuries himself, utilizes glass and mixed media to represent broken body parts and lost limbs of amputees.
Though A Battle Lost: 8030 by Jenn Hassin is beautiful from afar and up close, it quickly takes on a haunting tone when we realize that the number in the title - 8030 - represents a deplorable tragedy. In 2014 alone, eight thousand and thirty veterans committed suicide. That's five times the national suicide rate.
Each death is represented by piece of rolled paper...
...which brought to mind another installation inspired by war dead.
"I was someone's husband/wife/son/daughter/aunt/brother/mother/friend" printed on military-like dog tags removes the anonymity of war loss, begging us to ask the question: "What if it were my loved one?" Visualizing our precious relatives and friends on one of these tags personalizes the viewing experience, escalating it to a whole new level.
Teri McCans' poignant piece reminded me of another artist who uses dog tags as a medium to enhance the gravity of his message; I first saw the work of Do-Ho Suh, at the Seattle Art Museum.
Ken Hruby's Juggernaut of Babylon literally rolls out "boots on the ground" while referencing the expendability of anonymous soldiers: there are always more. And once the wheels of war have begun to turn, there's no stopping the destruction.
Descending the stairs, we catch a view of Aaron Kramer's elegant chandelier, made from recycled street sweeper bristles and coffee stirrers. I've been lucky to enjoy a piece of his in my home for many years. Though we were once neighbors in Venice, California (where he had his studio) Aaron has since moved to London.
Photo;Martha Benedict
You never know what the exterior of CAFAM will morph into. A couple of years ago, the facade was "yarn bombed" with crocheted squares submitted from around the world that were later made into quilts and donated to the homeless. CAFAM is a museum with a mission to show quality art while working for the greater good on a number of fronts. Pop in to see what's new, or to pick up unique artist handmade gifts at the convenient street level gift shop.
Posted by Jonette Slabey at 8/24/2015
Labels: Aaron Kramer, CAFAM, Chris Francis, Craft & Folk Art Museum, Edith Wyle, Jenn Hassin, Michael Aschenbrenner, Patrick Ela, Suzanne Isken
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DISCOVER A NEW MUSEUM TODAY
Jonette Slabey invites you to use your museums - some tiny gems, others large and well-known.
EN ROUTE: Because getting there is half the fun.
Making Us Think
NASA & Trains in D.C.
D.C. Protest - on Horseback
Malibu Waves on PCH
Utah Olympic Park
Adamson House
Craft & Folk Art Museum
Getty Center
Getty Villa
LA County Museum of Art
LA Museum of the Holocaust
LaBrea Tar Pits
San Francisco Asian Art Museum
Serra Retreat
Denver Art Museum
Boise Art Museum
Idaho Black History Museum
Idaho State Historical Museum
Walker Art Center
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Amon Carter Museum
Crow Collection of Asian Art
Kimbell Art Museum
Kimbell Art Museum...revisited
Modern Art Museum
Nasher Sculpture Museum
Nat'l Cowgirl Hall of Fame
Alf Engen Ski Museum
Olympic Park Ski Museum
Seattle Art Museum 1
Whatcom Museum
Calatrava's Milwaukee Art Museum
Harley Davidson Museum
Saarinen's Milwaukee Art Museum
Clouds Balloon in London
DRIVE-BY ART: Don't pass it up!
Parked Art, Santa Monica CA
Sculpted Surprise, Santa Monica
WOW. Wonders On the Web.
MoneT = MoneY
Learn more about museums and artists from around the globe!
Like Cruisin' Museums
the Museum Cruiser
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Weather Cools Off, But Cape Cod Show Was Still ‘Hot’ - Antiques And The Arts Weekly
15 Aug 2006 / 0 Comment
Weather Cools Off, But Cape Cod Show Was Still ‘Hot’
Charlie and Barbara Adams, South Yarmouth, Mass.
With temperatures registering in the high 90s all across Cape Cod throughout the week of August 1, it appeared that the Cape Cod Antiques Antique Dealers Association Antiques Show, held over the weekend of August 5 and 6, would once again earn its nickname as the “Cape Cod’s Hottest Show.” The heat wave broke on Thursday night, however, and the thermometer was revealing temperatures almost 20 degrees cooler as the dealers prepared to open the show for the preview party on Friday evening.
While the atmospheric heat had dissipated, the association’s slogan held true in the respect that the “dealer’s show” is the most anticipated antiques show on the Cape, widely considered “hot” in more ways than one.
A seemingly refreshed crowd of people flocked to the opening and sales were reported by many of the dealers participating. The crowd was one of the largest recorded at the Cape Cod show and attendance remained steady throughout the weekend with sales registered from start to finish.
“Overall it was an excellent show and I think most of the dealers did well,” stated Betty Davidian of Davidian-Americana. “We had an excellent show with good little smalls selling the best.”
The dealers had a long laundry list of items that had sold, including a wonderful early wooden chalkboard that covered one entire side wall of their booth. “It sold within minutes of the preview opening on Friday night and practically everyone that came through the show that night and on Saturday wanted it,” said Davidian.
Betsey Hewlett, Yarmouth Port, Mass.
“We also sold a nice portrait of Thomas Jefferson that had been done after the Gilbert Stuart painting at Bowdoin College,” she said, “and a nice early oil on board of a child.” The dealer also listed hooked rugs and a toy horse on heels as having sold.
Right next door to Davidian’s booth was East Greenwich dealer Denise Scott, who had a booth filled with quality country furnishings including an attractive cupboard with open top that retained a wonderful old blue paint. The cupboard was filled with a nice selection of pewter and was surrounded by stoneware jugs and crocks. Other items in the booth included a nice round-top hutch table that was flanked by a set of country Queen Anne chairs and a two-drawer blanket chest in old red.
Charles and Barbara Adams are mainstays at the show and the crowd always seeks them out. Their usual selection of Bennington and Rochester wares were highlighted by two “Departed Spirits” book flasks, including one in a flint enamel glaze, Toby jugs, creamers, pitchers and an unusual oval frame.
Mad River Antiques, North Granby, Conn.
The dealers also offered a good selection of country merchandise, including an attractive grain painted blanket box, an early mantel and a large carved wooden swan. While Barbara maintains the selection of Bennington, Charles sees to it that a selection of decorative bird carvings is always in the booth. Local decorative carvings by Lapham are a favorite, along with Crowells, Kings, Blackstones and an assortment of other makers.
Barbara Adams commented that the show is always “surprisingly good for a little show. We really did quite well overall,” she said, listing a fan window, stoneware, Bennington, hooked rugs and doorstops among the items that sold.
Henry Callan was on hand at the show with his usual fare – samplers and quality porcelains. One item in the booth that was particularly attracting attention was a sampler from the Philadelphia area that featured a house in the center surrounded by trees, potted flowers, flying birds and a row of ducks parading across the front of the yard. Executed in 1822, the dealer commented that it was one of his favorite pieces. Other samplers displayed included a rare Nantucket piece that the dealer felt had been created in a Quaker School. “There weren’t many of them made on the island,” stated Callan, “and most are in private collections.”
Windsong Antiques, Harwich Port, Mass.
Other items seen in the booth included some nice air twist stem goblets, a selection of Battersea boxes, Staffordshire figures, Whieldon and an assortment of Oriental porcelains including Canton and Rose Medallion.
Allen Hansen, Early Spring Farm, Vineyard Haven, Mass., was busy putting the finishing touches on her booth just before opening on Friday evening. The dealer offered a good mix of country materials with a nicely grained painted carpenter’s style chest catching the eye of patrons. The dealer also offered a folky carved wooden trade sign in the form of a half-open pocket knife. One item that the dealer pointed out was a large pair of star lanterns that had the unusual feature of having additional tin frames with colored glass inserts applied all over. The lanterns had recently come out of a local home, commented the dealer.
Stoneware was featured in the booth of Steve and Lorraine German, Mad River Antiques, North Granby, Conn., with an early bench stretching across the back of the booth topped with interesting examples. A rare small-sized churn with a stoneware lid was thought to have been made by Frank Norton due to the telltale cobalt sprig on the front. At no more than a gallon-and-a-half size, it was among the smallest functional churns that the dealers have ever seen.
Another unusual piece was a large cake crock with blue decoration that had the lug handles modified as they ended in a chicken-feet decoration. Another of the crocks attracting attention was a three-gallon Ballard straight-sided crock with a large and ornate bunch of grapes decorated in cobalt across the front.
Bradford Trust Fine Art, Harwich Port, Mass.
Bradford Trust had a large assortment of local themed paintings, many by local artists such as Charles Cahoon. When queried as to how the show went for the dealer, Roy Mennel responded, “In a word, best yet! The opening was strong and we did lots of business, the Saturday morning turnout was good as well,” he said. The dealer reported a slow afternoon surmising that patrons “went to the beach.” Among the crowd on hand, however, “selling was brisk. Sunday saw a much smaller turnout, but those who came bought right up to the end,” he said.
The dealer reported his “personal best with four paintings in each session” selling, along with an assortment of smalls. “The buyers, both dealers and collectors were upbeat. Such a change from some other shows this year and at least four of us sold directly from The Bee’s Show Section.”
Among the other paintings sold by the dealer, a Charles D. Cahoon oil depicting an oak tree; a Helen A Sawyer, oil of a Truro farm; as well as works by William H.S. Pearce; Sanders Bernath; and a James K Bonnar historic painting of the “Thee Sisters Lighthouses on National Seashore.”
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Netflix and Mattel bring more Barbie content to the telly
Zego and Brake unite over road safety
NatWest and Vodeno join forces to create a Banking-as-a-Service business
The Mayor of London seeks a partner for industrial development on Greenwich Peninsula
Bikeability and Halfords give away free bikes to mark Cycle to School Week
Nike grants customers access to member-exclusive products on Zalando
October has been a busy month in the world of partnerships. In fact, there’s no shortage of household names appearing on this month’s roundup, from Netflix to Natwest, Nike to the Mayor of London! Here’s our pick of the best bits.
Mattel is the American toy company known for manufacturing the famous fashion doll, Barbie. The brand had already teamed up with home streaming service Netflix to create an ‘interactive special’ called Barbie: Epic Road Trip. But now, the pair have entered into a long-term content partnership to include specials and series about the doll.
The multi-year agreement will see Mattel Television make exclusive content for Netflix. The partnership will allow viewers to engage with Barbie content in a whole new way – perfectly demonstrated by Barbie: Epic Road Trip, where families will be able to make choices for the characters at every turn, crafting the adventures they see unfold and truly immersing themselves in Barbie’s world.
Read more at the Daily Mail.
Relevant partnership types: Content partnerships.
Commercial motor insurer, Zego, has recently partnered with road safety charity, Brake, to promote safer driving. The partnership will see Zego using and promoting resources and tools developed by Brake to help fleets manage their road risk.
As a commercial motor insurance provider, Zego believes that it has a responsibility to contribute to creating a safer transport ecosystem and reducing the risk of fleets across the UK and beyond. The partnership with Brake will allow it to put this into practice and demonstrate its commitment to road safety. Meanwhile, the education imparted through the collaboration ties in perfectly with Brake’s vision of ending the tragedy of road deaths and injuries, which it campaigns for tirelessly.
Read more at CommercialFleet.
Relevant partnership types: Charity partnerships, content partnerships.
UK high street bank, NatWest, and software vendor, Vodeno, have joined forces to form a new Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) business. The new strategic partnership will bring Vodeno’s technological and operational capabilities together with NatWest’s banking technology and expertise, to support UK businesses.
The new UK-based entity will enable businesses to embed financial services products like payments, deposits and merchant cash advances, directly into their ecosystem – further building on the success of NatWest’s business banking app, Mettle. It will be 82% majority owned and consolidated by NatWest Bank Plc, with Vodeno TechCo holding the remaining minority interest. At the same time, NatWest Group will take a minority interest in Vodeno Limited, which owns 100% of Vodeno TechCo and Aion Bank.
Read more at The Fintech Times.
Relevant partnership types: Joint ventures, product partnerships.
The Mayor of London is on the hunt for a partner for a £107 million regeneration of an industrial site on the Greenwich Peninsula. City Hall’s development arm, GLA Land, is undertaking procurement for the 1.4-hectare site, which is currently occupied by a distribution warehouse. Now it wants to build London’s first multi-storey industrial building to attract new businesses to the area and create more jobs locally.
To achieve this vision, the mayor is looking to form a cross-sector partnership with a developer-led team that can design, develop and build the £107 million scheme. The successful developer will be granted a 250-year leasehold on the site – which is part of a wider £8.4 billion regeneration that includes seven new neighbourhoods, 48 acres of green space and 17,500 new homes.
Read more at Inside Housing.
In celebration of this year’s Cycle to School Week, the UK’s largest retailer of motoring and cycling products, Halford, gave away more than £68,000 worth of cycling equipment to children across the UK, in partnership with cycle training charity Bikeability. This included 475 children’s bikes, which were all pre-owned. The initiative was supported by British cyclist and Olympic gold medallist, Charlotte Worthington – Halfords’ newly appointed ambassador.
To celebrate the new initiative, pupils at Avenue Primary School in Leicester were put through their cycling paces in a Bikeability session with Charlotte Worthington and two Bikeability instructors. The children were equipped with the skills and confidence to cycle safely, including learning how to check their bicycles are safe to ride, how to handle junctions and how to signal to other road users.
Read more at Bikeability.
Relevant partnership types: Charity partnerships, influencer marketing.
Despite its overarching focus on direct-to-consumer, Nike has recently announced a new strategic partnership with German online retailer, Zalando, in order to grant its customers access to member-exclusive products. The announcement comes soon after Nike confirmed a similar partnership with sports retailer JD Sports, demonstrating the importance of partnerships in retail.
Nike and Zalando’s collaboration will bring together Zalando’s customer experience and e-commerce knowledge with Nike’s footwear and apparel assortment. Zalando customers in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland will be able to link their Nike accounts in order to gain access to an expanded selection of Nike products to shop from. The partners are united in a passion for innovation and providing a pioneering customer experience, as well as sharing values when it comes to sustainability, diversity and inclusion.
Read more at Just Style.
Relevant partnership types: Distribution marketing partnerships, incentive marketing partnerships.
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As you can see, October has been as busy a month as any in strategic partnership land, and there’s a ton of news to catch up on!
Check back next month for our strategic partnership news roundup for November. And in the meantime, don’t forget to book a demo for Breezy. We can help you find thousands of hyper-relevant leads to choose from, so you can form some innovative new partnerships of your own!
Strategic partnership news: June
June is all about barbecues, picnics and (hopefully!) the odd heatwave. But it’s also the time for strategic partnerships! Here's our pick of the best partnership news to have sprung up this month.
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Creta Morin
Hyatt Centric Jumeriah, Dubai
The newest sparkling Jewel in the city of Superlatives
With the fusion of unobtrusive architecture and bold tones of pop, juxtaposed against the Middle Eastern-influenced designs, the newly opened Hyatt Centric Jumeriah Dubai perfectly echoes the vibe of this vibrant metropolis.
Hyatt Centric Jumeirah, Dubai
In a city where revenge travel seekers and wanderlust enthusiasts arrive to lounge on the sun-kissed beaches, Hyatt Centric Jumeriah Dubai is the most recently added launch pad for the savy, chic and millennial travelers. A true fusion of contemporary style and classic majestic splendor of the Middle East, this modern lifestyle boutique hotel is what every traveler who wishes to be in the middle of the action, will strive to stay in.
I visited the city when the sun was still not quite a pinch, the weather was conducive to a host of travel and activities within just miles of my surroundings. I couldn’t be more blessed to have La Mer beach just meters from the hotel. Stretched along the sea donned with a wonderful view of the Arabian Gulf and the Dubai skyline. Timber walkways, palm tree boulevards with string lights dancing above the pastel-colored beach shacks, bustling high-energy bars on the promenade and quaint ice-cream parlours, all just adding to the charm of the place. There was an inherent dichotomy to the stay alongside the beach. A lively party atmosphere in the backstreets, but in the evenings and mornings, before and after the music started, the overall ambiance was incredibly calming.
La Mer Beach Promenade
The newly opened hotel to me seemed to be narrating a vivid story. A story of passion and pop, in its architecture as well as in its people. A story that served up interesting titbits and insider knowledge about the destination and its true essence. A local home, preparing me to explore and discover the magic of this bustling financial & fashion metropolis. It was quite easy to arrive at the location of the hotel on Jumeriah 1 Road, La Mer Beach. The 7-storied property was breathtaking with a playful juxtaposition of colors, textures and curated curiosities that started to brew the minute I stepped in.
The vivacious lobby with the pop of colors
The setting of the property was such that it looked out over the open sea, a rarity in Dubai. The still water of the sea was a sight to behold from the floor-to-ceiling windows and a treat for the eyes in the mornings. The unobtrusive lines of bold architecture and a colour palette that is predominantly interspersed with pops of turquoise and burnt oranges perfectly echoed the vibe of the vibrant city. Linens were crisp and the European design aesthetic sophisticated and ultra-luxe. Unlike other hotels in Dubai that are melanges of sleek wood and toned-down neutrals, Hyatt Centric Dubai had bold tones of pop juxtaposed against the Middle Eastern-influenced designs.
As I was seeking traditional and authentic experiences, the hotel was a great access point for hidden gems at traditional souks in the neighborhoods of Satwa, Bur Dubai and Al Fahidi. Even the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall were just a 15-minute short drive. The scintillating evenings around Burj Khalifa with art, culture and performances were nothing short of ostentatiously overwhelming. The whole vibe of the city had come alive.
The Palatable Breakfast Spread
It would be incomplete if the exhilarating culinary experience was left unspoken of. The hotel’s dining outlet was casual, relaxing and above all a melange of food and beverage experiences celebrating the region’s dynamic flavours. The breakfast was an ode to the meticulous planning of comfort foods, high energy ingredients and the freshest of flavours. From the power-packed Greek Granola with berries, and traditional Middle Eastern Shakshuka’s to the legendary New York Eggs Benedict and abundant charcuterie boards, the breakfast was truly the king of meals I had.
For me the property was a complete standout, resplendent with every leisure experience and amenity a traveler can ask for, from outdoor temperature-controlled pools to an eclectic open island bar alongside the shores of the open waters, a well-equipped fitness centre and above all, the multilingual staff adorning wide smiles throughout the stay. In between all the exhilarating and cultural to-do’s that Dubai has to offer, I rested my head in peace at the Hyatt Centric Jumeirah Dubai, feeling like a welcome visitor, light-hearted, in-the-know and adventurously spirited.
Culinary Capital
La Mer Beach
Jumeriah
Westin Mumbai, Powai Lake
Yog Wellness By Amritara, Mussoorie
Materials That Matter
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Quadrennial Advisory Commission311 Search all NYC.gov websites
**The work of this Quadrennial Commission has concluded. This site is for historical purposes only.**
The Quadrennial Commission welcomed feedback from New Yorkers, elected officials, and public officials during a 5-week period, in addition to hosting two public hearings (transcripts from those hearings are available). Below is an archive of the public testimony received in order of submission
Date: 2/3/16
Comment: Testimony of the 2015 Quadrennial Advisory Commission for the Review of Compensation Levels of Elected Officials Before the New York City Council Committee on Governmental Operations and Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections
File: 2/3/16 Testimony
Date: 2/19/16
Comment: Statement of the 2015 Quadrennial Advisory Commission for the Review of Compensation Levels of Elected Officials at the Bill Signing
File: 2/19/16 Statement
Name: Senator Tony Avella
Affiliation: New York State Senate
Comment: Statement of New York State Senator Tony Avella
File: Statement of Senator Tony Avella RE Compensation
Name: Richard Brown
Affiliation: District Attorney o/b/o NYC District Attorneys
File: Statement of NYC District Attorneys
Name: Frederick A.O. Schwarz
Borough: Manhattan
Affiliation: Quadrennial Commission Chair
Comment: QAC Chair, in response to District Attorneys' October 28 letter.
File: Statement of QAC Chair
Name: Roxanne Delgado
Borough: Bronx
Affiliation: Individual
Comment: Dear Chair Frederick A. O. (“Fritz”) Schwarz, Jr. I write to express my concern about the inadequacies of the Notices of the Public Hearings. Not due to any fault of the NYC Quadrennial Advisory Commission. In my humble opinion, I believe it is not in the best interest of our "Public Servants" to disseminate information of these hearings. I was aware of the hearings due to the recent "negative headlines bemoaning the chutzpah of the city council and District Attorneys (DAs) seeking a pay hike. Do forgive my redundancy, I send an earlier email to request a public hearing held in the Bronx. Due to the lack of Internet access and/or Internet savvy, many Bronx residents will not be able to post comments on your site nor email their testimonies. Also due to lack of internet access, many of these Bronx resident are NOT aware of your public hearings nor of your website. I myself became aware of your commission and hearing after several Google searches. Several of the news stories on the DAs and city council seeking more money didn’t mention the Quadrennial Advisory Commission or the public hearing dates and location. My concern is the Public will not be heard due to the above 2 factors (lack of accessibility and lack of notice). Also my cynicism expects those who will testify or submit their commits/testimony will be "insiders". Further, I wouldn't be surprise to see "good" government groups who negotiated with the politicians through back door dealings favorable to the politicians seeking pay hike. I speak from first hand experience witnessing the city council overturned term limits in 2008. At the city council chambers, the front rows were fill with those who supported overturning term limits. Many of them were employees of "nonprofit" groups that were either rewarded or pressured to support overturning the will of the people. Many of the public was turned away from the "two-day" hearings because the chamber was filled with these supporters of overturning term limits. Based on this eye-opening experience, I am concern if the public would really have a "true" voice in the commission's public hearings scheduled. I do hope the commission would post notices of the public hearing in local newspapers and broadcast them in local television. Also I think it should be posted not only on your website but also in the Mayor, city council, and DAs websites for transparency.
Comment: Testimony Attached
File: Roxanne Delgado Testimony 11/18/15
Name: Dick Dadey
Affiliation: Citizens Union, Executive Director
Comment: Testimony of Dick Dadey, Executive Director of Citizens Union
File: Dick Dadey Testimony
Name: Gene Russianoff
Borough: Brooklyn
Affiliation: NYPIRG
Comment: Since 1986, NYPIRG has testified at every City salary commission appointed, five in all. Like the rest of the city’s government reform community, NYPIRG felt the salary commissions were exactly the right forum for governmental reforms directly related to pay hikes. At the top of our list were: meaningful restrictions on outside earned income; elimination of legislative stipends (lulu’s); and prohibiting increasing salaries during one’s own term of office. All of these reforms have a direct impact on the income of public officials. NYPIRG strongly believes that each of these reforms must be put in place as part of any compensation increase. The Congressional system offers the best model for limiting outside income, the use of lulus is rare in municipal governments and, of course, adds compensation to the Council Members, and, like the state, we believe that increases in compensation must be prospective
File: Gene Russianoff Testimony
Name: Robert Johnson
Affiliation: District Attorney
Comment: Letter from Bronx DA Robert T. Johnson
File: Letter from Bronx DA Robert T. Johnson
Name: Gale A. Brewer
Affiliation: Borough President
Comment: Testimony of Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer
File: Testimony of Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer
Date: 11/30
Name: Ruben Diaz, Jr.
Affiliation: Bronx Borough President
File: Statement of Bronx Borough President
Comment: Additional comments submitted for inclusion with prior testimonies. Thank you
File: Roxanne Delgado Testimony 12/3/15
Name: John Fleming
Affiliation: Detective Investigators' Association
Comment: Letter and attachments from John Fleming, President, Detective Investigators' Association
File: Letter and attachments from John Fleming, President, Detective Investigators' Association
Name: Melissa Mark-Viverito
Affiliation: Speaker, New York City Council
Comment: Submission and Attachments from NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito
File: Submission and Attachments from NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito
Name: Anthony Rivieccio
Affiliation: The financial advisors group
Comment: We must ensure that our Council Members are full time, conflict-of-interest free and earn a reasonable inflation-adjusted salary. So, what’s fair?
1) Amend the New York City Charter to make Council Members Full time
It’s funny! If you ask them, they would tell you they work 12 hours a day with no overtime. That sounds like everyday America! So let’s start treating them as such.
2) No Outside Income
A Daily News review found that 40 of 51 Council members report zero outside income — and most of those who do report outside income only pocket only small sums as adjunct professors or part-time lawyers. So some would tell you that this is not a problem. In my view, a ban on outside income means no conflict of interest. Whether college professors or lawyers, their main focus should be on their full-time responsibilities as Councilpersons.
3) No Bonuses (or lulus)
There is no justifiable reason for an elected City Council member to receive a bonus on top of his/her salary for being a Committee Chair.
4) Playing Ten-year Catch up
In the last decade, Council Members have had no raise. Well, if we apply the federal inflation rate of 2% a year, then salaries should go up 20%. Using an inflated adjusted methodology, Council Members should earn $135,000 today. That might not go over so well when an arbitrator gives rank and file New York City police officers a mere one percent raise.
5) A New Beginning: 2022
Any raise – regardless of how big or small – should only apply to City Council members, who take office Jan. 1, 2022, the first term after the council term limits controversy. That way, you almost ensure total new conflict free membership. We said above that Council members salaries should start at $135,000, year 2015. If we presume inflation for the 7 year difference, at 3%, you are looking at a new inflation adjusted increase of $163,350.
6) Beyond 2022
The next Quadrennial Commission should simply peg Council salary adjustments to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). If inflation adjusted raises are good for both seniors and most city employees, it is most certainly good enough for Council Members.
So there you have it! My proposal offers a 17% salary increase from 2015 to 2021 or a 2.4% annual increase for the next 7 years. Our esteemed Council Members base salary would rise from $112,500 today to $163,350 by 2021. And thereafter, Council salaries would be inflation-adjusted.
Financial Focus: A City Council Pay Raise
November 17, 2015 5:01 PM·
Making Pay Raises Fair to Council Members and The People of New York
by Anthony Rivieccio, PFA, MBA
Visit the Bronx Chronicle
Name: Susan Lerner
Affiliation: Common Cause/NY
Comment: Thank you for the opportunity to submit supplemental comments.
File: Susan Lerner Supplemental Comments
Comment: Not even the people on Social Security are receiving any increase. City Council members make over 124k(with lulus) for a part time job. They made this in 2006, which makes them the highest paid since their job is part time, and they receive a pension unlike LA city council. They are not minimal wageworkers that need to have their wages adjusted for CPI to survive like the MAJORITY of the residents of our city. And even further back in 1979, the commission recommended reforms such as abolishing lulus yet NO reforms ever made. WHY do we keep going round and round in circles. TIME for city council to make those reforms first then they can ask for a raise. And next time they should appear in front of the commission to justify more money. And they should sit at the committee meetings and remain till the whole public spoken. It is rude for my CM Vacca to makes false sound bites that a 5-cent on plastic bags is a tax on the poor and then run off before we are heard. This r idiculous increase for more money is a tax on the poor and if they get more money then so will the other unions rightly ask for the same treatment. The city is spending our monies and we in the Bronx are suffering from severe lack of basic services
Comment: Testimony of a member of the public who testified for the first time and was disillusion by the process: All but the chair left the hearing before the public testified. Also the public is objective despite what others suggest. The public has no conflict of interest that may exist even with good government groups that must "work" with the city council.
https://youtu.be/Ho2qjEeGO5I
“However I am disappointed that so many council members didn’t stay to hear my opinion or the opinion of most everybody. They all left as the minute you started on public opinion.”
Link of video in city council website Starting at 4:01:20
Comment: https://youtu.be/Ho2qjEeGO5I
Name: Joy Simmons
Comment: I serve as a Staff Member of a New York City Council Member. I am writing to express that Staff Members of City Council Members should receive raises along with Council Members.
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Baumgartner Completes Record Breaking Jump
By Merryl Azriel on October 15, 2012 in Red Bull Stratos
Felix Baumgartner cheers after a perfect landing (Credits: Red Bull Stratos).
On October 14, Felix Baumgartner successfully leapt from a helium supported capsule at an altitude of 39,045 meters. Over the next 9 minutes and 3 seconds, Baumgartner broke at least three records as he fell, broke the speed of sound, deployed his parachute, then gracefully and gently set down on the ground in Roswell, New Mexico.
“It was really a lot harder than I thought it was going to be,” said Baumgartner once safely back on the ground. Baumgartner experienced a few tricky moments when he went into a spin coming out of the capsule and later when his visor fogged up, an issue that had ocassioned a brief discussion whether to abort when it occurred in the capsule on the way up. Due to the spinning, which can be fatal if not quickly brought under control, Baumgartner did not hear the sonic boom when he broke the sound barrier. Only later did he find out his fastest speed, a recordbreaking 1.24 Mach.
Baumgartner jumps! (Credits: Red Bull Stratos).
Baumgartner was supported by a 300-odd Red Bull Stratos team, including his predecessor and mentor Joe Kittinger on Capcom. Kittinger talked Baumgartner through procedural drills throughout the latter’s three hour ascent, keeping him focused for the big moment. There seemed to be a few communication issues throughout the mission. Reception from Baumgartner degraded just before he left the capsule, with confirmation of the last few procedures being made by the BASE jumper’s thumbs up in lieu of verbal statement. Baumgartner’s message to the world was also hopelessly garbled. On the way down, Baumgartner reported his visor fogging several times without response from mission control, and he later received incorrect wind direction information and had to repeatedly request a flare when trying to identify a good landing spot.
Baumgartner’s friends and family watched the live feed from mission control, celebrating each milestone with waves of cheering. Baumgartner’s mother Ava seemed particularly relieved to have him safely back on the ground, after sitting through tense momemnts of the mission with fingers, arms, and legs crossed for luck.
The historic jump had been delayed a few times due to hardware and weather issues. But the final date seemed preordained, as it coincided with the 65th anniversary of the first occasion of a human breaking the sound barrier. On October 14, 1947 US Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager flew the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1. Baumgartner is now the first human to achieve Mach outside of a vehicle.
One record Baumgartner didn’t break is that of longest free fall. Although his free fall covered a greater distance than Kittinger’s, Baumgartner also travelled faster than his predecessor. As a result, Baumgartner’s 4 minutes 19 seconds of free fall prior to pulling his parachute came 16 seconds short of the record.
Watch highlights from the jump below:
TagscapsuleFelix Baumgartnerfree fallhigh altitudeJoe KittingerjumpMachparachuterecord breakingRed Bull StratosRoswell New Mexicosky divesonic boomspin
Merryl Azriel
Having wandered into professional writing and editing after a decade in engineering, science, and management, Merryl now enjoys reintegrating the dichotomy by bringing space technology and policy within reach of an interested public. After three years as Space Safety Magazine’s Managing Editor, Merryl semi-retired to Visiting Contributor and manager of the campaign to bring the International Space Station collaboration to the attention of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. She keeps her pencil sharp as Proposal Manager for U.S. government contractor CSRA.
Inside Red Bull Stratos
Stratospheric Leap - A Supersonic Human
Interview with Olav Zipser - FreeFly Astronaut Project
Gildenberg Never Brought a Balloon Down More than 1/4 Mile from its Target, Part 3
Gildenberg Integral to Man’s First Forays from Earth, Part 2
Balloon a Go...No-Go? — Gildenberg’s Call, Part 1
Faster than Expected: Baumgartner’s Jump Exceeded Expectations
Surviving Ebullism at 39 km: Baumgartner Jump Holds Promise for Space Suits
Baumgartner's Jump: How It Works
Severe Weather Delays Baumgartner’s Launch to Tuesday
Record Breaking Baumgartner Jump Postponed
Felix Baumgartner Performs 21,817 Meter Parachute Jump
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Health care markets have become increasingly concentrated through mergers and acquisitions. This consolidation can lower costs due to economies of scale and improve patient outcomes through coordinated care. However, greater concentration may also result in higher prices or lower quality. A recent paper studies the effects of mergers and acquisitions in the dialysis industry, which makes up 6% of total Medicare expenditures (Eliason et al., 2020).
The dialysis industry has consolidated over the past three decades, with the share of independently owned dialysis facilities falling from 86% to 21%. This new research uses detailed claims data to show directly how large chains transfer their corporate strategies to the approximately 1,200 independent facilities they acquired between 1998-2010.
On average, acquired facilities see their reimbursements increase and their costs decreasing, which may reduce the quality of care. Patients receive 128.9% higher doses of EPO after their facilities are acquired by a large chain, and acquired facilities also increase their use of the iron deficiency drug Venofer relative to Ferrlecit, a near-perfect substitute that offered lower reimbursements. On the cost side, large chains reduce expenses by replacing high-skill nurses with lower-skill technicians, by increasing the patient-load of each employee, and by increasing the number of patients treated at each dialysis station. Stretching resources this way potentially reduces the quality of care received by patients, as over-burdened staff are more error prone and less able to maintain proper standards of cleanliness. Patients at acquired facilities are 6.1% more likely to be hospitalized in a given month, and the survival rate for new patients falls by 1.3-3%. The acquisitions have mixed results on other measures of clinical quality.
Acquisitions do not occur randomly and acquired facilities are likely differ in important, potentially unobservable ways from those that are not acquired. This means that these findings—like much of the literature on merger effects—could face multiple threats to identification. The authors are able to mitigate these threats, however, through the use of detailed data on outcomes and condition severity, the long length of their data panel, and the use of patient-level fixed effects that control for time-invariant characteristics.
Standard models of regulated markets predict that a facility in a more competitive market will offer higher quality care to attract more patients, on the assumption that patient demand responds to facility quality. In dialysis, however, that assumption fails to hold—patients show little response to changes in quality and rarely switch facilities. Changes in market power alone cannot therefore explain the decline in quality after a takeover. Instead, the strategy of the acquiring chain largely determines how patients fare following an acquisition.
These findings have two important implications. First, although current antitrust laws prohibit acquisitions that substantially decrease competition, this paper demonstrates that the diffusion of firm strategy is an additional mechanism through which acquisitions may harm consumers. Second, these results illustrate the importance of well-designed payment systems in controlling health care costs and improving patient outcomes. By improving the design of Medicare’s payment systems, policy makers can simultaneously reduce costs and improve outcomes.
A recent paper studies the effects of mergers and acquisitions in the dialysis industry. When independent facilities are acquired by large chains, their reimbursements increase, their costs decrease, and their quality of patient care deteriorates across most metrics. These changes in care and quality appear to be due to the strategy of the acquiring chain, rather than the characteristics of the acquired facility or changes in market power. These findings imply that acquisitions may harm patients due to the diffusion of firm strategy independently of any decrease in competition, and also illustrate the importance of well-designed payment systems in controlling health care costs and improving patient outcomes.
Health care markets have become increasingly concentrated through mergers and acquisitions. Proponents of this consolidation cite several potential benefits, including lower costs due to economies of scale and better patient outcomes through coordinated care. Greater concentration may also result in higher prices or lower quality, however. In a recent paper, funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation, we study the effects of mergers and acquisitions in the dialysis industry (Eliason et al., 2020). With total Medicare reimbursements for treating the nation’s 430,000 dialysis patients amounting to about $33 billion each year, or 6% of total Medicare expenditures, this is an important market to study.
Like many parts of U.S. health care, the dialysis industry has consolidated over the past three decades, with the share of independently owned dialysis facilities falling from 86% to 21%, and with two large publicly traded corporations, DaVita and Fresenius, now owning 65% of facilities. Previous studies of health care consolidation have typically considered only broad measures of competition and outcomes—by showing, for instance, that more-concentrated hospital markets have higher mortality rates. Comparatively less work has examined the precise channels through which mergers and acquisitions ultimately cause health outcomes to change, which motivated us to use detailed claims data from the dialysis industry to show directly how large chains transfer their corporate strategies to the approximately 1,200 independent facilities they acquired between 1998-2010.
On average, acquired facilities increase their reimbursements and decrease their costs, but experience a decline across most measures of patient quality
We find that acquired facilities alter their treatments both by increasing reimbursements and by decreasing costs. One important way facilities capture higher payments from Medicare is by increasing the amount of drugs they administer to patients, for which Medicare paid providers a fixed per-unit rate during our study period. The most notable of these is EPOGEN (EPO), an injectable drug used to treat anemia, which was Medicare’s largest drug expenditure in 2010, totaling $2 billion. Perhaps reflecting the profits at stake, we find that patients receive 128.9% higher doses of EPO after their facilities are acquired by a large chain, as shown in Figure 1. Similarly, acquired facilities increase their use of the iron deficiency drug Venofer relative to Ferrlecit, a near-perfect substitute that offered lower reimbursements. On the cost side, large chains reduce expenses by replacing high-skill nurses with lower-skill technicians, by increasing the patient-load of each employee by 11.9%, and by increasing the number of patients treated at each dialysis station by 4.6%.
Figure 1: EPO Doses at Acquired Dialysis Facilities
Stretching resources this way potentially reduces the quality of care received by patients, as over-burdened staff may be more error prone and less able to maintain proper standards of cleanliness. Reflecting this, patients at acquired facilities are 6.1% more likely to be hospitalized in a given month, while the survival rate for new patients falls by 1.3-3%, depending on the time horizon considered. In addition, new dialysis patients who start treatment at an acquired facility are 9.4% less likely to receive a kidney transplant or be added to the transplant waitlist during their first year on dialysis, a reflection of worse care because transplants provide both a better quality of life and a longer life expectancy than dialysis.
The acquisitions have mixed results on other measures of clinical quality. Although we find that patients are 10.3% less likely to have hemoglobin levels below the desired range for effective anemia management post acquisition, they are also 9.8% more likely to have hemoglobin values that are too high and 5.3% less likely to have hemoglobin values within the recommended range. The only outcome for which we find unequivocal evidence that quality improves after an acquisition is the urea reduction ratio, a measure of the waste cleared during dialysis, with patients at acquired facilities 2.5% more likely to have adequate clearance levels. Despite patients mostly receiving worse care following an acquisition, acquired facilities increase their per-treatment Medicare reimbursements by 7.5%, amounting to $274.5 million in additional spending across our sample and reflecting worse value for Medicare.
Changes in care and quality appear to be due to the strategy of the acquiring chain, rather than the characteristics of the acquired facility or changes in market power
Like much of the literature on merger effects, our findings may face multiple threats to identification, as acquisitions do not occur randomly and acquired facilities likely differ in important, potentially unobservable ways from those that are not acquired. For instance, facilities may systematically alter their patient mix after being taken over, in which case the changes in outcomes we attribute to changes in ownership may actually stem from changes in facilities’ demographics. Similarly, chains may disproportionately target facilities located in areas with more lucrative patients, potentially biasing our estimates of how reimbursements change following an acquisition.
We overcome these challenges through the uniquely detailed nature of our data. Our dialysis claims data contain repeated measures of patients’ clinical outcomes and precise measures of their conditions’ severity, allowing us to mitigate concerns about a changing mix of patients. Furthermore, the long length of our panel allows us to observe patients with the same characteristics being treated at the same facility both before and after an acquisition, permitting us to identify the effects of an acquisition solely from within-facility changes in ownership. Finally, in many cases we can estimate specifications with patient-level fixed effects that control for any of their time-invariant characteristics, a particularly conservative approach for measuring how an acquisition affects patients’ treatments and outcomes.
We conclude our paper by considering whether an acquisition’s effect on market power (i.e., competition in the surrounding area) can explain the changes we observe for patient outcomes, as would be predicted by standard models of regulated markets with endogenous product quality. With prices set administratively for Medicare patients, these models predict that a facility in a more competitive market will offer higher quality care to attract more patients, given the assumption that patient demand responds to facility quality. In dialysis, however, that assumption fails to hold: patients show little response to changes in quality and rarely switch facilities, as discussed in Eliason (2019). We therefore find very similar qualitative and quantitative results across all of our outcomes when comparing acquisitions that increased market concentration with those that did not. As such, changes in market power alone cannot explain the decline in quality after a takeover, which implies that the strategy of the acquiring chain, rather than the subsequent increased concentration of the market, largely determines how patients fare following an acquisition.
These findings have implications for antitrust regulation and health care design
These findings have received immediate attention from policymakers and journalists. They have been cited as an example of non-reportable consolidation under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act by FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson, for instance, and highlighted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik in his article on health care competition. [1] Although current antitrust laws prohibit acquisitions when “the effect of such acquisition may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly,”[2] our results demonstrate an additional mechanism through which acquisitions may harm consumers—the diffusion of firm strategy. As firm strategy, rather than a change in market concentration, appears to explain the declining quality of care, the harmful acquisitions of dialysis facilities may fall outside the current purview of antitrust regulators.
In addition, our results illustrate the importance of well-designed payment systems in controlling health care costs and improving patient outcomes. As we show in the case of EPO, poorly structured reimbursement schemes can lead providers to behave in ways that not only waste resources but also harm patients. By improving the design of Medicare’s payment systems, policy makers can simultaneously reduce costs and improve outcomes. Progress in this direction is already underway with the ESRD Prospective Payment System and Quality Incentive Programs, as we show in a related paper (Eliason et al., 2020B).
This article summarizes ‘How acquisitions affect firm behavior and performance: Evidence from the dialysis industry’ by Paul Eliason, Benjamin Heebsh, Ryan C. McDevitt, and James W. Roberts, published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics in February 2020.
Paul Eliason is at the Department of Economics, Brigham Young University. Benjamin Heebsh is at the Federal Trade Commission. Ryan C. McDevitt is at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. James W. Roberts is at the Department of Economics, Duke University, and NBER.
[1] Cf., respectively, FTC and L.A. Times.
[2] 15 U.S.C. § 18
Cunningham, Colleen, Ederer, Florian, and Ma, Song, “Killer Acquisitions,” Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming.
Eliason, Paul, “Market Power and Quality: Congestion and Spatial Competition in the Dialysis Industry,” Working Paper, 2019.
Eliason, Paul, Heebsh, Benjamin, McDevitt, Ryan C., and Roberts, James, "How acquisitions affect firm behavior and performance: Evidence from the dialysis industry." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 135, no. 1 (2020): 221-267.
Eliason, Paul, Heebsh, Benjamin, League, Riley, McDevitt, Ryan C., and Roberts, James, “The Effect of Bundled Payments on Provider Behavior and Patient Outcomes,” Working Paper, 2020.
Wollmann, Thomas G., “Stealth Consolidation: Evidence from the Amendment to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act,” American Economic Review: Insights, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2019.
Katie Parry
More Precise Regulation can Lower Pollution in India
21 October 2020 Organisation of Markets Authors: Patrick Kline (Berkeley), Neviana Petkova (US Department of Treasury), Heidi Williams (Stanford University), Owen Zidar (Princeton University)
Who Profits from Patents? Rent-Sharing at Innovative Firms
Measuring the extent to which firms pass changes in their performance through to worker earnings is challenging. Our work uses US patent allowance decisions as “natural experiments” that lift a company’s labor productivity. We find robust evidence that variability in firm performance is an important causal determinant of worker pay in our sample of small […]
Regulations often have unintended costs as well as intended benefits. France has a large number of labor market regulations that bind when a firm has 50 or more employees. These regulations are intended to help workers, but they also act as a tax on large firms. This discourages firms near the threshold from growing larger and producing more output. We calculate that these French labor regulations depress overall economic output by over 3%.
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Top Tri-County football games previewed
Jul 1, 2022 11:50 am
Chiefland's Dakota Fisher will travel to Cross City to play Dixie County on Sept. 16.
We’re still almost two months away from the first regular-season high school football game and here is a look at the top contest each week in the Tri-County area during the upcoming season.
Five of the six teams in the Tri-County area (Dixie, Levy and Gilchrist counties) will have a new coach in 2022—Bronson, Chiefland, Dixie County (Cross City), Trenton, and Williston. Bell is the only school in the area that didn’t have to find a new coach.
Photo by Suzette Cook Bell football coach Joey Whittington
Friday, Aug. 26 – Bell at Trenton
Bulldogs coach Joey Whittington is back for his 10th season. Last year the Bulldogs had to replace 18 seniors, yet they doubled their win total from the previous season and finished 4-6.
“I’m excited about the game being week one,” Whittington said. “We are always trying to set the tone at the beginning of the season. Now that we are playing our in-county rival week one just intensifies that.”
Meanwhile, Cameron Porch will be in his first season as the head coach of the Tigers, who finished 4-6 last year under coach Bill Wiles, but still made the playoffs. The two teams didn’t play last year but Trenton defeated Bell, 47-0, in 2021, and has won 11 of the last 12 in the series.
“I know Cameron and respect him as a coach so I know it’s gonna be a good battle,” Whittington said. “The focus of the summer has been to get ready and hit the ground running. Playing Mayo (Lafayette) in the Kickoff classic and Trenton week one has helped make the process fun.”
Friday, Sept. 2 – Dixie County (Cross City) at Trenton
Classic battle of the trenches. However, it’s going to be a drastic change on offense for the host Tigers, who have lost the last four in the series which is back after a one-year hiatus. Brock Canaday takes over for LB Cravey as head coach of the Bears.
“We’re just trying to get back to the tradition that was here that these guys established a few years back,” Porch said. “We’re going to be really, really young so it’s the perfect time to start that transition but we think we can do it. The kids have worked really hard since I got here and they’ve really taken to it. They’ve really enjoyed the weight room and that’s kind of the first sign towards kids being willing to change.”
Friday, Sept. 9 – Williston at Dixie County (Cross City)
Photo by C.J. Gish Williston huddle at the Bronson spring jamboree.
Robby Pruitt is back in Florida and looks to turn Williston around. How quickly the Red Devils improve from a 1-8 season will depend on their commitment in the weight room this summer. The host Bears have always been a blue-collar team, so it should be a physical game for the Red Devils. The more physical team will likely win this one.
Friday, Sept. 16 – Chiefland at Dixie County (Cross City)
Jonathan Adams of Chiefland will be one to watch in this one. Adams made the Mainstreet Daily News All Area defensive team last year after recording 85 tackles, including 24 tackles for a loss, and 12 sacks for the Indians (11-2), who advanced to the 1A state semifinals. Last year, Chiefland defeated the visiting Bears, 14-7.
James Corbin takes over for head coach Adam Gore. Corbin and the Indians dominated Bronson in the spring game. The Bears get a tough three-game test, but perhaps a measuring stick, early in the season.
Friday, Sept. 23 – Fort White at Williston
Fort White was a playoff team last year, finishing 5-5 following a loss at Lafayette (Mayo). After a three-game road swing, the Red Devils return home. It will be the first of a four-game home stand for Williston, which could be pivotal for the kind of season the Red Devils are hoping to have in year one under Pruitt.
Friday, Sept. 30 – Newberry at Williston
The visiting Panthers are coming off of another playoff appearance under coach Ed Johnson and they’ve added a couple of former Gators to their coaching staff. This one was a close one the last time the two played each other in October 2020 with the Panthers edging the Red Devils, 26-24, on the road behind then senior Makai Johnson’s three touchdowns.
Friday, Oct. 7 – Dixie County (Cross City) at Union County (Lake Butler)
Photo by C.J. Gish Union County’s Rayvon Durant
The host Tigers lost a tough one at Chiefland, 29-27, in last year’s region final. Running back Rayvon Durant is back for his senior season after earning All Area honors by rushing for over 1,300 yards. The Bears will need to get off to a good start in this one.
Last year Dixie County jumped to a 10-0 lead early in the third quarter before visiting Union County bounced back with 28 unanswered points for a 28-12 win giving Tigers coach Andrew Thomas his 100th career victory.
Friday, Oct. 14 – Trenton at Williston
The Tigers narrowly escaped two years ago with a 40-38 win against the Red Devils on the road. Williston is starting a nutrition program this summer. They’re also trying to change the mindset. They certainly have a championship pedigree when it comes to its head coach. Pruitt has the edge against Porch, but you’ve still got to put in the work.
“We’ve just got to institute a program,” Pruitt said following the spring game win. “We’ll get a little better, a little better.”
Friday, Oct. 21 – Florida High (Tallahassee) at Chiefland
The visiting Seminoles (11-2) are coming off of a final four trip in Class 3A, where they fell to eventual state champion Chaminade-Madonna (Hollywood).
Friday, Oct. 28 – Bronson at St. Francis Catholic Academy (Gainesville)
Photo by C.J. Gish Bronson RB Donteau Jenkins
This could have easily been Chiefland at Fort White or Dixie County at Newberry but I wanted to include one game for Bronson, which lost its head coach after the spring game when Russell Holley stepped down. The Eagles won this game easily last year but this year could be a bit tougher as the Wolves were very young last year. Tim Jones is serving as interim coach for the Eagles (5-5), who just missed the postseason in 2021.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to share this time in these young men’s lives,” Jones said about the opportunity to be the head coach at Bronson. “We hope to use this great game to teach them the discipline, respect and work ethic to be successful in life. It’s a great day to wear the orange and blue in Bronson.”
Friday, Nov. 4 – Chipley at Dixie County (Cross City)
Chipley lost at Hawthorne in the Class 1A state semifinals last season, so this is a good end of the season challenge for the Bears, who are playing a tough schedule in 2022 which includes six Class 1A playoff teams from last season—Lafayette, Trenton, Chiefland, Fort White, Newberry and Union County.
Weekly Tri-County football schedule (Dixie, Gilchrist, and Levy counties)
Kickoff at 7:30 p.m. (unless noted)
Friday, Aug. 26
Anclote (Holiday) at Bronson, 7 p.m.
Chiefland at Crescent City, 7 p.m.
Bell at Trenton
Dixie County (Cross City) at Lafayette (Mayo)
Hamilton County (Jasper) at Williston
Friday, Sept. 2
Bell at Wewahitchka, 7 p.m.
Bronson at Branford
West Oaks Academy (Orlando) at Chiefland
Dixie County (Cross City) at Trenton
Williston at Weeki Wachee
Branford at Bell
Central (Brooksville) at Bronson
Chiefland at Suwannee (Live Oak)
Newberry at Trenton
Williston at Dixie County (Cross City)
Friday, Sept. 16
Bell at Taylor (Pierson), 7 p.m.
Florida A&M (Tallahassee) at Bronson, 7 p.m.
Chiefland at Dixie County (Cross City)
Trenton at Wewahitchka
Williston at Branford
Bronson at Cornerstone Charter Academy (Bell Isle), 7 p.m.
Jefferson County (Monticello) at Dixie County (Cross City), 7 p.m.
Bell at Hamilton County (Jasper)
Fort White at Williston
OFF – Trenton, Chiefland
Bell at Seven Rivers Christian (Lecanto)
Chiefland at Trenton
Newberry at Williston
OFF – Bronson, Dixie County (Cross City)
Friday, Oct. 7
Riverside Christian (Trenton) at Bell, 7 p.m.
Bronson at Trinity Christian Academy (Deltona), 7 p.m.
Trenton at Branford
Wildwood at Chiefland
Dixie County (Cross City) at Union County (Lake Butler)
Lake Weir (Ocala) at Williston
Friday, Oct. 14
Interlachen at Bell, 7 p.m.
Riverside Christian (Trenton) at Bronson, 7 p.m.
Zarephath Academy (Jacksonville) at Chiefland
Fort White at Dixie County (Cross City)
Trenton at Williston
Aucilla Christian (Monticello) at Bell, 7 p.m.
Dixie County (Cross City) at Cambridge Christian (Tampa), 7 p.m.
Williston at Bronson, 7 p.m.
Florida High (Tallahassee) at Chiefland
Trenton at Lafayette (Mayo)
Bronson at St. Francis Catholic Academy (Gainesville), 7 p.m.
Chiefland at Fort White
Dixie County (Cross City) at Newberry
Trenton vs. TBA (Tournament)
OFF – Bell
Friday, Nov. 4
St. Francis Catholic Academy (Gainesville) at Bell, 7 p.m.
Chipley at Dixie County (Cross City)
Bronson at Umatilla
Belleview at Trenton
Williston at Chiefland
Tags: Adam Gore Andrew Thomas Bell Brock Canaday Bronson Cameron Porch Chiefland Chipley Dixie County Ed Johnson Florida High Fort White James Corbin Joey Whittington Jonathan Adams Lafayette Newberry Rayvon Durant Robby Pruitt Russell Holley St. Francis Catholic Academy Tim Jones Trenton Williston
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Chicago RPCVs Survey For Better Health Support
My name is Griffin Marie Francis Smith, I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uganda from 2011-2013, currently serve on the board of the Chicago Area Peace Corps Association and am a proud member of the RPCV Health Crusade!
RPCV Health Crusade is a newly formed volunteer group of RPCVs who came together to focus on the health and well-being of PCVs and RPCVs. In the spirit that drew us to service, we came together to see how we can make a difference within our own RPCV community. We believe that there are volunteers currently serving in the Peace Corps that could have better health experiences and also believe there is very little in place to support the health of RPCVs after service.
We created a health survey (https://surveys.rpcvhealthcrusade.org/682425) with the following goals in mind:
to give the PCV and RPCV community a voice in identifying our own health needs;
to provide visibility in health trends and patterns within the community;
to create a more complete picture of the overall health of the community;
to give RPCV Health Crusade guidance in focusing our efforts (education, advocacy, support, etc.) and developing programs that generate the greatest benefit;
to help establish a baseline of the current state of our community to track potential changes over time
Please help us distribute this health survey (https://surveys.rpcvhealthcrusade.org/682425), our goal is to reach as many PCVs and RPCVs as possible.
The survey responses will be kept anonymous (there is no personally-identifiable information) and will not be sold or shared with any other group or organization including NPCA or PC. The survey should only take about 10-20 minutes to complete and could contribute to a potential world of difference to the overall RPCV community.
Please feel free to reach out directly to me or to the group at [email protected] with any questions or concerns.
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Ozy
Taxidermy Just Got Even Creepier
Carl Pettit
Polly Morgan brings the dead to life, both figuratively and literally, through sculpture. This English artist, who grew up in the Cotswolds countryside, near Oxford, crafts fascinating figures from deceased critters that speak to how “death feeds into life,” as she puts it, getting her audience to respond to animals in ways they perhaps wouldn’t have otherwise.
“I joke that I wanted pets without the responsibility,” Morgan says. “I do think that being in a big city divorces you from nature to the extent that you can crave some kind of animal contact.” The skinning and building of artificial bodies has given her a greater understanding and respect for anatomy, and her own body. “I’d always loved the satisfaction derived from creating things, but not all creative jobs result in a physical manifestation of your labor that taxidermy does,” she says.
Lightning never strikes twice 2
Source: Courtesy of Polly Morgan
Morgan achieved artistic success early on, exhibiting within a year of learning taxidermy. That initial success, born out of “instinctive work,” bothered her some, as she hadn’t attended art school and wasn’t used to being judged by critics and peers. After some time spent questioning her own work, worried that it wasn’t “up to scratch,” Morgan battled through her frustrations and entered a period where she was again happy with her sculptures — which happened to involve an awful lot of snakes.
A self-described “fearless child,” Morgan recalls handling a corn snake that wound up biting her. “Dead snakes are perfectly predictable,” she says of her relationship with serpents now. As far as raw materials go, people send her a steady supply of cadavers through the post. Pigeons and squirrels are everyday deliveries, from friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, fans, folks aware of her work, and generally those who are trying to help and take part. But she was once offered a baby giraffe, located in Bahrain, which she had to go and stuff and mount before she could send it to the U.K.
Morgan never dispatches living creatures for her evocative pieces, like Still Birth or the winged Blue Fever, or any of her sculptures, for that matter. (And no, she does not stuff pets for bereaved owners.) She is legally required to keep a logbook of the animals that come through her studio, plus, she explains, it would be illegal in many cases to kill for taxidermy. Morgan decided early on not to have anything killed for her work. Despite being a meat-eater, she “found the notion of taking something’s life in order to try to make it look alive again especially perverse and wrong.”
From pythons dancing on pedestals and blackbirds being devoured by maggots (Nest) to chicks (fowl, not babes) with balloons (Still Birth) or a fallen tree providing nourishment to piglets and small birds (The Fall), Morgan has an uncanny gift, through her craft and imaginative spin, of giving unsettling subject matter a new, thought-provoking life — even after the blood rush of mortal existence has long since vanished.
Polly Morgan - What Do Artists Do All Day ?
Taxidermy: The New Hipster Hobby?
Gang Fighting While Gang Painting
The Deaf Artist Reconstructing Sound
What's Waxy, Black and Goes Back to the Bad Ol' Days?
The Art of Creative Limitations
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Chapter 70,803
Interactions in casein micelle Pea protein system (part I) : Heat-induced denaturation and aggregation
Mession, J.-L.; Roustel, S.; Saurel, R.
Food Hydrocolloids 67: 229-242
ISSN/ISBN: 0268-005X
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodhyd.2015.12.015
The aim of this work was to investigate the heat-induced interactions between pea proteins (vicilin 7S or legumin 11S enriched-fractions) in admixture with suspended casein micelles (SCM), at weight protein ratio of 1:1 and pH 7.1. The single-protein samples and mixtures thereof were prepared at concentrations of 18 and 36 mg(protein)/g(sample), respectively, then heated from 40 to 85 degrees C and incubated for 0-60 min. As compared to single-protein samples, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) data indicated that the denaturation temperature of pea proteins increased of about 4 degrees C in the presence of SCM. Heat-induced change in protein composition of the soluble (SP) and micellar (MP) phases from centrifuged SCM pea protein mixture was assessed by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and densitometry. Likewise SP was analyzed by size-exclusion chromatography (SEC-HPLC). While pea legumin 11S and vicilin 7S oligomers were markedly sedimentable in MP from their respective unheated mixture, thermal denaturation and protein aggregation (>= 75 degrees C) resulted in increasing levels of dissolved pea proteins in SP. Heating of the SCM legumin mixture (85 degrees C, 15-60 min incubation) resulted in the dissociation of the legumin subunits L-alpha beta into acidic Le and basic L-beta polypeptides, yielding in comparable amounts soluble and insoluble disulfide-bonded aggregates, respectively. In contrast in the SCM vicilin mixture, the heat-denatured vicilin polypeptides in a temperature range of 70-80 degrees C produced in majority soluble and non-covalent aggregates. Though the heat-induced interactions between pea proteins were altered in the presence of micelles, caseins would not be involved into pea proteins aggregation.
Wang, L; Ma, Y; Cui, J; Oyeyinka, S A.; Cheng, J; He, S 2017: Yak milk whey protein denaturation and casein micelle disaggregation/aggregation at different pH and temperature International Dairy Journal 71: 131-135
Mession, J-Luc; Roustel, Sébastien; Saurel, Rémi 2017: Interactions in casein micelle - Pea protein system (Part II): Mixture acid gelation with glucono--lactone Food Hydrocolloids 73: 344-357
Beghdadi, A.; Picart-Palmade, L.; Cunault, C.; Marchesseau, S.; Chevalier-Lucia, D. 2022: Impact of two thermal processing routes on protein interactions and acid gelation properties of casein micelle-pea protein mixture compared to casein micelle-whey protein one Food Research International 155: 111060
Taterka, H; Castillo, M 2015: The effect of whey protein denaturation on light backscatter and particle size of the casein micelle as a function of pH and heat-treatment temperature International Dairy Journal 48: 53-59
Mession, J.-L.; Sok, N.; Assifaoui, A.; Saurel, R.ém. 2013: Thermal denaturation of pea globulins (Pisum sativum L.)-molecular interactions leading to heat-induced protein aggregation Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 61(6): 1196-1204
Mession, J.L.; Sok, N.; Assifaoui, A.; Saurel, R. 2013: Thermal Denaturation of Pea Globulins (Pisum sativum L.)—Molecular Interactions Leading to Heat-Induced Protein Aggregation Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 61(6): 1201-1209
Slattery, C.W.; Sood, S.M.; Chang, P. 1989: Hydrophobic interactions in human casein micelle formation: beta-casein aggregation Journal of Dairy Research 56(3): 427-433
Joyce, A M.; Brodkorb, Aé; Kelly, A L.; O’Mahony, J A. 2017: Separation of the effects of denaturation and aggregation on whey-casein protein interactions during the manufacture of a model infant formula Dairy Science and Technology 96(6): 787-806
Oldfield, D.J.; Singh, H.; Taylor, M.W.; Pearce, K.N. 2000: Heat-induced interactions of β-lactoglobulin and α-lactalbumin with the casein micelle in pH-adjusted skim milk International Dairy Journal 10(8): 509-518
Schrader, K.; Buchheim, W. 1998: The effects of high pressure on colloidal calcium phosphate and the structural integrity of micellar casein in milk. Part 2. Kinetics of casein micelle disintegration and protein interactions in milk Kieler Milchwirtschaftliche Forschungsberichte 50(1): 79-88
Morand, M.; Guyomarch, F.; Pezennec, S.; Famelart, M.H. 2011: On how κ-casein affects the interactions between the heat-induced whey protein/κ-casein complexes and the casein micelles during the acid gelation of skim milk Idf Symposium on Microstructure of Dairy Product 21(9): 670-678
Oldfield, D.; Singh, H.T.ylor, M.; Pearce, K. 2000: Heat-induced interactions of beta-lactoglobulin and alpha-lactalbumin with the casein micelle in pH-adjusted skim milk International dairy journal 2000(8): 509-518
Kethireddipalli, P.; Hill, A.R.; Dalgleish, D.G. 2011: Interaction between casein micelles and whey protein/κ-casein complexes during renneting of heat-treated reconstituted skim milk powder and casein micelle/serum mixtures Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 59(4): 1442-1448
Pan, Z.; Ye, A.; Dave, A.; Fraser, K.; Singh, H. 2022: Kinetics of heat-induced interactions among whey proteins and casein micelles in sheep skim milk and aggregation of the casein micelles Journal of Dairy Science 105(5): 3871-3882
Markov, D.I.; Pivovarova, A.V.; Chernik, I.S.; Gusev, N.B.; Levitsky, D.I. 2008: Small heat shock protein Hsp27 protects myosin S1 from heat-induced aggregation, but not from thermal denaturation and ATPase inactivation Febs Letters 582(10): 1407-1412
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Home » U.S. Immigration News and Policy Updates » January 2021 Visa Bulletin Released with Advancements in Employment-Based Categories
January 2021 Visa Bulletin Released with Advancements in Employment-Based Categories
December 23, 2020 Sara Herbek
The January 2021 Visa Bulletin will bring advancement in employment-based categories
USCIS will use the Final Action Date chart in January 2021
EB-1 China and India Final Action dates will advance to September 1, 2019
EB-2 China will move ahead to June 1, 2016; EB-2 India will progress to October 8, 2009
For EB-3, China advances six weeks to December 15, 2017; India advances to March 22, 2010
For EB-5, Vietnam will advance to September 15, 2017 and China will stay ay August 15, 2015
The EB-5 Regional Center Program will end on December 28, 2020 unless extended by legislation
The U.S. Department of State has issued the January 2021 Visa Bulletin, which brings some advancement in employment-based categories. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will use final action cutoff dates when determining eligibility to file for permanent residency through employment-based visas.
What are the Changes?
USCIS will use the Final Action Date chart in January 2021 after using the Dates of Filing chart for several months.
Following the Final Action Date chart, all countries will remain current for EB-1 in January except for China and India. Both countries will move ahead five months to September 1, 2019. For EB-2, China will progress one month to June 1, 2016. India will move ahead one week to October 8, 2009. All other countries will stay current. EB-3 Professionals and Skilled Workers cutoff dates will remain current in January 2021 for most countries except China and India. China’s cutoff dates will advance to December 15, 2017. For India, cutoff dates will move ahead one week to March 22, 2010. In the category of EB-4, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras will advance to March 1, 2018. Mexico will advance to December 1, 2018. All other countries will stay current. For EB-5, all countries except for Vietnam will remain current. Vietnam will move ahead two weeks to September 15, 2017. China will stay at August 15, 2015.
The Regional Center program may be extended by legislation past its December 28, 2020 expiration. If the associated legislation is signed into law, the EB-5 Regional Center program will be extended through June 30, 2021, and it will continue to follow the same cutoff dates in 2021.
Updates will be provided as they become available.
Learn more about the Visa Bulletin and how to navigate it in this article from the Envoy Global team.
Envoy is pleased to provide you this information, which was prepared in collaboration with Sara Herbek, who is a Managing Partner at Global Immigration Associates, P.C. (www.giafirm.com), Envoy’s affiliated law firm.
Content in this publication is not intended as legal advice, nor should it be relied on as such. For additional information on the issues discussed, consult an Envoy-affiliated attorney or another qualified professional.
As Managing Partner at Global Immigration Associates, Sara is responsible for all legal service delivery at the firm. She and the firm’s robust team of attorneys and paralegals represent multinational corporations in a wide range of industries.
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Category: Customer Experience
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Displaying 30+ Stories
Israeli-Arab Rescue Unit: 'Our Goal? Saving Human Lives'
NewsBlock_9AM_122815_HD1080_248.517_421.573
NES TZIONA, Israel -- With all the hatred in the Middle East, we found a hopeful story of Israeli Arabs training with Israelis to save lives.
This is a unique volunteer search-and-rescue team from the town of Abu Gosh. Israeli Imad Jaber is a Muslim Arab who leads the group.
"We rescue people. It doesn't matter gender, race or religion," Jaber told CBN News. "Our goal is to save human lives. It doesn't matter if it's a Jew or an Arab, American [or someone] from Russia."
At the Home Front Command drill site, the search-and-rescue team practices its life-saving techniques, such as rescuing people from beneath a collapsed building.
But in the current environment, with Palestinians carrying out deadly attacks against Israeli Jews, rescuing people may not be their greatest challenge.
"It's not simple and it's not easy, especially in these very difficult times," Jaber explained. "On one hand, we are Arabs, Muslims, and we're residents of the state, citizens of the State of Israel that raise up a unit like this."
There are some 60 men in the unit and another 42 waiting to join. It's an effort most Israeli Arabs wouldn't even attempt.
"To raise up a unit like this takes courage, it needs people that are humane," Jaber continued. "We're not fighting against anyone. We don't kill anyone, but the opposite. We are saving human lives."
Even as civilian volunteers, they are proud to wear the Israeli army uniform.
"We're wearing the uniforms of the IDF. That's an honor for us," he said.
Abu Ghosh is about 6 miles from Jerusalem. It's known for fantastic restaurants with a large Israeli Jewish clientele and a one-time world record for a nearly 9,000-pound plate of hummus ground chickpea spread that's practically an Israeli staple.
The town is located near biblical Kiryat Jearim, where the Ark of the Covenant once rested.
Today, Abu Ghosh is known as the only Israeli Arab town along the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv corridor that supported Israel during its War of Independence.
Lt. Col. Yigal Dahan is the Jewish Home Front commander who oversees the group.
"This company is Israeli civilians from the Arab sector that decided actually to be partners, to be good citizens of the state, to be partners in all that happens here -- actually to take responsibility for themselves in time of emergency," Dahan told CBN News.
Dahan is very proud of their hard work and service.
"I think they've taken a courageous step," he explained. "Today, in principle, we talk about something scary and here we find a shared cause that is saving lives and together it doesn't matter which race, which religion, which gender. I think it's a very important message in general for everything that's happening in this country."
God is everywhere—even in the news. That’s why we view every news story through the lens of faith. We are committed to delivering quality independent Christian journalism you can trust. But it takes a lot of hard work, time, and money to do what we do. Help us continue to be a voice for truth in the media by supporting CBN News for as little as $1.
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Submitted by escamp on August 31, 2015 - 3:04pm
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Stellaractive Blog
DesignMarketingNews & TipsSocial MediaStellar ClientsUncategorized
Creating a Social Media Content Calendar and Strategy Plan That Works for Your Business
December 7, 2022 By Stellaractive Marketing, News & Tips, Social Media
Staying on top of your business’ social media and juggling multiple platforms and engagement can feel overwhelming and unsustainable. A clear and concise content calendar is a great way to keep your ideas plotted out and your posts organized. Having a calendar with potential posts and automatic scheduling allows you to provide real time updates... Read More
How To Increase Engagement on Instagram
October 24, 2022 By Stellaractive Marketing, News & Tips, Social Media
Engagement is a crucial metric for measuring the effectiveness of a social media campaign. Whether you are new to Instagram or have been working on building your account, engagement is a key factor. Instagram has over 110 million users in the U.S and is useful for both B2C and B2C businesses. The measurement of likes,... Read More
Facebook Ads Vs. Boosted Posts: What’s the Difference?
August 5, 2022 By Stellaractive Marketing, News & Tips, Social Media
When marketing your brand, it’s important to understand what options you have for your business goals. We all see those perfectly tailored ads on our Facebook and Instagram pages. You’ve probably asked yourself how they are always so accurately targeted to your needs! Let's take a quick look at the differences between boosted ads and... Read More
3 Steps to Getting Started on Pinterest
May 5, 2022 By Stellaractive Marketing, News & Tips, Social Media
Establishing a presence across multiple social platforms is vital, yet Pinterest is often overlooked. Pinterest is well known for travel, fashion, and food, but its uses go far beyond that. It’s an ideal place to share your business and showcase your products, services, and projects to a vast audience while connecting with customers and other... Read More
Should Your Business Be on TikTok?
May 11, 2022 By Stellaractive Marketing, News & Tips, Social Media
There’s no doubt that TikTok has made major waves in the social media industry. With over one billion users and an estimated one billion daily users, TikTok could potentially offer your business a lot of opportunities for growth, engagement, and brand awareness. The fast-paced nature of the app makes it ideal for content creation and... Read More
How To Get Started On Instagram
May 6, 2021 By Stellaractive News & Tips, Social Media
If you’ve started to up your social media game and wade into Instagram, you know that it’s where your customers are. After all, 500 million accounts are active daily and 90 percent follow at least one business. How can you attract and engage with these users without spending a ton of your marketing dollars and... Read More
More than Likes: Make the Most of Social Media Marketing
November 3, 2020 By Stellaractive News & Tips, Social Media
As a small business, you have a lot on your plate. From operations and balancing the books to managing employees and ensuring your customers are satisfied, you probably feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. At Stellaractive, we’ve worked with hundreds of small businesses since our inception in 2007. With experience in B2B... Read More
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Breathing and Gasping
I thought about breathing and gasping a lot in 2020. The news cycle was filled with medical reports of COVID-19’s horrific effects on the lungs, stories of respirator shortages, and – among singers at least – the dire warning that choral singing was to COVID-19 what unprotected sex is to HIV. The choir I had sung in for sixteen years stopped meeting. Music teachers and administrators pored over aerosol studies. Breath was no longer the universal symbol of human life but a weapon in the arsenal of biological warfare. That summer, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement returned to prominence Eric Garner’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” and H.E.R. released a powerful protest song by the same name. It felt like I was thinking about breathing and gasping all the time, in a wide variety of contexts.
I contracted COVID-19 in December 2020. I was lucky: my case felt like the flu, and I did not require hospitalization. I am a classically trained singer, yet I realized that in all my years of singing I had never been so acutely aware of my lungs, how they function, or what they expel. I imagine that the Algae Opera by Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta, in which soprano Louise Ashcroft is fitted with biotechnology that captures her breath to grow and flavor algae for the audience to eat at the end of the performance, felt like a fascinating commitment in interspecies collaboration when it premiered in 2012. Now it is hard to imagine audience members wanting to eat the fruits of a singer’s breath.
Trailer for Algae Opera, performed by Louise Ashcroft, mezzo-soprano
Before the pandemic I had been studying amplified and recorded breath sounds in Chaya Czernowin’s opera Infinite Now. My interest in the topic took on new urgency, particularly where gasping was concerned. In the realm of extended vocal technique, gasping is a subset of ingressive phonation, meaning sounds that are produced as the singer inhales rather than as she exhales. If bel canto technique aspires to imperceptible and silent inhalation to support egressive phonation (“regular” singing on air as it leaves the lungs), gasping is just the opposite. The inhalation must be audible and sharp, or it is not a gasp. Precise pitch is rarely the point. I can hear other types of breathing and breathy vocalizations in a variety of ways, based on context, but gasping rarely (never?) strikes me as emotionally neutral sonic material. Conditioned by classical vocal training, and my immersion in western culture generally, I find that gasping elicits an involuntary visceral response in me that feels correlated to trauma. (My examples are drawn from western art music, albeit loosely defined; I do not assume the same signification in Tanya Tagaq’s performances, for example.)
Chaya Czernowin, self portrait
Ariana Phillips-Hutton gave a compelling presentation at the 2021 Music, Sound, and Trauma Conference in which she introduced The Howling Girls by Adena Jacobs and Damien Ricketson, a wordless yet vocally searing opera featuring a chorus of teenage girls and soprano Jane Sheldon. “Five young women witness a collective trauma that is impossible to digest…a larger trauma reinscribed on the body and on the voice.” I was struck by the extent to which their trauma was sonified through gasping. In her opera Thumbprint (2014), Kamala Sankaram represents a sexual assault without words, music, or explicit staging just by using amplified sharp inhalations. And the most scrutinized moment in all of Hamilton is surely the way the show ends: with Eliza gasping.
The Sydney Chamber Opera, performing The Howling Girls
Other types of recorded and/or amplified breathing sounds do not affect me in the same way, although I do experience them as extremely intimate – even more intimate than singing. I revisited Joan La Barbara’s Berliner Träume (1983), a virtuosic tape piece whose foundation consists of sixteen tracks of her own voice engaged in everything from ingressive phonation to conventional singing, speech, whispering, and rhythmic breathing. Its perpetuum mobile induces a trance-like state, and I find my ear drawn more to the cycle of rhythmic breathing than to any other layer.
Joan La Barbara, photo by Ellen Rietbrock
Where La Barbara’s piece is a masterclass in the meticulous art of tape composition in the studio, the solo version of Pamela Z’s BREATHING for voice, processing, and tape is created in real time. She sets up a loop of her own breath as the groundwork for singing and speaking the words “I am breathing” and “I was breathing,” and other voiced sounds, like clicks. At 3’20” she vocalizes a sound akin to gasping or choking just as a voice refers to shellfish and proceeds to manipulate first the gasping sound and then the clicks with a gesture controller designed and built by Donald Swearingen. Meanwhile the steady rhythm of her untroubled breath continues unabated throughout. (This recording comes from a duo concert she did with La Barbara in 2014, in what was surely a tour-de-force of amplified breath and other vocalisms.)
BREATHING, from Carbon Song Cycle by composer/performer Pamela Z and visual artist Christina McPhee
In 2015 Czernowin wrote that “amplified breath is an untapped and rich musical resource.” She explored this notion extensively in a set of three “Etudes in fragility for voice and breath” entitled Adiantum Capillus-Veneris I, II, and III (2015-16). She describes II on the publisher’s website as follows:
In this piece, the voice and the breath play an equal role in executing the musical text, as the breath is (at times) independent from the voice and equal to it in an almost contrapuntal relationship. This is not an expressive piece in the more standard way in which a singer employs all of his personality in an attempt to express emotions or other expressions of the ‘self’. It is rather a sketch using the voice and the breath like a small brush painting a line. Even though it is only a line made out of water (breath) with some color (voice), this line is actually transmitting a whole landscape.
The scores can be previewed at the publisher’s website. You can watch performances of Adiantum Capillus-Veneris I by Juliet Fraser or Tyler Bouquet, and listen to the commercial recording of all three by Inbal Hever, released on WERGO in 2017.
“Adiantum 1; Etudes in Fragility,” performed by Tyler Bouquet
Czernowin, “The Primal, the Abstracted and the Foreign: Composing for the Voice,” Contemporary Music Review 34, nos. 5-6 (2015): 449-463; 461.
I encourage readers interested in analyzing recorded breath to check out Richard A. Beaudoin, “Dashon Burton’s Song Sermon: Corporeal Liveness and the Solemnizing Breath,” Journal of the Society of American Music 16 (2022): 1-23.
I am grateful to several smart, generous conversation partners, especially Richard Beaudoin, Ryan Dohoney, Yayoi Uno Everett, Ariana Phillips-Hutton, and Milla Tiainen.
For a related WSF post, please see this essay of Emily Milius.
Guest Blogger: Joy H. Calico
Joy H. Calico is a musicologist and classically trained singer whose recent work focuses on opera of the 20th and 21st centuries. She has published on genre in Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway and vocal fach in versions of Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin, and she is completing a book about operatic convention since 1900 that is built on Saariaho’s opera. A chapter on Chaya Czernowin’s Infinite Now is forthcoming, as is an article on Joan La Barbara’s work in West Berlin. She contributed material on the ageing female opera voice to SMT-POD episode 1.13, the fourth of five podcasts in Joseph Straus’s series on “Old Age and Music” (broadcast date 7 April 2022).
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Alex Karaban Tamin Lipsey Andre Jackson Donovan Clingan Men's basketball Men's sports Men's college basketball College sports College basketball Sports Basketball
Big 12 Iowa State Connecticut
Clingan lifts UConn past Iowa State for Phil Knight title
By SEAN HIGHKIN - Nov. 28, 2022 12:52 AM EST
Connecticut head coach Dan Hurley celebrates after his team won the Phil Knight invitational championship game following an NCAA college basketball game Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Donovan Clingan had 15 points and 10 rebounds to power No. 20 UConn to a 71-53 win over Iowa State in the championship game of the Phil Knight Invitational on Sunday night.
Tristen Newton scored 13 points for the Huskies (8-0), who went 20 for 25 at the free-throw line. Alex Karaban and Andre Jackson, Jr. each had 10 points.
Osun Osunniyi led Iowa State (5-1) with 14 points. Tamin Lipsey had 12 points and Jaren Holmes finished with 11.
“They were the more aggressive team,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “We wanted a physical game. We didn’t want a physical game with them getting the rebounds and then also us putting them on the foul line. Lesson that we’ve got to learn is we need to embrace being the aggressor at both ends of the floor at all times."
The Huskies had more offensive rebounds (20) than the Cyclones had total rebounds (19), and capitalized on that disparity with 20 second-chance points.
“Those guys are tough,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “T.J.‘s an excellent coach. They grind people up. To outrebound them, it just speaks to how tough we were."
Clingan, who was named tournament MVP, scored eight points to help UConn to a 38-28 lead at the break.
Iowa State closed to 53-48 on Holmes’ 3-pointer midway through the second half. But Karaban made a 3 and a dunk, and Newton’s jumper made it 60-48 with 7:13 remaining.
UConn: The Huskies couldn’t have asked for a better showing in Portland, winning all three of their games.
Iowa State: The Cyclones picked up nice wins over Villanova and top-ranked North Carolina in the earlier rounds but ended with their first loss of the season.
UConn: The Huskies return home to face Oklahoma State on Thursday.
Iowa State: The Cyclones return home to face North Dakota on Tuesday.
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Shell Sells Greater Sunrise Natural Gas Stake to East Timor
Royal Dutch Shell PLC has followed ConocoPhillips in exiting the Greater Sunrise natural-gas project. $RDSA has agreed to sell its 26.56% stake in the fields off the northern coast of Australia to the government of East Timor for $300 million.
The deal means East Timor will now have majority control of the Greater Sunrise gas fields, allowing it to drive plans for the fuel to be piped back to its shores to a proposed plant that would chill it to liquefied natural gas. Conoco sold it’s 30% stake last month.
The sunrise site was discovered in 1974 and straddles the maritime border between Australia and East Timor and disputes between the two countries over the border has delayed development. The border dispute was settled earlier this year.
“Although we formed different views about the optimal development scenario, we understand the priorities of the Timor-Leste Government and wish it well in pursuing its aspirations to develop this important resource for the nation,” executive Zoe Yujnovich of Shell Australia said in the statement.
“This sale aligns with our global strategy to reshape Shell into a simpler and more resilient company.” Yujinovich added
The remaining partners in the projext include Australia’s Woodside Petroleum and Japan’s Osaka Gas. East Timor wants to develop Greater Sunrise by piping gas to a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant on its south coast, while the project partners have favored a plant in Darwin in north Australia.
“Timor-Leste appreciates Shell’s willingness to sell its interests in the Greater Sunrise project,” Special Representative Xanana Gusmão of East Timor said in the statement. “Shell’s attitude throughout the negotiations shows that it is ready to consider not only its commercial interests but also the interests of small nations.”
The Sunrise and Troubadour gas fields, together known as Greater Sunrise, hold around 5.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and about 226 million barrels of condensate
From a Sunburnt country ,,,,,
Author Corporal Posted on 22 Nov '18Categories EnergyTags $RDSA, EastTimor, LNg, Natural Gas, Shell
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<h1>Hot Indian Women – Seven Good Reasons For College Students To Buy Them</h1>
Hot Indian Women – Seven Good Reasons For College Students To Buy Them
by santimegias 28 de junio de 2022
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However, these women on this listing have been regarded for his or her grace, style, elegance, and charisma for an extended time. Being in the show enterprise, they get seen rather more than women in other walks of life. With that disclaimer in mind, let’s take a look at this recently up to date listing of the top 10 most lovely girls in the nation. Aishwarya Rai is the undisputed topper of this kind of lists. This Indian actress, mannequin and the winner of the Miss World 1994, appears stunning even at the age of forty five. Her beauty doesn’t seem to be fading away with time, actually turning into extra clear. She is not only essentially the most beautiful Indian women but additionally thought to be one of the most engaging ladies in the complete world.
Other than her superb performing expertise, she is the proprietor of an unbelievable voice, which earned her a national award of greatest Female Playback Singer. Deepika is one more extremely successful actress of Bollywood, who has acquired several awards in best performing classes, including 3 Filmfare awards. She continuously features within the record of most beautiful Indian women. This extremely gifted and lovely actress can additionally be vocal for the issues of feminism and psychological health. Ranked as one of the most desirable Indian women, Angela is a of Indian born beauty of Icelandic decent. She modelled for Kingfisher Calendar in 2011 and at present getting ready to pursue a career in Bollywood.
Diana Penty was a model before she shot to fame with her debut film “Cocktail” where she paid the lead together with Saif Ali Khan and DeepikaPadukone.
She acts in numerous movies filmed in all these 3 languages.
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At this level we must problem a spoiler alert because we have to convey up some plot factors to totally handle the response to Bridgerton in India.
Before trivia, Nidhi was learning at Christ University and graduated with a diploma in Business Management. Apart from an interest in business and economics, Nidhi has been an artistic soul since early childhood, so she used to take ballet lessons and kathak.
Why Hot Indian Women Is Better/worse Than (alternative)
This is not something you’ll expertise with Indian ladies who’re humble and unspoiled and will by no means make enjoyable of you or make you feel much less of a man. Sexy Indian ladies are hot not just because they behave promiscuously around males. On the contrary—an Indian lady might seem cold and distant if you first meet her, however that only makes her hotter.
Be as polite as you can be and solely speak if you finish up prompted. A typical Indian lady does not get a lot of romantic treatment prior to meeting her international boyfriend, however all she needs is to really feel liked. Use every little thing you probably can to show her how a lot you care about her.
Hot Indian Girls: Things To Know Before You Purchase
One of her purposes on this platform is to help people regain their motives to reside on, be happy, and discover their soulmates. She’s a professional coach who can motivate folks to change their perspectives to become higher individuals ultimately. Some have touted her facial gestures as the trigger for those harassments.
Thereby, she went to Mumbai to affix a model agency and appeared on her first runway soon. Anushka is one of the most demanded and high-paid actresses in India. Just by the age of 32, she has already obtained multiple awards. Additionally, she has already appeared in Forbes magazine and ranked amongst India’s most distinguished celebrities. Although most sexy Indian girls admire highlighting their beauty with makeup and bright equipment, Anushka is considerably totally different.
Although Hyderabad was residence — it’s the place she graduated in business administration — the place that was hardest to bid goodbye was Mumbai. Eight thousand miles from home, they try to survive in opposition to the chances and despite the staggering rents. Within this wrestle they make the exhausting decisions to find a home, fall in love, land a job and chase a visa. There are frequent failures and frustrations and every thing feels too onerous, too costly and too removed from residence. She’s shy, hardworking, and a perfect example of a surprising young girl from India. Join her Instagram family and luxuriate in premium Indian content. That’s proper, the whole household and social circle will have fun you as newlyweds for 3 days straight!
In her youth, she additionally had a ardour for overseas languages. She attended Japanese lessons when she was a schoolgirl. An extremely well-liked Indian actress likes to share the small print of her life on her Instagram. She has an audience of greater than 19 million followers who admire her beautiful look and her appearing expertise. The hottie is the brightest consultant of Indian magnificence.
Jagtap then confronted a choice familiar to many international college students within the metropolis. “When I moved here, I wanted to problem myself in my skilled and personal life. I had an concept about how I wished to be exposed to the range that the town has. And I felt myself steadily slipping into a cushty house,” she stated.
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ALVARO ZABALETA
Video shows fiery crash during police chase in Miami
The woman who crashed into an Uber driver and his passenger — while trying to get away from police officers on Thursday in Miami-Dade County — was driving a stolen van and she was a suspect in several burglaries, according to Detective Alvaro Zabaleta.
Police: Tow truck driver shoots man in ‘heated traffic dispute’ in southwest Miami-Dade
A tow truck driver shot and wounded another driver in an apparent road rage incident in southwest Miami-Dade late Friday afternoon, according to police.
Police: Shooting of 10-year-old boy accidental, no charges expected
A correctional officer’s 10-year-old son died after a shooting on Thursday in Miami-Dade County’s Ives Estates neighborhood, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department.
Abandoned car in Maine may be clue in case of Miami-Dade boy who vanished in August
An abandoned vehicle that turned up in Maine may provide a clue to the whereabouts of six-year-old Jorge “Jojo” Morales, who is the subject of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement Amber Alert after he vanished on Aug. 27, in Miami-Dade County.
Arrests made in July shooting of 4 teens in southwest Miami-Dade
Police announced Wednesday that officers have arrested three suspects in a July quadruple shooting in the Goulds area of southwest Miami-Dade.
Viewing held for Miami-Dade officer killed in Liberty City shooting
A public viewing is being held Monday evening, and a public funeral on Wednesday.
Police: Dispute between relatives leaves teen dead, another teen injured in southwest Miami-Dade
Miami-Dade police are investigating a domestic-related shooting that occurred early Friday morning.
Officers find man injured after shooting in Miami-Dade
Police officers found a man injured after a shooting on Thursday in Miami-Dade County’s Gladeview neighborhood.
Intense search underway for shooter who wounded 4 teens in southwest Miami-Dade
Miami-Dade detectives are investigating a shooting that wounded four juveniles on Friday in southwest Miami-Dade.
Police: 2 people injured after shooting near Ives Dairy Road
Police are investigating a shooting in Northeast Miami-Dade and it's causing traffic problems on busy Ives Dairy Road.
MDPD: Man shot dead in fields near Homestead Air Reserve Base
Miami-Dade police are investigating after a man was shot dead in an area of farm fields north of the Homestead Air Reserve Base, a department spokesperson said Friday.
Police swarm neighborhood after fatal shooting in southwest Miami-Dade
Miami-Dade police are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred overnight in southwest Miami-Dade.
Driver in custody after police chase ends in Opa-locka
Authorities are chasing a vehicle in northern Miami-Dade County.
Miami-Dade police investigate fatal shooting in Goulds area
Miami-Dade police are investigating a shooting that left one man dead Thursday morning.
1 killed, 5 injured after small plane ignites after crashing on Miami bridge
Firefighter are responding to a small aircraft on fire near 10800 Collins Avenue.
19-year-old accused of pointing green laser at Miami-Dade PD aircraft
A 19-year-old woman was arrested Monday for allegedly pointing a green laser at a Miami-Dade Police Department aircraft, authorities said.
Father speaks out after toddler killed in hit-and-run crash in northwest Miami-Dade
A father is heartbroken, barely able to speak when he returns to the location where his 2-year-old daughter was killed.
Toddler killed, parents injured in hit-and-run crash in northwest Miami-Dade
Miami-Dade police are investigating a hit-and-run crash that left a 2-year-old girl dead and injured the toddler’s parents.
Video released of police motorman being struck by SUV in northwest Miami-Dade
A police officer on a motorcycle and an SUV collided Thursday morning in northwest Miami-Dade.
Elderly man inside efficiency dies in southwest Miami-Dade fire
An elderly man was killed in a house fire early Wednesday morning in southwest Miami-Dade, authorities confirmed.
Opa-locka murder remains under investigation
Opa-locka Interim Chief Michael Steel released a statement on Sunday announcing the arrest of 50-year-old Russell Tate who his officers considered a suspect in a fatal shooting, but Local 10 News has learned that Tate has since been released from custody after being questioned by detectives.
Miami-Dade officers to receive UM training on autism
The Miami-Dade Police Department announced on Friday the University of Miami will be providing autism and sensory training sessions to every officer by 2023.
Man working on disabled car struck by another vehicle in southwest Miami-Dade
A man who was working on his vehicle that became disabled early Friday morning was struck by another vehicle, authorities confirmed.
Miami-Dade police officer under investigation for alleged ‘crime against a child’
A police officer was relieved of duty and is under investigation for an alleged crime against a child, the Miami-Dade Police Department announced on Thursday.
Family members identify young mother as victim in fatal shooting at North Miami Jewish Community Center
For hours, police investigated a deadly shooting at the JCC in Northeast Miami-Dade.
Man faces murder charge after burning victim to death, police say
Officers arrested a murder suspect who is accused of setting a man on fire in Miami-Dade County, police announced on Tuesday.
Fatal shooting reported at strip club in northeast Miami-Dade
Miami-Dade police are investigating a shooting that was reported at a strip club in northeast Miami-Dade.
Family grieves after boy drowns in Leisure City canal
A toddler drowned on Saturday in Miami-Dade County’s Leisure City neighborhood.
Cross-county chase involving stolen vehicle ends in Miami Gardens
Miami-Dade police responded to a call about an in-progress burglary to a vehicle that occurred early Friday morning and led to a cross-county chase, authorities confirmed.
At 15, boy shot by Miami-Dade police in Brownsville had years-long criminal record
The teenage boy who was wounded during a confrontation with a veteran sergeant has a criminal record that goes back several years and includes arrests in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
Teenage boy remains hospitalized after sergeant shot him in Miami-Dade
Feet away from a tribute mural to Martin Luther King, Jr., crime scene tape surrounded an area behind a bus stop. A Miami-Dade sergeant shot a troubled Black teenage boy who was armed on Sunday, police said. And on Martin Luther King Day, the wounded teen remained at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Rapper dies in front of children during a street shooting in Miami-Dade
A man who was with two children died on Friday after a shooting just east of Miami-Dade County’s Country Walk neighborhood.
2 shot at cargo area near Miami International Airport; gunman detained
A days-long workplace dispute resulted in a shooting that wounded two men on Thursday night in a cargo area just west of the Miami International Airport, police said.
Video shows man knock out officer at Miami-Dade police headquarters
Surveillance video shows a man punching a police officer unconscious on Tuesday in a room at the Miami-Dade Police Department headquarters in Doral.
Officers identify victims of crash related to failed traffic stop in Miami-Dade
Detectives identified the two victims of a fatal crash related to an officer’s attempted traffic stop on Thursday in Miami-Dade County.
Parents upset officers stormed into Miami-Dade home, shot at their son with a baby nearby
Daniel Pacheco said Miami-Dade police officers damaged his home surveillance cameras and his main door before they stormed inside on Thursday morning in Brownsville. There was gunfire near his grandson and his teenage son was arrested.
2 dead, 3 injured after driver flees from police in southwest Miami-Dade, authorities say
A 23-year-old man and a 43-year-old woman died after a two-vehicle crash Thursday evening in Southwest Miami-Dade County.
Police shoot at armed teen while serving warrant in Brownsville, authorities say
A 17-year-old boy was arrested Thursday morning after he confronted officers with a gun inside a home in Miami-Dade County, authorities said.
1 injured in Miami-Dade strip club shooting
Miami-Dade police say a man has been hospitalized following a shooting Wednesday morning at the Booby Trap strip club.
Officers investigate shooting after Miami-Dade man was shot several times in buttocks
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel responded to a home on Thursday night in the Ives Estates neighborhood where a wounded man was waiting for help.
Man airlifted to hospital after being struck by truck in northwest Miami-Dade
A pedestrian was crossing a street in northwest Miami-Dade Wednesday morning when he was struck by a truck, authorities said.
Police identify possible DUI suspect accused of killing 3 family members in Sunset Drive crash
Loved ones say three family members were killed Tuesday in a crash on Sunset Drive that was allegedly caused by a drunken driver.
3 people killed after Range Rover crashes into car on Sunset Drive
Three people were killed Tuesday morning after a car crashed into a power line pole in Miami-Dade County.
Toddler dead after woman stabs her family at South Florida home, police say
A 38-year-old mother also stabbed her husband and teen daughter before turning the knife on herself Monday night, according to police.
sun-sentinel.com
Mom stabbed husband, teen and herself, Miami-Dade police say, and a baby girl died
A 38-year-old mother stabbed her husband and teenage daughter before turning the knife on herself Monday night in Northwest Miami-Dade, according to police.
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Two people were stabbed and a 15-month-old girl was killed by her mother Monday night in northwest Miami-Dade County, authorities said.
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Car crash sets house on fire in Miami-Dade, injures 2
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The recovery effort at Champlain Towers South may be coming to a close, three weeks to the day after the building collapsed.
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Shankquia Peterson died on Thursday. She was among the 23 people shot early Sunday morning during a rapper’s album release party in unincorporated Miami-Dade County.
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Police officer shoots a man at The Falls. Cops say he had a knife made to look like a gun
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A drive-by shooting in Southwest Miami-Dade Monday afternoon left a 24-year-old mother dead and her 3-year-old daughter injured, according to police.
Innocent Bystander Struck During Miami-Dade Police Shootout in Liberty City
A Miami-Dade County Police spokesperson said the department could not say whether its own cop had shot the woman or not. #MDPD PIO is currently responding to a police involved shooting in the area of 66 Street & NW 22 Avenue. WTVJ reports that police found the woman suffering from a gunshot wound in a red car on NW 54th Street. In the 2017 shooting that left Ford dead, two undercover MDPD officers attempted to pull him over in Liberty City. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office in 2018 confirmed Ford had no weapon but cleared the officers of wrongdoing anyway.
miaminewtimes.com
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Resorts CEO Says: ‘Atlantic City’s Best Years Ahead Of Us’
Written By Stephanie Loder on December 9, 2022
The future of the Atlantic City casino industry will depend on new technology, diversity and inclusion and whether the city, state and county can learn to work together, said a panel of industry experts at the Stockton University Atlantic City Campus. The panel discussion held Thursday afternoon was a conversation about the process and impact of legalizing casino gaming titled “Celebrating 45 Years: Legalized Casino Gaming in New Jersey.”
Hosted by the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton University, the panelists included:
Michael C. Epps, the first Atlantic City native to serve as a New Jersey Casino Control Commissioner
Mark Giannantonio, president and CEO of Resorts Casino Hotel and the president of the Casino Association of New Jersey
Lynne Levin Kaufman, co-chair of Cooper Levenson’s Gaming Law Practice
Steven P. Perskie, retired Superior Court judge and the author and principal cosponsor of the original New Jersey Casino Control Act
David Rebuck, the director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement
Here is an overview of what the panel had to say regarding the past, present and future of Atlantic City casinos.
Giannantonio sees the ‘stars aligning’
Giannantonio, who is a Stockton University grad, credits multiple generations for helping the Atlantic City market achieve its current levels. At the same time, he pointed out there is still plenty of work ahead. But overall, Giannantonio has a positive outlook.
“I think we have to applaud the old generation because they did a phenomenal amount of work to get the industry to where it is. But I see today the stars aligning. I see Atlantic City’s best years ahead of us. It’s going to require work, but it’s not brain surgery,” he said.
Giannantonio noted the city and the industry need to work together to draw visitors in the off off-season.
“It’s the absence of people and consumers on our street that’s a problem,” Giannantonio said. “That’s what infrastructure, free capital investments will do. Who doesn’t want to invest in a seashore community?”
What about the Atlantic City revenue picture?
When it comes to the all-important casino floor earnings, Giannantonio said “We are still in turbulent times and recovering from the pandemic, but even with numbers down 7% in October, I am very optimistic.”
Giannantonio was referring to Atlantic City revenue numbers in September and October that were less encouraging when compared to September 2019 – before the coronavirus outbreak.
Here is a closer look comparing the first nine months of this year with the same period in September 2019 (information provided by the Casino Association of New Jersey):
Bally’s Atlantic City down 10.3%
Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa down 1.2%
Caesars Atlantic City down 9.3%
Golden Nugget Atlantic City down 25.2%
Harrah’s Resort down 17.2%
Resorts down 5.9%
Tropicana Atlantic City down 16.8%
Ocean Casino Resort and Hard Rock Hotel Casino Atlantic City are not included as both properties opened during the summer of 2018.
Looking back at the Atlantic City Casino Control Act
It’s been 45 years since the Casino Control Act was signed into law in 1977 and legalized gambling came to New Jersey. The first casino opened was Resorts in Atlantic City.
Perskie, the author and principal cosponsor of the original New Jersey Casino Control Act, helped write the casino legislation 45 years ago. Speaking to the audience of more than 100 people while another 100 watched online,
Perskie said “I think Mark (Giannantonio) is right.”
“My view is that the future is going to be dependent on what the industry does and what the government does,” Perskie said. “The industry will continue to do what it has continued to do; the question is will the government continue to meet its responsibilities?”
Perskie also touched on the “up and down existence” of Atlantic City government – referring to corruption, the arrest of four city mayors and a state takeover – in the decades that followed casino gambling.
“Some years things [were] well done and some years dramatically they were not,” Perskie said. “The result as we sit here today is that there are some things that the city government can undertake and some that no city government has the facilities or strength to handle.”
Improving Atlantic City for the future
Perskie cited the city’s continuing battle with the homeless population which some say is the result of other neighboring communities sending homeless men and women to Atlantic City by bus.
Perskie also noted building a new Boardwalk, something the city has talked about for years. However, it isn’t affordable for Atlantic City and they would have to ask the state for money.
“The continued reliance on fixing these problems, and whether the state and city and county can put a program together to attack these problems, is still the question,” Perskie said. “And then we can put together what it takes to make Atlantic City better and make Atlantic City be the image that we want it to be.”
‘We need more’ women in Atlantic City management positions
Kaufman said improvement for the future exists in having more women in top casino management positions.
“I’m taking a different tact. I think one of the things I’m looking forward to in the future is something we hear about all the time, diversity and inclusion,” Kaufman said.
“When we look at our customers in iGaming and sports wagering, half the customers are women,” Kaufman said.
“Why aren’t more women CEOs? We need more of them. We are trying but it’s a long process. If you hire more diverse people at the top that represent your customers, you’re going to get a better product and better customer service that will help casinos make more money, more capital investment and all of which will help Atlantic City grow. We need more diversity at the top.”
Director Rebuck’s view: AC ‘will always rise again’
Rebuck said the state and city had been successful in keeping organized crime out of the casino gaming industry.
He said the relationship between the state and the casino industry is more of a partnership.
“This partnership is well entrenched today. I expect it to continue into the future with whoever has the leadership position,” Rebuck said. “The other thing is Atlantic City is a very resilient town. The naysayers are always looking to knock it down, but remember it will always rise again.”
Photo by Stockton University/Mark Melhorn.
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Stephanie Loder
Stephanie Loder is a freelance writer. She has worked as a breaking news reporter, copyeditor, and Metro Editor for Gannett/USAToday in New Jersey and North Carolina.
View all posts by Stephanie Loder
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SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere 16.0 » SQL Anywhere Server - Database Administration » User and database security » User security (roles and privileges)
A group is a set of users that possess a set of roles and privileges common to all other users in the group.
Groups are an efficient way to maintain roles and privileges for a set of users.
Membership in a group that owns objects also means that users do not need to qualify the object names when performing operations such as executing a procedure owned by the group, or querying a table owned by the group. For example, if a table named MyData is owned by a group called PersonnelData that a user ID M_Haneef is a member of, then M_Haneef can reference the table as MyData in queries, instead of PersonnelData.MyData. If a user owns a table that has the same name as a table owned by a group, the database server uses the table owned by the user, not the one owned by the group. If a user belongs to more than one group that has a table with the same name, the user must qualify the table name.
In SQL Anywhere, a group is not a database object. Instead, groups are achieved using user-defined roles, by one of two approaches:
User-extended role approach to creating groups User-extended roles are user-defined roles created by extending an existing user ID to become a role. In this approach to group creation, the user ID is created and then granted all roles and privileges required by the group. The user ID is converted to a user-extended role, and then granted to the users who need it. These steps can occur in different order, of course.
This approach is common when creating groups for replication purposes because the user that has been extended to a role also has login capabilities.
For users of previous versions of SQL Anywhere, this approach is identical to the deprecated GRANT statement approach of granting GROUP to a user, and then granting MEMBERSHIP IN GROUP to other users.
To drop a group created using this approach, you convert the user-extended role back to a regular user (DROP ROLE FROM USER userid). Ownership of objects remains with the user that is being converted back to a regular user.
When the user-extended role approach is used, groups and their member information can be queried from the SYSROLEGRANTS consolidated view, or the SYSGROUPS compatibility view.
Standalone role approach to creating groups Standalone roles are user-defined roles that are not associated with any user ID. In this approach to group creation, the role is created and then granted all roles and privileges required by a defined set of users. The role is then granted to the users who need it.
To drop a group created using the standalone approach, you drop the role. Optionally, you can drop the objects owned by the role at the same time you drop the role.
When the standalone role approach is used, groups and their member information can not be queried from the SYSGROUPS compatibility view. Instead, the information can be queried from the SYSROLEGRANTS consolidated view.
For both approaches, administration of the privileges for group members is performed at the user-defined role level, instead of at the level of each user ID.
Examples of the two approaches
The following SQL statements show a very simplistic example of creating a group that has three members who need the SELECT ANY TABLE system privilege, and the SA_DEBUG system role. The first set of statements show the user-extended approach; the second set of statements show the standalone role approach.
It can be said both groups have three members, even though in the case of the user-extended approach, one member (member1) is acting both as role and member.
CREATE USER member1 IDENTIFIED BY sql;
CREATE ROLE FOR USER member1;
GRANT ROLE member1 TO member2, member3;
GRANT SELECT ANY TABLE TO member1;
GRANT ROLE SA_DEBUG TO member1:
CREATE ROLE standaloneRole;
GRANT ROLE standaloneRole TO member1, member2, member3;
GRANT SELECT ANY TABLE TO standaloneRole;
GRANT ROLE SA_DEBUG TO standaloneRole;
User-defined roles
GRANT statement
SYSROLEGRANTS consolidated view
SYSGROUP compatibility view
Creating a user-defined role (SQL)
Creating a user-defined role (Sybase Central)
Converting a user to a user-extended role (SQL)
Converting a user to a user-extended role (Sybase Central)
Granting a role (Sybase Central)
Granting a role (SQL)
Groups are now achieved using roles
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Home/Tech/Biotech labs are using AI inspired by DALL-E to invent new drugs
Biotech labs are using AI inspired by DALL-E to invent new drugs
Jacky Follow on Twitter Send an email December 1, 2022
The explosion in text-to-image AI models like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2—programs trained to generate pictures of almost anything you ask for—has sent ripples through the creative industries, from fashion to filmmaking, by providing weird and wonderful images on demand.
The same technology behind these programs is also making a splash in biotech labs, which are increasingly using this type of generative AI, known as a diffusion model, to conjure up designs for new types of protein never seen in nature.
Today, two labs separately announced programs that use diffusion models to generate designs for novel proteins with more precision than ever before. Generate Biomedicines, a Boston-based startup, revealed a program called Chroma, which the company describes as the “DALL-E 2 of biology.”
At the same time, a team at the University of Washington led by biologist David Baker has built a similar program called RoseTTAFold Diffusion. In a preprint paper posted online today, Baker and his colleagues show that their model can generate precise designs for novel proteins that can then be brought to life in the lab. “We’re generating proteins with really no similarity to existing ones,” says Brian Trippe, one of the co-developers of RoseTTAFold.
These protein generators can be directed to produce designs for proteins with specific properties, such as shape or size or function. In effect, this makes it possible to come up with new proteins to do particular jobs on demand. Researchers hope that this will eventually lead to the development of new and more effective drugs. “We can discover in minutes what took evolution millions of years,” says Gevorg Grigoryan, CEO of Generate Biomedicines.
“What is notable about this work is the generation of proteins according to desired constraints,” says Ava Amini, a biophysicist at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Symmetrical protein structures generated by Chroma
GENERATE BIOMEDICINES
Proteins are the fundamental building blocks of living systems. In animals, they digest food, contract muscles, detect light, drive the immune system, and so much more. When people get sick, proteins play a part.
Proteins are thus prime targets for drugs. And many of today’s newest drugs are protein based themselves. “Nature uses proteins for essentially everything,” says Grigoryan. “The promise that offers for therapeutic interventions is really immense.”
But drug designers currently have to draw on an ingredient list made up of natural proteins. The goal of protein generation is to extend that list with a nearly infinite pool of computer-designed ones.
Computational techniques for designing proteins are not new. But previous approaches have been slow and not great at designing large proteins or protein complexes—molecular machines made up of multiple proteins coupled together. And such proteins are often crucial for treating diseases.
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A protein structure generated by RoseTTAFold Diffusion (left) and the same structure created in the lab (right)
IAN C HAYDON / UW INSTITUTE FOR PROTEIN DESIGN
The two programs announced today are also not the first use of diffusion models for protein generation. A handful of studies in the last few months from Amini and others have shown that diffusion models are a promising technique, but these were proof-of-concept prototypes. Chroma and RoseTTAFold Diffusion build on this work and are the first full-fledged programs that can produce precise designs for a wide variety of proteins.
Namrata Anand, who co-developed one of the first diffusion models for protein generation in May 2022, thinks the big significance of Chroma and RoseTTAFold Diffusion is that they have taken the technique and supersized it, training on more data and more computers. “It may be fair to say that this is more like DALL-E because of how they’ve scaled things up,” she says.
Diffusion models are neural networks trained to remove “noise”—random perturbations added to data—from their input. Given a random mess of pixels, a diffusion model will try to turn it into a recognizable image.
In Chroma, noise is added by unraveling the amino acid chains that a protein is made from. Given a random clump of these chains, Chroma tries to put them together to form a protein. Guided by specified constraints on what the result should look like, Chroma can generate novel proteins with specific properties.
Baker’s team takes a different approach, though the end results are similar. Its diffusion model starts with an even more scrambled structure. Another key difference is that RoseTTAFold Diffusion uses information about how the pieces of a protein fit together provided by a separate neural network trained to predict protein structure (as DeepMind’s AlphaFold does). This guides the overall generative process.
Generate Biomedicines and Baker’s team both show off an impressive array of results. They are able to generate proteins with multiple degrees of symmetry, including proteins that are circular, triangular, or hexagonal. To illustrate the versatility of their program, Generate Biomedicines generated proteins shaped like the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet and the numerals 0 to 10. Both teams can also generate pieces of proteins, matching new parts to existing structures.
Most of these demonstrated structures would serve no purpose in practice. But because a protein’s function is determined by its shape, being able to generate different structures on demand is crucial.
Generating strange designs on a computer is one thing. But the goal is to turn these designs into real proteins. To test whether Chroma produced designs that could be made, Generate Biomedicines took the sequences for some of its designs—the amino acid strings that make up the protein—and ran them through another AI program. They found that 55% of them would be predicted to fold into the structure generated by Chroma, which suggests that these are designs for viable proteins.
Baker’s team ran a similar test. But Baker and his colleagues have gone a lot further than Generate Biomedicines in evaluating their model. They have created some of RoseTTAFold Diffusion’s designs in their lab. (Generate Biomedicines says that it is also doing lab tests but is not yet ready to share results.) “This is more than just proof of concept,” says Trippe. “We’re actually using this to make really great proteins.”
A protein structure generated by RoseTTAFold Diffusion that binds to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
For Baker, the headline result is the generation of a new protein that attaches to the parathyroid hormone, which controls calcium levels in the blood. “We basically gave the model the hormone and nothing else and told it to make a protein that binds to it,” he says. When they tested the novel protein in the lab, they found that it attached to the hormone more tightly than anything that could have been generated using other computational methods—and more tightly than existing drugs. “It came up with this protein design out of thin air,” says Baker.
Grigoryan acknowledges that inventing new proteins is just the first step of many. We’re a drug company, he says. “At the end of the day what matters is whether we can make medicines that work or not.” Protein based drugs need to be manufactured in large numbers, then tested in the lab and finally in humans. This can take years. But he thinks that his company and others will find ways for AI to speed up those steps up as well.
“The rate of scientific progress comes in fits and starts,” says Baker. “But right now we’re in the middle of what can only be called a technological revolution.”
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Miftah resigns as finance minister to pave way for Dar
Tahir Sherani Published September 27, 2022
Miftah Ismail addresses a press conference in Islamabad. — APP/File
PML-N leader Miftah Ismail formally resigned from the post of finance minister on Tuesday, paving the way for party stalwart Ishaq Dar to take over.
In his resignation letter dated September 27, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, Ismail wrote, “I wish to resign from the position of minister of finance and revenue with immediate effect.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to serve my country in your [Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s] administration, which was an honour and a privilege.”
A day earlier, Dar returned to Pakistan after five years in self-exile. He is expected to be sworn in, first as a senator and then as minister for finance, today.
Ismail’s departure comes after months of speculation that PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and Dar had been unhappy with some of his key decisions, specifically with regard to the fuel price hike.
Last month, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz said she did not agree with the decision to hike petrol and electricity prices, saying she did not own such decisions, whether her party was in government or not.
On Sunday, in a meeting with senior party leaders in London, Ismail said he had “verbally” resigned from his post. A statement released after the meeting confirmed that Nawaz and PM Shehbaz had nominated Dar as the new finance minister.
Speaking to Dawn, Ismail said, “It was a pleasant meeting. I will now take a few days off to spend time with my family in Karachi. After a short break, I will return to Islamabad.”
When asked if he would take a cabinet position if it were offered to him, Ismail said, “No, I won’t.”
In early September, Ismail told students present at an event held at Karachi’s Institute of Business Administration that “the government has 13 months but I may not have that much time”. It fuelled speculations about the internal rift in the party, and the senior leadership’s desire to replace him with Dar.
These speculations were confirmed after a slew of audio recordings, purportedly of conversations between the prime minister and key PML-N figures, were leaked over the weekend.
One of them features a conversation between Maryam and PM Shehbaz about Ismail.
“He doesn’t take responsibility […] says strange things on TV for which people make fun of him […] he doesn’t know what he is doing,” the voice said to be Maryam’s says in the clip.
“He clearly cut corners,” the voice said to be PM Shehbaz’s is heard as saying.
“Uncle, he doesn’t know what he is doing,” Maryam purportedly says, as she wishes for the return of Ishaq Dar.
The change of command at the Ministry of Finance comes during a dark time for the country’s economy, which is hounded by fears of default after being hit by unprecedented currency devaluation and devastating floods.
Now you can follow Dawn Business on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook for insights on business, finance and tech from Pakistan and across the world.
Miftah exits, Ishaq Dar to come back along with Shehbaz
Govt has 13 months but I may not have that much time: Miftah
Assurances from PM’s trip may ‘smooth over’ Dar’s return
Sep 27, 2022 04:12pm
Joke of the century.
ENGR Hamid Shafiq
Poor performer
Malok Ji
He was used by Cunning Nawaz and Shahbaz to get the deal of IMF and then the relative of Nawaz Sharif came in the picture. Nawaz family has a long history of using and abusing qualified people for their needs and then throwing them away like a tissue paper. Nawaz Sharif will only promote his family members as he cannot see beyond that. The sooner we will get rid of PMLN the better it is for Punjab and for the rest of Pakistan.
Ismail resignation is a tragedy for the ordinary Pakistani. Under the circumstances Ismail did a wonderful job, which was not liked by the elite of PML-N , therefore all efforts were made to remove Ismail. Dar is a absconder from justice, brought in through the backdoor, his arrival will be disaster for Pakistan.
Wahab UK
What a disgrace.
Dar will lead the country to the point of no return. His fixed exchange rate policy will ruin the country. Of course IMF will never approve or allow that policy.
bhaRAT©
A bigger plunderer of treasury comes to plunder as this one a little less. Neutrals with this masterstroke have enhanced Pakistan's stature in the comity of nations!
Rahim Malik
Daddy's girl won and Miftah lost. Miftah Please leave pmln for your own good. This family party is the worst thing happened to Pakistan. Also all educated people should stay away from Pmln. You will be used to make critical decisions and then Hamza, Dar, Shahbaz and their friends will be promoted after the dirty work will be done. This dynasty needs to stop right now.
Syed A. Mateen
Miftah Ismail was mentally ready to resign after PMLN decided to induct Ishaq Dar who was elected Senator, whereas, Miftah Ismail was as unelected reoresentative and was not supposed to perform duties more than 6 months. Miftah Ismail tried his best to serve the country in best possible manner though he was not a season politician. Only time will tell as what good Miftah Ismail had done for the country whereas, all eyes are looking towards Ishaq Dar to take out the country from economic crises
Bunch of jokers mate. They run the country like is their birthright
Dr. Asim Maqbool
Poor guy made a scapegoat by this mafia.
Great work Miftah Sahib. Thank you but no thank you!
He ended up as the sacrificial goat.
Shakil
Although I am a PTI supporter, I think Miftah is too good for PDM. I hope he considers joining PTI to strengthen Pakistan. He was given a difficult task at a time when global economic conditions were getting worse from bad. He navigated through rough seas with absolute mastery. Thank you for your public service Miftah.
Jigen.m19
Why did they bring this comedian in the first place
funnyman
Competence sacrificed to make way for dynasty Miftah sacked to allow Dar to continue his incompetence and corruption
Only one country in the world where this is possible. But unfortunately for them, whole Pakistan has rejected this.
simon trent
everyone who has heard the leaked audio call of shabaz knows why this is happening. The elaborate money making scheme of PLMN in action, paving the way to make more money for themselves out of the energy crisis on going in Pakistan. Pitty for the tunnel PMLN supporters.
L.Ahmad
An incompetent replaced with another crook.
Javed
What a shameful comedy of errors!
TKHANPSI
Now go back and fry Cheetos.
What a joke! This can only happen in so-called "Land of the Pure"...?
Ahmedd
Forced resignation. Nice.
Sheikh Khalid
He saved Pakistan from bigger financial drain. He did the people a great service.
He saw Pakistan through a lot of fuzzy logic made by Pakistan itself, which had piled up to the gills. Job well done!
Miftah need not worry - Dar is an accountant to facilitate money laundering for the Sharifs - not fooling anyone
Syed K
People make comments which makes no sense. Imran Khan didn't do much and had a tame finance ministry under his government earlier. Pakistan needs political stability in order to have a stable economy. Look at India,a fascist government there,sky high unemployment and poverty reigns,but political stability has convinced the western countries which hold a key to pump in the investment. End of the day, western countries hold the key for any country's progress.
DAR will take the country to the point of no return. His rupee overvalued fixed exchange rate policy will irretrievably ruin the country. Hope that IMF stand firm against his suicidal fixed exchange rate policy which wreaked havoc on the country.
Thank you Miftah for being a courageous FM who endured opposition from own party while implementing steps which are good for the country.
Many times political decisions make zero sense. Miftah has been good for bringing the economy on track.
JhunJhunwala - Tikkaramgurung
The neutrals ordered the ex biscuit seller that his services as FM were no longer required and that he should tender his resignation ASAP before something untoward was to happen. The poor chap promptly resigned in fear. To make matters worse his previous job is taken. What now for him.
zubaida k
Thieves returning.
Booted out for doing his job yet sucking up to those who are richer than him.
Wonder why someone like Miftah , who is very rich, would go through this humiliation of being fired and have his performance/skills questioned- I suppose even the rich duck up to the richer.
Demagogue.
Poor Mifta Ismail made scape goat.
@Wahab UK, Used like tissue paper.
He was a failure but now with Dar life will be all good.
Scapegoat.
Texas Tariq
Miftah did a great job under very stressful conditions, let's encourage our leaders instead of bashing them all the time.
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The Millennium that Defined Earth
When the second millennium began, people generally knew that the Earth was round, but few saw much of it beyond their local village. As the millennium progressed, humans mapped the continents, circumnavigated the globe, and determined the composition of the Earth.
The Century that Defined Galaxy
As the twentieth century dawned a debate raged over whether the Milky Way was the entire universe. The 1920s brought observations of spiral-nebulae that housed familiar but faint variable stars, and hence placed these nebulae much farther than anything else ever found. The Milky Way, apparently, is itself a spiral nebula seen from the inside.
The Decade that Defined Star System
As the 1990s began, the only planetary star system known was our own Solar System. The first extra-solar star system was discovered orbiting a pulsar in 1991. Slight changes in the precise arrival times of the pulses from the central small dense neutron star gave evidence of orbiting planets.
A Year of New Perspectives
Fittingly, 1999 saw a decade of astronomical discoveries to an end with portents of things to come - embodied in new spacecraft, telescopes, and perspectives to explore the distant Universe across the electromagnetic spectrum. X-ray astronomy in particular will likely flourish in coming
Solar Moss
Discovered in recent close-up pictures of the Sun from NASA's Transition Region And Coronal Explorer (TRACE) spacecraft, this spongy-looking stuff has a temperature of 2 million degrees Fahrenheit ... and has been dubbed "Solar Moss". The false-color TRACE image above was recorded in extreme ultraviolet light on October 18.
The turbulent region West of Jupiter's Great Red Spot is highlighted in this picture constructed from data recorded by the Galileo spacecraft. The image is color coded to show cloud height and thickness; white clouds are high and thick, light blue clouds are high and thin, and reddish clouds are low.
An Earth Ornament
The Apollo 8 astronauts spent the 1968 Christmas Season orbiting the Moon, returning with striking images of both Moon and Earth from space - pictures which inspired the world. While in lunar orbit...
Hubble Holiday
How would you like to spend your holiday in low earth orbit? That's what the crew of the space shuttle Discovery is doing as they deliver six new gyros and a faster main computer to the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
Unusual Aurora During Solar Wind Dropout
On May 10, for some unknown reason, the Solar Wind virtually stopped. Normally our Sun emits a wind of between five and ten energetic particles per cubic centimeter moving outward at about 500 kilometers per second.
Perigee Moon, Apogee Moon
Tonight, those blessed with clear skies can enjoy a glorious full moon, the last full moon of the "Y1.9K"s. In fact, tonight's moon will be a full-perigee-solstice moon, reaching its full phase and perigee (the closest point in its orbit) on the solstice, the first day of northern hemisphere winter.
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Multimedia Types
Agree Realty Declares Monthly Common and Preferred Dividends
Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE: ADC) (the "Company") today announced that its Board of Directors has authorized, and the Company has declared, a monthly cash dividend of $0.240 per common share....
Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE: ADC) (the "Company") today announced that it will release its fourth quarter and full year 2022 operating results after the market closes on Tuesday, February 14,...
Agree Realty Announces Record 2022 Investment Activity & Provides Update on Capital Markets Activities
Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE: ADC) (the "Company") today announced a summary of its record investment activity in 2022, provided an update on its portfolio as well as its fourth quarter capital...
Agree Realty Corporation Reports Third Quarter 2022 Results
Increases Lower End of 2022 Acquisition Guidance to $1.6 Billion; Fortifies Balance Sheet with Over $800 Million of Capital Raised BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich., Nov. 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Agree...
Agree Realty Declares Increased Monthly Common Dividend
Increase Results in 2.6% Month-Over-Month Growth and 5.7% Year-Over-Year Growth BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich., Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE: ADC) (the "Company") today...
Agree Realty Announces Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Release Date and Conference Call Information
Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE: ADC) (the "Company") today announced that it will release its third quarter operating results after the market closes on Tuesday, November 1, 2022. A conference...
Agree Realty Announces Exercise of Underwriters' Option and Closing of Forward Offering of Common Stock
Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE: ADC) (the "Company") today announced that it has completed its public offering of 5,750,000 shares of its common stock, which includes the underwriters' full...
Agree Realty Announces Pricing of Forward Common Stock Offering
Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE: ADC) (the "Company") today announced the pricing of its public offering of 5,000,000 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $66.85 per share in...
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The Conway Family at Lauterbrunnen
Conway Family Collection
The image below was sent to us by Jack Kirchgraber, a descendant of the Conway family that lived on the Glen Iris Estate and worked for Mr. Letchworth. According to Mr Kirchgraber, "My great-great grandfather, James Conway owned 105 acres above the museum at Letchworth, accessed by the road that leads from the parking lot at the Council Grounds. His son, Jeremiah, worked for Mr. Letchworth and lived in the Swiss Cottage which I believe was at the Council Grounds. I located (this) photo of his wife, Isabelle Gamble or Bell Gamble (Conway) and daughter Marion Conway on the porch of the cottage in the spring of 1890, shortly after Marion was born."
Working with Mr. Kirchgraber, we have determine that this is Lauterbrunnen, not the Council House Swiss Cottage. This is confirmed through some interesting closeups of the foundation he also sent and which are included below.
For more information on the Conway family, we recommend you visit his interesting family website.
Special thanks to Jack Kirchgraber and his family for sharing these photographs and family history!
The "then and now" photographs below provide insight into changes in the structure since Mr. Letchworth's time. You will note that the basic lines are unchanged, but noticeable alterations have taken place. Some of this is due to a fire which took place at Lauterbrunnen in the 1940s that damaged the upper part and roof of the building.
Modern Photographs by Jack Kirchgraber
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Lake Chad: Populations fleeing Boko Haram violence
Lake Chad Crisis
Crisis Update20 August 2015
Refugees, IDPs and people on the move
Since May 2013, violent insurgencies by Boko Haram have led to widespread displacement and an escalating humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad region. According to UNHCR figures, nearly 1.4 million people have been internally displaced in north-east Nigeria alone, and approximately 170,000 people have fled to neighbouring Cameroon (56,000), Chad (14,000) and Niger (100,000). At least 1,300 people have died so far this year.
Many of the casualties include children, and several cases of abduction and sexual abuse of women and girls have also been reported. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been seeking refuge and basic services among local communities, which already had scarce resources.
MSF has deployed medical teams to assist the displaced and local populations in the four affected countries. Insecurity remains the main obstacle to operate safely, while the rainy season is now bringing additional logistical challenges.
NIGERIA Borno State remains the epicentre of the current conflict and the situation continues to be extremely volatile and tense. Random attacks occur regularly, mostly targeting civilians. “Boko Haram attacked our village at night, around 10 pm,” recalls Fatima, 45 years old. “Armed men entered the houses and burnt them down. Many people were killed. My sister was kidnapped, and I haven’t heard from her since. We fled into the forest and walked for 24 hours until we found a road and transport to Maiduguri.”
Hundreds of thousands displaced persons today live in Maiduguri, Borno State’s capital, and more arrive every day. The majority is supported by local communities, while around 100,000 IDPs are gathered in 22 camps around the city. “There are twelve of us living in a tent, with no other choice,” tells Aisha, a 55 year-old displaced women at the Federal Training Centre (FTC) camp. “The canvas is torn and inside it is full of dust and insects. Everything gets wet when it rains.”
MSF has opened three primary health care clinics, covering around 35,000 people. The organisation also runs a 72-bed hospital in Maimusari, which includes a 12-bed maternity unit and 60 beds for paediatrics, nutrition and intensive care. Regular donations are also made to local hospitals in order for them to deal with mass casualties following bomb attacks.
In Cameroon, the security situation along the border with Nigeria remains volatile, with regular incursions and attacks by Boko Haram. Refugees continue to arrive on a daily basis in the camp established by national authorities in the Extreme North region. Two suicide bombings occurred in the city of Maroua on 22 July and 25 July, generating a large number of casualties. MSF provided support to local health authorities to treat the wounded.
“Boko Haram fighters attacked our village in the middle of the night,” says Esther, 24, from Nigeria. “They killed several people including my father and one of my sisters. We tried to flee, but they attacked us again while we were on the road. My mother and my sister had to stay behind. I hope I will find them one day. I arrived in Cameroon with my 9-month old daughter and my 14-year old sister after walking for two days.”
Some 45,000 refugees currently live in Minawao camp where MSF collaborates with national authorities and other humanitarian agencies to provide primary health care, water and treatment for malnutrition. MSF today provides 55 percent of the water in the camp and is carrying out more than 2,300 medical consultations monthly.
“We are seeing an increasing number of admissions to our malnutrition treatment programme,” says Hassan Maiyaki, MSF Head of Mission in Cameroon. “We are reinforcing our support to the intensive therapeutic feeding centre in Mokolo District Hospital where we offer paediatric and nutritional care to refugees, IDPs and the local population.”
MSF is also present in Kousseri, at the border with Chad, where tens of thousands of IDPs are scattered around the city. To respond to their needs, MSF teams are providing surgical support to the hospital and are also starting paediatric care to treat malnutrition and malaria.
In Chad, insecurity in the Lake region showed a marked increase in July. Attacks by Boko Haram became more frequent and in response, the Chadian military has expanded its presence in the area. An estimated 40,000 have been displaced in the last two weeks alone, and people are gathering in various makeshift sites in Baga Sola and Bol districts. “The other day I heard some shots being fired in the nearby village and I fled with my wife and my 8 children,” recounts Mahamad, 57. “Many of us had our house burned down, and I am lucky no one I know was killed. But we only have enough food to eat once per day.”
MSF has been working since March in the region and is running mobile clinics near Baga Sola while supporting the Chadian Ministry of Health in Tchoukoutalia. Teams are also providing mental health care in the Dar Es Salam refugee camp in Baga Sola, home to around 7,000 refugees from Nigeria and Niger, according to official figures. In response to the latest wave of displacement, MSF has commenced a mobile clinic in Yakoua and will soon begin one in Koulkimé.
“Women and children are particularly vulnerable in this situation, and medical needs in general are high,” says Federica Alberti, Head of Mission for MSF in Chad. “Some pregnant women have walked several kilometres in searing heat to seek medical attention. People are living without proper shelter, and do not have access to food or clean drinking water. Due to the harsh living conditions and the rainy season, we are already treating patients with diarrhoea, malaria and respiratory infections as well as malnourished children.”
In the capital N'djamena, MSF supported Ministry of Health hospitals following suicide bomb attacks that took place on 15 June and 11 July. Since April, MSF has been training Ministry of Health staff on management of mass casualties, in order to help increase the national capacity to respond to emergency scenarios.
In southeast Niger, the already fragile humanitarian situation has been aggravated by the escalation of the ongoing conflict and the consequent waves of people escaping the violence. The living conditions of this displaced and refugee population – who have little access to healthcare, safe water and sanitation facilities – are critical. The situation could deteriorate further during the ‘hunger gap’ period, when community food stocks are drastically reduced between harvests. This year, the combined effect of violence and restrictive measures is affecting normal trade and making food even scarcer. Moreover, the rainy season is now causing an increase in water-borne diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea that, combined with malnutrition, are particularly dangerous for young children.
To improve access to healthcare, MSF is supporting the main maternal and paediatric medical centre in Diffa city as well as six health centres in the districts of Diffa, Nguigmi and Bosso. In parallel, MSF is running mobile clinics inside two IDP camps in the Diffa region, carrying out water and sanitation activities and distributing 25,000 mosquito nets.
Around Diffa, MSF teams are now assisting approximately 28,000 refugees recently arrived from Nigeria in Chetimari, Gagamari, and Assaga. Local health facilities are overwhelmed and access to water and sanitation is often insufficient. Since beginning of the activities, MSF has carried out more than 30,000 consultations, including around 20,000 for children under five.
You could also be interested in
Lake Chad crisis update: Trapped in deadly violence
Project Update 30 Mar 2016
I had never before seen these types of injuries”
Voices from the Field 8 Dec 2015
Tens of thousands flee Boko Haram violence
Project Update 20 Aug 2015
Project Update 30 March 2016
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Showing posts from category extreme weather.
Investigating Climate Migration: Global Realities and Resilience
From the Wilson Center // January 30, 2023 // By Lauren Herzer Risi
Climate change has become part of our daily lexicon. Rarely does a week pass when a hurricane, drought, wildfire, or some other climate disruption is not front page news. These headlines often offer dire predictions of mass migration as well—a bracing vision of hordes of people moving to greener pastures, often found further inland and further north, where some political leaders leverage the narrative to push their own agendas.
Catastrophe and Catalyst: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister on His Nation’s Climate Tragedy
New Security Broadcast // September 30, 2022 // By Claire Doyle
On a recent visit to the Wilson Center, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari remarked on the historic nature of the monsoon-related floods that have submerged a huge swath of his country over the last several months.
“These are no normal monsoons and no normal floods,” said Zardari. “We are used to monsoons. We are used to floods. We have provincial mechanisms [and] national mechanisms to deal with such disasters. What we were not prepared for was for floods to descend from the sky.”
Water: A matter of national security – and the best hope for our climate
Guest Contributor // March 29, 2022 // By Col. Michael S. Gremillion & Kate A. Brauman
Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting. Mark Twain may or may not have said it, but it gets repeated because it rings true. Water is central to human wellbeing, from drinking water and hygiene to growing food, producing electricity, and supporting identity-defining landscapes.
Climate Resilience for Whom? The Importance of Locally-Led Development in the Northern Triangle
On the Beat // March 21, 2022 // By Claire Doyle
“One of the challenges of responding to climate risks is that climate’s impacts and how those impacts interact with existing systems on the ground are so varied and specific to a given place,” said Lauren Risi, Director of the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change & Security Program, at a recent PeaceCon conference panel on climate change, violence, and migration in Central America. “But there is also an opportunity in how we respond to develop more agile, just, and sustaining programs and policies that go beyond a singular focus on responding to climate change and instead build the overall resilience of communities.”
Environmental Change, Migration, and Peace in the Northern Triangle
Guest Contributor // On the Beat // March 14, 2022 // By Jill Baggerman
“There is a growing recognition that climate change is going to affect security and it’s increasingly shaping peoples’ decisions about where to move, where to live, and how to plan their futures, but how migration, climate, and insecurity connect and drive risks is not always as clear cut as the headlines would have us believe,” said Cynthia Brady, Global Fellow and Senior Advisor with the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program, at last month’s International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding. The roundtable discussion, “Environmental Change, Migration, and Peace in Central America’s Northern Triangle” drew on the Wilson Center’s framework to improve predictive capabilities for security risks posed by a changing climate, developed in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Applying the framework to the Northern Triangle—Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador—panelists discussed complex challenges and proactive approaches for building climate resilience and adaptive capacity.
Food and Water Security Solutions: Reflections on Mitigating Climate-induced Population Displacement in Africa
Guest Contributor // December 16, 2021 // By Christopher Graham
Almost two years after Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, thousands of people remain displaced. At the time, Idai was the most powerful cyclone to hit the Southern Hemisphere in two decades, but it is no longer an anomaly. Worse, the Word Bank reports that climate change can potentially wipe out decades of social and economic progress in the developing world by displacing millions of people, many of whom will be pushed into poverty. Food and water insecurity connected to climate hazards—particularly in places dependent on agriculture—is a major factor which has forced families and whole communities to relocate for safety and subsistence.
The Quad Should Help India Address Its Most Pressing Security Challenge: Climate Change
Guest Contributor // December 7, 2021 // By Andrew L. Oros & Andrew Gordan
Headlines about India’s pressing security challenges often focus on tensions with Pakistan, border friction with China, and internal interethnic violence. However, the threat of climate change is in fact the paramount security threat to India in the coming decades.
New Wilson Quarterly Features Expert Insights on Climate Migration
From the Wilson Center // Reading Radar // November 5, 2021 // By Shruti Samala
“Supporting the talents and potential of the refugees of today could lead to empowering the scientists, leaders, and innovators of the future. Instead of a lost generation, we have the opportunity to build a thriving generation full of promise,” says Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein, King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the forward of the Fall Wilson Quarterly (WQ), “Humanity in Motion: Scenes from the Global Displacement Crisis.”
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State police planning sobriety checkpoint in Jefferson County, West Virginia Thursday
The Herald-Mail
KEARNEYSVILLE, W.Va. — West Virginia State Police will conduct a sobriety checkpoint in Jefferson County on Dec. 16, moving it back a week and a day from when it was originally scheduled.
The checkpoint will be set up from 6 p.m. to midnight on W.Va. 51 near Leetown Road, according to a state police news release.
A secondary location will be in the 8000 block of Martinsburg Pike (W.Va. 45) in the Shepherdstown area.
The checkpoint was rescheduled due to forecasted bad weather on Wednesday.
The primary purpose of the checkpoint is aimed at those driving while impaired by alcohol, drugs or both. Police also will check for other traffic infractions, the release states.
The project is funded through the Commission on Drunk Driving Prevention.
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Newly released body cam footage shows chaos, shock minutes after Surfside building collapse
The videos show the frantic moments after the building came down.
ByLaura Romero and Soo Rin Kim
A portion of the 12-story condo tower crumbled to the ground during a partial collapse of the building on June 24, 2021 in Surfside, Fla.
The screams of people shouting for help can be heard in newly released body cam footage from police officers responding to the collapse of Champlain Towers South in the minutes after the Surfside, Florida, building fell to the ground.
Ninety-eight people were killed when the 12-story condominium building collapsed in the early morning of June 24. Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the collapse.
The three videos released by the Town of Surfside on Tuesday show the chaos and shock as first responders and bystanders try to grasp what had just happened.
The footage begins at around 1:24 am, minutes after the collapse of the building.
The videos show Surfside Police officers arriving at the scene, speaking for the first time with survivors and witnesses, and working with other first responders to secure the area.
MORE: What we know about the victims of the Surfside building collapse
In one video, Officer Craig Lovellete is seen arriving at the site of the collapse at around 1:27 a.m. He walks up to other officers and asks if there was a fire.
"No," one officer replies. "The building collapsed."
Lovellete peeks over a concrete wall and sees the fallen garage with debris everywhere. Screaming can be heard in the background.
Back in his car, he says, "Oh my god" and sighs heavily.
Later Lovellete encounters Champlain Towers South security guard Shamoka Furman, who was in the building when it came down. Furman describes explosion-type noises she says she heard right before the collapse of the building. In another video clip, Officer Kemuel Gambirazio joins parts of the conversation.
"I hear a boom-boom but I'm thinking it's the elevator ... no beeps or nothing goes off ... another boom-boom,'" Furman says. She makes hand motions to show Lovellete that after she heard the noises, the building came down.
After seeing two residents exit the building after the loud noise, Furman said she called 911.
"This never happens, I didn't even know we had earthquakes -- I don't even know what this was," Furman says. "I don't even know how I made it out of there ... through the grace of God."
Asked if the building had any work done lately, Furman says she only works overnight.
MORE: Final Surfside building collapse victim is identified
Officer Ariol Lage's body cam footage also shows him encountering Furman earlier, while she was still covered in debris.
"What collapsed?" Lage asks.
"I don't know, I don't know," Furman says. "All I heard was boom. The garage, the pool -- if they don't get out..."
"It's OK, fire rescue is here," Lage replies.
Rescue personnel work near where a portion of the 12-story condo tower crumbled to the ground during a partial collapse of the building on June 24, 2021 in Surfside, Fla.
Lage's bodycam footage also shows him at the garage, which was the area of the building that collapsed first.
"There's a lot of dust, I can barely see anything," Lage says into his radio. He then hears a woman scream so he calls out for survivors, shining a flash light toward the noise. A woman is seen next to an overturned car, but cars and debris block Lage from getting to her.
"Are you OK?" Lage asks.
"No," the woman replies.
MORE: Pool deck, garage ceilings of collapsed Surfside building were problematic as early as 1996, documents show
Footage then shows Lage leaving the garage and making his way to a colleague, and the two walk around the building trying to determine how to get closer as screams can be heard from people in the area. It’s unclear what happened to them.
Lage and his colleagues are also seen trying to move bystanders away from the scene, fearing that the rest of the building could fall. They encounter a woman who appears to be in shock, standing in front of the building.
When told to move back, the woman replies slowly, "I'm just standing here cause I'm the building president and if you need something..."
Lage interrupts the woman and tells her the rest of the building might collapse, then ushers her away.
Another clip shows Officer Gambirazio talking with a someone who says he just made his way down from the 12th floor penthouse.
The man, who appears to be in shock and out of breath, says he was on his phone watching YouTube when he heard something falling.
He says he initially thought it wasn't a big deal, but then "all of a sudden, I hear, like, it was a jet right through the front of my balcony. So I get up, and was like, 'Was that a plane?'"
MORE: Surfside survivor recalls harrowing escape from collapsed building
The video shows another person running toward Gambirazio from the direction of the collapse. The man, appearing distressed and shocked, keeps pointing and shouting toward the direction of the building.
As another officer tries to calm him down, Gambirazio tells him, "Listen, right now, we were told by Rescue not even we can help right now. ... They're coordinating something to help get everybody out."
"Please" the man says, pointing toward the collapsed structure, but Gambirazio interrupts him and says, "I understand, but we have to do whatever they say."
The man asks the officers if he can make a call to the building, and Gambirazio responds that he can, but adds that he can't let him back into the area.
Florida Building Collapse
Man accused of torturing woman dead following weeklong manhunt: Police
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China halts climate, military ties over Pelosi Taiwan visit
Beijing, Aug 5
In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, air force and naval aviation corps of the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) fly planes at an unspecified location in China, Thursday, Aug 4, 2022. (AP Photo/RSS)
China on Friday said it is canceling or suspending dialogue with the United States on a range of issues from climate change to military relations and anti-drug efforts in retaliation for a visit this week to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The measures, which come amid cratering relations between Beijing and Washington, are the latest in a promised series of steps intended to punish the US for allowing the visit to the island it claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. China on Thursday launched threatening military exercises in six zones just off Taiwan’s coasts that it says will run through Sunday.
Missiles have also been fired over Taiwan, defense officials told state media. China routinely opposes the self-governing island having its own contacts with foreign governments, but its response to the Pelosi visit has been unusually vociferous.
The Foreign Ministry said dialogue between US and Chinese regional commanders and defense department heads would be canceled, along with talks on military maritime safety.
Cooperation on returning illegal immigrants, criminal investigations, transnational crime, illegal drugs and climate change will be suspended, the ministry said.
The actions were taken because Pelosi visited Taiwan “in disregard of China’s strong opposition and serious representations,” the ministry said in a statement.
China has accused the Biden administration of an attack on Chinese sovereignty, although Pelosi is head of the legislative branch of government and Biden had no authority to prevent her visit.
China’s actions come ahead of a key congress of the ruling Communist Party later this year at which President Xi Jinping is expected to obtain a third five-year term as party leader. With the economy stumbling, the party has stoked nationalism and issued near-daily attacks on the government of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, which refuses to recognize Taiwan as part of China, in order to solidify its support among the public.
China said Friday that more than 100 warplanes and 10 warships have taken part in the live-fire military drills surrounding Taiwan over the past two days, while announcing mainly symbolic sanctions against US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her family over her visit to Taiwan earlier this week.
The official Xinhua News Agency said Friday that fighters, bombers, destroyers and frigates were all used in what it called “joint blockage operations.”
The military’s Eastern Theater Command also fired new versions of missiles it said hit unidentified targets in the Taiwan Strait “with precision.”
The Rocket Force also fired projectiles over Taiwan into the Pacific, military officers told state media, in a major ratcheting up of China’s threats to attack and invade the island.
The drills, which Xinhua described as being held on an “unprecedented scale,” are China’s most strident response to Pelosi’s visit. The speaker is the highest-ranking US politician to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
Dialogue and exchanges between China and the US, particularly on military matters and economic exchanges, have generally been halting at best. Climate change and fighting trade in illegal drugs such as fentanyl were, however, areas where they had found common cause, and Beijing’s suspension of cooperation could have significant implications for efforts to achieve progress in those issues.
China and the United States are the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 climate polluters, together producing nearly 40% of all fossil-fuel emissions. Their top climate diplomats, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, maintained a cordial relationship that dated back to the Paris climate accord, which was made possible by a breakthrough negotiated among the two and others.
China under Kerry’s prodding committed at last year’s U.N. global climate summit in Glasgow to working with the US “with urgency” to cut climate-wrecking emissions, but Kerry was unable to persuade it to significantly speed up China’s move away from coal.
On the Chinese coast across from Taiwan, tourists gathered Friday to try to catch a glimpse of any military aircraft heading toward the exercise area.
Fighter jets could be heard flying overhead and tourists taking photos chanted, “Let’s take Taiwan back,” looking out into the blue waters of the Taiwan Strait from Pingtan island, a popular scenic spot in Fujian province.
Pelosi’s visit stirred emotions among the Chinese public, and the government’s response “makes us feel our motherland is very powerful and gives us confidence that the return of Taiwan is the irresistible trend,” said Wang Lu, a tourist from neighboring Zhejiang province.
China is a “powerful country and it will not allow anyone to offend its own territory,” said Liu Bolin, a high school student visiting the island.
His mother, Zheng Zhidan, was somewhat more circumspect.
“We are compatriots and we hope to live in peace,” Zheng said. “We should live peacefully with each other.”
China’s insistence that Taiwan is its territory and its threat to use force to bring it under its control have featured highly in ruling Communist Party propaganda, the education system and the entirely state-controlled media for more than seven decades since the sides were divided amid civil war in 1949.
Taiwan residents overwhelmingly favor maintaining the status quo of de facto independence and reject China’s demands that the island unify with the mainland under Communist control.
On Friday morning, China sent military ships and war planes across the mid-line of the Taiwan Strait, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said, crossing what had for decades been an unofficial buffer zone between China and Taiwan.
Five of the missiles fired by China since the military exercises began Thursday landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone off Hateruma, an island far south of Japan’s main islands, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said. He said Japan protested the missile landings to China as “serious threats to Japan’s national security and the safety of the Japanese people.”
Japan’s Defense Ministry later said they believe four other missiles fired from China’s southeastern coast of Fujian flew over Taiwan.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday that China’s military exercises aimed at Taiwan represent a “grave problem” that threatens regional peace and security.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said China’s actions were in line with “international law and international practices,” though she provided no evidence.
“As for the Exclusive Economic Zone, China and Japan have not carried out maritime delimitation in relevant waters, so there is no such thing as an EEZ of Japan,” Hua told reporters at a daily briefing.
In Tokyo, where Pelosi is winding up her Asia trip, she said China cannot stop US officials from visiting Taiwan. Kishida, speaking after breakfast with Pelosi and her congressional delegation, said the missile launches need to be “stopped immediately.”
China said it summoned European diplomats in the country to protest statements issued by the Group of Seven industrialized nations and the European Union criticizing the Chinese military exercises surrounding Taiwan.
Its Foreign Ministry on Friday said Vice Minister Deng Li made “solemn representations” over what he called “wanton interference in China’s internal affairs.”
Deng said China would “prevent the country from splitting with the strongest determination, using all means and at any cost.”
The ministry said the meeting was held Thursday night but gave no information on which countries participated. Earlier Thursday, China canceled a foreign ministers’ meeting with Japan to protest the G-7 statement that there was no justification for the exercises.
Both ministers were attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia.
China has promoted the overseas support it has received for its response to Pelosi’s visit, mainly from fellow authoritarian states such as Russia, Syria and North Korea.
China had earlier summoned US Ambassador Nicholas Burns to protest Pelosi’s visit. The speaker left Taiwan on Wednesday after meeting Tsai and holding other public events. She traveled on to South Korea and then Japan. Both countries host US military bases and could be drawn into a conflict involving Taiwan.
The Chinese exercises involve troops from the navy, air force, rocket force, strategic support force and logistic support force, according to Xinhua.
They are believed to be the largest held near Taiwan in geographical terms and the closest in proximity — within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the island.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday called the drills a “significant escalation” and said he has urged Beijing to back down.
US law requires the government to treat threats to Taiwan, including blockades, as matters of “grave concern.”
The drills are an echo of the last major Chinese military drills aimed at intimidating Taiwan’s leaders and voters in 1995 and 1996.
Taiwan has put its military on alert and staged civil defense drills, but the overall mood remained calm on Friday. Flights have been canceled or diverted and fishermen have remained in port to avoid the Chinese drills.
In the northern port of Keelung, Lu Chuan-hsiong, 63, was enjoying his morning swim Thursday, saying he wasn’t worried.
“Everyone should want money, not bullets,” Lu said.
#china
#taiwan
#nancy pelosi
#pelosi
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South African gov’t seeks mandated tests, shots and indefinite detention in the name of ‘health’
‘Clearly, this is NOT about health. This is about seizing totalitarian control over the lives of We, the People of the World,’ said independent journalist James Roguski.
Sabelo Sibanda of South AfricaYouTube
Patrick Delaney
Mon Aug 8, 2022 - 9:50 pm EDT
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(LifeSiteNews) – Amendments proposed to South Africa’s National Health Act Regulations seek to establish sweeping new tyrannical powers over individual liberty and bodily integrity, which may also set a worldwide precedent.
South African health minister Dr. Joe Phaahla proposed the controversial new regulations in May, employing a method outside the legislative process that would normally require the measures to pass through the democratic process of Parliament. Instead of seeking to change the Act itself, they merely are attempting to change regulations that were added to the Act in 2017.
In the words of a report from Pretoria News, the proposed amendments:
Allow for the detention (quarantine or isolation) of people who are deemed to be positive cases, suspects or contacts. They will be subjected to any medical examination and treatment that the government wants to impose, which may include vaccination without their (informed) consent.
All people entering or exiting South Africa during a public health emergency of international concern would be forced to vaccinate or to present a negative PCR test result.
Any person suspected of being sick with a communicable disease (while departing from South Africa) [may be] subjected to a forced medical examination and quarantine or isolation in a state-run quarantine or isolation facility against their will. The government would have total control of how and when those quarantined would be released, or not,
Regarding management of human remains … [the regulations] will prohibit the preparation and viewing of the body of a loved one and prohibit night vigils and after-funeral gatherings.
[They will also] declare any activity the government deems a danger to human health and to prohibit ‘overcrowding,’ that it deems may cause an environmental nuisance or endanger human health, on any premises, undesirable or unlawful.
The standard time permitted for South Africans to publicly comment upon these proposed regulations was extended until Friday, August 5, with numerous sources sounding the alarm for the South African people, and those around the world, to get engaged in making their voices heard.
Independent journalist James Roguski, who was credited with breaking the story of the Biden administration’s proposed freedom-killing amendments to the World Health Organization in March, also declared in an August 1 Substack article: South Africa must NOT be allowed to fall into medical tyranny!
“Wherever you live on this Earth, I encourage you to speak up in support of the people of South Africa. Medical tyranny will be coming soon to your town unless you wake up and take action NOW,” he wrote.
For further background, Roguski provided a stirring seven-minute video of Sabelo Sibanda of South Africa calling upon his fellow citizens to speak out boldly to the government against these regulations.
In addition to the government taking away an individual’s ability to refuse a medical test or regulated medications, including “vaccine” injections, or the right of free movement, Sibanda clarified that these provisions make “this state of disaster, the regulations, permanent.”
“So now the country of South Africa will be under a permanent state of disaster where masking will be permanent, where social distancing is permanent, where control of people at gatherings is also permanent and also the entry in and out of the country,” he said.
“You are now subjected to such draconian laws, and it is a way by which, in the name of health, people’s freedoms are being taken away,” Sibanda said.
Roguski provided several means for anyone to take quick action. These included a “one-click” petition sponsored by Children’s Health Defense titled “Urgent: Help South Africa Stand Against Medical Apartheid” and another from Open Source Truth emphasizing that “TYRANNY IS NOT THE NEW NORMAL!”
In addition to these action items, Roguski encourages everyone to compose their own unique emails (or use a template provide) and send it directly to specific email addresses he has provided:
“LET THE SOUTH AFRICAN HEALTH OFFICIALS KNOW THAT THE WORLD IS WATCHING THEM!” he wrote.
“Clearly, this is NOT about health. This is about seizing totalitarian control over the lives of We, the People of the World,” Roguski concluded.
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Politics - World
Covid-19 camps
Covid-19 Masks
Covid-19 Vaaccine
International Pandemic Treaty
James Roguski
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OPEC and Allies Are Said to Have Already Cleared Oil Surplus
May 28, 2018 EnergyNow Media
May 27, 2018, by Wael Mahdi and Grant Smith
OPEC and allied oil producers including Russia concluded that the crude market re-balanced in April, when their output cuts achieved a key goal of eliminating the global surplus.
The excess in oil inventories, which has weighed on prices for three years, plunged in April to less than the five-year average for stockpiles in developed nations, according to people with knowledge of the data assessed at the meeting of the Joint Technical Committee of OPEC and other producers last week in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The re-balance is sure to be the focus of a tense meeting between OPEC and its partners in the production cuts when they meet in Vienna next month. Top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia announced last week that the suppliers may boost output in the second half of the year. The trouble is, officials from several countries in the agreement, both inside OPEC and outside, said they disapproved of the proposal and saw difficulties in reaching a consensus.
The Joint Technical Committee determined that stockpiles held by developed nations dropped to about 20 million barrels below their five-year average, for a total decrease of about 360 million barrels since the start of 2017, three of the people said, asking not to be identified because the JTC discussions were private. The decline was due to producers’ greater adherence to their pledged output cuts — their compliance rate reached 152 percent in April — and to summer demand for crude and refined products, they said.
Russia and the Saudis are proposing raising production to make up for losses from other members, notably a worsening slump in Venezuelan supply and a potential drop in Iran as renewed U.S. sanctions kick in. Those countries have nothing to gain from looser output caps, and plenty to lose if oil prices extend Friday’s steep decline.
Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies are due to discuss ways to measure the success of the output cuts when they meet in late June. The producers have so far relied on measuring stockpiles in countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development by looking at the 5-year moving average.
At last week’s meeting in Jeddah, the JTC reviewed other ways to assess oil inventories. One option is to look at a longer-range, a 10-year average from 2004 to 2014, while another is to use the five-year average but exclude data from 2015 and 2016 because those were years of abnormally large stockpiles, the people said.
The International Energy Agency said on May 16 that OPEC and its allies have finally succeeded in clearing a glut, with inventories falling below their five-year average for the first time since 2014. However, Saudi Arabia and Russia have both said the five-year average is flawed. Years of excessive supplies mean that measure is itself higher than normal, while the patchy nature of data outside the OECD makes it difficult to make an accurate assessment of the entire world market.
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Categories CDN and International News Tags Pinned Primary
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The Good the Bad and the Unreadable
Posted on June 5, 2016 by Grace Lessageing
It would not be an exaggeration to say that writing has spoiled reading for me. This is not to say that I no longer read. I do. In fact I consider that reading-widely and variedly-is essential for anyone hoping to produce any written work of their own. But the sheer hedonistic escapism that ensues when you are engrossed in a rip-roaring, breath-taking story is rare nowadays.
I became a voracious reader as a child, devouring the written word as soon as I could read; beginning with fairy stories and developing an appetite for fantasy in the form of the Narnia books, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and the Alan Garner novels. A friend with a penchant for Enid Blyton led me to flirt briefly with The Famous Five but I was soon disenchanted by the formula aspect of the plots [although I was keen to replicate the ‘gang’ aspect by forming a club and pursuing some vague exploits].
Later I flogged my way through Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh, indulged in an Ian Fleming phase with some gentile porn thrown in [a furtive, febrile partaking of Lady Chatterley plus a few dismembered sections of Frank Harris’s ‘My Life and Loves’ undertaken during geography lessons and passed around partly opened desks-little wonder I was not invited to pursue my geographical studies].
Later, during my hippy phase I spent every spare moment during one week reading The Lord of the Rings and became sucked in to the extent that when Gandalf disappeared down the chasm I was devastated to the point of despair and felt my own life to be at an end. Such is the susceptibility of youth-and Tolkien’s writing of course.
As a student I was influenced to read more widely and began to enjoy modern classics like Catcher in the Rye or Sylvia Plath’s fascinating and darkly comic The Bell Jar. I became aware that there were differences between good and poor writing.
Once real life had set in with the onset of work, marriage and babies there was a hiatus in my reading while I dipped into Dr Spock and Penelope Leach whilst wringing out the nappies. Still later, teaching left no time or energy for reading outside of holiday periods, when I’m sad to say pure escapism took over in the shape of thrillers. There was a Stephen King period, a Ruth Rendell/P D James/Minette Walters period and even a Lee Child stage before, short of a book I stumbled upon a dog-eared paperback in a hotel in The Gambia. It was The Blind Assassin. The title grabbed my attention then I was gripped, following up by reading more Margaret Attwood. I discovered Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and began to read Sebastian Faulkes, Ian McEwan etc
At last the work of good writers lured me into having a bash myself-a foolish notion. The work of such writers only serves to underline how futile my own attempts are. Worse than this-the [still published] work of poor writers induces a powerful frustration. I wasted a lot of time last year trying to read ‘A Brief History of Seven Killings’, which won the Booker Prize!
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Booker prize, books, child, fantasy, Lord of the Rings, novels, reading, story, student, teaching, thrillers, titles, writers by Grace Lessageing. Bookmark the permalink.
2 thoughts on “The Good the Bad and the Unreadable”
oddauthoramandamccoy.com on June 5, 2016 at 4:12 pm said:
I kind of understand what you mean, there is a lot of not so good writing that is published. I remember when I was about ten I was reading a novel and thought, wow this book is aweful, even I could write a book better than this. That’s kind of what started me thinking about being a writer.
Grace Lessageing on June 5, 2016 at 5:55 pm said:
I hope you’ve gone further than think about it now!! 😉
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From Pop-Up Warnings to $9 Million Payout: Inside the Tech Support Scam
How do scammers reap more than $9.5 million with phony pop-up ads or blinking alerts warning of a crippling computer virus or security problems?
Their scareware success usually starts with “malvertisements” (malicious online advertising intended to damage or disable computers), which are designed to trick their prey into believing the bogus bug and calling a designated “support line” for help. It usually ends with a victim-made call lasting 17 minutes and a request for an average $291 to supposedly “repair” the feigned problem.
And the intriguing in-betweens? It’s all part of a new study, reported as the first analysis of its kind, by researchers at the National Security Institute (NSI) at Stony Brook University, who spent eight months studying the tactics of tech support scammers.
First, they built a tool — ROBOVIC, short for Robotic Victim — to automatically crawl the web to find the scammers. After collecting some 25,000 domains and thousands of phone numbers used in these schemes, the three researchers made 60 calls to various scammer-provided numbers displayed in pop-up warnings, posing as recruited “victims.” What they learned:
To spread malware that generates the bogus pop-up warnings — sometimes disguised with a Windows blue-screen background to make it more believable — fraudsters obtain thousands of low-cost domain names, such as .space and .xyz (which, after .com, .net and .org, is the fourth most-registered global top-level domain name on the internet).
Most scammer-run domains have a life span of only 11 days, with about half of scam domains operating no longer than three days. Con artists frequently use URL shorteners, to better hide on legitimate websites.
In addition to bogus warnings, these scams sometimes use intrusive programs and other techniques so computer owners can’t close their browsers or leave the “Call this number” page.
Of some 5 million pages visited, ROBOVIC discovered about 22,000 tech support scam pages hosted at roughly 8,700 domains. With previous research on fake antivirus scams indicating about 2 percent of targets fall for such ploys, the researchers estimate that each domain generates $2,000 per day.
Once targets call, swindlers usually follow a script. First, they say they need to learn more about what could have caused the alert, leading prey to a designated website to “run tests.” There, a remote administration tool is loaded so scammers can access their computers. Asking would-be victims about recent usage, they offer “all is not lost” assurances to incentivize callers to pay for bogus repair services.
In backtracking the scammers’ connections to their PCs, the Stony Brook team determined that the overwhelming majority of these con artists (some 85 percent) operate in India. About 10 percent work in the U.S., and about 5 percent in Costa Rica.
Although 15 telecommunications providers were used, more than 90 percent of scammer-controlled support-line numbers were routed through four VoIP services — Twilio, WilTel, RingRevenue and Bandwidth.
Scammer call centers employ an estimated 11 tech support fraudsters.
Prices for rip-off repairs ranged between $70 and $1,000, but the average price was $291. All told, the research teams estimated that $9.7 million in profits were made from these scams.
The bottom line, according to lead researcher Nick Nikiforakis: “Don’t trust what your browser tells you about the safety and security of your system. People need to understand there’s no legitimate scenario where your computer will start beeping and ask you to call a toll-free number.”
For information about other scams, sign up for the Fraud Watch Network. You’ll receive free email alerts with tips and resources to help you spot and avoid identity theft and fraud, and keep tabs of scams and law enforcement alerts in your area at our Scam-Tracking Map.
Photo credit: iStock/daboost
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Imagine Kenosha
Youth councils
Youth activists
Youth rights
Young activists and civil rights leaders demonstrate at the White House
Carolyn M. Pride November 5, 2021 4 min read
On November 3, voting rights activists stepped up their demands for the White House to act on voting rights in an action that resulted in the arrest of nearly 60 participants, including young activist Yolanda King, the little one. – 13-year-old daughter of Reverend Martin. Luther King Jr.
Following a blocked vote on the Free Voting Law in the Senate last month, activists are rallying to protect our democracy and our right to vote without fear of discrimination. This week’s protest showcased the power of young activists and was led by People For the American Way, the League of Voters of the United States and the Declaration for American Democracy, alongside dozens of coalition partners for democracy. Participants called on President Biden to use the influence of his office to push through the Senate the Freedom to Vote Act, the John Lewis Advancement of Voting Rights Act and the Washington State Statute .
We are here in front of the people’s house, @POTUS! We need you to get off the sidelines and fight for our #votingrightsnow – and we’ll keep coming back until you do!#poweredbyyouth @lwv @DFADCoalition @BlackVotersMtr @ Unite4Democracy @FutureCoalition pic.twitter.com/c6M8iAOwJ1
– People For the American Way (@peoplefor) November 3, 2021
Danton Whitley and members of the Baltimore Urban Inspiration Choir performed at the event again, upping the crowd with chants, including: “When we walk in the footsteps of ancestors, we must walk strong and walk singing!” “
Shortly before the event, People For the American Way president Ben Jealous spoke about why he was proud to risk being arrested alongside young people, including his daughter Morgan, 15.
This week, Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King and Yolanda Renee King, 13, protested and risked being arrested alongside us; they all spoke about their family’s legacy in the struggle for the franchise and why they will continue in the footsteps of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“My generation cannot vote. But we can demand that our leaders do their job.
Watch Yolanda King’s powerful speech as she calls for action on voting rights – and action to make her grandfather’s dream come true. #VotingRightsNow #PoweredByYouth pic.twitter.com/Tyqrcy6JNq
Soleil Moon Frye’s father was a civil rights activist who also attended the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and she was delighted to accompany her two daughters, Poet and Jagger, to risk arrest. for voting rights.
Today, @moonfrye and her daughters may be arrested for calling @POTUS to protect our voting rights.
Listen to his speech. It’s time to act. #VotingRightsNow #PoweredByYouth pic.twitter.com/C76fv6zt0Z
“As young people we are still fighting for the same thing that was fought 58 years ago,” 51-for-51 Jamal Holtz said at the event.
“As young people we are still fighting for the same thing that was fought 58 years ago,” said @JamalHoltz from @ 51pour51 to yesterday’s act of civil disobedience in the White House.
It is high time to protect our right to vote. No more excuses. #VotingRightsNow pic.twitter.com/xSIqFQUlAb
“The most important thing today is that the young people standing on my left take matters into their own hands. We demand a brighter future for those who follow us, ”said DC Youth Mayor Addison Rose.
“The most important thing today is that the young people standing on my left take matters into their own hands. We demand a brighter future for those who follow us, ”said Addison Rose, DC Youth Mayor. #VotingRightsNow #PoweredByYouth pic.twitter.com/vu0Vf2fmyj
“We are not here to seek justice. We are not here to negotiate our voting rights. We are here to demand that the voting rights pass, ”said Tylik McMillan of the National Action Network.
We are not here to seek justice. We are not here to negotiate our voting rights. We are here to demand that the voting rights pass, says @TylikMcMillan from @ActionNationale. #VotingRightsNow #PoweredByYouth pic.twitter.com/TX2aTdGDhN
Eventually, six young people under the age of 18 were taken off the scene by police as part of the arrests, along with 14 other people under the age of 25.
BREAKING: Young people under the age of 18 have just been taken away by police for demonstrating in front of the White House for #votingrightsnow. Our movement for free voting is #poweredbyyouth – and we’re not backing down. pic.twitter.com/Cvv7h5aMsO
You can watch all the testimonial videos here
You can watch the entire event here:
Regarding Young Turks, Ohio State Senator Nina Turner was joined by People For President Ben Jealous and the family of Martin Luther King Jr, including his son Martin Luther King III, his wife Arndrea Waters King and their daughter Yolanda Renee King, to discuss the importance of activism in the struggle for the right to vote for all Americans.
Want to get involved in the next stage of the fight? Sign up here to receive campaign and RSVP updates for our November 17th event here!
Tags: civil rights united states young activists young people
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Have a look at this!
Posted by druzik on Sep 1st, 2012 in Domestic, International, Rugby League | 21 comments
First up, A big thanks to Jovan Vujesovic for showing me this and allowing me to write something about it!
The Challenge Cup weekend and the RLEF AGM threw up a lot of things to consider and ponder. I got to meet members from all the European nations playing Rugby League, I got to sit in Club Wembley to watch the game and I also was able to go to the post game function and meet the players. I also held the actual Challenge Cup Trophy!
But all of this pales in comparison to something that I was shown on Thursday night by Jovan Vujosevic, who looks after the Eastern European countries for the Rugby League European federation (RLEF). A bit of Rugby League History, little known by many and almost forgotten by most. But this, my friends, this was just absolutely fantastic.
Let M Tell You a Story…
So as I finish dinner Thursday night, Jovan is sitting there with a huge grin on his face. ” Hey Druzik, come here, I want to show you something. Come here, come here”. I was like what is it. “Just come here you’ll be the only one here who will appreciate this.” So I went over and sat next down to Jovan. What he then proceeded to tell and show me just blew me out of the water.
He put his hands into his back pack and pulls out the ORIGINAL score sheet of a Croatian and Serbian club form the days when Yugoslavia were playing league in 1960!
He then pulls out a manual, put out by the Yugoslavian Sports Ministry on how to play Rugby League from THE YEAR 1955!!! Holy (insert a word I can’t repeat) I screamed out. Where the hell did you get this. This is absolutely amazing, a gold nugget in Rugby League, I said.
I was like, “Jovan this needs to get to the Rugby League museum in Huddersfield mate, as soon as possible!”
“Yeah, I know, I think I will. That is a good idea.” he says I asked him how he got this,?
“I got all this documents from the Budimir Tomanovic – Tamba – 80 year old Serbian Rugby League veteran. Budimir was captain and player of the Belgrade teams Radnicki and after Partizan. He was part of Serbian delegation in 1960 who was invited as guest at two games Italy vs Australia.” which leads on to…
Italy v Australia 1960 in Italy!
“But look at this Druzik, Look what else I have”. Jovan sticks his hand into the backpack once again and pulls out a little diamond! An ORIGINAL match program from when the Kangaroos played the Italians in Treviso on 24th Januarry 1960. My jaw just dropped to the ground. “Oh my GOD, Jovan what the hell?!” I said.
“Look, look at the names in the Australian Squad Druzik, look who’s there. Gasnier, its Gasnier’s Uncle” he said, “Hold on there are two immortals in here, Gasnier and Johnny Raper! “ I responded. This is amazing Jovan.
Australian Team
William Barnes, Darrel Chapman, Edmund Lumsden, Brian Carlson, Donald Parish, Ken Irvine, Reg Gasnier, Harry Wells, Ron Boden, John Ryley, Andrew Brown, Barry Muir, Robert Bugden, Tom Burke, John Raper, Brian Clay, Elton Rasmussen, Rex Mossop, Brian Clinton, James Patterson, William Wilson, Garry Parcell, William Delamare, Dudley Beattie, Noel KellyIan Walsh.
Did I Just Stir Up Controversy?
So Saturday night while watching the USARL Grand Final, Jovan pulled all of this out again to show Danny Kazandjian. I got to look at it a second time. Looking through the Italia – Australia program I said something that got everyone saying is controversial.
No we all know how much I have been harping on about the Germans having the world record with 4 brothers that played together in the same match: Jimmy (who played in the Challenge Cup for Leeds), Nick, Marcus and Kristian Keinhorst. But have a really close look at the Italian team list from 1960. See it?
There are 5 Giovanni’s in there! Bortolozzo, Cattaneo, Fiorin, Naddeo, Vigna. Now I have no idea if they are all related as brothers of cousins or what. But if any four of them are brothers, and they did actually play together in the match then they have the world record. There was a look of shock amongst all of us when we all saw this. What an amazing find!
Since then Jovan has sent me some more information and pictures featuring Rugby League in the old Yugoslavia back in the 60s. Photos of Club games and also when French and Yugoslavian teams played against each other.
Some other information can be found here, though it is all in Serbian.
http://pressrs.ba/sr/sport/ostali_sportovi/story/19263/
http://ragbiliga.rs/sr/vesti/11-03.htm
and about Serbian veterans:
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Where is the block 2021 Location?
The exact location of The Block 2021 is Bronte Court in Hampton, which is a picturesque suburban cul-de-sac. Five properties have been purchased. One of the homes belonged to buyer’s advocate and The Block regular Nicole Jacobs.
Where are The Block NZ houses 2021?
The four family homes are in Auckland’s Pt Chev, one of the city’s hottest suburbs, and feature some very different styles and design choices. The listing for each home is officially live on OneRoof.co.nz, giving potential buyers and real estate fans a closer look at some of the rooms that have been revealed so far.
What area are the block houses in?
Your first look at The Block 2020 location and houses. Everything we know about The Block 2020 location and the houses this year’s Blockheads are set to renovate. A 2761-square metre parcel of land in Melbourne’s affluent suburb of Brighton has been purchased by producers of The Block as the location for The Block 2020 …
How much did the houses sell for on the Block 2021?
Defying their critics – not least judges Shaynna Blaze, Neale Whitaker and Darren Palmer – Mitch and Mark have won The Block 2021, selling their house for more than $644,444 above its reserve, as Tanya finally came clean on cheating.
Where are the 2021 Rock the block houses?
28. The show, hosted by Ty Pennington, took place in the Nexton community in Berkeley County, where four Summerville houses recently built by Hunter Quinn Homes were renovated and decorated by teams looking to win over a panel of judges for their interior and exterior design work.
Did The Block 2021 houses sell?
The 2021 Block homes have officially hit the market: Here’s what you need to know. The five homes from The Block 2021 have officially hit the market. Ronnie and Georgia, Mitch and Mark, Tanya and Vito, Josh and Luke and Kirsty and Jesse have gone above and beyond to perfect their homes through the season.
What suburb is The Block NZ 2021?
Point Chevalier
The ninth season of New Zealand reality television series The Block NZ premiered on 14 June 2021. It is set in the Auckland suburb of Point Chevalier.
What street is The Block NZ 2021?
But a camera crew has now joined the builders at the four large, two-storey townhouses on Huia Road in Point Chevalier. The Block NZ set on Huia Rd is now ready for the cameras to roll.
Where is the block 2020 NZ?
The Block NZ 2020 is predicted to take place here on Huia Road, Point Chevalier. The land is owned by Warner Bros, the producer of the series, and work has escalated in recent weeks.
Where do Kirsty and Jesse live?
After applying for The Block since 2012, Kirsty and Jesse are going to relish every single opportunity and moment the experience brings. Even when things are tough, they will remember just how lucky they are to be building a luxury family home in Hampton.
Did the Rock the Block 2021 houses sell?
The House Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent Designed on “Rock the Block” Just Sold for $635,000.
What is the first season of the Block NZ?
The Block NZ is a New Zealand reality show based on the popular Australian reality television series The Block. The first season premiered on Three on 4 July 2012. The show is hosted by former Black Cap Mark Richardson and Shelley Ferguson, [1] while Peter Wolfkamp serves as site foreman.
Where is the Block NZ filmed?
The fifth season of The Block NZ premiered on 29 May 2016 and was filmed in the Auckland suburb of Meadowbank. The title of this series is “Girls vs Boys” with two of the teams being made up of females and the other two made up with males.
Where are the houses still under completion on the Block NZ?
An aerial view of The Block NZ houses still under completion at 104 and 106 Huia Street. House 1 and 2 are the white ones at front, with 3 and 4 (black) behind. The Block NZ continues on Three Monday to Wednesday 7.30pm, with the next reveal Sunday, 7pm.
What happened to the Block NZ 2019?
The site had been contaminated with methamphetamine during its time as an 18-room boarding house. MediaWorks refuse to confirm this is the location for The Block NZ 2019. The building has been gutted and its roof removed, with building work ongoing since late last year.
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Sustainable Built Environments Newsletter April 2016
To subscribe to the newsletter, send an email with title 'newsletter'.
Integrating Informal Trade
City planning and urban design in many African cities are based on western and colonial standards that ignore the informal economy. However, informal trade has been identified as one of the main sources of employment and it is estimated are that this provides between 20 and 75 percent of employment in many African countries. A range of benefits are associated with informal trading including:
• Creates employment
• Requires very little capital
• Can improves security as there are more 'eyes on the street'
• Convenience, as goods and services that can be accessed easily
• Can improve street life and the vibrancy of an area or street
• Reduced transport impacts as local access is provided to services and goods
• Increased city efficiency as densities and trade is increased
• Improved resilience through diversity in the local economy
• Reduced cost and waste as repairs on items like appliances and shoes are carried out instead of these being disposed of
Despite these benefits, there is very little support for informal trade and many city plans and policies ignore informal trading.
Informal trade can be easily designed for in new streets and be supported through interventions in existing streets. The example below shows how a city block, individual buildings and city furniture, such as bus stops can be modified to support informal trading. These interventions are described below, with the numbering referring to the numbers in the sketch.
Existing city block (left) and the same city block with integrated informal enterprises (right)
1. Road
2. Pavement
3. Semi-private area that could be used by employees to access food provided by an informal trader who could also supply passing trade.
4. Food and beverage informal trader with stool seating that did not impinge onto pavement pedestrian traffic.
5. Small informal trading stall with awning which could sell small grocery or other items and receive power from the building. It can also be secured and closed off from the street. By occupying an 'indentation' in the building informal trade would not affect passing traffic.
6. Small lockable compartments where traders could park mobile sales trolleys and goods at night instead of having to transport these. During the day, these trolleys would positioned in street locations where traders would sell their goods.
7. A plant nursery run by an informal trader in a garden of an established local business. To reduce costs, traders could enter into agreements with landowners to maintain gardens in return reduced rental for prime locations.
8. A cafe run by an informal trader in a garden belonging to an established business. To reduce costs, traders could enter into agreements with landowners to provide in-house catering in return for reduced rental for prime locations.
9. Trading locations designated on streets for designed for mobile trolleys which provide appropriate shelter and services such as power.
10. Bus stop
11. Informal businesses which are able to assist with some of the non-core services required by established businesses such as printing, stationary and courier services. These would be accommodated on established business premises and would provide services to both the passing other local businesses, passing trade as well the established business.
Labels: informal economy in cities, Informal trade in cities
Interesting article in the Daily Telegraph on ''What Africa will look like in 100 years''. It makes the following assertions:
By 2100, it will be home to 4.4 billion people - four times its current population.
By 2050, more than half of Africa’s 2.2bn people will live in its rapidly expanding cities. That’s the equivalent of the population of China.
Given the implications of this huge growth, it suggests that current development trajectories are not promising and may not be able to "deliver on the aspirations of broad-based human development and prosperity for all".
Solutions recommended include;
infrastructure that improves education,health and security and economic prospects
sustainable governance systems
embracing new urban paradigms,
better data, better decisions and
diversified economies
Labels: african cities, sustainable resilient cities, sustainable urban development, What Africa will look like in 100 years
Consumption and Production Envelopes
At a recent presentation at Power and Electricity World titled ”Design and Operation Optimisation: Lowering the Cost of Sustainable Buildings”, the concept of Consumption and Production Envelopes was presented.
This concept has been developed by Gauge and supports a hierarchical and structured approach to design, management and technology decisions. A key objective of the approach is to match consumption and use of resources in built environments with local productive capacity. Strong alignment enables systems to be highly efficient and achieving additional productive capacity enables increased resilience and net-positive built environments. The approach has informed the development of tools such as the BEST and SBAT and is being developed further.
Labels: Design and Operation Optimisation
Cities as Engines of Economic Inclusion
Cities in developing countries are often portrayed as a source of problems such as high levels of unemployment, crime, poor services, overcrowding, pollution and ill-health. However, for the people who move to them, cities are seen as a means to a better life; a place to get work, start a business, and get an education. If designed and managed in a different way, can cities in developing countries enhance and direct this positive energy to build economic growth? Can the right characteristics and configuration be developed in urban areas to support positive development and avoid marginalisation? Is it possible for cities to be engines of economic inclusion, rather than the source of problems?
A recent study of Medellin in Columbia indicates that this is possible. It shows how the city has transformed its reputation as a city associated with crime and drug trafficking to a rapidly growing vibrant and inclusive economy. The study attributes this transformation to the following characteristics;
Cities do not make poor people. Cities attract poor and vulnerable individuals looking for a better future. Therefore, they must be accepted and integrated into the city's dynamics in order to foster their individual and collective potential. As shown by the 8.9% reduction in poverty between 2008 and 2013, according to Colombia’s department of statistics.
Architecture must never be a barrier to human interaction. The best way to reduce inequality is to promote connections and face-to-face engagement between individuals, without regards to their socioeconomic condition.
Public and accessible urban services reduce inequality. Allowing individuals across the board to enjoy a city, its surroundings and services are the best ways to make them active citizens.
Education drives change. Placing libraries and other cultural assets alongside public transport systems played a central role in selling the new brand the city wanted to create for itself, placing it squarely in the collective mindset.
Using technology as a means and not as the end itself. Medellin understood that whatever technological upgrades were needed, its success would rest with the function it fulfills and not in the scientific advancement it represents.
Last, but not least, placing culture high on the list of priorities helps to unleash a citizen's potential. Culture plays a major role in a city's transformation due to its ability to bringing people together, to move forward from traditional socioeconomic paradigms, and to share a vision and common values.
These characteristics are reflected in criteria in the BEST and SBAT tools which aim to support positive, inclusive development in urban areas and buildings. The tools identify infrastructure prerequisites required for inclusive sustainable development and measure the extent to which these are integrated in buildings and urban areas.
The tools have a very strong emphasis on the local area and on the nature of services, products and interaction that can be accessed within easy walking distance of a building. Thre is also a strong emphasis on local services such as access to education and health facilities as well as economic opportunities and productive technology. The tools are available to inform urban development and building projects and are particularly suitable for developing country contexts.
Labels: BEST, Cities, inclusive cities, inclusive economic growth, SBAT
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Bat myths busted!
How much do you know about the world's only flying mammal?
MYTH: Bats are blind.
BUSTED! Bats’ eyes are small and sometimes poorly developed, but they work just fine. Megabats—larger bats that include fruit bats—search for food using sight and smell. Micro-bats—which include the smaller, familiar snub-nosed bats—mainly hunt by echolocation. Using this system, bats send out sound waves and listen for the echo to bounce off insects and other objects.
MYTH: Bats in your house are bad luck.
BUSTED! Bats are probably associated with bad luck because of a vampire legend. Vampires exist only in books and movies, and bats can’t cause bad luck. That doesn’t mean you want one in your house; it could spread certain diseases. Bats in your yard, however, are great—a little brown bat can eat up to a thousand mosquito-size insects in an hour. In fact, bats are so lucky for humans that many people build bat houses to attract them to their yards.
MYTH: All bats have rabies.
BUSTED! According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 5 to 6 percent of bats captured for testing have rabies. That said, as with any wild animal, don't handle bats unless it's necessary.
MYTH: Bats fly toward and get tangled in people’s hair.
BUSTED! Bats hang upside down from their roosts and tend to drop down and flap their wings before they start to lift off in flight. So though it may appear the animals are swooping down on you and want to nest in your hair, they're not. In fact, bats don’t make nests.
MYTH: Bats suck people’s blood.
BUSTED! While vampire bats have been known to bite people, they primarily feed on cattle. These bats actually only weigh two ounces and will take just a small amount of blood when they bite the cattle. The bats’ saliva has special anti-blood-clotting properties and is being used to develop a medication called draculin.
MYTH: Bats aren’t that important.
BUSTED! Like bees, bats are pollinators. According to the U.S. Forest Service, bats are responsible for dispersing seeds that grow into bananas, avocados, and nearly 300 other plant species. By chowing down on thousands of bugs each night, bats also act as a natural pest control for plants.
MYTH: Bats are a wicked enemy.
BUSTED! Bats are quite unselfish. They've been known to share food with other bats. Vampire bats will even regurgitate blood for bats who didn’t get to feed.
And bats actually have an enemy: white-nose syndrome. This fungus grows on bats in the U.S. while they hibernate. According to the Organization for Bat Conservation, white-nose syndrome has killed 5.7 million bats in the northeastern U.S. since 2006.
Photographs by VALERIY KIRSANOV, DREAMSTIME; JOEL SARTORE, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION; and MICHAEL NICHOLS, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
Even bats get munchies and when you’re a bat, you must have snacks to chow down!
Watch what happens when animals are caught on camera doing wacky activities! This music video series captures the funny moments animals have in their day-to-day lives.
Vampire Bat
While much of the world sleeps, vampire bats emerge from dark caves, mines, tree hollows, and abandoned buildings in Mexico and Central and South America. They glide stealthily through the night air as they search for food. Like the legendary monster from which they get their name, these small mammals drink the blood of other animals for survival. They feed on blood from cows, pigs, horses, and birds. Though uncommon, vampire bats occasionally bite humans for blood. Rather than sucking blood, vampire bats make a small cut with their teeth and then lap up the flowing blood with their tongues. These bats are so light and agile that they are sometimes able to drink blood from an animal for more than 30 minutes without waking it up. The blood sucking does not hurt the animal. Vampire bats have special adaptations to help them with their unique feeding needs. Unlike some other species of bats, vampire bats can walk, run, and jump. They have very strong hind legs and a special thumb that helps them take off after feeding. Also, heat sensors on their noses help them find a good spot on an animal's body to feed. What happens if vampire bats don't get their nightly meal? If they can't find blood for two nights in a row, they will die. Luckily, female bats can be generous. Well-fed bats will often regurgitate blood to share with others in exchange for grooming. Female bats in captivity seem especially friendly toward new mothers. After a baby is born, other bats have been observed feeding the mother for about two weeks after the birth. Are vampire bats really that scary? Even though bat bites themselves aren't harmful, vampire bats can spread a disease called rabies. This disease hurts farmers' livestock, especially cattle herds. However, vampire bats can actually be quite tame, and even friendly to humans. One researcher reported that he had vampire bats that would come to him when he called their names.
Tube-Lipped Nectar Bat
A two-inch-long tube-lipped nectar bat hovers by a narrow, bell-shaped flower in its forest habitat. This hungry animal is after nectar at the bottom of the blossom. To get to the goody, the bat pokes its snout into the flower. With the nectar still out of reach, the mammal sticks out its tongue, which is one-and-a-half times the length of its body. After licking up the sticky sweet, the bat retracts its jumbo-size tongue and flies off. TRANSFORMING TONGUE The tube-lipped nectar bat was first discovered in Ecuador, a country in South America. It has the longest tongue compared to its body of any mammal in the world. In fact, if this bat were a person, its tongue would be almost nine feet in length! The bat stores the extra-long licker in its chest until it comes across a flower with yummy nectar inside. Once the animal’s tongue reaches the nectar in the blossom, the tip transforms. Hairlike bristles on the tongue stretch outward, making it prickly. With these bristles extended, the bat can extract more food from the plant. By chowing down on flower nectar, these animals don't just satisfy their hunger—they also help maintain their habitat. POLLEN POWER As the tube-lipped nectar bat eats from the flower, it brushes against the petals. This causes pollen from the blossom to fall on the bat’s head. The bat sprinkles the pollen from the flower on the next plant it visits. This can lead to the creation of seeds, which get dispersed and grow into new blossoms. Who knew bats were good at gardening? Watch a video of the tube-lipped nectar bat. Text by Andrea Silen, NGS Staff
5 reasons why bats are the best
You’ll want to go to bat for these awesome mammals after reading about their supercool skills.
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FeaturedThe Alma Mater
2014: Saving Nigeria from Nigerians
Adedimeji: Like a Diamond in the Sky
In an address he delivered on the occasion of the 2012 Annual Lecture of the Nigerian Academy of Letters at the University of Ilorin, the Vice-Chancellor then, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, prayed that God save Nigeria from Nigerians. His argument that day (April 26, 2012) is that Nigerians are the enemies of Nigeria and “my prayer is that God save Nigeria from Nigerians so that we won’t wreck her further but rather steer her to the shores of peace, progress and prosperity for all.”
As 2014 continues its forward march, its significance as a make or break year, on account of how political leaders especially conduct themselves, is not lost to all. The year is not only important because it marks the century of the birth of our country, it is also a year that will lay the seeds of our survival as a people and a nation, the year that will launch the country into its second century. While some prophets of doom are already harassing our collective psyche that it is not more than a colonial contraption or a balloon that is bound to burst, the political atmosphere that is at fever pitch also suggests that the prayer is on point.
While we continue to pray as a religious country, there is an urgent need to also complement the prayers with efforts as also suggested in the address under reference. It is well known that prayer without effort is half-full while effort without prayer is half-empty. The effort needed in 2014 and beyond is required at the level of leadership, which has remained the bane of Nigeria.
Over 2000 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote his seminal book, “The Art of War”, and the insight it contains is as useful in the fields of philosophy and military tactics as it is in politics, family, business and organisations as well as other spheres of life today. For Sun Tzu, “leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humanness, courage and discipline” all of which have a symbiotic relationship.
In other words, the five components of leadership are inter-dependent, not mutually exclusive. The author warned thus, “Reliance on intelligence alone results in rebelliousness. Exercise of humanness alone results in weakness, fixation on trust results in folly. Dependence on the strength of courage results in violence. Exercise of discipline and sternness in commands results in cruelty. When one has all the five virtues together, each appropriate to its functions, then one can be a leader.”
The five virtues of leadership should be embraced by our political gladiators, some of who are desperate on “capturing” Nigeria to feather their nests. The “intelligence” of neutralising opposition in some states is manifesting in the abuse of power and gross violation of human rights. Besides, while it appears “intelligent” to muffle the voices of dissent, it is ultimately counter-productive as evident in the rebellion of party members for example and the realignment of political forces. Intelligence without wisdom and other components of leadership is self-defeating.
Yet, leadership is also not about humanness of face saving. High corruption cases have often been swept under the carpet just because of protecting political interests and overlooking the excesses of prominent stakeholders like Ministers. To err is human but to forgive is not company policy. There is no virtue in treating unethical conduct with kid gloves as that tendency makes the country weak. A mere cosmetic discernment of good and bad with rewarding good and punishing bad behavior is antithetical to the functions of leadership.
For instance, if it is established that the Aviation Minister, Ms. Stella Oduah, who has solid reputation now for being in the news for wrong reasons, lied on oath to Senate on her qualifications or does not have the honorary doctorate she claimed she obtained from an American university, if at all the University exists, she should be shown the exit door.
Then, leadership is a trust and trust is a burden. Leaders should comport themselves in a way it will be easy for Nigerians to trust them. The thrust of any government is the provision of security and making life abundant for people but this is not the case with Nigerians. At all levels of governance, many leaders are not trustworthy and the masses are continually fooled with empty promises and vain assurances. At another plane, it is sheer folly to uphold the trust of selfish individuals who do not mean well for the generality of Nigerians.
Courage of course is a virtue but as Tzu emphasised, leadership is not all about it because it creates violence. This is the point the late Chinua Achebe stressed in his Arrow of God, first published 50 ago, through the advice of Ezeulu to his courageous son, Obika: “It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, my son, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live.”
For instance, Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein were “courageous” but where did their courage lead them ultimately? Leaders whose courage is impelled by power who thus aid and abet violence on Nigerians should remember that violence consumes those who create it. As Achebe also drew our attention to, “We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.” Politicians who are stockpiling arms just because of winning elections at all costs in some states are devaluing themselves.
Moreover, discipline is a core component of leadership that without it everything else fails. Discipline manifests in self-discipline, fiscal discipline, moral discipline and political discipline. However, it is one virtue that is lacking in many Nigerians, starting from the leaders down to the rest of us. Since everyone is a leader, actually or potentially, saving Nigeria requires that we exercise discipline in speech and action. For instance, dragging religion into the murky waters of political calculations in the manner it is being done now is indiscipline. Let politics be played by politicians and let politicians leave the volatile issue of religion out of their scheming.
By and large, the year 2014 is a significant year and the resolution that leaders should make is that they will combine the five virtues of intelligence, trustworthiness, humanness, courage and discipline as suggested by Tzu over 2000 years ago in steering Nigeria to the “shores of peace, progress and prosperity” as the country marks its centenary birthday. As we continue to watch with bated breath the antics of our politicians, the prayer of the year remains, “God save Nigeria from Nigerians!”
Tags: saving Nigerians
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The Most Dangerous Games: The Lingsir Wengi Ritual
January 8, 2020 by Lucia
Previously: The Greedy Baron Game.
Note: Please don’t copy/paste or republish the text of this post on other websites without permission.
In Indonesia, on the island of Java, there’s a song that’s also a sort of ritual. It’s called Lingsir Wengi, and when it’s sung, it’s said that strange things happen. Should one sing it, you see — especially at night — one might summon any number of hantus, as ghosts and spirits are known in Malay culture. More specifically, one might summon a kuntilanak or pontianak — a moniker which has referred to a few different entities over time, but which is most commonly understood these days to be the angry spirit of a woman who died while pregnant. She’s often described as a sort of vampire with a penchant for devouring her victims’ internal organs. Knowing this, it’s not totally clear exactly why one would actually want to summon her — but according to some accounts, those who do so can ask her to do their bidding.
Maybe that helps explain it.
But maybe it doesn’t. Indeed, more often than not, the song is brought up not as something one should sing, but as something one should avoid singing.
As long as you like keeping your innards where they are, at least.
And now I’m going to break the fourth wall a bit; it’s necessary to do so in order to talk about Lingsir Wengi’s origins. You see, according to some sources, the song only very recently gained a reputation for its supposed spirit-summoning abilities — and that reputation came from a fictional source: The 2006 Indonesian horror film Kuntilanak, also known in English as The Chanting. Prior to its appearance in this film and its subsequent franchise, Lingsir Wengi wasn’t a means of summoning anything supernatural; it was a means of protecting oneself from the supernatural. Believed to have been written by Sunan Kalijaga, one of the nine Wali Sanga (saints, essentially) of Indonesian Islam who lived between 1460 and 1513, Lingsir Wengi was traditionally sung after the evening prayer to repel demons, devils, and other evil-doers.
When Kuntilanak, which was directed by Rizal Mantovani, came along, though, it repurposed Lingsir Wengi in such a way as to totally change its meaning. Following the film’s release in 2006, the song became known for the role it played in the movie: That of a spirit-summoning song, specifically one that summons the kintilanak. Indeed, it’s my understanding that the lyrics were actually straight-up rewritten for the film to make the song sound more menacing.
(Note, by the way, that there’s also a 2018 title called Kuntilanak available to watch on Netflix — but although it, too, was directed by Rizal Mantovani, it’s not the same film as the 2006 one. It does appear to be part of the same franchise, though; it’s described here as a remake, but “reboot” might be more accurate.)
Regardles, it is interesting to me that Lingsir Wengi began as one thing, but is now more widely known for something else. The evolution of folklore will always fascinate me, whether it happens more gradually or as the result of something as overtly fictional as a horror film. The folklore feeds into the film, which then feeds into the folklore, and so on and so forth.
Like Tomino’s Hell, Lingsir Wengi is deceptively simple to play: All you need to do is sing the song. Again, though, I’m not really sure why you’d want to. There’s no guarantee you’d be able to bend the kuntilanak to your will, after all — and the price for failure is steep.
As always, play at your own risk.
At least one principal.
The song “Lingsir Wengi.”
You may begin at any time, although for best results, it is recommended to wait until nightfall.
Sing the song, in Javanese if possible. The Javanese lyrics may be found below, followed by one possible English translation.
She’ll come.
She might not come immediately.
But she’ll come.
Just make sure that when she arrives, you’re prepared to deal with her.
Otherwise, things might go… badly for you.
Concerning The Song:
In Javanese, the lyrics read as follows:
Lingsir wengi sliramu tumeking sirno
Ojo Tangi nggonmu guling
awas jo ngetoro
aku lagi bang wingo wingo
jin setan kang tak utusi
dadyo sebarang
Wojo lelayu sebet
One possible English translation reads as follows:
As twilight fades
So shall you wither
Dwell within your chamber
Conceal yourself
For my anger is immeasurable
The Djinns and Devils I sent forth
My harbingers of death
Shall reap your soul
The required tune may be heard here.
The following lyrics are the original lyrics for Lingsir Wengi. Note that these lyrics are NOT the correct lyrics for this ritual and should not be used for this purpose. They may, however, be used for their original purpose.
Lingsir wenhi
Sepi during biso nendro
Kagodho mring wewayang
Kang ngrindhu ati
Kawitane mung sembrono
Njur kulino ra ngiro yen
Bakal nuwuhke tresno
Nanging duh tibane aku
Dewe kang nemahi
Nandang bronto kadung loro
Sambat-sambat sopo
Rino wengi
Sing tak puji oko lali
Janjine mugu biso tak ugemi
A Variation, And A Warning:
According to some accounts, an antique item of some kind — a mirror, for example — is necessary for the ritual’s success. Once you have acquired this item, you must stand before it while singing the song in order for a successful summoning to occur.
These accounts also state that one may banish the summoned spirit by destroying the antique item used in the summoning.
However, most accounts do NOT specify any kind of banishment method.
As such, you may not want to rely on it working.
It’s better to assume the worst and be prepared for anything than to expect the best and be caught…
…Unawares.
Please don’t copy or republish this post on other sites. Linking to it or sharing the URL is fine (and encouraged!), as is writing your own unique version of the game, but copying/pasting, republishing, or otherwise reproducing the text of this piece in its entirety or near-entirety on other websites without permission isn’t.
[Photo via Skitterphoto/Pixabay]
Filed Under: Games Tagged With: cursed song, games you shouldn't play, haunted song, Indonesia, Java, Kuntilanak, Lingsir Wengi, Pontianak, song, The Most Dangerous Games, Tomino's Hell
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Cell scientist to watch – Jeremy Carlton
Jeremy Carlton
Jeremy Carlton received his Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Queens' College, Cambridge, and moved to the University of Bristol for a PhD in Biochemistry with Pete Cullen, working on endosomal trafficking in mammalian cells. He then joined the laboratory of Juan Martin-Serrano at King's College, London, for postdoctoral work studying the role of ESCRT proteins in HIV-1 release. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship and moved to the Division of Cancer Studies at King's in 2012 to establish his independent research group. In 2017, he became a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and EMBO Young Investigator and moved his laboratory on secondment from King's to the Francis Crick Institute, London. His research is focused on organelle dynamics during mammalian cell division.
Journal Journal of Cell Science
Pages jcs24298
Publication date 15 January 2020
Publisher website (DOI) 10.1242/jcs.242982
Cell Cycle & Chromosomes
Organelle Dynamics Laboratory
Job title: GROUP LEADER - SECONDMENT
Lab: Organelle Dynamics LaboratoryTeam member
Crick scientists secure EU funding for DNA replication ‘flipbook’
Type: News 6 December 2018
10 things we’ve found out since the Crick was established
Type: News 9 November 2018
Crick researchers unravel protective properties of telomere t-loops
Type: News 13 November 2019
New molecular link discovered in motor neurone disease
Type: News 1 August 2019
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IMR Press / EJGO / Volume 38 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.12892/ejgo3748.2017
M.R. Asoglu
Estimating risk for unexpected uterine leiomyosarcoma on the basis of uterine weight and age
M.R. Asoglu1, *, A.M. Rodriguez1, M.A. Borahay1, K. Yong-Fang2, G.S. Kilic1
1 The Division of Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, TX, USA
2 Department of Biostatistics, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, TX, USA
Eur. J. Gynaecol. Oncol. 2017, 38(4), 573–577; https://doi.org/10.12892/ejgo3748.2017
Purpose of investigation: The aim of the study was to estimate an incidence rate based on uterine weight and age for unexpected uterine leiomyosarcoma (ULMS) in patients with presumed uterine leiomyoma (UL) who had undergone total laparoscopic hysterectomy (TLH) or laparoscopic-assisted vaginal hysterectomy (LAVH) or laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy (LSH) or laparoscopic myomectomy (LM). Materials and Methods: Patients aged 18-64 years who had diagnoses of presumed benign ULs and had undergone TLH or LAVH or LSH or LM between 2002 and 2013 (n = 21,600) from the ClinformaticsTM Data Mart Database were included in this study. Uterus size was identified by specific Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes from patients’ medical claims and age were stratified into four groups: 18–34, 35-44, 45-54, and 50–64 years. Results: The overall incidence of unexpected ULMS was 1.39 cases per 1,000 (one in 720). The incidence was 1.14 per 1000 (one in 874) in the patients with uteri ≤ 250 grams, whereas it was 2.20 per 1000 (one in 454) in the patients with uteri > 250 grams. After age stratification, the rate was 1.31 cases per 1000 (one in 765) in 35-44 age group, 1.26 cases per 1000 (one in 792) in 45-54 age group, and 3.78 cases per 1000 (one in 265) in 55-64 age group. No unexpected ULMS was found in the patients aged 18-34 years. The patients aged 55-64 years were at a higher risk with an adjusted odds ratio of 3.41 [95% CI 1.22–9.52, p = 0.03] when comparing to patients aged 18-44 years. Uterine weight was marginal significantly (p = 0.08) associated with the incidence rate of unexpected ULMS after adjustments. Conclusion: In this dataset evaluation, the risk of unexpected ULMS was lower among the patients with uteri ≤ 250 grams when compared to those with uteri > 250 grams. In addition, age substantially influenced the incidence of unexpected ULMS. According to the findings obtained from the database, uterine weight and age would be useful triage parameters in estimating more accurate risk of encountering with unexpected ULMS. It also has potential to improve informed consent process.
Uterine leiomyoma
Uterine leiomyosarcoma
M.R. Asoglu, A.M. Rodriguez, M.A. Borahay, K. Yong-Fang, G.S. Kilic. Estimating risk for unexpected uterine leiomyosarcoma on the basis of uterine weight and age. Eur. J. Gynaecol. Oncol. 2017, 38(4), 573–577. https://doi.org/10.12892/ejgo3748.2017
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Home Taiwan, China Industries Machinery Manufacturing
Showing company reports for Taiwan, China, Machinery Manufacturing
Displaying 51-100 of 264 companies
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Good Friend International Holdings Inc. (友佳国际控股有限公司)
Operating revenue: $129,959,777
Available in: English & Chinese
Format: PDF Download
USD $29.95 Add to basket
Kinko Optical Co., Ltd. (今国光学工业股份有限公司)
Anderson Industrial Corp. (恩德科技股份有限公司)
Ability Enterprise Co., Ltd. (佳能企业股份有限公司)
ACE PILLAR Co., Ltd. (罗昇企业股份有限公司)
Chen Full International Co., Ltd. (千附实业股份有限公司)
Wholetech System Hitech Limited (汉科系统科技股份有限公司)
Highlight Tech Corp. (日扬科技股份有限公司)
Apex Dynamics, Inc. (台湾精锐科技股份有限公司)
Grand Hall Enterprise Co., Ltd. (关中股份有限公司)
Chiu Ting Machinery Co., Ltd. (巨庭机械股份有限公司)
Kaulin Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (高林股份有限公司)
Taiwan Takisawa Technology Co., Ltd. (台湾泷泽科技股份有限公司)
Ampoc Far-East Co., Ltd. (扬博科技股份有限公司)
Fine Blanking & Tool Co., Ltd. (至兴精机股份有限公司)
Operating revenue: $99,049,334
Machvision, Inc. (牧德科技股份有限公司)
Top Bright Holding Co., Ltd. (鼎炫投资控股股份有限公司)
Universal Vision Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (大学光学科技股份有限公司)
All Ring Tech Co., Ltd. (万润科技股份有限公司)
E&R Engineering Corporation (钛昇科技股份有限公司)
Kuen Ling Machinery Refrigerating Co.,Lt (方土霖冷冻机械股份有限公司)
Adda Corp. (协禧电机股份有限公司)
Chime Ball Technology Co., Ltd. (川宝科技股份有限公司)
Cryomax Cooling System Corp. (吉茂精密股份有限公司)
Anli International Co., Ltd. (安力国际股份有限公司)
PARPRO Corporation (事欣科技股份有限公司)
San Neng Group Holdings Co., Ltd. (三能集团控股股份有限公司)
Nan Juen International Co., Ltd. (南俊国际股份有限公司)
Taiwan Chelic Co., Ltd. (台湾气立股份有限公司)
Taiwan Kong King Co., Ltd. (台湾港建股份有限公司)
Shuz Tung Machinery Industrial Co., Ltd. (旭东机械工业股份有限公司)
Quaser Machine Tools, Inc. (百德机械股份有限公司)
Visco Vision Inc. (视阳光学股份有限公司)
Aurotek Corporation (和椿科技股份有限公司)
GSD Technologies Co., Ltd. (基士德科技股份有限公司)
Kao Fong Machinery Co., Ltd. (高锋工业股份有限公司)
Hsin Yung Chien Co., Ltd. (鑫永铨股份有限公司)
Group Up Industrial Co., Ltd. (群翊工业股份有限公司)
Sun Race Sturmey-Archer Inc. (日驰企业股份有限公司)
Tsang Yow Industrial Co., Ltd. (仓佑实业股份有限公司)
Chen Nan Iron Wire Co., Ltd. (震南铁线股份有限公司)
Easy Field Corporation (易发精机股份有限公司)
King Polytechnic Engineering Co., Ltd. (擎邦国际科技工程股份有限公司)
Strong H Machinery Technology (Cayman) I (强信机械科技股份有限公司)
Fukuta Electric & Machinery Co., Ltd. (富田电机股份有限公司)
Tachia Yung Ho Machine Industry Co., Ltd (大甲永和机械工业股份有限公司)
Calin Technology Co., Ltd. (佳凌科技股份有限公司)
Falcon Machine Tools Co., Ltd. (福裕事业股份有限公司)
Glory Science Co., Ltd. (光燿科技股份有限公司)
USD $9.95 Add to basket
Key Ware Electronics Co., Ltd. (凯崴电子股份有限公司)
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Ocean Aero locating manufacturing operations and headquarters in Gulfport
Ocean Aero, manufacturer and service provider of ocean-going autonomous underwater and surface vehicles, is relocating its manufacturing operations and headquarters from San Diego to Gulfport. The project is a $4.65 million corporate investment and will create 45 jobs. Read more here.
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Aerospace Alliance Updates
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❯Blogroll ❯ La Liga Lens: UD Las Palmas and Juan Carlos Valéron back to the top flight of Spanish football
La Liga Lens: UD Las Palmas and Juan Carlos Valéron back to the top flight of Spanish football
29 Aug 2015 3 min read
2015-16 marks the return of Las Palmas to La Liga, 13 years after they had last been in Spain’s first division.
While Las Palmas’s history might look modest when it comes to trophies – though they were very, very close to winning the league all the way back in 1969 – the club from the Canary Islands has always had a sort of special mystique surrounding it and their return to the top flight of Spanish football has been met with approval from most.
It wasn’t by any means an easy promotion; in a playoff played in June with a place in La Liga at stake, Las Palmas lost 3-1 at Saragoza before mounting a comeback at home with a 2-0 win, in a match that had an undescribably emotional finish, with Las Palmas scoring the winner 5 minutes before the final whistle. In their return to La Liga, Las Palmas have some very promising young Spanish players in their roster and the 23 year old Argentine Sergio Araujo, who was the hero for Las Palmas last season and who has attracted interest from some big clubs in Europe.
With that said, Las Palmas’s return to La Liga is also a farewell tour for one of the most beloved Spanish players of the past two decades: Juan Carlos Valeron. The 40yo Spaniard is widely regarded as one of the most talented playmakers of the XXI century and he’s a pretty consensual players too, with his peers and rivals fans having nothing but praise for him. The very warm reception and applause he got at the Vicente Calderon last week isn’t completely unrelated to the fact that Valeron once played for Atlético, from 1998 to 2000, but you can fully expect him to have a similar reception in every stadium he plays during his farewell tour.
Valeron’s career has been plagued by some underappreciation – from the public, not his peers, with even the likes of Iniesta and Zidane praising him to no end – and especially by the knee injury in early 2006 that sidelined him for over 3 years and pretty much ended his career as a top level player. Also, a lot like Las Palmas, his career hasn’t been decorated with trophies, the 2002 Copa del Rey (with Deportivo) being the biggest trophy he’s ever won. Despite that, he will still be remembered as a great player who brought much joy to footbal fans over the years; perhaps fittingly, his last campaign in La Liga won’t be with the Deportivo jersey he wore for most of his career, but representing his hometown club Las Palmas.
At 40, Valeron is far past his physical prime, but he still has a lot to give; he’s a player who’s always relied on his technical skills, perfect ball control and amazing vision and those still remain brilliant. You can fully count on a season filled with magical moments from El Flaco, who, a lot like Iniesta after he scored the World Cup winning goal for Spain, will receive admiration and applause everywhere he goes.
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Hang In There, Query
And so I return from my break, with a fresh reenergized hatred for terrible and unexpected technical issues.
Jacked Up And Good To Go
I’ve been sitting on a data export project for a while now. Its a simple C# command line application that connects to one of our databases, correlates some entities together, pulls some data out and dumps it into an S3 bucket as CSV files. It has a wide variety of automated unit tests proving that the various components of the system function as expected, and a few integration and end-to-end tests that show that the entire export process works (i.e. given a set of command line arguments + an S3 bucket, does running the app result in data in the bucket).
From a purely technical point of view, the project has been “complete” for a while now, but I couldn’t turn it on until some other factors cleared up.
Well, while I was on holidays those other factors cleared up, so I thought to myself “I’ll just turn on the schedule in TeamCity and all will be well”.
Honestly, you’d think having written as much software as I have that I would know better.
That first run was something of a crapshow, and while some of the expected files ended up in the S3 bucket, a bunch of others were missing completely.
Even worse, the TeamCity task that we use for job execution thought everything completed successfully. The only indicator that it had failed was that the task description in TeamCity was not updated to show the summary of what it had done (i.e. it simply showed the generic “Success” message instead of the custom one we were supplying), which is suspicious, because I’ve seen TeamCity fail miserably like that before.
Not Enough Time In The World
Breaking it down, there were two issues afoot:
Something failed, but TeamCity thought everything was cool
Something failed
The first problem was easy to deal with; there was a bug in the way the process was reporting back to TeamCity when there was an unhandled exception in the data extraction process. With that sorted, the next run at least indicated a failure had occurred.
With the process indicating correctly that a bad thing had happened, the cause of the second problem became obvious.
Timeouts.
Which explained perfectly why the tests had not picked up any issues, as while they run the full application (from as close to the command line as possible), they don’t run a full export, instead leveraging a limiter parameter to avoid the test taking too long.
Entirely my fault really, as I should have at least done a full export at some stage.
Normally I would look at a timeout with intense suspicion, as they typically indicate a inefficient query or operation of some sort. Simply raising the time allowed when timeouts start occurring is often a route to a terrible experience for the end-user, as operations take longer and longer to do what they want them to.
In this case though, it was reasonable that the data export would actually take a chunk of time greater than the paltry 60 seconds applied to command execution in Npgsql by default. Also, the exports that were failing were for the larger data sets (one of which had some joins onto other data sets) and being full exports, could not really make effective use of any indexes for optimisation.
So I upped the timeouts via the command line parameters and off it went.
Three hours later though, and I was pretty sure something else was wrong.
Socket To Me
Running the same process with the same inputs from my development environment showed the same problem. The process just kept on chugging along, never finishing. Pausing the execution in the development environment showed that at least one thread was stuck waiting eternally for some database related thing to conclude.
The code makes use of parallelisation (each export is its own isolated operation), so my first instinct was that there was some sort of deadlock involving one or more exports.
With the hang appearing to be related to database connectivity, I thought that maybe it was happening in the usage of Npgsql connections, but each export creates its own connection, so that seemed unlikely. There was always the possibility that the problem was related to connection pooling though, which is built into the library and is pretty much static state, but I had disabled that via the connection string, so it shouldn’t have been a factor.
I ripped out all of the parallelisation and ran the process again and it still hung. On closer investigation, it was only one specific export that was hanging, which was weird, because they all use exactly the same code.
Turning towards the PostgreSQL end of the system, I ran the process again, except this time started paying attention to the active connections to the database, the queries they were running, state transitions (i.e. active –> idle) and execution timestamps. This is pretty easy to do using the query:
SELECT * FROM pg_stat_activity
I could clearly see the export that was failing execute its query on a connection, stay active for 15 minutes and then transition back to idle, indicating that the database was essentially done with that operation. On the process side though, it kept chugging along, waiting eternally for some data to come through the Socket that it was listening on that would apparently never come.
The 15 minute query time was oddly consistent too.
It turns out the query was actually being terminated server side because of replica latency (the export process queries a replica DB), which was set to max out at, wait for it, 15 minutes.
For some reason the stream returned by the NpgsqlConnection.BeginTextExport(sql) just never ends when the underlying query is terminated on the server side.
My plan is to put together some information and log an issue in the Npgsql Github Repository, because I can’t imagine that the behaviour is intended.
Solve For X
With the problem identified, the only question remaining was what to do about it.
I don’t even like that our maximum replica latency is set to 15 minutes, so raising it was pretty much out of the question (and this process is intended to be automated and ongoing, so I would have to raise it permanently).
The only real remaining option is to break down the bigger query into a bunch of smaller queries and then aggregate myself.
So that’s exactly what I did.
Luckily for me, the data set had a field that made segmentation easy, though running a bunch of queries and streaming the results into a single CSV file meant that they had to be run sequentially, so no parallelization bonus for me.
This was one of those issues where I really should have had the foresight to see the first problem (timeouts when dealing with large data sets), but the existence of what looks to be a real bug made everything far more difficult than it could have been.
Still, it just goes to show that no matter how confident you are in a process, there is always the risk that when you execute it in reality that it all might go belly up.
Which just reinforces the idea that you should always be running it in reality as soon as you possibly can, and paying attention to what the results are.
View Models Sounds Like a Fun Activity At First
I’ve been using MVVM as a pattern for UI work for a while now, mostly because of WPF. Its a solid pattern and while I’ve not really delved into the publicly available frameworks (Prism, Caliburn.Micro, etc) I have put together a few reusable bits and pieces to make the journey easier.
One of those bits and pieces is the ability to perform work in the background, so that the UI remains responsive and usable while other important things are happening. This usually manifests as some sort of refresh or busy indicator on the screen after the user elects to do something complicated, but the important part is that the screen itself does not become unresponsive.
People get antsy when software “stops responding” and tend to murder it with extreme prejudice.
Now, the reusable components are by no means perfect, but they do get the job done.
Except when they don’t.
Right On Schedule
The framework itself is pretty bare bones stuff, with a few simple ICommand implementations and some view model base classes giving easy access to commonly desired functions.
The most complex part is the build in support to easily do background work in a view model while leaving the user experience responsive and communicative. The core idea is to segregate the stuff happening in the background from the stuff happening in the foreground (which is where all the WPF rendering and user interaction lives) using Tasks and TaskSchedulers from the TPL (Task Parallel Library), while also helping to manage some state to communicate what was happening to the user (like busy indicators).
Each view model is be responsible for executing some long running operation (probably started from a command), and then deciding what should happen when that operation succeeds, fails or is cancelled.
In order to support this segregation, the software takes a dependency on three separate task schedulers; one for the background (which is just a normal ThreadPoolTaskScheduler), one for the foreground (which is a DispatcherTaskScheduler or something similar) and one for tasks that needed to be scheduled on a regular basis (another ThreadPoolTaskScheduler).
This dependency injection allows for those schedulers to be overridden for testing purposes, so that they executed completely synchronously or could be pumped at will as necessary in tests.
It all worked pretty great until we started really pushing it hard.
Our newest component to use the framework did a huge amount of work in the background. Not only that, because of the way the interface was structured, it pretty much did all of the work at the same time (i.e. as soon as the screen was loaded), in order to give the user a better experience and minimise the total amount of time spent waiting.
From a technical standpoint, the component needed to hit both a local database (not a real problem) and a remote API (much much slower), both of which are prime candidates for background work due to their naturally slow nature. Not a lot of CPU intensive work though, mostly just DB and API calls.
With 6-10 different view models all doing work in the background, it quickly became apparent that we were getting some amount of contention for resources, as not all Tasks were being completed in a reasonable amount of time. Surprisingly hard to measure, but it looked like The Tasks manually scheduled via the TaskSchedulers were quite expensive to run, and the ThreadPoolTaskSchedulers could only run so much at the same time due to the limits on parallelization and the number of threads that they could have running at once.
So that sucked.
As a bonus annoyance, the framework did not lend itself to usage of async/await at all. It expected everything to be synchronous, where the “background” nature of the work was decided by virtue of where it was executed. Even the addition of one async function threw the whole thing into disarray, as it became harder to reason about where the work was actually being executed.
In the grand scheme of things, async/await is still relatively new (but not that new, it was made available in 2013 after all), but its generally considered a better and less resource intensive way to ensure that blocking calls (like HTTP requests, database IO, file IO and so on) are not causing both the system and the user to wait unnecessarily. As a result, more and more libraries are being built with async functions, sometimes not even exposing a synchronous version at all. Its somewhat difficult to make an async function synchronous to, especially if you want to avoid potential deadlocks.
With those limitations noted, we had to do something.
What we ended up doing was allowing for async functions to be used as part of the background work wrappers inside the base view models. This retained the managed “busy” indicator functionality and the general programming model that had been put into place (i.e. do work, do this on success, this on failure, etc).
Unfortunately what it also did was increase the overall complexity of the framework.
It was now much harder to reason about which context things were executing on, and while the usage of async functions was accounted for in the background work part of the framework, it was not accounted for in either the success or error paths.
This meant that is was all too easy to use an async function in the wrong context, causing a mixture of race conditions (where the overarching call wasn’t aware that part of itself was asynchronous) or bad error handling (where a developer had marked a function as async void to get around the compiler errors/warnings).
Don’t get me wrong, it all worked perfectly fine, assuming you knew to avoid all of the things that would make it break.
The tests got a lot more flaky though, because while its relatively easy to override TaskSchedulers with synchronous versions, its damn near impossible to force async functions to execute synchronously.
Here’s where it all gets pretty hypothetical, because the solution we actually have right now is the one that I just wrote about (the dual natured, overly complex abomination) and its causing problems on and off in a variety of ways.
A far better model is to incorporate async/await into the fabric of the framework, allowing for its direct usage and doing away entirely with the segmentation logic that I originally put together (with the TaskSchedulers and whatnot).
Stephen Cleary has some really good articles in MSDN magazine about this sort of stuff (being async ViewModels and supporting constructs), so I recommend reading them all if you’re interested.
At a high level, if we expose the fact that the background work is occurring asynchronously (view async commands and whatnot), then not only do we make it far easier to do work in the background (literally just use the standard async/await constructs), but it becomes far easier to handler errors in a reliable way, and the tests become easier too, because they can simply be async themselves (which all major unit testing frameworks support).
It does represent a significant refactor though, which is always a bit painful.
I’m honestly still not sure what the better approach is for this sort of thing
Async/await is so easy to use at first glance, but has a bunch of complexity and tripwires for the unwary. Its also something of an infection, where once you use it even a little bit, you kind of have to push it through everything in order for it to work properly end-to-end. This can be problematic for an existing system, where you want to introduce it a bit at a time.
On the other side, the raw TPL stuff that I put together is much more complex to use, but is relatively shallow. It much easier to reason about where work is actually happening and relatively trivial tocompletely change the nature of the application for testing purposes. Ironically enough, the ability to easily change from asynchronous background workers to a purely synchronous execution is actually detrimental in a way, because it means your tests aren’t really doing the same thing as your application will, which can mask issues.
My gut feel is to go with the newer thing, even though it feels a bit painful.
I think the pain is a natural response to something new though, so its likely to be a temporary thing.
Change is hard, you just have to push through it.
You Gotta Have Standards
October 9. 2018 0 Comments
After that brief leadership interlude, its time to get back into the technical stuff with a weird and incredibly frustrating issue that I encountered recently when building a small command-line application using .NET 4.7.
More specifically, it failed to compile on our build server citing problems with a dependency that it shouldn’t have even required.
So without further ado, on with the show.
One Build Process To Rule Them All
One of the rules I like to follow for a good build process is that it should be executable outside of the build environment.
There are a number of reasons for this rule, but the two that are most relevant are:
If something goes wrong during the build process you can try and run it yourself and see what’s happening, without having to involve the build server
As a result of having to execute the process outside of the build environment, its likely that the build logic will be encapsulated in source control, alongside the code
With the way that a lot of software compilation works though, it can be hard to create build processes that automatically bootstrap the necessary components on a clean machine.
For example, there is no real way to compile a .NET Framework 4.7 codebase without using software that has to be installed. As far as I know you have to use either MSBuild, Visual Studio or some other component to do the dirty work. .NET Core is a lot better in this respect, because its all command line driven and doesn’t feature any components that must be installed on the machine before it will work. All you have to do is bootstrap the self contained SDK.
Thus while the dream is for the build process to be painless to execute on a clean git clone (with the intent that that is exactly what the build server does), sometimes dreams don’t come true, no matter how hard you try.
For us, our build server comes with a small number of components pre-installed, including MSBuild, and then our build scripts rely on those components existing in order to work correctly. There is a little bit of fudging involved though so you don’t have to have exactly the same components installed locally, and it will dynamically find MSBuild for you.
This was exactly how the command-line application build process was working before I touched it.
Then I touched it and it all went to hell.
Missing Without A Trace
Whenever you go back to a component that hasn’t been actively developed for a while, you always have to decide whether or not you should go to the effort of updating its dependencies that are now probably out of date.
Of course, some upgrades are a lot easier to action than others (i.e. a NuGet package update is generally a lot less painful than updating to a later version of the .NET Framework), but the general idea is to put some effort into making sure you’ve got a strong base to work from.
So that’s exactly what I did when I resurrected the command-line application used for metrics generation. I updated the build process, renamed the repository/namespaces (to be more appropriate), did a pass over the readme and updated the NuGet packages. No .NET version changes though, because that stuff can get hairy and it was already at 4.7, so it wasn’t too bad.
Everything compiled perfectly fine in Visual Studio and the self-contained build process continued to work on my local machine, so I pushed ahead and implemented the necessary changes.
Then I pushed my code and the automated build process on our build server failed consistently with a bunch of compilation errors like the following:
Framework\IntegrationTestKernel.cs(64,13): error CS0012: The type 'ValueType' is defined in an assembly that is not referenced. You must add a reference to assembly 'netstandard, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=cc7b13ffcd2ddd51'.
The most confusing part?
I had taken no dependency on netstandard as far as I knew.
More importantly, my understanding of netstandard was that it is basically a set of common interfaces to allow for a interoperability between the .NET Framework and .NET Core. I had no idea why my code would fail to compile citing a dependency I didn’t even ask for.
Also, it worked perfectly on my machine, so clearly something was awry.
The Standard Response
The obvious first response is to add a reference to netstandard.
This is apparently possible via NETStandard.Library NuGet package, so I added that, verified that it compiled locally and pushed again.
Same compilation errors.
My next hypothesis was that maybe something had gone weird with .NET Framework 4.7. There are a number of articles on the internet about similar looking topics and some of them read like later versions of .NET 4.7 (which are in-place upgrades for god only knows what reason) have changes relating to netstandard and .NET Framework integrations and compatibility. It was a shaky hypothesis though, because this application had always specifically targeted .NET 4.7.
Anyway, I flipped the projects to all target an earlier version of the .NET Framework (4.6.2) and then reinstalled all the NuGet packages (thank god for the Update-Package –reinstall command).
Still no luck.
The last thing I tried was removing all references to the C# 7 Value Tuple feature (super helpful when creating methods with complex return types), but that didn’t help either.
I Compromised; In That I Did Exactly What It Wanted
In the end I accepted defeat and made the Visual Studio Build Tools 2017 available on our build server by installing them on our current build agent AMI, taking a new snapshot and then updating TeamCity to use that snapshot instead. In order to get everything to compile cleanly, I had to specifically install the .NET Core Build Tools, which made me sad, because .NET Core was actually pretty clean from a build standpoint. Now if someone puts together a .NET Core repository incorrectly, it will probably still continue to compile just fine on the build server, leaving a tripwire for the next time someone cleanly checks out the repo.
Ah well, can’t win them all.
I suspect that the root cause of the issue was updating to some of the NuGet packages, specifically the packages that are only installed in the test projects (like the Ninject.MockingKernel and its NSubstitute implementation) as the test projects were the only ones that were failing to compile.
I’m not entirely sure whya package update would cause compilation errors though, which is pretty frustrating. I’ve never experienced anything similar before, so perhaps those libraries were compiled to target a specific framework (netstandard 2.0) and those dependencies flowed through into the main projects they were installed into?
Anyway, our build agents are slightly less clean now as a result, which makes me sad, but I can live with it for now.
I really do hate system installed components though.
September 25. 2018 0 Comments
We have a lot of logs.
Its mostly my fault to be honest. It was only a few years ago that I learned about log aggregation, and once you have an ELK stack, everything looks like an structured log event formatted as JSON.
We aggregate a wealth of information into our log stack these days, including, but not limited to:
Business intelligence events from our legacy software (i.e. customer did X)
Application logs from a variety of places
IIS logs from our APIs
ELB logs from AWS
System statistics for infrastructure (i.e. CPU, Memory, etc)
Now, if I had my way, we would keep everything forever. My dream would be to be able to ask the question “What did our aggregate API traffic look like over the last 12 months?”
Unfortunately, I can’t keep the raw data forever.
But I might be able to keep a part of it.
Storage space is pretty cheap these days, especially in AWS. In the Asia Pacific region, we pay $US 0.12 per GB per month for a stock standard, non-provisioned IOPS ELB volume.
Our ELK stack accumulates gigabytes of data every day though, and trying to store everything for all of eternity can add up pretty quickly. This gets even more complicated by the nature of Elasticsearch, because it likes to keep replicas of things just in case a node explodes, so you actually need more storage space than you think in order to account for redundancy.
In the end we somewhat randomly decided to keep a bit more than a months worth of data (40 days), which gives us the capability to reliably support our products, and to have a decent window for viewing business intelligence and usage. We have a scheduled task in TeamCity that leverages Curator to remove data as appropriate.
Now, a little more than a month is a pretty long time.
But I want more.
In For The Long Haul
In any data set, you are likely to find patterns that emerge over a much longer period than a month.
A good example would be something like daily active users. This is the sort of trend that is likely to show itself over months or years, especially for a relatively stable product. Unless you’ve done something extreme of course, in which case we might get a meaningful trend over a much shorter period.
Ignoring the extremes, we have all the raw data required to calculate the metric, we’re just not keeping it. If we had some way of summarising it into a smaller data set though, we can keep it for a much longer period. Maybe some sort of mechanism to do some calculations and store the resulting derivation somewhere safe?
The simplest approach is some sort of script or application that runs on a schedule and uses the existing data in the ELK stack to create and store new documents, preferably back into the ELK stack. If we want to ensure those new documents don’t get deleted by Curator, all we have to do is put them into different indexes (as Curator is only cleaning up indexes prefixed with logstash).
Seems simple enough.
Generator X
For once it actually was simple enough.
At some point in the past we actually implemented a variation of this idea, where we calculated some metrics from a database (yup, that database) and stored them in an Elasticsearch instance for later use.
Architecturally, the metric generator was a small C# command line application scheduled for daily execution through TeamCity, so nothing particularly complicated.
We ended up decommissioning those particular metrics (because it turned out they were useless) and disabling the scheduled task, but the framework already existed to do at least half of what I wanted to do; the part relating to generating documents and storing them in Elasticsearch. All I had to do was extend it to query a different data source (Elasticsearch) and generate a different set of metrics documents for indexing.
The only complicated part was figuring out how to query Elasticsearch from .NET, which as you can see from the following metrics generation class, can be quite a journey.
public class ElasticsearchDailyDistinctUsersDbQuery : IDailyDistinctUsersDbQuery
public ElasticsearchDailyDistinctUsersDbQuery
SourceElasticsearchUrlSetting sourceElasticsearch,
IElasticClientFactory factory,
IClock clock,
IMetricEngineVersionResolver version
_sourceElasticsearch = sourceElasticsearch;
_clock = clock;
_version = version;
_client = factory.Create(sourceElasticsearch.Value);
private const string _indexPattern = "logstash-*";
private readonly SourceElasticsearchUrlSetting _sourceElasticsearch;
private readonly IClock _clock;
private readonly IMetricEngineVersionResolver _version;
private readonly IElasticClient _client;
public IEnumerable<DailyDistinctUsersMetric> Run(DateTimeOffset parameters)
var start = parameters - parameters.TimeOfDay;
var end = start.AddDays(1);
var result = _client.Search<object>
s => s
.Index(_indexPattern)
.AllTypes()
.Query
q => q
.Bool
b => b
.Must(m => m.QueryString(a => a.Query("Application:GenericSoftwareName AND Event.Name:SomeLoginEvent").AnalyzeWildcard(true)))
.Must(m => m
.DateRange
d => d
.Field("@timestamp")
.GreaterThanOrEquals(DateMath.Anchored(start.ToUniversalTime().DateTime))
.LessThan(DateMath.Anchored(end.ToUniversalTime().DateTime))
.Aggregations(a => a
.Cardinality
"DistinctUsers",
c => c.Field("SomeUniqueUserIdentifier")
var agg = result.Aggs.Cardinality("DistinctUsers");
return new[]
new DailyDistinctUsersMetric(start)
count = Convert.ToInt32(agg.Value),
generated_at = _clock.UtcNow,
source = $"{_sourceElasticsearch.Value}/{_indexPattern}",
generator_version = _version.ResolveVersion().ToString()
The concept of calculating some aggregated values from our logging data and keeping them separately has been in my own personal backlog for a while now, so it was nice to have a chance to dig into it in earnest.
It was even nicer to be able to build on top of an existing component, as it would have taken me far longer if I had to put everything together from scratch. I think its a testament to the quality of our development process that even this relatively unimportant component was originally built following solid software engineering practices, and has plenty of automated tests, dependency injection and so on. It made refactoring it and turning it towards a slightly different purpose much easier.
Now all I have to do is wait months while the longer term data slowly accumulates.
Stuck In The Middle With Interceptors
aspect oriented programming
A very long time ago I wrote a post on this blog about interceptors.
The idea behind an interceptor is pretty straight forward; dynamically create a wrapper around some interface or class to either augment or alter its behaviour when used by the rest of the system, without actually having to implement the interface or override the class. For example, my original post was for an interceptor that slowed down requests heading to an API, simulating how that particular application would feel for a user with terrible internet.
I honestly haven’t touched the concept since, until recently that is.
I wanted to add some logging around usage of a third party API from our legacy application and conceptually the problem seemed like a perfect application for another interceptor. A quick implementation of a logging interceptor injected via Ninject and I’d have all the logging I could ever want, without having to mess around too much.
Reality had other ideas though.
Here’s Why I Came Here Tonight
Our legacy software is at that time in its life where it mostly just gets integrations. Its pretty feature complete as far as core functionality goes, so until the day we finally grant it Finis Rerum and it can rest, we look to add value to our users by integrating with third party services.
The most recent foray in this space integrated a payment provider into the software, which is quite useful considering its core value proposition is trust account management. From a technical point of view, the payment provider has an API and we wrote a client to access that API, with structured request and response objects. Pretty standard stuff.
As part of our development, we included various log events that allowed us to track the behaviour of parts of the system, mostly so that we could more easily support the application and get accurate metrics and feedback from users in the wild relating to performance. This is all well and good, but those events generally cover off combined parts of the application logic; for example, an operation that queries the local DB and then augments that information by calling into the third party API to display a screen to the user.
This makes it relatively easy to see when any users are experiencing performance issues, but it makes it hard to see whether or not the local DB, the actual programming logic or the internet call was the root cause.
An improvement to this would be to also log any outgoing API requests and their responses, along with the execution time. With that information we would be able to either blame or absolve the clients internet connection when it comes to performance questions.
Now, I’m an extremely lazy developer, so while we have a nice interface that I could implement to accomplish this (i.e. some sort of LoggingPaymentProviderClient), its got like twenty methods and I really don’t have the time, patience or motivation for that. Also, while its unlikely that the interface would change all that much over time, its still something of a maintenance nightmare.
Interceptors to the rescue!
But I Got The Feeling That Something Ain’t Right
As I explained in my original post all those years ago, the IInterceptor interface supplied by the Castle library allows you to implement logic via a proxy and slot it seamlessly into a call stack. Its usage is made easier by the presence of good dependency injection, but its definitely not required at all.
Thus enters the logging interceptor.
public class PaymentProviderClientMethodExecutionLoggingInterceptor : IInterceptor
public PaymentProviderClientMethodExecutionLoggingInterceptor(ILogger logger)
_logger = logger;
private readonly ILogger _logger;
public void Intercept(IInvocation invocation)
var stopwatch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
invocation.Proceed();
stopwatch.Stop();
var log = new PaymentProviderMethodCallCompleted(invocation, stopwatch.Elapsed);
_logger.Information(log);
catch (Exception ex)
var log = new PaymentProviderMethodCallFailed(invocation, stopwatch.Elapsed, ex);
_logger.Warning(log);
Its not an overly complicated class, and while its written to be specific, its actually quite generic.
Given a proxied class, all methods called on that class will be logged via Serilog, with the method name, its parameters and its return value (the structured logging being provided by the dedicated event classes).
Nothing ever works the first time though, and while I’m constantly being reminded of that, I’m always hopeful all the same. Denial is a powerful motivator.
The problem was that the IInterceptor interface is old enough that it doesn’t consider the existence of asynchronous methods. It does exactly what it says on the tin, starts a timer, proceeds with the method invocation and then because the method is asynchronous, immediately logs an event with the wrong execution time and no return value.
It has no idea that it has to wait for the invocation to complete because it thinks everything is synchronous.
Clowns To The Left Of Me, Jokers To The Right
This is where everything is going to get a little bit fuzzier than I would like, because I wrote this blog post before I had a working solution.
From what I can tell, the situation is quite complex.
The simplest solution appears to be to leverage the existing interface and simply check for the presence of a Task (or Task<T>) return value. If detected, append a continuation to that Task to perform the desired functionality. For me this would be a continuation on both faulted and success (and maybe cancelled?) that would log the completion of the method. It seems like it would work, but I do have some concerns about the scheduling of the continuation and how that makes the code harder to reason about.
Luckily, someone has already written a reusable library together that allows for asynchronous interceptors via a slightly different interface.
This is attractive because its code that I don’t have to write (remember, I’m lazy), but it not being built into the core Castle library does make me question its legitimacy. Surely if it was that critical the maintainers would have updated Castle.Core?
Regardless, I explored using the library first, but in order to use it I had to go on an adventure to upgrade a bunch of our Nuget dependencies (because it relied on the latest version of Castle.Core), which meant updates to Castle, Ninject and Ninject’s extension libraries. This caused knock on effects because the Ninject.MockingKernel.NSubstitute library was not available for .NET 4.5 (even though all the others were), so I had to temporarily copy that particular implementation into our codebase.
Once everything was compiling, a full test run showed some failing tests that weren’t failing before the library upgrades, so I kind of stopped there.
Unfortunately this is one of those blog posts that comes off feeling a little hollow. I didn’t actually get to my objective (seamless per method logging for a third-party dependency), but I did learn a lot on the way, so I think it was still useful to write about.
Probably should have waited a little longer though, I jumped the gun a bit.
Its not the only time in recent memory that asynchronous behaviour has made things more difficult than they would have been otherwise. In an unrelated matter, some of our automated tests have been flakey recently, and the core of the issue seems to be asynchronous behaviour that is either a.) not being correctly overridden to be synchronous for testing purposes or b.) not correctly being waited for before tests proceed.
Its not hard to write tests that are purely async of course (NUnit supports tests marked with the async keyword), but when you’re testing a view model and the commands are “synchronous” it gets a bit more challenging.
That’s probably a topic for another day though.
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CEO Zetsche says Chrysler minivans will retain look
By RICK KRANZ | Automotive News
Chrysler group minivans will receive extensive sheet metal and interior design changes in about two years but will not stray from the minivan look, says Chrysler group CEO Dieter Zetsche.
"We do not intend to create a buzz by pretending that a minivan is a sports car, an SUV or whatever," says Zetsche, in an apparent reference to General Motors' minivan strategy.
GM's 2005 Buick Terraza, Chevrolet Uplander, Pontiac SV6 and Saturn Relay will feature a tall grille and high hood line. The changes represent an effort to give each vehicle the appearance of an SUV. GM calls these vehicles "crossover sport vans" instead of minivans.
But Chrysler, which invented the segment two decades ago, will continue to call its minivans minivans.
"We believe a minivan is an excellent, flexible package for certain" buyers, Zetsche said. "There is nothing wrong" with styling that says this is a minivan.
This spring, the Chrysler group is making major changes to its minivans that are much more substantial than changes typically made in the middle of a vehicle's life cycle. On the long-wheelbase models, the automaker has re-engineered the platform extensively.
An estimated $400 million was spent to modify the Windsor, Ontario, assembly plant and the vehicles' platform to accommodate Chrysler's "Stow 'n Go" seat and storage system. Seats in the second and third row can be folded flat into the floor. The Chrysler group is the only automaker to offer this feature in both the second and third rows.
To create the Stow 'n Go feature, Chrysler had to modify the rear suspension and relocate cross beams, the gasoline tank and spare tire. The new seats will be standard on long-wheelbase versions of the Chrysler Town and Country and some Dodge Grand Caravan models.
Chrysler's current generation of minivans was launched in 2001. The Chrysler group's decision to re-engineer the minivan platform extensively for the 2005 model year reflects its urgency to regain momentum.
Last year, combined U.S. sales of Chrysler group minivans were 374,494 units, an 8.4 percent drop from the previous year. In 1999, the Chrysler group sold 503,830 minivans in the United States.
Zetsche said the costs for the plant and platform modifications will be recovered on the 2005 models and on the models that feature the new exterior and interior styling debuting later this decade.
"We did not change the timing (for the next generation minivans) after we decided to do Stow 'n Go," Zetsche said. "We know that the investment in the Stow 'n Go will not be lost when we go with the next generation minivan."
Staff Reporter Mary Connelly contributed to this report
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LIVING LORD LUTHERAN CHURCH
What Lutherans Believe
History of LLLC
From the Pastor's Desk
Pastor Greg
"From the Pulpit" - July 3rd, 2022
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ ” 16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” 17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” 18 He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19 See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the LORD Jesus Christ! Happy Independence Day weekend, sisters and brothers! Where are you this weekend? Stuck in an airport with a cancelled flight? At home, sweltering in the heat and humidity? Watching a local July 4th parade in your hometown? At the beach maybe. I'm guessing that most of you aren't doing this - knocking on doors in your own or another neighborhood, hoping to get an entre into the household to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Anyone doing that this weekend? If you've been approached by some who do do this as a part of their religion - making cold calls on homes to introduce the occupants to the gospel, how did you respond? My message tomorrow will be about a project I led at my field ed congregation when I was a seminarian in 2004. It involved this very gospel text, whereby we gathered one Sunday after worship in two's, and went out into the community to literally knock on doors to share the good news. Well, you can imagine the response that most of us got. We had about 50 twosomes that went out to around 10 houses each (in suburban Philadelphia), for a total of 500 households in a single afternoon. The visits proved to be transformative, not so much for the households, but for the people in the congregation who volunteered to take on this project. I'll say more about how we were impacted for better and for worse, and what the transformation was. It still impacts me to this day, nearly 20 years later. So, of course there was no internet, no phone, no way to connect with others other that in person back in the time of Jesus. So you had to see your neighbor in person to communicate with them then. Today, do you think that evangelism can be done via the internet? Do you think it's OK to try to spread the gospel electronically, without ever having to step foot in a strange household? Would you let someone in your own home today if you didn't know them, and they wanted to share the good news of Jesus Christ? Think about how we communicate today, not only with those we love and know, but with strangers. In the anonymity of a screen maybe? Jesus knew that in sending his disciples and others out (70 or so), they'd get many rejections. People who didn't want to hear the good news. People who already had a religious affiliation. People whose families knew yours and didn't like them. And more. It was just as hard then as it is now - it's just under different circumstances. And how does Jesus tell them how to respond? By "shaking the dust off" their shoes and moving on. What do you think that term meant then? Now? What would be a 21st century equivalent of "shaking the dust off our shoes" and moving on after an attempt at hospitality? Posting a nasty note on Twitter maybe? Taking a photo and posting the address of the house with a tweet? Or worse? I hope my message tomorrow will convey the reactions of the group that went out on this Sunday afternoon in the Philly suburbs in 2004, and show how the gospel is spread, even when we don't always see the harvest. Even when we feel we were rejected and unwelcomed. How do you/would you spread the gospel today? How would you tell someone about the love of God in Jesus Christ? To someone close to you? To a stranger? Thanks be to God! Hope to see some of you tomorrow. Happy and safe 4th to you all. PG
America the Beautiful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAU2TgfZAcc "God of our Fathers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMw-7Nsg78M "Eternal Father Strong to Save" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7o4Ltq_Dz8
"From the Pulpit"- January 29, 2023
"From the Pulpit" - Reflections on the Weekly Texts, from Pastor Greg at Living Lord Lutheran Church With the mountains and the foundations of the earth as the jury, God brings a lawsuit against Israe
"From the Pulpit" - January 22, 2023
"From the Pulpit" - Reflections on the Weekly Texts, from Pastor Greg at Living Lord Lutheran Church Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and m
"From the Pulpit" - January 8, 2022
"From the Pulpit" - Reflections on the Weekly Texts, from Pastor Greg at Living Lord Lutheran Church In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for th
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Notes on a Scandal, or, VMAs=FAIL.
BY Team Intern
MTV gets a lot of grief about losing it's music video mojo, but after last night's debacle of a Video Music Awards, rejecting the music world doesn't seem like a bad idea. At least in the interest of sanity.
By now the world knows about Kanye's chumpy upstaging of dixie teen-queen Taylor Swift; moments after (adorably overwhelmed) Swift scooped up her first Moonman for Best Female Video, Kanye West nabbed the mic to praise Beyonce, who Swift beat out for the award. His 'chivalry' was met by a chorus of boos, while poor Taylor stood motionless in the unfortunate surreality of the moment. MTV crew-folk did their best to mend the mood, but, as a stagehand whisked Swift offstage, and the Tracey Morgan bumper reel hiccupped its way onto the screen, the awkward turtle just kept on swimming.
Peppered between A/V club level camera work, performers and host-types alike reveled in the night's strange juxtaposition of stumbling unpreparedness and elaborately polished pseudo-insanity art. The latter refers specifically to our gal Lady Gaga, who somehow fit a . . . creative (?) recital of 'Paparazzi' in between her costume changes (there were, like, 4). Jumping out of a befeathered neckbrace on loan from Queen Amidala, Gaga took the stage in a little white leotard, which, by the conclusion of her act, soaked with fake breast blood. The blood bit worked in tandem with the rest of the routine, which told the story of one woman lurch-dancing to fame, stealing a crutch from someone in a wheelchair, and then doing something at the end of a rope that looked a lot like hanging herself. What. The. Heck.
Meanwhile, Russell Brand, acting as the evening's host, cushioned the televisual sucker punch by making light humor of nearly every significant female performer in attendance; that is, during every break, he made an ill-timed, ill-received crack about having sex with one or more of the young women in the audience, culminating in a line about rufie-ing Megan Fox. I hope MTV heard the silence following that one loud and clear. Dislike.
Redeeming points of the evening can probably be summed up on one hand. Jay-Z was great (except when Lil Mama showed up onstage . . . and uncalled for), particularly with help from the unfathomably talented Alicia Keys. Beyonce's 'Single Ladies' spectacular cemented her starpower, while her ardent request that Taylor Swift take her acceptance time reminded everyone that no, you don't have to be a selfish moron to be famous. Andy Samberg and Jimmy Fallon won serious points for their Boyz II Men breakdown, and the punk bands (Green Day and Muse) brought the house down.
And can I just say, while Janet Jackson dropped a few moves during her tribute dance to Michael, the generic, non-famous, non-special backup dancers throughout the evening were phenomenal. The show's opener, which featured 20 or so of these untitled should-be stars dancing along with MJ's biggest videos, was incredibly powerful, totally spot on, and incredibly energetic. Beyonce's gals shared the same strength, and, given the bizarre concept, Lady Gaga's dancers really held it together. I might not even have to go see Fame now (though, please, that doesn't mean I won't).
So, sorry, MTV. I know you and music are on rough footing right now. Was yesterday the day the music died? Not necessarily. But it was the first time I wanted to put it out of its misery.
~Anna C
photo courtesy of the Examiner
Tags: General
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Filed Under: Desumachi, Web Novel on Saturday, November 28, 2015 zweindrei
10-38. The Man in Black Clothes (3)
Satou's here. Fake name has the impression of something that phantom thieves or swindlers, those kind of criminals, have. It might be because there won't be any opportunity to use a false name if you live honestly. Even though Pen-name and Handle-name are kinds of false name too, the impression you get from them is greatly different isn't it.
"Kuro-sama, we have taken all 262 lost thieves to the explorer guild. The guildmaster is calling for you."
"Is that so, I'll go immediately."
While nodding to commander-san's report, I advance through the passageway of death toward the labyrinth city. Commander-san is a 27 years old woman called Sumina. She's an intense carnivore woman with red lion hair, thick eyebrows, and thick lips. I can't call her beautiful, but she's someone with a mysterious charm.
Together with her, I go to the guildmaster room in the west guild. The guildmaster instructed commander-san to get out of the room as soon as she saw my face.
"As I thought, it's you huh."
"Fuhn, to think that the pyromaniac old woman is the guildmaster. Think more carefully about the place when you use magic."
"Mind your own business."
I talk to the guildmaster as Kuro with haughty attitude.
"You broke that Sokel guy out of prison didn't you. I think I should arrest you here and now as a guildmaster myself, how about it?"
"Enough with the pointless mind game. I'm protecting that guy in a safe place. I want to interrogate him, but I'd deliver him in person if you can provide a safe place that can prevent him from killers or poisoning by his relatives."
The guildmaster is threatening my undaunted and proud attitude. Frankly speaking, the only reason why I'm sheltering Sir Sokel is because I don't want an acquaintance to die needlessly. I'll gladly let the guildmaster takes him if she wants to bear the responsibility.
"Who's behind you?"
"My master is the sword of heaven."
"Hou, didn't think you would answer. To think that the royal family is behind you."
No, I wanted to say that I was Nanashi's subordinate, but it seemed she misunderstood.
"So, have you suppressed all the fiend drug cultivation fields?"
"Yeah, I didn't burn them since I'd like to lure those guys out, but I had released all the people who worked there."
"You really are the person who saved all those people huh. Doesn't seem like there's anyone with Alchemy or Compounding skill though?"
"There is no one with Alchemy skill. I've put the people with Compounding skill in a proper place."
The guildmaster looks satisfied with my answer. I can imagine that she's misunderstanding it, but I don't intend to correct it.
"And, are you going to stay in the labyrinth city for a while?"
"No I originally came here by the request of an acquaintance to take care of someone from his clan who had become a lost thief. I'm going to be in the royal capital for the time being, although I intend to come here again in near future."
"That so. I'd like to give you a medal in my capacity as the labyrinth resource minister."
"Unnecessary."
I tell so, and get out of the guildmaster's room. I tell the commander-san who looks worried outside that it's fine, and head to the guild treasury to receive the prize money. It's nearly 400 gold coins. It's about as much as two Rudaman's worth.
I give commander-san and the other explorers one gold coin each. Then I handed over the rest to Porina whom I had tasked to buy the vacant site and asked her to pay the settlement.
"Tifaliza, add me new names."
"Yes, what kind of name would you like to have?"
I ask the girl with the unreadable tranquil gaze to add some famous names from the earth onto me.
"Master, even if I add you several names, all of them besides the last one are going to be useless, is it fine with you?"
"Ah, I don't mind."
I nod, and then she chants the naming spell in calm quite voice.
"■■ Name Order. 『Trismegistus』."
I've forgotten about the details, but Trismegistus should be the name of a famous alchemist.
Tifaliza who has finished the naming tilts her head while looking puzzled.
"Master, I'm sorry. The naming just now might have failed."
She tells it without looking troubled, to check her words, I open the menu. The Companion column stays at Kuro name indeed. To make sure, I select the name on Companion and Status columns to check, and the [Trismegistus] name has been properly added.
"It is the case that a name that has been given by someone powerful cannot be overwritten."
Although Tifaliza doesn't know about it, she explains the condition that makes naming fails. The name Kuro is given by the Black Dragon Heiron, so it can't be helped.
"I don't mind even if it's fail, add me another name."
"Yes, if that is what master says..."
Her word stinks a little like she's somewhat dissatisfied, but she immediately fixes her manner and mechanically continues the naming. While supplying her with [Magic Power Transfer] along the way, about 10 names had been added to me.
Now then, as for Tifaliza's and Nell's future--
"You two, do you have anything you want to do?"
"If it's allowed, I wish to know the well-beings of my parents in my hometown."
Come to think of it, their hometown was destroyed by the demon wasn't it.
"Very well, I cannot teleport to Lesseu Earldom, but I will check it."
I listen to Tifaliza's parents' names, levels and features. Looks like her parents have been turned into slaves together with her. As for Nell, she doesn't seem to have any attachment to her hometown since her relatives have been bereaved.
"You don't have anything you want to do Nell?"
"Right ssu. Please stop with the half-killing and quickly hold me ssu."
<TLN: She speaks like that. Try listening to Disgaea's Prinnies in the original language if you want to hear how it sounds.>
She's a carnivorous woman like Arisa huh.
"What, are you frustrated?"
"I, it's not like that ssuyo? I'm a genuine maiden ssu."
"I'll free you in two, three years, so take care of it until then."
Looks like she was anxious since she didn't know when her master would want her body.
I won't be forceful anyway. I'd just go to the brothel if I want to hold a woman, although I won't expressively say it.
"Are you going to free us? If I'm not mistaken, the two of us should worth around 30 gold coins. I have never heard anyone who releases slaves worth that much."
"I've heard story about someone releasing slaves that's over 50, 60 years old though ssu. But if I have to say, that's more like throwing them away ssu."
Is it that unusual? I think I've heard the slave trader man in Seryuu city saying the same thing.
Nell and Tifaliza don't seem like they have something particular they want to do. They said that they wanted works if they had to.
"Well, when you've found something you want to do, just say it. Until then, study magic from this book. Tifaliza, if you don't know anything, ask Nell to teach you."
"Yes, master."
"Understood ssu. Tifa-san, I'll make you to become a full-fledged spell-user ssuyo!"
Umu, good answer.
I give Nell elementary books of nature magic, water magic, earth magic, and Tifaliza an elementary book of life magic. It'd be most satisfactory if Tifaliza can learn the magic, but it's not like I'm expecting too much. Sooner or later, I'm going to take the two for power-leveling, so this is a preparation.
Now then, I leave Nell who has began her lecture at once, and teleport to the outskirt of Furusau town.
From there, I fly with Flash Drive toward Lesseu Earldom.
I caught a sight of the kingdom army being kicked around by a monster that looked like a dragon.
It's a huge monster called Gaudy Mole. It has dragon-like wings, a split tail, and it wears a richly colored collar roll on its head. Since its level is 47, it seems to be quite formidable.
Is that the dragon that's blocking the highway?
I'm sorry for snatching their job, but I change into Nanashi-style with violet hair and eliminate it with Claiomh Solais from the sky. The highway blockade should be opened now.
I install several carved seal boards for teleporting along the way. I've also installed a carved seal board on the outskirt of the town in Zettsu Earldom that neighbors Lesseu Earldom. I saw an unexpected person in the town of Zettsu Earldom, but since I couldn't meet the person as Satou, I'll be waiting for the next chance. We will probably meet in the labyrinth city or the royal capital.
I arrived at Lesseu Earldom that day, but unfortunately, there weren't anyone who seemed to be Tifaliza's parents. There was no mistake about it since I had searched on the map. I also searched on the three adjacent earldoms and the two neighboring kingdoms, but the people in questions didn't exist there.
I felt slightly depressed, but since the search was over, I teleported to the labyrinth city.
I told the truth to Tifaliza, and then she went to her room after muttering "Thank you very much." I'll let her cry as much as she wants today.
I leave it to Nell to cheer Tifaliza up and went back to the mansion.
"Wlcome~"
Tama finds and meets me who comes out of the basement door. Pochi also rushed here slightly later.
"Today is the festival of Lasagna and Cheese Gratin nanodesu!"
Hou, that sounds nice.
I let Pochi to dangle on my arm while supporting Tama who's climbing my body with my hand.
"Welcome back."
"Ara, welcome back. I saw it~ Master did flashy things that weren't like usual master."
"I'm back. No one will associate it with me if I do something that flashy right?"
I sit down beside Mia and Arisa who are relaxing in the living room. Before Mia could dive on to my lap, Tama quickly climbed down my neck from where she was on my shoulder, and landed on my lap. Pochi changes place with Tama, she's climbed on to my shoulder.
"Mwu."
"Reserved~?"
I've never accepted to that reservation though.
"So almost everything has been settled today?"
"Mostly yeah. I guess it's just eliminating the mastermind behind Sir Sokel and securing the way to make the slaves who've remained in the mansion of ivy to sustain themselves left?"
I wish the kingdom would do something about the former, but if they can't settle it before the Kingdom Conference, I'll intervene without reserve.
I listen to Liza's report about the children's training observation while eating the piping hot Lasagna Lulu's made in the dining room.
"Since there were many rash children, Iruna and Jenna had a hard time. They're going to live in the tent of training ground with the children from today on."
"I see, I should bring them some Brownie Wine for evening-drink."
Looks like the apprentice maids in the mansion are also being strictly trained by Ms. Miteruna. They reported happily about how they were taught letters with the learning card and magic control with magic powered spinning top by Lulu and the others during the break.
Now then, it's been awhile, let's go to the labyrinth with everyone to level up from tomorrow on.
Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku 10-35-2
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Hollywood’s favorite environmental crusader, Leonardo DiCaprio, backs Beyond Meat
Jonathan Shieber @jshieber / 5 years
One of the leading environmentalists among Hollywood’s leading men, Leonardo DiCaprio, has added his name to the list of backers for the beef-less, veggie burger maker, Beyond Meat.
“I am thrilled to officially welcome Leonardo DiCaprio to the Beyond Meat family,” said Ethan Brown, the chief executive of Beyond Meat, in a statement. “His investment and role as an advocate reflects a shared vision that meat made directly from plants, like our Beyond Burger, has enormous benefits for human health, the climate, natural resources, and animal welfare.”
Turns out that ole Leo was helping out the company in its earliest days… providing feedback on the burgers as Beyond Meat prepared its vegetable proteins for their big debut.
“I look forward to continuing to collaborate as we bring delicious, satiating products to a rapidly increasing consumer base,” said Brown.
For his part, ole Leo waxed poetic and profound about his decision to join the meatless meat-substitute’s investor team.
“Livestock production is a major contributor to carbon emissions,” DiCaprio said in a statement. “Shifting from animal meat to the plant-based meats developed by Beyond Meat is one of the most powerful measures someone can take to reduce their impact on our climate.”
Beyond Burger is now sold in more than 2,000 stores, including stores owned by Kroger and Albertsons Companies.
“The company’s ability to create appealing, healthy meat directly from plants will go a long way in helping everyday consumers take action on climate change,” DiCaprio said.
Beyond Burger is also sold at fast food chains across the country, including BurgerFi, Epic Burger and Veggie Grill.
While Beyond Meat’s new investor has star wattage, the company’s competitors have bigger-pocketed investors. They include Impossible Foods, the Bill Gates-backed company that’s raised $75 million, and protein-based entrants like Memphis Meats and — seemingly — Hampton Creek.
In a market where other companies look to have raised mega-dollars, it’s going to take more than DiCaprio’s star wattage to make a dent in the market.
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Home » Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte New Promo Video Has Been Revealed
Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte New Promo Video Has Been Revealed
December 9, 2022 Anime
Source: DMM pictures/Screenshot by Is-it-fake
Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte reveals its third promotional video. The trailer also introduces the show’s theme song artists and more cast members.
Source: DMM pictures
DAZBEE is playing Ibitsu na Kotoba (Distorted Words) as the anime’s opening theme song. On the other hand, Anna is performing the ending theme song Hana no Yo ni (Like a Flower).
The anime is scheduled to premiere on January 6th on MBS, TBS, and BS-TBS. HIDIVE will be streaming the series simultaneously.
The anime is based on Suzu Enoshima’s light novel series of the same title. This was initially released on Shosetsuka ni Naro (Let’s Be Novelists) website. Kadokawa Books has acquired the rights on publishing the light novel with illustrations by Eihi in 2019. A manga adaptation is being published in Kadokawa’s B’s-LOG COMIC illustrated by Rumiwo Sakaki.
The light novel series is published in English by J-Novel Club, and the publisher explains the plot as follows:
One day, Crown Prince Sieg hears the Voices of the Gods out of the blue. Apparently, his fiancée Lieselotte is a “tsun de rais” villainess destined to meet her demise…and her sharp tongue is just a way of covering up her embarrassment. The prince can hardly contain himself after discovering Lieselotte’s adorable hidden side. Little does he know, the heavenly beings that bestowed this knowledge unto him are actually high schoolers!
Can he use their divine prophecy (let’s play commentary) to save his betrothed and avoid a Bad End?!
– J-Novel Club
animeEndo and Kobayashi Live
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Peter Schön - Photographer & Ski Alpinist
PUBLISHED | PRINTS | @23 PINE
Mkinvartsveri / Kazbek (5054 m)
Mkinvartsveri - A most personal mountain
February 2019. It is a stormy winter day on 3000 m in the Georgian Caucasus. A dog looks at me as if he knows me, as if I have been here before. In the background Mkinvartsveri (5054 m) rises, the sun shining on the upper slopes of the southeast face. Somewhere up there, my fascination with the Caucasus started. First with an image of these slopes in my father`s geology book, my fingers tracing lines up and down snowy slopes and ice faces; later standing with skis at the drop-in to what had become my dream line - the SE face direct or “3B”.
But it was not just the mountain. Georgia fascinated me from when I first showed up there in 2005. The combination of a chaotic Tbilisi, a city still struggling with transitions into a new, capitalistic wold, with the powerful, mystical Caucasus mountains – the mountains of poetry - sucked me right in. Little I knew back then what would follow.
Between 2008 and 2013 I skied four new lines on Mkinvartsveri - among them the SE direct with the late Andi Riesner (>>website) and the NE face via the Japharidze ridge with Trevor Hunt. The trip with Andi was special because everything was new and exotic. When I met Trevor in Tbilisi in 2013, Georgia was familiar ground for me. Yet, the remote NE side had been climbed a few weeks before us by Georgians - but that was the first time in over 50 years. We did the route in a 2.5 day return trip. The ski descent took us down the NE face an onward to the Abano glacier, where very few people have have stood. It was my last ski decent from the summit, and a worthy final.
Peter Schön is a photographer based in Trondheim/Norway & Tbilisi/Georgia. His passion for photography started in the mountains, during several first ski descents of 5000-6000 m peak in the Andes, Pamir, Tien Shan and South Caucasus. Later, he ventured into documentary photography, with several portfolios about refugees and internally displaced people (IDP) in the South Caucasus.
Peter currently pursues a Ph.D. in urban form, mobility and CO2 emissions at NTNU Trondheim, and also works as certified ACMG (Association of Canadian Mountain Guides) Ski Guide and CAA Level 3 avalanche technician.
(www.ps-avalanche-consulting.com)
︎ Insta
︎ Contact
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This film is available to stream with Into Film+
Available to stream with Into Film+
The Biggest Little Farm © FARMLORE FILMS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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After their adorable rescue dog Todd causes them to be evacuated from their urban home for incessant barking, John and Molly Chester decide to follow their dream of creating a sustainable farm together. They move to a rural area outside of Los Angeles and have 200 acres of land to mold into their own vision, aided by their mentor and friend, Alan. Shot over eight years, this enlightening documentary highlights their various struggles, challenges and triumphs along the way, as they aim to create a biodiverse haven for all creatures, great and small. ‘The Biggest Little Farm’ educates young audiences about the food chain, farming practices, nature, and issues around life and death in an accessible way.
Watch The Biggest Little Farm on Into Film+ and discover Power on the Farm, an archive promotional film from 1940 released by the Department of Agriculture to promote the use of electricity in farming.
John Chester
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Find the resources related to The Biggest Little Farm (2018) to use in your teaching PLAY INTO FILM+
Mild threat, images of dead and injured animals
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Resources To Use With This Film
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A trio of animated short stories involving a bunch of witty farmyard animals.
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Best of 2019: Our Favourite Films of the Year
11 Dec 2019 in Film Features
Our curation team round-up the best films of the year for young audiences, each selecting a choice for each age-group - perfect for end of term viewing.
Celebrating British Science Week 2022
Our many films on Into Film+, resources and exclusive content can help you mark this annual celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths.
Championing 'Our Earth' through Into Film+
Our environmentally themed programme of films, resources, and exclusive content can help you initiate conversations around this crucial topic in the classroom.
Eco-doc The Biggest Little Farm leads this week's cinema releases
28 Nov 2019 in New Releases
The Biggest Little Farm explores the benefits and challenges of sustainability whilst Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans leads this week's new DVD releases
With the environment and climate change at the forefront of many young people's minds, we're showcasing some youth-made films that explore these issues.
Highlights from Sheffield Doc/Fest 2022
01 Jul 2022 BY Michael Prescott in Film Features
We attended the UK's biggest documentary film festival and report back on some of the most engaging and relevant titles for young audiences.
Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans leads this week's DVD releases
Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans begins its march towards your Wishlist whilst eco-documentary The Biggest Little Farm is released in cinemas.
How Into Film+ can help you explore topical issues with your club
06 May 2022 in Into Film Club of the Month
Our Into Film Club of the Month for April 2022 is Liss Junior School, whose tremendous success with film ranges from the Paul Hamlyn project to Into Film+.
The 7th Into Film Festival wraps with highest ever audience
A special pupil premiere of 'Frozen II' helped bring the 7th Into Film Festival to a terrific and record-breaking close today at London's Leicester Square.
View theme
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues the world faces today, and is a topic tackled in an increasing number of films, in many varied ways.
Films 30
"The art of discussion has improved and the breadth of language used has been enhanced by the variety of films watched, all of which we order free from the Into Film website."
- Janice Middleton, Headteacher, Edlington Victoria School, Derbyshire
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Episode #029: Behind the Scenes of a Profitable Tour with Martjin Westerholt
OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THIS EPISODE
Welcome back, everybody! On the show today we have Martijn Westerholt from the symphonic metal band, Delain. Martijn is here to tell us all about his experiences as a successful full time touring musician over the last two decades. We chat about his early career and former bands before discussing the set up with Delain. From there Martijn unpacks what goes into a tour for him and the band and what the process looks like from start to finish. Through the interview, our guest is kind enough to offer advice to those only starting out on this type of venture and then compare it with the more seasoned set up that he has with his work currently. Martijn offers great advice on staging a spectacle, conquering new markets and the value of having a strong team to work with. He also gets into some financial advice and the best use of earnings when trying to build a future as a touring band. For a great conversation with an experienced professional, be sure to listen in!
A little about Martijn and his current band Delain.
The songwriting process for Delain.
Some of the accomplishments of which Martijn is most proud.
Planning for the future and focussing on building support.
Thinking about the idea of conquering countries and picking the right markets.
The importance of spectacle and putting on a great show.
Presenting yourself appropriately on stage in accordance with the music.
The order in which Martijn goes about planning a tour.
Why you should find good people to sell merch and work the sound desk.
Where to invest your earnings when you are starting out.
Maximizing profit from live shows and cutting costs.
Doubling down and selling more merchandise.
Tweetables:
“You have limited resources at your disposal, so you should make every shot count and I think it’s very important that you reached the right people.” — @delainmusic [0:06:46.8]
“You have to think about the market you’re targeting so I’m not talking about the people, I’m also talking about the countries.” — @delainmusic [0:07:26.4]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Savvy Musician Academy Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/onlinemusician/
The Superfan System Elite Program — http://www.callsma.com/
Martijn Westerholt — https://www.discogs.com/artist/254736-Martijn-Westerholt
Within Temptation — https://www.withintemptationrecordings.com
Delain — http://www.delain.nl
Leah McHenry
It's become my absolute obsession to find out what will make musicians successful today. In the face of many obstacles, and in the vast sea of the internet, we have an opportunity that has NEVER been available to us in the history of the music business.
← Episode #028: How to Quit Your Day Job and Play Music Full-Time Pt. 2
Episode #030: From $0 to $20k Per Month in Music Sales Without Touring →
Episode #115: The Last SMA Podcast?
Episode #114: How To Make Money With Spotify
Episode #113: Getting Fans to Buy Your Music (Coaching Session with Welter)
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Susan Ellis
July 4, 2014 Who We Are
When she isn’t found performing in underground mines in Queensland (we kid you not!) Susan can be found redefining what the voice is capable of in a Griffyn performance. One moment you will will hear an angelic voice soar throughout the concert hall – ten minutes later you will hear her produce the sounds of an airplane jet, or some Tibetan throat singing. Susan will admit that her Griffyn highlight was taking the role of ‘lead caterpillar’ involving a kid’s sleeping bag and a headband with felt tentacles. Despite this (or perhaps, because of this!) Susan has established herself as a leading dramatic Soprano both in Australia and overseas.
Susan has lectured in tertiary performance at the Australian National University School of Music and the University of Southern Queensland, and taught voice and classroom music in many Australian schools. She is a member of Opera Queensland’s Moving Opera team and is in demand as a presenter for music education institutes and as a vocal coach for large massed choirs. You can read more about Susan here www.susanellis.com.au
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History: 2018
January. ‘As we reach the last barrier the light abandons the lane. Almost darkness, almost silence.’ We start the year with a night walk through north Sheffield, led by poets
Angelina D’Roza, Pete Green, Chris Jones and Fay Musselwhite, tracking the River Don from Owlerton to Neepsend on one of the coldest nights of the season. The route is retraced in an essay by Brian Lewis
(illustrated with Emma Bolland‘s photographs from the walk), which also
examines some of the ideas and exchanges that informed the event, and the culture and literature of urban walking. Click here to read ‘Night Walk #1: Owlerton’ on the Longbarrow Blog.
February. ‘To write a mythology / commensurate to an ignorant island / is not difficult. / They were of that class of traitor /
self-serving, unimaginative.’ The publication of Article 50, a hand-stitched pamphlet by Kelvin Corcoran, in which ‘the current self-destructive politics of the UK and its implausible actors are set alongside those things worth living for: music, friendship and poetry itself.’ Article 50 is acclaimed by Charlie Connelly in The New European as ‘the best articulation of the post-Brexit shock and fallout’, and by Ian Brinton as a ‘beautifully produced little book [that] should be read by anyone who values lyric poetry’. Click here to read a sample poem from Article 50 (and to order the pamphlet).
March. Two posts on the Longbarrow Blog explore the shallow, porous pockets of ‘rurban’ South Yorkshire and the glens and lochs of Western Scotland. In the first of these, Brian Lewis revisits Adwick Washlands, a deindustrialised flood plain that forms part of the RSPB’s landscape portfolio, its ‘movable frontiers of land and water’ softening its borders with estates and farmland. The contours of the old landscape are glimpsed on a walk through the wetland (led by Lewis and Matthew Clegg on National Meadows Day), animated by skylarks and wodwos, the tensions between managed paths and feral trails, and the discovery of a swallow’s nest in the concrete chamber of an anti-aircraft gun site. Click here to read ‘Open to the Sky’. In the second post, Mark Goodwin recounts a journey through the glens and lochs of Western Scotland in the wake of ‘days of snow and ice’, soundtracked by ‘some unidentified bird’, as the year’s first flush of light and heat is felt, and spring unfurls ‘its newest of oldest gestures’. You can read ‘Matter’ here.
May. ‘We don’t see the catastrophe, only the shifts of light and perspective, the horizon scrolling between sea and sky, the distance sharpened or softened by cloud.’ In a further essay for the Longbarrow Blog, Brian Lewis considers the relationship between our communication networks and the spaces in which they operate; a theme developed in J.R. Carpenter‘s multimedia work The Gathering Cloud, in which a cultural history of the skies informs an extended meditation on the discreet, complex and expanding ecosystem of ‘cloud computing’. Click here to read ‘Rain, Steam and Speed’.
June. The publication and launch of The Rose of Temperaments, a pamphlet featuring six colour-themed sonnets by Angelina D’Roza, A.B. Jackson, Chris Jones, Geraldine Monk,
Helen Mort and Alistair Noon (in their original and ‘recoloured’ versions), reflections on art, poetry and semiotics by project curators Paul Evans and
Brian Lewis, and essays on science and colour perception by The University of Sheffield’s
Richard Jones and Tony Ryan.
July. And Other Stories, Longbarrow Press and The Poetry Business embark on a two-week residency in Sheffield’s Winter Garden as SHIP (Sheffield Independent Publishers). The pop-up shop is run as a collective endeavour, and, as well as offering an opportunity to browse and buy poetry, fiction, translated and international literature from the three publishers, creates a forum for informal, friendly exchanges with the reading public.
‘The state of happiness we call a fool’s paradise is based on a person’s not knowing or denying the existence of potential trouble.’ The relationship between deception and self-deception informs almost every page of Cazique, Matthew Clegg‘s third full collection. In ‘The Outside Inside: Some Notes on Creative Practice’, he discusses the role of the ‘conman’ – historical, contemporary, imaginary – in shaping its title sequence. Click here
to read the essay.
September. ‘Around Ypres, over the border in Belgium, farmers call it the Iron Harvest. Each year their ploughs uncover munitions, barbed wire, remnants of rifles. Sometimes the flotsam of older conflicts turns up – lead and iron from the Napoleonic Wars and the Hundred Years’ War.’ Rob Hindle previews The Grail Roads (his third full-length collection, and his first with Longbarrow Press) with a timely reflection on nationalism, empire, myth, and his own route through the ‘cultural archaeology’ of western Europe. Click
here to read ‘The Iron Harvest’. The Grail Roads reimagines the ‘quest’ of Galahad, Gawain, and other knights of Arthurian legend, displaced from their familiar mythology and recast as British soldiers on the Western Front. As the war turns attritional, the vision of the Grail darkens; one by one, the men are gathered into a dream of ‘a first and final home’ beyond the wrecked landscapes. The book is hailed by Charlie Connelly as ‘a beautiful piece of work, a masterpiece […it] is, by some distance, my book of 2018.’
I’ve had my share of boom and bust,
and now the times have bottomed out
I’m the Cazique of Mexborough –
mucky St Helena of my mind.
I have a plan and all I need
is half of everything you own.
October. Matthew Clegg‘s engagement with personae and place goes deeper, and darker, with the publication of Cazique, his third collection. Its title sequence hinges on the last confessions of a washed-up confidence trickster: a man inspired by the 19th-century swindler Gregor MacGregor – the self-titled Cazique of Poyais. This ‘Cazique’ is ‘part anti-hero, part trickster, and part fallen angel – a genie of deception and self-deception’.
November. The Grail Roads is launched at DINA, Sheffield, on the centenary of the Armistice that ended the First World War. A specially devised performance (in which Rob Hindle is supported by Matthew Clegg and Ray Hearne) distils the collection’s pathos and drama in the intimate setting of the Jara Room.
Our final event of the year is the launch of Matthew Clegg‘s Cazique at The Shakespeare, Sheffield, with a three-act performance led by Clegg and punctuated by spoken, sung and strummed interventions by Angelina D’Roza, Pete Green, Ray Hearne, and Fay Musselwhite.
Photographs: Emma Bolland, Nikki Clayton, Brian Lewis, Marianthi Makra, Dominic Somers
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Lighthouses of Bahrain
The Kingdom of Bahrain is an island nation located just off the Saudi Arabian port of Dammām on the south side of the Persian Gulf. Bahrain consists of some 33 islands, the largest being Bahrain Island, 55 km long by 18 km wide (34 mi by 11 mi). The 25 km (15 mi) long King Fahd Causeway connects Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. Small but densely populated, Bahrain has about 1.5 million residents.
The Al Khalifa dynasty has occupied the throne in Bahrain since the 1780s. However, Britain established a protectorate over Bahrain in the 1860s and the country did not resume full independence until 1971, following a referendum held by the United Nations.
A note on nomenclature: the Persian Gulf (as it is usually known in the West) is called the Arabian Gulf in Arabia and the Gulf of Fars in Iran. The International Hydrographic Organization calls it the Gulf of Iran and many commentators avoid all nomenclatural problems by calling it simply "The Gulf".
The Arabic word for a lighthouse is mnarh or manara (منارة). Ra's is a cape, jazīrat is an island, minā is a harbor, and shi'b is a reef.
Aids to navigation in Bahrain are the responsibility of the Ports and Maritime Affairs Department of the Ministry of Transportation. Offshore navigational aids in the Gulf are maintained by the Middle East Navigation Aids Service (MENAS), based in Bahrain. MENAS also supplies and maintains many of the navigational aids in Bahrain under contract.
ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume D of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
World of Lighthouses - Bahrain
Photos by various photographers available from Lightphotos.net.
Online List of Lights - Persian Gulf
GPSNauticalCharts
Navigational chart for Bahrain.
Kawkab Umm al Sawali Light, Al Hidd, November 2016
Google Maps photo by Valeed Mulla
Bahrain Buoy
Date unknown. Active; focal plane about 15 m (49 ft); one long white flash every 10 s. Approx. 15 m (49 ft) sqaure skeletal tower on a round lightfloat. No photo available. We believe this light has replaced the Bahrain Lightfloat seen in port in a Lightphotos.net photo taken in 2008. Located at the start of the entrance channel for Bahrain. Accessible only by boat. Site open, tower closed. The international light lists no longer include offshore buoys of this type. Operator: MENAS. ex-Admiralty D7396; ex-NGA 29624.
Kawkab Umm al Sawali (Al Hidd)
Date unknown. Active; focal plane 45 m (148 ft); continuous red light. Approx. 42 m (138 ft) round water tower. Valeed Mulla's photo is above, Trabas has a photo, and Google has a satellite view. Located at Al Hidd on Muharraq Island; this is at the northeastern corner of the country in the Khalifa bin Salman port district. Site status unknown. Admiralty D7400.9; NGA 29707.
Mina Salman (Mīnā' Salmān, Al Juffair)
Date unknown. Active; focal plane 42 m (137 ft); very quick-flashing light, white, red or green depending on direction. 40 m (131 ft) silo building. Ayman Al Binmohamed has a street view and and Google has a satellite view. Mina Salman is the principal port of Bahrain, located on the northeastern corner of the island. This powerful directional light guides vessels into the port. Located on the Mina Salman waterfront. Site status unknown. Admiralty D7406; NGA 29764.
Khawr Al Qulay'ah Range Rear
Date unknown. Active; focal plane 9 m (30 ft); quick-flashing white light for 3 s, then 5 s off. 8 m (26 ft) square skeletal tower carryin large daymark panel painted red with a white triangle, point down. Lightphotos.net has a photo but the light is hard to see in Google's satellite view. This range guides ships on their approach to the inner harbor of Khawr Al Qulay'ah. Located on Qassar Al Qulay'ah, a small island in the entrance to the inner harbor. Accessible only by boat. Site status unknown. Admiralty D7404.1 NGA 29744.
* Bahrain Yacht Club
Date unknown. Active; focal plane 10 m (33 ft); quick-flashing white light. Light mounted on one corner of a square yacht club building. No photo available, but Google has a satellite view. Located at the end of the south breakwater of the club's harbor. Site open, tower closed. Admiralty D7409.5; NGA 29737.
Lightship Bahrein (?-?). Lightphotos.net has a second historic photo. This vessel was active during the 1930s; we need information on its history. Before World War II navigational aids in the British protectorates of the Gulf were the responsibility of the Indian lighthouse service.
Bahrain Harbor Control, on the east side of the harbor entrance, looks much like a lighthouse but does not carry a navigational light. Google has a satellite view.
Adjoining pages: North: Southwestern Iran | East: Qatar | West: Eastern Saudi Arabia
Posted April 4, 2012. Checked and revised September 27, 2022. Lighthouses: 4; lightfloats: 1. Site copyright 2022 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Author: Samantha - Hampshire Libraries
Author of the Month: Haruki Murakami
August 2, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment
Haruki Murakami was born in 1949 to middle class parents in Kyoto, the cultural capital of Japan. However, at an early age the family moved to the bustling port town of Kobe, where a young Murakami was exposed to American culture through books, movies and jazz music. Murakami studied drama at Waseba University in Tokyo, where he expanded his reading and developed a taste for Western writers such as Jack Kerouac, Franz Kafka and Kurt Vonnegut. After completing his studies, Murakami and his wife Yoko opened a coffee house and jazz club in Tokyo called the ‘Peter Cat’. Murakami began to write during this time, publishing his first novel Hear the Wind Singin 1979 at the age of 29. This debut novel would win the well-respected Gunzo Prize for New Writers (1979) and convince Murakami to continue writing.
Murakami’s writing does not sit easily within the cannon of Japanese literature, and for much of his career he has been seen as an outsider due to the American influences in his novels. Murakami’s novels are generally seen as examples of magical realism. However, the plot and style of his novels are eclectic at best and defy all attempts at categorisation. Murakami has characterised himself as a conduit from his own subconscious to that of the reader, expressed through his dreamlike and often experimental prose. Common themes in his work include cats, baseball, jazz, classical music and the Beatles.
Following on from Hear the Wind Sing (1979) Murakami would complete a trilogy of works with A Wild Sheep Chase (1982). The novel was successful in Japan and received critical praise from Western reviewers. However, Norwegian Wood (1987) was the novel which would bring Murakami to his widest audience yet. It became a sensation in Japan and then abroad (in 1989), selling more than 1 million copies in the first 7 days of its release and 3.5 million in its first year. Murakami has been a household name in Japan since, with fans going to great lengths to meet the famously reclusive author.
Some of Murakami’s most notable works include The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995) which won the Yomiuri Literary Award and Kafka on the Shore (2002) which received a World Fantasy Award for its English translation in 2006. Murakami has also received a Hans Christian Anderson Award (2016) and an America Award in Literature (2018) for lifetime achievement in writing. Notable exceptions to this trend include Murakami’s three volume novel 1Q84 (2009-2010) which has been voted one of the greatest novels of the last 30 years in Japan but received poor reviews with Western critics and fans. For first time readers A Wild Sheep Chase or Norwegian Wood are a great place to start, while Murakami’s short story collections are interesting and challenging in shorter manageable chunks.
The Paris Review – Haruki Murakami, The Art of Fiction No. 182
The Guardian – Haruki Murakami: ‘You have to go through the darkness before you get to the light’
The New Yorker – The Underground Worlds of Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami – Author
NPR – Haruki Murakami: ‘I’ve had All Sorts of Strange Experiences in My Life’
Fantastic Fiction – Haruki Murakami
Find Murakami’s books here
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” – Haruki Murakami
Posted in Author of the MonthTagged Author of the Month, Authors, Books, haruki murakami, library, reading
UEFA European Women’s Championship
July 22, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment
The UEFA European Women’s Championship’s are well underway and this tournament will go down in history for breaking many records. The Lionesses have been front and centre of these achievements, securing the competition’s biggest win, a record they had set themselves by beating Scotland 6-0 to open the 2017 group stage. Along with total goals scored, most goals in a half and most goals scored in a group stage this has truly been a historic campaign for women’s football, now more so than ever after their brilliant 2-1 win over Spain in extra time.
The fans have played their part too. The record crowd at Old Trafford that watched England defeat Austria surpassed the previous record by more than 27,000 spectators. An attendance 68,871 smashed the previous record of the 41,301 fans attending the 2013 final between Germany and Norway in Solna, Sweden. The new benchmark looks set to go on 31 July, with the Wembley final already sold out.
With women’s football and women’s sport in general receiving additional coverage and interest, the National Literacy Trust have put together a reading list which showcases the best of what your library has to offer with a collection which focuses on sport and amazing stories from popular sporting figures. Take a look and see how many you can read – maybe you can break some of your own reading records along the way.
UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 | National Literacy Trust
Jaz Santos vs. the world by Priscilla Mante
The first in a new series about a group of unlikely friends who come together to make their own girls’ football team, proving to everyone that they should be taken seriously.
Marta : from the playground to the pitch by Charlotte Browne
Marta is the best footballer in the history of the women’s game. The Brazilian has jaw-dropping flair and skill. She has scored more World Cup goals than any other player, and has won FIFA World Player of the Year six times. But pure talent alone was never enough – this book tells the story of how Marta chased her dreams with determination and a never-give-up attitude, to earn the right to be called the best player ever.
How to be extraordinary : real-life stories of extraordinary humans! by Rashmi Sirdeshpande
Could you be EXTRAORDINARY? This book will inspire you with the real-life stories of extraordinary people, showcasing a total variety of personalities and talents. Whoever you are, and whoever you want
to be, read about the extraordinary stories of these 15 people, and decide how YOU will be extraordinary too!
Our beautiful game by Lou Kuenzler
A hundred years before the Lionesses, Lily Parr, Alice Woods and their teammates were proudly playing their beloved, exciting and skilful game. As men were sent to fight in the war, women and girls took their place in munitions factories. Football became a favourite pastime and, before long, they were creating all-female sides and playing public matches to sell-out crowds, overshadowing men’s football. Despite drawing crowds of 50,000, women’s football was outlawed by the Football Association in 1921, who deemed it ‘unsuitable for females’. This is the incredible story of these amazing women.
Rocky by Tom Palmer
A struggling student and brilliant footballer, Rocky Race is many things, but to most people she’s just Roy Race’s little sister. It’s not much fun, especially as Melchester Rovers head to the League Cup Final. Rocky’s sick of everyone knowing her through Roy, she’s had enough of school, and she’s even started having panic attacks. Now it’s up to Rocky to find her own way – as a person and a player – and she’s going to need all her grit and determination to do it…
Posted in Book Chat, Children's books of the monthTagged book recommendations, fiction, football, non fiction, reading, Reading Challenge, UEFA, women's football
Get inspired by the Gadgeteers
July 1, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment
The Summer Reading Challenge launches on Saturday 16 July – any anyone who signs up, online or at their local library and reads six books gets a special medal and certificate.
You can read any six books, big books, little books, picture books, funny books, graphic novels, cookery books, eBooks or eAudiobooks… but if you’re inspired by the cool Gadgeteers you might want to borrow one of these brilliant science books this summer.
They’re all available as physical books in the library, eBooks and eAudiobooks – so wherever you are and whatever you’re doing this summer you can still enjoy six great books and win that medal (did we mention the medal?)
You can find plenty of books on our special category on our catalogue, check them out here: Summer Reading Challenge library catalogue.
Or if you enjoy reading or listening to books on your device, you can use our free BorrowBox service: Summer Reading Challenge BorrowBox bookshelf.
Here are some recommendations below:
Listen Layla by Yassmin Abdel-Magied
Janey Mack! Layla’s back! And she’s getting her inventions ready for the Grand Design Competition. But when her grandmother is taken ill and her family must go to Sudan to be by her side, Layla starts to feel like she is being pulled in so many different directions. Can she stay on the inventions team at school, if she’s in a different country? Why are her cousins making protest signs? And is anyone even listening to her?! This was not the halal girl summer she thought she was going to have.
The taylor turbochaser by David Baddiel
Amy loves cars, and dreams of being a driver. But there’s a major catch: her slow old wheelchair with its broken wheel. When Amy finally gets a new electric one, it’s exciting – at first. But standard engines only have so much power. And that’s where Rahul comes in – Amy’s best friend and genius inventor. Soon Rahul turns a wheelchair into a supercar! And so the Taylor Turbochaser is born. But when it all goes suddenly wrong, Amy is going to have to hit the road – and drive.
Uma and the answer to absolutely everything by Sam Copeland
Uma Gnuderson has a world full of questions: How can I save my home from being sold? Will my dad ever start talking again? And how do alpacas get drunk? But since her mum died, Uma’s life has been short on answers. Until one day she finds a mysterious Bluetooth earpiece and starts to ask it questions. And it answers them. All of them. It knows everything, from the capital of Mongolia to the colour of her headteacher’s underpants. The earpiece is an incredible high-tech artificial intelligence called Athena. Through Athena, Uma suddenly has the answer to every question she can imagine – and she’s going to use them to save her home and her father.
Doctor Proctor’s fart powder by Jo Nesbo
Doctor Proctor is an ageing inventor just waiting for his big break. When he teams up with Lisa and her peculiar friend Nilly in making the world’s most powerful fart powder, it seems his dream may be coming true. But the ruthless twins Truls and Trym Thrane are lurking in the background just waiting to spoil their plans.
George and the unbreakable code by Lucy Hawking and Stephen Hawking
George and his best friend Annie haven’t had any space adventures for a while and they’re missing the excitement – but not for long. Seriously strange things start happening banks are handing out free money; supermarkets can’t charge for their produce so people are getting free food; and aircraft are refusing to fly. It looks like the world’s biggest and best computers have all been hacked. George and Annie must travel further into space than ever before in order to find out who is behind it.
Kay’s marvellous medicine by Adam Kay
The olden days were pretty fun if you liked wearing chainmail or chopping people’s heads off but there was one tiny little problem back then – doctors didn’t have the slightest clue about how our bodies worked. It’s time to find out why Ancient Egyptians thought the brain was just a useless load of old stuffing that might as well be chucked in the bin, why teachers forced their pupils to smoke cigarettes, why hairdressers would cut off their customers’ legs, and why people used to get paid for farting. (Unfortunately that’s no longer a thing – sorry.) You’ll get answers to questions like: Why did patients gargle with wee? How did a doctor save people’s lives using a washing machine, a can of beans and some old sausages? What was the great stink? (No, it’s not what doctors call your bum).
How we got to now: six innovations that made the modern world by Steven Johnson
Did you drink a glass of water today? Did you turn on a light? Did you think about how miraculous either one of those things is when you did it? Of course not – but you should, and author Steven Johnson has. This adaptation of his adult book and popular PBS series explores the fascinating and interconnected stories of innovations – like clean drinking water and electricity – that changed the way people live.
Danny Chung does not do maths by Maisie Chan
Eleven-year-old Danny Chung loves drawing more than anything – certainly more than maths, which, according to his dad and everyone else, is what he is ‘supposed’ to be good at. He also loves having his own room where he can draw in peace, so his life is turned upside down when a surprise that he’s been promised turns out to be his little, wrinkly, ex-maths-champion grandmother. Nai Nai can’t speak a word of English, which doesn’t make things easy for Danny when he is charged with looking after her during his school holidays.
Babysitting Nai Nai is NOT what he wants to be doing! What’s worse, Nai Nai has to share his room, AND she takes the top bunk! Before long though it becomes clear to Danny that there is more to Nai Nai than meets the eye, and that they have more in common that he thought possible…
Cyborg Cat and the night spider by Ade Adepitan
Ade loves playing football and he’s amazing in goal, despite the heavy metal calliper he has to wear on his leg. He can save any ball that’s sent his way, from any direction, so his friends have nicknamed him the Cyborg Cat. But when the Parsons Road Gang stumble upon some unusual graffiti it starts to have a really weird effect on Ade. Somehow, the art is drawing him into another dimension, where he really is Cyborg Cat! But that’s not all – after seeing the Night Spider’s art, Ade starts to feel weak and everything begins to go wrong. He’s banned from a school trip to a safari park because of his disability, and the doctors have some bad news about his legs. How can Ade overcome his challenges and what power does the mysterious Night Spider have over Cyborg Cat? Ade needs all his friends’ help to uncover the truth.
Posted in Children's books of the month, Library BitsTagged book recommendations, Books, children's book, gadgeteers, reading, Summer Reading Challenge, The Reading Agency
Summer Reading Challenge 2022 – Gadgeteers!
June 23, 2022 July 19, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment
The Summer Reading Challenge is a great way to share stories and encourage reading throughout the summer holidays, a time when children’s reading skills can sometimes dip.
The theme of the challenge this year is Gadgeteers. Join Eddie, Leo, Ajay, Maggie, Aisha and James and discover the amazing science and innovation behind the world around you!
You can sign up at your local, Hampshire library, or online, from Saturday 16 July and read or listen to any six books to earn a certificate and medal. You can read story books, fact books, eBooks, audiobooks, and even comics! Once you have read/listened to your first few books, pop into your library to receive your Gadgeteers collector card and first stickers. Every time you finish reading/listening to a book, visit the library and see a member of our team to talk about the books you have read and collect your next stickers .
When you finish the challenge come to the library to collect your final stickers, finisher’s certificate and medal! Everyone who finishes the challenge has a chance to win a Samsung Galaxy tablet too!
Watch this video to find out more and see how you can take part!
The challenge is for children aged 4 – 11, and we look forward to you joining us in reading or sharing six books of your choice. Children aged 4 and under can join in the fun and earn reading star stickers throughout the summer.
You’ll find thousands of children’s eBooks and audiobooks free to download using our BorrowBox service with lots of titles always available without the wait. You’ll find links to some of our recommendations on this webpage and information about downloading ebooks and audiobooks.
If you’re not already a member of Hampshire Libraries, you can join to take part.
Meet the Gadgeteers!
Sign up, and join in the fun!
Posted in UncategorizedTagged Books, children's books, Hampshire Libraries, Love your Library, reading, Summer, Summer holidays, Summer Reading Challenge
Author of the Month: Marian Keyes
June 15, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment
Early Biography
Marian Keyes is an Irish author born in 1963, who grew up in and around Dublin as part of a large family. Keyes completed degrees in law and business, moving to London in 1986 to take on an administrative role. However, Keyes began to struggle with alcoholism and depression in her twenties, eventually attempting to take her own life in 1995. Keyes underwent rehabilitation for her alcoholism in Dublin and began working on short stories, based in part on her own experiences. Keyes submitted these stories to the publisher Poolberg Press, with the promise of a novel to follow. The novel she submitted, Watermelon (1995), would become a best seller in Ireland and launch her career as an author. While Keyes has struggled with mental health difficulties for most of her adult life, she has described her writing as a ‘rope across the abyss’ which has given her the strength in times of crisis. Keyes has been sober now for over 25 years and lives with her husband Tony in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin.
Keyes’ works are darkly comic but insightful novels, often based on her own experiences. They cover sensitive topics such as mental illness, divorce, substance abuse and domestic violence while maintaining a tact and approachability which makes them instant favourites with readers. While Keyes’ books tackle heavy topics, their tone and narrative are optimistic and uplifting with a happy ending for all your favourite characters. Keyes main series is the Walsh Family novels, where we join the Walsh Sisters as they navigate the ups and downs of modern life. Watermelon (1995) is the First book in the series, while her latest work Again, Rachel (2022) is the most recent addition. Despite being associated with the genre, Keyes has been a strong critic of the term ‘chick-lit’ and its ‘belittling’ and ‘demeaning’ connotations. Equally, Keyes is a strong feminist and has drawn attention to differences in the way that male and female written works are represented and awarded.
Accolades, Awards and Statistics
Keyes is the British Book Awards Author of the Year 2022, recognised for her ‘expert storytelling, incredible warmth of heart, and significant contributions to the publishing industry over three decades of writing’. She has sold over 33 million books worldwide and her works have been translated into 36 different languages. Keyes has won ‘Popular Fiction Book of the Year’ at the Irish Book Awards in 2009 and 2017 for This Charming man (2008) and The Break (2017) respectively. Keyes has had multiple best-selling books in the UK and Ireland, where her works routinely top bestsellers lists.
Marian Keyes – Biography
Penguin – Where to start reading Marian Keyes’ books
The Guardian – Marian Keyes: rehab was one of the happiest times of my life
Twitter – Marian Keyes
BBC Radio 4 – Desert Island Discs Marian Keyes
Independent.ie – Author of the Year
Chatelaine – Keyes on the term chick lit
Check out our Marian Keyes collection on our catalogue
“Writing about feeling disconnected has enabled me to connect, and that has been the most lovely thing of all.” ~ Marian Keyes
Posted in Author of the Month, Book Chat, Library Bits, UncategorizedTagged author, Author of the Month, Authors, book recommendations, Books, Hampshire Libraries, libraries, Love your Library, Marian Keyes, reading
Pride Month 2022 with our volunteer, Ren
May 31, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire Libraries2 Comments
Hello! I’m Ren, a volunteer at Chandler’s Ford Library, and I’ve been asked to tell you about some of the wonderful books we are recommending to you during Pride month 2022.
This Pride month Hampshire libraries are uplifting and celebrating a diverse range of queer voices and spotlighting their works through the theme of ‘coming of age’. Coming of age is an intense time of self discovery, something we all go through, but as queer people coming to terms with the fact you are different from what society expects of you can be scary, but at the same time also freeing. This freedom and celebration in the face of fear is what our ‘coming of age’ pride recommendations celebrate.
As many of you will know Pride started as a riot. Following the Stonewall uprising in 1969 after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York, people took to the streets in 1970 to march for queer rights, these marches are now known as the first Pride. Understanding this history of Pride is essential in acknowledging how far queer rights have come. Because of people like Martha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, a movement started to push for the rights of LGBTQIA+ people and over time has allowed these protests to grow into celebrations all over the world, uplifting and bringing together the queer community, showing any queer person who feels alone that they can and will find their people and their pride. With how large Pride has become over the years LGBTQIA+ people can now to come into their identity in a much more accepting society.
On a personal note, I’m so proud to be a part of a library service which celebrates queer identities and has such a diverse range of books, and that the book world continues to publish a diverse array of queer voices and stories. It’s amazing to know how many books are available to so many people who can recognise themselves within their pages, and feel at home and seen there. Many of the queer books available and coming into the library will allow people to feel seen in ways they haven’t been before and that makes me so happy. Having pride in your identity is a strength, let these characters’ stories show you that.
Within the pages of these books you will see characters go through the growing pains of life as they come into their own, not just linking to the LGBTQIA+ elements of their identities, but holistically how their whole identity effects their life and how they interact with the world around them.
I hope everyone, people a part of the queer community, questioning, or an ally wanting to diversify their reading, will take this Pride month to read LGBTQIA+ books. Hampshire libraries have a wide array of LGBTQIA+ books available to borrow through our services, either in branch, through our home library service or on BorrowBox (our eBook and eAudiobook service).
There has been a delightful list of queer books curated by our staff, featuring diverse and unique stories which I encourage everyone to look at, as well as checking out the rest of our catalogue and displays in branch for your LGBTQIA+ book needs! Below are some of my personal selections and a little bit about them. (As always make sure you look up any possible trigger warnings before jumping into these stories!)
Hani and Ishu’s guide to fake dating by Adiba Jaigirdar
Queer rep: Lesbian main character, Bisexual main character
In this sapphic story two opposites fake a relationship for their own gains. Hani, easy going and popular, has told her friends she is dating Ishu after they told her that she couldn’t be bisexual if she has only dated guys. Ishu, an academic overachiever, has agreed to fake date to boost her popularity in the hopes of becoming head girl. Through this story of self conviction and self love these two Bengali teens learn what it means to be there for each other and to believe in themselves, no matter what other people may say.
Felix ever after by Kacen Callender –
Queer rep: Transgender main character, Achillian main character, Lesbian side character, Gay side character, Sapphic side character, Non binary side character
Felix Love wants his own happily ever after, but, even with the pride he has in his Black, queer and transgender identity, he is worried he’s one marginalisation too many. After he starts receiving transphobic messages and his deadname and photos of him pre transition out him at school, Felix sets himself on getting revenge. What he didn’t set his sights on was landing himself in a quasi-love triangle.
Through this tale of exploration, identity and love follow Felix as he learns who he is and what he truly deserves.
Loveless by Alice Oseman
Queer rep: AroAce main character, Lesbian side character, Pansexual side character, Nonbinary side character
Georgia is obsessed with love… at least she is in theory and fiction. After a disastrous attempt to confess to her chosen crush goes horribly wrong on prom night she commits herself to finding someone at university. With the help of her outgoing university roommate Rooney, and best friends from school Pip and Jason she is sure to find love, right? But, as Georgia learns of the terms aromantic and asexual, she has to learn if love is in the cards for her at all or is she destined to stay loveless.
This story shows the growing pains of moving away from home, the beauty of friendships and the freedom in finding who you truly are.
Annie on my mind by Nancy Garden
Queer rep: Lesbian main character, Lesbian side character
The history of this book is one to acknowledge, it has been controversial in the past, being banned from many libraries and even being burned in Kansas City! Luckily now the world is much more accepting and this book is acknowledged as one of the first portrayals of a healthy queer relationship in the YA genre.
In this sapphic book two young girls meet at a museum and quickly form a bond which starts as friendship and blossoms into more. Despite the pressures and expectations of family, school and society the two know they need to be true to themselves and how they feel, and through the help of an unexpected source they may just gain the freedom they need to stay together. This book grabs onto your heart with its exploration of coming to terms with your identity and finding pride in who you love.
Posted in Book Chat, Books and me, Library BitsTagged #book recommendations, #books, #reading, Hampshire Pride, lgbtqia+, love is love, pride, pride month
Author of the Month: Philippa Gregory
May 27, 2022 May 31, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment
Philippa Gregory was chosen to tie in with the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations. We wanted an accessible author who has a royal theme in their work, as well as having a good backlist.
Philippa Gregory is a world renowned historical novelist and a recognised authority on women’s history. She has written 27 novels – her 27th, Dawnlands, will be published in November 2022 as well as 3 books for children.
As well as being a full time writer, she enjoys riding, walking, skiing and gardening. She also runs a charity which builds wells in The Gambia and teaches children how to cultivate their own food. The well digging side of the charity stopped during the pandemic to focus on a public health initiative.
We were lucky enough to chat to Philippa Gregory on one of our previous podcast episodes. You can listen to that here: https://pod.fo/e/e0f93.
“If it means something, take it to heart. If it means nothing, it’s nothing. Let it go.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl
Posted in Author of the Month, Book ChatTagged Books, fiction, historical fiction, jubilee, libraries blog, philippa gregory, reading, royal
Author of the Month: Len Deighton
May 13, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment
Leonard Cyril Deighton was born in London in 1929. His publications have included cookery books, history and military history, but he is best known for his spy novels.
In 1940, at the age of eleven, Deighton witnessed the arrest of Anna Wolkoff, who was detained as a Nazi spy and charged with stealing correspondence between Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Deighton later said that observing her arrest was “a major factor in my decision to write a spy story at my first attempt at fiction”.
It was on an extended holiday in 1962 that Deighton wrote his first novel – The Ipcress File (short for the “Induction of Psychoneuroses by Conditioned Reflex under Stress”), which was a critical and commercial success.
Several of Deighton’s novels have been adapted for the screen. In March 2022, ITV broadcast a new six-part adaption of The Ipcress File, starring Joe Cole as Harry Palmer. The new series had a big budget and big name stars, and plenty of overseas locations to capture the eye of the viewer.
During 2021, Penguin Books reprinted all of Len Deighton’s fiction backlist, creating a range of fresh and vibrant cover designs that hark back to the 1960s, when designer Ray Hawkey did the covers for their first Deighton editions.
‘The hallmarks of a Deighton novel are an intricate plot, an easy grasp of detail and a total mastery of storytelling technique.’ – Sunday Times
Posted in UncategorizedTagged Books, fiction, len deighton, libraries blog, Love your Library, reading, spy, spy novels, spy thriller
Powerful poetry: 7 must read contemporary poetry books
April 4, 2022 April 4, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment
Poetry comes in all different shapes and sizes. From flowery language mixed with rhyme and rhythm, to plain speaking pages that confess something profound (and everything in between). Discover your favourite kind of poetry with these varied recommendations to get you started.
Everyone sang: a poem for every feeling by William Sieghart
This collection of writers new and old is an amazing way to find poems that connect with you. Everyone Sang is a wonderful selection of accessible poems that are arranged to help us map out our emotions. Chosen by the creator of the bestseller ‘The Poetry Pharmacy’, William Sieghart, and brought to life by illustrator Emily Sutton. The collection includes Maya Angelou to A.A. Milne, Lemn Sissay, Jackie Kay, Carol Ann Duffy, Joseph Coelho, Kae Tempest, W.B. Yeats, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, and many others.
If you’re a fan of Joeseph Coelho, you’ll love our interview with him on the Love Your Library podcast.
The actual by Inua Ellams
A symphony of personal and political fury. Sometimes probing delicately, sometimes burning with raw energy. In 55 poems that swerve and crackle with a rare music, Inua Ellams unleashes a full-throated assault on empire and its legacies of racism, injustice and toxic masculinity. In just 80 pages Ellams shows us the many faces of contemporary poetry and how we can use it to understand the world.
While Bluets narrator sets out to construct a sort of ‘pillow book’ about her lifelong obsession with the colour blue, she ends up facing down both the painful end of an affair and the grievous injury of a dear friend. Winding its way through depression, divinity, alcohol, and desire, visiting along the way with famous blue figures, including Joni Mitchell, Billie Holiday, Yves Klein, Leonard Cohen and Andy Warhol.
bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward
Raised in Chorley in the north of England, Yrsa Daley-Ward’s work draws on her early life and her Jamaican and Nigerian heritage. The first collection from a ground-breaking poet, bone looks at identity, race, mental health, and femininity. With celebrity fans from Beyoncé to Florence Welch, this isn’t a collection to be missed.
Hold your own by Kae Tempest
Hold Your Own is a rhythmic retelling of the Tiresias myths set-in modern-day Britain. Kae Tempest’s first full-length collection takes a close look at class and gender in this ambitious multi-voiced work. A vastly popular and accomplished performance poet, Tempest commands a huge and dedicated following on the performance and rap circuit.
Part novella, part sound-poem, Max Porter’s debut depicts a wild and unruly grief embodied by the character Crow – antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. In a Nanny McPhee-like series of events, the sentimental bird visits a grieving family after the loss of their mother and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months, and the physical pain of loss gives way to memories, the family begin to heal.
Citizen: an American lyric by Claudia Rankine
Through essays, images, and poetry, Claudia Rankine’s book recounts mounting racial aggressions in 21st century daily life and in the media. The accumulative stresses that come to bear on a person’s ability to speak, perform and stay alive. Taking a close look at how racism has impacted the lives of Serena Williams, Zinedine Zidane, Mark Duggan and others.
Remember, there’s no wrong way to read poetry, but reading poems in different ways can be great for finding out how they can create different feelings. Why not try reading a poem as fast or as slowly as you possibly can and see whether it changes the sense of meaning you get from it? Lots of poets like to play with how words sound too, so you could even ask a friend to read a poem aloud to you. It’s a great way to discover more about poetry and share your favourite reads with those closest to you.
Posted in Library BitsTagged Books, Hampshire Libraries, libraries, Love your Library, Poem, Poet, poetry, poetry book
Train of the Future Competition at Eastleigh Library
March 28, 2022 April 19, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment
For more than 100 years trains have been built in Eastleigh! We want you to jump forward in time and tell us what sort of trains will be built in Eastleigh 100 years in the future!
How will you report back on the trains of the future? What could you tell us? How could you let us know… will it be a picture, a written description or a model It’s up to you…
Just remember only you have seen this incredible future train… so you’ll have to let us know all about it… how do the people travel, how does it move, what fuels the train, what does it look like, where does it go?
Please submit entries by 5pm on Saturday 23 April by bringing them to Eastleigh Library or emailing them to [email protected]. The winner’s will be notified by Saturday 14 May, prizes will be awarded to the three winners on Saturday 28 May 2022.
There are three age categories in this competition, please remember to submit the entrants name and age along with a name and telephone number for a responsible adult for all three categories:
– Age 0-4 – the winner will receive a selection of children’s books
– Age 9-12 – the winner will receive a £30 book token
Competition Rules for Train of the Future competition
1. The competition is organised by Hampshire Libraries.
2. Entrants must be aged 12 or younger on Saturday 23 April 2022.
3. Entrants must submit a picture, a model, a photograph of a model or written description of a train of the future.
4. Written submissions should be no more than 200 words in length, excluding the title.
5. Entries, which must be accompanied by an entry form submitted at Eastleigh Library by 5pm Saturday 23 April 2022. All written entries should be submitted in English.
6. All entries must be the original work of the entrant and must not infringe the rights of any other party.
7. Entrants retain the copyright in their entries but grant to Hampshire Libraries a perpetual non-exclusive royalty-free licence to publish, broadcast (across all media) and post the entry online and on any other platforms yet to be envisaged.
8. Prizes will be awarded to three winners, the best drawing or design, best model and best written description in each of the three age categories.
9. The judging panel’s decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into.
Posted in UncategorizedTagged competition, libraries, train, trains
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An Octoroon – Melodrama in the Land of Cotton
By Judy Nedry
In Play Reviews
An Octoroon – Melodrama in the Land of Cotton2017-09-132017-09-13https://judy-nedry.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/judynedry-logo-1.pngJudy Nedryhttps://judy-nedry.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/judynedry-logo-1.png200px200px
It’s a modern (2014) play based on an old play (1859). It’s a madcap melodrama with a golden-haired hero and a lecherous villain. It’s a chilling statement on race. An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins opened at Artists Repertory Theatre last Saturday.
Co-directed by Artist Rep Artistic Director Damaso Rodriguez and Lava Alapai, the play begins with a meditation on plays by a playwright, BJJ (Joseph Gibson). He wanders the stage in his underwear, telling the audience of a conversation he and his therapist had, to get him excited about playwriting and to overcome depression. BJJ wanted to stage, The Octoroon (a popular play from 1859 written by Irish-American playwright Dion Boucicault), but has run into problems because the white actors quit. He begins to apply whiteface so he can to play them himself. Playwright (intended to be Boucicault, Michael Mendelson) taunts BJJ, and laments how theatre has changed since his death. Enter Assistant (John San Nicolas). While Playwright applies redface, Assistant dons blackface, reminding us not only of TV western “Indians” from the 1950s, but also of the old minstrel shows where white people played people of color, and denigrated them.
Then BJJ pulls on his pants and gets into his play. We are transported to his version of the antebellum south, where slaves use modern vernacular and call each other the N-word. A mysterious Br’er Rabbit (Ayanna Berkshire), a cultural symbol for the trickster, strays in from the briar patch. And cotton falls from the sky. Lots and lots of cotton.
Are we uncomfortable yet? You better believe it. In his deconstruction of our country’s little race issue, Jacobs-Jenkins pulls out all the stops. Nothing is sacred. He leaves no stereotype unturned. And the audience is laughing so hard at the characters’ sit-com performances it can’t stop.
The play follows the basic melodramatic plot of the earlier play, with the white-faced Gibson playing both our sterling hero George and the evil, mustachioed M’Closky. Both characters wish to marry Zoe (Alex Ramirez de Cruz), the daughter of the recently deceased plantation owner, the Judge, and an octoroon. George willingly will take on the burden of marrying a woman who bears “The Mark of Cain” while M’Closkey has more devious purposes. Dora (Kailey Rhodes) wants to marry George. The estate is about to go to the villain because of money owed. And there’s even a murder!
Thanks to the genius of Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins, this melodrama twists and turns on itself, brilliantly and scathingly satirizing everything in its path. An Octoroon won the 2014 Obie Award for best new play, and its 32-year-old playwright’s earlier work, Gloria, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His material is as freshly rendered as it is biting. This truly is an unforgettable production.
An Octoroon runs through October 1 at Artists Repertory Theatre.
Photos: Top, Joseph Gibson as the villain M’Closkey with Zoe (Alex Ramirez de Cruz) swooning in the background. Center, Andrea Vernae as Minnie and Josie Seid as Dido, slaves talking the talk. Photos by Russell J. Young.
Alex Ramirez de Cruz, An Octoroon, Andrea Vernae, antebellum South, Artists Repertory Theatre, Ayanna Berkshire, Brenden Jacobs-Jenkins, Damaso Rodriguez, Dion Boucicault, Jimmy Garcia, John San Nicolas, Joseph Gibson, Josie Seid, Kailey Rhodes, Lava Alapai, melodrama, meta-melodrama, Michael Mendelson, Minstrel shows, racism in America, satire, The Octoroon
A love letter to a father
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Kick them, punch them, throw them to the mat!
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The ECB expects inflation to be near target before the RBA does: EUR/AUD
Joe Perry July 15, 2021 3:55 PM
As long as European inflation expectations are higher than those of Australia, EUR/AUD should remain bid
Last weekend, ECB President Christine Lagarde said that there will be changes to the guidance at next week’s European Central Bank meeting in order to reassure traders that policy will not be tightened too quickly. The ECB recently announced in its strategic review that their inflation target will be 2% over the medium term. The reason for the change in guidance: Inflation is expected to be over 2.5% towards the end of the year. In other words, they expect the inflation to be transitory. Europe releases June’s Final CPI data on Friday and although the headline is expected to be near 1.9%, the core rate of inflation is only expected to be 1%. If the final inflation data on Friday comes in hotter than expected, Christine Lagarde and the committee may have to reconsider their language next week. July’s preliminary CPI reading isn’t due out until August 18th.
Everything you need to know about the ECB
Then there is the RBA. At the July 6th RBA meeting, although they reduced bond purchases to A$4 billion per week from A$5 billion per week, the committee said they do not expect actual inflation to be within their 2%-3% target until 2024! (See our RBA recap). One of the reasons for this expectation of such a long duration until inflation reaches target is that the Delta variant of the coronavirus is making its rounds in Australia. Sydney has been in full lockdown since June 26th, and the lockdown is expected to last until the end of July. Now, the state of Victoria is entering a lockdown of its own, albeit only 5 days. (Victoria was on a nearly 4-month lockdown last year).
With higher expected inflation and the exiting of lockdowns in Europe, the Euro is outperforming the Australian Dollar. EUR/AUD had been moving lower in an orderly channel from October 2020 until the late February lows, near 1.5343. The pair broke higher out of the channel on March 23rd and then broke from a rising triangle on May 18th, near 1.5670. EUR/AUD continued higher, forming an upward sloping channel and is nearing a key decision area for the pair near 1.6000, which is:
The 50% retracement of the October 2020 highs to the February lows
Horizontal resistance
The top trendline of the upward sloping channel
Notice that the bottom green line of the rising channel also acts as the trendline for a rising triangle. The target for a rising triangle is the height of the triangle, added to the breakout point. If price breaks above 1.6035, EUR/AUD could be on its way to the target and October 2020 highs near 1.6800. But the pair must first break through the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level at 1.6223. Horizontal support and the bottom trendline of the channel act as support near 1.5670. If the pair does break below, it can fall all the way to the previous lows near 1.5243.
Source: Tradingview, FOREX.com
Europe: Higher transitory inflation should lead to target levels of 2% next year
Australia: Inflation will be at 2%-3% target in 2024!
EUR/AUD is knocking its head into the 1.5900/1.6000 level. As long as European inflation expectations are higher than those of Australia, the pair should remain bid. A break above 1.6035 and EUR/AUD could be off to the races.
ECB Forex RBA Trade Ideas
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El Salvador Flag
Flag of El Salvador - Description of the El Salvador Flag
As the above picture of the El Salvador Flag indicates the overall background isblue and white
The El Salvador flag is described as follows:
Three equal horizontal bands of blue (top), white, and blue
The national coat of arms is centered in the white band
The coat of arms features a round emblem encircled by the words REPUBLICA DE EL SALVADOR EN LA AMERICA CENTRAL
According to Ancient and Heraldic traditions much symbolism is associated with colors. The colors on the El Salvador flag represent the following:
White - peace and honesty
Blue - the sea and the sky - vigilance, truth and loyalty, perseverance & justice
The basic style shown in the picture of the El Salvador flag is described as Emblem -reflecting the central design of the flag pattern
The shape and flag ratio of the El Salvador flag is described as 3:5
The emblem on the El Salvador flag pictures the coat of arms
The Meaning & History of the El Salvador Flag - The El Salvador Coat of Arms emblem depicts
The five flags five fraternal Central American countries - El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica
14 laurel leaves the number of States
The phrygian cap of liberty
5 volcanos represent the five nations in the Central American isthmus ( isthmus - a narrow strip of land connecting two larger masses of land )
The two oceans - Pacific & Atlantic
Equilateral triangle representing the equality of individuals
Rainbow representing Hope
The knot represents Unity
The flag of El Salvador was adopted on September 27, 1972
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Atheist Group Files Amicus Brief Supporting Christian Student Disciplined for Evangelizing on Campus
An atheist group has filed an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit against a Georgia college that disciplined a Christian student for preaching on campus.
According to The Christian Post, the American Humanist Association filed the brief this week in the case of Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski.
In the case, the Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit on behalf of student Chike Uzuegbunam against George Gwinnett College.
Uzuegbunam was disciplined for distributing Christian literature outside the limits of a free speech zone on the college campus.
According to school policy, which has since changed, students were only allowed to preach or distribute literature at two “free speech zones” on campus.
AHA Executive Director Roy Speckhardt said in a statement released Tuesday that he believes people must “be given every chance to preserve their First Amendment rights.
“While the AHA and ADF may approach the Constitution from different angles, at the very least we agree that First Amendment litigation and the associated rights are essential to our democracy,” he said.
In the amicus brief, the American Humanist Association said, “religious freedom” is the “cornerstone of our democracy.”
“On the chopping block is a time-honored remedy essential to vindicating the most important rights in our country. Religious freedom—the cornerstone of our democracy—could become an empty promise without nominal damages,” read the summary of the AHA brief.
“Religion Clause violations rarely produce actual damages and often stem from easily-mootable laws. Taking away from citizens the only remedy available in many such cases jeopardizes the rule of law itself.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom filed the suit on behalf of Uzuegbunam and another student, Joseph Bradford, but in 2017, the college changed the campus policy and said the complaint against the school was no longer applicable.
A district court agreed and ruled in favor of the college. In an appeal, a Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the original ruling.
ADF then appealed the decision and the Supreme Court is next expected to hear oral arguments in the case.
Photo courtesy: ©GettyImages/Prostock-Studio
Pompeo, On Impromptu Visit to Rome, Warns Vatican on China Deal
Pompeo, On Impromptu Visit to Rome, Warns Vatican on China Deal Thursday, October 1, 2020
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