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As The Current Year comes to an end, it's time to take stock of how the Narrative has changed. One of the most noticeable developments is how those who push for mass immigration in Europe have essentially stopped making arguments. Few are saying the wave of Muslim "refugees" are going to help Europe. Instead, it is framed as a moral obligation, an act of cosmic repentance for racism, or simply something we "can" do. As Angela Merkel used to put it, "wir schaffen das," or "we can do it." Ok, but why should we?
No one seems to be answering that last question. Instead, as the costs of "diversity" become more and more apparent, Europe is learning the truth behind Sam Francis's warning that anarcho-tyranny is where multiculturalism leads. Now, because of rising migrant crime, Germany is moving towards adopting a UK style surveillance state.
A week after a deadly terror attack at a Christmas market, another crime in the German capital is feeding a debate over how the country balances security and civil liberties. Early Christmas morning, police said, a group of young people tried to set fire to a sleeping homeless man in a Berlin subway station. Passersby extinguished the flames before the man was hurt. By Tuesday, the suspects in the case had been detained. They were asylum seekers—six from Syria and one from Libya, according to police. Authorities said all seven either turned themselves in or were taken into custody after the publication of security-camera images... [T]he usefulness of the video footage in this case has given advocates of tougher security measures another example to justify their call for expanded surveillance powers for the state as it contends with a massive influx of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. The government approved a law last week meant to increase video surveillance in public places—drafted before the truck attack—but proponents say even more is needed. [New Berlin Crime Adds Fuel to German Debate Over Surveillance and Immigration, by Anton Troianovski, Wall Street Journal, December 27, 2016]
It's these kinds of developments which fuel conspiracy theories. The government, quite literally, imports a security problem which makes life worse for everyone. Then, to "solve" the problem which they themselves created, government officials propose a sweeping crackdown on the people in general. It won't do much to solve the actual problem. The mass surveillance state created in Great Britain hasn't done much to stop rising crime in that unfortunate kingdom [ Violent crime jumps 27 percent in new figures released by the Office for National Statistics , by David Barrett, Telegraph, January 22, 2016].
There's some opposition in Germany.
But some proposals for tougher laws are likely to encounter skepticism from Ms. Merkel’s center-left Social Democratic coalition partners and from the parliamentary opposition. “Video surveillance in sensitive and endangered places is right, and it can help,” said Konstantin von Notz, a lawmaker for the opposition, center-left Greens in federal parliament. “But it is also completely clear that undoing privacy and the ability to be unobserved in public spaces…would be completely incompatible with our constitution.”
Yet this opposition is meaningless. The Green Party, which is now "center-left" apparently, is fanatically dedicated to replacing Germans with Arabs. As are the Social Democrats. So expect the surveillance state to be on its way.
Not that it will do anything to stop crimes like this:
Residents were being evacuated following the discovery of a bomb from the Second World War and some had boarded a replacement night bus when a fight broke out. Several Syrian migrants erupted with anger because of a pram taking up space on the bus. Migrants hurled abuse at other passengers before a fight broke out, with four of the Syrian men using the handles on the bus to hoist themselves up and attack women and old people to try and drag them into the fighting, according to an eyewitness. The migrants paid no attention to anyone in their way, at one point kicking a one-year-old in the face. Paramedics were called and arrived on the scene to help the injured but the men began attacking them with belts - not letting up until the police were called. [Rampaging Syrian migrants KICK BABY on bus, then attack paramedics trying to treat child, by Rehema Figueiredo, Telegraph, December 28, 2016]
Unlimited surveillance, attacks on paramedics, and Arabs kicking babies in the face. Isn't diversity wonderful? |
Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog comic is an intimidating beast. Over 200 issues long and 10 or 11 spin-offs wide, most newcomers don’t know where to start. And believe me, starting at issue #1 is NOT a good idea.
For those looking to get in with the latest issues, they might be left a little perplexed. Old school fans of the games from the ’90s could be put off by all the modern Sonic trappings they don’t care about. And youngsters who weren’t alive in the previous century couldn’t give a s--t about those weird non-SEGA characters like Sally and Bunnie and Antoine.
How do you satisfy older fans who want the nostalgia of the ’90s as well as younger fans who don’t want all that baggage from a 25 year-old cartoon that got cancelled after two seasons?
Writer Ian Flynn and artist Tyson Hesse may have very well found the solution.
Sonic Mega Drive #1 (Archie Comics)
Sonic Mega Drive #1 picks up shortly after the events of Sonic CD. Sonic reunites with Tails and together they endeavor to stop Eggman (Dr. Robotnik) from collecting the seven Ancient Gears. Eggman intends to use their power to create the Mega Drive and pick up where his foiled Death Egg scheme left off. Sonic and Tails journey through numerous Zones to keep the Gears from him, linking up some old friends (Amy and Knuckles) along the way.
Look man, I’m not much of a modern Sonic the Hedgehog guy. The Genesis trilogy and Sonic CD are sort of where I draw the line on his games, and that ain’t for lack of trying. I quit somewhere around the soul-crushing mediocrity of Sonic Heroes and from what I understand the games only proceeded to get LESS playable (never touched the 2006 Sonic game, but the videos on YouTube are a riot).
So when it comes to Sonic, I’m an old fogy forever trapped in the ’90s (hence my preference for “Robotnik” over whatever stupid thing SEGA says we’re supposed to call him now).
That said, I DO like some of the non-SEGA stuff. Ever since the reboot, Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog ongoing has been downright readable for perhaps the first time in its entire publication history. You think I’m being all “damning with faint praise”, but I dare you to read anything between issues #50 and #160. Hell, go do a Google Image Search for some page or panel selections.
No, that’s not a fan comic from DeviantArt you’re looking at. That’s official SEGA licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic art. People paid money to read these.
But yeah, the book’s been pretty good since it rebooted. The ’90s cartoon characters like Sally and all them persist, but they’ve been rerendered into an aesthetic style congruent with SEGA’s actual Sonic character designs. So now it doesn’t look like Sonic and Tails have wandered into some furry’s gross fetish commission.
As enjoyable as the ongoing has been, the reboot had one downside. It picked the story up at a contemporary point in the narrative, leaving a HUGE stretch of back story unseen. The events of the SEGA games are canon, and editorial notes will often tell readers to go play them if they want to know what everyone’s referencing, but so far as the COMIC goes we’ve got a lot of missing history.
The Sonic Mega Drive special sort of helps to fill in that gap, playing a role in the ongoing series while also being instantly accessible to newcomers and nostalgia junkies alike.
There’s a refreshing innocence to the comic, as Sonic and pals are just adventurers and treasure hunters, looking to do good while having a good time. None of that dark and gloomy s--t with Robotnik mutilating animals and enslaving populations; none of that Freedom Fighter stuff with Sonic teaming up alongside a bunch of Original Characters to play eco-terrorist. Nah, it’s just… fun. And despite what many of the recent Sonic games might encourage you to think, Sonic the Hedgehog should be FUN.
The art style by Hesse (with color by Matt Herms) goes for a retro-90s look, but not the one you might be thinking of. Rather than aim for Sonic as he looked in the ’90s from a Western perspective, this is Sonic’s ’90s design as seen in Japan. We didn’t glimpse it much on our shores, but you’ll probably recognize it from the Sonic CD cut scenes or Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie. I’ll confess that it’s a much more palatable design than the weird version I grew up with; the one with the mohawk and the alarmingly consistent Jaleel White voice-over.
Robotnik, too, has his ’90s SEGA design which never appeared in any of the American cartoons (where he looked radically different from one to the other). It’s that Teddy Roosevelt look that I’ve always liked; so incredibly un-menacing and perfectly befitting of such a goofy loser. Honestly, Robotnik has invariably been the best thing about every Sonic cartoon and I don’t think there’s ever been a BAD version of him, or actor who has played him (he was the best part of Sonic Boom by a wide margin). I love me some Robotnik, even if we’re supposed to call him “Eggman” now (kinda pulls the rug out from under the retro-90s gimmick when the book doesn’t call him by the name he had in the ’90s).
Hesse’s layouts are very fluid and the characters are always moving all the time. You might breeze through the pages quickly, but that’s only because the draftsmanship is so intuitive that it encourages you to zip through the panels at a hectic speed. Yes, this comic comes with Blast Processing. Free of charge.
Hesse’s expressions are where it’s at, too. The characters just look funny and much of the humor isn’t in the dialogue, but in how the characters physically react to all the Badniks or Zone hazards getting in their way. He tries to make the environments consistent with how they appeared in the games of the era, which might be a little surreal but certainly distinct. So there are random loops in mountains and floating platforms and when Badniks explode they leave tiny animals behind and if Sonic gets bonked on the head then rings fall out of his anus, etc.
Yes, this comic comes with Blast Processing. Free of charge.
Taking place after Sonic CD, the story tries to stitch the continuity of the games together a little tighter. CD takes place after Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but Tails was absent from CD, so he isn’t familiar with Amy and wants to know what happened during Sonic’s adventure on the Little Planet. Likewise, Amy wasn’t around during Sonic 3 & Knuckles, so she has no idea who Knuckles is and has to be introduced to him.
It’s a neat gesture on Flynn’s part, maybe filling in a sort of narrative gap between games (these characters were all introduced separately then sort of became a group at some point prior to Adventure).
So far as characterization goes, Sonic and Tails don’t have anything to really discuss. Sonic’s a cool guy and Tails is smart; their usual shtick. Flynn finds a merciful middleground with Amy, dialing back her stalker tendencies. She’s more interested in proving to Sonic that she’s a capable adventurer rather than, I dunno, rape him or whatever she’s always trying to do in the Japanese games and cartoons.
Knuckles picks up with him still being in a grey area with Sonic; not quite friend and not quite foe. That’s the image of Knuckles I’ll always remember (the snickering jerk who pulls switches and dumps you down pits at the end of Zones), so it was sweet to see that era revisited. Personality-wise, he seems to hew closer to his Sonic Boom persona: An idiot. Knuckles as a drooling moron is a concept that lives and dies by the quality of the material he’s given (and luckily the writers of the Boom cartoon gave him some great lines) and Hesse does it well. There’s a great flashback sequence, retold from Knuckles’ perspective, and it’s another one of those cases where Hesse’s art sells the gag.
Mega Drive is a one-shot but not a complete story. There’s a sequel coming in the Fall called Mega Drive: The Next Level. So don’t expect any closure on this adventure. That said, the art is superb and the nostalgia is in high gear. It hits that sweet spot I mentioned earlier, attracting older folks who used to eat and breathe Sonic in the ’90s as well as novices who aren’t that familiar with the character’s comic book history.
If you’re looking to get into Sonic comics, you really ought to pick it up. |
"No, Rainbow, you gotta bend from the front when you kick from the back," Applejack said, sipping her apple juice in the shade of an apple tree. It was Applebuck Season again, and this year she hadn't hesitated to ask her friends for help, even though Big Macintosh was in fine health. More hooves just made the work easier; they were getting done in less than half the time. But this year, when she wasn't so desperate, she found herself becoming more discerning.
Rainbow Dash growled, her hindquarters facing another apple tree a ways yonder. "As long as the apples fall down from the tree, it works, right?" The sky-blue pegasus gave the tree a kick with her back legs, causing a thundering rumble of beautiful red apples to fall from the branches into waiting wooden buckets on the ground.
The orange earth pony shook her head. "It ain't the apples that concern me here, it's you," she said. Her weathered brown cowcolt's hat was tilted back on her head, offering her even more shade and respite from the heat of the sun. "Buckin' with a bad technique is a recipe for trouble. You'll just wind up hurtin' yourself in the long run."
"Bucking is easy! Everypony does it! It's instinct!"
"Everypony does it, but not everypony does it right," Applejack retorted. "And you gotta do it right if you're gonna do it a lot. You train, you work out, you know that." She rose to her hooves and trotted over to her friend, positioning her hindquarters to face the tree. "You can't straighten your front legs out - it locks 'em and makes all the force shudder down 'em. You'll get bone fractures if you keep it up. You gotta bend at the front - distribute the force."
"I don't do this all year," Dash said. "It's just for a few weeks every summer."
"A few weeks every summer, year after year," Applejack answered again. "It adds up." She bent her front legs, threw back her back legs, and bucked, striking the trunk of the tree with her back hooves. A massive shudder wound through the apple tree, and a few more apples at the highest branches tumbled down to join the others in the buckets. "Good technique makes good work, too. Better than bad technique, and less effort."
Dash rolled her eyes. "What are you, my coach? I don't... hey, it's Derpy."
Applejack followed her friend's eyes up into the sky. A light gray pegasus was descending toward them in wheeling circles. Her blond mane and tail were flying wildly in the breeze, and her golden eyes were canted in wildly separate directions, one going up, the other going down. When she got to the ground, she streaked along the grass before skidding face-first into the dirt in front of the two ponies. She rose to a sitting position, smiling the widest and most innocent smile you could imagine. "Pip pip, cheerio!" she exclaimed. She dug into the leather saddlebags around her flanks, her hooves rifling through letters and small parcels. "Spoiler alert! You are Revan!"
"That's... that's great, Derpy!" Rainbow Dash said with a slightly nervous smile. She never quite knew what to make of Derpy Hooves. The pegasus was crazy, and not even crazy like Pinkie Pie. However, like Pinkie Pie, she was mostly harmless. Mostly. "So whaddya got?"
Derpy's hoof came out of her saddlebag wrapped around a weathered yellow envelope. It was addressed to Sweet Apple Acres in Ponyville, but there was no name to go with the address. Also, there was no return address. But the postmark... "It's from Appleloosa!" Applejack exclaimed, snatching the letter away with her mouth. She turned back to the mailpony. "Sorry, Derpy, I ain't got no muffins, but here," and she used her tail to flick an apple in Derpy's direction.
Derpy caught it in her mouth. "Porkpie!" she said through her teeth. With a rapid flutter of her wings, she was airborne again, climbing in the same looping circles that she had landed with.
Rainbow Dash turned to the letter. "Appleloosa? You think it's from Braeburn?"
"I suppose it could be," Applejack said. She had a strange, sinking feeling that this was not the case. Braeburn would not have forgotten a return address, not unless he had been particularly scatterbrained that day, and even in that case, he wouldn't have left off her or Big Macintosh's name. Setting the letter on the ground, she tore it open with her teeth and yanked out the folded letter. It too was weathered and yellow, and appeared to have a large brown stain dried across it. Unfolding the paper, Applejack read. It wasn't very long.
Dear HC,
Found you. I got your little Braeburn.
If you want him safe and sound, come
alone to the old place. Let's finish this.
LL
"Who's 'LL'?" Rainbow Dash said, reading the letter over. "And he's got Braeburn? As in kidnapped?! We gotta do something! Applejack, we... Applejack?"
The orange earth pony was still staring down at the letter, her green eyes set in a stern expression. Her mouth was a grim line. She slowly folded the letter back up and stuffed it back in the envelope. Slipping the envelope under her hat, she turned toward the entrance to the north orchard, the great old barn and the farmhouse visible in the distance. "Rainbow, I gotta go."
"Go? Go where? To Appleloosa?" the sky-blue pegasus exclaimed. "Well, duh! I'll go get Twilight and the others -"
"No you won't," Applejack said in a flat voice. "I gotta go alone."
"You can't seriously believe that! It's obviously some kind of trap! And it's not even addressed to you - it's for 'HC,' whoever that is!"
"I knew 'em a long time ago," Applejack said. "Ain't seen 'em in a while. But the letter's pretty clear, ain't it? Come alone. So I will."
"No way!" Rainbow Dash said. "I'm telling Twilight!"
"Rainbow, wait -" But before Applejack could say any more, Rainbow Dash had shot into the sky in a rainbow streak. Applejack sighed. Now she'd have to do more talking. But at least she had a little time to get her effects together. She hoped they were still where she had left them.
• • •
Big Macintosh was rifling through the pantry in the farmhouse kitchen when he heard the screen door close. Setting down the jar of pickles, he poked his big red head out of the double doors and through the kitchen doorway. His younger sister had entered the house and was headed through the sitting room, headed for the hall. "AJ?" Big Mac called. "Y'all done in the north orchard?"
"Nope," Applejack said. "Say Mac, you or Granny Smith clean out the old guest room closet lately?"
"The guest room closet?" Big Mac said, putting a hoof to his chin. "I don't reckon we have. Not for a long while, anyway."
"Good," Applejack said, moving through the sitting room. Without another word, she disappeared from his line of sight.
She was being so... direct. No humor to her voice, none of her usual energy. Worried, Big Macintosh left the kitchen, turning down the hallway. Passing the old nursery and Granny Smith's room, he reached the guest bedroom at the end and walked inside; the curtains were drawn, making the space dim and gloomy. The room still had the decorations their mother had arranged in her determination to make the guest room the fanciest room in the house: the comforter on the bed was lacy at the fringes, the pillows were silk, there were Griffonese decorative plates on shelves along the wall. The large closet was open, and Applejack was standing on a chair deep inside it, reared up on her back legs and using her front hooves to push through piled boxes and wrapped brown paper bundles on the closet's upper shelf.
What could she be lookin' for in there? Big Macintosh wondered. "AJ?" he called.
"You sure no one cleaned this place out, Mac?" his sister said without turning around.
"I'm sure," he said. She was obviously looking for something that had been in there a while, piled up near the back of the top shelf - his eyes widened. "You ain't lookin' for what I think you're lookin' for, are you?"
There was no response for a moment. He was about to go into the closet when Applejack emerged from it, clutching a large brown paper bag in her mouth. "Not lookin' for - found."
"You said you never wanted to see that stuff again. I had to talk you outta burnin' it."
"And I'm mighty glad I didn't, now," Applejack said.
"But why?"
She nodded toward the bed. A letter was laid out on it. Big Macintosh read it very quickly. "So he's back."
"And he's got Braeburn," Applejack said.
"I'm comin' with you," Big Macintosh said.
"You do, and Braeburn's a goner," Applejack said.
"You don't reckon he'd actually kill 'im, do you?" the red earth pony said. "He could just be bluffin'."
"He ain't bluffin'," Applejack said.
"You can't tell that from writin'."
"I can tell," the orange earth pony said grimly. "He's already gone far enough to kidnap Braeburn - he wouldn't have done that before."
"Then I definitely gotta go with you," Big Macintosh said. "You're walkin' into a trap, AJ. You need some backup."
"If I need some, I can get it in Appleloosa," she said. "And you gotta stay and keep the applebuckin' goin'." She dropped the bag and gave him a slanted smile. "Besides, I've handled 'im before all by my lonesome."
"Like you said, though, it sounds like he's changed. He ain't the same pony you dragged to the marshals."
"Sure, he's changed," she said, picking up the bag again. She headed toward the door. "But so have I."
When Applejack opened the front door of the farmhouse, her five friends were standing in the yard. "Applejack!" Twilight Sparkle called, seeing her friend. She noticed the saddlebags around the orange earth pony's flanks. "Rainbow Dash told us about the letter! You can't go alone!"
"I gotta," Applejack said.
"Dearest, at least tell us what's going on!" Rarity exclaimed. "Who is this 'LL' character? Do you know him?"
A grim look passed over Applejack's face. "He's somepony I gotta see to alone. If Rainbow told you about the letter, you'll know he don't want no other pony comin'."
"Absolutely not!" Twilight Sparkle said. "Applejack, you know better than this! You don't have to do this alone."
"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash said.
"Please don't, Applejack!" Fluttershy said.
"Yes, Applejack, let us help!" Rarity said.
"Good luck, Applejack!" Pinkie Pie said.
The four ponies turned to her. "Pinkie Pie, we don't want her to go off alone!" Dash said.
"But she has to, Dash!" the pink earth pony said. She bounced over to Applejack until she was right in front of her; walking closer, Pinkie went nose-to-nose with her friend. Her brilliant blue eyes stared deeply into Applejack's. The orange earth pony kept her gaze steady. Pinkie Pie nodded. "Yup, she has to do it alone. She's not being stubborn."
Twilight gave Pinkie an incredulous look. "She won't let us come! How is that not stubborn?"
"Because she's being nice to us," Pinkie Pie said. She turned back to her other friends. "Other ponies don't belong at a reckoning."
The final word carried an... icy quality, even from Pinkie Pie's cheerful delivery. Applejack gave her friends a pleading expression. "Please, y'all. I love when y'all offer to help me. I know I'm stubborn..." she looked away, "...and silly... and all manner o' foolish prideful things. And y'all have helped me get a lot better. But... I can't let y'all help with this. This isn't just somethin' I want to do alone - this is somethin' I gotta do alone."
Her friends looked hard into her eyes. Applejack looked hard right back. Sighing, Twilight's horn shimmered. The lavender unicorn willed a brilliant white spark into existence, then forged a clear crystal to enclose it. She floated the crystal over to Applejack. "That's an alert spell. If you're in real trouble - if you really need help - break the crystal, and I'll know."
Applejack smiled. "Thank you, sugarcube. I hope I won't need it." She flipped open her left saddlebag. As she placed the crystal inside, Rarity caught a glimpse of black. The saddlebag closed, and it was gone. "Now if y'all don't mind, I gotta get goin'. I gotta hurry if I'm gonna make the last train to Appleloosa today."
"Please be safe!" Fluttershy cried, rushing in to nuzzle her. The others massed for a group hug. Applejack sighed pleasantly, relishing the smell and the feel of friends. It might be the last I get for a while, she thought. "Thank you all. I reckon I'll see y'all later. Big Macintosh is in charge o' the farm while I'm gone, and he'll help y'all through the rest o' applebuckin' 'til I get back." As her friends parted around her, she broke into a trot. Reaching the gate of the yard, she turned around and gave them one last look. They were waving their hooves at her. She smiled warmly and set off, breaking into a gallop. She maintained it for about ten minutes, until she was well on the road into Ponyville. Up ahead, the road forked, the rightmost fork labeled with the sign indicating the train station. She stopped at the fork, looking carefully every which way. Making sure nopony was in sight, she slipped out of her saddlebags and opened them. I might as well change here.
• • •
Tappertrim sighed, pressing her snout against the window of the train. The country rushing by outside was flat and brown, baked by the sun and whipped by hot wind. Other than the occasional cactus, nothing grew. She had seen a buffalo herd earlier, and that had been terribly exciting, but now she was just bored. Her bright green coat was contrasted by the white bonnet she wore on her head. "Mama," she said, "when are we going to get to Appleloosa?"
"It won't be too much longer, honey," her mother said. She was curled up on the bench next to Tappertrim, working on her knitting. "Just think how excited your cousin Bouncy Bubbles will be to see you! And aunt Shine will just love to see how you've grown!"
"She'll probably smoosh my face," Tappertrim groused, "and talk to me like a baby."
"She hasn't seen you since you were a foal, honey," her mother said. "She won't have any idea what to do with you."
Tappertrim sighed again. "Can I have a sucker?"
"Not another one, honey, we have to save them for aunt Shine."
"Shoot!" Tappertrim cried. Sliding down from her seat, she walked to the door of the compartment and out into the aisle. The compartment across from hers also had its door open. A lone pony was sitting on the right bench seat, leaned against the corner near the window. Cautiously Tappertrim crept inside.
The pony on the seat appeared to be asleep. It was a filly, with an orange coat and a straw-blond mane and tail. Her cutie mark was obscured by a black poncho swaddling her body. A black, wide-brimmed cowcolt's hat was tipped low over her eyes. Tappertrim, fascinated, crept closer. She looked so mysterious. She was right in front of the pony now. Upon closer inspection, she could make out glimpses of a black belt through the poncho, wrapped around her hindquarters.
"H'llo there."
"Eep!" Tappertrim squeaked, jumping all the way back into the other seat.
"Tappertrim!" her mother's voice came from the entrance to the compartment. The blue earth pony had a very cross expression on her face. "You get back here this instant!" She turned to the pony in black. "I'm terribly sorry, ma'am."
"T'ain't no trouble, ma'am," the pony in black said, tipping back her hat and raising her head. Her eyes were brilliant light green. "It was about time I woke up, anyway. Can I trouble you for the time?"
Tappertrim's mother glanced at a clock on the wall of the cabin. "It's almost two o'clock."
"And we're due in Appleloosa by two thirty," the pony in black remarked. She sighed a very weary sigh.
"Are you all right?" Tappertrim asked, in the blunt way children do.
The pony in black half-lidded her eyes. "I hope to be."
• • •
Hardshackle pawed the earth with a hoof across the street from the train station. Ponies from the Equestria Special were disembarking, streaming out, blinking in the blinding afternoon sun. Colts, stallions, fillies, mares, foals, meeting family at the entrance, or proceeding alone into town. But none of them were who he sought.
Long Lasso said she would be coming today or tomorrow, he thought, chewing on his cigarillo. He balanced it out on his front hoof, blowing a cloud of smoke. His brown felt cowcolt's hat was making him hot, but at least it kept the sun out of his eyes. His dark purple coat wasn't good for dealing with the sun. He didn't even like this dusty, hellish place; he was originally from Stalliongrad, accustomed to his old job as an enforcer for the Marefia. It was entirely too bright here, and entirely too warm. But the pay was good; not great, but good. He tapped the earth with his other hoof, upon which was fixed an iron horseshoe. Long Lasso had said that she would probably come quietly, but that he should be prepared to use force. Besides, he hadn't made anything hurt in a while. The itch was coming back.
Suddenly, an iron noose tightened around his neck. He was snapped off his feet, flying backward through the air, into the alley between saloon and general store. He finally stopped flying, tumbling into a rolling, dusty heap. He landed on his belly, legs splayed every which way. The noose loosened from his neck. A whipple through the air drew itself away from him, and he glanced up. Standing before him was an orange earth pony with a black poncho around her body and a black cowcolt's hat on her head. The poncho briefly blew open, revealing a black belt around her flanks. A black lasso was strapped to each side. Her green eyes were hard and cold.
All he could think to say was, "You're Hard Cider?"
"Reckon I am," she said. Her tail snaked around and plucked the cigarillo from his mouth; she transferred it to her hoof, and stuck it between her own teeth. "Now you wouldn't happen to know where your boss is holed up, would you?"
"He said you'd already know -"
A rap on the forehead from her front hoof made him see stars. "Pretend I don't. And pretend I don't trust 'im."
Hardshackle saw no point in holding out. He'd already been paid plenty. "He's in the old box canyon west of town! In the hideout in the rock!"
She lowered her head and gave him a hard stare. She blew a cloud of smoke into his face. "Reckon I'll pay 'im a visit," she said. "If you're in town when I get back, I'll break your legs." She turned and walked past him, out of the alley. Hardshackle waited until her hoofbeats were gone from his hearing. Rising to his hooves, he looked across the street to the train station. The last train for Fillydelphia was just starting to board. He decided to be on it.
• • •
The pony in black trotted across the desert, moving quickly but not galloping, keeping an easy pace. It was hot and dry, especially in her black, but she paid it no mind. She had no fear of sweat. Buzzards wheeled overhead, seeing her alone and hoping for the worst. A lizard crossed her path at one point; its empty eye tilted up to meet her gaze, caring nothing for her. She let it go. In the distance, red sandstone rose in towers, casting long, long shadows across the barren earth. I reckoned I'd see more mooks, she thought. Guess he don't have that much money.
By the time evening arrived, she had reached the box canyon, its tall walls rising around her. She was trotting through a narrow pass when two ponies sprang out from amid the rock. One was gray and one was yellow. The gray one was a unicorn, and his horn shimmered, while the yellow earth pony aimed a bow-and-arrow at her with his front hooves. "Hooves in the air, filly!" the yellow one barked. "No funny business."
The pony in black chuckled. "Is that supposed to be a threat?"
"You're comin' with us," the gray one said.
The pony in black sat back on her haunches, raising her front hooves in the air. The two ponies began to inch toward her, the yellow one balancing carefully on his back hooves. She smiled. "Just so y'all know," she said, "this ain't my first rodeo."
She snapped her head to her left side, while her tail whipped to her right. Faster than either of her attackers could blink, she had a lasso in her mouth and a lasso in her tail. The black ropes whipped out like snakes, wrapping around the front hooves of the pony with the bow and choking the unicorn around the neck. With an immensely strong tug, she yanked both of them toward her; rolling back, she was clear of them when they collided with each other.
Trotting up to the piled heap, the pony in black pressed her front hoof into the unicorn's head. "Now, tell me if there's any more o' y'all."
The unicorn spat at her.
She slashed the edge of her hoof across his brow, cutting it open; blood spilled down his face. She gave the yellow earth pony a stony glare. "Please!" he screamed. "It's just us! He ain't got no money for more!"
She smiled grimly. "Thank ya kindly," she said. She slammed her front hooves down on their heads, knocking them unconscious. She wiped her left hoof in the dirt, trying to get off some of the blood. She picked up her lassos with her mouth and her tail and whipped them around her, coiling them both at her sides simultaneously. Her poncho fluttered at the sudden breeze in the otherwise dead air. The pony in black set her sights on the end of the canyon, now just visible. She trotted on.
Reaching the wall of rock, she picked her way through the crags she still remembered, finding the hidden crevice that led into the sandstone. Looking up, she saw the winding stone path, switchbacking up into the darkness. She sniffed the air. No smell of any other ponies. She began to climb. The higher she got, the darker it grew. But when she reached about the midway point, there was a faint light shining down from above. It grew brighter the higher she got, until it easily illuminated her path.
"Sandy Shores! Breakpoint! Y'all were supposed to stay put 'til sundown!"
She knew that voice.
She galloped the rest of the way up the path. "'Fraid they were indisposed," she growled.
"Hard Cider!" The cave was lit by torches mounted on sconces in the sandstone walls. Bags of apples were stacked against one wall, and at the other some blankets and pillows were jumbled. In the middle there was a great stone slab, roughly rectangular in shape. On it, a sandy yellow earth pony with a lanky frame was hog-tied.
He turned his head toward the pony in black. "Cousin Applejack!" he cried. "You are sure as shootin' a sight for sore eyes!"
Hard Cider nodded. "Braeburn, you all right?"
"I -"
Before he could say more, a knife came out of the shadows and was at his throat. It was grasped in the tail of a dark blue earth pony. He wore a black cowcolt's hat on his head and a brown bandana around his neck. A long scar ran down the right side of his face. The images of twin nooses adorned his flanks. His dark red eyes had a wildness in them. "He ain't goin' nowhere."
Hard Cider chewed the cigarillo in her mouth. "Let 'im go, Long Lasso. You got me - I'm here."
"And I gotta keep 'im to make sure you stay here, Hard Cider - or is it Applejack?" he growled. "What do you call yourself these days? Was that name just one more lie?"
"I was never the liar in our partnership," Hard Cider said.
"You knew what I wanted," Long Lasso growled. "We were gonna split up this country! It was all gonna be ours! I never made any bones about that!"
"You made out like we were gonna do honest business!" Hard Cider said. "I went in for that. I didn't go in for thuggin' and lawlessness."
Long Lasso laughed. "Not for lawlessness? You? You broke as much law as I did!"
Hard Cider smiled. She spat out her cigarillo. "Yes... I reckon I did. But that was when the law was wrong, Long Lasso. Lawbreakin' was the only way to be honest back then. I took it as makin' lawless behavior necessary. I never took it as an excuse to be just as bad as the law." She growled. "Not like you. I shoulda seen you goin' bad sooner. I coulda stopped you before you went so far."
"Or is it just that you liked it for a while?" Long Lasso said. "You stopped me because you got tired o' me, Cider. Up to that point you had no problem."
"I didn't know!" Hard Cider said. "I was always aimin' to do right, Long Lasso. That's why I wanted to make Appleloosa rich with you. That's why I went along with your lawbreakin' at first. And that's why I went in with the law when I realized what you were. You weren't right, Long - you never were."
A flicker of pain came over his face. "Never?" he repeated with a voice like ash. "Never?"
Hard Cider was unflinching. "Never."
Long Lasso shook himself. "Do you know how long I spent trackin' you down?" he said. "Two years! You never did tell us where you came from, so I had no idea how to find you. It was just luck I saw your picture in the Apple Branch, with all your friends. Includin' your little cousin, here." He pressed the knife closer to Braeburn's throat.
Hard Cider's eyes wavered. She sighed. "That just proves my point," she said. "I don't know how you got out o' jail so fast, but you spent the whole past two years lookin' for me? You got free, Long. Why didn't you go somewhere new, start fresh? Revenge ain't good for nopony. You could have built a whole new life in two years' time."
"I didn't want a new life!" he spat. "I wanted my old life back! The life you took from me!"
"You can never get it back!" Hard Cider said. "Give it up!"
"No!" Long Lasso yelled in a strangled voice. "You took everythin' from me, Cider. I trusted you - I made you my compadre - you took everything!" His wild red eyes flicked down to Braeburn. "The least I can do is take somethin' from you."
"I thought it was me you wanted," Hard Cider said.
"I wanted you here to see it," he said.
"Don't even try," she said.
Their eyes were locked for an eternity. Long Lasso's breath was ragged; Hard Cider's was soft and smooth. Both of them were tensed like coiled springs.
Long Lasso's tail tightened -
Like lightning Hard Cider's lasso shot out, closing around the blue pony's tail and jerking it to the side; the knife flew away. The pony in black charged, leaping over Braeburn into Long Lasso. The two ponies wrestled, rolling in the dirt. Long Lasso bit her on the withers, but she responded by headbutting him, then clocking him in the groin with her back leg. Whimpering, he bent at the waist, so she freed her front hooves and began to strike him, again and again across the face. He rolled off her, but she got to her haunches and still she hit him, releasing four years' worth of betrayed feelings and backstabbing and trying to hurt her.
"Applejack!" Braeburn's voice called, bringing her back to her senses. She was panting, and there was a ringing in her ears. Long Lasso's face was a bruised mess. Rising to her four hooves, she looked about until she spotted some rope against the wall. She tied the dark blue earth pony up hog-style, cinching the rope as tight as she could. She trotted over to Braeburn, picking up the discarded knife with her tail and using it to cut the rope around his legs.
"You all right, Braeburn?" Hard Cider asked.
Braeburn raised a hoof to his neck. A small trickle of blood ran down it; he gasped.
"Just a surface cut," said Hard Cider. "You're fine."
"I reckon I'm mighty lucky," he said softly.
She gave him a grim smile. "You're not lucky. I'm just that good."
"Which makes me lucky that you were here," he said. "Applejack..." He looked past her to the bound Long Lasso. "What was that all about?"
Hard Cider averted her eyes. "That time I visited you... bringin' Bloomberg... it weren't my first time in Appleloosa."
Braeburn's eyes widened. "That's not a story I ever heard before."
"And maybe you won't hear it ever," she said.
"Cousin," he said. "Please tell me."
Hard Cider sighed. "It's a real long story, too..."
"Well we got an awful long walk back into town."
Her green eyes stopped being grim and cold for a moment; they lit up. "I reckon I oughta tell somepony," Applejack said. "I mean, Big Macintosh knows some of it. But I ain't never told anypony all of it."
Braeburn smiled. "You gotta start somewhere, cuz."
"You bleedin' foals are gonna make me sick!" Long Lasso spat.
Hard Cider whirled back toward him. "Hold your tongue and act polite, Long. Or maybe I won't tell the sheriff you're up here."
Long Lasso's red eyes widened. "My colts'll come for me."
"I reckon they won't," said the pony in black. "I reckon they'll take off. Not even the buzzards'll find you up here, Long." Her grim mouth loosened a bit. "But I'm not feelin' in a killin' mood. I don't much these days." She let her gaze wander to a crudely constructed wooden desk at the back of the cave. A box on top of it caught her eye; wandering over, she noticed it was full of cigarillos.
"Applejack?" Braeburn asked. "Can... can we get goin' now?"
The pony in black turned back to him. "Yeah, Braeburn. Let's get home."
• • •
Twilight Sparkle used her magic to lift the last of the apples from the last of the trees in the west orchard. They floated through the air, shimmering in the aura of her telekinesis, and deposited themselves neatly in the buckets on the grass. The lavender unicorn wiped her brow with a hoof. Even if it wasn't physical exertion, sustained magic usage took its toll on the body.
"Who wants lemonade?" Spike called, walking down the hill with a tray of cups.
"Awesome!" Rainbow Dash cried, darting over to the small purple dragon; she grabbed a cup between her hooves and began to chug the cool, sweet beverage. Rarity levitated a cup to her with her magic and began to daintily sip. Pinkie Pie poured it down her throat, while Fluttershy lapped it gently.
Twilight made a straw out of magic and began to suck. "This is great, Spike!" she said.
"I agree," Rarity said. "You've risen to the occasion marvelously, Spike."
Spike's green eyes lit up. "You really think so, Rarity?!"
She smiled. "I do indeed."
"I don't suppose there's any o' that left for me?"
The five ponies and one dragon turned sharply at the voice. Applejack walked slowly down the hill, the sun shining on her bare orange body, her triple apple cutie mark ruby red in the sun; her brown cowcolt's hat was tilted back on her head. Her green eyes were bright.
"APPLEJACK!" the six of them yelled, putting aside the lemonade to rush at her. They enveloped her in a hug, each of them struggling to touch her and make sure she was real. She had been gone a week, and they had heard nothing of her in that time.
"Are you all right, darling?" Rarity asked.
"I'm fine, Rarity, don't you worry," the orange earth pony said.
"What happened to Braeburn?" Twilight asked. "Is he okay?"
"He's safe and sound," Applejack said. "A little shook up, but safe and sound."
"And 'LL'?" Fluttershy asked. "What happened to him?"
Applejack looked at the ground for a moment. She spoke slowly. "He's... put away. He can't hurt nopony no more."
"So you reckoned," Pinkie Pie said.
Applejack shot a sharp glance at the pink earth pony. Pinkie Pie winked at her. Applejack nodded. "Yeah. I did."
"You gotta tell us what happened!" Rainbow Dash said.
Applejack hesitated. Do they deserve to know? she thought. She answered herself instantly: They're my friends. Of course they do. But not all at once. "I'll tell y'all... some day. Not today. But soon. Don't let me forget."
"Well I'd like to hear the story," Spike said. His eyebrows rose. "Oh, gosh, Applejack, I don't have any lemonade for you!"
"That's all right, Spike," said Applejack.
"No, hold on! I'll be right back!" he cried, and the purple dragon turned and ran up the hill toward the farmhouse.
"Welp," Applejack said, "it looks like y'all got the applebuckin' done while I was gone. So if y'all don't mind, I'm just gonna relax for a bit..." She walked through the crowd of her friends, headed for the biggest apple tree nearby. Settling down in the shade, she used her tail to reach up into her hat and pull out a small, light brown cylinder. "Don't suppose you'd light me up, Twilight?" she asked, putting the cigarillo in her mouth.
Her five friends absolutely gaped at her. "Er... s-sure," Twilight stammered. Her horn shimmered. A spark crackled at the tip of the cigarillo, and soon it was burning dull orange. Twilight turned her head, peering at Applejack sidelong. "You know smoking is bad for you, don't you Applejack?"
"I do," Applejack said with a nod. She blew out a cloud of smoke. "And in a week or so, I'll get tired of it. But for now I feel like it." She reached up with her hoof and tilted her hat down over her eyes. She leaned back against the tree, took a long drag of the cigarillo. "I got a lot o' faults, Twilight. I spent a long time gettin' rid o' most of 'em, and I got a long ways to go gettin' rid o' the rest." She blew smoke from her nostrils. "Let me have one or two to keep." |
In the future the years 2013-2015 will most likely be referred to as a turning point in Finnish political history. Before this time, the crux of the political consensus was in maintaining the welfare state, whereas after this point it will been seen as building sustainable growth.
Demos Helsinki has analysed the recent political discourse and recognised a clear and very recently appeared sustainable growth rhetoric.
This text gives suggestions and proposals as to how sustainable growth policy is brought to centre around concrete initiatives instead of remaining a short term political phrase like controlled structural change in the 1980s or responsible economic management in the early 2000s in Finland.
What is sustainable growth?
The Government’s priorities are reducing poverty, inequality and social exclusion, consolidating public finances and promoting sustainable economic growth, employment and competitiveness.
The government programme of the new Prime Minister Alexander Stubb thus describes the missions that unite all governing parties. Along with more traditional themes, sustainable economic growth has found its way onto the list of the government’s missions.
The government program was not the first instance where sustainable growth was brought to the fore. The Sustainable Growth department of the parliamentary Committee for the Future working group has operated since 2012, with the opposition lead Juha Sipilä as its chairman. The previous government led by Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen published a government report on the future called Well-being through Sustainable Growth in the autumn of 2013. Sustainable growth has raised discussion in other contexts as well.
Why talk about sustainable growth right now? For two reasons:
Finland has reached a period of slow growth The scarcity of natural resources transforms societal structures and economic life
The political means to support long term (i.e. sustainable) growth are few and far between when macroeconomic preconditions change. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Finland experienced relatively fast paced economic growth, thanks to which we became one of the world’s wealthiest and most wellbeing societies – The Finnish Miracle, like the name of André Chaker’s book published a couple of years back. Today, however, further growth is impeded by trends such as Finland’s demographic structure, the shift in the global economic centre of gravity, and changes in the crucial export industries. While politicians and officials continue to hail the importance of growth for the society, growth has become an increasingly elusive phenomenon.
In a highly developed country like Finland with an educated population, growth cannot be pursued at all costs, and limitations related to human wellbeing and the physical capacity of the planet need to be taken seriously. This is also on the wish list of the Finns themselves: the fourth Finnish attitude survey published by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA) in 2014 reveals that three fourths of Finnish people considers the welfare state worthy of its cost, and over two thirds believes that current style economic growth is detrimental to both nature and the human kind in the long run.
The idea of sustainable growth comes very close to sustainable development, which has been on the table since the 1980s. Its definition originates from the Brundtland Commission report Our Common Future. Its guiding principle is increasing the living standards of the poorest section of world population without infringing upon the opportunities of future generations.
Sustainable growth introduces a new attitude towards long-term thinking into politics. As the world around us changes, we are forced to evaluate the long-term impact of our actions more than before. As an example, due to climate and resource challenges, infrastructure development has to be resource smart. Economic opportunities no longer only entail mastering new technologies, but rather necessitate making use of the business opportunities that the demand for solutions to global problems presents.
Are sustainable growth and the welfare state incompatible?
Since the 1970s, all political parties have unanimously agreed that the Nordic welfare model is one of the strengths of the Finnish society, and that its protection and enhancement may justify certain political reforms. The Finnish welfare state is traditionally synonymous with a strong interventionist state that levels the inequalities of welfare between citizens and smooths out risks related to different phases of life. Although differing views on the means (and to some extent ends) exist, no party has questioned the value base and principles of the welfare state.
Political parties are unanimous in thinking that strong economic growth and the welfare state are interdependent. According to many a politician maintaining growth is a crucial part of welfare policy: wealth has to be created before it can be dealt. In this way the turn from prioritising the welfare state to prioritising sustainable growth may seem like a small shift in the focus of the related wording.
Yet for the internal dynamics of politics, the shift is more substantial. It is a matter of opening up a new trail in the political discourse: while the importance of sustainable growth is acknowledged by all political actors, there are differing views on how to bring it about.
These differing views on how to realise sustainable growth may generate new coalitions. Compared to the welfare state discourse, in the sustainable growth discussion there is a lot more leeway for different perspectives, and less focus on technical detail. In this way this kind of a shift in political wording is an appealing option for key party figures: letting go of the old and concentrating efforts on an equally important issue.
At this point, however, it is important to reflect upon the previous period of change in Finnish politics, and remember that the welfare state policy started off as new growth policy. The socio-political initiatives that now comprise the welfare state improved the living conditions and capability of the population, which meant a healthier and more able labour force, and thus better productivity. The “welfare generates growth” line of thought was popularised in the 1960s by Pekka Kuusi, now often considered the main ideologist behind the Finnish welfare model. The spread of this idea signified a great change in political thought: whereas before the aim of social policy had been to prevent conflicts arising from neighbourly love as well as from inequality, thereafter it was labelled as investment policy that builds the future of the nation.
Can the rise of welfare policy be used as an example in developing sustainable growth policy?
The political discourse on sustainable growth is embodied in the thought that we need to invest in that which creates growth and develop the society. This definition, however, remains too narrow in that it leaves unmentioned the concrete things that we need to invest in to generate growth.
Looking at global megatrends it is clear that sustainable growth needs to be based on a resource smart economy and on developing people’s capabilities. These together form the foundation of societal development. Digitalisation has rid us of a large chunk of the barriers between people’s learning and cooperation. The successful sectors of the future are ones that know how to motivate people to become curious about the future and about new possibilities for cooperation.
The most secure way to generate growth in times of global competition is to develop and commercialise solutions for the wicked problems of the human kind, such as climate change or lifestyle diseases. Turning wicked problems and their solutions into business opportunities requires a certain set of skills, as do application of technology and international trade.
Welfare policy first developed as a series of political initiatives that were, in essence, slowly accumulating investments into human wellbeing and growth. Similar cutting edge initiatives are now needed for sustainable growth policy. We suggest that in the coming months, as part of their electoral programmes and in the subsequent government negotiations, Finnish politicians start building concrete initiatives for sustainable growth upon the following key areas:
Investments for sustainable growth
Generating sustainable growth requires new investments into resource smart infrastructure, people’s abilities and new businesses. Merely directing public funds into these areas is not enough. The focus of the investments made by other institutions and private individuals must also change.
The susceptibility of pension funds and other institutions to the carbon bubble, or their dependency on oil, coal and gas companies must be reduced. Moreover the focus of investments has to shift towards impact investment: into initiatives and companies that alongside economic profit provide new solutions to social and healthcare services and resource intelligence.
New measures to promote consumer cleantech
The cutting edge sector of the Finnish innovation and economic policy has in recent years been cleantech. Its focus has been in industrial solutions based on innovations in companies of the process industries. Cleantech is based upon the idea of resolving global wicked problems, and demand is likely to abound in the future as well. As the importance of traditional heavy export industries diminishes, it is important to extend the ground of Finnish cleantech towards consumer services – towards consumer cleantech. Municipalities, construction companies and property owners can bring about experimental markets for new consumer cleantech companies. Furthermore venture capital must be made available for consumer cleantech startups.
A broader perspective on work
The general line of thought in Finland has been that jobs are created through investments by large companies. However, the ability of old companies to generate new jobs is unlikely to improve in the coming years. In the future, more and more jobs are created in small businesses and organisations or through self-employment. A paid job or self-employment can increasingly often be found through a hobby or voluntary work – the boundaries between different types of activity fade. The entire field of employment policy must be re-evaluated and extended to make use of opportunities that arise from voluntary work and a new kind of entrepreneurship.
Education built upon curiosity
We have reached a turning point in the development of capability: the role of traditional educational institutions in this development diminishes, and the old methods to maintain high performance in education lose effectiveness. The major challenge at all levels of education is strengthening the enthusiasm, motivation and curiosity of students. Without a curious and enthusiastic attitude a portion of the students finish their studies too early, and the ability to apply that learnt school in the working life is left wanting. Education policy has to gain courage to renew the various forms of education.
From caring of the sick to promoting health
The hottest political debate in recent years is that of developing the social service and healthcare system. The central aim has been to increase the productivity of the healthcare sector. Hence, the focus has been on the most expensive areas of the service system: caring of the sick and social services. The greatest potential impact, however, lies in preventative measures. A lot less attention has been lent to this side of healthcare. The focus has to shift into developing the resources of communities and promoting healthcare broadly in the different areas of policy.
Why is Demos Helsinki interested in sustainable growth?
Sustainable growth has a lot in common with the main themes that Demos Helsinki works on: the resource smart economy and democracy of capabilities. Sustainable growth necessitates search for a new direction for social and economic activity, and sets the boundaries and preconditions for development. |
As part of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) dramatic shift in posture – from Donald Trump critic to Donald Trump flatterer – the senator issued a curious call late last week.
Close video GOP looks to undercut Mueller as Trump Russia probe heats up Rachel Maddow notes the sudden criticism of Robert Mueller in right-wing media as the Trump Russia investigation begins to show results. share tweet email save Embed
As Graham sees it, the Justice Department should appoint another special counsel, presumably to run an investigation that runs parallel to Robert Mueller’s probe, to investigate Hillary Clinton’s email server protocols. And Uranium One. And Fusion GPS. And “bias” among officials at the FBI and the Justice Department.
This all seemed a bit bizarre, even by 2017 standards, but it now appears Graham isn’t the only prominent Republican thinking along these lines. Axios reported this morning that members of Donald Trump’s legal team “want an additional special counsel named to investigate the investigators.”
Jay Sekulow, a member of the President’s legal team, tells me: “The Department of Justice and FBI cannot ignore the multiple problems that have been created by these obvious conflicts of interests. These new revelations require the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate.”
Ari Melber, MSNBC’s chief legal correspondent, added this morning that Sekulow has confirmed to NBC News that he’s calling for a new special counsel to investigate the Justice Department.
The point of this political strategy is hardly subtle. For Trump World and its allies, the Russia scandal is an existential threat to this presidency, so it’s become necessary to undermine public confidence in the investigation and muddy the waters with unrelated, trumped up controversies.
Republicans may be doing this in a clumsy and ham-handed way, and the whole ploy may reek of desperation, but that doesn’t appear to be much of a deterrence.
But the nonsense won’t actually amount to anything, will it?
Don’t be too quick to dismiss the possibility. The Washington Post reported a month ago, “Attorney General Jeff Sessions is entertaining the idea of appointing a second special counsel to investigate a host of Republican concerns — including alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation and the controversial sale of a uranium company to Russia — and has directed senior federal prosecutors to explore at least some of the matters and report back to him and his top deputy.”
Watch this space. |
After Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico, it quickly became clear that the destruction would pose daunting challenges for first responders. Most of the electric power grid and telecommunications network was knocked offline. Flooding, downed trees, and toppled power lines made many roads impassable.
In circumstances like this, quickly knowing where the power is out—and how long it has been out—allows first responders to better deploy rescue and repair crews and to distribute life-saving supplies. And that is exactly why teams of scientists at NASA are working long days to make sure that groups like the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) get high-quality satellite maps of power outages in Puerto Rico.
These before-and-after images of Puerto Rico’s nighttime lights are based on data captured by the Suomi NPP satellite. The data was acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared, including reflected moonlight, light from fires and oil wells, lightning, and emissions from cities or other human activity.
The images above show lighting around San Juan, capital of the commonwealth; the images below show the entire island. One image in each pair shows a typical night before Maria made landfall, based upon cloud-free and low moonlight conditions; the second image is a composite that shows light detected by VIIRS on the nights of September 27 and 28, 2017. By compositing two nights, the image has fewer clouds blocking the view. (Note: some clouds still blocked light emissions during the two nights, especially across southeastern and western Puerto Rico.) The images above show widespread outages around San Juan, including key hospital and transportation infrastructure.
Note that these maps are not showing raw imagery of light. A team of scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Marshall Space Flight Center processed and corrected the raw data to filter out stray light from the Moon, fires, airglow, and any other sources that are not electric lights. Their processing techniques also remove as much other atmospheric interference—such as dust, haze, and thin clouds—as possible.
To make the VIIRS data more useful to first responders, the Goddard team scaled the observations onto a base map that emphasizes the locations of streets and neighborhoods. The base map makes use of data collected by the Landsat, Sentinel-2, TanDEM-X, and TerraSAR-X satellites. It also incorporates high-resolution data from OpenStreetMap to show the precise locations of streets and neighborhoods.
“It is critical that we get this processing done quickly, so that we can provide the cleanest and most useful imagery to the National Guard, FEMA, and other first responders,” said Miguel Román, who is leading the effort from Goddard. “Uncorrected images can be misleading because of things like cloud cover and changing moonlight conditions.”
Román’s team is also working closely with colleagues from the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Center (SPoRT) at NASA Marshall, as well as NASA’s Earth Science Disasters Program, to develop and share data products with first responders.
“The expertise of the SPoRT team focuses on helping end users make effective decisions from innovative NASA, NOAA, and partner data products,” said Andrew Molthan, co-investigator of the SPoRT Center. “It has been rewarding to work with Goddard colleagues on solutions that can assist with response efforts.”
Jordan Bell of the SPoRT team, for instance, has developed a product in conjunction with Esri that will display corrected and updated VIIRS observations of nighttime lights on a daily basis and include cloud mapping as detected by NOAA’s VIIRS cloud detection algorithms.
Note that these high-definition black marble maps are experimental. They are designed to make it easier to monitor neighborhood-scale outdoor features; they should not be used to monitor power outages in individual buildings or roads.
These interactive maps can be viewed here:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=6135434f7ffe4b13b815afc6dd052eb3
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using data courtesy of Miguel Román, NASA GSFC, and Andrew Molthan, NASA MSFC. Story by Adam Voiland. |
Element Language of origin Original word Meaning Symbol origin Description
1 Hydrogen H Greek via Latin and French ὕδωρ (root: ὑδρ-) + -γενής (-genes) water + begetter descriptive From French hydrogène[1] and Latin hydro- and -genes, derived from the Greek ὕδωρ γείνομαι (hydor geinomai), meaning "Ι beget water".
2 Helium He Greek ἥλιος (hélios) sun astrological;
mythological Named after the Greek ἥλιος (helios), which means "the sun" or the mythological sun-god.[2] It was first identified by its characteristic emission lines in the Sun's spectrum.
3 Lithium Li Greek λίθος (lithos) stone From Greek λίθος (lithos) "stone", because it was discovered from a mineral while other common alkali metals (sodium and potassium) were discovered from plant tissue.
4 Beryllium Be Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit via Greek, Latin, Old French, and Middle English City of Belur via Greek βήρυλλος (beryllos) a blue-green spar (beryllium aluminium cyclosilicate, Be 3 Al 2 (SiO 3 ) 6 ). Possibly related to the name of Belur. descriptive (colour): beryl βήρυλλος beryllos, denoting beryl, which contains beryllium.[3] The word is derived (via Latin: beryllus and French: béryl) from the Greek βήρυλλος, bērullos, a blue-green spar, from Prakrit veruliya (वॆरुलिय), from Pāli veḷuriya (वेलुरिय); veḷiru (भेलिरु) or, viḷar (भिलर्), "to become pale," in reference to the pale semiprecious gemstone beryl.[4] The word is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit word वैडूर्य vaidurya, which might be related to the name of the Indian city of Belur.[5]
6 Carbon C Latin via French charbone charcoal Latin carbo From the French, charbone, which in turn came from Latin carbō, which means "charcoal" and is related to carbōn, which means "a coal". (The German and Dutch names, "Kohlenstoff" and "koolstof", respectively, both literally mean "coal matter".) These words were derived from the PIE base *ker- meaning heat, fire, or to burn.[6]
7 Nitrogen N Greek via Latin and French νίτρον (Latin: nitrum) -γενής (-genes) native-soda begetter descriptive From French "nitrogène",[7] derived from Greek νίτρον γείνομαι (nitron geinomai), meaning "I form/beget native-soda (niter)".[8]
Also used was azoth, from Andalusian Arabic al-zuq, from the Classical Arabic name of the element.
8 Oxygen O Greek via French ὀξύ γείνομαι (oxy geinomai)/oxygène to bring forth acid From Greek ὀξύ γείνομαι (oxy geinomai), which means "Ι bring forth acid", as it was believed to be an essential component of acids. This phrase was corrupted into the French oxygène, which became the source of the English "oxygen".[9]
9 Fluorine F Latin fluor a flowing From fluorspar, one of its compounds (calcium fluoride, CaF 2 ).
10 Neon Ne Greek νέος (neos) new From Greek "νέος" (neos), which means "new".
12 Magnesium Mg Greek Μαγνησία (Magnesia) toponym From the Ancient Greek Μαγνησία (Magnesia) (district in Thessaly), where discovered.
13 Aluminium Al Latin alumen alum (literally: bitter salt)[13] Latin alumen Latin alumen, which means "alum" (literally "bitter salt").
14 Silicon Si Latin silex, -icis flint descriptive From Latin "silex" or "silicis", which means "flint", a kind of stone (chiefly silicon dioxide).
15 Phosphorus P Greek via Latin[14] φῶς + -φόρος (phos + -phoros) light-bearer descriptive From Greek φῶς + -φόρος (phos + phoros), which means "light bearer", because white phosphorus emits a faint glow upon exposure to oxygen.
Phosphorus was the ancient name for Venus, or Hesperus, the (Morning Star).[2]
16 Sulfur S Latin
Proto-Indo-European Old Latin sulpur
(later sulphur, sulfur)
PIE *swépl̥
(genitive *sulplós ),
nominal derivative of *swelp .[15] > PIE *swelp 'to burn' Latin sulfur The word came into Middle English from Anglo-Norman sulfre, itself derived through Old French soulfre from Late Latin sulfur.[16]
17 Chlorine Cl Greek χλωρός (chlorós) pale green[17] descriptive (colour): Greek chloros From Greek χλωρός (chlorós), which means "yellowish green" or "greenish yellow", because of the colour of the gas.
18 Argon Ar Greek ἀργόν (argon) inactive descriptive: argon Greek argon means "inactive" (literally "slow").
19 Potassium K Modern Latin via Dutch and English[18] potassa; potasch via potash[19] pot-ash From the English "potash", which means "pot-ash" (potassium compound prepared from an alkali extracted in a pot from the ash of burnt wood or tree leaves).
Potash is a literal translation of the German Potaschen, which means "pot ashes".[18] The symbol K is from the Latin name kalium, from Arabic القلي (al qalīy), which means "calcined ashes".
20 Calcium Ca Greek/Latin χάλιξ/calx χάλιξ means "pebble", and calx means limestone[20] Latin calx From Latin calx, which means "lime". Calcium was known as early as the first century when the Ancient Romans prepared lime as calcium oxide.
21 Scandium Sc Latin Scandia Scandinavia toponym Named from Latin Scandia, which means Scandinavia; formerly eka-boron.[21]
22 Titanium Ti Greek Τιτάν
Titan
(gen.: Τιτάνος) Titans, sons of Gaia mythological For the "Titans", the first sons of Gaia in Greek mythology.[2]
24 Chromium Cr Greek via French χρῶμα (chróma) colour descriptive (colour): Greek chroma From Greek χρῶμα (chróma), "colour", because of its multicoloured compounds. This word was adapted as the French chrome, and adding the suffix -ium created the English "chromium".[22]
25 Manganese Mn Greek via Latin, Italian, and French Μαγνησία
(Magnesia;
Medieval Latin: magnesia) Magnesia descriptive From Latin Magnesia, ultimately from Greek; Magnesia evolved into "manganese" in Italian and into "manganèse" in French.
26 Iron Fe Anglo-Saxon via Middle English īsern
(earlier: īren/īsen)
/yren/yron holy metal or strong metal[23] descriptive: Anglo-Saxon From the Anglo-Saxon īsern which is derived from Proto-Germanic isarnan meaning "holy metal" or "strong metal".
The symbol Fe is from Latin ferrum, meaning "iron".
27 Cobalt Co German Kobold evil spirit German kobold From German Kobold, which means "evil spirit". The metal was named by miners, because it was poisonous and troublesome (polluted and degraded other mined elements, such as nickel). Other sources cite the origin in the silver miners' belief that cobalt had been placed by "Kobolds", who had stolen the silver. Some also think that the name may have been derived from Greek κόβαλος, kobalos, which means "mine" and which may have common roots with kobold, goblin, and cobalt.
28 Nickel Ni Swedish via German[24] Kopparnickel/
Kupfernickel copper-coloured ore descriptive From the Swedish kopparnickel, meaning "copper-coloured ore"; this referred to the ore niccolite from which it was obtained.[25]
29 Copper Cu Greek? via Latin, West Germanic, Old English, and Middle English[26] Κύπριος (Kyprios)? who/which is from Cyprus toponym: Latin Cuprum Possibly derived from Greek Κύπριος (Kyprios) (which comes from Κύπρος (Kypros), the Greek name of Cyprus) via Latin cuprum, West Germanic *kupar, Old English coper/copor, and Middle English coper. The Latin term, during the Roman Empire, was aes cyprium; "aes" was the generic term for copper alloys such as bronze). Cyprium means "Cyprus" or "which is from Cyprus", where so much of it was mined; it was simplified to cuprum and then eventually Anglicized as copper (Old English coper/copor).
30 Zinc Zn German Zink Cornet From German Zink which is related to Zinken "prong, point", probably alluding to its spiky crystals. May be derived from Old Persian.
31 Gallium Ga Latin Gallia Gaul (Ancient France) toponym From Latin Gallia, which means Gaul (Ancient France), and also gallus, which means "rooster". The element was obtained as free metal by Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who named gallium after France, his native land, and also, punningly, after himself, as Lecoq, which means "the rooster", or in Latin, gallus. Gallium was called eka-aluminium by Mendeleev who predicted its existence.[21]
32 Germanium Ge Latin Germania Germany toponym From Latin Germania, which means "Germany". Germanium has also been called eka-silicon by Mendeleev.[21]
34 Selenium Se Greek σελήνη (selene) moon astrological;
mythological From Greek σελήνη (selene), which means "Moon", and also moon-goddess Selene.[2]
35 Bromine Br Greek via French βρόμος (brómos)[28] dirt or stench (of he-goats)[29] Greek bromos βρόμος (brómos) means "stench (lit. clangor)", due to its characteristic smell.
36 Krypton Kr Greek κρυπτός (kryptos) hidden descriptive From Greek κρυπτός (kryptos), which means "hidden one", because of its colourless, odorless, tasteless, gaseous properties, as well as its rarity in nature (like other noble gases).
37 Rubidium Rb Latin rubidus deepest red descriptive (colour) From Latin rubidus, which means "deepest red", because of the colour of a spectral line.
38 Strontium Sr Scottish Gaelic via English Sròn an t-Sìthein; Strontian proper name (literally: "nose [i.e., 'point'] of the fairy hill)" toponym Named after strontianite, the mineral. (Strontianite was named after the town of Strontian, the source of the mineral in Scotland.)
39 Yttrium Y Swedish Ytterby proper name, literally: "outer village" toponym Named after yttria, the (oxide) compound of yttrium. (The compound yttria was named after Ytterby, the village where the mineral gadolinite was also found.)[30]
40 Zirconium Zr Syriac/Persian via Arabic and German ܙܐܪܓܥܢܥ zargono,[31] زرگون (zargûn) gold-like From Arabic زركون (zarkûn). Derived from the Persian, زرگون (zargûn), which means "gold-like". Zirkon is the German variant of these and is the origin of the English "zircon".[32]
41 Niobium Nb Greek Νιόβη (Niobe) snowy mythological Named after Niobe, daughter of Tantalus in Classical mythology.[30][2]
The alternate name columbium comes from Columbia, personification of America.
42 Molybdenum Mo Greek μόλυβδος (molybdos) lead-like descriptive From Greek μόλυβδος (molybdos), "lead".
43 Technetium Tc Greek τεχνητός (technetos) artificial descriptive From Greek τεχνητός (technetos), which means "artificial", because it was the first artificially produced element. Technetium has also been called eka-manganese.[21]
44 Ruthenium Ru Latin Ruthenia Ruthenia, Kievan Rus' [33] toponym From Latin Ruthenia, geographical exonym for Kievan Rus'.
45 Rhodium Rh Greek ῥόδον (rhodon) rose descriptive (colour) From Greek ῥόδον (rhodon), which means "rose". From rose-red compounds.
46 Palladium Pd Greek via Latin Παλλάς (genitive: Παλλάδος) (Pallas) little maiden[34] astrological;
mythological Named after Pallas, the asteroid discovered two years earlier. (The asteroid was named after Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom and victory.)[2] The word Palladium is derived from Greek Παλλάδιον and is the neuter version of Παλλάδιος, meaning "of Pallas".[35]
48 Cadmium Cd Greek/Latin καδμεία (kadmeia) calamine or Cadmean earth Greek kadmia From Latin cadmia, which is derived from Greek καδμεία (kadmeia) and means "calamine", a cadmium-bearing mixture of minerals. Cadmium is named after Cadmus (in Greek: Κάδμος Kadmos), a character in Greek mythology and calamine is derived from Le Calamine, the French name of the Belgian town of Kelmis.
49 Indium In Greek via Latin and English indigo descriptive (colour) Named after indigo, because of an indigo-coloured spectrum line. The English word indigo is from Spanish indico and Dutch indigo (from Portuguese endego), from Latin indicum "indigo," from Greek ἰνδικόν, indikon, "blue dye from India".
50 Tin Sn Anglo-Saxon via Middle English tin Borrowed from a Proto-Indo-European language, and has cognates in several Germanic and Celtic languages.[37]
The symbol Sn is from its Latin name stannum.
51 Antimony Sb Greek? via Medieval Latin and Middle English[38] ἀντί + μόνος
(anti monos);
antimonium/
antimonie[39] various Possibly from Greek ἀντί + μόνος (anti monos), approximately meaning "opposed to solitude", as believed never to exist in pure form, or ἀντί + μοναχός (anti monachos) for "monk-killer" (in French folk etymology, anti-moine "monk's bane"), because many early alchemists were monks, and antimony is poisonous. This may also be derived from the Pharaonic (ancient Egyptian), Antos Ammon (expression), which could be translated as "bloom of the god Ammo".
The symbol Sb is from Latin name stibium, which is derived from Greek Στίβι stíbi, a variant of στίμμι stimmi (genitive: στίμμεος or στίμμιδος), probably a loan word from Arabic or Egyptian
sdm meaning "eyepaint".[40] Littré suggests that the first form is derived from *stimmida, a hypothetical alternative accusative of stimmi (the canonical accusative of the noun is the same as the nominative: stimmi). The Arabic word for the substance, as "mark" or "the cosmetic", can appear as تحميض، ثمود، وثمود، وثمود ithmid, athmoud, othmod or uthmod.[41]
52 Tellurium Te Latin Tellus Earth From Latin tellus ("Earth").
53 Iodine I Greek via French ἰώδης (iodes) violet descriptive (colour) Named after the Greek ἰώδης (iodes), which means "violet", because of the colour of the gaseous phase. This word was adapted as the French iode, which is the source of the English "iodine".[42]
54 Xenon Xe Greek ξένος (xenos) foreign From the Greek adjective ξένος (xenos), which means "foreign, a stranger".
55 Caesium Cs Latin caesius blue-gray[43] or sky blue descriptive (colour): Latin caesius From Latin caesius, which means "sky blue". Its identification was based upon the bright-blue lines in its spectrum, and it was the first element discovered by spectrum analysis.
56 Barium Ba Greek via Modern Latin βαρύς (barys) heavy Greek barys βαρύς (barys) means "heavy". The oxide was initially called "barote", then "baryta", which was modified to "barium" to describe the metal. Sir Humphry Davy gave the element this name because it was originally found in baryte, which shares the same source.[44]
57 Lanthanum La Greek λανθάνειν (lanthanein) to lie hidden From Greek lanthanein, "to lie (hidden)".
58 Cerium Ce Latin Ceres grain, bread astrological;
mythological Ceres Named after the asteroid Ceres, discovered two years earlier. (The asteroid, now classified as a dwarf planet, was named after Ceres, the goddess of fertility in Roman mythology.)[2] Ceres is derived from PIE *ker-es- from base *ker- meaning to grow.[45][46]
59 Praseodymium Pr Greek πράσιος δίδυμος (prasios didymos) green twin descriptive From Greek πράσιος δίδυμος (prasios didymos), meaning "green twin", because didymium separated into praseodymium and neodymium, with salts of different colours; praseodymium oxide is green.
60 Neodymium Nd Greek νέος δίδυμος (neos didymos) new twin descriptive Derived from Greek νέος διδύμος (neos didymos), which means "new twin", because didymium separated into praseodymium and neodymium. The metals have different-coloured salts, which helps distinguish them.[47]
61 Promethium Pm Greek Προμηθεύς (Prometheus) forethought[48] mythological Named after Prometheus, who stole the fire of heaven and gave it to mankind (in Classical mythology).[2]
62 Samarium Sm Samarsky-Bykhovets, Vasili eponym Named after samarskite, the mineral. (Samarskite was named after Colonel Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets, a Russian mine official.)
63 Europium Eu Ancient Greek Εὐρώπη (Europe) broad-faced or well-watered toponym;
mythological Named for Europe, where it was discovered. Europe was named after the fictional Phoenician princess Europa.
64 Gadolinium Gd Gadolin, Johan eponym Named in honour of Johan Gadolin, who was one of the founders of Nordic chemistry research, discovered yttrium, and pioneered laboratory exercise teaching. (Gadolinite, the mineral, is also named for him.)
65 Terbium Tb Swedish Ytterby Proper name (literally: outer village) toponym Named after Ytterby, the village in Sweden where the element was first discovered.
66 Dysprosium Dy Greek δυσπρόσιτος (dysprositos) hard to get at descriptive Derived from Greek δυσπρόσιτος (dysprositos), which means "hard to get at".
67 Holmium Ho Latin Holmia Stockholm toponym Derived from Latin Holmia, which means Stockholm.
68 Erbium Er Swedish Ytterby proper name, literally: "outer village" toponym Named after the village of Ytterby in Sweden, where large concentrations of yttria and erbia are located. Erbia and terbia were confused at this time. After 1860, what had been known as terbia was renamed erbia, and after 1877, what had been known as erbia was renamed terbia.
69 Thulium Tm Greek Θούλη, Θύλη[49] a mythical country mythological Named after Thule, an ancient Roman and Greek name (Θούλη, Θύλη) for a mythical country in the far north, perhaps Scandinavia. By the same token, thulia, its oxide.
70 Ytterbium Yb Swedish Ytterby proper name, literally: "outer village" toponym Named after ytterbia, the (oxide) compound of ytterbium. (The compound ytterbia was named after Ytterby, the Swedish village (near Vaxholm) where the mineral gadolinite was also found.)[30]
71 Lutetium Lu Latin Lutetia Paris toponym Named after the Latin Lutetia (Gaulish for "place of mud"), the city of Paris.[30]
72 Hafnium Hf Latin Hafnia Copenhagen toponym From Latin Hafnia, which means "Copenhagen" of Denmark.
73 Tantalum Ta Greek Τάνταλος (Tantalus) Tantalus; possibly "the bearer" or "the sufferer"[50] mythological Named after the Greek Τάνταλος ("Tantalus"), who was punished after death by being condemned to stand knee-deep in water. If he bent to drink the water, it drained below the level he could reach (in Greek mythology). This was considered similar to tantalum's general non-reactivity (that is, "unreachability") because of its inertness (it sits among reagents and is unaffected by them).[2]
74 Tungsten W Swedish and Danish tung sten heavy stone descriptive From the Swedish and Danish "tung sten", which means "heavy stone". The symbol W is from the scientific name wolfram. The names wolfram or volfram are still used in Swedish and several other languages.
[30]
75 Rhenium Re Latin Rhenus Rhine toponym From Latin Rhenus, the river Rhine.
76 Osmium Os Greek via Modern Latin ὀσμή (osme) a smell descriptive From Greek ὀσμή (osme), meaning "a smell"; the tetroxide is foul-smelling.
77 Iridium Ir Greek via Latin ἴρις (genitive: ἴριδος) of rainbows descriptive (colour) Named after the Latin noun iris, which means "rainbow, iris plant, iris of the eye", because many of its salts are strongly coloured; Iris was originally the name of the goddess of rainbows and a messenger in Greek mythology.[2]
78 Platinum Pt Spanish via Modern Latin platina (del Pinto) little silver (of the Pinto River)[51] descriptive From the Spanish, platina, which means "little silver", because it was first encountered in a silver mine. Platina can also mean "stage (of a microscope)", and the modern Spanish is platino. Platina is a diminutive of plata (silver); it is a loan word from French plate or Provençal plata (sheet of metal) and is the origin of the English "plate".[52]
79 Gold Au Anglo-Saxon via Middle English gold descriptive (colour): Latin aurum From the Anglo-Saxon, "gold", from PIE *ghel- meaning "yellow/ bright".
Au is from Latin aurum, which means "shining dawn".[53]
80 Mercury Hg Latin Mercurius Mercury mythological Named after Mercury, the god of speed and messenger of the Gods, as was the planet Mercury named after the god.
The symbol Hg is from the Greek words ὕδωρ and ἀργυρός (hydor and argyros), which became the Latin hydrargyrum; both mean "water-silver", because it is a liquid like water (at room temperature), and has a silvery metallic sheen.[2][54]
81 Thallium Tl Greek θαλλός (thallos) green twig descriptive From Greek θαλλός (thallos), which means "a green shoot (twig)", because of its bright-green spectral emission lines.
82 Lead Pb Anglo-Saxon lead The symbol Pb is from the Latin name plumbum, hence the English "plumbing".[2][55]
83 Bismuth Bi Modern Latin from German bisemutum white mass descriptive (colour): bisemutum bisemutum is derived from German Wismuth, perhaps from weiße Masse, and means "white mass", due to its appearance.
84 Polonium Po Latin Polonia Poland toponym Named after Poland, homeland of discoverer Marie Curie. Was also called radium F.
85 Astatine At Greek ἄστατος (astatos) unstable Greek astatos ἄστατος (astatos) means "unstable".[56]
86 Radon Rn Latin via German and English[57] Radium Contraction of radium emanation, since the element appears in the radioactive decay of radium.
An alternative, rejected name was niton (Nt), from Latin nitens "shining", because of the radioluminescence of radon.
87 Francium Fr French France proper name (Land of the Franks) toponym Named for France, where it was discovered (at the Curie Institute (Paris)).
88 Radium Ra Latin via French radius ray descriptive From Latin radius meaning "ray", because of its radioactivity.
89 Actinium Ac Greek ἀκτίς (aktis) beam Greek aktinos ἀκτίς, ἀκτῖνος (aktis; aktinos), which means "beam (ray)".
90 Thorium Th Old Norse Þōrr (modern English Thor) thunder mythological Named after Thor, a god associated with thunder in Norse mythology.[2]
The former name ionium (Io) was given early in the study of radioactive elements to the 230Th isotope.
91 Protactinium Pa Greek πρῶτος + ἀκτίς first beam element descriptive? Derived from former name protoactinium, from the Greek prefix proto "first" + Neo-Latin actinium from Greek ἀκτίς (gen.: ἀκτῖνος) "ray" + Latin -ium.[58]
92 Uranium U Greek via Latin Οὐρανός (Ouranos); Uranus sky astrological;
mythological Named after the planet Uranus, which had been discovered eight years earlier in 1781. The planet was named after the god Uranus, the god of sky and heaven in Greek mythology.[2]
93 Neptunium Np Latin Neptunus Neptune astrological;
mythological Named for Neptune, the planet. (The planet was named after the god Neptune, the god of oceans in Roman mythology.)[2]
94 Plutonium Pu Greek via Latin Πλούτων (Ploutōn) via Pluto god of wealth[59] astrological;
mythological Named after Pluto, the dwarf planet, because it was discovered directly after Neptunium and is higher than Uranium in the periodic table, so by analogy with the ordering of the planets. (The planet Pluto was named after Pluto, a Greek god of the dead)[2] Πλούτων (Ploutōn) is related to the Greek word πλοῦτος (ploutos) meaning "wealth".
95 Americium Am America toponym: the Americas Named for the Americas, because it was discovered in the United States (by analogy with europium) (the name of the continent America is derived from the name of the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci).
96 Curium Cm Curie, Marie and Pierre eponym: Pierre and Marie Curie and the -um ending Named in honour of Marie and Pierre Curie, who discovered radium and researched radioactivity.
99 Einsteinium Es German Einstein, Albert German-Jewish surname, which means "one stone" eponym Named in honour of Albert Einstein, for his work on theoretical physics, which included the photoelectric effect.
101 Mendelevium Md Mendeleyev, Dmitri eponym Named in honour of Dmitri Mendeleyev, who invented periodic table.[61] It has also been called eka-thulium[21] and would have been temporarily called, by IUPAC, unnilunium (Unu) if the IUPAC system had been in place at the time.[30]
102 Nobelium No Nobel, Alfred eponym Named in honour of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite and instituted the Nobel Prizes foundation. Unnilbium would have been used as a temporary systematic element name if the IUPAC system had been in place at the time.[30]
103 Lawrencium Lr Lawrence, Ernest O. eponym Named in honour of Ernest O. Lawrence, who was involved in the development of the cyclotron. The symbol has been Lr since 1963; formerly Lw was used. Unniltrium would have been used as a temporary systematic element name if the IUPAC system had been in place at the time.[30]
106 Seaborgium Sg Swedish via English Seaborg, Glenn Teodor Swedish surname, literally: "Lake Mountain" eponym Named in honour of Glenn T. Seaborg, who discovered the chemistry of the transuranium elements, shared in the discovery and isolation of ten elements, and developed and proposed the actinide series. Other names: eka-tungsten[21] and temporarily by IUPAC unnilhexium (Unh).[30]
108 Hassium Hs Latin Hassia Hesse toponym Derived from Latin Hassia, which means Hesse, the German state where it was discovered (at the Institute for Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt).[30] It has also been called eka-osmium[21] and temporarily by IUPAC unniloctium (Uno).[30]
109 Meitnerium Mt Meitner, Lise eponym Named in honour of Lise Meitner, who shared discovery of nuclear fission.[30] It has also been called eka-iridium[21] and temporarily by IUPAC unnilennium (Une).[30]
110 Darmstadtium Ds German Darmstadt proper name, literally: "intestine city" toponym Named for Darmstadt, where it was discovered (GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, located in Wixhausen, a small suburb north of Darmstadt).
It has also been called eka-platinum and temporarily by IUPAC ununnilium (Uun).[62][21]
111 Roentgenium Rg Röntgen,
Wilhelm Conrad eponym Named in honour of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who produced and detected X-rays. It has also been called eka-gold[21] and temporarily by IUPAC unununium (Uuu).[30]
113 Nihonium Nh Japanese 日本 (Nihon) Japan toponym Named after Japan, where the element was discovered. It has also been called eka-thallium[21] and temporarily by IUPAC ununtrium (Uut).[30]
115 Moscovium Mc Latin Moscovia Moscow toponym Named after Moscow Oblast, where the element was discovered. It has also been called eka-bismuth[21] and temporarily by IUPAC ununpentium (Uup).[30]
117 Tennessine Ts Cherokee via English Tennessee Tennessee toponym Named after Tennessee (itself named after the Cherokee village of ᏔᎾᏏ /tanasi/), where important work for one of the steps to synthesise the element was done. It has also been called eka-astatine[21] and temporarily by IUPAC ununseptium (Uus).[30] |
Amazon is still more than a month away from unveiling its first own-brand smartphone, but there isn’t much mystery that remains. BGR gave the world its first look at the unannounced handset in mid-April, and we followed up with exclusive details surrounding the phone’s unique 3D interface and gesture-based controls. Then, we revealed that “Prime Data” will be one of the device’s key weapons in the crowded U.S. smartphone market.
Now, BGR has exclusively obtained a new image of Amazon’s smartphone that reveals the handset’s design for the first time ever.
From earlier: Exclusive photos of Amazon’s first smartphone, everything you need to know about the Amazon’s phone’s custom software, and details on the Amazon phone’s secret weapon, Prime Data.
When BGR published live photos of Amazon’s smartphone prototype for the first time, we noted that the device was covered by a protective housing designed to prevent unauthorized people from seeing the phone’s hardware. As a result, the phone’s physical appearance remained a mystery.
That is no longer the case.
The image above is the first to reveal the design of Amazon’s debut smartphone. Multiple trusted sources have verified the authenticity of the image, which was created for internal use by graphic designers at Amazon.
As can be seen in this new image published exclusively by BGR, Amazon’s phone will feature an overall look that is similar to many full touch smartphones currently on the market. In fact, it appears to take design cues from several existing smartphones including Apple’s iPhone, Samsung’s Galaxy S lineup and even the HTC One, which has a polished, chamfered bezel much like the one seen on Amazon’s phone.
In terms of size, we’re told that the phone is a bit large but is reasonably comfortable to use with one hand. Amazon’s unique gesture controls were designed in part to make one-handed operation of a large phone as easy as possible, and one source tells us the phone definitely succeeds in that regard.
As BGR reported earlier, the device pictured here will be the first of several smartphones Amazon is planning to release, and it will be unveiled in the late spring or early summer.
Our sources tell us the device will feature specs including a 4.7-inch display with 720p HD resolution, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, six individual camera modules and a highly customized version of Google’s Android operating system similar to the one seen on Amazon’s various Kindle Fire tablets.
It will rely on Amazon’s own mobile app store for third-party software distribution.
The first Amazon smartphone will also feature a novel interface with 3D effects enabled by four front-facing infrared cameras that track the position of the user’s head in relation to the device’s screen. Coupled with some additional sensors, these cameras also facilitate unique gesture-based controls used to access menus and additional information.
One of the handset’s key selling points will be a special data plan Amazon refers to as “Prime Data.”
It is unclear exactly what Prime Data will offer users, but our sources suggest that the phone could be an AT&T exclusive and Prime Data may be a monthly data package that includes a certain amount of Prime video and music streaming free of charge. These details have not been confirmed, however.
According to several of our trusted sources and a separate report from The Wall Street Journal, Amazon plans to launch its first phone sometime in the third quarter this year.
Don’t miss our earlier coverage: Exclusive photos of Amazon’s first smartphone, everything you need to know about the Amazon’s phone’s custom software, and details on the Amazon phone’s secret weapon, Prime Data. |
Contradicting speculation from government officials, the death of a Mississippi man hogtied by police and placed face-down on a gurney was not due to an overdose of LSD, his toxicology report says.
The report, obtained by the Daily Dot Friday, reveals that Troy Goode, 30, who died after his arrest in Southaven, Miss., was not killed as a result of “dangerous and illegal” drugs in his system, as mayor Darren Musselwhite previously suggested.
After leaving a concert on July 18, Goode was arrested and hogtied by Southaven police before being strapped face-down on a stretcher. Bystanders took video of Goode that appears to show him in that position. He was then taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where he died an hour and a half later.
According to eyewitnesses, Goode repeatedly told the officers while restrained: “I can’t breathe.”
“The facts also show that [Goode’s] violent behavior mandated that he be restrained for the public safety of our other citizens, as well as himself,” Musselwhite wrote in a July statement. Police reported that Goode, who suffered from asthma and carried an inhaler, was “kicking and screaming,” but “breathing fine” during the arrest.
Goode’s toxicology report, completed by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner, indicates that at the time of his death, his blood contained less than half the minimum “threshold toxic dose” of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), the recreational drug commonly known as “acid.”
Goode’s blood was found to contain 1.0 ng/mL of LSD. A pharmacological review of the compound, conducted, in part, by Harvard Medical School, found that there have been “no documented human deaths” from LSD. At least one individual, who accidentally consumed a dose roughly 70,000 times more (7000μg/100mL) than what was found in Goode’s blood—a 6,900 percent increase—“survived with hospital treatment and without residual effects,” according to the study.
The report also indicates that Goode’s blood contained THC, the active compound in marijuana, as well as Haloperidol, Lorazepam, and Naloxone—medications administered by medical staff after Goode was detained.
District Attorney John Champion previously told reporters that, according to a medical examiner, Goode likely died as the result of a heart condition. Musselwhite echoed that assertion, stating: “…the facts indicate that this man died from a heart problem likely caused by his decision to use dangerous and illegal drugs.”
The officials’ statements are contradicted, however, by the medical examiner’s own assessment, which listed Goode’s cause of death as pending the results of the aforementioned toxicology report.
Moreover, a healthcare professional who viewed the report, and who spoke to local journalists on the condition of anonymity, said there is “nothing to indicate that the victim had a prior history of cardiac related illness.”
Attorneys at Ballin, Ballin & Fishman, P.C., who represent the Goode family, told the Daily Dot on Friday that previous reports that Goode was taking antidepressant and antipsychotic medication are erroneous.
“In fact, these drugs were given to calm Goode in his panicked struggle for oxygen,” a statement from the attorneys reads. “Not only was Goode not depressed, he was happily married, a proud father to a toddler, and a highly successful and published engineer.”
Photo via Facebook |
Nationalists in Northern Ireland have voted to oppose Brexit, Gerry Adams said on Friday.
With the prospect of a hard land Border dividing the island of Ireland, the Sinn Féin president said the Stormont Assembly poll was a mandate for Northern Ireland to receive special designated status within the European Union.
Sinn Féin will again be the largest party in nationalism in the next Assembly if the power-sharing institutions can be resurrected.
“It is also a re-assertion of our position on Brexit, that this part of Ireland should have a special designated status,” said Mr Adams.
“Whatever your position is on the constitutional issue, that the only way to stop a land frontier between a European state and the British state on this island is to make sure there is a special designated status within the European Union for this part of Ireland.”
Irish unity
Northern Ireland voted “Remain” in the June EU poll by 56 per cent to 44 per cent.
However, some largely unionist areas voted leave and the DUP, the largest party, campaigned for Brexit.
Mr Adams said Thursday it was a vote of confidence in his party’s position. “It is a vote for Irish unity, a vote for us together as a people. As Ian Paisley famously told Martin McGuinness, we don’t need English men to govern us.”
He said it was about agreements which had already been made as well as a little bit of manners, respect and treating others the way you would want to be treated by unionists.
“It is a vote and a mandate, and it will have to be respected by the other parties and the two governments, for a step-change, for an end to the old status quo, for a new beginning to how we do our business.” |
Shinya Makabe (真壁 伸也, Makabe Shin'ya, born September 29, 1972),[1] better known by his ring name Togi Makabe (真壁 刀義, Makabe Tōgi) is a Japanese professional wrestler, trained by and currently performing for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he is a former one-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion, two-time IWGP Tag Team Champion and a two-time NEVER Openweight Champion.
Debuting in 1997, Makabe originally wrestled under his birthname as a junior heavyweight (100 kilograms (220 lb)), before gaining several kilograms during a global excursion in 2001 and 2002.[4] He changed his given name to "Togi" during the 2004 G1 Climax tournament.[5] His status in New Japan rose significantly in 2007, making it to the finals of the New Japan Cup and the semifinals of the G1 Climax, and challenging Yuji Nagata for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. After a number of unsuccessful challenges at the title, Makabe finally won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on May 3, 2010, by defeating Shinsuke Nakamura.
Makabe's wrestling style and character is heavily influenced by the late Bruiser Brody. Known as the "Unchained Gorilla", Makabe is known for his violent, bloody style of wrestling, often illegally employing steel chairs and chains into his offense, including a lariat with a chain wrapped around his arm (like Brody). He also uses Brody's All Japan Pro Wrestling theme "Immigrant Song" (albeit a cover made by Tomoyasu Hotei) as his own.
Professional wrestling career [ edit ]
New Japan Pro-Wrestling [ edit ]
Pursuing judo while enrolled in Tokyo's Teikyo University, Shinya Makabe passed an NJPW admission test in February 1996 and enrolled in the New Japan dojo in April of that year, training there for ten months.[6] He made his debut the following year, losing to Shinjiro Otani on February 15, 1997.[4] Makabe began wrestling in the undercard, obtaining his first victory 20 months after his debut by defeating Yutaka Yoshie on October 15, 1998.[6] Makabe continued to wrestle in lesser matches through 1999 against other young wrestlers such as Wataru Inoue and Katsuyori Shibata, and defeating future IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi in his debut match on October 10, 1999.[7]
In April 2000, Makabe entered the Super J-Cup, a 16-man single-elimination tournament held in Michinoku Pro, involving junior heavyweights from a number of different promotions; he was eliminated in the first round by Gran Hamada.[8] Later that month, Makabe also participated in NJPW's Young Lion Cup, a six-man round-robin tournament exclusive to young wrestlers; he finished in first place for the group stage, defeating all of his opponents (Kenzo Suzuki, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Wataru Inoue, Katsuyori Shibata and Masakazu Fukuda by forfeit),[9] though he lost to second-place finisher Kenzo Suzuki in the final.[10] Shinya continued his tournament participation in May and June, entering New Japan's Best of the Super Juniors (BOSJ) round-robin tournament to decide the company's top junior heavyweight wrestler. Makabe finished in last place out of six in Block A, scoring two points by defeating Dr. Wagner, Jr.[11] He later defeated Minoru Fujita, who finished in last place for Block B to determine the tournament's 11th-place finisher, leaving Fujita at #12.[12] Makabe received the first title shot of his career on September 12, 2000, teaming with Jyushin Thunder Liger to unsuccessfully challenge Koji Kanemoto and Minoru Tanaka for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship.[13]
Makabe made his debut in the Tokyo Dome, one of the largest venues in Japan, during NJPW's annual event there on January 4, 2001, teaming with Tatsuhito Takaiwa in a loss to Koji Kanemoto and Minoru Tanaka.[14] For the following few months, Makabe began competing amongst heavyweights, even teaming with Riki Choshu to challenge Satoshi Kojima and Hiroyoshi Tenzan for the IWGP World Tag Team Championship, falling to a Kojima lariat.[15] However, he returned to the Best of the Super Juniors tournament in June, finishing in fifth place out of six in his block, earning 4 points by defeating Katsuyori Shibata and AKIRA.[16]
On June 8, 2001, as part of a series of interpromotional matches, Makabe and Yuji Nagata entered All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) to challenge for the vacant All Asia Tag Team Championship, losing to Masahito Kakihara and Mitsuya Nagai.[17] In August 2001, Makabe announced that he would be leaving Japan indefinitely to wrestle overseas in Canada, Great Britain and Puerto Rico.[4] He wrestled his farewell match on August 12, 2001, in a tag team loss with Yutaka Yoshie against Riki Choshu and Kenzo Suzuki.[18] Makabe wrestled in the aforementioned countries for the following 14 months, gaining a considerable amount of muscle[4] and returning to New Japan on October 14, 2002 in the Tokyo Dome as a heavyweight, teaming with Minoru Fujita to defeat Kenzo Suzuki and Hiroshi Tanahashi;[19] he continued to team with Fujita and his fellow Kaientai Dojo member Taka Michinoku over the next few tours.[20][21]
In January 2003, Makabe suspended his contract with NJPW, wrestling under his own terms.[4] Makabe once again wrestled at NJPW's annual Tokyo Dome event on January 4, 2003, competing in the four-man Young Generation Cup tournament, losing in the first round to Yutaka Yoshie.[22] Shinya once again teamed with Minoru Fujita in February 2003, competing in an 8-team tournament to decide the #1 contenders to the IWGP Tag Team Championship; they were eliminated in the first round by Tatsutoshi Goto and Hiro Saito.[23] Regardless, Makabe challenged for the belts with a different partner, Yoshihiro Takayama, on March 9, 2003, losing to champions Masahiro Chono and Hiroyoshi Tenzan.[24] Around the same time, Makabe participated in the G2 U-30 Climax, a round-robin tournament featuring only wrestlers under the age of 30 to decide the first IWGP U-30 Openweight Champion. Makabe finished in first place out of five in Block A, defeating Hiroshi Tanahashi, Masahito Kakihara and Dan Devine, and losing to Makai #2. He would go on to defeat Blue Wolf in the semifinals before losing to Hiroshi Tanahashi in the final on April 23, 2003.[25]
On July 1, 2003, Makabe travelled to Pro Wrestling Noah, teaming with Yoshihiro Takayama and NOAH's Takashi Sugiura to defeat Jun Akiyama, Akitoshi Saito and Makoto Hashi. He and Takayama would go on to challenge Kenta Kobashi and Tamon Honda for the GHC Tag Team Championship, Makabe getting pinned after a Kobashi lariat.[26] Makabe continued to wrestle mid- and uppercard wrestlers in NJPW throughout 2003 and much of 2004, before making his first appearance in New Japan's annual G1 Climax heavyweight tournament, changing his name to Togi Makabe and defeating Mitsuya Nagai on August 7, 2004 to gain entrance into the competition. Makabe finished in seventh out of eight in his block with four points, defeating Osamu Nishimura by pinfall and Yoshihiro Takayama by forfeit.[5]
Makabe again participated in the G1 Climax in August 2005, though he was in only two matches before tearing his achilles tendon in a match against Shinsuke Nakamura. Makabe was forced to forfeit the rest of his matches due to the injury, finishing with zero points[27] and taking him out of action for five months. He returned on January 8, 2006, teaming with Toru Yano in a losing effort against Osamu Nishimura and Naofumi Yamamoto.[28] Makabe entered the second annual New Japan Cup in April 2006, defeating Tatsutoshi Goto in the first round before losing to Yuji Nagata in the quarterfinals.[29]
On July 2, 2006, Makabe teamed with Shiro Koshinaka in a one-night tournament to crown the interim IWGP Tag Team Champions, after primary champions Masahiro Chono and Hiroyoshi Tenzan became inactive. The duo defeated the teams of Yuji Nagata and Naofumi Yamamoto and Giant Bernard and Travis Tomko to win the interim title;[30] the reign would be short-lived however, as Koshinaka and Makabe would lose the title to Manabu Nakanishi and Takao Omori just 15 days later.[31]
Makabe entered the 2006 G1 Climax in August, finishing with three points in his block with a win over Naofumi Yamamoto and a double count out against Yuji Nagata.[32] On September 24, 2006, Makabe entered Apache Pro-Wrestling Army, defeating Kintaro Kanemura on their third anniversary show to revive the WEW Heavyweight Championship, the first official Japanese title of his career.[33] On October 2, 2006, Hiroyoshi Tenzan announced a new faction featuring himself, Makabe and Shiro Koshinaka, naming it Great Bash Heel (GBH) shortly afterward; Toru Yano and Tomohiro Ishii, who had been feuding with Makabe and Koshinaka, also joined the group.[34] Makabe teamed with Koshinaka in the G1 Tag League later that month, finishing in last place in their block out of five, ending with two points via a victory over eventual winners Masahiro Chono and Shinsuke Nakamura.[35]
Makabe entered another tag team tournament in November, the National Area Tag League, in which teams were organized by home region; Makabe teamed with Gedo, representing the Kantō region. They lost both of their matches in Block D, falling to Hiroshi Tanahashi and Naofumi Yamamoto of Kansai as well as Milano Collection AT and Prince Devitt, representing Hokkaidō.[36] On November 18, 2006, Makabe made his first defense of the WEW title on New Japan's LOCK UP brand, defeating Kintaro Kanemura in a rematch.[37] Makabe and Koshinaka teamed once again on December 10, 2006, unsuccessfully challenging the interpromotional team of Manabu Nakanishi and Pro Wrestling Zero1's Takao Omori for the official IWGP Tag Team title after losing the interim title in July.[38]
Makabe in August 2008
Makabe teamed with GBH allies Yano and Ishii on January 4, 2007, at Wrestle Kingdom in Tokyo Dome, defeating Travis Tomko and AJPW's D'Lo Brown and Buchanan.[39] Four days later, Makabe retained the WEW title against Tetsuhiro Kuroda at an event co-produced by Apache Pro and Takashi Sasaki;[40] he would defend the championship for a third time on February 4, 2007 at LOCK UP's first show in Korakuen Hall, defeating Mammoth Sasaki in a cage death match.[41] On February 18, 2007, Makabe faced and lost to Shinsuke Nakamura in a match pitting GBH against Nakamura and Masahiro Chono's BLACK faction, subtitled "SANCTIONS".[42] Makabe again entered the New Japan Cup in March 2007, making it to the finals with victories over Travis Tomko and Takashi Iizuka by pinfall and Hiroyoshi Tenzan by disqualification, before losing to Yuji Nagata in the final.[43] On April 8, 2007, Makabe faced Nakamura in a rematch of their February contest, defeating Shinsuke in a chain death match.[44] Makabe made his fourth defense of the WEW title on April 15, 2007 in Apache Pro, again defeating Mammoth Sasaki.[40] Makabe battled Nakamura for a third time on May 3, 2007 in a match dubbed "Reality or Revenge", winning once more.[45]
On May 20, 2007, GBH battled a BLACK and NJPW seikigun alliance of Yuji Nagata, Riki Choshu, Masahiro Chono, Shinsuke Nakamura and Naofumi Yamamoto; Makabe and Hiroyoshi Tenzan survived, Makabe last eliminating IWGP Heavyweight champion Nagata by pinfall.[46] On June 24, 2007, Makabe lost the WEW Heavyweight Championship in Apache Pro to Kintaro Kanemura in their third meeting.[40] Makabe followed up his pinfall over Nagata in May with a challenge to Nagata's title, his first singles title shot in New Japan, on July 6, 2007 in front of a sold out Korakuen Hall; Nagata won with a backdrop in just under 20 minutes.[47]
Makabe had his strongest showing to date in the G1 Climax in August, finishing first place in his block with six points with pinfall victories over Giant Bernard, Yuji Nagata, and Masahiro Chono before losing in the semifinals to eventual winner Hiroshi Tanahashi.[48] Makabe also made it to the semifinals in the G1 Tag League in November, scoring 8 points with Toru Yano in the tournament's single block by defeating the teams of Yuji Nagata and Manabu Nakanishi, Akebono and Masahiro Chono, and Gedo and Jado, as well as Giant Bernard in a handicap match when his partner Travis Tomko no-showed the event; Bernard and Tomko, the eventual winners, would defeat Makabe and Yano in the semifinals.[49] On December 9, 2007, Makabe and Shinsuke Nakamura faced off in their fourth and final match of the year, this time with the winner receiving a shot at Hiroshi Tanahashi's IWGP Heavyweight title at the Tokyo Dome in January; Nakamura was victorious, tying their series at 2-2.[50]
On January 4, 2008, at Wrestle Kingdom II in Tokyo Dome, fresh off of winning Tokyo Sports' Tag Team of the Year award for 2007,[51] Makabe and Toru Yano were defeated by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's (TNA) Team 3D (Brother Ray and Brother Devon) as part of an interpromotional card between TNA and NJPW.[52] Makabe and Yano would later defeat Giant Bernard and Travis Tomko for the IWGP Tag Team Championship on February 17, 2008.[53] Earlier in the night, GBH leader Hiroyoshi Tenzan was betrayed and attacked by fellow GBH members Tomohiro Ishii, Jado and Gedo, kicking him out of the faction.[54]
Makabe and Yano made their first title defense on March 9, 2008, retaining over Giant Bernard and Shinsuke Nakamura when interference from both teams' respective factions led to a no contest; as a result the match was stricken from the record, and is not considered an official defense. Later that month, Makabe participated in the New Japan Cup for the third straight year, defeating Takashi Iizuka and ousted GBH leader Hiroyoshi Tenzan in the first two rounds, before falling to eventual winner Hiroshi Tanahashi in the semifinal.[55] Makabe and Tenzan battled the following week in a non-title tag team match, Tenzan and Takashi Iizuka defeating Makabe and Yano when Tenzan pinned Makabe.[52] The two teams battled again, this time for the championship, on April 27, 2008; Makabe and Yano came out on top in their first official defense after Iizuka betrayed Tenzan and allowed the champions to retain, seemingly joining GBH. In August Makabe once again finished first in his block of the G1 Climax tournament and advanced to the finals, where he was defeated by Hirooki Goto, despite interference from Makabe's GBH team mates.[56]
Makabe in December 2010
On January 4, 2009, Makabe and Yano were scheduled to defend the IWGP Tag Team Championship at Wrestle Kingdom III in Tokyo Dome in a three way dance against Team 3D of TNA Wrestling and Satoshi Kojima and Hiroyoshi Tenzan, but an injury to Tenzan turned it into a match between Makabe & Yano and 3D, which 3D won. 3D also won the subsequent rematch a month later. This failure inevitably lead to the Makabe/Yano team dissolving when Yano cost Makabe a match against Shinsuke Nakamura in early April. While Makabe was out due to a head injury suffered at the hands of Yano, most of GBH, Yano included, went on to form CHAOS with Shinsuke Nakamura, leaving Makabe and Tomoaki Honma on their own. In August 2009 Makabe finished first in his block of the G1 Climax tournament for the third year in a row and then defeated Takashi Sugiura and Shinsuke Nakamura to win the entire tournament.[57] After Hiroshi Tanahashi was forced to vacate the IWGP Heavyweight Championship due to an injury, Makabe and Nakamura were booked in a rematch to determine the new champion. Nakamura defeated Makabe with the Boma Ye to become the 53rd champion.[58] At Wrestle Kingdom IV in Tokyo Dome Makabe defeated Muhammad Yone in an interpromotional match between New Japan and Pro Wrestling Noah.[59]
Makabe in November 2011
In January Makabe along with his ally Honma, would compete on Noah's Global Tag League. They only won one match,[60] but Makabe left a huge mark by pinning GHC Heavyweight Champion Takashi Sugiura in a non-tournament tag team match.[61] On February 28, Makabe failed to claim the GHC Heavyweight Championship from Takashi Sugiura at Budokan Hall.[62] In March 2010 Makabe entered the 2010 New Japan Cup and defeated Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano and Tetsuya Naito to advance to the finals, where he was once again defeated by Hirooki Goto in a rematch of their 2008 G1 Climax final match.[63] After Goto failed in his title match against the IWGP Heavyweight Champion Shinsuke Nakamura, Makabe laid a challenge for the belt and on May 3, 2010, at Wrestling Dontaku 2010, defeated Nakamura to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.[64][65] On June 19 at Dominion 6.19, Makabe made his first successful title defense, defeating Pro Wrestling Noah's Go Shiozaki.[66] On July 19 Makabe successfully defended the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against previous champion Shinsuke Nakamura.[67] The following month Makabe entered the 2010 G1 Climax tournament. After a rocky start, which included losses to Tetsuya Naito and former tag team partner Toru Yano, Makabe came back with a four match winning streak, only to lose to Hiroshi Tanahashi on the final day of the tournament and thus miss advancing to the finals.[68][69][70][71][72][73][74] On October 11 Makabe lost the IWGP Heavyweight Championship to G1 Climax winner, Satoshi Kojima.[75] During the 2010 G1 Tag League, where he teamed with Tomoaki Honma, Makabe suffered a neck injury in a match against Masato Tanaka and Tomohiro Ishii that would sideline him indefinitely.[76][77] Makabe and Tanaka would settle their grudge on January 4, 2011, at Wrestle Kingdom V in Tokyo Dome, in a match, where Makabe was victorious.[78][79] On May 3, Makabe formed a new partnership with Satoshi Kojima, after their match against each other, when the rest of Kojima-gun, aided by the returning Minoru Suzuki, turned on their leader.[80] Later that same month, Makabe took part in New Japan's first ever tour of the United States, the Invasion Tour 2011, during which he feuded with Rhino. Makabe and Rhino main evented the final day of the tour on May 15 at the Asylum Arena, where Makabe was victorious in a South Philadelphia Street Fight.[81] Makabe continued his rivalry with the Suzuki-gun by scoring victories over Taichi, Taka Michinoku and Lance Archer, before being defeated by the group's leader Minoru Suzuki in a grudge match on October 10 at Destruction '11.[82] In the 2011 G1 Tag League, Makabe teamed with Satoshi Kojima as the "Beast Combination".[83] After picking up three wins and one loss in their first four matches, Makabe and Kojima were defeated by the Billion Powers (Hirooki Goto and Hiroshi Tanahashi) on November 4, causing them to narrowly miss advancing to the semifinals of the tournament.[84] In late 2011, Makabe shifted from feuding with Minoru Suzuki to his partner Yoshihiro Takayama, which built to a match on January 4, 2012, at Wrestle Kingdom VI in Tokyo Dome, where Makabe defeated Takayama in a singles match.[85] Makabe's rivalry with Suzuki culminated on June 16 at Dominion 6.16, where Makabe was victorious in a singles grudge match.[86] As a result, Makabe was granted a shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, but he was unable to dethrone the defending champion, Hiroshi Tanahashi, in their title match on July 1.[87] Makabe ended his long rivalry with the Suzuki-gun on September 23 at Destruction, when he defeated the stable's newest member, Kengo Mashimo, in a singles match.[88]
With his feud with Suzuki-gun behind him, Makabe began a new feud with the returning Laughter7 team of Katsuyori Shibata and Kazushi Sakuraba,[88] leading to him and Wataru Inoue losing to the two in tag team matches on October 8 at King of Pro-Wrestling and November 11 at Power Struggle.[89][90] From November 20 to December 1, Makabe and Inoue, billed collectively as "Always Hypers",[91] took part in the round-robin portion of the 2012 World Tag League. The team finished with a record of four wins and two losses, winning their block and advancing to the semifinals of the tournament.[92][93] On December 2, Makabe and Inoue were eliminated from the tournament in their semifinal match by the reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions, K.E.S. (Davey Boy Smith, Jr. and Lance Archer).[94] The rivalry between Makabe and Katsuyori Shibata built to a grudge match on January 4, 2013, at Wrestle Kingdom 7 in Tokyo Dome, where Makabe was victorious.[95] The following month, Makabe started a new rivalry with Yujiro Takahashi.[96] The two first met each other in a singles match on February 10 at The New Beginning, where Makabe was victorious.[97] On March 11, Makabe and Takahashi faced off in the first round of the 2013 New Japan Cup in a match, where Takahashi emerged victorious.[98][99] On March 23, Tomoaki Honma returned to New Japan, aligning himself with Makabe in his war with Takahashi and the rest of Chaos.[100] The reunited GBH had their first match back together on April 7 at Invasion Attack, where they were defeated by Takahashi and Masato Tanaka in a tag team match.[101] Makabe and Takahashi faced off in another singles match on May 3 at Wrestling Dontaku 2013, where Makabe picked up a decisive win. After the main event of the evening, Makabe challenged Kazuchika Okada to a match for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.[102] Makabe received his title shot on June 22 at Dominion 6.22, but was defeated by Okada.[103] From August 1 to 11, Makabe took part in the 2013 G1 Climax,[104] where he finished with a record of five wins and four losses, with a loss against Prince Devitt on the final day costing him a spot in the finals.[105] Makabe then started feuding with Devitt and his Bullet Club stable.[106] Later in the year, after Devitt began concentrating on defending his IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, Makabe made another Bullet Club member, Bad Luck Fale, whose interference had cost him his match against Devitt in the G1 Climax, his main rival.[107] In December, Makabe and Honma made it to the semifinals of the 2013 World Tag League, before being eliminated by the Bullet Club team of Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson, following outside interference from Fale.[108] The rivalry between Makabe and Fale culminated in a King of Destroyer match on January 4, 2014, at Wrestle Kingdom 8 in Tokyo Dome, where Makabe was victorious.[109] Makabe and Fale faced off again on March 15 in the first round of the 2014 New Japan Cup, where Fale was victorious.[110] The following month, Makabe and Hiroshi Tanahashi formed a tag team named "Ace to King" (Japanese for "Ace and King") to go after Bullet Club's IWGP Tag Team Championship.[111] On May 25 at Back to the Yokohama Arena, Makabe and Tanahashi defeated Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata to earn a shot at the IWGP Tag Team Championship.[112][113] Makabe and Tanahashi received their title shot on June 21 at Dominion 6.21, but were defeated by Bullet Club's Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson.[114][115] Makabe then reunited with Tomoaki Honma for the 2014 World Tag League,[116] where the two finished last in their block with a record of three wins and four losses.[117]
Makabe in March 2015
On January 4, 2015, at Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome, Makabe defeated Tomohiro Ishii to win the NEVER Openweight Championship for the first time.[118] After coming down with influenza, Makabe was stripped of the title on February 14 due to being unable to wrestle Ishii in a title rematch at The New Beginning in Sendai.[119] After recovering, Makabe defeated Ishii on April 29 at Wrestling Hinokuni to regain the NEVER Openweight Championship.[120] He made his first successful title defense against Ishii on July 5 at Dominion 7.5 in Osaka-jo Hall.[121][122] From July 20 to August 14, Makabe took part in the 2015 G1 Climax,[123] where he finished in the middle of his block with a record of four wins and five losses.[124] On September 23 at Destruction in Okayama, Makabe made his second successful defense of the NEVER Openweight Championship against Kota Ibushi, who had defeated him during the 2015 G1 Climax.[125] On October 12 at King of Pro-Wrestling, Makabe lost the title back to Ishii.[126][127]
In December, Makabe and Honma won their block in the 2015 World Tag League with a record of four wins and two losses, advancing to the finals of the tournament.[128] On December 9, Makabe and Honma defeated Los Ingobernables de Japon (Evil and Tetsuya Naito) in the finals to win the 2015 World Tag League.[129] On January 4, 2016, at Wrestle Kingdom 10 in Tokyo Dome, Makabe and Honma defeated Bullet Club's Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson to win the IWGP Tag Team Championship.[130] They made their first successful title defense on February 14 at The New Beginning in Niigata in a rematch against Gallows and Anderson.[131] They lost the title to Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa) on April 10 at Invasion Attack 2016.[132] From July 18 to August 12, Makabe took part in the 2016 G1 Climax, where he finished with a record of four wins and five losses.[133] In December, Makabe and Honma advanced to the finals of the 2016 World Tag League by winning their block with a record of five wins and two losses.[134] On December 10, Makabe and Honma defeated the reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions Guerrillas of Destiny to win the 2016 World Tag League,[135] becoming the first ever team to win the tournament in two consecutive years.[136] On January 4, 2017, at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome, Makabe and Honma took part in a three-way match for the IWGP Tag Team Championship, which was won by Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano.[137] On February 21, Makabe celebrated his 20th year as a professional wrestler with a special event promoted by NJPW. In the main event, Makabe and Honma defeated IWGP Tag Team Champions Ishii and Yano in a non-title match.[138]
On January 30, 2019, Makabe, Taguchi and Yano defeated Bullet Club to win the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship.[139]
Other media [ edit ]
Makabe provided the voice of Rictus Erectus in the Japanese dub of the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road.[140] In 2016, Makabe, along with Hiroshi Tanahashi, appeared in Garo: Ashura, the 10th anniversary special of the Japanese tokusatsu series Garo.[141] He also provided the voice for the animated version of himself in the Tiger Mask W anime.[142] Makabe voices a boss character on the Japanese version of the video game Let It Die.[143]
King Kong Knee Drop on Makabe performing theon Manabu Nakanishi
Championships and accomplishments [ edit ] |
After a brisk practice in Phoenix yesterday, the Oilers flew to Montreal for their third stop on this six-game road trip. Even though the Habs are currently in 12th spot, tomorrow night’s tilt will be tough according to the Nation’s newest contributor.
That’s right, the Nation has added a new writer. Wanye spent so much time negotiating with him that he was too tired to write an introduction piece so I have to do it.
According to Sir Wanye our readership continues to grow at a very solid rate. He never shows us the data, and I’m too lazy to look it up, but would a guy who openly admits he loves Justin Bieber and Jordan Eberle have the potential to lie?
I don’t think so.
THE TEAM
Our readers seem to like the Nation’s mix of writers.
Brownlee, who wore skinny jeans the first time they were in fashion has been on the beat for over 25 years so he knows what is happening with the Oilers; sometimes even before they do. Lowetide, the Godfather of bloggers with a calm demeanor, soothing words and an appreciation for beautiful women.
Willis, a human calculator of statistics with a strange ability to require only two hours of sleep which allows him to continually pump out copy. Wanye, an emotionally-charged fan who cries after a loss and celebrates every win like it’s a playoff game, and he’s an aspiring artist with incredible wit. And yours truly.
Our writers combined with our readers makes the nation a great place. We all have on thing in common; a passion for hockey. We like to write and appreciate all of you who read the site and those who take the time to contribute here. It makes for a great time waster.
A NEW ADDITION
We’ve decided to add another writer to our stable, and it is fitting that he’s our 6th regular writer. Realistically if he was our 6th and 1/2 writer it would be have been perfect. This year he will pop by with his views on life, hockey, the best pressbox food and other interesting angles.
We were going to have a sit down interview with him this week, but he didn’t want to trump Sportsnet’s return of Hazel Mae. We are certain our Q and A will be much more entertaining and insightful, so look for that in the coming weeks.
Our new writer is someone all of you are familiar with. For the past few years you’ve cheered him, yelled at him, respected him, cursed his name, and if you’ve played hockey you all wished for a moment that you could be in his skates.
He was the 63rd pick in the 1994 draft. Three and a half years later, after only five days of his 4th training camp his GM, Mike Milbury, told him he would never be good enough to play and sent him to the minors. Four months later he was traded to Vancouver, and then he spent the next 13 years lighting up the NHL with excellent off-the-boards-and-out passes, perfectly placed dumpins, scored on every shootout attempt he tried and won over many fans with his rapid-fire punches.
He will slowly pop by the Nation at first, but once he gets comfortable you can expect to read him more frequently.
But first let’s introduce our newest Voice of the Nation in the most fitting tribute we could find. He appears at 5:58 and for an extra treat listen to John Davidson’s account of the play. Then he gets right into his take on the game tonight without a moment to spare.
Welcome to the Nation, Jason Strudwick.
HABS AND HOTDOGS
Every veteran player who played at the old Montreal forum knew how good the Chiens Chauds, (hot dogs) were. If you, the visiting team, won the game, the healthy scratches were expected to buy enough for everyone including players, coaches, management and training staff to enjoy on the happy bus ride to the airport.
Although that tradition has fallen off somewhat since the Canadiens moved into the Bell centre; one thing that hasn’t is the tough environment for a road team to get a win.
The Canadiens haven’t gotten off to a great start, especially at home where they are 2-3-2. Don’t let those numbers fool you, winning a game at the Bell centre is tough to do. For a team trying to re-establish itself as the Oilers are this season, this game tomorrow is a good test.
Teams that win on a consistent basis show poise whether playing at home or on the road. But playing in some buildings is harder than others. Of the 29 away buildings Montreal ranks near the top for helping the home team win. It seems like with something as simple as a good hit, penalty kill or even a blocked shot the momentum of a game can change in a heartbeat, and a game that looked like a lock to win easily gets away from you.
The fans are loud and can play a big role in the outcome of a game. At times it seems like they are right on top of you. Tomorrow night the Oilers need to play a smart road game. To do this they must continue to limit their chances against. I have never played for a coach who didn’t watch this stat as closely as an old man waiting for the last number to complete his Bingo.
Coaches feel if the chances-against are low his team has stuck to the game plan he created, and likely they have made good decisions with the puck. This is very important for winning a road game.
THIS MEANS 2 THINGS
1. They must continue to stay out of the penalty box. The Oilers PK has been very solid, but the when you’re down a man those chances against can increase quickly. Although the Habs PP is only running at 14% this year, they are almost 17% at home and they have the personnel to change that quickly.
2. The Canadiens are very good at exploiting neutral and high offensive zone turnovers. Often these types of turnovers resulted in odd man rushes against. Players like Plekanec, Gionta and Pacioretty are dangerous when attacking with an odd man rush. Smyth and Horcoff must remind the team that although chipping the puck in at the blueline isn’t always the most exciting play, it does contribute to big road wins.
Les Chiens Chauds are still good at the Bell Centre, and to be honest I can’t even tell you what separates them from your normal run of the mill tube steak you can get anywhere, but if the Oilers win tomorrow the team can answer that question on the bus ride to the airport.
A FINAL NOTE FROM JASON G
Strudwick will share his views on the game and some behind the scenes stories that he encountered over the years. Go easy on him Nation although maybe you should go all Mike Milbury on him and tell him he’ll never be a good writer and then he’ll spend 13 years in the Nation proving us wrong.
You choose. I can actually hear Wanye squeeing all the way across town. |
During a recent tour of Carmel Place, New York City’s new micro-apartment complex, Ammr Vandal, project manager for nArchitects, explained how design can generate a sense of roominess in even the smallest spaces. We were standing in the building’s three-hundred-and-two-square-foot second-floor model unit, one of its “mid-size” micros. The other apartments range from two hundred and sixty to three hundred and sixty square feet, all of them featuring a full bath and a compact but complete kitchen. High ceilings are essential, Vandal said, as is lots of natural light; every unit at Carmel Place, which is in midtown Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood, has a large window that opens to a Juliet balcony. Vandal’s firm also designed the entry areas to be distinct from the living space. “How do you make something feel bigger? By making it smaller, by dividing it up,” she said. Even the light reflecting off the glass-tile backsplash in the kitchen was meant to play a part in extending the space. The complex was conceived out of adAPT NYC, a design competition hosted in 2012 by Michael Bloomberg, then the Mayor. The aim was to pilot a new type of housing for the city’s growing number of small households. Micro-apartments and tricked-out tiny houses have become trendy elsewhere in the U.S., but Carmel Place has been controversial in advance of its opening this spring, partly because, in New York, small living quarters have historically gone hand in hand with substandard conditions. In 1987, the city passed a law forbidding the construction of apartments smaller than four hundred square feet, but Bloomberg waived the rule for Carmel Place’s fifty-five units, prompting criticism from those who feared that cramped quarters would once again become normal. “It’s important that it’s illegal to live in a place that small,” the writer Fran Lebowitz said, in a memorable rant at McNally Jackson Bookstore, in Soho, soon after the design competition launched. “It’s important because laws show the values of the country, of the city. So we say, we have a value: our value is that people shouldn’t live in a shoebox. It’s not good for human beings.” Historical examples to support her case abound. In New York during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, numerous immigrants squeezed into dark tenement buildings, and a family of four might have occupied only two hundred and fifty square feet. In the nineteen-seventies and eighties, single-room occupancies (or S.R.O.s), once a reputable form of accommodation for newcomers, became mismanaged and fell into varying degrees of squalor. Enter Carmel Place, where everything seems to be stainless steel or glossy white. The unit that I toured was outfitted with custom-made furniture, including a knee-high coffee table that sweeps open to become a waist-high dining table, and a couch designed to collapse below a stylish Murphy bed. The furniture is part of what Tobias Oriwol, the project developer for the builder, Monadnock Development, highlighted as the complex’s “hotel-style experiences.” Also included are weekly cleaning and an app-based butler service called Ollie (short for “all-inclusive”), which can arrange pickup or delivery of dry cleaning and groceries. The amenities may make Lebowitz’s concerns about the apartments’ confines seem rather misplaced—should we really get worked up about a small living space when it comes with a butler? The carefully managed, market-friendly optics at Carmel Place aren’t geared only toward relatively well-off renters, though. They’re part of a larger strategy by city officials to leverage the trendiness of tiny into a new affordable-housing model. In cities like Boston and Washington, “micro-luxury” developments, as we might call them, have typically been marketed to young, single professionals who want to live in the center of the city. But, like many new rental constructions in New York, Carmel Place will include designated affordable units—fourteen of them—which don’t come with Ollie or custom-built furniture. These apartments will rent for either nine hundred and fifty dollars or fourteen hundred and ninety dollars, depending on the renter’s income. By comparison, the market-rate units will rent for twenty-four hundred and forty dollars to twenty-nine hundred and ten dollars—which includes Ollie, Wi-fi, cable, and, in some cases, furniture. (These market-rate units boast some of the highest prices per square foot in Manhattan.) The building will also include eight Ollie-equipped, furnished units for homeless veterans, funded by Section 8 vouchers. That the other low-income units won’t have these luxury amenities lends some weight to Lebowitz’s critique.
It’s apparent that New Yorkers at the lower end of the income spectrum are in desperate need of affordable housing. According to the latest America’s Rental Housing report, which is published biannually by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, renters in the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area increasingly suffer from disproportionally high housing costs. Nearly half of renters in these cities with annual salaries between forty-five thousand and seventy-five thousand dollars are “cost-burdened” (meaning they spend more than thirty per cent of their incomes on housing), as are three-quarters of renters who earn thirty thousand to forty-five thousand dollars annually. Similarly, a new study from the Brookings Institute on urban income inequality reports that income inequality has worsened in many cities over the past nine years, and that a relationship exists between inequality and housing affordability; the more unequal the city, the more expensive housing is for low-income families. As a result, cities have been experimenting with less expensive micro-units. In Providence, architects have converted an empty mall into forty-eight micro-apartments that start at five hundred and fifty dollars a month. In Austin, a designer has come up with Kasita, a building of movable two-hundred-square-foot pods, which he envisions as a new type of affordable housing. New York City officials, too, emphasized affordability, not luxury, when they first pitched adAPT NYC. Robert Steele, the Deputy Mayor of Economic Development, called the project a “new model for development of affordable housing.” Bloomberg put it this way: “People from all over the world want to live in New York City, and we must develop a new, scalable housing model that is safe, affordable, and innovative to meet their needs.” So why, then, did New York end up with a building oriented around micro-luxury, rather than going entirely micro-affordable? The question seems especially pertinent because the city donated the nearly five-thousand-square-foot parcel of land on which Carmel Place sits. I asked Ingrid Gould Ellen, the director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University, to offer some insight into the city’s approach. While micro-apartments are “a potentially important source of dedicated affordable housing,” Ellen told me, “you could make an argument not to start there.” She cited the early backlash against the idea, and the city’s history with S.R.O.s, in which a safe option gradually became a symbol of urban blight. “The S.R.O. model became stigmatized,” she said. “If micro-units become a form of low-income housing only, it becomes stigmatized.” In other words, going that route might have risked damaging the micro brand among those who seek both market-rate and low-income housing. The observation subtly underscored the importance of optics when it comes to small apartments. An affordable “shoebox,” as it were, was much more likely to be controversial than an expensive one. |
Hey! We’re almost done with the first week of 31 Days To Your Financial Future! How is your month going? Did you miss the earlier posts in this series? Here’s a quick recap:
Today’s topic is a special one, because today’s topic is really the heart of this entire month-long project. Today’s task: Do 1% Better.
Every Day Is A Chance To Improve
I’m going to tell you a secret about financial success. Success doesn’t happen after your next raise or promotion. It doesn’t happen after you pay off your debt. It doesn’t happen when you launch your own business, or finally close on the home of your dreams. It happens every single day. The rest of your life is an aggregate of every single effort you make to improve the way you manage your money.
When asked what spurred him to create a scholarship program for youth in Bexar County, Texas, NBA player Tim Duncan had this to say:
When I was a kid my mom used to have us recite this nursery rhyme before bed: Good, Better, Best. Never let it rest,
Until your Good is Better, and your Better is your Best.
Let’s do something better today.
If You Can Do Something, You Can Do One More
I’m not a very athletic guy. I weighed 330lbs in December. I’ve been overweight all my life, and it wasn’t until my health started to scare me that I got serious about fixing it.
I started going to the gym, but the first few days were so hard, I wanted to give up. I’m sitting there on a stationary bike, six minutes in and feeling like crap. My legs are burning. I’m sweating like a pig in a sauna. My heart is pounding in my head and I feel like I can’t breathe. I want so bad to give up, when the thought pops into my head: “Screw this. If you can do six, you can do seven.”
I knew I had already accomplished six minutes on that bike. My muscles did that, even if they didn’t yet realize they wanted to. If they could do six, was I going to let them tell me they couldn’t do just one more?
So I did seven minutes.
The next time I went to the gym, I set my new goal at seven. I knew I’d done seven yesterday. I could do seven today. And when I got almost there, I started feeling that same despair. Everything hurt. I didn’t want to keep going. I told myself “If you can do seven, you can do eight.”
So I did eight. And then I did nine, because I started telling myself, “If you can do eight, you can do nine.”
(3 months later, I’ve lost a pound a week. I’m at 318lbs now.)
The same thing applies to your personal finance. If you can pay $100 on your debt this month, you can probably pay $101. If you can make 10 sales today, you can make 11. If you can save $50 on your groceries with coupons, you can probably save $51. If you can invest $4000 this year, you can probably invest $4100.
Financial success doesn’t happen overnight
Don’t chase after people who “made it big.” Very few people win the lottery. Most people won’t sell a million copies of a hit app. Most people won’t become famous movie stars or rappers or athletes. And let’s be honest — the ones who do rarely hold on to their wealth. It vanishes, because that kind of success is often fleeting and requires huge spending to keep up appearances.
Real success comes from daily effort.
It comes from the effort to develop good financial habits and break bad ones. It comes from daily study, reflection, and thought to make the best financial decisions possible. It comes from doing until it hurts, and then doing just one more.
One extra payment. One hour of overtime. One more client. One more sale. One more dollar earned, one more dollar saved, one more dollar invested. That’s all it takes. One more.
If you do that, if you push yourself every single day to make one better financial decision than you did the day before, I guarantee you will earn more money. I guarantee you will get out of debt. I guarantee you will be able to fund your dreams. But if you want that, you’ve got to do one better, and you need to start today.
I’ve got two-for-one-deal for you tomorrow! Tomorrow, right here at Stop Worrying About Money, we’ll continue 31 Days To Your Financial Future. We’ll be exploring some ways to polish up those marketable skills, so you can excel in your career and make more money.
To tie in with that, I’m also guest posting over at Madam Money, where I’ll be showing you how to earn $1000 more every month in just one hour a day. You won’t want to miss it!
What motivates you to do better?
Do you use any tricks or mantras to motivate yourself to do better? What are they? Tell us in the comments!
Photo by Jamie Jamieson.
Click here to read Day 7! |
£12.00 – £25.00
Bark Psychosis’ acclaimed debut album remastered and officially reissued for the first time on double 45rpm vinyl.
“An album that can truly be called post-rock” Fact Mag – Best Post-Rock Album Of All Time
“Their influence is pervasive” The Quietus
“A landmark record” Dangerous Minds
“Mysterious, haunting, and breathtakingly visionary” Allmusic
The recent release of Jeanette Leech’s book ‘Fearless: The Making Of Post-Rock’ (Jawbone Press) celebrates post-rock and its origins. Finding new inspiration, bands were beginning to experiment with techniques as the digital age took over.
A case study in her new book, Bark Psychosis were one of the most innovative bands of their time and as legend has it, saw the first use of the term ‘post-rock’ by music critic Simon Reynolds.
Following several singles and EPs, the avant-garde soundscapes built around drones and samples of 21-minute stand-out track ‘Scum’ arrived just two years before their seminal debut ‘Hex’ (1994). Frustrated by the mainstream, ‘Scum’ was a huge statement that set them apart from the beginning.
Bark Psychosis’ sound was born out of their improvisations at makeshift studio within St John’s Church in Stratford. Taking a year to complete ‘Hex’ left the band on the brink of collapse and by the time of its release they had dissolved.
Hailed as a masterpiece, it’s “mysterious, haunting, and breathtakingly visionary” (Allmusic). Breaking down their songs and rebuilding them in the studio brought distinguishing ambient soundscapes and an atmospheric experimental sound. Last year Fact Magazine deservedly gave the album further recognition with it claiming top spot in their ’30 Best Post-Rock Albums Of All Time’.
Following ‘Hex’ and the disintegration of the band, Graham Sutton went on to create seminal Drum ‘n’ Bass as Boymerang and hugely acclaimed production work for the likes of These New Puritans, British Sea Power, Silver Apples, Jarvis Cocker and East India Youth. He revived Bark Psychosis at the turn of the millennium, eventually releasing another album, the equally extraordinary ‘///Codename: Dustsucker’
Newly remastered in 2017 from the original analog tapes at Metropolis Studios by Graham Sutton and Stuart Hawkes, and reissued officially for the first time, Bark Psychosis’ debut ‘Hex’ will be available on double vinyl / CD / Hi-res FLAC on September 15th |
Attention! This news was published on the old version of the website. There may be some problems with news display in specific browser versions.
Messerschmitt Bf 110 - Zerstörer
RANK I: Bf 110 C4 Engine Power: 2100 HP x2 (@3800m) Top Speed: 538 kph @ 5000m with 100% throttle, closed
radiators & full fuel Wingspan: 16,3 m Length: 12,3 m Armament: 7,92mm MG 17 x4
20mm MG FF/M 2x
7,92mm MG 15 1x
The powerful armament of the Messerschmitt Bf 110 is ideally suited to destroying bombers, as demonstrated in December 1939 over the seas north of Germany. The Messerschmitt Bf 110 C-4 has many strengths. With bomb pylons unlocked it can carry a 500kg bomb load, as much as some dedicated bombers of a similar rank, making it a very useful fighter-bomber. It is one of the fastest aircraft in Rank I, allowing sensible pilots to stay out of trouble - maintain altitude, avoid losing speed in tight turns and you should be able to pick and choose your fights unless up against higher level opposition.
It also has very powerful armament: two 20mm cannon that can be loaded with explosive Minengeschoß shells and four machine guns, all concentrated in the nose. Head-on attacks are always risky but nose-mounted guns give you the best chance of taking out an opponent at long range, open fire from 1.5km (1 mile) and start to evade around 1km (0.6 miles) where many pilots start shooting.
The weakness of the Bf 110 is lack of manoeuvrability. Although slightly better than the Do 17 Z-7 immediately before it in the tree these heavy fighters need a different style of flying to the agile biplanes that new pilots may recently have graduated from. Avoid dogfights, do not try and turn with a lighter fighter. Instead stay at high altitude, line up an enemy and dive down on them making one pass. If they dodge, or you miss, do not turn tightly; keep flying away at high speed until a safe distance away, regain altitude, and repeat the process. This is the essence of "Boom and Zoom", a key technique for German aircraft through the ranks.
The Bf 110 is ideally equipped to tackle the larger bombers and flying boats of Rank I/II such as the PBY Catalina or Wellington. These can be tough targets for fighters equipped only with machine guns, but the cannon of the Bf 110 allow it to live up to its German designation of ‘Zerstörer’ (Destroyer). Lack of manoeuvrability is not an issue against lumbering bombers, though you do need to be careful of defensive fire from turrets; do not stay completely straight and level behind one, even a single light machine gun can be fatal to your pilot.
In game it is one of the fastest fighters in Era 1 with a speed of 538 km/h. It packs incredible firepower with 4x 7.92mm MG’s and 2x
20mm cannons with a copious 360 rounds all in a centreline mount, a hard hitting package that will reach out and swat aircraft far away.
The prowess of the Bf 110 as a bomber destroyer was demonstrated in a battle of December 1939 that had a profound impact on RAF strategy for the rest of the war. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 there followed several months with little fighting, the so-called "Phoney War". The British launched some desultory bombing attacks against the German Navy with little effect. Defending Luftwaffe squadrons, equipped with early-mark Bf 109s at the start of the war, had some success, but the RAF believed that the concentrated defensive fire from a tight formation of bombers was sufficient drive off enemy fighters.
PROS AND CONS OF THE PLANE:
+ PROS: Can turn quite well at high speeds
Very maneuverable for a heavy fighter
Exceptionally heavy burst mass for its tier (2.80 kg/s) with large amounts of it consisting of minengeschoß
Extremely deadly opponent at head-ons, never let this aircraft get a good deflection at you
Climbs generally well, though it cannot match single engined fighters of its tier, excluding bi-planes
Tail gunner is hard to hit from a level flight of both the enemy aircraft and the defending aircraft
Heavy armament consisting of 2 cannons and 4 machine guns
Plenty of ammo available for the armament, some RB matches you'll finish with <1000 rounds of MG ammo left
Can carry quite a payload, can double as an attacker or intruder
Centrally mounted armament allows a denser cone of fire, making it perfect for long range shooting or head-ons - CONS: Big target
Slow acceleration
Poor energy retention
Loses speed easily in maneuvers
Inferior maneuverability than single-engine fighters, especially those at its tier
Elevator is prone to damage, may shear off when hit by cannon rounds
Only a single 7.92mm machine gun as defensive armament
Rear gunner can only do his best to hit targets with his limited cone of fire
Turret has a major blind spot during level flight as it is unable to fire at enemy aircraft directly level with your aircraft, since the tail boom is blocking the depression of the rear gun
Flight performance on one engine is very poor, only being able to just excede stall speed in level flight
I./ZG 76, a veteran Bf 110 unit from the Polish campaign, relocated to North Germany near the naval base at Wilhelmshaven on December 17th 1939. The following day the RAF despatched 24 Wellington bombers on another mission against the German Navy. Two had to return to base; the remaining 22 were detected by German radar 70 miles out. The Luftwaffe did not respond immediately as an attack in such clear weather seemed unlikely, but after visual confirmation of the radar reports Bf 109s and 110s scrambled to intercept. One flight of Bf 110s had been out on patrol and had just finished refuelling; pilot Helmut Lent, impatient to get into action and add to the one kill he had scored over Poland, started to take off even as an armourer slid down from his wing having just fitted a new ammunition drum.
Visit official War Thunder wiki for more information about this German Attacker.
The Wellingtons reached Wilhelmshaven but were unable to attack their primary targets - they were forbidden from bombing ships moored quayside for fear of civilian casualties. Under heavy anti-aircraft fire, including the batteries of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the formation started to break up. As the bombers turned for home and the flak barrage died down the Messerschmitts pounced. For the next half hour over 40 German fighters mounted a prolonged attack on the Wellingtons, the greater endurance of the Bf 110s allowing them to sustain the attack the longest. Twelve Wellingtons were shot down, six more were damaged. They accounted for three Bf 109s in return; no Bf 110s were lost, though several suffered varying degrees of damage - Wolfgang Falck, having claimed two Wellingtons (one later confirmed) made a forced landing with one engine knocked out, prompting him to comment afterwards that it was his first and last time as a glider pilot. Both sides overclaimed heavily, as is inevitable in large, confusing aerial battles where aircraft are engaged by multiple opponents. British gunners claimed 12 fighters shot down and another 12 heavily damaged; German pilots claimed 38 victories, with 27 being confirmed.
DISCOVER THE LIVE SITE - SKINS FOR BF 110
Named the “Zerstörer” (“Destroyer” in English), a very appropriate name for its mission, to destroy anything that is in front of it.
The losses sustained in what became known as The Battle of the Heligoland Bight were a substantial factor in convincing the RAF that defensive firepower alone could not protect bombers; from 1940 until the end of the war the vast majority of Bomber Command operations were conducted at night. The Battle of Britain demonstrated the vulnerability of the Bf 110 to modern single-engine fighters, especially when closely tied to bombers as an escort, but it remained a formidable defensive weapon. The Bf 110 formed the backbone of German night fighter units created as a result of Bomber Command's switch to night operations. The first, NJG 1, was commanded by Wolfgang Falck who became known as the "Father of the Night Fighters". One of his pilots was another veteran of Heligoland, Helmut Lent (three Wellingtons claimed, two confirmed), who went on to become one of the most successful Luftwaffe night fighter pilot with 110 total victories.
Author: John "Zoso" Moore
Want to read more about the vehicles in War Thunder? Find other Vehicle Profiles on our website! |
This patch prepares the grounds for the arrival of Hearthstone’s second exciting expansion: The Grand Tournament!
When The Grand Tournament goes live later this month, you’ll be able to arm yourself with 132 all-new cards, recruit chivalrous knights of all shapes and sizes, and have a whole lot of festive fun! This patch also begins tracking your highest earned rank in Ranked Play mode, and you’ll be rewarded with a Highest Rank Bonus at the end of the season. Remember, The Grand Tournament pre-purchase bundle remains available until the expansion goes live.
We’re also adding a new card back and fixing some bugs. The full patch notes are below!
General
The following card back has been added: Tournament Grounds – Acquired by reaching Rank 20 or higher in Ranked Play mode during the month of August.
New quests added, including one to win games in Tavern Brawl mode!
Tavern Brawl victories now count towards earning the Heroes of the Storm mount award.
A bonus chest will be granted at the end of each season based on the highest ranked reached in Ranked Play mode. |
In video uploaded to YouTube on Saturday, Arthur Kellermann of the RAND Corporation said that keeping a gun in your home was a bad way to protect your family.
“It’s natural to want to do everything you can to keep you family safe, especially if you live in a dangerous neighborhood,” he told the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. “In a thunderstorm, it is also natural to take cover under the nearest tree, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.”
Kellermann has published several studies on gun ownership, which found keeping a firearm in the home increased the odds a family member would become a homicide victim. Not surprisingly, gun rights advocates have claimed that his research is flawed.
“The facts are this: While there are occasionally instances where someone uses a gun for self-defense effectively, the number of times a gun in the home is involved in the death of a child, the death of a family member, [or] the death of a visiting relative who is depressed vastly overwhelms the number of cases where a gun is used for self-defense,” he explained.
“That work has been out and available for over 15 years, and multiple studies have shown homes where guns are kept are actually more likely to be the scene of a homicide or a suicide than homes in exactly the same neighborhoods without guns.”
He advised those who wished to keep a gun in the home to store it in a highly secure location that couldn’t be accessed by intruders or distraught family members.
Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below: |
Tony Hawk came through: there is a new skateboarding game coming to consoles.
Tony Hawk’s latest game will release on PS4 in 2015, the pro skater announced during Sony’s CES 2015 keynote in Las Vegas today.
Hawk said the project is much further along than he anticipated when he first teased it in November last year.
No real details were given, or even the game’s full title. We don’t know if it’ll be a full disc release or a downloadable game.
Sony did not explicitly state the new game is a PS4 exclusive, so it may yet turn out to be multi-platform. That Sony is promoting the title by hosting its initial announcements may indicate Activision has cut a deal with PlayStation for exclusive content and marketing, as it did with Destiny (and has repeatedly done with call of Duty and Xbox).
Sony doesn’t usually invest a great deal of energy in gaming during its CES keynotes, but CEO Kazuo Hirai did take time to celebrate PlayStation’s success, on the back of the announcement that worldwide PS4 sales have passed 18.5 million. |
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Caster Semenya was cleared to immediately return to track by the sport’s governing body Tuesday, ending an 11-month layoff while she underwent gender tests after becoming the 800-meter world champion.
Semenya is allowed to keep running as a woman, although it is unclear if she has had any medical procedure or treatment during her time away.
The International Association of Athletics Federations said medical details of the 19-year-old South African’s case would remain confidential and it will have no further comment on the matter.
The IAAF added in its statement from its Monaco headquarters that it accepts the conclusion of a panel of medical experts that Semenya can compete with “immediate effect.”
She could return to competition at the world junior championships in Moncton, New Brunswick, starting July 19.
“I am thrilled to enter the global athletics arena once again and look forward to competing with all the disputes behind me.” Semenya said in a statement.
Richard Stander of Athletics South Africa said that Semenya would now be considered for South Africa’s team for the world junior championships, pending a fitness test in Pretoria on Wednesday requested by ASA.
“Of course we are happy,” Mr. Stander said. “When an athlete cannot compete it is frustrating for them and frustrating for us as a federation.”
Mr. Stander said the African championships in Kenya in late July and October’s Commonwealth Games in India were more realistic targets for Semenya after her long absence from competition.
Semenya’s lawyers said negotiations with the IAAF lasted 10 months and had been held in Monaco, Istanbul and Parish.
“But due to the nature of the matter the parties resolved to keep the negotiations confidential,” said Greg Nott, managing partner of Dewey and LeBoeuf’s Johannesburg office.
Semenya underwent gender tests following her dominant run as an 18-year-old at the Berlin world championships last August.
“We are delighted that Caster is finally being permitted to compete with other women, as is her legal and natural right,” lawyer Jeffrey Kessler said. “Hopefully, this resolution will set a precedent so that no female athlete in the future will have to experience the long delays and public scrutiny which Caster has been forced to endure.”
Earlier, Semenya’s father said his daughter had told him before the announcement that she was going to be cleared.
“She told me she doesn’t have any problems and she is happy,” Jacob Semenya said.
The announcement ended a saga in which the teenager burst onto the world scene in Berlin where she captured a gold medal in her first major event. Her dramatic improvement in times and muscular build led the IAAF to order gender verification tests.
Semenya was welcomed as a national hero in South Africa following her stunning victory, but reports of the gender tests and stories in the Australian media saying she had both male and female sex organs caused outrage in her home country and led some public officials to rally behind her.
Last month, South Africa’s sports ministry abruptly canceled a news conference in which it was expected to announce Semenya’s return.
South African sports minister Makhenkesi Stofile also released a statement, saying it was “great news for Caster and all of us.”
“We thank Caster for her patience and resilience,” Mr. Stofile said. “We thank her family and coach for their unfailing support.”
Last month, the sports ministry abruptly canceled a news conference in which it was expected to announce Semenya’s return to athletics.
Semenya’s lawyers said they had been told the conference, which was to be hosted by Mr. Stofile, had been called off because the IAAF’s executive committee had not received a “formal briefing” on Semenya’s case by medical officials.
South Africa’s ruling ANC party also made a public statement Tuesday, calling the decision “a vindication of the ANC, her family, our government and all progressive forces who stood behind her during her time of need.”
“It has always been our long-held view that Caster is a woman and she should have been allowed a long time ago to participate in athletics as a woman,” national spokesman Jackson Mthembu said. “We don’t believe that any aspersion should have been cast on her gender as woman.”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. |
Let’s start with the basics… What’s this app all about!?
Sweatcoin is a digital currency (cryptocurrency) that you earn by walking or running. You earn Sweatcoin through an app on your phone; it tracks your outdoor steps throughout the day and rewards you with about 1 SWC (1 Sweatcoin) per 1,000 steps you make. These coins can been redeemed for gifts ranging from magazines, healthy energy drinks, music downloads, to digital watches, running shoes, electronics, and more.
Heck, the app creators even said they want you to be able to pay your taxes with Sweatcoins… crazy, right!?
But what about earning money? Keep reading!
Yes, you really can earn free gifts… even gift cards!
Since I downloaded the app back in 2016, they’ve added hundreds of new offers to the marketplace. I’ve cashed out on Amazon cards, PayPal, subscriptions, sunglasses, shoes, food boxes, and more. Now, these things required a lot of Sweatcoins – at the time I was running 6 miles a day, so the Sweatcoins were stacking up fast.
(Did you know, we have a FAQ page with TONS of info about this app! Click here to check it out.)
Sweatcoin? Blockchain? Is this like Bitcoin?
Sweatcoin is also going to be a blockchain cryptocurrency (still in development as of September 2018).
It will be the first every cryptocurrency you can earn by walking or running!
What that means is that you can buy and sell Sweatcoins on an exchange.
But before we go deeper, let’s watch an Intro To Sweatcoin video!
What is Sweatcoin?
Sweatcoin (SWC) is an alternative form of currency gained by ‘mining’ Sweatcoin through physical activity. You may have heard of Bitcoin (BTC). You earn BTC by using your graphics card to solve complex equations in hopes of finding the next block of coins, known as mining. Sweatcoin is similar, but different, in that you use your real life steps to generate SWC. It’s not random whether or not you find coins – it is guaranteed. Many of the BTC miners may spend months of processing and gain nothing due to the limited supply of Bitcoin. Sweatcoin users who are runners can go out there and earn 1 SWC in as little as 8 minutes, or even less!
Click here to browse other Frequently Asked Questions
But let’s back up and start with the basics.
Sweatcoin is an app that you install on your iPhone (Coming soon to Android!) It runs in the background and tracks your physical activity – running or walking – and rewards you exactly 0.95 SWC for every 1,000 steps you take.
You can either spend the coin right away on low-cost offers that interest you, such as music downloads or magazine subscriptions, or you can save up the SWC to afford big-ticket items such as digital watches, video game consoles, running shoes, and more. At one point, SWC users were able to redeem a PS4+games for the cost of several hundred coins!
The offers are very short-lived, and they circulate often. This keeps the experience always fresh. For example, if the app featured the same 5 offers for many months at a time, users would grow very weary. Therefore, you have to be on your toes, checking in every day for new offers and strategically spending your hard-earned SWC on the ones with the most value. (Read: Determining Offer Value)
Is the app really free?
Yes! Everything within the app costs Sweatcoin. You never have to provide a credit card or address or any personal information. All that’s needed is a username and email address for verification.
How many coins can I earn?
With the free Mover membership level, you can earn up to 5 of the Sweatcoin cryptocurrency per day, minus a 5% conversion commission. However, what’s amazing about SWC is that it’s literally free to up how many steps you can track in a day. It only costs you … Sweatcoin! The very first day of using the app, I went out and ran 6 miles to earn 5SWC. I used these fresh coins to purchase the Shaker membership level, which allows me to earn up to 10SWC per day. After upgrading, I went out and ran another 6 miles to reach my daily limit.
Read our Frequently Asked Questions!
Does the app use up a lot of battery?
The Sweatcoin app has a battery saver mode that limits battery consumption at the expense of some GPS accuracy. Some users note that this saves about 20% of its battery usage. However, I personally run the app without this battery saving mode and have not noticed a significant difference. If you compared this app to the very famous Pokemon GO app, it uses a mere fraction of the battery as that app uses.
More questions? Read the handy FAQ! |
For the last three years, we found ourselves skipping past the mess of CES and setting our sights on Mobile World Congress, hoping that both HTC and Samsung had something special in-store to show us. Over those three years, some of their new products have blown our minds and others seem like minor upgrades from one to the next. If we look specifically at this year, one could argue that Samsung gave us that “something special,” while HTC played it much safer with the One M9.
The HTC One M9 looks almost identical to last year’s One M8, except that the Duo Camera setup on the back is gone and there is a sharp ridge running around the side of the phone. It’s almost as if HTC slapped on a metal casing that was too big and said, “F*ck it, design!” Oh, they also added this feature that turns adjusting the volume or turning the phone on or off into a game, thanks to a 3-button setup on the side of the phone. Every time I go to press one, I can’t help but quote the great Rob Schneider in Demolition Man, who said “He doesn’t know how to use the three seashells!”
HTC did change a few things, though. The camera on the back is a traditional sensor and the internals have all been upgraded. Oh, and Sense 7.0 is here (spoiler: it looks a lot like Sense 6.0).
We know that it’s difficult for companies to go back to the drawing board each year. Look, even Apple doesn’t do that. But this year feels safer than ever for a company who is still trying to figure out how to claw its way back into the game.
With all that said, our HTC One M8 M9 review is ready. This wasn’t a difficult one, as you might have guessed.
(Our real review will be up soon enough. #checkthedate) |
The Fate of Milo
Edward Blair Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 13, 2017
Even though Bannon had resigned earlier, he still had direct phone access to Trump. In preparation for the Second Night of the Long Knives, Bannon and Miller assembled a dossier of manufactured evidence to suggest that Milo had been paid $48 million by France to overthrow Trump. Leading figures in the alt-right were shown falsified evidence that Milo planned to use the alt-light to launch a plot against the government. Bannon, Miller, and Spencer (at Trump’s direction) drew up lists of people in and outside the alt-light to be killed. Trump went to Mar-a-Lago to attend a wedding celebration and reception; from there he called Milo’s adjutant at Doral, FL, and ordered alt-light leaders to meet with him the next day. On June 29, a signed article in Breitbart by Flynn appeared in which Flynn stated with great fervor that the army stood behind Trump.
With Trump’s arrival in Doral, the alt-light leadership, still in bed, were taken by surprise. Alt-right men stormed the hotel and Trump personally placed Milo and other high-ranking alt-light leaders under arrest. Trump turned Milo over to two detectives holding pistols with the safety catch removed, and the SS found alt-light leader Lucian Wintrich in bed with an unidentified eighteen-year-old male alt-light paramilitary member. Bannon emphasized this aspect in subsequent propaganda justifying the purge as a crackdown on moral turpitude. Trump ordered both Wintrich and his partner taken outside of the hotel and shot. Meanwhile, the alt-right arrested the other alt-light leaders as they left their train for the planned meeting with Milo and Trump.
Although Trump presented no evidence of a plot by Milo to overthrow the regime, he nevertheless denounced the leadership of the alt-light. Arriving back at party headquarters in DC, Trump addressed the assembled crowd. Consumed with rage, Trump denounced the so-called worst treachery in world history. Trump told the crowd that undisciplined and disobedient characters and asocial or diseased elements would be annihilated. The crowd, which included party members and many alt-light members fortunate enough to escape arrest, shouted its approval. Miller, present among the assembled, even volunteered to shoot the “traitors”. Bannon, who had been with Trump at Doral, set the final phase of the plan in motion. Upon returning to Berlin, Bannon telephoned Miller to let loose the execution squads on the rest of their unsuspecting victims.
Milo was held briefly at in ADX Florence, while Trump considered his future. In the end, Trump decided that Milo had to die. At Trump’s behest, Arpaio, Commandant of New Tent City, visited Milo. Once inside Milo’s cell, they handed him a pistol loaded with a single bullet and told him he had ten minutes to kill himself or they would do it for him. Milo demurred, telling them, “If I am to be killed, let Trump do it himself.” Having heard nothing in the allotted time, they returned to Milo’s cell to find him standing, with his bare chest puffed out in a gesture of defiance. Arpaio’s adjutant then shot Milo, killing him. Trump named Miller to replace Milo as head of the alt-light. Trump ordered him to put an end to “homosexuality, debauchery, drunkenness, and high living” in the alt-light. Milo was purged from all alt-right propaganda.
Centuries of jurisprudence proscribing extrajudicial killings were swept aside. Despite some initial efforts by local prosecutors to take legal action against those who carried out the murders, which the regime rapidly quashed, it appeared that no law would constrain Trump in his use of power. The Second Night of the Long Knives also sent a clear message to the public that even the most prominent Americans were not immune from arrest or even summary execution should the Trump regime perceive them as a threat. In this manner, the purge established a pattern of violence that would characterize the Trump regime. |
A three-month investigation focused on burglaries investigators have called "unusual" has resulted in the arrests of 17 men from Columbia.The arrests are the result of combing through 120 burglary calls which occurred over the last year, according to the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office. They describe the suspects as Colombian Nationals who targeted those of Middle Eastern, Asian and Pakistani descent.Detectives say the men were responsible for 49 burglaries in 2016 across Fort bend, Harris and Brazoria counties."We do know that they worked in groups. separate groups," Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls said.He says the men would break the glass in master bathrooms and seek out expensive jewelry, high-end purses and cash."They stayed inside that master bedroom focused on the jewelry and the money and they were gone. Very quickly," Nehls said.Detectives began connecting the cases at first because of their timing: they found in curious that they occurred in the evening, not the middle of the day as they say burglaries usually are. It's not clear how the suspects chose their targets.Victims in Fort Bend county live in New Territory, Cinco Ranch and Greatwood."We've been hearing about this for quite some time," said Imam Tauquer Shah at the Maryam Islamic Center in Sugar Land. They've been working with friends and neighbors, trying to make them less attractive targets."They should be vigilant. Make sure they don't carry jewelry in their homes. Make sure they don't carry large sums, large amount of cash, in their homes." He said.With the help of HPD, the alleged burglars were taken into custody. All of the suspects are said to be Colombian.Four suspects in Fort Bend County Jail are under holds by immigration officials, including Carlos Alberto Riasco Valencia, 35; Layonel Mosquera Mondragon, 31; Harold Jesus Lerma Mosquera, 43; and Reynaldo Rivera Centeno, 44. Some have been deported before, at least one of them twice.Nehls says Valencia was deported after burglary convictions in 2012 and 2014. Torres was deported in 2014 and, according to Nehls, Torres has known ties to the Colombian terrorist group "FARC".Seeing these men back in the U.S. and allegedly committing these crimes, Nehls blasts the federal government's policies toward immigration. He says something more must be done to stop deported criminals from returning to the us."Quite honestly, I think it's shameful that they aren't doing everything they possibly can to protect the American people," said Nehls.The sheriff's office says its not a bad idea to get your alarm company to monitor the master bathroom window for breakage if you can, so it will sound an alarm if broken. |
BERNARDS — The 17-year-old boy who went missing from a residential treatment and education center in Utah is safe at home in New Jersey with his family, his father said.
"He walked in the door around midnight, and we were all sobbing" Gregory Mayer's father Greg Mayer said by telephone from Basking Ridge Tuesday morning. "We're emotionally drained. I can't imagine having gone through something like this."
Until his return, the boy had last been seen by his parents on Feb. 21 when he unexpectedly disappeared after a family movie outing near the Discovery Ranch in Mapleton, Utah where he was staying. He had no money, no ID and no cell phone, but his parents believed he was trying to make his way back home.
Dad Greg Mayer said that he and his wife Debbie Mayer had gotten calls from Utah where people spotted their son at a Mormon temple, a Mexican restaurant and other places, but the calls were always too late to stop the boy from moving on.
By last Tuesday the leads on his son had grown cold, but then the parents began getting calls from people at highway rest stops and bus stations, Mayer said.
"Just yesterday we started to feel like he was making his way back," Mayer said.
Mayer said that his son traveled all the way from Utah back home on his own, working odd jobs like cleaning up yards to earn money for food, bus and train tickets.
"We think he was in Utah for about a week," Mayer said. "He walked a lot, took trains, buses, hitchhiked and got rides from truckers. He found places in bus shelters to sleep. He roughed it."
Mayer said he and his wife were thankful he was lucky enough not to run into any dangerous strangers along the road.
"He met a lot of nice people who helped him," Mayer said. "There's a lot more nice people out there than not."
Once they knew their son was safe at home, the first thing they wanted to know was what drove him to walk away from the center and take the long, solitary journey back home rather than calling for assistance.
"He said he just didn't like the regimented schedules, and having to be confined," Mayer said. "It just wasn't something he wanted to deal with."
Mayer said his son didn't call home because he was afraid his parents would make him go back.
"We would have at first," Mayer said. "But after the first couple of days, we decided if he wants to come home this badly, we'll have to do what we can here in New Jersey.
Mayer said the family is just going to take it one day at a time.
"He's come back a new kid," Mayer said. "We want to start with a new slate. We're thrilled to have him back."
Mayer said that on Tuesday his son was sleeping late, something most of the family hope to do after what is expected to be a day of visits from friends and family who helped mount the social media, press and telephone campaign.
Mayer said that this was a learning experience for him and his wife, and he's thinking what they learned might be of value to other families in similar situations.
"I'm sort of thinking we might have to do something with all this stuff we put together," Mayer said. "I know how scared we were at first, but then we just pushed through." |
Freetown - In the rising afternoon humidity 30-year-old Tom sits in the shade, picking fleas off his neighbour, unaware of how close he came to losing his home to Ebola.
Tom is a chimpanzee - one of around 5 500 in Sierra Leone for whom the tropical fever poses as deadly a threat as it does to humans.
His rainforest sanctuary in the verdant hills around the capital Freetown suddenly found itself forced to close in August last year as the virus overwhelmed the human population, killing thousands.
With money running out and only a skeleton staff looking after Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Tom and around 85 companions were facing homelessness as the closure began to look permanent.
"We were all worried about what our lives would be like if the sanctuary was not opened again," staff member Abdul Koroma told AFP, adding that he and his fellow workers saw the park as "a baby we have nurtured".
And then one day in January, everything changed.
Weekly infections began dropping back down to double figures, and eventually single figures, and Sierra Leone was able to end curfews, lift travel restrictions, reopen borders and welcome back tourists.
"We have had many enquiries from local and overseas wildlife lovers asking when we would reopen and, taking into consideration the falling number of Ebola cases in recent weeks, we have decided to open up," programme director Bala Amarasekaran told AFP.
'Strongest chimpanzee ever'
The 40-hectare centre was set up in 1995 to rescue chimpanzees whose families had been stolen for the pet trade or wiped out by bushmeat hunters, habitat destruction and the civil war that raged until 2001.
"After the outbreak, we decided not to accept any new chimps due to the potential risk of bringing the disease into the sanctuary, which would have been catastrophic for the chimps," said Amarasekaran, a Sri Lankan.
The Jane Goodall Institute estimates that around a third of the worldwide population of chimpanzees has been killed by Ebola since it first emerged in the 1970s.
The sanctuary - which was losing almost a third of its income - was finally able to open on Thursday last week, and Tom was among the residents welcoming the public back.
"He had been kept as a pet since a baby and had not interacted with other chimps since birth," said Amarasekaran.
"He was gradually rehabilitated in 2014, fed with natural food and familiarised with the surroundings and sounds of other chimps. Now he is just like the man next door."
The Ebola outbreak is just the latest tumultuous chapter in the reserve's 20-year history of heroism, heartbreak and villainy.
Among a colourful cast of characters to have stayed at Tacugama, undoubtedly the most infamous is Bruno, described on the website as "charismatic, spectacularly imposing and physically the strongest chimpanzee we have ever had".
Amarasekaran bought Bruno for $20 in 1988, when he was a just a few months old, and named him after British heavyweight boxer Frank Bruno.
The centre was plunged into controversy in 2006 when Bruno and a pack of 31 chimps escaped, attacking a group of US tourists and killing their Sierra Leonean driver, according to witnesses.
Hope for future
Most of the chimps returned of their own accord, but the alpha male - who was said to have personally killed the driver - was never seen again.
"Bruno was never traced and we can't say whether he is alive or dead," Amarasekaran told AFP.
The reserve also housed Pinkie, thought to be the world's only albino chimpanzee, whose lifeless body was found in her enclosure in 2002, although no cause of death has ever been established.
Unrelated to Pinkie's case, the reserve has also been struggling for a number of years with the mysterious sudden deaths of a number of chimpanzees.
Staff believe a toxic plant endemic to the region, identified with the help of scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, may be the culprit but have not ruled out other possibilities.
One positive outcome of the Ebola crisis, as far as the sanctuary is concerned, is that it has curbed the traditional practice of killing chimpanzees for bushmeat.
But habitat destruction is a larger threat to the wild chimpanzee population, with forest cover barely five percent of what it was 100 years ago.
The story of Sierra Leone's chimpanzees may yet get a happy ending, as conservation efforts have helped the chimp population to double between 1980 and 2010, according to the country's first ever chimp census.
"As we prepare to celebrate our 20th anniversary in September, protecting wild chimpanzees and their habitats through sustainable development remains the key to our future and this is the legacy we aim for," Amarasekaran said. |
Week five of the writers strike, and it's officially ugly.
The low-lights from last week: That poorly sourced internet "scoop" that a deal was in place to end the strike. No such deal ever existed.
Carson Daly being vilified for saving his staff's jobs by going back to work.
Carson Daly being on TV at all which, in and of itself, is sorta a low light.
Jay Leno -- who promised nobody would "miss a car payment or lose their house" -- (initially) leaving his staff to flounder as NBC shut down the Tonight show. Hey, it's hard to make good on your promises of financial support when you're only banking $27 Mil a year.
Speaking of money: the guild got at least an initial portion of a new offer from the producers. Then, promptly walked from the table saying they needed four days to digest the proposal. Then, took all of four minutes to publicly shred the offer.
The AMPTP took all of four minutes to publicly shred David Young who has "no experience in these sorts of negotiations," and is "not capable of making a deal."
And then there was the AMPTP's offer itself; the New Economic Partnership. I'm on strike, so go ahead and write your own Orwell quip.
The good news? The strike will have less of an economic impact on Los Angeles than originally predicted. $380 million dollars if the strike goes 22 weeks as it did in '88. That's down from a forecasted one billion dollars.
Prior to the guild's Thursday walk off, someone close to the negotiations told me they thought the strike would not be resolved just after the New Year. I've since been told January would now be wishful thinking.
What's more likely: if there's no movement this week, expect the AMPTP to bypass the guild and negotiate in earnest with the DGA. If that's the case, look for an early March end to the strike. Best case. Otherwise the DGA's got 'til the end of June to conclude things.
June.
By the way, if you want to read a truly heartbreaking narrative of the "forgotten" writers guild strike -- you remember which one I'm talking about, and it's not the '88 strike -- check out this piece which ran in the LA Times.
Read more strike coverage on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page. |
For a team to go scoreless in a game, a lot of things have to go wrong. Or perhaps not a lot of things go right. From the opening kickoff throughout the game, the one area that let the Raiders down was their special teams.
The Raiders elected to receive the opening kick. Jacoby Ford took the kickoff and was quickly staring down two Cowboys' coverage team players who both took a should and decked the miniscule receiver at the 14 yard line.
The next two times the special teams got their shot, the Cowboys let them off the hook. The first time they were called for running into the kicker and the second time they were offsides. Both resulted in first downs for the Raiders.
The first time the Cowboys didn't serve up a first down to the Raiders, they proceeded to screw it up on their own. Marquette King had a nice punt which the return man let go and it rolled toward the goal line with Chimdi Chekwa watching it. Unfortunately, he hovered too long and just watched it roll into the endzone for a touchback. He could have easily downed it at any time, pinning the Cowboys against their own goal line, but instead they got the ball at the 20.
The Raiders defense held and the Cowboys were forced to punt. Jacoby stood back to receive it and the ball bounced off his hands. He tracked it down and picked it up but stepped out of bounds in the process as opposed to what looked to be a lot of open space in which to run.
After a couple nice completions by Matt Leinart to Rod Streater, the Raiders were setup in field goal range. And this is when we saw the first signs of Lechler being out. King was not only punting, he was holding too. And when Jon Condo's snap was a bit high, King couldn't handle it. Luckily, the Cowboys were called for offsides so the Raiders would get another shot at getting it right. This time the snap was good, but the hold was not and Sebastian Janikowski's kick was a low knuckleball that missed wide right.
The Cowboys came out in the third quarter and kicked a field goal to go up 3-0. Then on the ensuing kickoff, this time it was Bryan McCann instead of Jacoby Ford. McCann didn't bobble it but despite running around a lot, he was unable to find any room and after gaining just eight yards, he was stopped at the 13 yard line.
Then after a good punt from King on the next drive, he shanked one that traveled just 18 yards.
The Raiders would get back to field goal range again and this time camp leg Eddy Carmona came out to try and tie the game. But it wasn't to be. After hitting the left upright four times in just five tries in one practice this week, he booted this one wide right.
And finally, the last time the Raiders saw the ball on special teams in this game, rookie Dre Muhammad tried to field a bouncing punt and it bounced off his chest where he was lucky to be able to fall on it.
This team was missing their All Pro punter, Shane Lechler and therefore his holding duties as well. They were also trying Jacoby Ford at punt returner for the first time and that didn't work out well. They had every opportunity to pull out a win if not for the mistakes on special teams. It goes to show you just how you can't take special teams for granted. |
Hopes rise among green campaigners after president mentions 'the destructive power of a warming planet' in victory speech
Barack Obama's invocation of "the destructive power of a warming planet" in his victory speech has stoked expectation that he will act on climate change in his second term.
Environmental campaigners are already mobilising to hold the president to that promise.
They argued Obama's re-election, amid the devastation of superstorm Sandy, was a clear mandate for action on climate change, in stark contrast to Mitt Romney, who turned sea-level rise into a laugh line in the biggest speech of his political career.
Campaigners put Obama on immediate notice, calling an 18 November demonstration at the White House to demand he scrap the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
"In the wake of hurricane Sandy, as the warmest year in American history draws to a close, as the disastrous drought lingers on in the midwest, everyone is looking for ways to make a real difference in the fight to slow climate change," said an open letter from 350.org and the Sierra Club.
But a strategic decision by the White House in 2009 to downplay climate change, and Obama's avoidance of the issue during the campaign, makes it tricky for the president to now claim that he was elected to act on the issue.
The Republicans' continued control of the House of Representatives will also continue to limit Obama's scope for action.
However, environmental campaigners said Sandy – and an endorsement from New York city mayor, Michael Bloomberg, due to Obama's position on climate change – create public space for the president to act.
"Of course president Obama certainly did not take up the cause in the way we had hoped but he has indicated in numerous events and in the New Yorker and Rolling Stone that climate will be a top priority for his second term," said Betsy Taylor, president of the climate strategy firm Breakthrough Solutions. "There is reason to feel hope. We moved from silence to a growing mandate for action."
A number of newly elected Democrats in the Senate and the House of Representatives also owe their victories, in part, to support from environmental campaign groups, giving greens more allies in Congress.
The president has a chance early on to show he intends to deliver on climate change.
The first big decision will be on the Keystone XL pipeline, a project designed to expand production of the Alberta tar sands by pumping crude to Texas refineries. The administration is due to make its decision early next year and many believe that Obama will approve the pipeline.
Environmental groups will also be watching whether Obama continues to fight to keep tax credits for the wind industry during the lame duck session of Congress. Their expiry at the end of the year has hurt the industry, leading to lay-offs. Obama has said he will continue to fight $46bn in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
Then there are appointments. Obama came to the White House in 2009 with a green "dream team" including Nobel laureate, Steve Chu, as energy secretary. Obama will have to make new appointments in his second term.
He must also decide whether to resurrect the post of White House climate adviser, which has been empty since early 2011 when Carol Browner stepped down. That could help push policies blocked by Congress.
Now that Obama has a second term, the Environmental Protection Agency is also expected to move more aggressively on tightening rules on mercury and carbon dioxide emissions.
But the environmental community will be looking for Obama to deliver the big changes that will move America towards a low-carbon future – and protect the country from the extreme weather, rising seas and other consequences of future climate change.
At its most ambitious, that would involve some kind of carbon tax – an option that is now a topic of discussion at a number of Washington thinktanks, including the conservative American Enterprise Institute. |
"Card storyline" is an unofficial term for the stories that can be pieced together regarding the relationships between certain monsters and groups of monsters from card artworks.
Many of these stories were detailed in the Japanese Master Guide books.
Contents show]
"Dark Ruler Ha Des"
Dark King of the Abyss was a very powerful ruler of darkness. Dark Ruler Ha Des first appeared when he dethroned Dark King of the Abyss and took control of everything evil. He was a merciless tyrant who built an entire army of shadow creatures. He had his minions trust him mentally, but wasn't above on using his minions to protect him from any attacks directed at him. "Opticlops" and "Berserk Dragon" were two of many creatures that he valued the most. He was often seen having dealings with shady people or acting as the judge for criminals. Besides his army, he was extremely powerful by himself, being able to control free, weaken his enemies with his roar, and destroy them in many ways. However, he eventually lost control of his powers.
One day he was confronted by his rival, who, after gathering his hatred for so long had struck back using this hatred as his power against his dethroner. After Ha Des was more than weakened enough, Dark King of the Abyss casted a curse upon Dark Ruler Ha Des, using a severed head to drain his soul. Afterwards, Dark King of the Abyss transferred the soul into himself to augment his power.
The result of the battle was fatal for the Ha Des. However, that wasn't meant to be the end, since he was later revived, by the very same plague that had changed many other monsters into zombies, including Archfiend Zombie-Skull and Doomkaiser Dragon. Later, he faced his nemesis and ultimately defeated him, thus ruling over darkness once again.
Unfortunately, his rival was revived as well, becoming even more powerful than before, which Ha Des and his army witnesses.
"D.D. Warrior Lady"
Originally a wandering outlaw, she fought as a soldier in Freed's army alongside the Marauding Captain, eventually using a Resonance Device to make her level the same as his. For unknown reasons she and Warrior Dai Grepher became rivals. During their fight, she was abducted to the Different Dimension. There she found comrades and a new employer which helped her train herself in traveling between dimensions. Then, using the Different Dimension Gate, she was able to return from the Different Dimension along with some other creatures who were lost there.
Upon her return, she engaged her rival in another fight, where she used her new powers to injure him, apparently beating him. Later, her rival returned for revenge in a darker form, but she banished him to the Different Dimension again. At some point prior to meeting Warrior Dai Grepher, she was allied with
Duel Terminal
"Gagagigo"
Gagagigo spent his younger days serving Eria the Water Charmer as her familiar. During this time, he fought alongside her and many others. While in his younger days, he was nearly eaten by some monster plants while trying to get food, but was presumingly saved by Eria. He grew up into Jigabyte and then to Gagagigo. He continued to serve as Eria's familiar for a long time until he and the Familiars of the other Charmers unleashed their full potential.
After that, Gagagigo went on to follow his own path of evil. He saw food that was being made for Freed the Brave Wanderer and tried to take the food, but got into a scuffle with Freed the Brave Wanderer. They both started to fight and somehow Gagagigo got dragged into the other dimension through the Dimensional Prison.
Bent on revenge, he started a journey to find a way back to his dimension and arrived on what seems to be a cemetery. He joined Invader of Darkness and his group of demons, only to be betrayed later on by Invader of Darkness himself. He ended up fighting in a cell battle, along with Marauding Captain and Blazing Inpachi. Thanks to Marauding Captain, he was saved from a blast launched by Blazing Inpachi and turned good to help his newfound friend.
At some point later, Gagagigo fought the Goblin Attack Force (who were enemies to the Marauding Captain) in an icy area, but their attack failed due to their inability to ice skate and Gagagigo's mastery over ice skating. He would then join Marauding Captain in a war against Invader of Darkness, and protect one of Marauding Captain's men from Invader of Darkness. However, after being hit by a blast, Gagagigo was severely injured and in need of immediate support.
He went on to gain aid from Kozaky, who was a spy among the warriors, and got his body reconstructed, turning him into Giga Gagagigo. However, Giga Gagagigo was turned against his friends by Kozaky's Dark World technology. Giga Gagagigo was sent back to his dimension thanks to a machine, which opened the Monster Gate. He became a fighting machine and sought more power. He first fought Venom Cobra to test his strength. After seeing how powerful he had become, he decided to find a new opponent. He then soon battled and attacked Freed the Brave Wanderer again, but failed. Due to his cybernetic implants, he became power-hungry and transformed into Gogiga Gagagigo. Gagagigo had been driven mad by cybernetic enhancements given to him by Kozaky.
After attaining his new form, Gogiga Gagagigo" at some point fought Inpachi again and defeated him. After his victory, he took the head of Inpachi as a trophy. He later fought Invader of Darkness again and presumingly defeated him. After taking Invader's body with him, Gogiga Gagagigo soon fought Freed the Matchless General again for revenge, but was stopped by his savior, Marauding Captain, who reminded him of what he once was before being mechanized. This purifies Gagagigo and transforms him into Gagagigo the Risen.
Gagagigo the Risen would later fight an unknown opponent. The opponent threw many green energy shards at him, but Gagagigo used a red coat he obtained to protect himself. Later, Gagagigo fought Sword Breaker. During this fight, Sword Breaker captured Gagagigo and stole one of Gagagigo's Xyz Materials.
"Goblin of Greed"
Goblin of Greed was a wealthy dealer with many goblin minions under his command before he lost his money in an accident. With nothing left, Goblin of Greed attempts to get wealthy like he once was. He first tried earning money by becoming a beggar and using a Pot of Duality, however he found that the method was too slow for him to become wealthy. He then tried working in housekeeping service, but almost lost everything. He was fired and started to steal Jar of Greed and then Pot of Greed. Later Goblin of Greed angered an important aristocrat, presumably by either being caught stealing the pot or offering him the stolen Pot of Greed. Goblin of Greed was then placed into slavery.
The Dark Scorpion Burglars later tried stealing the wealthy man's money and Pot of Greed and somehow succeeded a bit. Goblin of Greed was on their tail but was interrupted. Goblin of Greed was able to retrieve the pot, but the "Spirit of the Pot of Greed" was somehow released and started creating a twister that was absorbing cards into it and subsequently curse Goblin of Greed. Dharc the Dark Charmer appeared and then somehow resealed or captured the spirit to prevent it from doing any further harm and return "Goblin of Greed" to normal, but the Pot of Greed got broken in the process. Goblin of Greed was later fired when the aristocrat found the broken Pot of Greed and Goblin of Greed couldn't pay for it.
While trying to find a new way to get wealthy, Goblin of Greed tried looking for a part-time job, one of which was mowing the lawn on a wealthy estate. However he failed because of pollen allergy. Goblin of Greed later lost all of his money by paying for the stolen and damaged Jar of Greed and Pot of Greed. Despite paying all of his money for the stolen and damaged items, the store owner didn't accept the money and threw it back at Goblin, considering the money worthless. He then threw Goblin of Greed out of the store and got him temporarily arrested and imprisoned for stealing and damaging the merchandise.
After Goblin of Greed was released, he would, at a later point, come into a bazaar in a desert where he tried to perform using the broken Pot of Greed and a Sinister Serpent. However the Sinister Serpent he uses for the performance attacks him, which ruined the performance. Later he would trade the slightly broken Pot of Greed for a Pot of Duality. The goblin that Goblin of Greed made a trade with would then give him payment in return.
Rumors say he's currently working in an abandoned dark factory. In the factory were two more Pots of Greed and he tried to steal them. He succeeded in this and later sold off the Pots for extra money.
"Inpachi"
Originally a big tree in the forest, Inpachi was cut down and possessed by a wicked spirit. It then became evil and started to attack many people that entered its lair, including an armored man that cut him into three pieces.
Later, he was revived by unknown means, and abandoned his home to seek revenge on his newly acquired archrival. While searching for his nemesis, he fought against a criminal. He was nearly defeated, but his angered soul flared up as he wouldn't accept defeat. With his new form, he encountered his rival once again and the two started to battle. However, a strange lizardman appeared and helped the armored man to defeat Blazing Inpachi, leaving it in a burned-out state upon its defeat.
Inpachi rejuvenated back up at some point and later fought the lizardman again, but with the latter now with cybernetic implants and a dying thirst for power. The lizardman defeated Inpachi and took its head away as a trophy.
Later a mysterious scientist Kozaky came upon Inpachi's body. Out of intrigue, he decided to reconstruct its corpse into a cybernetic form, with the help of cutting-edge Dark World technology, including giving it a new head. At some point later, Woodborg Inpachi battled Kick Man, but lost and was subsequently destroyed.
"Koa'ki Meiru"
See Master Guide 3 card storylines.
"Legendary Six Samurai"
See Master Guide 3 card storylines.
"Lightsworn"
See Master Guide 3 card storylines.
"Petit Dragon"
Petit Dragon began his journey becoming the familiar of Wynn, gaining more power as they both grew stronger. One day he decided he wanted to be able to breath fire, so he sought out a plant to give him this power. However, once he ate the plant his body ignited, and he was turned into a vicious dragon.
Bent on becoming a more threatening force, he combined powers with four other dragons, making them all become nearly invincible, until the day when they were defeated by a powerful foe. The knight sealed Darkfire Dragon's soul inside a sword. This sword was then wielded by the Flame Swordsman.
"Sangan"
Sangan is going on a tour to the living world on the Tour Bus From the Underworld. However, at a platform, it mistakes the Tour Bus To Forbidden Realms (driven by the first fiend from Delinquent Duo) with Tour Bus from the Underworld (while Tardy Orc missed the bus). On the bus trip, the Graceful Charity angel tries to comfort Sangan. Later, the passengers are arrested for carrying a "Pot of Greed". Sangan and Witch of the Black Forest were placed into the same cell, where Sangan begs to the security guards to release him.
This is a reference to Sangan becoming Forbidden on the March 2013 Forbidden List.
"Skull Servant" and other "Wight" monsters
See Master Guide 3 card storylines.
Tales of the Noble Knights
Tales of the Noble Knights Main article:
The Tales of the Noble Knights has card storylines regarding some of the "Noble Knight" monsters and their various support cards.
"Warrior Dai Grepher"
Born poor, Warrior Dai Grepher grew up with little else except confidence in his sword thanks to his battles with many monsters, most notably Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes. Trying to find his way in the world, he was confronted on the field of battle by a mysterious woman who soon became his greatest rival. Their first battle ended when a mysterious force disarmed them both; their next battle concluded with her being abducted into an other dimension, from which she returned even more skilled than before. Then he found allies and they eventually fought together in a war against and many demons. Although he is saved by his team's Spellcaster from a demon attack, Dai Grepher is transported into another dimension.
There, he finds himself at The Paths of Destiny. Picking the path of light, he befriends a strange dragon, who grants Dai Grepher his power. He later acquired a new sword and became a heroic knight. He then found two powerful swords of light which worked with him. He would later enter a time portal universe where he made contact with his alternate future dark self.
In an alternate timeline, Dai Grepher would take the dark path instead of the light path. He later discovered he was fighting an evil version of himself who would remain his adversary for a while. He later fought Umbral Horror Unform, but found himself outmatched by the creature. His adversary appears again and they worked together to defeat the dark beast. The adversary sacrifices his power to Dai Grepher in order for Dai Grepher to destroy the Umbral Horror Unform, but while the beast was defeated, Dai Grepher's weapon was damaged and rendered useless.
After defeating another great demon through unknown means, Dai Grepher takes up the demon's sword to replace his broken sword. Unfortunately, the demon that Dai Grepher defeated was but an extension of its sword and eventually sought Dai Grepher's body. Eventually, he submitted, becoming a rampaging monster. Later he fought his rival again and was sent back to the different dimension. Going through the dimension hole, Dai Grepher ends up in a time portal universe where he made contact with his light future self. Both were surprised at seeing each other, but in response to Dai Grepher seeing a righteous version of himself, the darkness in Dai Grepher corrupted him even more, until, at the height of his mutation, he was completely unrecognizable as his former self.
Gagaga Academy Tospedia
The Gagaga Academy Tospedia has card storylines for the Fire Kings, the Atlantean's invasion of the Mermails, the Gishki's invasion of the Gusto, The Dragon Rulers, the Bujins, the Spellbooks and Prophecy, and the Ghostricks. |
Apple has slowly been making changes to improve how people search and navigate the App Store. Part of the way it does that is via small acquisitions — some of which stay under the radar for years.
TechCrunch has learned that Apple quietly bought a startup called Ottocat some time ago, which had developed a system to organize and surface apps on the app store based on “nested” categories of increasing specificity. A version of that system now powers the “explore” tab in Apple’s App Store.
There is precious little evidence of the connection between Ottocat and Apple — no LinkedIn employment changes, no announcements to Ottocat users — save for one thing. One of Ottocat’s co-founders, Edwin Cooper, authored a patent that was granted to Apple as the original assignee. It looks like that patent was filed by Cooper as an employee of Apple. That patent, for a “System and Method for Divisive Textual Clustering by Label Selection Using Variant-Weighted TFIDF,” pertains to the kind of technology used both by Ottocat and Apple’s explore feature.
The acquisition looks like it may have happened some time in 2013. It was in October of that year that Ottocat’s website went down with the short message: “Ottocat is no longer available.” Now, pointing your browser to Ottocat’s URL gives you a blank page. Ottocat had a very short life: it only opened its beta to the public in May 2013 after developing a working prototype in January 2013.
The timing of Ottocat going dark in late 2013 links up with Apple announcing “explore” in the App Store in mid-2014, part of a series of updates made public during the WWDC that year to improve how apps can be discovered in the increasingly large and unwieldy App Store catalog.
So what was Ottocat?
We never covered Ottocat in its brief life (others did), but in a nutshell, its technology essentially addressed pain points on both sides of the App Store: for users unable to find specific enough results for subject-based app searches when they don’t have a specific app in mind; and for developers unhappy with how well their apps could be discovered among a sea of 1 million+ other apps.
The premise was to do away with keywords by categorizing apps into increasingly more specific subcategories that worked on a “drill-down” principle — eliminating the guesswork and potential inaccuracy of keywords altogether.
Or, as Cooper’s patent describes it:
In a world where billions of digitized documents exist, technologies that make large sets of documents more tractable are in significant demand. One such area of technology is the search engine. By submitting a query, a user may restrict the set of available documents to those most relevant to the query. Another such technological area is that of document clustering; by automatically creating groups (clusters’) within a large set of documents, that large set of documents can be divided into consumable parts, and thereby made tractable to a given user or set of users. Given a hierarchy of document clusters, each with a descriptive label, a user may browse quickly to those subject areas of greatest interest, and may further refine the chosen subject area through choosing an appropriate subcategory. Assuming that the clustering technique is applied recursively until no more that a pre-specified number of documents exist in a cluster, the user may browse document to an arbitrary degree of specificity in terms of clustered subject area.
For example, rather than searching on “guitar” or scrolling through the full selection of music apps that the term might call up, or the chart for the most popular music apps — which can contain streaming apps, apps that are designed to work with specific hardware, apps that let people use their phones to play music, apps that teach them how to play a specific instrument, and so on — you can start to look at specific subcategories to find a selection of apps you may want to download.
This is what such a search looked like for interactive children’s books:
For those of you who use the “explore” feature on the App Store, the basic idea of how all this works will sound familiar.
Ottocat, which claimed to index the entirety of the App Store in this way, also included extra details such as the average star ratings, how popular the app has been, and when it was last updated.
Ottocat was co-founded by Edwin Cooper and Michelle Cooper, both repeat entrepreneurs, in 2012. Michelle holds a PhD in molecular biology and has extensive experience in marketing and fundraising.
Edwin is a computer scientist who once noted on his LinkedIn profile that he is interested in, among other things, data science, natural language processing, machine learning, mobile devices, “and the fallout from Big Data.”
We are not sure if said Coopers are at Apple now. If they are, it’s enticing to wonder what they might be working on, given the bigger decisions Apple may be making around search in other products like Safari and its mobile and desktop operating systems.
While Yahoo and Microsoft are reportedly duking it out to take over Google’s place as the default search in Apple’s Safari browser in the U.S., we’ve heard that it might be just as likely that Apple might try to bring more of search tech in-house. This would be in keeping with the massive effort that Apple is putting in to making other services like maps into a native experience. It would also play directly into the kind of expertise Edwin Cooper has amassed.
Interestingly, this would not be Edwin Cooper’s first bite of Apple. In 2011, he sold a previous startup he founded to Oracle. That company, InQuira, developed a CRM platform for third parties to offer self-help to its users. By coincidence, the search feature on Apple’s support site is one of the services powered by InQuira’s technology.
We have reached out to Apple and Ottocat’s co-founders for comment and more detail. We will update as we learn more. |
Best of the Week
The murky, illogical world of life on a benefit
Welcome to the dark, fuzzy, illogical, Kafkaesque world where even repaying a loan financed by a bigger overdraft may be captured and called income, writes the University of Auckland's Susan St John
The human experience is hugely challenging for us all no matter how well–off in material terms we may be. It can be messy, heart-breaking, draining and painful yet often joyous and uplifting. And it is a long journey. Life events are not black or white, right or wrong, bad or good, worthy or unworthy, deserving or undeserving.
Unfortunately, this is rarely the view of the morally upright and self-righteous for whom there are no shades of grey.
This was clear in a recent letter to the New Zealand Herald, sent in the wake of Metiria Turei’s historic benefits revelations, which asserted: “just as you can’t be a little bit pregnant, you can’t be a little bit dishonest”.
But actually, conforming to a bad law is not always the best, most humane, or even sensible action. Anyone with even a modicum of history knows that. Much like the letter writer who thinks he knows right from wrong absolutely, bureaucrats administer our highly dysfunctional welfare system by demanding adherence to the letter, not the spirit of the law. The price of not conforming to their rule book can be very high; yet the price of conforming might be even higher in ill-health, loss of hope and despair.
The problem is, what they are administering is not black and white.
What, for example, is income? Is it the individual or couple’s income? What is a couple? What is the time frame? Is it taxable? What about income ‘in kind’ (grandma provides babysitting for example or, shock horror, picks up the child after school sometimes)? What is business income? What expenses are deductible? Is child support income? What about Working for Families, when does it count as income? There are a multitude of different definitions for different purposes, often without much of a rational basis.
Here is just one example. Suppose you are a grandparent with a son and daughter-in-law who have two children and are struggling on an income of $50,000. Note that no one is on a benefit here. You decide the best way to help them is to gift $100 a week to help pay the household expenses. Much to your horror, at the end of the year, Inland Revenue tells the family – you were given $5200 and because this is over the allowable $5000 we are going to count the whole of the $5200 as income for Working for Families. Your daughter-in-law gets a bill for $1170.
What will you do the next year? (And note – under National in 2018, her bill will rise to $1300). Would you organise to direct debit only 50 weeks of the year and give the family $200 in some other way? Only a masochist would continue to expose the family to such an outrageous bill. Welcome to the murky world beneficiaries inhabit every day.
In 1994, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) was formed in response to the truly appalling changes Ruth Richardson rammed through in the early 1990s that saw rates of child poverty soar along with rates of Third World child diseases. Do people really understand that a sole parent’s benefit was cut below the poverty line, but if they tried to earn extra money, they lost most of it?
Few on a meagre benefit have the mental fortitude, or can access legal representation to take an appeal to a higher court. Those who do, face the full might of the state legal machinery that can grind them up and leave them destitute.
Suppose you were a sole parent in 1993 trying to exist on an income that had been slashed to under the poverty line. You needed an extra $80 a week to just keep your head above water. But $80 of extra income meant a tax/ACC bill of $24, it meant $20 less Accommodation Supplement (a very stupid 25 percent abatement on $0-80 earned), and $6 less core benefit (30 percent of income $60-80). If getting a flatmate to pay you $80, or earning an extra $80 delivered only $30, or virtually nothing after costs, what would you do? Maybe you could go cap in hand and ask Work and Income for additional assistance? Maybe ask for a non-recoverable grant, or a repayable loan – for example, to meet the hire purchase payment on the washing machine? You may also need to queue for a food parcel from the local foodbank, or even get a loan from a loan shark as a last resort.
Making up the shortfall with loans and charity is time-consuming and inefficient in the extreme, especially if studying full-time. Impossible, even. And there is nothing particularly moral about getting access to the needed money this way - the cost comes from Work and Income (read taxpayers), or charities, (read donors). But this tedious way of getting enough money to survive is within the rule book, it satisfies the self-righteous, and won’t be classed as an overpayment.
Or will it? Unbelievably, today loans may be treated as income. If you just can’t make ends meet and you borrow from a loan shark, family, or extend your overdraft and credit card balances, the system may count these loans as income and reduce the core benefit and other assistance accordingly. You become ‘”too poor to help”.
What do black and white thinkers make of that? Drawing down an overdraft or using a credit card are apparently the same as earning income with one of the tests being that the money is used for ‘income-related purposes’ such as replacing income, buying goods that would normally be bought from income, or make payments that would normally be made through income.
Recently, I sat in on a case in the High Court. The Ministry for Social Development had alleged overpayments because a beneficiary’s expenditure exceeded her benefit and the balance ‘must have been assessable income’. She had to borrow to live, for example, to pay for a car, repairs to her house and expensive healthcare for chronic pain. At one point the Judge asked quizzically if there was any loan that would not be counted as income. The Crown lawyer said, through gritted teeth, after a long pause: ‘Yes, perhaps if the money was used to buy shares as that would not be a use for income-related purposes’. Really?
Welcome to the dark, fuzzy, illogical, Kafkaesque world where even repaying a loan financed by a bigger overdraft may be captured and called income; where decisions from the Benefit Review Committee are confusing and unchallengeable for most beneficiaries who can’t understand how the alleged overpayments were calculated. Furthermore, any appeal to the very powerful and well-resourced Social Security Appeals Authority lacks independence.
Few on a meagre benefit have the mental fortitude, or can access legal representation to take an appeal to a higher court. Those who do, face the full might of the state legal machinery that can grind them up and leave them destitute. This is why Kathryn’s Story - produced by CPAG - is so important and so rare. |
Take-Two today reported earnings for the quarter ended December 31, providing some insight into how the company is performing.
First, Take-Two announced new shipment figures for a pair of 2K titles. Mafia III has now shipped 5 million units (it shipped 4.5 million during its launch week to set a new 2K record), while Civilization VI has now passed 1.5 million units. Bear in mind that shipped means the number of copies that have been sent to a retailer, not necessarily how many have been sold.
During an earnings call, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick announced that Grand Theft Auto V has shipped 75 million copies; the last publicly discussed number was 70 million units.
Also during the call, Zelnick announced that NBA 2K17 has shipped nearly 7 million units. That's up 10 percent from NBA 2K16. The new game is poised to become 2K's highest-selling sports game ever. He added that people have collectively played more than 1 billion matches, more than half of which were multiplayer.
Zelnick also revealed that Civilization total franchise sales have now risen to nearly 40 million units.
In terms of financial performance, Take-Two pulled in $476.5 million in revenue, up 15 percent compared to $414.2 million last year. GTA V, GTA Online, WWE 2K17, NBA 2K17, and Civilization VI were called out as being the largest contributors to revenue during the period.
Revenue from digital content jumped 64 percent to $240.2 million, up from $146.4 million. Additionally, "recurrent consumer spending," which includes microtransactions, DLC, and virtual currency, made up 39 percent of digital revenue and 20 percent of total revenue. GTA V, GTA Online, Civilization VI, and NBA 2K17 were mentioned as being the largest contributors here.
Overall, Take-Two posted a loss of $29.8 million for the quarter, which is better than the $42.4 million loss it took during the same period last year.
"Take-Two had a highly successful holiday quarter," Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said in prepared remarks. "Consumer demand for our new releases and catalog titles was strong throughout the period, and players continued to engage significantly with our games after purchase. As a result, we delivered better-than-expected bookings, including our best-ever quarter for recurrent consumer spending, along with double-digit growth in both net revenue and net cash provided by operating activities."
Take-Two paid $250 million to acquire mobile game developer Social Point earlier this month.
During an earnings call, Take-Two management made some comments about Red Dead Redemption 2.
Take-Two is just the latest to report earnings in recent weeks. Check out the stories below to see how other companies are doing; Activision, Ubisoft, and Nvidia report earnings on February 9.
This story has been updated. |
Guys over at Expreview decided to post an early review of Intel’s Core i7-8700K, 10 days before NDA ends.
Intel Core i7-8700K is 42% faster in multi-threaded applications vs. 7700K
First and foremost, let’s look at the chip. Without the labels, it may be hard to distinguish the Coffeelake chip from Kabylake. The changes can mostly be seen on the back, where the same (I mean *almost* the same) socket is used.
Clock to clock comparison
Expreview have a comparison of 8700K, 7700K and 7800X, all running at the same 4.5 GHz frequency. I mean if you wanted to know if there’s any IPC gain, this is the best way to see it.
Intel Core i7-8700K gaming performance
Intel Core i7-8700K productivity benchmark
Intel Core i7-8700K synthetic benchmarks
Stock clock comparison
Intel Core i7-8700K stock gaming performance
Intel Core i7-8700K stock productivity performance
Intel Core i7-8700K stock synthetic performance
Source: Expreview
by WhyCry Tweet
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This is a tale of two neighbours: one on the brink of national disaster, unless mediation can prevent a new wave of ethnic killing; the other already in full-scale collapse, with no functioning government or basic services, and 700,000 people driven from their homes. The first is being watched attentively by foreign governments; the second has dropped off the radar, abandoned by those same governments because it all seems so difficult.
I refer to Kenya and Somalia, countries that illustrate the inconsistencies in international policy-making David Miliband failed to reflect in his speech on interventionism this week. Long-standing economic injustices, grievances over land and water, ethnic and clan discrimination, and chronic under-development cannot be corrected by sudden surges of interest and moral fervour. They need decades of subtle care and unflagging attention.
Kenya's case is the more hopeful. Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, and a team of UN advisers have been talking to both sides in a secluded safari lodge to find a power-sharing formula after December's flawed presidential election. This is intelligent intervention, impartial and headline-avoiding. Foreign governments are taking a back seat. The US initially favoured President Mwai Kibaki on the false grounds that the Kikuyu have always been the best motor for Kenya's progress. It also disliked the fact that Raila Odinga, the opposition leader, condemned the way suspects in the "war on terror" were subject to "extraordinary rendition". But now Washington is standing aside, Britain too is lying low, wary of the charge of neocolonial interference.
Whether Annan can get agreement when the talks resume next week remains to be seen. Though the evidence points to Odinga winning the election - his party won two-thirds of the seats in the simultaneous and less riggable parliamentary elections - his side has made the larger concessions. It has dropped its insistence on Kibaki standing down, and its demands for an early re-run of the stolen election, and is considering the Annan proposal for a two-year pause. It has hinted at readiness to split the ministries in a coalition cabinet 50-50.
A deal on these lines will be tough for Odinga to sell, especially as Kibaki reneged on a 2002 deal to reduce the power of the presidency and create a prime minister. "Kibaki's problem is with his elite, Odinga's is with his base," as one observer put it this week. Any agreement Annan comes up with must be anchored in law and some form of continuing UN supervision. The anti-Kikuyu anger and killings that swept through parts of the Rift Valley last month could explode again if people feel Odinga has given up too much. So another part of the deal should be a carefully monitored role for the Kenyan army to forestall rioting - a necessary but risky proposition, since the army is poorly trained for crowd control.
If Kenya's eruption into violence shocked the world by being unexpected, Somalia's collapse was fully foreseen. As many experts warned, US collusion with Ethiopia a year ago to send Ethiopian troops into Mogadishu to topple the Islamic Courts regime has backfired as badly as the invasion of Iraq. According to reports from UN and other aid workers in Somalia, almost three-quarters of a million people have fled since the Ethiopians arrived. Far from eliminating the Islamic Courts, the invasion attracted waves of new recruits, motivated by resentment at the presence of foreign troops and not just by jihadi ideology. The Ethiopians installed one of the worst Somali warlords as mayor of Mogadishu, allowing him to turn his militia into the police. Most of the capital's people are from a different clan.
Resistance has intensified in the past months as the occupation shows no sign of ending, and Islamist insurgents now operate well beyond Mogadishu. Indiscriminate mortaring and machine-gun fire by all sides is said by aid workers to be horrendous, though there are no TV cameras to raise international alarm. Adding to the chaos, insurgent groups are splitting - with the same erosion of discipline and clan rivalry that have divided rebel movements in Darfur. This reduces the chance of holding successful peace talks. Banditry is on the rise with aid workers increasingly targets, as last month's killing of three staff for Médecins sans Frontières demonstrates. MSF has now withdrawn all its international doctors, leaving hospitals without surgeons.
Meanwhile, Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) still sits in the town of Baidoa, with no presence in the capital except for a fortified and symbolic mini-green zone. What little support the TFG had in Mogadishu has disappeared. In November, fighting prompted another 200,000 people to escape into the desert, meaning that more than half the capital's population has left. In a grim reversal of urbanisation, they know it is safer to live outside Mogadishu. Only the poorest and weakest remain inside the ruined city.
Here is a catastrophe crying out for sustained and well-funded UN intervention. It would not be a case of overthrowing a government, since there is none. It is not an issue of using "soft power" or sanctions against a bad regime. It is a blatant example of a massive humanitarian emergency, to which the so-called international community is content to turn a blind eye. The TFG was cobbled together by foreign governments, knowing its legitimacy was thin. They tolerated the Ethiopian invasion because Washington wanted it. Now these governments stumble on, bereft of ideas, privately glad that the media do not highlight the issue so their inaction can continue.
Under an African Union mandate, Uganda and Burundi have sent a few hundred troops (their airlift paid in part by Britain), but Rwanda pulled out and Nigeria stalled. Now Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has sent a mission to assess if a more powerful UN force can replace the discredited invaders. But will the big powers back him in urgently alleviating the present misery? Will they recognise their earlier mistake and find a political compromise? Demonising all the Islamists as terror-mongers makes no sense and will not bring peace. Talks between the TFG and the Islamists are the only way out. In Kenya, there is at least mediation and a chance of compromise. In Somalia, there is nothing on offer because the security council got it wrong and has all but given up. |
Fractal 2: GRLM I slowly climbed off the airship and took my first step on a different world. While I had known only trees, this world was dominated by the very same pillars of metal that I had read about within the forbidden books. "Amazing…" I found myself muttering. Ozpin smiled, handing me a cup of some black liquid. "Here, have some coffee. You've had a long day." I took a sip from the cup, cringing at the bitter flavor. "Gross." He reached into his pocket, handing me three cups of something. Popping them open, I poured them into my cup. He gently stuck in a straw, stirring it for me over the slow whirring blades of the air ship. "Try that." I took a sip. It was good. With a smile, I looked at the headmaster with curiosity, hoping he would explain this complex world to me. Instead, however, he simply walked forward without looking at me. "Feel free to explore. You can find a new set of clothes in your dorm." I looked down at the clothes he had given me. They were by no means nice, but the were far superior to the rags I had been living in for the past few years. "What's a dorm?" He chuckled, taking a sip of some black liquid from his cup. "It’s a room in an academy where some people live. I suppose you haven't had a dorm assigned yet, have you? No matter, tomorrow will begin initiation. Simply explore around until then. If you would like a place to sleep, you can certainly join my cabin for the time being." "No thank you." "I thought as much. Anyways, feel free to explore a bit. Try not to go to the library yet, as I know you'll never return once you enter. Or am I wrong?" "Probably not." He nodded. "Then explore and get to know the people on campus. Tomorrow will decide who you work with until graduation, so I hope you get along well with others." "Do you know who your talking to?" "Ah, yes. I suppose it should be considered a miracle you can speak, even though you are very intelligent." "And how can you tell that?" "I've already explained. You are Raven's child and so thusly I've been keeping an eye on you. The role you and her children play may not be present right now, but will be all too important in the longer game." "Don't treat me like a tool." He chuckled. "Of course not, I'm the headmaster. I care for each student more than my own life. That's why you should just have fun for today, and explore." "I still don't know what exactly you want from me." "Its simple, really. You know more about this world than anyone else, thanks to Raven's teachings. We will create a symbiotic relationship. Do you know what that means?" "Of course I do. Its two members of different species that act to the benefit of another, and receive benefits for that." He nodded his head, taking a slow sip of his drink. |
Five Guantánamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks were back before a military tribunal on Monday for pre-trial hearings after months of delay.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – the alleged mastermind of 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in US history – and his four co-defendants sat quietly at the defence tables, watched by military guards. Defendant Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi responded to the judge’s questions about his request for additional legal counsel, according to the Associated Press, before the hearing was adjourned.
The calm start to the proceedings was in sharp contrast to the previous hearing in May, which was marred by protests, outbursts and the defendants’ refusal to answer questions from the judge. It lasted 13 hours.
The hearings, in Camp Justice, the war court compound at the US naval base in Cuba, are expected to focus on secrecy and transparency, but will cover a range of issues from whether the prison camps can force the men to attend their own trials to what they can wear in court, the Miami Herald reported.
The hearings are part of the legal proceedings required to move the case to trial, estimated to be at least a year away. They were scheduled for August but delayed by tropical storm Isaac.
Mohammed, a Pakistani citizen from Kuwait, who attended college in North Carolina, has told military officials that he planned the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z” and was involved in about 30 other terrorist plots. He has said, among other things, that he personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The other defendants in addition to Ahmad al-Hawsawi are Ramzi Binalshibh; Walid bin Attash; and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali.
All five could face the death penalty if convicted.
The five men were in the custody of the CIA for four years before being brought to the base for detention and trial. One of the key issues at this week’s hearing will be how much the men’s lawyers and the wider world will be allowed to learn about what happened during that time.
The government argues that whatever the men say about their time in the CIA’s secret network of “black sites” is classified at the highest levels.
Prosecutors have asked the judge to approve what is known as a protective order that is intended to prevent the release of classified information during the eventual trial of the five.
Lawyers for the defendants say the proposed rules will adversely affect their defence. The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a challenge to the a protective order, says the restrictions will prevent the public from learning what happened to Mohammed and his co-defendants during several years of CIA confinement and interrogation.
The order requires the court to employ a 40-second delay during legal proceedings, so that reporters, who watch behind soundproof glass, can be stopped from hearing details of the CIA’s classified rendition and detention programme from officials, lawyers or the defendants themselves.
Hina Shamsi, an ACLU attorney who will be arguing against the protective order during the pre-trial hearing, said: “What we are challenging is the censorship of the defendants’ testimony based on their personal knowledge of the government’s torture and detention of them.”
The order, which is also being challenged by a coalition of media organizations, is overly broad because it would “classify the defendants own knowledge, thoughts and experience,” she said.
“It’s a truly extraordinary and chilling proposal that the government is asking the court to accept,” Shamsi said.
In court papers, military prosecutors argue that the trial requires additional security because the accused have personal knowledge of classified information such as interrogation techniques and knowledge about which other countries provided assistance in their capture.
“Each of the accused is in the unique position of having had access to classified intelligence sources and methods,” the prosecution says in court papers. “The government, like the defense, must protect that classified information from disclosure.”
Brigadier general Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor for the military commissions, said on Sunday that the security precautions are necessary to prevent the release information that could harm US intelligence operations or personnel around the world, and not to prevent embarrassing the government or to cover up wrongdoing.
“Our government’s sources and methods are not an open book,” Martins told the Associated Press.
Some details of the five defendants’ treatment are public knowledge. The CIA’s declassified documents record Mohammed being waterboarded 186 times.
In May, David Nevin, Mohammed’s defence attorney, told reporters after the 13-hour hearing: “The government wants to kill Mr Mohammed. They want to extinguish the last eyewitness to his torture so that he can never speak about it.”
The May hearings followed a failed attempt to try the five men in Guantánamo in 2008.
Families of 9/11 victims have been invited to watch the pre-trial hearings in military facilities in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland. Seven family members were viewing the Guantánamo proceedings on Monday via closed-circuit television at Fort Hamilton, a base in Brooklyn.
In addition to 9/11 families and first responders, the general public can watch the proceedings at Fort Meade, in Maryland.
© 2012 Guardian News
[Gavel via Shutterstock] |
BRUSSELS – The scope of the Trudeau government’s configured mission in Iraq will be broader than just the military and could include a sizable police training contingent, Canada’s foreign affairs minister said Wednesday.
Stephane Dion found himself repeatedly buttonholed in the polished hallways of NATO headquarters over the last two days, sometimes by countries eager for Canada to join their endeavours, as the United States made clear it expects allies to do more in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“It’s more than just military, but it’s always about security,” Dion told The Canadian Press in an interview.
“You can’t have security only with military. You have security when people feel secure with their institutions and they believe in them.”
One of his nine bilateral meetings included the Italian foreign minister and the possibility of Canada joining Italy in Iraq’s Kurdish north. More than 100 Carabinieri — Italy’s national police force — are training local police in areas recaptured from ISIL.
“Is it an area where we may have a contribution that would be welcome? It is something we have to discuss with the Americans, with the Italians and others,” said Dion.
He added that Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan is leading the drive to recraft the mission following the withdrawal of CF-18 jetfighters from combat, which is expected to happen sometime this winter.
During the election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised a beefed-up mission to train local forces in Iraq, over and above the existing 69 special forces instructors working the Kurdish peshmerga in the north of the country. The government has yet to provide details on what the mission would look like.
The pressure is not only on Canada, but all NATO allies. Earlier Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a tough, unambiguous message, saying the United States expects them to do more in the war against ISIL.
He told his 27 other counterparts that the international coalition “must strike at the core” of ISIL and strangle its efforts to set up networks elsewhere.
“I called on every NATO ally to step up its fight against Daesh,” Kerry said, using the Arabic acronym for the militant group, also known as ISIL and ISIS.
“I was very gratified that a number of allies are already bringing more to this battle — or are planning to increase their contributions.”
He praised British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Parliament is poised to vote on expanding airstrikes into Syria and Germany, which plans to deploy ships and surveillance aircraft to support operations against ISIL.
“It’s a very important step, we applaud his leadership on it,” said Kerry, who met with Dion one-on-one. “It is important for the world to join together in this initiative and we welcome Germany’s efforts.”
Although he didn’t reference the Canadian combat withdrawal, Kerry did give the Liberal government an opening by saying that there are a number of countries willing to step up and the contributions don’t necessarily “have to be troops engaged in kinetic action.”
Kerry said the U.S. has specifically asked for special forces instructors, police trainers and so-called “enablers,” such as transport and medical facilities.
As a further reminder that Washington isn’t prepared to let allies off the hook, he said the U.S. government will follow up with each country on a military-to-military basis as well as a diplomatic basis “in order to secure additional help.”
Also Wednesday, NATO foreign ministers formally invited the tiny Adriatic nation of Montenegro to join the alliance, despite opposition from Moscow. There was also discussion about fully reactivating the NATO-Russia Council, which, prior to the annexation of Crimea, had been a forum for dialogue between the former Cold War adversaries.
“I will now explore how we can use the council as a tool for political engagement,” said secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, noting that the recent downing of a Russian fighter jet by Turkey along with other border incidents makes dialogue important.
He insisted it is not a sign of weakening resolve in the face of the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine and for the moment the embattled country’s foreign minister seemed prepared to accept the shifting position.
Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine’s minister for foreign affairs, said he was for the moment satisfied that it “would not be a return to business as usual.”
Dion said there must be constructive engagement with Moscow, but added that Canada will insist that the situation in Ukraine be put on the agenda of any future council meeting. |
Solving the Student Loan Crisis: Dreams, Diplomas, and a Lifetime of Debt
Cryn Johannsen, Founder and Executive Director of All Education Matters, Inc., is the author(New Insights Press, 2016; available now on Amazon in paperback and).She has spent many years in academic environments, giving her an insider's understanding of the varying forms of educational institutions and how they function. Ms. Johannsen worked for an academic publishing company, but now advocates for individuals who are struggling or unable to pay off their student loan debt on Capitol Hill.In addition to her previous employment, Ms. Johannsen has been a student at multiple levels at multiple institutions, beginning at a community college, graduating with honors from the University of Kansas, and receiving MAs from both the University of Chicago and Brown University (where she also participated in an exchange scholar program with Harvard). She is an experienced researcher and instructor, and has focused her own education on the study of History and the Social Sciences.Ms. Johannsen is available to give talks and do workshops on this critical topic.Ms. Johannsen's book has been reviewed by the New York Review of Books in Rana Foroohar's article "How the Financing of Colleges May Lead to Disaster." In addition, intellectuals, such as Henry Giroux and Andrew Ross endorsed it.Links to Ms. Johannsen's articles:Spare Change News |
A small number of men taking Propecia, a drug for male-pattern baldness, may also experience sexual problems that persist even after they stop taking the drug, the government warned last week.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is changing the warning labels on Propecia and enlarged prostate drug Proscar, warning that the drugs may lead to decreased sexual desire and problems with ejaculation and orgasm. Since the FDA's approval of Propecia and Proscar in the 1990s, the drugs have included warnings about sexual side effects, which stopped after discontinuing the drugs.
Warnings for both drugs will also include reports of infertility and poor semen quality that returned to normal after patients stopped the drugs.
The active ingredient in both drugs is finasteride, which blocks the production of certain male hormones. Both drugs are manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Merck and Co.
The FDA reviewed 421 reports of sexual dysfunction that were voluntarily submitted by patients after taking the Propecia from 1998 to 2011. Of those reports, 59 cases lasted for at least three months after a patient stopped taking the drug.
In a statement, Merck emphasized that it's not clear that the drugs cause continued sexual dysfunction.
"Merck believes that Propecia and Proscar are generally well tolerated and effective for their respective intended uses in accordance with their approved product labeling," the statement said. |
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell speaks at a fan forum in Baltimore on Sunday. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Speaking at a fan forum in Baltimore on Sunday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell weighed in on the possibility of the NFL awarding another future Super Bowl to a cold-weather city with an outdoor stadium, as the league did for Super Bowl XLVIII in East Rutherford, N.J., several years ago.
“Why can’t a city like Baltimore host the Super Bowl?” a Ravens season ticket holder asked. “We serve crab cakes in January, too.”
“The Super Bowl decision is made, and as the event gets bigger and bigger, it gets harder and harder to host because it’s competitive, the infrastructure keeps growing,” Goodell said at the Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium. “The number of hotel rooms now, I think we’re well over 35,000 hotel rooms that are required. The facilities around that for all the different events that come into a Super Bowl have become more complicated. The bar gets raised every year.”
[Virginia governor’s new stadium tactic: insulting D.C. and Maryland]
Goodell went on to say that someone recently mentioned to him a possible joint Super Bowl bid in the Baltimore-Washington area.
“Which is an interesting idea, because clearly there’s an infrastructure between the two communities,” Goodell said.
In 2010, NFL owners voted to play the 2014 Super Bowl at Met Life Stadium, the new home of the Giants and Jets. It was the first Super Bowl played outdoors at a cold-weather site and Goodell described that decision as “high risk, high reward.” A snowstorm hit the New York area a few hours after the game ended.
“This was a big debate,” Goodell said. “Do we want the game to be played in perfect conditions? Do you want the elements to impact it? I personally love football in the elements. I think that’s what makes it so special. So, I love that part of it, but I also understand the issue of trying to put an event on where we have probably 150-to-200,000 people attending. It’s really tough to do, and it puts a lot of stress on smaller communities. If you guys want to make a bid, I’m sure the ownership is going to take a good, hard look at it.”
It’s unclear how a potential Baltimore-Washington joint bid would work, but Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has expressed his desire to host a Super Bowl for years. The Washington area was one of four finalists to host the 2008 Super Bowl, which went to Glendale, Ariz., instead.
“I think Washington should get one, no matter what,” Snyder said at the NFL owners’ spring meeting in 2010. “It is the nation’s capital.”
In 2011, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti said Baltimore would “be in line like everyone else” if the outdoor Super Bowl at Met Life Stadium was a success. The Super Bowl host sites have been awarded through 2022. The Redskins’ lease at FedEx Field runs through 2027.
"Could a city like Baltimore ever host a Super Bowl?"@nflcommish shares his thoughts. pic.twitter.com/bymMmzZ0JJ — Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) July 30, 2017
More on the NFL:
Ravens owner admits that Colin Kaepernick’s protest is a factor in whether to sign him
Can the Cowboys get by early on if Ezekiel Elliott is suspended?
A bold strategy to win your fantasy football league: Draft RBs. Lots and lots of them. |
Chris Gaubatz, vice president of UnderstandingTheThreat.com, joined Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Monday to talk about the time he spent undercover at the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR). The results of that investigation are chronicled in the book Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.
Gaubatz said one surprising discovery he made about CAIR is that “we all hear CAIR is a civil-rights firm, and while I was in CAIR-Maryland’s Virginia office, before I worked in D.C.’s national office, I was the intern there, and their lawyer – Morris Days at the time – was taking money from Muslims that were working on their immigration case.”
“Now, if CAIR was a civil-rights firm, they actually would have vetted their lawyer, but they’re not. They’re Hamas,” Gaubatz said. “So this lawyer was taking money from Muslims, working on their immigration cases, except that he wasn’t a lawyer. He never passed the state bar exam. He wasn’t licensed to practice law anywhere in the country. In fact, he had a rap sheet out of Philadelphia.”
“So CAIR shut down the emails, they shut down their bank accounts, and they closed the office down. Their only problem was … they asked their intern to shred documents related to the case – and that was me,” he continued. “So we ended up exposing that in Muslim Mafia, but CAIR never reported that to the police. CAIR never reported that to the state bar association. They tried to cover it up, and it backfired on them. We actually got several of the Muslims that were defrauded by CAIR to sue CAIR. That should be going to trial soon.”
“They also worked with Osama bin Laden,” he added. “There was a document we found where, one of their board meeting notes, they were discussing working with bin Laden. That shouldn’t surprise anybody, since as I’ve testified in front of the U.S. Senate and at the Oklahoma State Capitol last week, that the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood – or Hamas, if it’s CAIR – are no different than those of al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, which is to establish an Islamic state under sharia.”
Gaubatz said that from a national security perspective, the 2016 election was a “clear-cut choice” because “if Hillary Clinton wins, that is exactly what the global Islamic movement would want. That is exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood would want.”
“She will work with them. It’ll be a continuation of the Obama policies of working with the Muslim Brotherhood and working with the global Islamic movement,” he warned.
“Mr. Trump scares them to death. He does that because they know that he is the type of person that is willing to go out and dismantle the jihadi network in America. Muslim Brotherhood groups like CAIR, like the Islamic Society of North America, like the Muslim Students’ Association, are shaking in their boots right now because if he wins, there’s a very real possibility that network is dismantled within the first year,” he predicted.
“Look, the evidence is already there. There’s enough evidence just from the Holy Land Foundation trial to prosecute CAIR, ISNA, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). There is enough evidence to indict and prosecute all of those groups,” Gaubatz declared. “It’s never been the lack of evidence. It’s been the lack of will.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
LISTEN: |
Strong, sustainable growth is high on the agenda for the G20, which met earlier this month in Hangzhou, China. The gathering of 20 of the world's most important economies offered a unique opportunity for these countries to send a powerful message of unity in climate action to the world, building upon last year's Paris Climate Agreement. Indeed, with China and the United States having formally committed to the Paris Agreement, the moment marked an important turning point in the global climate conversation and - importantly - reinforced China's new role in that dialogue.
Considered by the global community as a key member to climate action, China has made significant strides in recent years to drive the clean energy revolution and climate change fight across the world. China's commitment to reduce GHG emission is integral to the passage of the Paris Agreement. As a country with the world's largest population, China worked closely with the United States to secure a crucial bilateral climate deal that set the foundation for success at COP21.
Increasingly, the world has realized that climate action and economic growth go hand in hand and China is exemplary in its prioritization of climate action as part of its development plan. Meanwhile, short-term air quality improvement and longer-term, systemic climate change mitigation demand greater - and more urgent - action.
As a Commissioner of the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC), a diverse group of key players in the global energy sector that comprises perspectives from industry, finance, NGOs and former elected officials, we recognize that the world will not achieve a truly sustainable energy transition overnight. The ETC's recent analysis of 17 countries' national commitments under the Paris Agreement, including China, the United States, and EU, provides important analysis of which mechanisms are included in these commitments, where they fall short, and how countries might hasten their achievement.
China's INDC: The Largest CO2 Reduction Commitment
China's commitment under the Paris Agreement stipulates a peaking of emissions before 2030, and Non-fossil energy reach 20% of primary energy consumption. Compared to other developing countries' intensity targets, China's GHG peak target is more constructive, showing how a giant industrial economy can practice its global responsibility even at huge economic costs and obstacles.
According to the INDCs of 17 countries, China makes the largest emission reduction commitment of up to 3.16 Gt CO2 (under same GDP assumptions, INDC target compared to the baseline, which is the average of multiple scenarios in the word). Achieving this ambitious target depends on China's efforts in economic transition, energy efficiency improvement and near-zero carbon energy development. Having made an impressive progress in expanding near-zero carbon energy portfolio, China already has the world's largest installed wind power and photovoltaic capacity, which is a very significant achievement, especially considering its relative low income and limited land resources per capita.
China's INDC: The Role of Fossil Fuels
Of course, there are other levers at play: energy productivity is expected to increase at 4 percent per annum (as compared to only 2.5 percent in the Untied States and European Union).
Additionally, the power sector in China today accounts for nearly half the country's coal consumption. The INDC addresses this head-on: about one-tenth of emissions reductions will be anticipated to come from a shift in fossil fuel resources, due to the coal reduction and a push to using gas in power. In a demonstration of the interrelatedness of the global energy system, China's new policies of supply side reform to reduce the over-capacity of coal production by 0.8-1 billion tones, have fueled a reversal in coal prices worldwide, which will help reduce the economic competitiveness of coal, compared to the clean energies in the global market.
A Clear Path Forward
Even under China's INDC, the country's energy related emissions might increase before 2030, driving by the urbanization in next 15 years. To realize the peak as soon as possible, the country will specify additional energy efficiency measures, and decarbonize other non-power sectors.
There are two important pathways China must pursue in order to secure a clean development agenda. First, rapid urbanization across the country offers the opportunity for better city planning that prioritizes industrial and building energy efficiency, vehicle electrification and innovative financing mechanisms that leverage private sector and state funding to finance sustainable infrastructure projects. Beijing, for instance, aims to install 435,000 electric vehicle charging stations by 2020, in an effort to increase the number of electric vehicles on the road by 600,000.
Second, as part of its goal to diversify away from a heavy manufacturing base, China will focus on promoting energy efficiency and designing its energy systems so renewables can be readily integrated into its electricity sector - the largest in the world. Critically, the Chinese government can address new energy demand by scaling up its energy efficiency programs.
On the supply side, though China has the most grid connected wind capacity of any country in the world, the curtailment problem is more and more important. To rectify this, the country must better coordinate between generation and transmission planning, and should reform its utility pricing system , to help integrate efficiency measures and renewable energy into the overall system. In the meantime, it is also important for China to put more efforts in the critical innovative techniques, such as smart energy and micro-grids.
A Bright Future
As the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, the second largest economy and the largest population of nearly 1.4 billion people, China stands poised to shape the future of our global energy system, which in turn holds enormous implications for the global economy. China's recent reforms and commitments send a powerful signal to the world that it is serious about global leadership on these issues. By continuing to prioritize smart urban development with an increased emphasis on energy efficiency and renewable deployment, China can cooperate with the other countries, lock the world into a safe, prosperous and sustainable future for all. |
To sell Glass, its augmented-reality form of eyewear, Google has already tried to make it a fashion accessory and a must-have video device for any parent or sky diver. Now it is also presenting this $1,500 piece of wearable technology as a way to interact with music.
On Tuesday, Google will unveil a set of features for Glass to search for songs, scan through saved playlists and listen to music in high fidelity. This can all be done while a user is wearing the lensless frames, which respond to vocal commands and have a small computer and transparent projection screen above the right eye.
When Glass boots up, it will display “listen to” among its standard voice commands — like “take a picture” and search for a term on Google — and let a wearer name a song or artist and then stream that music through Play, Google’s media and apps hub. Users can link their Play accounts to have access to playlists and song recommendations based on what they have listened to in the past.
Google is also introducing a set of earbud headphones designed for Glass, which will be available by the end of the month for $85. Sound Search, a feature introduced to Glass two months ago, acts like Shazam or SoundHound by identifying a song playing in the vicinity. |
Hey there! We are Soothsayer Hot Sauce, a small batch hot sauce company from Chicago. Though we are just starting out, we are confident in saying that we are the premiere mystic-themed hot sauce company in Chicago, if not the world. Soothsayer might also be the only mystic-themed hot sauce company but that's besides the point. All of our sauces are all natural, gluten free, allergen free, vegan, and tasty as hell. Our bottling is done by hand and each bottle is numbered for batch and bottle number. We pride ourselves on three things: fresh & locally sourced ingredients, an exceptional flavor profile, and an accessible level of heat. These are not the sauces for a Scoville scale strongman; we make products for everyone to enjoy. Our sauces act as an excellent accent flavor with just the right amount of heat. Speaking of our sauces, let's introduce them.
Our Sauces
Our Big 3 Sauces: Harbinger, Perdition, and Omen.
Harbinger:
A roasted red pepper base serves to mellow out the fiery manzano pepper and give the sauce nice, savory balance. Touches of garlic and onion help add some depth of flavor and makes this an excellent sauce for Italian leaning foods. Coming from a city obsessed with pizza, we had to make sure we did this one right.
Perdition:
This is the sauce that started the idea for making Soothsayer a legitimate business. An all orange habanero sauce, Perdition started as a prototype called 'Orange Crush' as it features orange habaneros, carrots, and orange bell peppers. The sweetness of the carrots and bell peppers is balanced by the tang and spice of the habaneros to give this sauce a truly unique flavor. Higher on our spice scale, this sauce is still accessible to almost all who have tried it so far. This is an incredibly versatile sauce and will become an instant staple in your fridge.
Omen:
Based on a traditional Mexican salsa verde, Omen is our workhorse sauce and one of our most popular. Packed with jalapeños and garlic, it provides a little bit of kick with a whole lot of taste. Though the least spicy of the three, it has proved to be one of the most popular as it will become almost impossible to eat a plate of eggs or indulge in Taco Tuesday without it.
Who We Are
Hi! My name is Kyle and I like hot sauce, tattoos, punk rock, and hot sauce.
The idea for Soothsayer was inspired by years of punk and metal shows in dive bars, dumpy venues, old basements, and wherever else music can be played. Not to sound overly cliche, but the do it yourself attitude is infectious and the support of the people in these communities is inspiring. So I said 'to hell with it' and started making hot sauce. And people started responding to it. Earlier this year I sent out samples of these three sauces to over 25 different states and was flooded with reviews, feedback, pictures of what people used it on, and one other surprising thing...the request for more. I knew that I enjoyed our unique, fresh flavors but I wasn't sure how others would respond. Here's a few of those:
"I am lucky enough to live in Chicago and was able to score some early samples of Soothsayer Sauce, to my delight. As someone who consumes at LEAST 2 different types of hot sauce on all my meals daily, I have a pretty high bar for the new wave of craft stuff. Soothsayer delivers! I've tried most of the line and they have a wide range of diverse flavors — I'm especially a fan of the citrusy, sorta-sweet Perdition, and to be honest don't think I'll ever be able to eat pizza again without the jalapeno-garlic Omen drizzled on top. Soothsayer has bite (especially Harbinger) but walks the burn-your-tongue-off line, so that you can actually nuanced flavors in each." -Lindsay Turano
"[In reviewing Perdition] The spiciest of the three, this orange-habanero marvel has the delightfully fruity notes from both the citrus and the peppers, a respectable amount of heat, along with a savory undertone of onion and garlic. The full, fresh flavor of the chiles is perfectly presented alongside tangy, savory, and sweet elements, all playing in a harmonious unison." -Phil "El Rojo Loco" (one of the original sample recipients)
An Ode to Soothsayer (to the tune of 'My Favorite things)
"Tacos, Burritos, and Cruchy Style Cheetos,
Burgers, and Sausage, and Chicken Taquitos,
Mixed into Soups and tossed on chicken wings,
These are this hot sauces favorite things!
When it lacks spice, and the meats dry,
When it just tastes bad, I simply remember what harbinger brings,
Soothsayer makes food so rad."
-Beautifully composed by Seth Beavis of Blue Steel
With such a positive response to our all natural sauces, I couldn't help but feel the need to continue on and try to bring these flavors to as many people as I can. And it is with that spirit of support and accessibility that we wish to continue, as we grow, to encourage independent ventures across Chicago; as a combination of culinary, artistic, and musical ideas. Through pop up cooking events, art shows with the involvement of local musicians, or events that feature a bit of all three. We at Soothsayer strongly feel that everything is best done when you bring up those around you, and we strive to create experiences that embody that ideal.
Our Rewards
You've been introduced to the sauces. Now let's take a look at the other items involved in our rewards, that we will be producing here in Chicago...either by ourselves or with some of our favorite local artists and merchants.
The Soothsayer Ouija shirt. Hand screened by our designer Shane Zobel, of Wayfare Clothing.
We belive in warm hands and cold beers.
Speaking of frosty beverages, what better place to temporarily house them in then a custom etched pint glass?
Your denim vest is looking a little lonely...
Combined with a set of custom stickers...you can't go wrong with this on your collar.
The biggest of thanks to those who helped bring all of this together:
Shane Zobel - Designs and Printing
Noah Schloss - Video and Editing
Luhrs Heldrich - Photography and Product Shots
Chris Woods - Custom Pint Etching
I highly encourage you to check out the works of these incredibly talented, unbelievably committed artists for anything you could need in the design and creative mediums. |
A U.S. senator wants two federal agencies to investigate whether Apple Inc is breaking antitrust law in how it treats music services that compete with the streaming service it launched in June.
Democratic Senator Al Franken in a letter on Wednesday said that he was concerned that some Apple practices could limit choices and raise prices for consumers. The letter was sent to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez.
The FTC is already looking into complaints about Apple’s rules governing app developers but has not opened a formal investigation.
The FTC confirmed receipt of the letter but declined to comment. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The complaints focus on the fact that Apple plays two roles in music streaming. First, it provides the App Store platform for competing streaming services including Jango, Spotify, Rhapsody and others, while taking a 30 percent cut of all in-app purchases for digital goods. Secondly, it has its own streaming service.
Franken, who is from Minnesota, noted a complaint often made by streaming companies: that they are barred from putting in their app advertisement that customers can pay less if they download the app from a website instead of the Apple platform. They are also barred from advertising discounts.
“These types of restrictions seem to offer no competitive benefit and may actually undermine the competitive process, to the detriment of consumers, who may end up paying substantially more than the current market price point,” Franken wrote in his letter.
In the past, Apple has declined to comment to Reuters and other news organizations on the issue and did not immediately respond to requests on Wednesday.
In a separate letter also sent on Wednesday, the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog accused Apple of pressing the three big music labels to give Apple exclusive rights to artists in an effort to eradicate free ad-supported music services.
“The FTC and Justice Department can ensure that Apple does not dominate the market and eliminate the free music sector by prohibiting it from entering into agreements with clauses that will give it market dominance,” the group said in their letter.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) |
Five people were wounded in accidents at gun shows in North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana on Saturday, according to authorities.
In Raleigh, N.C., authorities said three people were wounded when a loaded shotgun accidentally discharged at the Dixie Gun and Knife Show at the N.C. State Fairgrounds.
Officials say Gary Lynn Wilson, 36, was having his shotgun checked before entering the show when the incident happened. He was unzipping his 12-gauge shotgun's case when it accidentally fired birdshot pellets, hitting three people, The News & Observer in Raleigh reported. Wilson was planning on privately selling the gun at the show, according to NBC affiliate WNCN.
The three victims, Janet Hoover, Linwood Hester and Jake Alderman, were hit, respectively, in the right torso, left hand and right hand, WNCN reported. They were taken to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries.
Witness Daniel Peadan told WNCN he was about to enter the building, when he heard a loud pop: "The people right there at the door, a lot of them ran ... They scattered because it was chaotic."
"This was an accidental discharge," said Brian Long, a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, in a statement.
The show closed early Saturday because of the shooting, according to The News & Observer. When the show reopens Sunday private gun sales will not be permitted, but only sales by licensed dealers at the show are allowed, Long said. By Saturday evening, the event's website clearly stipulated: "No personal firearms are to be brought into the show."
The Wake County Sheriff's Department is investigating Saturday's incident, and it's not clear yet whether there are pending charges, according to Long.
In Medina, Ohio, an exhibitor at a local gun show was opening a box containing a gun when the weapon went off, striking his partner, who was sitting next to him, NBC station WKYC of Cleveland reported.
The victim suffered non-life threatening injuries in the arm and thigh and was taken to a hospital.
Police told WKYC the shooting was accidental, and a man who attended the show had sold that gun to the exhibitor.
In Indianapolis, state police said a 54-year-old man was loading his .45 caliber semi-automatic gun when he shot himself in the hand, The Associated Press reported. The victim, Emory L. Cozee, had been leaving the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife show at the state fairgrounds, officials told the AP. Loaded personal weapons are not permitted inside this show, according to the AP.
Cozee was hospitalized. Police told the AP no charges will be filed and the shooting was accidental.
These incidents all happened on the first "National Gun Appreciation Day," which was organized by Political Media, a Republican consulting firm.
In Raleigh, police say around 200 gun-rights supporters marched around the legislative building in downtown Raleigh on Saturday, The News & Observer reported.
Across the country Saturday, there were similar rallies by gun-rights advocates. In Brooksville, Fla., about 1,000 people gathered holding signs like "Stop the Gun Grabbers," Reuters reported. In Denver, just miles away from the scene of the July 2012 movie theater massacre, about 500 people were outside the state capitol rallying, according to Reuters.
The attack on an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 first-graders and six staffers dead in December has sparked a new debate over gun control. Last week, President Barack Obama proposed new gun controls to reduce violence.
Firearms expert Greg A. Danas told NBC News while it's up to a gun show owner to determine safety rules, he recommends measures like inspecting guns and ensuring firing pins are disabled.
"Even people with the best intentions, screw up, occasionally make mistakes," Danas said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related stories: |
Just two hours from Britain is Europe's last dictatorship, a country that recalls Stalinist Russia and where critics of the government 'disappear'. But thanks to an underground theatre group – and supporters including Jude Law and Tom Stoppard – the world is finally waking up to its plight
Britain's greatest living playwright is nodding gently in his sleep. Tom Stoppard is uncomfortably folded into a second-class Eurostar seat, his head lolling against his shoulder. I've been told that he'll give me an interview half an hour before we reach Brussels, so after a moment's hesitation, I tap him on the arm and, like a lizard, he slowly opens one bloodshot eye.
He's not just tired – he's jet-lagged. He's feeling a bit ill, or "odd" as he puts it. He's just returned from America, and has got up at the crack of dawn to catch the Eurostar in order to spend three days attending something called the Brussels Forum. "And I don't even know what the Brussels Forum is," he says. "Do you?"
I shake my head.
"I'm really not entirely sure why I'm here. I was in New York and Natalia rang me up and asked me to come. So I came." He considers this. "Why are you here?"
Natalia asked me, I say, and we share a moment of mutual incomprehension at the fact that he is addressing a conference of Eurocrats and I'm attending one. But then "Natalia", or Natalia Kaliada, is an unstoppable force. Stoppard calls her "the little dynamo", but this is understating the matter. She's the artistic director of the Belarus Free Theatre, previously based in Minsk, now in exile, an organisation that has come to be the central motor of a campaign to draw attention to the terrible political repression happening in a country that, as Natalia points out frequently, to any audience that'll have her, "is in the middle of Europe, only two hours from London".
Five years ago, Natalia wrote to Stoppard and asked him to sign a letter of support, and it's why he now finds himself in situations like this: spending the weekend in Brussels with a hotel full of high-level government ministers, having agreed during an inattentive moment to giving the conference's "opening remarks" before a keynote address by the president of Europe.
"And I really have no idea what to say. What on earth do you think I should talk to them about?" It's a shame that it's only in retrospect that I realise that the man who wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Jumpers, and Arcadia, who was the great champion of the dissident writers of the eastern bloc, is probably not actually seeking my advice. Because, oh dear God, I give it anyway.
You're the only person here who doesn't represent a vested interest, I say. It's really up to you to go and stir things up.
"You think I should bang the Belarus drum?" he says. "I was wondering if I should. Or if I should talk about what the purpose of these forums are?"
Bang the drum! I say. Bang the drum!
In my defence, Natalia Kaliada is a force field I defy anyone to resist. I've watched Jude Law stumble blindly into it. He turned up at the Observer's office on a sunny Saturday, two weeks ago, to introduce her at our TEDxObserver event; next thing you know, he's promised to be at the Houses of Parliament for a performance alongside Natalia's husband, and co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre, the playwright Nikolai Khalezin.
I, too, find myself pulled along in her wake, following her from event to event and now on to this dawn Eurostar (she's sitting at the back), drawn in by her sheer energy and determination and the fierce commitment that she brings to her cause. Because what's so compelling about what Natalia is doing, and why everyone around her, can't help but be compelled, too, is that, as Jude Law puts it, "she's living it". She and Nikolai and their youngest daughter, 12-year-old sweet-faced Daniella, who hasn't been to school since they fled Minsk, can't go home. Their other daughter, 17-year-old Marya, is still in Belarus, as are their parents and they don't know when they'll ever see them again. They've been named enemies of the state, but, as Natalia repeatedly points out, they're the lucky ones. Many of their friends are in jail; others are dead.
It's almost as if perpetual motion is the only thing that's keeping her going. In between her talk at TEDxObserver and now, she's been to Washington, addressed another conference, and flown back on the redeye. Later, on no sleep, she gave another emotional speech at the Index on Censorship awards, where Tom Stoppard presented her with a special award on behalf of Belarus's prisoners of conscience, as classified by Amnesty, halfway through which she broke down and cried, and now, here on the train, while Stoppard has fallen into a coma and I'm just about managing to stare blankly into space, Natalia is furiously typing letters and emails and texting her contacts in Belarus.
"She doesn't eat, she doesn't sleep," says Irina Bogdanova, a fellow Belarussian whom Natalia and her family are currently staying with in Hampshire. Irina's voice is cracking. She's sucking Strepsils and is rasping away, but then she's another unwilling activist. Another accidental campaigner. "I hate politics!" she says. "Hate it. And yet here I am! It's incredible to me." She's a doctor who's lived in Britain for the past 18 years, her partner is a British aeronautical engineer, but on 19 December last year, her brother, Andrei Sannikov, Belarus's most credible opposition leader, and a presidential candidate, was beaten up, arrested, and is being held in a KGB jail awaiting what in effect amounts to a show trial.
He's one of the prisoners of conscience. And his wife, Irina Khalip, a journalist, is under house arrest with their three-year-old son unable to contact the outside world, and so it's to Amnesty that Irina Bogdanova has found herself turning. "They have been fantastic. Because there is only my 78-year-old mother in Belarus, who's all by herself, who is trying to do it all. We found a lawyer, but they de-barred him, because that's what they do. But I've been speaking to Amnesty's lawyer and they've been advising us. And they act straight away. When something happens, they act so much quicker than anybody else. They issue this urgent action, which means they send a letter and a press release, to all their offices and the government, so at least the government knows that Amnesty is on their case, even if they don't care much. But actually, they do, I think. I mean, I don't think the situation changes drastically, but maybe it doesn't become any worse.
"What Amnesty does is to show that the world is watching. That somebody is taking note. That there are consequences. Or maybe one day, there will be. Because at the moment, nothing is happening. Nobody else is reacting! Can you imagine if it was Britain? If Gordon Brown had been locked up by David Cameron before even the election results had been announced? That is what is happening in Belarus. And this is Europe. Europe!"
There are so many difficulties in writing about what is going on in Belarus. Why you might struggle to find the country on a map. Why you might be struggling to care. There have been so many revolutions this spring, so many populist uprisings, and yet, right here, in Europe, is a forgotten country in the grip of what – you'll discount this as hyperbole and will almost certainly resist believing (I did) – is a Stalinist-style reign of terror.
Or, at least, when I meet Natalia for the first two times – unprepared, in a rush, my mind on other things – I just can't really process what she tells me, can't quite compute it. She's so passionate, so determined to tell her story, to convince me of its rightness, and its urgency, that words such as "torture" and "killing" and "KGB" tumble from her mouth, and I find it hard to piece together a narrative, or understand the context. And while I spent my early 20s hanging around eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union, my strongest memory from my last trip to Moscow was the traffic jam to get into Ikea.
And yet talking to Natalia feels like stepping into a DeLorean and speeding back 30 years in time. "Longer," says Irina. "This isn't like Russia in the 80s. It's Russia in 1937. These mass arrests. People being disappeared. It's the purges."
Poor Belarus. It's always been the country in the way of western armies heading east, and eastern armies heading west; a brutal history that has continued into this century, first by Hitler – the Nazis killed a quarter of its population – and then by Stalin. It had the briefest moment of freedom, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and then in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko, the director of a state farm, was elected president and systematically began stripping those freedoms away again.
And last December, in the worst timing in modern protest history, just months before the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, roughly 50,000 Belarusians took to the streets on election night in a peaceful demonstration that was violently put down. Natalia, like many others, was arrested; she, unlike many others, was released (there was a mix-up over her name). According to Amnesty, 42 are still in jail, and every day brings news of fresh trials and increasingly punitive sentences.
Two out of eight presidential candidates are in KGB jails; another is under house arrest, although at one point seven out of the eight had been detained. ("Even in Russia, they renamed the KGB the FSB," says Natalia. "In Belarus, they didn't even bother.") Another, Ales Mikhalevic, has now fled to the Czech Republic and at a press conference told how he was tortured by masked men. "In fact, we've known about torture happening in police cells for years," Heather McGill, Amnesty's country researcher for Belarus, tells me. "This isn't new. None of this is new. It's just got worse. What we're most concerned about, more than these high-profile cases which at least the EU knows about, is that there are an awful lot of young people, who nobody knows about, in jail.
"Yesterday, a 20-year-old law student who was simply peacefully demonstrating was sentenced to three and a half years in a labour camp."
And then there are the "disappeared". When we get to Brussels, I meet another Irina: Irina Krasovskaya, the founder of a movement and website called We Remember. Twelve years ago, her husband, businessman Anatoly Krasovsky, and his friend, Viktor Gonchar, the leader of the opposition, simply disappeared while driving home. Vanished. Today, having told the story hundreds, if not thousands of times, Irina can't keep the emotion out of her voice when she tells me how their bodies have never been found.
It's such an anomaly, Belarus. The last dictatorship in Europe. A regime that, at times, seems to exist as an echo chamber of the past (Irina Bogdanova's nephew, Sannikov and Khalip's son, was removed by the authorities who attempted to place him in a state orphanage, the same tactics employed in Stalin's time). It's even made Tom Stoppard think again about totalitarianism. "Because there were certain assumptions I always made about Czechoslovakia under communism, and I'm now wondering whether those assumptions were actually true. It seemed to me that, there, people were followed and harassed, and they might lose their job or a promotion, the usual menu of that totalitarian system but my impression was that the jails were not full of political dissidents as they are here. The penalties were harsh for the few who did it, but there wasn't this mass fury."
Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia and became closely involved with the dissident movement there, as well as travelling to the Soviet Union in the 80s with Amnesty, whose value as an organisation he calls "inestimable". What it does, he says, "is connect awareness to protest globally… And, of course, the very phrase 'a prisoner of conscience' is a very potent idea. Someone who's been locked up because of his conscience." But he had no idea that three decades on, having seen the Wall fall, and much of the old eastern bloc become part of the EU, he'd still be fighting the same old battles.
Is what is going on in Belarus now worse than what was happening in the old eastern bloc?
"I don't think there were these extrajudicial killings. The Soviet system was too officious. It was very fond of legalistic paperwork… It was a matter of ideology and obeying it. But Lukashenko doesn't have an ideology, he has a business plan."
A couple of hours later, in the ultra-marble lobby of Brussels's five-star Conrad hotel, I come across a tense grouping of Natalia and the two Irinas. Natalia looks like she's going to cry. Irina Bogdanova has now lost her voice completely. "I am just so tired of all of this!" she says.
They've just found out from a friend in Belarus that 70 more people have been arrested. And when they corner Baroness Ashton, the EU's foreign affairs representative, she gives them the brush-off. "We have responded quickly to the situation in Belarus," she says in the opening session in response to a question that Natalia asked. "I have met with relatives… we have imposed strong sanctions."
Strong sanctions? I ask Natalia afterwards.
"That's bullshit! There are bullshit sanctions. There's a travel ban on some politicians, that's it. We need economic sanctions."
"It's just feels so pointless!" says Irina Bogdanova, while Irina Krasovskaya adds: "Look, Belarus is on the agenda. They mentioned Andrei Sannikov in the opening remarks. Belarus is here."
And it's here because of them. Because, perhaps, most remarkably of all, the fight for freedom is being led by women. "We haven't any choice," says Irina Bogdanova. "I don't want to fight. I don't want to be here doing this. But someone has to. And all the men are in jail." It's the wives, and mothers and sisters and daughters, who've been left to do the dirty work. There's Elena Edwards, sister-in-law of the former presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevic; and Natalia Radina, who's taken over as editor of the main opposition website, Charter 97, after its founder, Oleg Bebenin, was found hanged last September.
And it's why, perhaps, they're so persuasive, so moving. When they talk, it's fuelled by pain and loss and anger. It's not hard to see why Steven Spielberg has become a supporter of the cause, why George Clooney has, why Mick Jagger made a video appeal on their behalf. In fact, in many ways, the Free Belarus Theatre is the model of a modern human rights campaign, although it never set out to be one. Natalia comes from a theatrical family and always wanted to be an actress but after studying in Moscow, she ended up working for NGOs, and Nikolai was a newspaper editor. He edited the three most influential independent newspapers in Belarus, until, one by one, they were all closed down.
What's the main newspaper called now, I ask Natalia at one point. "Sovietskaya Belorussiya. Soviet Belarus! I mean, really, it's beyond a joke! Except it's not funny."
With no newspapers left to work for, Nikolai turned to writing plays, and "one was put on in Moscow and we received royalties and with this money we decided to set up a theatre company with our friend, the director Vladimir Shcherban". It's the company's sixth anniversary this week, and while the authorities take their inspiration from Stalin, they have explicitly borrowed from the samizdat writers of the 1970s and 80s, employing the same methods, putting on plays in private flats and houses.
The British playwright Laura Wade, who went to Minsk to hold workshops with them, and attended one of their underground performances, says that "the thing about them is that not only are they very brave on a personal level, as well as very powerful, but also the work they are doing is incredibly high quality as well".
Being an underground theatre group is one thing; being the figureheads for a campaign to free Belarus is another. But, according to Jude Law, "the theatre has become a symbol of what's happening to the country, and Natalia has become a symbol of the theatre. She's been thrust into the spotlight because she's eloquent and charming, but what they're so good at is getting attention for their work, and then turning that back on to the country."
It's really no surprise to me that after a week or so of intermittently following Natalia Kaliada around, I end up in a room at the House of Commons with her, Jude Law, Kevin Spacey, Tom Stoppard, Sam West, half a dozen MPs, the leading lights of the Young Vic, a brace of playwrights, and a director or two.
"If there's ever the smallest crack," says Stoppard, "then Natalia has her foot in that door." As we wait around, Kevin Spacey, director of the Old Vic, tells me how he saw them in New York when they put on Being Harold Pinter, a play based on Pinter's work, adapted and directed by Vladimir Shcherban. "There was just four actors. And five chairs. It was so powerful, hearing Pinter's words about politics and repression, in their own language. My heart was on the floor."
"I took Harold to see it in Leeds," says Stoppard. "It turned out to be one of his last public outings, and it was tremendously moving."
"I said to them: 'How can I help?'" says Spacey. "And they said: 'We need performance space.' So I said: 'Come to the Vic.' So they're now rehearsing there."
It'd be easy to dismiss them, the luvvies, and the film stars, stepping out of their sparkling celebrity bubbles for just a second, to throw a crumb of human comfort at the exiled and dispossessed, but there's real respect for the work that the Belarus Free Theatre is doing. They've all shown up at a moment's notice. And, crucially, it's a lot more than anybody else is doing – than the British government and EU have done. Tom Stoppard is on his fifth straight day on the Belarus trail. Spacey's not even on the bill. And Jude Law is refreshingly un-A-list about the whole thing. It's hardly a glamour gig: we're in a committee room of the House of Commons, with a handful of MPs, some parliamentary researchers and assorted hangers-on. And yet watching this odd couple – Jude Law in his crisp, white, tailored shirt, Nikolai Khalezin, with his ponytail and earring – do a scratch performance of an extract from Nikolai's play, Generation Jeans, alternately in Russian and English, is genuinely moving, not least because it is, in part, a love letter to Natalia, or "Natasha" as he calls her. (They're inseparable now, but when I ask Natalia how they met, she shudders. "I really hated his ponytail, his leather trousers… ugh! But then, you know, I got to know him.") When he was arrested during the election before last, and was in prison, he dreamed of "green meadows that would not lead me to Natasha", and notes that "when we are at risk our women become samurais".
They do. Poor Irina Bogdanova is in tears again. "It's just too close to me, emotionally," she says. "It's like going through it all again." But Mike Harris, of Index on Censorship, is pleased. "We had a really good turnout of MPs. And Douglas Alexander [the shadow foreign secretary] showed up." Why did they come, do you think? "Because we have tea and celebrities," he says.
And this, in very large part, is down to Natalia. She looks shattered. There are dark circles around her eyes already and she'll be up again at dawn for an interview for BBC World, off next week to New York, answering emails, drumming up support, thinking up schemes. I say goodbye, although not for long. Ping! An email drops into my inbox. "Is there any chance you can help me get a letter to Moby?"
For more information on the campaign, please see freebelarusnow.org. Natalia's talk at TEDxObserver can be watched online at theguardian.com/tedx
This article was amended on 5 April 2011, to correct the attribution of Being Harold Pinter |
Some parents and education experts believe the programme has failed to raise standards and caused segregation
• This article was corrected and footnoted on 27 September 2011.
All over the Swedish port city of Malmö last week there were gaggles of students clutching brand-new laptops given to them on loan for the start of the school year. As schools fight over what, due to a demographic blip, is a declining number of students, the device you get has become a keen area of competition.
"I've just got a mini-HP, but you can pay a bit more and get a Mac or an iPad," says Mua Stanbery, 16, who has just started at ProCivitas, the most popular of the town's profit-making free schools.
Students arriving at the Thoren Business School have to make do with a Dell. But Pauli Gymnasium, the biggest municipal-run school, this year decided to give MacBooks to all its students to stave off private competition.
What few of the students know is that the ultimate cause of their good fortune – the competitive system of free schools Sweden pioneered in the early 1990s – is under assault.
SNS, a prominent business-funded thinktank, issued a report last Wednesday that sharply reversed its normal pro-market stance. The entry of private operators into state-funded education, it argued, had increased segregation and may not have improved educational standards at all.
"The empirical evidence showing that competition is good is not really credible, because they can't distinguish between grade inflation and real gains," Dr Jonas Vlachos, who wrote the report on education, told the Observer.
The report had a huge impact. It was a top story on Swedish television, and was hotly debated the next day in the newspapers. How the debate plays out will be watched carefully by education experts in the UK, where 24 free schools, built on the Swedish model, opened this year.
Peje Emilsson, the founder of Kunskapsskolan, a private school company, attacked the research, deriding it as the worst report the thinktank had produced in 20 years.
But Vlachos, an associate professor of economics at Stockholm University, is standing his ground. His argument is based on his finding that students who entered gymnasium [sixth form] from free secondary schools on average went on to get lower grades over the next three years than those who had entered with the same grade from municipal secondary schools.
Vlachos suspects that, because schools rather than external examining boards mark students, free schools are more generous than municipal schools in the grades they give. "There's been tremendous grade inflation in Swedish schools," he said.
Sweden's path-breaking educational reforms of the 1990s have come under question since last December when the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development published the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment.
This showed that Swedish students had dropped to 19th place out of 57 countries for literacy, to 24th in maths, and to 28th in science. This compared with 9th, 17th and 16th in studies done in 2000, 2003 and 2006 respectively [see footnote].
And Swedes, used to coming near the top of just about every human development index, were appalled.
Jan Björklund, the minister of education, moved to tighten central control over schools and is soon to launch a parliamentary inquiry into competition and free schools.
"Loopholes in the legislation have meant that free schools can elect not to have a library, student counselling and school nurses," he complained. "And as they get just as much money as the municipal schools, the owners have been able to withdraw the surplus."
For now, Swedish parents and students still support the 1990s reforms and neither Björklund, nor the opposition Social Democratic party, are considering reversing them. But a poll carried out this year by Synovate found that Swedes who want to ban companies from operating schools for profit now outnumber those that don't.
Vlachos believes that the economic thinking underlying free schools is simply wrong. "It's very difficult for people to make an informed choice of what's a good school and that's not conducive to a well-functioning market," he said. Part of the problem is that students' priorities aren't always economic priorities. "There's been an explosion of media courses and arts courses such as singing and dancing," Vlachos said. "They're not necessarily bad, but it's not obvious that all these things are stuff that we want to subsidise with taxpayers' money."
The other problem is unintended side-effects that damage society, such as increased segregation. This issue becomes glaringly obvious if you visit the two sixth forms in Malmö's Western Harbour, a development of IT office space and tasteful eco-housing built on the city's redundant shipyards.
The first, ProCivitas, has some of the highest entry grades of any school in the city, and draws in some of the most ambitious teachers. There are only a few immigrant faces, teachers wear suits and the atmosphere in its bright, airy central lobby is like that of a trendy design company.
At Kunskapsgymnasiet, just five minutes' cycle ride away, the atmosphere could hardly be more different.
Students lounge around in groups smoking and playing cards. Well over 60% are from immigrant or refugee families. Kristoffer Osterman, one teacher I spoke to, sports a hippie beard, long ginger hair, jeans and clumpy boots.
ProCivitas students have an average of 280 out of 320 points, the highest in the city, whereas at Kunskapsgymnasiet the average for social sciences is only 180, with some students getting in with just 65 points.
This has nothing to do with the schools' managements. In Sweden, schools are only allowed to say how many places they have free. Each student gets their grades at the end of secondary school and lists the sixth forms they want to go to. The Malmö municipality fills the places in each school, both free and municipal, in order of grade. So if ProCivitas has 300 places, but 1,000 students want to attend it, then the municipality gives the places to the 300 students with the best marks. If on the other hand Kunskapsgymnasiet has 400 places and only 360 students want to go, the municipality will give them all places, even if they have rock-bottom marks.
Per Ledin, Kunskapsskolan's managing director for Sweden, argues that it is unfair to judge his company's 32 schools by Kunskapsgymnasiet.
"We have a surplus of capacity in Malmö, so we get people coming into our school who can't get into other schools," he said, adding that on average his students get 11 points higher than would be predicted by their socio-economic background.
But when I visited the Malmö school, it was hard to see how. It was so noisy that I thought it must be break time. "Students here, they don't have to do every task if they can show that they know it," a teacher said. "English for example, they can learn from the TV and other places."
Much of the learning at the 32 schools in Sweden run by the company is done alone by students, using an online system, with one-on-one guidance from teachers once a week, interspersed with lectures in classes of up to 60 students.
If students prefer to play cards and chat all day, it's up to them.
In his study, Vlachos argued that such systems were brought in as much to save costs as to improve education.
Kunskapsgymnasiet's IT-based teaching system allows it to cut the number of teachers it employs in Malmö to 5.1 teachers per 100 students, compared to an average of 8.2 teachers per 100 students at municipal schools.
"Many municipal schools are horrendously bad," Vlachos said. "But the difference between the free schools and the municipal schools is that the free schools actually have a profit incentive to reduce quality."
Kunskapsskolan can point to strong evidence that it works, but according to Daniel Rosen, a Spanish teacher at a state-run sixth-form college in the city of Uppsala, some Kunskapsskolan graduates who come to him have alarming gaps in their knowledge.
"Some do have problems with handling their freedom," admitted Osterman. "Freedom gives them less fact-based knowledge."
Peter Connée, who runs ProCivitas, argued that segregation was an unavoidable side-effect of the system. "Fifteen years ago in Sweden, we had segregation based on where you live, now it's based on ambition and ability."
Osterman also doesn't believe it's necessarily a bad thing. "We are becoming a school for ambitious immigrants," he said.
But as I was leaving his school, one of his students, Mohammed Mahmoud (not his real name), put it differently. "This is a school for criminals," he declared, to laughter. "Nobody's working in this school, because no one here has any future." His remark is clearly intended as a joke, but it suggests how marginalised he feels.
• This article was amended on 27 September 2011 to make it clear that Mohammed Mahmoud was using a false name and to qualify his remarks. This correction was published on 18 September 2011: Swedish students have shown a significant fall in reading ability between 2000 and 2009, as reported in "Doubts grow over the success of Sweden's free schools experiment" (News). However, the OECD studies referred to in the article, showing Swedish students dropping from 9th to 19th in world rankings, should be seen in the context of the number of nations taking part more than doubling from 31 in 2000 to 65 in 2009.
• The following letter was published in the Observer on 25 September 2011
Sweden is a truly class act
Personalised learning is key to the Kunskapsskolan model of teaching. Each student is supported to develop a strategy that meets their academic goals and takes account of their individual abilities. Different lesson formats are used depending on each student's needs and the nature of the task at hand. Contrary to your article's assertion, studies have shown that teachers working within the Kunskapsskolan model spend around 50% more time tutoring, instructing, lecturing and coaching students than those in other schools.
Official evaluations show Kunskapsskolan schools outperform state-owned peers and our students exceed the expected norms. Kunskapsskolan remains committed to our unique pedagogical model which has assured the success of countless children in Sweden. We look forward to adding to that success in the years to come, in Sweden as well as in our academies in the UK.
Per Ledin
CEO, Kunskapsskolan, Stockholm |
With thanks to United Autosports, here’s a Q&A with Fernando Alonso following yesterday’s news that he will be racing with United in the 2018 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona in the prototype class with Lando Norris and Phil Hanson.
Have you ever been to Daytona before and what do you know about the track?
“I have never been in Daytona before, this will be the first time, I have been watching some of the videos of the past races. Happy to join this adventure, United Autosports has been recently champions in the European Le Mans Series. I know Zak very well and it will be a nice experience.”
How much of this Daytona adventure is about purely about enjoying Daytona and how much of it might be about getting yourself prepare for a future run at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
“Some is pure Daytona fun. I know that it could be useful for the future, first time in a Prototype car, some nice experience in traffic, in night racing and it will be maybe useful for the future if I enter difference races. But for right now my full concentration, my full motivation is to do well in Daytona. As I did at Indianapolis even if I don’t have experience, when I close the visor I will go for a win and that is what matters now.”
Is it going to be difficult for an open-wheel driver such as yourself to put up with compromises in the handling to suit your co-drivers?
“No, I don’t think so. I think the biggest thing for sure is going to be to adapt to this driving style which I’m sure is going to be different. Different ways of driving and I’m sure different times of day as well with sunset, the night and the day, and especially in traffic. Different tires as well with different characteristics, and that’s probably the biggest challenge. To give the car to my teammates I think is part of the fun as well and part of the teamwork that you have to learn. This going out again of my comfort zone and trying something really new for the first time, and learning something from the very first moment, is great for me as a driver and part of the excitement of the challenge.”
You’ve had some great experiences in the United States this year, can you see yourself running full time in the U.S., if not in 2019, sometime before the end of your career?
“It’s possible, yes. I think right now my priority is Formula One and that’s why I partnered together with McLaren next year together with Renault power unit. I think is going to be a great challenge for us and a nice opportunity to fight for the world championship in Formula 1 and that’s my first and only priority now. Long-term projects are not closed yet, they’re still open and my experience in the Indy 500 showed me how much fun I have in American racing, how much love I get from the fans, and it’s something I may consider in the future.”
You’ll have the chance to co-drive with Lando Norris, what is your relationship with him and how do you look forward to sharing the car with him?
“I have a great relationship from the very beginning of this year where Lando joined McLaren and helped us in the simulator. He already tested the Formula 1 car in Hungary. Yeah, we are in close contact. We have also some chats in the last week about some go-kart racing that we were exchanging some text messages all week long. Yeah, we are in close contact and I think it’s going to be great for both to share the car, to keep spending time together because obviously he’s not only helping us in present time as a teammate and all the testing he’s doing for McLaren it will help us also in the future because he’s a great talent and great drive for McLaren. He’s very important for us. Lando has the talent and has everything to succeed in the future.”
Can you give us some background on how this deal together?
“The decision to remain with McLaren was completely independent. It was the very first thing we did and it was my only priority in that moment. Once we completed the McLaren deal, I approached Zak. I was interested in this race. I have a very good friend of mine, Antonio Garcia, racing for Chevrolet for many years and I think he’s the champion this year of the GT category. I spoke with him as well and I asked how was Daytona and how was that race and you know exploring this possibility.
“I knew Zak had a seat still open and I approached Zak and I said, ‘Zak, what if we do something together for Daytona?’ I know Zak shares my vision also of motorsport, a much wider vision and exploring different opportunities that would be a win-win situation for McLaren as a team, as a name, as a brand, also for myself. I think that came together very quickly and the next two days, we agreed on everything.”
Will you get any seat time in the Ligier in Europe before the Roar test in January?
“I think it’s still ongoing, some of the preparations that we will do. I think I will have a chat this weekend with Zak and some of the United Autosports members. Yeah, the plan is to maybe have a seat fit and some preparations with the team, hopefully before the end of the year, and then maybe a test somewhere in Europe. After that we’ll head to the Roar test at the beginning of January in Daytona. That will be, probably, the real first test and the real first opportunity to run with other cars on track and discover the circuit of Daytona. The Roar should allow me to learn the circuit and about the traffic, pit-stop procedures, driver change. It’ll be the same for Lando [Norris] and Paul [Di Resta]. But we will try to help each other.”
Why compete in the Rolex?
“I love racing, I’m a racer, and I like to race every weekend. I’m happy to combine some iconic races with Formula 1. I want to be the best [race] driver in the world. To race at Indianapolis and Daytona within less than a year of each other is pretty amazing. It’s important for me personally to get these new challenges. To keep improving as a driver you need to challenge yourself and go out of your comfort zone. I’m very excited to be racing at Daytona and in the U.S. Hopefully we can do well but I will enjoy the experience whatever happens. It will be the first time I’ve driven a sports-prototype and it should be a nice experience but very much a learning experience. I will have to learn many things from zero. But I do not go there to participate. I go there, like any race, to win it. I will try to have simulator tests before in many different conditions, night and day, and different weather.” |
Banks are showing their true colors and what little regard they have for the average American. As they advertise with cute and friendly faces assuring consumers they are looking out for their best interest, behind their backs they send in a locust of lobbyist onto Washington to do everything in their power to gut any sensible financial regulation. The vultures are picking off every piece of what used to be the middle class. This is the model of the new banking and financial system that many will have to contend with. Americans have seen their access to loans and credit contract at the fastest pace in history while banks have now opened up an unlimited credit card with the taxpayer paying the bill for too big to fail. Banks are doing their best to create a narrative that “if we didn’t bailout the banks then the world would have ended storyline” but the vast majority of Americans did not support the banking bailout.
If you want to see how quickly credit is contracting take a look at this:
The chart above merely highlights what you already know. Banks no longer trust the average American. While they based all their bailouts on the idea that taxpayer money was needed to keep banks lending this has been a lie. In fact, banks need the money to plug the hole that their toxic assets are burning on their balance sheets. You can also look at the amount of credit card offers you are getting in the mail to gauge how quickly the market has changed. No longer do banks want to give credit out (that is, unless it is government backed like mortgages which they are all the more willing to lend out).
The U.S. has over 8,000 banks with the large concentration of assets in 10 banks. These banks continue to use bailout funds to plug the problems from the boom years. But this is not in the best interest of average Americans. If Wall Street and politicians were honest, the bailouts would have been labeled as a massive charity to the elite of the country who made disastrous bets over the past decade. The public takes the lumps while Wall Street actually gets richer. While banks don’t want to reel in their spendthrift ways, Americans are pulling back:
Americans are now having to save more and more of their money as is expected in a tough economy. Yet banks are back to gambling in the stock market while shutting down lending to consumers. Banks are playing the poor me card by arguing that with too much tight regulation, they can’t make loans because they are worried about future balance sheet problems. Thanks for telling us after you took the public money under false pretenses! But this is all a political ploy to steal from the working class. With so many people just unable to even service the debt and rising bankruptcies, banks are now going after good customers who pay their bills on time each month just because they are running out of “options.” Don’t be fooled. They are reaping billion dollar profits because they are using excuses to squeeze the golden goose dry. How about we allow the typical American to borrow at the subsidized low rate from the Federal Reserve directly? Why in the world do we need banks to operate as loan sharks in between? What we need is to transform the banking industry into a utility model. A model designed to serve the people, not the banks. After all, why should they get the privilege of borrowing at criminally low rates while everyone else has to pay the interest and subsidize their gambling adventure?
Even after all the correction in the market American households still carry an inordinate amount of debt:
A giant portion of income simply goes to pay off debt. A large part of the debt is interest or money the banks can suck out of the neck of middle class Americans. Banks live off this margin. Take for example a $100,000 30 year fixed rate mortgage at 6 percent:
Principal: $100,000 Total Interest: $115,838
In the end, you are paying more than the initial cost and all that interest goes to who? What purpose does it serve? Banks are delusional and want the public to believe in the propaganda that they need to charge a higher rate because of “risk” in the loan. Are they kidding? We already know that they are being supported by the entire Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. They can make the most insane kind of bets and ultimately the taxpayer will eat the bill. And keep in mind many of these banks are borrowing at low levels from the Federal Reserve. Why not allow the public to keep some of that interest? How is this bad? If banks were lending their own money it would be a different story but they are not. They are creating a dishonest narrative and most Americans are not buying it because they operate in reality and not some parallel universe where you can create something out of nothing.
Just think of the billions charged in overdraft fees. This is criminal. Why not just default debit cards to stop once the account is dry? Instead they want people that charge a $2 burger a $39 over draft “convenience fee” for this nonsense. Are you kidding? Most people don’t want this. They find out the hard way and now billions have left the wallet of consumers for this nice little loan shark fee. $39 can buy you lunch for a few days so this is nothing to laugh at when 38,000,000 Americans find themselves on food assistance. The bulk of the billions are paid by the poor. Good job banks for helping your fellow Americans. Yet banks are leeches sucking the productive life blood out of the economy with gimmicks like this. Time to break the banks up and turn them into utilities.
Take for example JP Morgan. They announced a Q4 profit of $3.28 billion. Where did they make their money?
“(Huff Po) JPMorgan’s biggest trouble spots were in consumer banking and credit card lending. The bank’s retail financial services division, which includes its mortgage operations, lost $399 million. That was worse than the final quarter in 2008, when credit markets had essentially shut down because of the collapse of banks including Lehman Brothers. The company reported increases in mortgages that were charged off, or classified as uncollectible, including prime mortgages, the highest quality home loans. It also reported an increase in home equity loan charge-offs.”
Wait. So mortgages are being charged off as foreclosures remain high. And this has spread to so-called prime mortgages as the unemployment and underemployment rate remains at 17.9 percent. So let us write off mortgages to average Americans. Where in the world did they get those billions? Maybe they made good money in their credit card unit:
“The credit-card lending division lost $306 million during the final three months of 2009. Results would’ve been worse had the bank not had a payment holiday in the period.”
More losses here? So we’ve ruled out credit cards and mortgages which have become the life blood for Americans. We’re running out of places to look for where they can make a $3 billion profit:
“Despite the ongoing problems with consumer banking, JPMorgan is still performing well because of its robust investment banking unit. As long as stock and bond markets continue to improve, the bank will be able to churn out profits and reward its employees handsomely. JPMorgan’s investment bank earned $1.9 billion during the fourth quarter, while its asset management division generated $424 million in net income. Fees from financing debt and stock offerings continued to surge in the fourth quarter. Debt financing fees jumped 58 percent to $732 million from the same quarter a year earlier, while stock financing fees climbed 66 percent to $549 million.”
And there you have it. We are financing Wall Street’s wonderful gambling casino once again while the traditional banking model has collapsed. How this isn’t the number one priority for the government and the people to fix is simply astounding. How we have had no serious financial reform after 26 months of the Great Recession boggles the mind.
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Fiorentina weighing up Quag bid
By Football Italia staff
Fabio Quagliarella could be targeted by Fiorentina this summer, having become surplus to requirements at Juventus.
Tutto Mercato Web believe that the 29-year-old will leave the Bianconeri at the end of the season after the club announced the arrival of Fernando Llorente this afternoon.
The Spain international will sign on a free transfer from Athletic Bilbao, with Olympique Lyonnais forward Lisandro Lopez also being heavily linked with a move to Antonio Conte's side.
The arrival of both players will see Quagliarella on the fringes of the first team, something the Italy international will look to change by asking to leave the club.
The website claim that the Viola are favourites to sign the former Napoli man, with a bid of around €10m likely to be enough for his signature. |
Stuff like this never happens in Silicon Valley, so it's big news here.SAN JOSE -- Two San Jose police officers shot and killed a man in the Blossom Valley neighborhood on Saturday afternoon, ending a wild 20-minute chase on Highway 85 and through residential streets.The suspect, who is about 25 years old but was not identified as of late Saturday night, died after he fled his disabled car on the 5800 block of Blossom Avenue, near Mohican Drive, in South San Jose.Two officers "felt the suspect presented an imminent danger," said Sgt. Jason Dwyer, a spokesman for the San Jose Police Department. Believing the suspect was armed, "both officers fired, he went down and was pronounced dead at the scene."It was the first officer-involved shooting of the year in San Jose. There were four last year and eight in 2011, Dwyer said.The episode started at 2:30 p.m. in the area of Camden and Union avenues, where a police officer spotted a driver who was acting suspiciously, Dwyer said.Details about his behavior were not available, but the neighborhood has recently suffered a spate of daytime residential burglaries.The officer did not initially chase him, believing it unsafe in a residential neighborhood. But the officer eventually spotted and followed the suspect's tan Ford Contour. |
Copyright by WTRF - All rights reserved
On June 2, a end-of-year party at Wheeling Park's swimming pool turned tragic when a student was found lifeless under water. Luckily, the lifeguard on duty, the school resource officer and a bus driver sprung into action and saved that child's life.
The three heroes were honored on Monday by the Wheeling Police Department. Sergeant John Schultz, Ed Nowatkoski and Jessica Waterhouse were presented with a lifesaving award by Chief Shawn Schwertfeger at a reception.
Chief Schwertfeger said it was the training and teamwork of the individuals that saved the boy's life.
"Seeing that child in distress and we just quickly went and got him. Great co-worker were able to jump in and help assist to save that little boys life makes it all worth it," Sergeant John Schultz with the Wheeling Police Department said.
Thanks to the quick action, the boy was able to make a complete recovery. |
A father dangled his baby out of the window of a 15th-floor apartment so that he could get 1,000 likes on Facebook.
The Algerian dad had posted a video of the child being held by just his shirt 150 feet above the street below with the caption, '1,000 likes or I will drop him'.
When people picked up on the shocking clip, he was reported to the authorities in the capital Algiers and yesterday he was sentenced to two years in prison.
The father uploaded this video showing him holding his son out of a 15th-floor apartment with the caption, '1,000 likes or I will drop him'
Facebook users demanded the father, believed to be from the city of Bab Ezzouar, was tried on child abuse charges, according to Al Arabiya.
Prosecutors agreed and took him to court where it transpired he had carried out the horrendous stunt simply to gain a high number of views and likes on the social media site.
Media activist Dalila Belkheir said the man was 'not a father but a terrorist' while rights activist Ali Ben Jeddou said told Albawaba: 'This man should be brought to justice and punished in the most severe way'.
Reacting to the post online, one user said: 'What is most striking is that it appears that the father is carrying his son with his left hand while using his right hand to take the picture, this means the picture is more important than the child's life.'
Psychologist Dr Noura Rahmani told The New Arab the actions could not and should not be tolerated in Algeria, adding that the father may not have been aware he was committing a crime. |
Reigning champions Mercedes have proposed a new solution to the ever-present problem of cockpit safety in formula one.
Canopies and roll-cages have been discussed at length behind closed doors since the fatal accident of F2 racer Henry Surtees, and the serious injuries sustained by Felipe Massa when he was a Ferrari driver in 2009.
The issue then returned to the top of the agenda late last year, when the now stricken Jules Bianchi’s helmeted head hit the underside of a trackside vehicle during the Japanese grand prix.
According to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, Mercedes presented a proposed solution to the problem of F1’s open cockpits to the latest meeting of the Technical Working Group.
It is a sort of oval-shaped ‘halo’, encircling the driver’s head and attached to the front of the monocoque just ahead of the steering wheel and dash.
“Less respectful voices are calling it a toilet seat,” said correspondent Michael Schmidt. (GMM) |
Host Tucker Carlson will take the 8 p.m. time slot on Fox News in the wake of 21st Century Fox’s announcement that Bill O’Reilly will not return to the network amid sexual harassment allegations.
The new schedule begins on April 24, according to 21st Century Fox, with talk show The Five moving from 5 p.m. to Carlson’s old slot at 9 p.m.
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Carlson began hosting Tucker Carlson Tonight in November following the departure of Megyn Kelly and enjoyed a strong debut with 3.7 million viewers, network executives said, according to Deadline.
O’Reilly has been embroiled in controversy since the New York Times earlier this month reported that he and 21st Century Fox paid roughly $13 million to prevent at least five women from accusing him of sexual harassment or pursuing litigation.
Contact us at [email protected]. |
Image copyright Aden Bishar Image caption The captured cheetahs are now in the hands of the Kenya Wildlife Service
Four villagers in north-east Kenya have chased down and captured two cheetahs which were killing their goats.
The owner of the goats told the BBC that the cheetahs had been picking off his animals one by one, day by day.
The men waited until the hottest part of the day before launching the chase over a distance of four miles (6.4km).
The cheetahs got so tired they could not run any more. The villagers captured them alive and handed them over to the Kenya Wildlife Service.
"I need compensation from them because the cheetahs killed most of my goats," Nur Osman Hassan told the BBC's Somali Service.
Correspondents say livestock is the backbone of the economy for the Kenyan-Somali community living in the arid north-east of Kenya.
Cheetahs are the fastest-running animals on the planet and can reach speeds of at least 104km/h (64mph).
'Daily kills'
Mr Hassan, from a village near Wajir town, said the cheetahs were attacking his goat herd over several weeks.
"These cheetahs killed 15 of my goats - they were coming to my house daily to kill my goats," he said.
He said he decided to return to his village to organise their capture at a time of day when cheetahs get very tired and usually rest in shade.
"I was sipping a cup of tea when I saw them killing another goat," he said, explaining that this was early in the morning.
He said he waited until several hours later when the sun was high to go after them.
"I called some youths and we ran after them," he said.
"We caught them and we brought them to the local authorities."
Image copyright Aden Bishar Image caption The cheetahs were chased at a time they usually like to rest
Image copyright Aden Bishar Image caption Nur Osman Hassan wants compensation for his 15 dead goats |
Last summer, Arkansas doom metal band Pallbearer released Foundations of Burden. Now, the band have shared a visual for the ten-minute-long track "Watcher in the Dark", directed by Adam Heathcott of Hometapes. It's a spacey, psychedelic clip that combines performance scenes with stunning galactic imagery. Watch it below via Pitchfork.tv, and check out the band's upcoming tour itinerary.
Pallbearer:
04-08 Toronto, Ontario - The Phoenix *
04-09 Montreal, Quebec - Corona Theatre *
04-10 Boston, MA - Royale *
04-11 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer *
04-12 New York, NY - Webster Hall *
04-25 Munster, IN - Three Floyd’s Dark Lord Day
05-16 Santa Ana, CA - Psycho CA
05-20 Berlin, Germany - Kantine am Berghain
05-21 Prague, Czech Republic - Klub 007
05-22 Koln, Germany - MTC
05-23 Utrecht, Netherlands - Le Guess Who
05-24 Brussels, Belgium - AB Club
05-25 Paris, France - Social Club
05-26 Schorndorf, Germany - Club Manufaktur
05-27 Zurich, Switzerland Rote Fabrik
05-29 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Sound Festival
05-31 Bristol, England Temples Festival
06-01 Glasgow, Scotland - Broadcast
06-02 Birmingham, England - The Oobleck
06-03 London, England - 100 Club
06-05 Porto, Portugal - Optimus Primavera Sound
06-06 Houston, TX - Free Press Summer Fest
06-12 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo
06-14 Edmonton, Alberta - Farmageddon
06-24 Osaka, Japan - Conpass
06-25 Nagoya, Japan - Huck Finn
06-26 Tokyo, Japan - Earthdom
06-30 Oslo, Norway - BLÅ
07-01 Gothenburg, Sweden - Truckstop Alaska
07-02 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-03 Nijmegen, Netherlands - Doornroosje
07-04 Wiesbaden, Germany - Schlachthof Wiesbaden
07-06 Milano, Italy - Lo Fi Club
07-07 Bologna, Italy - Freakout Club
07-08 Roma, Italy - Traffic Live
07-09 Padua, Italy - Radar Festival
07-10 Vienna, Austria - Mind Over Matter Festival
07-11 Erfurt, Germany - Stoned from the Underground Festival |
UPDATE: Cuomo: Travel Ban, LIRR Shutdown Expected Monday Night
With a potentially historic blizzard about to slam Long Island, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is warning that major travel arteries–including the Long Island Rail Road and the Long Island Expressway–may shut down before the Monday evening commute.
SEE ALSO: BLIZZARD WARNING: Crippling, Potentially Historic Storm Set to Strike Long Island
"The incoming winter storm is forecasted to hit the Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island beginning first thing tomorrow, with the heaviest snow starting in the afternoon and reaching a rate of 1-4 inches an hour. As a result, commuters should consider working from home on Monday if possible to avoid disruptions from likely road and public transportation closures," Cuomo said. "New York State is taking all necessary precautions to prepare for this storm, and I urge residents to put safety first and plan ahead to protect themselves and others throughout the duration of this snowstorm."
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Cuomo said if it's not possible to work from home, commuters should plan to leave work early Monday.
Snow accumulations of 24-36 inches are currently expected across Long Island by the end of Tuesday night.
Heavy snow will be accompanied by winds of 30-40 mph, with gusts up to 65 mph, leading to "extremely dangerous travel" with whiteout conditions likely, according to a blizzard warning issued by the National Weather Service. Visibility on the roadways will be a quarter mile or less throughout the storm. |
Wasps
Facts, Identification & Control
Latin Name
Order Hymenoptera
Appearance
Varies tremendously depending on species.
Wings : Most have two pair of wings and a pinched waist.
: Most have two pair of wings and a pinched waist. Color : They range in colors from black to metallic greens and blues
: They range in colors from black to metallic greens and blues Size: vary in size from almost microscopic to several centimeters long.
How Did I Get Wasps?
Eaves, soffits, and gutters on home exteriors are popular wasp nesting spots. Flowers and plant life attract them to yards, as do patios and other outdoor eating areas with crumbs or sticky soda spills that are not cleaned up. Garbage cans that are not properly covered and regularly emptied also attract wasps that are seeking sources food. Properties with abundant insects and spiders provide ample prey for both developing and mature wasps. Contrary to popular, but inaccurate beliefs, nests left behind by wasp populations that die during the cold weather months are generally not reused by subsequent generations of wasps.
How Serious Are Wasps?
Wasps near the home can ruin outdoor activities and make yardwork difficult. While they rarely go out of their way to sting, wasps may become hostile if threatened or disturbed. Their stings are painful but typically nonthreatening to those without allergies to the wasp’s venom.
How Do I Get Rid of Wasps?
Orkin uses an integrated approach that employs a variety of effective and efficient methods to control wasps. Our integrated program includes using:
Inspection – determining what is needed to provide an effective wasp control plan.
– determining what is needed to provide an effective wasp control plan. Documentation – explaining the specifics of the overall control plan and the findings and results of, not only the initial inspection, but scheduled follow-up services as well.
– explaining the specifics of the overall control plan and the findings and results of, not only the initial inspection, but scheduled follow-up services as well. Education – explaining the behavior, diet and habitat of wasps and how this information will be helpful to the homeowner.
– explaining the behavior, diet and habitat of wasps and how this information will be helpful to the homeowner. Cultural controls – modifying the area around the home or business to reduce the number of sites that are suitable for wasps to nest.
– modifying the area around the home or business to reduce the number of sites that are suitable for wasps to nest. Exclusion – making it hard for wasps to get inside the structure.
– making it hard for wasps to get inside the structure. Sanitation – keeping the area clean and efficiently reducing access to the wasp’s sources of food.
– keeping the area clean and efficiently reducing access to the wasp’s sources of food. Selection of the best wasp control methods – traps, light modification, mechanical and insecticidal controls, physical removal
Emergency services, if needed
For more information or to schedule an inspection, please contact your local Orkin branch office.
Your Orkin technician…
knows where wasps are most likely to build nests on your property and can provide recommendations to control the wasp population.
knows which wasp species are very aggressive and which species are more docile and less threatening. Based upon this information, your PMP can help you decide what should be done to alleviate the wasp problem.
will answer questions and provide advice and recommendations regarding the use of traps or other wasp control methods.
will make suggestions for how to manage waste products that are attractive to wasps
will have the proper equipment and products to control wasps in a safe and effective manner without endangering people or pets.
Signs of a Wasp Infestation
Signs are dependent on species, but most often the workers and the nest are the most likely signs. Read more on infestations.
Behavior, Diet & Habits
Wasp species are categorized as social or solitary. As their name implies, social wasps live in colonies, which may number in the thousands. Within these colonies, female workers perform all duties within the nest. Solitary wasps live alone and therefore do not have a colony. They do lay eggs, but their eggs are left alone to hatch.
Some wasps are predatory, while others are parasitic. Predatory wasps kill and consume other insects as well as other animals which they often feed to their larvae.
Parasitic wasps typically lay their eggs in the bodies of living creatures like caterpillars or spiders. The larvae feed on the still-living host. Wasps can assist in the management of other pests, particularly in agriculture as biological control agents. Many wasps also feed on nectar from flowers and therefore function as pollinators.
Some wasps are aggressive species and can sting when threatened. Unlike honey bees, wasps often are capable of stinging multiple times.
There are many species of wasps that are important pollinators. However, taken as a group, wasps do pollinate, but are not as effective at pollinating as the bees. This is primarily because bees have hairier bodies than wasps, so pollen is more likely to stick to a bee’s body and be transported from one flower to another.
Reproduction
Late in the summer, the queen of some species will produce unfertilized eggs. These will develop into males. The males will fertilize the wasps that will become the queens of the following year. These fertilized females will overwinter in a sheltered location. In most cases, the rest of the colony will perish when winter comes. Next spring, the queen will start laying eggs. The fertilized eggs that they produce will become workers, building the nest and feeding the larvae produced by the queen.
More Information
Wasps often are beneficial to mankind. Several species are used by humans as parasites to control pests, such as in agriculture. Others are predators that help maintain insect populations. Others function as pollinators and help with plant fertilization.
Wasps Species
More Information |
A pregnant Adelaide woman only bought a plane ticket for one because she wasn't expecting to give birth in the sky above Australia.
The 29-year-old woman was returning to her husband in Adelaide after visiting family in India when she went into labour on the plane.
About 5.30am yesterday, on the final leg of her trip from Hong Kong, the woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
It is believed to be her firstborn.
"The baby is healthy, he is breathing on his own. Mum is jetlagged but stable," said a spokeswoman for Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH).
The woman, who was 34 weeks pregnant, is understood to have gone to the toilet after experiencing pain in her stomach.
An Adelaide doctor who, along with three other medical practitioners, helped deliver the baby on the international Cathay Pacific flight said it was a smooth, "fun" birth.
"I got the operative end, one got the comforting end, the 'breathe, breathe, breathe' end, and the other got the looking-after-the-baby end," Happy Valley GP Judith Hamel told the ABC.
"There were four of us – one surgeon, one orthopaedic surgeon, one kidney specialist and a humble GP who was the only one who'd done very much in the way of deliveries, so I got that end. . .
"I think we all had fun once we knew it was all safe."
It is not known where the birth took place but luck was certainly on mum's side.
"She was fortunate enough to have doctors on board the flight," said a spokeswoman for Darwin Airport.
She said the plane made an unscheduled stop at Darwin, where it landed about 6.30am.
Mum and bub were immediately rushed to RDH, where they have spent the day resting.
The RDH spokeswoman said that although the baby was six weeks early he weighed 2.7kg and was breathing unaided in the hospital's special care nursery.
"Dad is over the moon and he has rung grandparents back in India to tell them the news," said the spokeswoman.
"We are hoping to reunite mother and baby this afternoon."
Dad is expected to arrive on a flight from Adelaide this evening and his son, despite an unusual entrance into the world, will have Indian nationality.
Airlines have different policies on pregnant women travelling, with some banning them from flying for 30 days before the due date.
Others allow women to travel up to a week before.
Jagdar Jagdar (Jagdar Jagdar) later said he had spoken to his wife, Parmajit Kaur, from Adelaide.
"I was wishing to see my wife at the time but all that happened, you know, very well," he told ABC Radio in Darwin.
He said there were "tears in my eyes" when he was told about the birth of his son, although he had been "feeling very, very worried" about his wife.
Mr Jagdar said he was happy and relieved that his family was doing well, although he was anxious to get to Darwin to meet the new addition. |
Media playback is not supported on this device Great chance for Spurs to win trophies - Harry Redknapp
FA Cup semi-final
Venue: Wembley Date: Sunday 15 April Kick-off: 1800 BST Coverage: Live text commentary on BBC Sport website, live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live
Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp is determined to end his club's 21-year wait for FA Cup glory this season.
Spurs, who won the last of their eight FA Cups in 1991, face Chelsea in the semi-final on Sunday and Redknapp said: "It's about time we won another trophy.
"This is a great opportunity for us to go all the way this year. On our day we can beat Chelsea. We can beat anyone.
"There is not a lot between the two teams, but they have the medals to show for it."
They [Tottenham] are a hard team to beat. Harry Redknapp is a fantastic manager and he has turned them into a real force this season so it will be a tough game. Gary Cahill Chelsea defender
Spurs are fourth in the Premier League, two points ahead of Chelsea, but have won only one of their last eight games.
"We were in a fantastic position but have ended up losing points," said Redknapp.
"Arsenal have been on a great run and picked up win after win and that's what has changed - but I'd have taken this position at the start of the year for sure.
"People forget where Tottenham should be at times.
"They have won two Carling Cups since 1991 and the average finishing position until four or five years ago was probably about 10th."
Redknapp guided the team to Champions League football in the 2010-11 season and is confident of doing so again, but insists new recruits are needed.
"If we want Champions League football again we need to improve the squad again in the summer," the 65-year-old said. "You have to keep improving because everyone else around us will.
"If you want to start winning championships then you really have to push on and raise the bar because that's the only way you are going to do it.
"You just need to keep adding a little bit of quality to your squad. We need to bring one or two top quality players in and make us even better."
Despite their indifferent recent form, Spurs winger Gareth Bale is confident his team have sufficient quality to overcome Roberto Di Matteo's side at Wembley.
FA Cup semi-finals Liverpool v Everton 14 April Tottenham v Chelsea 15 April Both games at Wembley
"Chelsea are a great side and have done really well in the Champions League. It won't be easy but if we are on our game on the day, then we can reach the final because I feel we have the better team," the 22-year-old said.
"We let ourselves down against Portsmouth two years ago [in the semi-final], we didn't play well and that was a tough defeat to take.
"We've got another chance to reach the FA Cup final and we're determined not to let it slip by this time."
Chelsea have won the FA Cup five times since Spurs last lifted the trophy, their most recent success coming in 2010.
Their defence of the trophy last season was ended in the fourth round with a defeat on penalties by Everton, but defender Gary Cahill, who joined the Blues from Bolton in January, was part of the Wanderers side that was beaten 5-0 by Stoke City in the last four.
"That game is not a fond memory," said the 26-year-old. "It's something that hurt at the time and still hurts me now. It was just a freak result. It was a freak game.
"But now I have a chance to put that right on Sunday." |
Codemasters is "holding back" from F1 VR But racing studio celebrates arrival of high-end hardware like Xbox One X - and it's keeping an eye on Switch
James Batchelor UK Editor Friday 25th August 2017 Share this article Share
Companies in this article Codemasters
Adding virtual reality to Formula One would require "fairly significant" changes, so Codemasters is in no hurry to support the technology with its racing series.
F1 2017 releases for Xbox One, PS4 and PC today, but the publisher has no concrete plans for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or Playstation VR. Given that, like most racing games, F1 lends itself to a seated VR experience it seems like a natural extension for the franchise, but it's not a simple case of porting the game.
"We've certainly given a lot of consideration to VR," creative director Lee Mather tells GamesIndustry.biz. "As you know, Codemasters did VR for Dirt Rally and we're certainly interested in doing it for Formula One.
"It's a little trickier for us because we're pushing the boundaries when it comes to our physics. We have a lot of elements on screen with the OSD, so that's a lot of information the player would have to process in VR. The changes to move the game onto VR would be fairly significant, and we wouldn't want to do it if it meant compromising any area of the game. That's why we're holding back on that at the moment, but it's something we're considering."
Mather is much more excited in the potential higher-end consoles lend to his games. F1 2017 will support PS4 Pro and has also been built with the upcoming Xbox One X in mind too. In fact, Codemasters was able to show an early build of the Xbox One X version at E3 earlier this year.
More importantly, improvements for the premium consoles will benefit the standard versions for earlier models.
"Obviously we've done a lot of work [this year] on the render tech for those two consoles, but that sort of filters down for the whole range," Mather explains. "This year, we've upped the resolution on Xbox One - last year, it wasn't quite 1080p and now it's full 1080p, 60 frames per second. PS4, PS4 Pro and Xbox One S will have HDR support as well.
He continues: "Any work we do to make gains on the new platforms filters down to the older ones as well," he says. "So, as I said, Xbox One gained a higher resolution because the checkerboard rendering is more efficient in that respect.
"Any work we do to make gains on the new platforms filter down to the older ones as well"
"In terms of the assets we create, it's actually not a case that we have to do better assets; instead, now we don't have to knock them down as much, because they're already authored at a very high quality and then you bring them down to suit the platform you're running on. In a lot of ways, it's giving us more opportunities to showcase the quality of the stuff we're already producing at an even higher level."
Xbox One X isn't the only new hardware launch to grab attention in 2017. Nintendo Switch continues to perform well and is currently gearing up for its all-important first Christmas. Codemasters saw moderate success from the Wii versions of its earlier Formula One titles, so could the series make a return to Nintendo platforms?
"Obviously we've been watching how the Switch is performing and it's selling really well," says Mather. "It probably wouldn't be suitable to have exactly the same game we have running on Xbox One and PS4, but there's certainly the possibility we'll look at doing something on Switch. We'll see what happens in future. It's certainly getting the market share to make it a valid place to be."
F1 2017 is the first in a long line of racing games due for release before the end of the year, pitting it against Forza Motorsport 7, Gran Turismo Sport, Project Cars 2 and the return of Need for Speed. Mather is quick to stress that, while Codemasters aims to be "the No.1 racing studio in the world", it makes no illusions about directly competing this year given that Formula One is something of a niche.
"We're a niche within a niche to a degree," he says. "Racing games are a niche in themselves, and we are unique within that and that's our big selling point. We aren't just a racing game; we're a representation of a full sport. So whereas other racing games may appeal to racing game players, we appeal to Formula One fans as well. We're pulling in people who love the sport as much as we're pulling in people who love games and racing. That's where our place is and that's why we've got such a dedicated fanbase every year." |
Do you love your hybrid, fear for the plight of the polar bears, dying to put solar panels on your roof? Then you might be a member of the eco-elite. Not that there's anything wrong with you, says Van Jones , but for a green economy to be truly effective, it needs to be more inclusive.This is the thrust of The Green Collar Economy , Van Jones' new book. The very quotable Jones is up there among the world's brightest , seeking a green economy "that is strong enough to pull millions of people out of poverty."
Listen to the podcast of this interview via iTunes, or just click here to listen, right-click to download.
Also check:
Our recent interview with Van Jones
Worldwatch Institute on green jobs
The EJCC on race and climate change
VanJones.net
And Van on The Colbert Report, after the jump... |
Washington (CNN) Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud will no longer be in attendance at President Barack Obama's meetings with Arab leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council this week.
The late change of plans, could be seen as a snub to Obama, coming just four days before the start of two days of sessions beginning Wednesday and culminating in a Camp David summit on Thursday.
"We first learned of the King's possible change of plans from the Saudis on Friday night," said a senior administration official. "This was confirmed by the Saudis on Saturday. We coordinated closely with our Saudi partners on the alternate arrangement and timing of the announcement, and look forward to welcoming Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman."
The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in a statement acknowledged the King's absence was "due to the timing of the summit, the scheduled humanitarian ceasefire in Yemen and the opening of the King Salman Center for Humanitarian Aid."
"I want to lay to rest this notion of this being a snub or a problem with the relationship," Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Situation Room on Monday.
The king called Obama on Monday, though, White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said in the afternoon.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf backed the Saudi version of the king's absence during a press briefing Monday.
"Nothing could be further from the truth that there was some, some snub to use the cable news talking point," Harf said Monday. "King Salman made this decision given what's going on in Yemen."
Harf added that Salman's surrogates replacing Salman at Camp David are "fully empowered" to head the Saudi delegation and discuss the issues, pointing to the pair's role in intelligence and defense. The crown prince is also the Saudi Interior Minister and his deputy heads the Defense Ministry.
"We believe that the right mix of people will be there," Harf said.
On Monday, the Embassy of Bahrain confirms reports that King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa will not be attending the summit either, and will instead send Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition launching air strikes against the Houthi rebels which have gained control of much of Yemen.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayed will now lead the Saudi delegation in his place, which will also include Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Photos: Unrest in Yemen Photos: Unrest in Yemen The sky over Sanaa, Yemen, is illuminated by anti-aircraft fire during a Saudi-led airstrike on Friday, April 17. The coalition's warplanes have been carrying out strikes against Houthi rebels since President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi fled the country in late March. Hide Caption 1 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A Yemeni boy holds a rifle as Houthi supporters attend a rally in Sanaa, Yemen, on Sunday, April 5, protesting airstrikes carried out by a Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels. Hide Caption 2 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Yemenis dig graves on Saturday, April 4, to bury the victims of a reported airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition in the village of Bani Matar, Yemen. Hide Caption 3 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Yemenis search for survivors in the rubble of houses destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes on April 4 in a village near Sanaa. Hide Caption 4 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Central Sanaa is covered in dust on Friday, April 3. Airstrikes have turned the bustling capital of Yemen into a ghost town. Hide Caption 5 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A Yemeni man loads a TV set into a van as he prepares to flee Sanaa on Thursday, April 2. Hide Caption 6 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Militiamen loyal to Hadi take positions on a street in Aden, Yemen, on Thursday, April 2. Houthi rebels seized the presidential palace in Aden, a neutral security official and two Houthi commanders in Aden told CNN. The Houthis are Shiite Muslims who have long felt marginalized in the majority Sunni country. The Sunni Saudis consider the Houthis proxies for the Shiite government of Iran and fear another Shiite-dominated state in the region. Hide Caption 7 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A framed photo and a purse hang on the wall of a house destroyed by an airstrike near the Sanaa airport on Tuesday, March 31. Hide Caption 8 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Buildings burn at the Jabal al-Hadid military camp in Aden on Saturday, March 28. Yemeni military officials said an explosion rocked the camp that houses a weapons depot, killing and wounding several people. The camp reportedly had been taken by security forces loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Some of the forces aligned with the Houthis are also loyal to Saleh, who resigned in 2012 after months of Arab Spring protests. Hide Caption 9 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Yemeni supporters of the Houthi movement attend a demonstration against Saudi military operations Thursday, March 26, in Sanaa. Hide Caption 10 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen People search for survivors under the rubble of houses destroyed by airstrikes near the Sanaa Airport on March 26. Hide Caption 11 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Members of Yemen's General People's Committee deploy in Aden, Yemen, on Wednesday, March 25. The militiamen are loyal to Hadi. Hide Caption 12 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen On March 25, honor guards in Sanaa carry the coffins of victims who were killed in suicide bombing attacks several days earlier. Deadly explosions in Sanaa rocked two mosques serving the Zaidi sect of Shiite Islam, which is followed by the Houthi rebels that took over the capital city in January. Hide Caption 13 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Yemenis stand in front of burning tires during an anti-Houthi protest in Taiz, Yemen, on Tuesday, March 24. Hide Caption 14 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Medics treat an anti-Houthi protester who was injured during clashes with pro-Houthi police in Taiz on March 24. Hide Caption 15 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Armed men inspect damage after an explosion at the Al Badr mosque in Sanaa on Friday, March 20. Hide Caption 16 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A man in Aden holds a police shield that he looted from a base belonging to forces loyal to Saleh on Thursday, March 19. Hide Caption 17 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Houthi supporters in Sanaa deploy giant national flags Wednesday, March 18, during a demonstration to mark the fourth anniversary of the "Friday of Dignity" attack. In 2011, forces loyal to Saleh opened fire on protesters who had gathered in Sanaa to demand the ouster of Saleh and his regime. Hide Caption 18 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Supporters of Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, the son of the former President, wave banners and shout slogans during a demonstration in Sanaa on Tuesday, March 10. The demonstrators were demanding presidential elections be held and that the younger Saleh run for office. Hide Caption 19 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A child raises his fist during a rally by Houthi supporters in Sanaa on Friday, March 6. Hide Caption 20 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Thousands of armed Yemeni tribal members gather in the southern province of Shabwa on Monday, February 23. Hide Caption 21 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Supporters of the separatist Southern Movement perform prayers during a demonstration in Aden on Friday, February 13. Hide Caption 22 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Houthi fighters guard the gate of the presidential palace where a bomb went off and wounded three people in Sanaa on Saturday, February 7. Hide Caption 23 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Yemeni soldiers guard the presidential palace in Sanaa on Friday, February 6. Hide Caption 24 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Members of the Houthi movement and their allies attend a meeting in the Yemeni capital on Sunday, February 1. Hide Caption 25 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Supporters of the separatist Southern Movement flash the victory sign after they seized police security checkpoints on Saturday, January 24, in Ataq, the capital of the Shabwa province in Yemen. Policemen were told to give up their weapons and return to their bases before the militiamen raised flags of the formerly independent South Yemen at the checkpoints. Hide Caption 26 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Houthi rebels fight with Yemeni protesters during a rally in Sanaa on January 24. Thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of Sanaa in the largest demonstration against Houthis since the Shiite militiamen overran the capital in September. Hide Caption 27 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen On Friday, January 23, Houthis carry coffins of those killed during recent clashes with presidential guard forces in Sanaa. Hide Caption 28 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A Houthi militiaman sits near a tank near the presidential palace in Sanaa on Thursday, January 22. Hide Caption 29 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Houthi men wearing army uniforms stand guard on a street leading to the presidential palace in Sanaa on Wednesday, January 21. Hide Caption 30 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A wounded man rests at a hospital in Sanaa on January 21. He was reportedly injured in fierce clashes the previous day. Hide Caption 31 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A tank is stationed in front of the Sanaa house of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi on January 21. Hide Caption 32 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A Houthi rebel mans a checkpoint near the presidential palace on January 21. Hide Caption 33 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A man walks inside a heavily damaged house near the presidential palace on Tuesday, January 20. Hide Caption 34 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A woman walks past closed shops in Sanaa on January 20. Hide Caption 35 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen An armed member of the Houthi movement stands guard in the streets of Sanaa on January 20. Hide Caption 36 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen A man surveys his damaged home in Sanaa on January 20. Hide Caption 37 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Houthis inspect a damaged mosque in Sanaa on January 20. Hide Caption 38 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Houthi men raise their weapons during clashes near the presidential palace on Monday, January 19. Hide Caption 39 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Smoke and flames rise in Sanaa during heavy clashes between presidential guards and Houthi rebels on January 19. Hide Caption 40 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Tribal soldiers protecting the city from Houthi rebels stand guard at the city borders in Marib, Yemen, on January 19. Hide Caption 41 of 42 Photos: Unrest in Yemen Houthi men guard a Sanaa street on January 19. Hide Caption 42 of 42
The shuffle comes after the White House announced on Friday that the King would not only be in attendance but would also have a one-on-one meeting with Obama.
On Friday, White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz told reporters King Salman was to meet with the President on Wednesday at the White House, ahead of an expanded dinner with the other leaders of the Gulf states.
The White House is downplaying the significance of the change.
A senior administration official told CNN the White House was aware of the King's change of plans in advance and doesn't think it's because of any substantive disagreement.
"We look forward to the attendance of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, with whom the President has met on several occasions, including in the Oval Office in December 2014 and January 2013, as well as Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the President met when he traveled to Riyadh in January," the senior administration official said.
In April, Obama revealed his intention to invite the Gulf Cooperation Council states to a summit the day the framework nuclear deal with Iran was announced as the administration tries to ease the concerns of those countries over the agreement with Tehran.
Photos: The thin line against terrorism: How Saudis struggle amid Yemen chaos Photos: The thin line against terrorism: How Saudis struggle amid Yemen chaos The mountains on the Saudi-Yemeni border are beautiful -- but difficult to patrol. Hide Caption 1 of 6 Photos: The thin line against terrorism: How Saudis struggle amid Yemen chaos Watch towers are equipped with thermal imaging equipment, while cameras watch out over mile upon mile of razor wire. Hide Caption 2 of 6 Photos: The thin line against terrorism: How Saudis struggle amid Yemen chaos The men crowded inside the mesh cage welded to a pickup truck told us they had come to Saudi Arabia for work. One of them was just 11 years old. Hide Caption 3 of 6 Photos: The thin line against terrorism: How Saudis struggle amid Yemen chaos This man was detained trying to cross the mountainous border from Yemen into Saudi Arabia. Hide Caption 4 of 6 Photos: The thin line against terrorism: How Saudis struggle amid Yemen chaos These two youths were detained with the narcotic shrub qat that most Yemenis chew every day, Hide Caption 5 of 6 Photos: The thin line against terrorism: How Saudis struggle amid Yemen chaos Several tons of qat lie piled up outside a guard post -- the haul of the past week, or so we were told. Hide Caption 6 of 6
"When it comes to external aggression, I think we're going to be there for our (Arab) friends -- and I want to see how we can formalize that a little bit more than we currently have, and also help build their capacity so that they feel more confident about their ability to protect themselves from external aggression," the President told The New York Times in an interview last month.
Building up that common defense infrastructure and architecture for the Gulf region will be a key part of this week's summit, an administration official told CNN.
The summit is set to work towards a proposal for a common ballistic missile defense system that could act as a deterrent to a potentially nuclear armed Iran, a U.S. official confirmed to CNN.
The official said the goal would be for the Gulf states to operate the missile defense system themselves, with the U.S. providing advisory and technical support.
A ballistic missile defense system for the Gulf Cooperation Council is something the Obama administration has recommended for some time, the official noted, and also cautioned that missile defense is only one component of a range of security measures that will be discussed.
Just last Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry met with King Salman in the Saudi capital Riyadh to prepare for the GCC Summit and to discuss a ceasefire in Yemen. The next day in Paris the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister, Adel Al Jubeir, announced a five-day ceasefire beginning Tuesday in Yemen so humanitarian aid could be distributed.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated the ministries headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. |
Houthi rebel forces in Yemen have closed down dozens of non-governmental organisations and detained activists affiliated with a rival political party, according to a US-based rights group.
Many of the organisations were closed for their perceived connections to Islah, a rival political party, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a press release on Sunday.
HRW also said the Houthis had detained more than 100 Islah party members and activists.
At least 33 NGOs in the capital Sanaa have been closed since September 2014, according to statistics provided to the rights group by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Since March, a Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Iranian-allied Houthis.
Millions in need of assistance in Yemen humanitarian crisis
"The Houthis' closure of organisations comes in the midst of a campaign of arrests and enforced disappearances of activists, political opposition figures and journalists," Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director, said in the statement.
Analysis: The battle for Taiz
"This is one more repressive Houthi tactic to close down democratic space in the areas they control."
Hussain al-Bukhaiti, a pro-Houthi activist in Sanaa, told Al Jazeera that the organisations closed belonged to Islah but that they were being used as weapons depots for groups fighting alongside the coalition.
"We're in a war. In war in any place in the world, anyone who participates in the coalition's aggression is considered a traitor," he said.
Bukhaiti denied that people were arrested for opposing the Houthis and said people were detained for "action on the ground, including financial support to any side affiliated with the coalition".
HRW called on the Houthis to "immediately allow non-governmental groups to operate freely, compensate groups whose offices were looted, and release activists being detained for peaceful conduct".
The UN has documented that, as of November 18, an estimated 5,700 people, including 830 women and children, have been killed in the conflict.
On Saturday, the Houthis announced a week-long ceasefire date ahead of planned peace talks in Switzerland with the Yemeni government. |
A complete idiot’s guide to Clean Architecture
Ye Myat Thu Blocked Unblock Follow Following Feb 8, 2017
After hearing a lot about clean architecture and design patterns in android , I finally decided to adapt to it and set up something more systematic, partly, because a job interview I had involved discussion about architectural decisions and testing which I have not had thought about much.
It is somewhat difficult to absorb all those buzzwords and almost all example and tutorials I found are not simple enough to my taste, so I decided to explain about what little I’ve absorbed.
I am currently writing a Restaurant Booker app, which involves showing list of townships, getting the restaurants from selected townships and booking a table for it. So, I decided to take a feature of that app (getting a list of townships and showing it in an recycler view — Yep, a dead simple one) and follow this excellent Post completely.
My original app structure
What I’ve decided is to make the app to have three layer — Data,Domain, and Presentation.
Data layer will include POJOs and means to get Data from cloud or local storage.
Domain layer will include all business logic and interact between Data and Presentation layer by means of interface and interactors. The objective is to make the domain layer independent of anything, so the business logic can be tested without any dependency to external components.
Presentation layer will include normal Activities and Fragments, which will only handle rendering views and will follow MVP pattern.
initial package structure
I decided to use RxJava for asynchronous tasks , Retrofit for Rest Client and Realm for database.
DATA LAYER
In the data layer, I made a new entity “TownshipEntity” and set up Retrofit. Data layer used Repository pattern for giving the “Domain layer” its data. So I created a “TownshipDataStore” interface with a single method named “townships” which will return Observable of township list.
Then I made two classes which implement “TownshipLocalDataStore” and “TownshipCloudDataStore” which override “townships” method and return Observable list of townships from respective places (Local DB and Cloud).
And a single TownshipDataStoreFactory which decide what kind of DataStore to create.
TownshipCache is just an interface to handle caching.
In this case, the cache will expire if the different between last updated time and current time is more than 10 minutes.
After that, I go to Domain layer to make an interface which will get the township list from Data Layer.
This has only one method to get Township list since our sample app only has one function — showing a list of townships.
And inside the Data layer, a “TownshipDataRepository” which implement “TownshipRepository”.
Since I tried to make the app decoupled as much as possible, all three layer will have their own Township Object, and I use Mapper to convert between them.
So, that’s all for Data Layer, which will handle retrieving Data from cloud, store them, and give them to Domain layer.
DOMAIN LAYER
Normally, Domain layer will contain more complicated business logic, but for our simple app, its only function is to give the list of townships it got from Data layer to Presentation Layer.
GetTownshipList is the interactor/Use Case inside Domain Layer, from where the Presentation Layer will get its Data to render view.
PRESENTATION LAYER
Presentation Layer is structured into MVP pattern with model, view, and presenters.
I made another TownshipModel for presentation layer, and made a TownshipListPresenter which will communicate with Domain Layer.
TownshipListPresenter is also responsible for handling view logic such as when to hide loading, when to populate adapter with data, etc.
To communicate with TownshipListActivity, it uses TownshipListView interface, which has methods such as, “showLoading”, “hideLoading”, “showError”, and “renderTownshipList”.
Then the TownshipListPresenter take TownshipListView and decide when to hide/show loading view or data.
And finally, the TownshipListActivity implements TownshipListVIew and initialize TownshipListPresenter.
If we run the app, we would see the list of townships I saved in simple json storage site myjson.
So, it seems like a lot of code for one screen, but the advantage of this approach is it’s very easy to test, since all three layers can be tested independently and both Domain and Data layer are totally reusable, so, if you want to make a Desktop app, you can just write the Presentation Layer code.
I’ll try to make use of Dagger 2 for dependency Injection and add other feature from my old app in the next episode. Please feel free to point out my mistakes in the reply. It will be really appreciated.
PS: the code is hosted on Github. |
Product Name: Sigmo
Price: $50
Who would like this? Travelers, Star Trek fans, ex-pats and people trying to learn a new language
Ever since Star Trek explained away how all alien races could speak English through a piece of future tech called the Universal Translator, technology companies have worked to create just such a device. One may have succeeded in developing a 1.0 version with the Sigmo.
The Sigmo is a small, pillbox-sized device equipped with a microphone and speaker, but with a cloud-connected twist. Select the language you'd like to translate into, then hold the Sigmo up and speak to it. The Sigmo records your voice, then sends the recording to the cloud for translation via Bluetooth connection with your smartphone.
Image: Sigmo Indiegogo
Services such as Google Translate help decipher what you said, then send the translation back to the device. Seconds after you first speak, Sigmo plays back the translation, audible to anyone close by — including (presumably) the well-meaning local from whom you were trying to get directions to the museum.
Sigmo's translation skills are only as good as its connection to the Internet, but the device can also work as a simple Bluetooth speaker or as a Google voice search on an Android device.
Anyone who's ever found themselves in a restaurant in a foreign land, where a simple request for a table, menu or glass of water turned into a comedy-fest of misunderstood terms, will appreciate the Sigmo. Some might argue that these types of experiences are part of the fun of travel — but the novelty wears off after the fifth time (or after being charged double or triple).
The device also facilitates easier travel and cultural experience by enabling communication with locals in the area or country you're visiting — interactions that, without the device, would likely include frustrating bouts of flipping through translation books, or frantic scribbling of diagrams and emphatic hand gesturing. Conversations as simple as asking for directions, or as meaningful as trading anecdotes about different lifestyles become seamless and infinitely more detailed with the help of this little gadget.
Sigmo's Indiegogo campaign has been wildly successful, and it plans to ship the final devices in January 2014. It's definitely a gift worth waiting for.
Image: Sigmo |
It’s no Willie Mays over-the-shoulder-at-the-warning-track catch*, but it’s still pretty impressive for a robot.
Researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have unveiled a bionic arm with three joints and four fingers that can catch objects in mid-flight. It automatically detects the trajectory and shape of irregular objects, and can go from motionless to a closed grasp in less than five hundredths of a second.
The researchers trained the system’s software algorithms using a ball, an empty bottle, a half-full bottle, a hammer and a tennis racket. (Learning to return a serve** will presumably come next.)
“Increasingly present in our daily lives and used to perform various tasks, robots will be able to either catch or dodge complex objects in full-motion,” said Aude Billard, head of the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory at EPFL, in a statement.
The team already has a specific application in mind: Affixing the arm to satellites to capture flying space debris.
Check out the system in action in the video below:
* This is probably my first sports reference in a story during my journalism career. Feel free to send balloons.
** And this is my second. |
Shrinkzxo Profile Joined August 2014 Dotoland 268 Posts Last Edited: 2016-10-18 22:20:34 #1 Xiao8 Interview
"I have a good mentality"
Xiao8 is undoubtedly a DotA legend. In a career spanning all the way back to DotA 1, 'The Director' has earned numerous accolades over the years; the most important trophy in his cabinet undoubtedly being the TI4 aegis, which he earned during his tenure on Newbee. However, sometimes Xiao8 can appear less than clean-cut between his broken marriage and the numerous flirtations with female streamers on air. This includes one particular incident which caused him eternal embarrassment as well as earning himself the nickname “Bottom8.*” If all that wasn’t bad enough, he spent most of his career associating himself with the most controversial team in China — the Ruru Clan, more commonly referred to as LGD. This year, Xiao8 decided to ‘retire’ once more, only coming back to participate with an LGD team that, in part due to Sept’s visa denial, disappointed fans and pundits alike. Before revealing his new roster, the Director himself met Nibo from e-Sports Magazine to discuss all he wanted to know. You can find a full translation of the interview after the break!
*Translator’s Note: Xiao8 was caught on-stream, thinking that he was off, telling another (female) streamer ‘Eat my bottom’, hence the name.
Taking a break seems to have become trendy in this transfer window. Aside from Cty, Hao and MMY, European players like FATA and Xboct announced breaks of their own. Xiao8, who has already ‘retired’ and came back twice, has naturally been subject to doubt. However, as far as he is concerned, if one can adjust one’s form by taking a break, it will be much better than playing RPGs and lazing away. As a pro player, the most important thing to know is how to adjust yourself.
‘I have a good mentality; everything becomes understandable (to me) over time.’
On the 30th of August, Xiao8 started his stream as usual. What he did not expect is that chat room would be unusually active — a screen full of ‘Bottom8 changed the world’ made him feel helpless but at the same time, speechless. ‘Has everybody had enough? Get up, take a break, and get a glass of water, people.’ Xiao8 responded to these chats with his own chitchatting: “I’m a man of good mentality, I felt a lot of pressure when many people started to criticise me. Afterwards things became understandable to me slowly,” says Xiao8.
Xiao8 is undoubtedly a DotA legend. In a career spanning all the way back to DotA 1, 'The Director' has earned numerous accolades over the years; the most important trophy in his cabinet undoubtedly being the TI4 aegis, which he earned during his tenure on Newbee. However, sometimes Xiao8 can appear less than clean-cut between his broken marriage and the numerous flirtations with female streamers on air. This includes one particular incident which caused him eternal embarrassment as well as earning himself the nickname “Bottom8.*” If all that wasn’t bad enough, he spent most of his career associating himself with the most controversial team in China — the Ruru Clan, more commonly referred to as LGD. This year, Xiao8 decided to ‘retire’ once more, only coming back to participate with an LGD team that, in part due to Sept’s visa denial, disappointed fans and pundits alike. Before revealing his new roster, the Director himself met Nibo from e-Sports Magazine to discuss all he wanted to know. You can find a full translation of the interview after the break!Taking a break seems to have become trendy in this transfer window. Aside from Cty, Hao and MMY, European players like FATA and Xboct announced breaks of their own. Xiao8, who has already ‘retired’ and came back twice, has naturally been subject to doubt. However, as far as he is concerned, if one can adjust one’s form by taking a break, it will be much better than playing RPGs and lazing away. As a pro player, the most important thing to know is how to adjust yourself.On the 30th of August, Xiao8 started his stream as usual. What he did not expect is that chat room would be unusually active — a screen full of ‘Bottom8 changed the world’ made him feel helpless but at the same time, speechless. ‘Has everybody had enough? Get up, take a break, and get a glass of water, people.’ Xiao8 responded to these chats with his own chitchatting: “I’m a man of good mentality, I felt a lot of pressure when many people started to criticise me. Afterwards things became understandable to me slowly,” says Xiao8. Q: Are you under a lot of pressure recently?
A: There were many people who were quite harsh to me in the beginning, which made me feel some pressure. However, my mentality is good, and things became understandable to me.
Q: A lot of people say you were the one who changed the scene with your “retirements.”
A: I don’t know about that. I had to prepare for the wedding and many other things after TI4. I wasn’t able to balance life and work at the same time, so I decided to take a break from Dota. Newbee actually made an offer for me to stay on the main roster and let a substitute play while I am resting, but I felt it is not good to be too idle, so I declined their offer.
Q: Then what about your break after TI5?
A: It was because of the divorce. I felt completely out of shape during that time, hence the need to take a break.
Q: Now, what do you think about the practice of ‘retiring’ only to come back later?
A: I think if one can adjust one’s physical and psychological shape and then can come back to play with an even more serious attitude, it is much better than playing online games and lazing away.
Q: A lot of players think that this sort of practice is unprofessional.
A: Anyone would be very passive and unserious if they had just finished playing a TI. So, no matter what you do - take a rest or play badly - people are displeased. I feel as pro players, the most important thing is to know how to adjust yourself and play with better shape and form.
‘This half-year at LGD was relatively smooth.’
In the past half year, LGD was consistently inconsitent. They received a direct invitation to TI, yet lost baffling matches that they should have won. Looking back, Xiao8 thinks that such results were totally understandable for a team who had only been together for half a year.
In the past half year, LGD was consistently inconsitent. They received a direct invitation to TI, yet lost baffling matches that they should have won. Looking back, Xiao8 thinks that such results were totally understandable for a team who had only been together for half a year. Q: How do you summarise this half-year?
A: There are a lot of opinions about the club, which means there are also a lot of haters. This creates a lot of pressure. But in hindsight, apart from Sept’s visa, everything else went smoothly. It felt very good to be a pro again.
Q: The team’s performance was extreme. You would go from playing well to losing matches that you should have won. Are you happy with that?
A: The results are very good for a team that had only been together for half a year. But in terms of satisfaction, it certainly did not reach my expectation.
Q: What was your expectation?
A: It was initially getting into TI. We managed to secure an invite by being in several tournaments preceding it, but in the end Septemper’s Visa was denied and Banana was only able to train with us for a week. The idea at the time was to avoid going out in the first round. So this half-year was relatively smooth by that metric.
Q: No matter if it was TI or tournaments before that, LGD always gave us the impression that you are not at your best. What’s the reason?
A: We didn’t play enough games and the chemistry didn’t take off quickly enough. Additionally, the team had a newbie — their performances between online and offline games can differ greatly.
‘Leaving was my choice’
As the decorated captain of LGD, Xiao8 nevertheless chose to leave the team. The reason why he left is not however, as popularly assumed, due to issues with Maybe. He simply wanted a change.
As the decorated captain of LGD, Xiao8 nevertheless chose to leave the team. The reason why he left is not however, as popularly assumed, due to issues with Maybe. He simply wanted a change. Q: You have spent most of your pro career at LGD, why did you choose to form a new team?
A: People say I have issues with Maybe. There aren’t any. That being said, losing games at TI does make people desperate so it is normal to argue. However, leaving LGD is my own choice. I mainly wanted to change and move into a new environment.
Q: Why?
A: The chemistry between the players was developing too slowly.
Q: Was the formation of the team your idea?
A: I negotiated it with Yao.
Q: What is your expectation for this new team?
A: One step at a time. I hope new environment and new team members can have better chemistry.
In and outside of the game, Xiao8 remains a man of controversy in the eyes of the public. Winning TI4 for Newbee as their captain makes him accomplished and famous. Meanwhile, twice retiring and coming back on top of a broken marriage all bring him into the vortex of public opinions. Then, LGD’s loss at TI6, another retirement and yet another comeback, made Xiao8 an enemy of the people. Some say he’s veg* while others say he truly changed the scene. Facing pressure from all sides, Xiao8 did not choose to escape. Buddying up with his good buddy Yao has given him another chance — a chance to rectify his name with achievements in the pro scene.
*Translators note: "Veg" is another word for weak. Literally, it means that he doesn’t have much meat to offer.
Source: http://dota2.sgamer.com/news/201609/165590.html
Translation: Shrinkzxo
Editor: BluemoonSC In and outside of the game, Xiao8 remains a man of controversy in the eyes of the public. Winning TI4 for Newbee as their captain makes him accomplished and famous. Meanwhile, twice retiring and coming back on top of a broken marriage all bring him into the vortex of public opinions. Then, LGD’s loss at TI6, another retirement and yet another comeback, made Xiao8 an enemy of the people. Some say he’s veg* while others say he truly changed the scene. Facing pressure from all sides, Xiao8 did not choose to escape. Buddying up with his good buddy Yao has given him another chance — a chance to rectify his name with achievements in the pro scene. Translator https://twitter.com/shrinkzxo |
Crime Zero
Michael Cordy, Author William Morrow & Company $25 (432p) ISBN 978-0-688-15509-4
More By and About This Author
OTHER BOOKS The Miracle Strain: A Genetic Thriller
In his second novel, Cordy revisits the genetics motif of his notable debut, The Miracle Strain, this time envisioning a chilling near future when a steely female FBI director and her sycophant virologist plot to alter human biogenetics and create a crime-free, female Utopia. In the year 2008, forensic psychologist Luke Decker, director of the behavioral sciences division of the FBI academy at Quantico, is at odds with his boss, FBI director Madeline Naylor, who believes criminals are genetically predetermined, not shaped by social conditioning. Decker is surprised to discover that his former lover, the brilliant geneticist Dr. Kathy Kerr, is now working for a California biotech lab. In collaboration with Naylor and her worshipful accomplice, Dr. Alice Prince, Kerr is conducting super-secret research to alter the genomes of males in hopes of curtailing their inborn violent tendencies. When Kerr is told that her theories have been implemented already, in a covert study in which prisoners were subjected to a lethal early strain of her genetic magic bullet, she realizes she's being used. Although the furtive trial caused many prisoners' deaths, it has also drastically reduced violent crime in L.A. for close to a decade. Asked to endorse the illegal study to swing the upcoming election in favor of the first female presidential candidate, Kerr refuses to join in the coverup and is marked for death. Meanwhile, Decker visits San Quentin, where a condemned serial killer gives him some very bad news. Kerr, now romantically reunited with Decker, confirms this frightening fact with DNA testing, and suspense heightens with the worldwide dissemination of a doomsday virus. Showing more twists than a spiraling double-helix of human DNA, the plot has rough edges and loose ends, but these are minor inconsistencies in Cordy's futuristic and timely gender-bender. Agent, David Chalfont. (July) |
Windows Phone HubTile in depth| Part2: Data Binding
published on: 8/24/2011
Currently rated 5.00 by 3 people
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by WindowsPhoneGeek
This is the second article about the new HubTile control from the latest release of Windows Phone Toolkit - August 2011 (7.1 SDK). This time I am going to talk about data binding and using HubTile in more complex scenarios.
NOTE: In Part1 we talked about key properties, methods, events and the main features of the Windows Phone HubTile control. You can take a look at it for reference.
Here is how the final data binding example should look like:
To begin with lets first create a new Windows Phone 7.1 application project and add a reference to the Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit.dll assembly in your Windows Phone application project.
NOTE: The Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit.dll assembly is installed with the toolkit and you can find it in:
For 32-bit systems:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.1\Toolkit\Aug11\Bin\Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit.dll
For 64-bit systems:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.1\Toolkit\Aug11\Bin\Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit.dll
Alternatively you can select it directly from the "...\Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit Source & Sample - Aug 2011\Bin\" if you have downloaded the "Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit Source & Sample - Aug 2011.zip" instead.
Databinding HubTile Step by Step
This example demonstrates how to populate the HubTile control with data using data binding. We will implement a sample animated menu for a fast food company which shows: Title, Description, Price, etc.
Defining the Data Source
Step1. Define the business/data class:
The first step is to define the data class. Lets create a "TileItem" class which exposes the following properties:
public class TileItem { public string ImageUri { get; set; } public string Title { get; set; } public string Notification { get; set; } public bool DisplayNotification { get { return !string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.Notification); } } public string Message { get; set; } public string GroupTag { get; set; } }
Step2. Create a new Images folder and add some images which will be shown in the HubTiles:
Step3. Create a sample collection with items of type TileItem:
public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); List<TileItem> tileItems = new List<TileItem>() { new TileItem() { ImageUri ="/Images/chicken.jpg", Title = "Chicken", Notification = "$3.49", GroupTag = "TileGroup" }, new TileItem() { ImageUri ="/Images/wings.jpg", Title = "Wings", Notification = "Only $2.49", GroupTag = "TileGroup" }, new TileItem() { ImageUri = "/Images/bonfillet.jpg", Title = "Chicken
Fillet", Message = "A couple of these will not hurt your diet." }, new TileItem() { ImageUri = "/Images/burger.jpg", Title = "Burger", Notification = "$3.99" }, new TileItem() { ImageUri = "/Images/bucket.jpg", Title = "Chicken
Bucket", Notification = "$19.99" }, new TileItem() { ImageUri = "/Images/fries.jpg", Title = "Fries", Notification = "Only $1.99" }, new TileItem() { ImageUri = "/Images/caesar.jpg", Title = "Caesar Salad", Notification = "$4.99" }, new TileItem() { ImageUri = "/Images/corn.jpg", Title = "Corn", Notification = "Only $1.99" }, }; //... }
Databind HubTile
Step1. Define HubTile in XAML
We will add a ListBox which will be used to display a collection of TileItems using a HubTile control for each. The HubTile and its binding to TileItem properties is defined in the the ItemTemplate. We will also change the ItemsPanel of the list box to WrapPanel so that its items will be rendered appropriately. Here is how the code should look like:
<ListBox Grid.Row="0" x:Name="tileList"> <ListBox.ItemsPanel> <ItemsPanelTemplate> <toolkit:WrapPanel Orientation="Horizontal" /> </ItemsPanelTemplate> </ListBox.ItemsPanel> <ListBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <toolkit:HubTile Title="{Binding Title}" Margin="3" Notification="{Binding Notification}" DisplayNotification="{Binding DisplayNotification}" Message="{Binding Message}" GroupTag="{Binding GroupTag}" Source="{Binding ImageUri}"> </toolkit:HubTile> </DataTemplate> </ListBox.ItemTemplate> </ListBox>
Step2. Populate the ListBox with data through its ItemsSource property:
public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); //... this.tileList.ItemsSource = tileItems; }
Step3. Build the project and run it. Here is how the result should look like:
NOTE: The HubTile background color is determined by the PhoneAccentBrush. I.e. if your phone/emulator uses the Red theme, which is the default one in Mango RC, then your tiles will be red.
Here is a demo video with the emulator theme changed to green:
That was all about data binding HubTile from the Windows Phone Toolkit - August 2011 (7.1 SDK) in depth. In the next post I will talk about freezing and unfreezing HubTiles, so stay tuned.
The source code is available here:
I hope that the article was helpful.
You can also follow us on Twitter: @winphonegeek for Windows Phone; @winrtgeek for Windows 8 / WinRT
Comments
Cool thats what i can say!!! posted by: Arun vamadevan on 9/30/2011 7:14:02 PM This control is absolutly brillint and this artile also looks good. thanks for sharing...
Click on HubTile posted by: mokmap on 12/20/2011 2:20:47 PM Hello, I want to know how to open a new page when you click on a hubTile? For example, when I click on the tile Chicken opens a new window it there or get the recipe using chicken? thank you
make tile faster posted by: Zipo on 11/1/2012 9:26:01 PM Hello everyone, HubeTile are working fine for me but they are really slow in the animation part for changing to picture or the title, is there anyway to make this quicker? Thanks :)
hubtile posted by: pankaj on 1/17/2013 8:26:48 AM hi, can i change the font size of the title in the hubtiles
getting selected tile text programmatically posted by: Kaos- on 4/22/2014 12:37:45 PM hello thank you for this tutorial, however i would like to ask how do i get the HubTile title text that i selected on the list box e.g on the example we have a Chicken tile, Chicken Bucket tile etc. all of which are in the tilelist now lets say i select on the Chicken Bucket tile on the tileList, how would i extract that selected tile's title on the code behind so i may direct the user to the bucket sizes page etc.?
pin to start hubtiles posted by: Spy on 5/8/2014 7:09:34 PM Hey. Nice tutorial. I'm working on a project for school and I'm getting data dynamically from an online xml file and my problem is how to be able to pin to start the tiles on the start screen of the phone. Can you help ? Thanks. |
Hiya lovely readers! I have so much to show you and would wanna blurt it out all at once but I have to be patient. In meantime I can reveal that there is still four lingerie reviews to come in the next couple of weeks and a dress review next week. Today I am reviewing a lingerie set that has been in my possession for quite a while. I took part in the Lepel’s #SelfieLove competition with a picture of me and my sister and for my surprise, won one of their sets as a prize. I chose the lovely Iris set first in a size 30G but as it arrived, I noticed the band was way too tight – closing but causing my back to bulge horribly. I changed the size to 32FF and now that I’ve tested it for grand three months, I think it’s time to review it properly.
The Design: Iris is a full-cup style bra which means it covers the breasts fully and the edge of the cup comes quite high up my decollete. I don’t have a lot of experience of full-cups except my old trusty Jasmine bra so it was a nice thing to try though I do love my balconettes. This style is very popular among people who want a more modest look and not too much cleavage. Many women also think it provides the most support since there is a lot more fabric going on than with plunges and balconettes.
Iris has a three piece cup-construction meaning it gives a very nice lifted shape. I love my Iris for this reason exactly – even though it’s an unpadded bra it gives me a lovely natural shape and great uplift. The materials are also pretty thin which makes it a great bra when you wanna feel less bulky – this is the kinda bra you want to wear on a hot summer day to make you feel less clothed. The pale pink shade is also spot on for summer. It works well as a “nude” bra for me since I am very pale, almost white most of the time (except I have a class reunion tomorrow so now I’m definitely getting me tan on). It works really well under t-shirts and doesn’t show through at all. The lace of the bra is very beautiful and classy which makes it look a bit more romantic than your other everyday bras.
The Fit: Most of my friends love unpadded cups for their fit – they accommodate one’s bust shape nicely and don’t show size differences too drastically. I however have always preferred padded cups as a more secure option, but again, an unpadded bra amazes me with it’s lovely fit. It seems that Lepel fits me pretty much like Gossard – a band size up and a cup size down from what I’m used to wearing. This means good news for everyone who needs a GG-cup or a 28 band even though the brand is not offering them. I would gladly recommend to try Lepel out if you fit in their size range. The company has a long history of making bras and they produce fashionable yet well-fitting styles that are reasonably priced as well.
The band is not too stretchy, as said I needed a bigger size of it than with eg Panache and Curvy Kate. It features two hooks and eyes but feels still very supportive. The cups are very stretchy meaning they can easily accommodate size fluctuations. I would definitely recommend this bra especially to women whose breast size changes due to their monthly cycle. The cups are quite big all over so I would also recommend sizing down, at least one cup size. I believe that if I would go up a cup size, this bra would still be nice to me and fit well. The straps are quite long and I have to almost fully adjusted them, so this might be a problem to someone more petite. However, they are fully adjustable so it should not cause too much trouble with women of average height (I’m 5″6).
Comfort: Now, pay attention. First this bra was not the best for its comfort. But don’t make hasty conclusions! After only a couple of wears it softened a great deal and the center gore became a lot more flexible. First the center and the wires felt really stiff and almost a little painful but after wearing the bra and washing it, it now feels really comfortable and is one of my everyday bras for its great shape and comfort. The wires are an average width meaning it’s a great fit but also quite comfy. The wires aren’t poking me anyway and definitely sit on a right spot to encase all my breast tissue. Also the materials feel very soft against my skin and don’t cause any irritation.
I was sent the short-style panties that belong to the set and I quite like them as well. If I could say something that Lepel could improve, would be the rise of the panties – it’s quite high so for me so it’s not the most flattering style. If however you have a bit more booty (I have none) this might be just the right style for you. Say, if you hate Cleo panties, these are right up your street! I got mine in a size 10 which is pretty true-to-size so a bit roomy for me as I would need something between 8 and 10.
All in all Iris has worked lovely for me as a “skin tone” shade bra and I will most definitely get even more wear out of it when the summer finally comes (18 C tomorrow, think about that!). The size range is 30-38 A-G (panties 8-18) and the price for it is about £24 for the bra and the £13 for the panties – an absolute bargain I say! You can it at Figleaves, Brastop and Mio Destino. |
The face of a forgotten 17th century Fife witch has been revealed, thanks to the work of a Scottish artist.
Karen Strang from Stirling has managed to reconstruct the weathered features of Lillias Adie, one of 141 accused women who died in custody in Scotland during the witch hunts.
Using only photographs of the Fifer’s lost skull, the Glasgow School of Art graduate has captured how Adie would have looked, complete with hideously bucked teeth, before she died in a Culross jail cell in 1705.
Karen was commissioned by Fife author Leonard Low, who uncovered the story of the tragic Torryburn woman as he carried out research for his next book, The Lowdown on Witches.
Leonard, 49, who has already published three books — The Weem Witch, St Andrews Untold Stories and Largo’s Untold Stories — said Lillias’ body had been buried in sand off Culross, where it remained for 80 years until it was found by a local weaver.
The weaver’s son, skilled artist Sir Noel Paton, enjoyed displaying “curiosities” and took Lillias’ skull and some other bones for display.
They were then bought at auction in 1874 by St Andrews University doctor William Dow, who studied and photographed the skull for research purposes.
But when he retired, the bones vanished and only the photographs remain.
Leonard managed to get his hands on the pictures and passed them to Karen to see if there was anything she could do.
“You could see from the photos that her teeth stuck out almost horizontally from her face,” said Leonard.
“Karen’s finished work shows a well weathered face, sporting those remarkable teeth.”
He added: “Of course, we have no idea of her hair and Karen has painted that to the period’s fashion.
“With Lillias’ head still missing, this is the nearest we are going to get to a recreation.
“I feel Karen Strang has done a fine job to put a face back on Lillias and give her a bit more dignity.”
The illustration will feature in Leonard’s new book when it is published later this year. |
RDAs come in a variety of sizes and styles. They range in size from a diminutive 14 mm in diameter to 40 mm or more, with the most common diameters being 22 mm and 24 mm. The build deck may allow for one up to 8 coils, though most are single or dual-coil designed. Many RDAs work well for both horizontal or vertical coil builds. Airflow may be suitable for mouth to lung (MTL) or direct lung (DL) vaping styles. They are available in a variety of metal types, from stainless steel to brass or copper, and most offer several color options.
Build decks can also be found in a great variety of configurations. In the past, most RDAs had three posts, two on the sides of the deck and a shared post in the middle. Two-post Velocity style RDAs were the first big evolution of the triple-post, and many of the RDAs that came out in the previous years implemented some variation of this deck. We have seen a plethora of innovations in the build deck department since then, with drop-down and post-less RDA decks becoming very popular, and even more interesting designs appearing every day.
Most RDAs nowadays come with an optional hollow positive pin, to allow their use on special bottom-feeding mods called squonkers. A squonk mod has a plastic bottle for e-liquid that a vaper squeezes to channel juice to the bottom-fed (BF) atomizer. Although they have always been used to alleviate the constant dripping of juice, they have spiked in popularity in 2017, and a huge number of squonkers have come to market recently by several manufacturers. |
By a vote of 14 in favour, with Venezuela abstaining, the Council adopted a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which authorizes the use of force, through with countries and regional organizations could board ships for inspection, seize and even dispose of vessels suspected of being used by migrant smugglers.
The Council deplored the continuing maritime tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea that have resulted in hundreds of casualties, and noted with concern that such casualties were, “in some cases, the result of exploitation and misinformation by transnational criminal organizations which facilitated the illegal smuggling of migrants via dangerous methods for personal gain and with callous disregard for human life.”
As such, countries, through the new resolution, are authorized to inspect vessels on the high-seas off Libya which they “have reasonable grounds to suspect are being used for migrant smuggling or human trafficking from Libya,” provided “good faith efforts” are made to obtain the consent of the vessel's flag State.
The resolution however states that such authorization does “not apply to vessels entitled to sovereign immunity under international law” and applies “only in the situation of migrant smuggling and trafficking of human beings high seas off the coast of Libya.”
Calling on Member States to help Libya, when requested, to strengthen the means available to it to secure its borders and prevent migrant smuggling and human trafficking, the Council also urged States, “in the spirit of international solidarity and shared responsibility,” to cooperate with the Libyan Government, and each other, including by sharing information about acts of smuggling and human trafficking in Libya's territorial sea and on the high seas off the country's coast.
Council members also underscored that the aim of the resolution is intended to disrupt the organized criminal enterprises engaged in migrant smuggling and human trafficking and prevent loss of life, “and is not intended to undermine the human rights of individuals or prevent them from seeking protection under international human rights law and international refugee law.” |
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Wednesday admitted to sexually abusing teenage boys during his time as a high school wrestling coach in a Chicago suburb before his career as an elected official.
Struggling to stand in federal court Wednesday, 74-year-old Hastert gripped his walker, approached the microphone and said that he "mistreated" some of his wrestlers and apologized.
"They looked to me, and I took advantage of them," Hastert said as he awaited his sentencing after pleading guilty last fall to breaking federal banking laws in a hush-money case. "I apologize to the court and to the people of the United States."
Judge Thomas Durkin sentenced Hastert to 15 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, along with two years of supervised release on the condition that he get sex offender treatment. Prosecutors had recommended a six-month sentence. Durkin called Hastert a "serial child molester" and said he must not contact any of his victims.
"That's necessary to protect the victims," the judge said.
One of the men who has accused Hastert of sexual abuse years ago identified himself in the courtroom Wednesday before Hastert spoke.
The man, previously known only as "Individual D," identified himself as Scott Cross, 53, who lives in Chicago and works in finance. He has a wife and two children.
"Coach Hastert sexually abused me," said Cross, who teared up at times as he identified himself publicly for the first time.
The allegations stem from the time Hastert worked as a wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in a Chicago suburb between 1965 and 1981.
Scott Cross, dressed in a business suit, recounted that he was alone in the locker room with Hastert, who told Cross he could help him lose weight by giving him a massage. Cross said that after a few minutes of a massage, Hastert tried to perform a sex act on him and Cross said he then jumped up and ran out of the room.
Cross said he felt alone and embarrassed and never told anyone about the incident and never discussed it with Hastert.
"I've had trouble sleeping and working," he said, and called the decision to come forward a "huge personal struggle."
He is the younger brother of longtime Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross, who served in that leadership role from 2002 to 2013 and retired from the legislature last year. The Chicago Tribune notes that Cross has credited Hastert with introducing him to politics and helping him move up the ladder.
In court, Hastert's lawyer said the former speaker had suggested that the elder Cross could write a support letter on his behalf. But the Tribune reported that by the time the request was made, Cross was aware that his younger brother was "Individual D" and he "did not respond." Hastert's lawyer mentioned the request in order to suggest that Hastert's mental health is severely diminished and could explain why he has lied throughout the investigation.
Prosecutors also called Jolene Burdge, the sister of an alleged Hastert victim who died in 1995. Burdge testified first and read aloud a letter her late brother wrote to their mother five months before he died of AIDS, and she accused Hastert of "sexually molesting" her brother.
"You took Steve's right to develop his sexual identity in a normal, healthy way," Burdge said directly to Hastert, who arrived to court Wednesday in a wheelchair. "Don't be a coward, Mr. Hastert. Tell the truth. What you did wasn't misconduct; it was sexual abuse of a minor."
Admonishing Hastert from the stand, she said, "You were supposed to keep him safe, not violate him," and she continued, "You took his innocence and turned it against him," turning him toward a life of high-risk behavior that eventually killed him.
"I will make you accountable for molesting my brother. I knew your secret and you couldn't bribe your way out," she added.
Hastert, an Illinois Republican, served in Congress from 1987 to 2007, and is the longest-serving House speaker, holding that post from 1999 to 2007.
Cross and Burdge's brother are among at least four victims who have made "credible allegations of sexual abuse," according to a report earlier this month in The Chicago Tribune.
There is also "Individual A" who remains anonymous. That man is suing Hastert for $1.8 million, his attorneys said Monday. He has also accused Hastert of sexually abusing him when he was a teenager.
According to a complaint filed in court Monday, in 2008, the man learned of someone else who had accused Hastert of abuse and confronted Hastert directly. Hastert agreed to pay the man $3.5 million to keep him quiet about the sexual abuse and from June 2010 to December 2014, Hastert paid the man $1.7 million of the total compensation. His withdrawals of the money is what led to the federal investigation that led to him being charged with breaking banking laws. Because Hastert breached the agreement, the man is now seeking $1.8 million.
Hastert pleaded guilty to the charge last October and suffered a stroke soon after that. Prosecutors recommended that the judge sentence him to six months in prison.
Attorneys for "Individual A" said in the complaint that the man suffered for years of severe panic attacks, bouts of depression, unemployment, careers changes, hospitalization and long-term psychiatric treatment.
In a recent memo, Hastert's attorneys said he is "profoundly sorry" for what happened and they asked that he only receive probation instead of a prison sentence.
On Friday, Former Senate Majority Leader Tom DeLay and a number of other former lawmakers and a onetime CIA chief wrote a letter asking for leniency in Hastert's case.
CBS News' Steven Portnoy and Paula Reid contributed to this report. |
Oleg Kashin’s open letter to president Vladimir Putin and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev is both a personalised cry of anguish about the failure to arrest the man he believes responsible for an attack that nearly killed him, and a searing indictment of the current Russian political system.
The attack on the journalist in 2010 left him with a broken jaw, fractured skull, broken leg and broken fingers, one of which had to be amputated. None of his valuables were taken.
When the attack took place, there were any number of potential suspects: as one of Russia’s most prominent independent journalists, Kashin had offended a lot of people.
Russian journalist 'nearly killed' in doorstep beating Read more
A few months later, while Kashin was recuperating in an Israeli hospital, he was visited in person by the then-president, Dmitry Medvedev, who wished him a speedy recovery and promised that the case would be solved.
There have been a number of high-profile murders or attacks on journalists in Russia, with few of them solved. Even when the direct assailants are put on trial, as in the case of Anna Politkovskaya, the trail stops before it reaches those who ordered the attack; critics allege because if government officials are involved, they are untouchable.
Last month, Kashin named the men he believed were responsible for the attack, including the governor of Pskov region, Andrei Turchak. Kashin had criticised the politician in a blog post two months before the attack.
He claimed that while the men who allegedly carried out the attack had been arrested, the fact that their testimony appears to implicate Turchak meant the case was too politically sensitive.
Turchak has not commented on the allegations against him, while one of his deputies denied the allegations in an interview with the BBC.
In a statement released on Monday, Putin’s spokesman reportedly confirmed the president’s office had read the letter, but that no comment would be made on the allegations. Medvedev has not responded.
In the letter below, Kashin elaborates on those claims, in an angry tirade against Putin and the system he has built over the past 15 years.
Dear Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev,
My colleagues have already written you open letters about my case. You haven’t responded (and, more importantly, neither has your Investigative Committee), though this actually makes perfect sense: you were asked to “sort it out” but there’s no need for anything like that.
You have complete and absolute control over the adoption and implementation of laws in Russia
I understand perfectly well that you “sorted it out” a long time ago, and you’ve known for just as long that it was your little Governor Turchak who was behind this crime against me. My case was solved a long time ago. You know this and I know this. And I see no reason to pretend that the problem here is that you still need to “sort it out”. Your decision not to act is clear.
You’ve decided to side with your Governor Turchak; you’re protecting him and his gang of thugs and murderers. It would make sense for somebody like me – a victim of this gang – to be outraged about all this and tell you that it’s dishonest and unjust, but I understand that such words would only make you laugh.
You have complete and absolute control over the adoption and implementation of laws in Russia, and yet you still live like criminals. Consider Inspector Vadim Sotskov, who’s been handed my case.
Sotskov put it elegantly when he said recently: “There’s the law, but there’s also the man in charge, and the will of the boss is always stronger than any law.”
Put bluntly: he’s right and that’s reality. Your will in Russia is stronger than any law.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Oleg Kashin in 2009. Photograph: Maxim Avdeyev/AP
I’ve known Sotskov for over a year now. He and I belong to the same generation. At one time, he was even a journalist at Narodnoe Radio. I can easily imagine him in his first year of law school, studying Roman law, still full of enthusiasm, honesty and dreams about changing the world. And what’s become of him now? He’s a terrified bureaucrat, dreaming about keeping his job long enough to earn a pension. Who made him this way? It was you.
For some reason, we weigh the last 15 years of your reign purely in certain materialist terms. Oil costs so much, the dollar is worth so much, GDP rose so many percentiles, and so on.
But it’s not about oil or GDP. History will judge these 15 years precisely on the fate of men like Sotskov.
It was you who turned an enthusiastic young man – someone who hurried to the studio from lectures to read the news on an opposition radio station – into a uniformed cynic, who admits openly that the will of his superiors is more important than any law.
Don’t flatter yourself: the last 15 years haven’t been a revival for Russia – the country hasn’t risen from its knees
But don’t flatter yourself: the last 15 years haven’t been a revival for Russia, and the country hasn’t risen from its knees. This time has been a monumental moral catastrophe for our generation. And both of you, Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev, are personally responsible for it.
In Russian society today, even obvious questions about good and evil have become impossible. Is it OK to steal? Is it OK to cheat? Is murder ethical? With each of these questions, it’s become customary in Russia now to answer that things aren’t so simple. All your good works have left the nation demoralised and disoriented.
But you carry on, managing your problems without even realising that you’re digging the hole yourselves. “Things aren’t so simple” is what the angry crowd will tell you in unison, when it comes time for you to run away. I suspect that you’re afraid of this crowd, but just remember that it was you who created it, and you’ve got nobody to blame but yourselves.
Having cut yourselves and your elites off from society, you’ve also cut yourselves off from reality. There’s a wall separating you from the rest of us, and everyone on our side shudders each time the next one of your goons decides to show what a thinker he is by stepping up to a podium and talking about how the population is being controlled by computer chips, about the “Euro-Atlantic conspiracy,” or about how the Americans are weaponising cellular research.
Anti-Soviet joke
Whoever comes after you will have to create Russia all over again, from scratch. This is your only service to history– what you’ve spent 15 years achieving. Your favourite justification for all this (the only one, there are no others) are the troubles of the 1990s, but it’s important to understand that you preserved and strengthened everything about this period that we’ve come to hate today. You didn’t fix anything. You only made it all worse.
You like to think of yourselves as the heirs to two empires, Tsarist and Soviet. You take pride in your neo-Soviet militarism, but if anybody told Dmitriy Ustinov [who created the USSR’s military-industrial complex] that a man was beaten with steel pipes and it was paid for with official state funding [according to evidence presented in court proceedings in St Petersburg], Ustinov would have thought he was hearing a nasty anti-Soviet joke.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Russian president Vladimir Putin leaves the Elysee Palace on 2 October after talks on the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
Veterans of Turchak’s factory told me that, 20 years ago, the young future governor would ride around the grounds in a black Volga, firing from a pistol at stray cats. The portrait of your era and your elites will be full of details like this, and you’ve got no reason to expect anything more.
Your main problem is that you simply don’t love Russia. You treat it like another disposable resource that’s fallen into your lap.
Oleg Kashin: 'Men who nearly killed me charged but not their paymaster' Read more
In recent days, I’ve heard many times that all the noise around my case is getting kicked up thanks to some war among the factions who surround you. This is another feature of the system you’ve imposed: nothing just happens, someone is behind everything, and there are conspiracies everywhere.
As a participant in this so-called conspiracy, I can say that a battle among the factions is certainly raging, but the shared goal of all the factions [appears to be] to save your Governor Turchak and his associates from criminal prosecution. I suspect this battle is won.
I can see perfectly well that the worst thing Turchak faces now is a quiet resignation, timed long after any developments in my case. This is the only justice citizens can expect, and it means that your system isn’t capable of any kind of justice at all.
You do what you want, but I wonder how comfortable life can be, when you know that you yourselves won’t be able to count on justice or the law, sooner or later.
Oleg Kashin
Introduction by Shaun Walker. Translation by Kevin Rothrock for Global Voices online |
Doug Cross
UK Council Against Water Fluoridation
July 22, 2009 UK Council Against Water FluoridationJuly 22, 2009
Fluoridated water must be treated as a medicine, and cannot be used to prepare foods. That is the decision of the European Court of Justice, in a landmark case dealing with the classification and regulation of ‘functional drinks’ in member states of the European Community. (HLH Warenvertriebs and Orthica (Joined Cases C-211/03, C-299/03, C-316/03 and C-318/03) 9 June 2005)
Functional drinks are those products that have two different purposes – for example, nutrition and exerting a positive effect on some medical condition. They include ‘near-water drinks with added minerals’ and, in view of the properties claimed for fluoridated water by fluoride advocates, it must be classified as a ‘funtional food’, and therefore falls within the scope of the relevant legislation.
Medicinal law takes precedent over food law.
The Court ruled that, where two different sets of rules appear to apply to a product, medicinal legislation must take precedent, and the product must be regulated as a medicine. It emphasised that medicines regulators in member states do not have the power to exercise discretion on the classification of such dual-function products. The repeated refusal of the British and Irish Regulators to recognise fluoridated water as a medicinal product is therefore an unlawful misuse of their powers, and one that requires immediate reversal.
ECJ rulings do not establish new laws, but clarify how existing ones should be applied, and are enforceable in the domestic legislation of all member states of the EC. In effect, this decision at last confirms the claim that I have made for many years – that existing medicinal law has always required that fluoridated water be regulated as a medicine. Fluoridated water has no medicinal marketing authorization (‘product licence’), and because of this it is – and always has been – illegal to supply it to the public, as the 1968 Medicines Act confirms.
As a ‘medicinal water’, the protection afforded by the water quality regulations that shield consumers from hazardous substances in drinking water does not apply. Its use in the processing of foodstuffs is also prohibited, under the food safety legislation. Aa a direct result of this ruling, all English and Irish legislation providing for water fluoridation are at last exposed as having been in violation of that fundamental prohibition, and must now be repealed.
Prohibition of use of fluoridated water in foods
[efoods]But the Court also ruled that such functional food products must not be used in the preparation of foods. As a ‘medicinal water’ the fluoridated product cannot be regarded as equivalent to the mandatory ‘water for human consumption’ specified for drinking and food preparation. So now every food wholesale and retail outlet in fluoridated areas of the UK and Ireland, from the corner chip-shop to the largest brewery, from the small high-street bakery to the largest supermarket retailers – all will now have to either cease production or install an alternative water supply.
Implications for international trade in food products
But the ruling also has an equally profound implication for export trade in processed foods and drinks. The Court stated that even if a functional food product (or a food containing it) is legally marketed as a food in one member state, it cannot be exported to any other member state unless it has a medicinal licence. So any company making a consumable product using fluoridated water in its preparation or as an ingredient cannot now export that product to any other state in the EC, even if their product is permitted in their home state.
The economic implications are enormous. Not only does the ruling ban the use of fluoridated water for all retail catering and wholesale food processing in the UK and Ireland, it also prohibits such trade from these states to other member states of the EC. But it goes much further than even this, because if British and Irish processed foods from fluoridated areas cannot be exported to the EC, this prohibition must also apply to the importing of such products into EC member states from any other country that practices water fluoridation. The decision effectively bans all processed food products from countries such as the USA, Australia and New Zealand, unless they can be positively proven to have been prepared using only water that was not fluoridated.
What does this mean for water undertakers who fluoridate their product?
Before British water undertakers allow Strategic Health Authorities to order them to start fluoridating their water they need to be fully aware of the implications to them and their shareholders should they agree to do so. Not only are medical damages compensation claims likely to be far higher, with charges of negligently supplying an unlawful product forming the basis of class actions, food processers who lose their markets will certainly hold their water undertaker accountable in law for their losses. This ruling means that Courts in other member states of the EC must support demands from competing food processors that an embargo be placed on British and Irish products unless they can be proven to have been manufactured using only non-fluoridated water.
I have previously warned that this illegal product substitution cannot be permitted to continue, and that members of the public are entirely entitled to demand to be supplied with water that complies with, and is regulated under, the drinking water quality standards that are enforceable under both EC and UK (and Irish) law. Since the ruling must be enforced in all EC member states, water companies will now have to come off the fence and accept that fluoridated water is not an acceptable alternative drinking water.
The only way out – repeal all fluoridation laws and ban the product.
This decision completely supports the challenge that I have issued repeatedly to the UK Regulator, the MHRA – identify the case law that justifies your perverse claim that this product is not a medicine. Ironically, it was the MHRA itself that finally gave the game away, in a formal response to another Regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). In what I can only assume was a deliberate attempt to mislead the ASA, the MHRA actually cited this case in support of its continued perverse refusal to implement the medicines legislation that it is obliged to enforce!
The beginning of the end – fluoridation must now be banned, worldwide.
This ECJ ruling effectively puts the final nail in the coffin of water fluoridation, not only within the EC but worldwide. It establishes a very substantial but entirely justified obstacle to trade in food products that are prepared without proper regard to the protection of the public that is enshrined in law. The ruling must be recognised and enforced not only in every memebr state, but also in any external state that wishes to trade with the EC in processed foods. So just what can be done to resolve the present unacceptable situation?
One solution would be to grant a medicinal licence to fluoridated water. But the Court ruled that any evaluation of a functional drink may only be done under the rigorous procedures required to scrutinise any pharmaceutical product. In the present state of scientific concern over the evidence of its lack of efficacy and safety it is impossible to imagine that such a licence could ever be granted. If it were, it would immediately result in a world-wide denunciation from the scientific community that is fully aware of the improper commercial influence that is at the heart of the international promotion of fluoridated products.
The only acceptable response is to call a halt to this controversial practice now. The experience of the past half century has shown that it is completely unjustified – indeed, it is responsible for what may reasonably be described as a pandemic of avoidable chronic fluoride poisoning. In ruling that this type of product must be regulated under medicinal law, the Court has taken the final step towards bringing this disreputable practice to a long-delayed end. Let us hope that national Governments all over the world will heed this decision – the economic consequences will be dire for those who continue to attempt to continue this discredited and illegal practice. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption President Trump threatened a response 'like the world has never seen'
US President Donald Trump says North Korea "will be met with fire and fury" if it threatens the US.
His comments came after a Washington Post report, citing US intelligence officials, said Pyongyang had produced a nuclear warhead small enough to fit inside its missiles.
This would mean the North is developing nuclear weapons capable of striking the US at a much faster rate than expected.
The UN recently approved further economic sanctions against the country.
The Security Council unanimously agreed to ban North Korean exports and limit investments, prompting fury from North Korea and a vow to make the "US pay a price".
The heated rhetoric between the two leaders intensified after Pyongyang tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in July, claiming it now had the ability to hit the US.
Mr Trump told reporters on Tuesday: "North Korea best not make any more threats to the US. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Analysis: Words with consequences?
Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington:
Donald Trump said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "has been very threatful, beyond a normal statement". So he responded with language that goes well beyond a normal statement for any US president.
Perhaps Mr Trump believes that no hyperbolic threats should go unmatched or that apocalyptic warnings are the only ones the North Korean leadership will understand. Perhaps he - intentionally or not - is pursuing a Nixonian "madman" style foreign policy, where adversaries will tread lightly to avoid triggering the wrath of an unpredictable US commander-in-chief.
When the leader of the world's greatest superpower, the only nation ever to have used nuclear weapons on an enemy, talks of unprecedented "fire and fury", however, those words have consequences.
During his presidential campaign Mr Trump criticised his predecessor Barack Obama for not enforcing a red line against Syria's use of chemical weapons. Now President Trump has drawn a fiery bright line of his own with North Korea - one that could commit the US to a perilous course of action if his words go unheeded.
The Washington Post quoted an intelligence community report as saying it "assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles".
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption North Korea's second intercontinental missile launched last month was "seen from Japan"
It has previously been thought that the North was still years away from being able to fire a nuclear weapon, although it has long carried out separate nuclear tests and missile launches.
North Korea said on Monday, two days after the UN sanctions were passed, that it would continue with its nuclear weapons programme.
The state-run KCNA news agency said Pyongyang would "not put our self-defensive nuclear deterrent on the negotiating table" while it faces threats from the US.
It threatened to make the US "pay the price for its crime... thousands of times," referring to America's role in drafting the UN sanctions resolution. |
Sign-ups are going well!
VanCaspel
It’s been nearly a week since we opened the sign-ups for the individual league and started the promotional campaign. So far almost 50 people have signed up for the first qualifier, and nearly 100 people have created an account on the forums! We’ve also sent out the first batch of promo packs with cool posters and stickers.
Please help us keep the buzz going by sharing our page on Facebook and following us on Twitter!
Some other developments worth sharing: the point distribution for the qualifiers has been published, as well as this page with info for new sponsors. If you work for a company that is (or should be) interested in our fine community, please send us an e-mail at [email protected].
Next week we’ll open the sign-ups for the team league, so get your buddies ready! We’ll also announce what exactly we’re going to do when Heart of the Swarm gets released next week. So definitely stay tuned! |
The Who won't be kicking off the second leg of its 2015 The Who at 50! tour Sept. 14 at San Diego's Valley View Casino Center.
That show, along with three subsequent opening dates on the autumn and winter leg of the legendary English band's tour, was postponed Tuesday morning. The reason, according to a statement issued by The Who's U.S. press representative is "to allow lead singer Roger Daltrey proper time to recover from an unspecified virus he contracted."
The other three postponed shows are Sept. 16 at Honda Center in Anaheim, Sept. 19 at Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and Sept. 21 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. The four postponed concerts wil be rescheduled, possibly following the group's Dec. 13 show in Oakland, which was to have concluded its 2015 tour.
Tickets for the four postponed concerts will be valid at the make-up dates, or can be refunded at point of purchase. For more information, contact AXS at axs.com or (888) 929-7849.
It’s “the beginning of the long goodbye,” Daltrey said at a 2014 London press conference announcing this year's tour. “It will have a finality to it. We’ll stop touring, I’m sure, before we stop playing as a band... It’s the grind of the road, it’s incredibly tough on the body... I don’t know how many more years I’ll be able to sing this music.”
True to his word, The Who had to cancel three U.S. tour dates in May because of vocal problems that prevented Daltrey, 71, from performing.
The nature of his current virus (and when it developed) is unknown. But it may explain why even The Who's rhythm guitarist, Simon Townshend, and drummer, Zak Starkey, were not available for interviews to preview their Sept. 14 San Diego concert. |
New anime streaming service HIDIVE announced on Wednesday that it will stream the English dubs for the School-Live and Chivalry of a Failed Knight anime. Both series are currently available in Japanese with English subtitles in their entirety, and the service will add English-dubbed episodes in installments.
The first two episodes of School-Live! are now available and new episodes will launch on Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EDT. The first four episodes of Chivalry of a Failed Knight are available now and new episodes will launch on Mondays at 1:00 p.m. EDT.
HIDIVE launched its beta version on Tuesday. The streaming service has acquired assets from Anime Network Online, which will cease operations following a limited transition period for subscriber migration. The Anime Network, Inc. will continue to operate its cable television and subscription video on demand services.
HIDIVE currently offers an ad-supported free membership, but English dubs, exclusive titles, uncensored content, subtitle style options, and HD video are only available for subscribers. Membership will cost US$3.99 per month for a limited time as an introductory price, and a seven-day free trial is available. Subscribers can add up to two simultaneous streams for US$1 each. |
A woman soldier sexually assaulted a female colleague as she slept after telling her on a night out she would "make her gay", a court martial heard.
Lance Corporal Hannah Heslop, 25, first "sexually targeted" the heterosexual woman before taking her back to a room at her barracks, it was claimed.
When the other soldier fell asleep, L/C Heslop is alleged to have removed the victim's knickers and used this opportunity to "fulfil her objective". The woman told the hearing she woke up in pain to "find the accused between her legs".
L/C Heslop, who is said to have later boasted about the incident, claimed the sex was consensual and went on for an hour.
"She began saying she would make her gay - her response was to laugh off her comments"
"She began saying she would make her gay - her response was to laugh off her comments" Lieutenant Colonel David Phillips, prosecuting
The woman, who cannot be named, told the court martial she was drunk after a night out with a group of soldiers - including L/C Heslop - while she was based at Leconfield Barracks, in Yorkshire.
Bulford Military Court, in Wiltshire, heard how the victim was left feeling "shocked and confused" after the incident.
She said: "I went out with them just to make new friends. It was just to go and socialise. She (Heslop) was asking about when I go out and get drunk and whether I get very drunk that I cannot remember what I am doing."
The alleged victim said she could not remember going back to camp or to LC Heslop's room.
She added: "I remember waking up to a pain. I was asleep, passed out asleep. I was in a deep sleep.
"I had my vest and jacket still on. I did not have the bottom half of my clothes on. It took a second to figure out what was going on. I do not know if I shouted or kicked, but it made Heslop jump back.
"I lay in shock. I did not know what was happening, I didn't know what was going on. Heslop was on the end of the bed. I think she said 'I have got to go' and then left. I didn't say anything back to her."
Lieutenant Colonel David Phillips, prosecuting, said that during the afternoon and evening of March 6, 2015, Heslop "sexually targeted" the alleged victim.
Lt Cl Phillips said: "The victim was a heterosexual female soldier, we assert the accused is attracted to female soldiers. During the afternoon and evening, the accused began to sexually target the victim.
"She began saying she would make her gay - her response was to laugh off her comments. The evening involved drinking games and soldiers drinking shots of various alcoholic drinks.
"We assert by the end of the evening, the victim was drunk and needed to be taken back to barracks and that is what the accused did.
"After taking her back to barracks, the accused took her to her room. The victim is drunk, falls asleep in a room with the accused.
"There the accused used this opportunity to fulfil her objective of 'scoring'. She removed the victim's lower garments, including her knickers. She did not remove any of her own."
The soldiers were based at Leconfield Barracks in Yorkshire
He added: "The victim woke up to find pain and the accused between her legs and she [the victim] was naked from the legs down and they were on the bed.
"She was shocked and confused. She flinched and sat up, the accused stopped and left the room.
The court heard how when interviewed by police, L/C Heslop, who was at Leconsfield on a course, denied the allegations and said that sexual activity between the pair was consensual.
L/C Heslop denies assault by penetration. The court martial continues.
• Royal Navy sailor 'assaulted colleague with beer bottle', court hears |
Generally, it takes more of human intellect, yet less financial cost to promote a product on the social media. The human social connection factor is why a company’s social media presence plays a huge role in retaining customers. Social media users are quick to share, tweet about and like products they enjoy, thus enabling an organization to capitalize on the viral benefits of online marketing.
It is important for businesses to have social media presence. Web portals such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest are accessed by billions of people around the world both via computers and mobile devices. With social media usage growing at such a staggering rate each year, why wouldn’t organizations turn to social media portals as customer retention tools?
Web Site Integration
Certainly, designing a marketing friendly website is essential, but it is also a must for the web developers to link the pages to social media platforms and outlets as these are hubs for connecting with current customers and attracting their like minded peers.
The company social media outlets are merely the first step for creating social media presence. Integrating social media channels into the website and every step in the sales funnel allows visitors to see the business as engaging them where they are. If the social media marketing is in capable hands, then the product, service or brand gains positive worldwide popularity. A certain image, video clip, or a post when properly managed has the potential to be seen by billions. By using social media, not only do people buy the product, but they also recommended it and share it on their account profiles. Welcome to the new word of mouth advertising!
In House or Outsourced
Many businesses do not delve into the social media marketing realm with an understanding of the speed at which social media changes. Business pages of social sites such as Facebook may serve as company social media communication outlets, where the business projects its brand today, but tomorrow their ideal target market may decide to abandon Facebook in favor of Instagram. For this reason alone, companies need to hire experts for social media management in order to stay ahead of the curve and keep their consumer messaging consistent across the various social media platforms.
In lieu of making the human capital investment in a social media manager, some organizations choose to outsource the tasks to specialists in the field of social media management. Social media managers use a variety of tools to promote an organization including PowerPoint presentations, video clips, and paid and free of cost advertisement links, blogging, article marketing, contesting and much more. All of these media forms keep the consumer engaged in conversation with the company leading to enhanced customer loyalty.
If customer retention is the goal, often times, the breadth and value an outsourced provider brings to the table outweighs the benefits of hiring someone internally to handle the corporation’s social media campaigns.
Many big brands and savvy Fortune 500 corporations who value repeat buyers have flagged their social media presence as a valuable tool for customer retention. Some have even started using social media sites such as Google+ and Twitter as customer service portals. Ultimately, when you open your business door to the social world, be prepared to innovate in order to retain those valuable customers. |
A 23-year-old gay man has spoken of how he was attacked, left beaten and bruised, and faced a barrage of homophobic abuse late on Monday morning
A 23-YEAR-OLD gay man has spoken of how he was attacked, left beaten and bruised, and faced a barrage of homophobic abuse early on Monday morning when he left a well-known gay club in Belfast city centre.
Dean McKenzie, from Kilmacormick in Enniskillen, lives in Belfast and left the Kremlin Nightclub on foot after what he described as a ‘usual’ night out.
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But, within minutes he was jumped by two men who he said called him a ‘poof’, a ‘dirty queer’ and kicked and punched him in the face.
“I just came round the corner, a two minute walk from the club and two guys came out of nowhere,” Dean told the Fermanagh Herald.
“One of them asked ‘Did you have a good night you poof?’. At this stage I realised I was in danger, one of them struck out and punched me.
“And when I fell, the other one kicked me in the face, hence the nose bleed. They called me a ‘dirty queer’ and left me lying there.”
A police spokesman confirmed that an investigation is underway into the attack.
He said: “Police are investigating reports that a man was assaulted in the Royal Avenue area of Belfast sometime between 12.05am and 3am on Sunday (September 23). It is understood the male had left licensed premises when he was approached by two males who assaulted him. Enquiries are continuing.”
Dean, who recently appeared on the Stephen Nolan show to speak about the the gay marriage debate, also referred to support he had been given by friends and family.
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“I am feeling a little shaken but completely overwhelmed by the huge support I have received from people in Fermanagh and Belfast, gay and straight.
“This attack only highlights that homophobia still very much exists and perhaps that something of which the DUP and other various political parties should be concerned with and not the fact whether gay people should be allowed to marry or adopt. However, I’m still determined to put my head up and be proud of who I am.” |
According to Best Buy, the LG G5 will go up for pre-order on March 18, a week after the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge are publicly available on all carriers in the US. At this time, all major carriers have confirmed that they will carry the device, although, no exact date or pricing has been made available yet.
If you have yet to make up your mind on which device you should pick up, maybe our hands-on video with the G5 would be helpful. For those leaning towards the Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge, these first look videos (Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge) are perfect for you.
On a related note, pre-orders for the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge went live this morning. Did you pick one up or are you waiting for the G5? |
Every year, the question of whether [really good college basketball team] could beat [really bad NBA team] on a neutral court pops up. It’s being asked now about Kentucky and the 76ers, and while it’s certainly a juicy hypothetical to ponder in the lead-up to March Madness, there’s actually a far more salient query for the philosophically inclined hoops fan to consider: Could SMU’s basketball team could beat SMU’s football team … in football?
The basketball-playing Mustangs, who own a 22-5 record and no. 21 AP ranking, are nothing to scoff at. After just missing out on an NCAA tournament bid last year (and subsequently advancing to the NIT championship game), they appear poised to cruise to an American Athletic Conference title and fill the role of trendy second-tier conference pick when the brackets surface. Their counterparts on the gridiron, however, aren’t exactly their equals when it comes to the pursuit of athletic excellence.
The 2014 season may have been the lowest point for Southern Methodist University football since the program’s 1987 death sentence. The team was woefully uncompetitive, falling by double digits in 10 of its 11 losses and tasting victory just once. Its head coach, June Jones, resigned after two games, and his replacement, Tom Mason, wasn’t exactly the second coming of Paul Brown. Mason was promptly let go at season’s end in favor of Chad Morris, the former offensive coordinator at Clemson.
Morris may be a lot of things, but he’s no Larry Brown. You know Larry Brown, the only coach in basketball history to win championships at both the Division I and NBA levels. Larry Brown, who’s led a whopping eight different NBA teams to the playoffs in his illustrious career. Larry Brown, program builder nonpareil. If anyone could develop an expert understanding of football strategy in a limited window, it’d be him.
Potentially more problematic: The SMU basketball team carries only 15 players on its roster — seven short of the 22 necessary to field a football offense and defense, to say nothing of special teams. You’re probably thinking: This is preposterous, there’s no way an undermanned basketball team could defeat a full squad of FBS talent. Well, consider this: Basketball players are used to going both ways, so it’s not unreasonable to think that, say, guard Nic Moore could line up at wide receiver, cornerback, and punter when appropriate — although I wouldn’t expect his side to do much punting. Coming from a sport that requires constant motion on the part of its participants, Moore would surely welcome football’s regular stoppages in play and use them to stay fresh throughout the game.
Furthermore, Brown has 15 assistants on his staff, and due to the inequitable disparity in roster size, I think it’d be only fair to grant those assistants eligibility for this competition. While this might not initially seem like a major boon to the basketballers’ chances, their strength and conditioning coach just so happens to be — drumroll, please — former NFL tight end Rickey Dudley! Even at the ripe old age of 42, the 6-foot-6 Dudley would be a matchup nightmare for a Mustangs defense that regularly gave up 40-plus points in 2014. And considering his occupation, it’s safe to assume he’s still in spectacular shape.
Speaking of the football Mustangs’ tragicomically awful defense: In this showdown, the basketball Mustangs would need only focus on scoring as many points as humanly possible. If every drive results in a trip to the end zone — and I think we can all agree that such an outcome would be likely — their defensive performance would be rendered moot. The football Mustangs’ QB platoon of death threw more than twice as many interceptions as touchdowns last season, and there’s no way they’d be able to hold serve; the basketball Mustangs have proven they can post 70, 80, or even 90 points in a given game, and against this defense, those point totals would likely translate to football.
The easy counterpoint, of course, is that the basketball Mustangs are not physical enough to handle the rigors of a football game. But that’s bullshit, for a couple of reasons. First of all, sheer athleticism can overcome a perceived lack of physicality. Case in point:
Second of all, who’s to say the football Mustangs are physical to begin with? Playing a contact sport doesn’t make a person physical and/or tough; playing a contact sport well makes a person physical and/or tough, and the football Mustangs clearly don’t play football well.
Finally, the basketball Mustangs are one of the best defensive teams in the country, and teams that excel on defense are generally considered physical. As such, we’re forced to conclude that they’d fare just fine against the comparatively feeble football Mustangs.
So yes, of course SMU’s basketball team could indeed beat SMU’s football team in football. That’s not much of a debate. The only real question is by how much. |
Former Pirate Bay operator Fredrik Neij is currently the last person serving his sentence for his involvement with the notorious torrent site. To make his stay in prison a little easier he's hoping to receive letters, cards and other goodies from people around the world.
Fredrik Neij, also known as Tiamo, was one of the key players behind The Pirate Bay during its early years. Without him, the site might have never recovered from the first raid in 2006.
As with Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik’s involvement with the site eventually resulted in a prison sentence and a hefty fine.
After being on the run for two years he was arrested by Thai immigration authorities last November when he tried to cross the border from Laos. A few days later he flew to Sweden where he was transferred to a prison in Skänninge.
With several weeks now passed, TF has learned that Fredrik is doing well considering the circumstances. His wife and two kids are allowed to visit now, which must be a welcome distraction to monotonous prison life.
With a sentence of 10 months Fredrik will not be released before summer. Worryingly, he also has to face hacking allegations as well as a criminal referral of his ISP DCP Networks.
Considering the above, Fredrik won’t mind having some things to entertain himself. In a message sent to TF he signaled that it would be nice to receive letters, cards and other stuff from people all over the world.
Anything goes, the more mail arrives the better.
People who want to write Fredrik should use the address listed at the bottom of this article. Keep in mind though, all incoming mail will be checked by the authorities before he receives it.
Besides Fredrik, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm also remains in prison. Last October he was convicted of hacking into the systems of IT company CSC and sentenced to 3.5 years.
TF spoke with Gottfrid’s mother Kristina who informed us that her son is being held in better conditions than before. He is allowed to receive books and his letters are no longer read by the police, but access to a computer or the Internet is still off-limits.
Gottfrid has officially appealed his sentence and these proceedings are scheduled to start in April. In the meantime, he too would love to receive mail.
The addresses of Gottfrid and Fredrik are listed below.
—
Gottfrid Svartholm Warg
Arresthuset i Koege
Kongsberg Allé 6
Dk4600 Koege, DENMARK
—
Fredrik Neij 14-514
Box 213
596 21 Skänninge
SWEDEN |
The Safer Texas Campaign is offering $10,000 to anyone in Texas who can disprove three statements that demonstrate marijuana is safer than alcohol.
The three claims are:
1. Alcohol is significantly more toxic than marijuana, making death by overdose far more likely with alcohol.
2. The health effects from long-term alcohol consumption cause tens of thousands of more deaths in the U.S. annually than the health effects of the long-term consumption of marijuana.
3. Violent crime committed by individuals intoxicated by alcohol is far more prevalent in the U.S. than violent crime committed by individuals intoxicated with marijuana only.
“We are confident that this $10,000 will not be claimed,” said Safer Texas Campaign manager Craig Johnson.
”Marijuana is objectively and unquestionably less harmful than alcohol, and these three statements are representative of that fact,” Johnson said. “Alcohol is more toxic than marijuana, more likely to lead to the death of the user — either by overdose or chronic use — and more likely to contribute to violence.”
“For good measure, alcohol is also more addictive than marijuana,” Johnson said. “As we consider whether to reform our marijuana laws, it is important that the people of Texas understand these facts.”
If you believe you can disprove these assertions, well, first of all, you’re mistaken. Ell oh ell.
But if you really think you can disprove the three statements, please send peer-reviewed studies or government statistics that contradict all three to [email protected]
The Safer Texas Campaign says it is not an anti-alcohol campaign, nor does it advocate the use of marijuana.
“However, the campaign works to address increasing public safety concerns that our state laws prohibiting marijuana are sending a dangerous message to the public that alcohol is more acceptable than marijuana, despite the fact that every objective study on alcohol and marijuana has shown marijuana is a much safer substance than alcohol to both the user and to society,” the group said in a statement. |
Json Schema Editor, built with Vue.js and Firebase
json-schema-editor
JSON Schema is a powerful tool for validating the structure of JSON data. The JSON Schema Editor is an intuitive editor for JSON schema. It provides a tree view to present the structure of schema, and a property inspector to edit the properties of schema element. For more details about JSON schema, visit Understanding JSON Schema.
Overview
Features
Pallet of schema elements
Pallet of user schemas
Tree View of schema elements
Context Menu
Property Inspector of schema elements
Text View of schema
Drag and
Undo and Redo could keep track of every update of the schema.
Schema Repository
Copy content of schema to the system clipboard.
Download content of schema as a JSON file.
Load content of schema from a JSON schema file.
JSON Schema Editor is using schema element as a building block of JSON schema. The schema element is an object or array in json schema, which may have properties or items. JSON schema is a tree of schema elements. The user could edit the schema by composing the tree of schema elements, and setting the properties or items of these elements.
The Editor
The first moment visiting the editor page you will the following message: User not sign in User can not retrieve and store custom schema, please sign in to access these features. (almost self-explanatory)
The editor composes of six parts:
Pallet of schema elements Pallet of user schemas Tree View of schema Context Menu Property Inspector of schema element Text View of schema
A view of the editor
The JSON Schema Editor developed with Vue.js 2 and Firebase, has also a project repository where you can take a look at the source code & open new issues. |
The House Select Committee on Benghazi report contains at least one major bombshell: the committee found no evidence of the “three directives” that President Barack Obama claimed he issued when he first learned about the ongoing terror attack.
Neither the committee’s official report, nor the Democrats’ dissenting minority report, mentions the “three directives.” (In fact, President Obama barely features in the Democrats’ report at all, as if someone else were Commander-in-Chief that evening.)
The Democrats’ report does mention a general instruction that Obama gave to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Martin Dempsey when they met shortly after the attacks began on Sep. 11, 2012: “[T]he President made clear that we ought to use all of the resources at our disposal to try to make sure we did everything possible to try to save lives there,” Panetta said.
However, that “ought” is a suggestion — not an instruction, nor an order or a directive, much less three directives.
Obama made the “three directives” claim in October 2012 when asked about what he did during Benghazi by a local reporter in Denver — who evidently had more interest in the facts than the Beltway media:
I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure we are securing our personnel and that we are doing whatever we need to. Number two, we are going to investigate exactly what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice.
Obama’s account was repeated by former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and echoed by other Democrats. However, the directives are absent from the final Benghazi reports.
The committee asked the president directly, by letter:
What orders or direction, if any, did you give to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta upon learning of the initial attack? Did you or anyone at your direction ever modify, withdraw, alter, or amplify the initial orders or direction you gave to Secretary Panetta?
Obama refused to answer, or to provide any documentation of orders or directions given.
What the reports do show is that after Obama met with Panetta and Dempsey, he had a conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton later that evening, but otherwise did nothing to monitor or manage any effort to save American lives. He delivered a statement to the press the next morning before jetting away to Las Vegas for a political fundraiser.
It is possible that the White House simply refused to provide the three directives to the committee. The official Benghazi committee report faults the White House for its “intentional failure to cooperate with this and other congressional investigations.” But why would the Obama administration fail to turn over information or documents that would vindicate it?
More likely: the directives do not exist, and Obama lied to the American people about what he did about Benghazi — a lie that would only be compounded by his later fabrications about an anti-Islamic YouTube video.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, will be published by Regnery on July 25 and is available for pre-order through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. |
by Jessica Shambora
The drama continues apace in banking. Yesterday we shared a CNN interview with Citigroup
CEO Vikram Pandit, as he struggles to hang on, while Pattie last Friday gave her take on the fall of Bank of America’s
chief risk officer, Amy Brinkley — a veteran of Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women list.
Another top woman in banking — one of the few still standing — swung by our office here at Fortune a few days ago. Ellen Alemany is chairman and CEO of RBS Americas
and Citizens Financial Group, an RBS unit with $6 billion in revenues and branches in 12 states. Alemany, who joined UK-based Royal Bank of Scotland in June 2007, had just finished a run of 13 town halls with thousands of her employees across the U.S.
Though you may not know her name, Alemany is very much at the center of the banking world. She’s the only woman to head a top-10 U.S. commercial bank. And as the representative for the Boston district (and only woman) on the Federal Advisory Council, she regularly consults with Fed chair Ben Bernanke and the Board of Governors.
So what is Alemany’s outlook? “There will be more small bank failures in the next six to nine months,” she told us, noting that she’s concerned about declining real-estate values and rising unemployment. She sees the negative trends in her own backyard. Citizens’ headquarters are in Rhode Island, where the jobless rate is 11.1%. And the bank operates in Michigan, where the unemployment rate, 12.9%, is the highest in the U.S.
Recovery seems so far away that businesses aren’t even looking to expand. “We have money to lend, but the loan demand isn’t there,” Alemany says. “It’s going to be difficult for the remainder of this year through the first half of next year.”
As for her own career, Alemany has come to understand “difficult.” After 21 years at Citigroup, where she ran Global Transaction Services, a profitable $8 billion unit in some 100 countries, she moved to RBS. It might appear that she was seeing safer ground. But the British government has had to shore RBS and now owns 70% of the business. And if you think that Citi is the worst-performing bank stock, think again. RBS’s shares have sputtered 87% in the past 12 months. Citi is down a mere 83%. |
Air. Fun, breathable air, circa 2015. By 2049, today's air will be vintage, and you'll be the proud owner of a little sea-breeze that you can gulp into your lungs whenever you like. Commemorated with a thoughtful memoir (with full color pictures) of where your air was harvested (with hand-crafted care) from the shore of America's #1 beach.
Act now while supplies last! Due to the finite quantity of Air and such on planet Earth, we are forced to limit rewards to 99,999,999. Hurry and get your fresh sea breeze in the mail!
Every reward gets a full color custom-made postcard, from Florida's Siesta Key (#1 USA Beach). Like all limited-edition fine art prints, each postcard is numbered.
Every reward also comes with the exciting PDF documentary of Air, a tale of mystery and intrigue - featuring full color photos of your air, and the thrilling tale of how and when your air was harvested from the shore (PDF delivered through the magic and intangible gears of the internet machine).
Reward #1 - Numbered postcard and PDF, featuring photos and the incredible tale of Air.
Reward #2 - Numbered postcard and PDF, featuring photos and the incredible tale of Air. Now, the best part - a letter size envelop filled with a sea breeze of Air, fresh from Siesta Key Beach!
Reward #3 - Numbered postcard and PDF, featuring photos and the incredible tale of Air. For extra care and safe handling of your air, it will be delivered in a padded envelop - inside is a sea breeze of Air, fresh from Siesta Key Beach!
Reward #4 - Numbered postcard and PDF, featuring photos and the incredible tale of Air. For care and safe handling of your air, it will be delivered in a padded envelop - inside is a sea breeze of Air, fresh from Siesta Key Beach! Additionally, you get a small pitch of sand, so you can create your own little mini-beach wherever you are!
Reward #5 - Numbered postcard and PDF, featuring photos and the incredible tale of Air. For care and safe handling of your air, it will be delivered in a padded envelop - inside is a sea breeze of Air, fresh from Siesta Key Beach! Additionally, you get a small pitch of sand and a sea shell, so you can create your own little mini-beach wherever you are!
Why Siesta Key Beach?
It was recently voted the #1 Beach in the USA - the sand is really soft, the water is really warm, the sound of the waves crashing on the shore is relaxing, and the air is really fresh! Are you ever going to set foot on the beach and breathe this air in person?
Yes - Good, you'll love it!
No - Then pick a reward and have it delivered to you! |
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday it would "be a sign of sickness" to return former President Bill Clinton to the White House following all the recent WikiLeaks revelations.
"Does the law apply to everyone, or are we a country that some people are above the law?" Gingrich asked during an interview on Fox News Channel's "Hannity." "Putting Bill Clinton back in the White House given everything that we're learning would be a sign of sickness."
Recent WikiLeaks documents included a 12-page memo from former Clinton confidant Doug Band in which he indicated he sought out paid-speaking engagements for the former president at the same time he headed up the Clinton Foundation charity.
Gingrich said the continued drip-drip-drip of revelations are why he believes current Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will lose to Republican Donald Trump on November 8.
"In the end, I don't think the majority of American people are going to put somebody who is a liar and a crook in the White House," he said.
Gingrich pointed to Hillary Clinton's history with use of a private server while secretary of state from which 33,000 emails were wiped before handing the rest over to the State Department, and Bill Clinton meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on a private plane just days before the FBI declined to prosecute.
"This is the kind of stuff that [happens] in a place like Venezuela," Gingrich said,. "because they don't have the rule of law."
WikiLeaks, he said, is "ripping the scar off of the largest amount of corruption in American history. This beats any prior corruption scandal I know of, including the 1868 period where Grant was president, including the Harding administration. I mean, including some of the things that happened under Truman." |
Robert Coalson contributed to this article from Prague and Richard Solash contributed from Washington
BAKU -- Azerbaijan hasn't had a competitive presidential election since Abulfaz Elchibey was voted into office in 1992. But the country's opposition political forces hope to change that when voters go the polls in October.On Azerbaijan's Republic Day holiday last month, a wide swath of the country's opposition came together to form a National Council, headed by writer Rustam Ibragimbekov, 74, who won an Academy Award in 1995 for his script for the Russian film "Burnt by the Sun."The National Council includes the Musavat Party, Ali Kerimli's Azerbaijan Popular Front Party, the El Movement, the Civil Solidarity Party, the Open Society Party of former parliament speaker Rasul Quliyev, and around 15 others.This development, says Baku-based political analyst Huseynbala Salimov, has captured international attention and that of the Azerbaijani government."In the past, the opposition has been limited to unacceptable, Russophobe, marginalized groups. Now, all of a sudden, an Oscar laureate, a successful man, has joined the opposition. Therefore, the government is concerned," Salimov says. "Face it, neither the West, nor Iran, nor Russia has ever shown serious interest in the opposition before. Now there is the possibility that such interest could appear."Ibragimbekov (aka Ibrahimbeyov) was in Washington last week, where he held meetings with State Department officials and members of Congress. Ibragimbekov told RFE/RL heof the National Council in Washington and to counter efforts by the government of President Ilham Aliyev to depict him as a tool of Moscow.Aliyev, whose family has presided over the country since his father helped oust Elchibey in a 1993 coup, is widely expected to seek a third term in the October 16 election, and he has already been nominated by his ruling Yeni Azerbaycan (New Azerbaijan) Party (YAP).In recent months, the government has taken several measures seemingly aimed at controlling the election process. It has downgraded the status of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Baku mission, possibly as a prelude to banning European election monitors.It has cracked down on NGOs, arresting activists and accusing the local office of the U.S.-funded National Democratic Institute of financing a "Facebook revolution" in Azerbaijan.And on June 6 Aliyev signed a much-criticized law making the posting ofpunishable by up to three years in prison.Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Brussels on June 21, Aliyev. He said that "there are no political prisoners in Azerbaijan, if you read carefully the comments after the session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe this January, which rejected the report about political prisoners of Azerbaijan. I think that this chapter is closed."On June 19, Human Rights Watch issued a statement saying that "since March 2012, the authorities have arrested or convicted at least 22 political activists, journalists, social media bloggers, human rights defenders, and others who criticized the government. This year alone, people have been charged or convicted in 16 cases."Aliyev also rejected claims the authorities are interfering with access to information from outside or inside Azerbaijan, saying, "we have a free Internet, and the number of Internet users in Azerbaijan is more than 70 percent and there is no censorship."The National Council has evolved slowly since its founding on May 28. Its program includes a new constitution with decentralized power and checks and balances, a parliamentary government, and new parliamentary elections in 2015.The government has been downplaying the significance of the unified body, hoping that it would falter as past attempts to unite the opposition have. Government newspapers run daily articles criticizing the National Council and dismissing Ibragimbekov as a political amateur.In a speech to a YAP gathering on June 7, Aliyev did not mention the National Council, but instead accused the opposition generally of following "orders given to them from abroad.""They are ready to make any concessions in order to come to power," he said. Referring to Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian region of Azerbaijan that has been de facto independent since 1994, Aliyev said the opposition "is ready to present Karabakh to Armenia."YAP Deputy Chairman Ali Ahmadov told a local news agency this week that the National Council was "an ordinary incident in Azerbaijan and carries no significance." He predicted it would collapse "within a short time."In comments to RFE/RL, YAP Deputy Executive Secretary Mubariz Gurbanli echoed the same line: "First, I do not believe they will agree on one candidate. Second, even if they agree, it will not produce a major result for the sociopolitical process of the election, as they expect. Nothing will change, regardless of who they nominate."Behind the scenes, Aliyev and his party may not be so sanguine.In recent weeks, Abbas Abbasov, a former insider who is based in Moscow, has weighed in with some highly critical statements about the Aliyev regime. Abbasov served as deputy prime minister under Heydar Aliyev, is a wealthy and influential figure in the Azeri diaspora, and is a friend of Ibragimbekov's. In addition to his clout, analysts view him as a potential source of funding for the opposition.Nevertheless, with the National Council in intense negotiations over its single candidate, it is far from certain that Ibragimbekov will be endorsed. At a meeting on June 21, the group failed to choose a common candidate.Although he is popular and well-known in Azerbaijan as a cultural figure, he has little political experience. In addition, he has spent much of the last few years living abroad, splitting his time between Moscow, Baku, and California.He is a secretary of the Russian Cinematographers Union and chairman of the Confederation of Cinematographers Unions, which unites similar organizations from across the former Soviet Union.Ibragimbekov has not openly said that he would like to be the opposition candidate, and he has not appeared in Baku since the National Council was founded. He did tell Reuters in a recent interview that he "would not be afraid" to run, if drafted.Speaking to RFE/RL, he said was coy about his plans. "I have my own candidate in mind. We'll discuss it. I hope a single candidate will be agreed upon. Several people want me to be the candidate. There are five or six reasons why I wouldn't like that," he said."It's early yet for me to speak about this," he added. "I'll disclose my reasons in time. But for several reasons, it would be difficult for me to agree to this."National Council executive headquarters head Eldar Namazov says Ibragimbekov is expected in Baku at the end of the month and a decision will be reached then.Gulaga Aslanli, deputy head of the opposition Musavat Party, one of the National Council's most influential participants, told RFE/RL his party had no objection to supporting Ibragimbekov.Elkhan Shahinoglu, head of the Atlas Studies Center in Baku, says some within the National Council may try to push longtime opposition politician Isa Qambar, who was the main opposition candidate from the Bizim Azerbaycan (Our Azerbaijan) bloc in 2003, as the council's choice.However, choosing Ibragimbekov would be a game-changer that could shift the way Aliyev and YAP handle the election. "Ibragimbekov is well-known not only in Azerbaijan, but around the world. The authorities would hardly conduct a blackmail campaign against him," Shahinoglu says. "He would be supported in Washington, Moscow, and European Union countries. His financial resources also increase his chances. Unlike Azerbaijan's poor opposition, Ibragimbekov can fund his own election campaign and the National Council. That is very significant, at present."But skeptics note that even with Ibragimbekov on the ballot, Azerbaijan is a far cry from neighboring Georgia, where billionaire political newcomer Bidzina Ivanishvili financed his own political movement and trumped President Mikheil Saakashvili's ruling party in parliamentary elections last October. |
Before we ever landed on Mars, there was evidence of water on its surface.
Seasonal icecaps, transient clouds and frozen lakes are all abundant.
From orbiters, we could see what looked like a large number of dried-up riverbeds.
Many of these contained oxbow bends, while others contained flowing features similar to what we see arising from mountaintops here on Earth.
There are canyons that show evidence of formation from water-based erosion, akin to the canyons on our own world.
From the surface itself, layers of sedimentary rock show further support for a watery past.
By scraping the dirt on the martian surface, water-ice was revealed, which then sublimated.
Hematite spherules, known as "Martian blueberries," provided strong indirect evidence of water.
As water diffuses through the surface rock, minerals precipitate out of solution and form erosion-resistant spheres: geologically forming concretions.
But by far the strongest evidence comes from the recurring slope lineae.
These “gullies” are seen to be actively growing, but not from landslides.
Our orbiters show these lineae have perchlorate salt deposits inside.
As liquid water dissolves the salts and flows, it sublimates/evaporates, leaving the deposits behind.
Mostly Mute Monday tells the story of a single astronomical phenomenon or object in visuals, images, video and no more than 200 words. |
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President Obama made Republican heads explode today at the National Prayer breakfast as he debunked with years worth of lies that have been uttered about him and his presidency.
Video:
Transcript:
THE PRESIDENT: Our faith teaches us that in the face of suffering, we can’t stand idly by and that we must be that Good Samaritan. In Isaiah, we’re told “to do right. Seek justice. Defend the oppressed.” The Torah commands: “Know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” The Koran instructs: “Stand out firmly for justice.” So history shows that nations that uphold the rights of their people — including the freedom of religion — are ultimately more just and more peaceful and more successful. Nations that do not uphold these rights sow the bitter seeds of instability and violence and extremism. So freedom of religion matters to our national security. (Applause.)
As I’ve said before, there are times when we work with governments that don’t always meet our highest standards, but they’re working with us on core interests such as the security of the American people. At the same time, we also deeply believe that it’s in our interest, even with our partners, sometimes with our friends, to stand up for universal human rights. So promoting religious freedom is a key objective of U.S. foreign policy. And I’m proud that no nation on Earth does more to stand up for the freedom of religion around the world than the United States of America. (Applause.)
It is not always comfortable to do, but it is right. When I meet with Chinese leaders — and we do a lot of business with the Chinese, and that relationship is extraordinarily important not just to our two countries but to the world — but I stress that realizing China’s potential rests on upholding universal rights, including for Christians, and Tibetan Buddhists, and Uighur Muslims. (Applause.)
When I meet with the President of Burma, a country that is trying to emerge out of a long darkness into the light of a representative government, I’ve said that Burma’s return to the international community depends on respecting basic freedoms, including for Christians and Muslims. I’ve pledged our support to the people of Nigeria, who deserve to worship in their churches and mosques in peace, free from terror. I’ve put the weight of my office behind the efforts to protect the people of Sudan and South Sudan, including religious minorities.
As we support Israelis and Palestinians as they engage in direct talks, we’ve made clear that lasting peace will require freedom of worship and access to holy sites for all faiths. I want to take this opportunity to thank Secretary Kerry for his extraordinary passion and principled diplomacy that he’s brought to the cause of peace in the Middle East. Thank you, John. (Applause.)
More broadly, I’ve made the case that no society can truly succeed unless it guarantees the rights of all its peoples, including religious minorities, whether they’re Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan, or Baha’i in Iran, or Coptic Christians in Egypt. And in Syria, it means ensuring a place for all people — Alawites and Sunni, Shia and Christian.
Going forward, we will keep standing for religious freedom around the world. And that includes, by the way, opposing blasphemy and defamation of religion measures, which are promoted sometimes as an expression of religion, but, in fact, all too often can be used to suppress religious minorities. (Applause.) We continue to stand for the rights of all people to practice their faiths in peace and in freedom. And we will continue to stand against the ugly tide of anti-Semitism that rears it’s ugly head all too often.
The right wants you to believe that President Obama is out to destroy religious freedom, but this speech demonstrates that is not the case. This president is committed to protecting religious freedom at home and around the world. The difference between the president and the Republicans is in their definitions of religious freedom. Republicans have concocted a definition of religious freedom that is based around social issues. They have made same sex marriage and contraception issues of religious freedom, when these social questions have nothing to do with the freedom to practice a religion. Obama’s definition is centered around the freedom each of us has to practice, or not practice a religion.
Many Republicans also believe that Obama is not a Christian. Well, the president once again put a stake in the heart of that one with his remarks today. Everyone should know that Barack Obama is a Christian, but the myth that he is some sort of secret Muslim continues to thrive in right wing circles.
The final Republican talking point that Obama wiped out is their claim that he hates Israel. The president not only mentioned the ongoing peace talks, but specifically mentioned standing up against anti-Semitism. All of the major dirty little faith based smears that Republicans use to motivate the religious right, and attack this president were dealt with today.
Obama showed Republican hypocrites a thing or two about real faith. If they were capable of actual growth as human beings, they would listen closely and learn something from this president.
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Was the Godfather pleasantly surprised that someone saw the light after waking up with a horse head in his bed? Don’t think so.
But for some reason, CNN host Alisyn Camerota expressed surprise and delight that the guy who created the video of Donald Trump taking down someone with the CNN logo superimposed on his face has apologized — after CNN unmasked him and tracked him down.
As our Mike Lachance has reported, CNN tracked down the clip creator and threatened to dox him—to expose his identity and location—if he backed off his apology.
CNN and other media are pushing the line that if was proper to unmask the guy because he also had racist and anti-Semitic anonymous posts. But that’s not why CNN did this. CNN tracked the guy down because he creating a GIF mocking CNN, that then was used by CNN’s arch enemy, Trump.
Camerota is either extremely naive—or extremely cynical. Co-host Chris Cuomo wasn’t so wide-eyed, telling Camerota “when exposed, and identified, he then decided to apologize.”
But Camerota wouldn’t quit her Pollyanna impersonation, saying that she saw the apology as a possible “glimmer of hope.” |
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