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There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
Canada’s Finance Minister Bill Morneau has recently reinvigorated his promise to crack down on tax evasion schemes, but how can we trust him when he is himself named in the Panama Papers? This issue, buried in the back-pages of last year’s CBC coverage, is not raised by any of the major media outlets in Canada in connection with Morneau’s current determination to “lay down the gauntlet” on tax loopholes.
In other countries like Iceland and Pakistan, and perhaps even Britain, government leaders have been forced to resign or subjected to criminal investigations as part of the fall-out of the Panama Papers.
If, as the Toronto Star claims, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is now under orders from Morneau to pursue Criminal Charges against “tax cheats”, shouldn’t they be investigating their own boss? Or is this another case of the old political trick of “hiding in plain sight”?
There is no doubt that as Executive Chair of Morneau Shepell, the pension and investments consulting firm he inherited from his father, Morneau was responsible for hiring the legal services of Lennox Corporate Services Ltd., to set up a tax evasion scheme in the Bahamas. According to the ICIJ site this was done in February of 2014, and Morneau did not retire from the firm until October 2015.
The excuses offered for Morneau are that, according the CBC, Morneau “resigned from Morneau Shepell and its Bahamian subsidiary before being sworn in as a minister”; and that, according to the National Post, Morneau is subject to a conflict of interest “screen” in regard to his family business.
Wait a minute, won’t Morneau still benefit from the proceeds of his crime when he retires from politics? What a great maneuver, go into politics in order to escape responsibility for tax evasion!
Now, if you “follow the money” a little further, you find that Morneau is not alone. Take for example his boss, Justin Trudeau’s claim to have been “entirely and completely transparent” about his family’s finances; that is the millions of dollars he inherited from his father (am I beginning to sense a pattern here?). Yes, he openly said that he placed his money in a “blind” trust with BMO private banking, and yes BMO is professionally audited by one of the Big Four international accounting firms – KPMG, so you will never find Trudeau’s name in the Panama Papers, right?
Not so fast, what about the fact that KPMG is named in the Panama Papers? So, it happens, is BMO Nesbitt Burns, part of the complex private banking system where Trudeau has parked his money! And what about the fact that KPMG is BMO’s auditor? And that BMO is the largest contributor to the Trudeau Foundation of the major Canadian Banks etc… and oh, and by the way, KPMG also happen to be the auditors for Morneau Shepell.
The plot thickens when we consider that KPMG is likely also cooking the Liberal Party’s books. Democracy Watch, has recently accused Trudeau of a conflict of interest by hiring KPMG executive John Herhalt to manage the Liberal Party’s finances.
The problem with KPMG is not just that it is named in the Panama Papers, nor that KPMG has a long history of the fraudulent misrepresentation of its client’s books. For example, KPMG is under investigation by US Senators Warren and Markey of Massachusetts for its part in facilitating the fraudulent representation of Wells Fargo accounts during the 2008 financial crisis.
The problem with KPMG is that it is currently under investigation by the CRA for its tax evasion projects on the Isle of Man. This past week NDP leader Thomas Mulcair asked the following Question in the House of Commons:
“Five weeks after KPMG was ordered to maintain all records during an ongoing investigation, a group of offshore shell companies set up by KPMG went ahead and shredded documents related to that probe. This is the very definition of obstruction of justice.
Then the Liberals blocked the investigation into KPMG.
I am curious. Is there any other way the Liberal front bench can twist obstruction of justice and sweetheart deals for crooked billionaires into support for the middle class?”
Well, there may be one. When the little crooked Trudeau-Morneau household runs into trouble with the law in Canada, it can always turn to its so-called opponents, the Conservative Party and former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, to set-up meetings with giant US firms “Blackstone”, and its spin-off “Blackrock” – the largest private equity and assets management firms in the world – to raise some cash.
Mulroney happens to be on the Board of Blackstone, and his daughter Caroline, who just announced her interest in a “political career”, is married to Andrew Lapham, executive advisor to Blackstone based in Toronto. It was through Mulroney that Trudeau arranged for Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone’s CEO, to advise the Liberal cabinet on relations with the new Trump administration. No doubt Blackstone’s connections with the Liberal Party will be of use when it comes to the pursuit of Canadian investment opportunities such as its current interest in the purchase of beleaguered mortgage lending firm Home Capital.
Not to be outdone, Blackrock’s global head of active equities, Mark Wiseman, has wormed his way onto Morneau’s economic growth advisory council. In this capacity he organized Blackrock’s recent investor summit held in Toronto, to which Trudeau made his pitch for “leveraging private capital” in the form of a new Canadian public-private infrastructure bank.
Of course, Blackstone and Blackrock are also named in the Panama Papers.
Sadly, Canadians may never see any benefits from the circulation of all this international finance capital if it is ultimately destined for off shore tax havens. I guess this is what Marx meant when he said that “the executive of the modern state is but a committee for the management of the affairs of the bourgeoisie”. |
Story Highlights City on Fire was the subject of a two-day bidding war
There's no publication date yet, but there is a film deal
Knopf landed the novel, which clocks in at 900 pages
(NEWSER) – There's a good chance you've never heard the name Garth Risk Hallberg; that ends now. The 34-year-old's debut novel, City on Fire, found itself the subject of a two-day bidding war that ended with quite the payday for its young author: nearly $2 million, two sources tell the New York Times.
Knopf landed the novel, which clocks in at 900 pages and, in the Times' telling, heralds the resurgence of the long novel. Hallberg himself was said to be nervous about the length of the book, which he wrote over a period of six years —needlessly, it turns out.
Publishers who have managed to read the book are "rapturously" referencing Michael Chabon and Thomas Pynchon, notes the Times.
MORE FROM NEWSER: How Obama outwits spies: With a tent
There's no publication date yet, but there is a film deal — one that was closed roughly two weeks before the book deal. Producer Scott Rudin (Social Network, Captain Phillips), reportedly read the book overnight and immediately optioned it, explains the Hollywood Reporter.
So what's the plot? It's set in NYC in advance of a massive blackout the city suffered in July 1977, and Hallberg's agent had this to add: It's centered around a "mystery: what exactly is going on behind the locked steel doors of a derelict townhouse in the East Village, and what might it have to do with the shooting in Central Park in the novel's opening act?"
Another story on a book -- this one from the 1850s and cloaked in mystery -- was recently written by Newser, a content partner providing general news, commentary and coverage from around the Web. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1hzYRuc |
Left, Donald and his father Fred with Masonic/Brotherhood of Death hand-over-hand Skull and Bones ("X") Signal. The sign, or letter X, has a long history of use in the Ancient Mystery Religions, in apostate Judaism, in Freemasonry, and in the Occult. The ILLUMINATI elite use it to this day to symbolize key phenomena and mark significant events.
A lot of people who should know better, like the two Kevins, Barrett & MacDonald, think Donald Trump is some kind of saviour. Barrett even thinks Trump will bring the perpetrators of 9-11 to trial. The article below reveals Donald Trump is a longstanding member of the satanic Masonic Jewish conspiracy that afflicts society: "Donald Trump is nothing less than a sideshow and a counterfeit medieval medicine man offering cheap miracle and ILLUSIONARY fixes for America's problems here and abroad."
Jewish opposition is designed to give Trump credibility, as in the banker coup ruse of 1932. Illuminati credo: "A Jew was not created as a means for some other purpose; he himself IS the purpose, since the substance of all divine emanations was created ONLY to serve the Jews." Chabad Lubavitch leader, "The Great Rebbe" Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Donald Drumpf: "The only [candidate] that's going to give real support to Israel is me," said Donald Drumpf. "The rest of them are all talk, no action. They're politicians. I've been loyal to Israel from the day I was born. My father, Fred Trump, was loyal to Israel before me."[51]
Donald Trump, the Devil's Run for the White House (Excerpts by henrymakow.com)
Donald's father Fred moved in the circle of a corrupt powerful New York political fixer and power broker attorney, Abraham (Bunny) Lindenbaum. Or Bunny moved in Fred C. Drumpf's circles. They were more than just client and attorney. The two were joined at the hip. Bunny's first retainer came from Fred C.[27]
Fred and Bunny were political insiders of [Masonic] Tammany Hall through Brooklyn's Madison Club.[28] Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City Democratic political machine entangled and mired in racketeering, corruption, graft and patronage.[29]
(Illuminati i.e. satanist, Jewish power brokers,
Bunny Lindenbaum & son Sandy)
Don didn't go into how or why his father had been so loyal to Israel since the day he was born (1946), but his close personal association with Bunny Lindenbaum may provide some answers. Bunny Lindenbaum was an orthodox and fanatical Zionist Jew. He was president of the Brooklyn Jewish Community Council, and the Brooklyn Jewish Center (BJC). The BJC is connected directly to United Synagogue of America, the World Zionist Congress, United Jewish Appeal, National Jewish Welfare Board, and the MOSSAD.[52]
Bunny Lindenbaum, and his son, Sandy Lindenbaum were high priests of the secret ultra orthodox Lubavitch Movement and the Educational Institute Oholei Torah, the Flagship school of Chabad - Lubavitch, it owns the BJC edifice.[53] Basically, the Chabad Lubavitch Movement is connected with the Ancient Babylonian Talmudic Pharisaic Universal Noahide Laws of Nimrodic God Baal. The Babylonian Talmudic High Priests of the Order of the Pharisaic sun god worshippers of Baal are known as the Mystical Hassidic Chabad Lubavitch.[54]
(left, Trump's lawyer, Sandy Lindenbaum)
Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, the head of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1943, writing in the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, "Pharisaism became Talmudism ...the spirit of the ancient Pharisee survives unaltered. When the Jew studies the Talmud, he is actually repeating arguments used in the Palestinian academies." [55] In other words, the Talmudic Lubavitchers are reborn Pharisees. Many Pharisees belonged to the Jewish occult group, the Satanic "Cabal".[56]
According to the Chabad Lubavitch radical theology, the non Jew "infidels" must be exterminated, adding "may the name of the wicked rot." Among them was Jesus of Nazareth.
They claim that while the Jews are the "Chosen People" and were created in God's image, the Gentiles do not have this status and are effectively considered subhuman." [57] The Chabad are allowed to exist as a powerful international force because they serve Israel in two ways: working with Mossad in intelligence and criminal activities, and a source of extremist ideology to fuel Zionist crimes. It was also a scheme to permanently alienate, divide and polarize the races.[58]
Bunny Lindenbaum BJC's United Jewish Appeal assisted Jewish refugees arriving in the United States.[59] His BJC's World Zionist Congress collaborated with the Nazis to allow a limited number of Jews to emigrate to other countries.[60] |
THE ascension of Senator Floyd Morris to presidency of the Senate yesterday raised a flag of hope for members of the disabled community that he would further champion their cause.
Senator Morris made history in 1998 by becoming the first blind person to be appointed to the Upper House and repeated the feat yesterday when he took his place as the first-ever visually impaired person to head the Senate.
Several disabled students from various schools across the island were on hand to witness the moment.
Head of the Integrated Department at the Salvation Army School for the Blind, Michelle Golding Hylton, who was chaperone for several integrated students — disabled children who have passed their Grade Six Achievement Test and are integrated with the regular high school students — witnessed the installation yesterday and said she was impressed with the move.
"It will be an opportunity to show persons who are disabled that they, too, can be in a superior position," Golding Hylton told the Jamaica Observer.
In the meantime, she expressed hope that the National Disabilities Act, which has been in gestation for more than six years, will be passed into law.
"What I would hope also is that (when it becomes law) the (reservation of at least) 10 per cent (of spaces for disabled persons) that the government has promised over the years in the National Disabilities policy will now (be enforced so) that persons who are visually impaired and physically challenged will become employed," she said.
Pointing to the students, she said "some of them have five, six and eight CXC subjects but unfortunately, a number of them will not get employment. We have a number at the university and we hope that through this move they will be employed both in the public and private sector," she noted further.
The legislation, which aims to protect the rights of the disabled community, has been in the works since the tabling of a national policy for persons with disabilities in 2000, under a previous People's National Party (PNP) Administration. That policy was debated in the Senate in January 2001, and in the House of Representatives in November 2005. In 2006, drafting instructions were issued to the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Council.
Yesterday, Ayoki Sargeant, a blind sixth former of the Queen’s High School in Kingston, was elated for more than one reason.
"It is a great success and I am happy to know he is one of those persons, like me, who is in leadership. I am very happy and he is inspirational and he is one of those persons who help me aspire to greatness. I have always heard of him, from about the age of 13, and I listen to his talk show," she told the Observer.
Blind second-year student at the University of the West Indies Alister McLean also has hopes pinned on Morris.
"I think what happens today is very historical, seeing that he is the first visually impaired senator to be elevated as president, in fact he is the first visually impaired senator as well," he said.
"I think what this will do is open the door for more persons in the disabled community to get promotion and this will serve as positive publicity for us to be employed, especially in the private sector, because currently most of us who are employed are employed in the public sector," he added.
"I hope those in the private sector who witnessed this today will feel motivated and encouraged by all of this. I think the future looks good for those of us who are disabled," said the 21-yearold, who is majoring in public sector management.
President of the Jamaican Union for Seventh-day Adventists Pastor Everett Brown also had high commendations for Morris, who is a member of that denomination.
"I would like to emphasise the fact that we are proud of his appointment as president of the Senate. We are sure that his commitment to his Christian ideals, coupled with his love for the Jamaican people and his impeccable character, will enable him to serve the Senate with distinction," Brown told the Observer. |
RELATED: Doctors Urge Women To Avoid Baby Apps After Two Stillbirths
Owners of a health food store in Belgium, they fed him mainly quinoa, oat, semolina and rice milks after diagnosing him themselves, despite warnings from doctors.
Lucas died of starvation on June 6, 2014, severely dehydrated and with a completely empty stomach. He weighed only 4.29-kilograms – little over the average weight of a newborn, reports The Independent.
His parents, identified only as Peter S and Sandrina V, now face 18 months’ imprisonment, with their trial starting this week.
“Sometimes he gained a little weight, sometimes he lost a little. We never wished for the death of our son,” his mother, in tears, told the court.
“We never went to a doctor because we never noticed anything unusual,” his father said in their defence.
But public prosecutors say the pair drove hours to a homeopath in the final days of Lucas’ life, as he gasped for air, instead of taking him to hospital.
The trial continues. |
A recent (subscriber-only) report from HSBC Global Research helps shed some light on what’s at stake in the fight over climate policy. Short answer: a hell of a lot, especially if you’re invested in fossil fuels.
The International Energy Agency says that, to have a 50 percent chance of limiting global average temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, we can only afford to burn about a third of known fossil-fuel reserves between now and 2050. That means leaving around $20 trillion worth of assets in the ground. That is global warming’s “terrifying new math.”
The analysts at HSBC tried to figure out what would happen to the value of European oil and gas companies if governments put in place policies to achieve this goal. Not surprisingly, the effects would be dire.
First HSBC assumes that, with policies to hit 2 degrees in place, any projects at a cost of more than $50/barrel for oil or $9/mmBtu for natural gas would be abandoned. That would whack fully 25 percent off the reserves of an oil-focused company like BP, though gas-focused companies like the BG Group would take a smaller hit (just 1 percent). State-owned giant Statoil would see its market cap fall by 17 percent.
But the secondary effects would be even worse. If demand for fossil fuels were cut by two-thirds, prices would plunge. That, HSBC estimates, would take 40 to 60 percent off the oil and gas sector’s total market capitalization.
Again: Serious climate policy could reduce the value of large fossil fuel companies by half.
Now, it’s unlikely that the governments of the world are going to get that serious any time soon. But it’s even more unlikely that they’re going to sit on their hands as catastrophe unfolds. There’s going to be some kind of climate policy and that will mean some hit to the valuation of fossil fuel companies.
This is known as “carbon risk” and it’s not priced into markets adequately, or at all. It varies with carbon content, which is to say, unconventional fuels (“heavy oil,” tar sands, etc.) are at greatest risk, followed by coal, then oil, then natural gas. But in a low-carbon world, even gas would take a hit, growing less than half as fast as it has in the past decade.
Different regions would be hit to different degrees. Here are the ones most at risk:
The Middle East
Latin America (predominantly Venezuelan heavy oil)
Canada (predominantly tar sands)
Africa (predominantly Nigeria and Angola)
Sooner or later, investors are going to get nervous about carbon risk, whether or not they are particularly concerned about climate change. Banks and financiers will get nervous about it. The stock market will get nervous about it.
Then things will get interesting. |
Seven in 10 Americans say the overall tone and level of civility has declined in the U.S. since President Donald Trump was elected. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Americans believe political discourse in the United States has become worse in the months since Donald Trump was elected president, while trust in the administration, Congress and the media remains low.
Seven in 10 Americans say they believe the overall tone and level of civility has devolved since November, compared with just 6 percent who see things as improving and 20 percent who say they haven't changed, according to a new Marist Poll conducted on behalf of PBS NewsHour and NPR.
That's a significant shift from eight years ago, when former President Barack Obama was in the early months of his first term: In July 2009, 35 percent of adults said politics between Republicans and Democrats in Washington had become less civil, while 21 percent said they thought civility had improved and a plurality – 42 percent – said they thought it had mostly stayed the same.
The new poll also shows that relatively few voters trust Trump's administration, and even fewer have trust in Congress.
Just 37 percent of adults they have a good amount or a great deal of trust in the White House, while 61 percent say they trust the administration "not very much" or "not at all."
Congress fares even worse: Only 29 percent say they significantly trust the legislative branch, while 68 percent say they have little or no trust in their elected representatives.
The press – Trump's favorite punching bag – is viewed as less reliable than he is, with 30 percent of adults having significant trust in the media, compared with 68 percent who do not. Those results are deeply split along partisan lines: While a majority of Democrats – 56 percent – have a good amount or a great deal of trust in the media, only 9 percent of Republicans do. A whopping 59 percent of Republicans have no trust in the media at all.
Two other institutions that Trump has frequently attacked – the courts and the intelligence community – are much more trusted, according to the poll.
Popular opinion of the judiciary is fairly strong, with 60 percent of adults saying they have a good or great amount of trust in the courts, compared with 37 percent who don't have much or any. Americans also have significant trust in the intelligence community, with 60 percent of adults holding a good or great deal of trust for agencies such as the CIA and the FBI, while 37 percent view them skeptically.
The poll additionally showed Americans are less certain elections will be conducted fairly. While half say they have a good or great amount of trust in the election process, only 17 percent – a decrease of 5 points from March – have high confidence that elections are fair.
And while a majority Americans believe the right to vote is adequately protected, nearly half of Democrats – 44 percent – say voting rights are too restricted, while a quarter of Republicans think the right to vote has been expanded too far.
The poll also found partisan disagreement among central protections in the First Amendment, particularly with regard to freedom of the press and the right to criticize the government.
About a quarter of adults say both rights have been too far restricted. But in both cases, roughly 4 in 10 Republicans say the opposite is true, and that the rights have been too far expanded.
Most Americans – 53 percent – say there is enough protection of freedom of religion, while a third say religious freedom is too restricted. |
Developer Renegade Kid says it is "discussing other options" following the failure of its Kickstarter for episodic first-person horror game Cult County.
The game raised less than ten percent of its targeted $580,000 goal, ending its month-long crowd-funding campaign with $46,736. Renegade Kid is best known as the creator of the Dementium series and titles such as Treasurenauts.
Cult County is described as "The Walking Dead meets Silent Hill 2 from a first-person perspective." The game is set in a "small, dusty West Texas town." In an interview with Polygon last month, company co-founder Jools Watsham said the game would progress, regardless of Kickstarter success. "We will make Cult County regardless of what happens with the Kickstarter campaign," he said. "It will take a lot longer for us to complete Cult County if the minimum goal is not reached, though."
"Cult County Kickstarter has ended. 1492 wonderful backers pledged $46,736. Thank you! We did not reach goal. Now discussing other options," stated Watsham on Twitter today. "People tell us we need to reduce the number of platforms and budget for Cult County. Only way to reduce budget is to only make Episode One." |
In the history and mythology of the Second World War, the Battle Of Britain has an important emotional and pivotal role. For around four months through the summer and fall of 1940, a titanic struggle for air supremacy exploded in the air over Britain.
Philip Brown/Reuters
Hitler hoped that his air force would destroy, if not irreversibly cripple, British planes. Once his air superiority over the British isles was established, Hitler planned, the British would either surrender or succumb to invasion.
What follows is the stuff of legend, one of history’s classic good versus evil battles. A beleaguered Britain was pounded but refused to give up. And eventually in October the Luftwaffe withdrew and Britain survived.
Since then one particular British aircraft has always been credited with the victory: the Supermarine Spitfire. The Spitfire was designed as a sleek, sexy, speedy fighter and the first to be made entirely out of metal. In the world of fighter aircraft, the Spitfire was the Porsche or the Ferrari of its day. Boys dreamed of flying one. Children had posters of Spitfires up on their walls, and memorized makes and models and modifications.
This is grave injustice. Because while the Spitfire played a critical role in the battle, greater credit must go to another ungainly, unfashionable, unsexy aircraft: the Hawker Hurricane. It was slow, heavy and, compared to the Spitfire, ugly.
But the Hurricane was the RAF’s workhorse during the battle. More Hurricanes took to the skies than Spitfires. The Hurricanes shot down more German planes — almost 60 percent of total losses — than Spitfires. And the ramshackle Hurricanes took much more punishment: around 600 Hurricanes were shot down compared to Spitfire losses of around 350.
A brief profile of the Hawker Hurricane:
Rahul Dravid, you can’t help but feel, is the Hawker Hurricane of Indian cricket.
Last week, Mr. Dravid played his last 50-over cricket match in Indian colors. Having retired from all other forms, he will now only play Test Cricket.
In the days leading up to that match, and in the days after, much has been written about this unsung stalwart of the Indian cricket team. An omnipresent theme in all of the coverage has been that Mr. Dravid never has, and probably never will, get the credit due to him.
While Mr. Dravid is a Spitfire in the five-day format, in the shorter affair he has always been seen a slow, square peg in a rapacious, round hole. When forced to accelerate, he had a tendency to lose the fluidity that came naturally to him. We winced when he swung and he missed.
But few Indian cricketers are loved so universally. So we were always wincing with him. Not at him. “Why,” I’ve thought so many times, “are we making him debase himself with this nonsense.”
Unfortunately, for a man who has scored almost 11,000 runs in the ODI format, Mr. Dravid’s reputation is oddly one of someone who struggled to do well in the format. As Sidvee points out in his nostalgic blog post, even when Mr. Dravid did perform in a match, his performance was rarely definitive and usually overshadowed.
Also, perhaps, Mr. Dravid has been given a frustrating nickname: “The Wall.”
Walls are passive. Walls don’t react. Walls just stand there soaking up punishment without retaliating. Walls don’t back down, or step up.
But Rahul Dravid always stepped up. He never backed down. Rahul Dravid ran and ran till perspiration flowed from his face.
And Rahul Dravid reacted plenty. Usually in one of two ways. Sometimes, when he took a catch or scored a century he reacted with this odd ferocity. You can almost sense his teeth gnashing.
After running out Inzamam, a fierce Rahul Dravid keeps running and running:
Other times Mr. Dravid would break into the most wonderful smile ever smiled on a sporting ground. All the dourness and gritty determination that marked his batting would vanish, and his happy face and toothy grin would radiate a nation’s worth of happiness.
Rahul Dravid beams after picking up a rare ODI wicket off his bowling:
Teeth everywhere after taking a then-record 182nd Test catch:
Rahul Dravid was never the Spitfire. Few posters of him will go up. And perhaps few young cricketers will memorize his statistics and grow up aspiring to be the next Rahul Dravid.
But history and Youtube videos and cricket statistics will show that in some of Indian cricket’s most dire moments of crisis the Wall was our Hurricane.
So, who do you think is the most under appreciated Indian cricketer of all times ? |
NEW YORK – With Jose Aldo defending his featherweight belt on Saturday for the sixth time against Ricardo Lamas, people have been wondering if the long tenured champion is destined to move up to 155 pounds for a new slate of challenges, an idea he’s flirted with in the past.
Count UFC president Dana White among those who thinks it’s a good idea, so long as Aldo himself is ready to move on.
"Here you go – [here’s the] green light," White said when asked if he’d grant Aldo permission to switch weight classes.
Last week in Chicago the lightweight division’s No. 1 contender Josh Thompson’s lost to Benson Henderson, thus leaving no clear cut contender to face current champion Anthony Pettis when he comes back from his knee injury. When asked if that circumstance might open the door for Aldo -- who hasn’t lost since 2005 and is undefeated under the Zuffa banner in both the UFC and WEC -- White said "definitely."
And he would be fine with Aldo vacating the 145-pound belt.
"I think if [Aldo makes] the move to 155 he should do it, and drop the belt," White said. "And if he doesn’t like being at 155 he could drop back down and fight for the title again.
"This is crazy but…[Renan] Barao is unbeaten in almost nine years now," White said. "Eight years, nine months. [Aldo]’s eight years too. He’s gone undefeated for almost eight years. He’s had the belt forever, he’d fought everybody and he should just drop the belt and move up to 55 and take on Pettis. It would be awesome."
So what does Aldo think? Does he envision fighting as a lightweight in 2014?
"There’s a lot of people thinking about that, and talking about [me moving to lightweight]," Aldo said. "Of course I have to beat [Ricardo] Lamas first, and after I beat Lamas I will see what happens. But probably yes." |
I am calling b.s. on this excuse.
Reagan actually tried hard. He/His People went out on a limb to sell their ideology. They stuck with it, even when, at the time, it was called extremist and a political loser. Indeed, even when Reagan did compromise in fact, he kept to the narrative.
By contrast Obama and most of the Democrats never tried to change the narrative.
In Obama's case there is no reason to believe that he ever wanted to.
Once the election was won, having campaigned on that whole hopey changey thing, look at whom he chose for his economic team. In fact, as some of the more recent campaign books make clear, Obama was somebody the Washington establishment was quite comfortable with all along. To not change anything important was important. All the more so after the meltdown. The Washington consensus had to abide. Edwards’ populism was dangerous. Obama could offer the appearance of change, but with minimal substance. Once the original economic team was announced, along with the Bernanke reappointment, it was clear nothing serious could be expected in terms of changing the message.
And, jeez, after all the case was already made for him!
After the events of 2006-2008, to say nothing of job stagnation under eight years of Bush, recurrent financial scandals from deregulation and lack of real oversight (from S&Ls, to Enron, Worldcom, to Countrywide and Gold-in-Sacks). And most of all the ever since Reagan return to Gilded Age inequality and lack of income growth for most Americans. Thirty years of slow proven failure, followed by three years of explosive failure. And President Obama could not make the case... because he never tried.
Even when Reagan compromised in fact, he kept to the narrative. Obama is the opposite... refusing to make the strong case for progressive liberal populist economic agenda... even when he tries to do a good policy.
Parallel to the National Journal piece there is an interesting piece by Alterman in The Nation. Altermnan was part of a contingent of liberal journalists who had a sit-down with newly elected Senator Obama in 2005.
Long before the Wall Street crash, when housing prices were still high and most middle-class Americans felt themselves to be on relatively secure ground, Obama was looking for a way to address the problems of workers being undercut and eventually displaced by global competition. He knew how to talk to people in church; it was outside the locked factory gates in towns where the jobs had moved overseas that he felt himself stymied."
Gee... no particular message or policies, just a vague sense of there is a problem... but no willingness to commit to either a strong message or solutions. Again, by contrast with Reagan and the conservative movement:
if you ask most Americans what conservatives believe will fix whatever's wrong with America at any given time, they can give you a simple, coherent response: lower taxes, less government, more "freedom." It may be wrong. It may benefit only the rich. But it is easy to understand and repeat, particularly when billions of dollars have been invested to make it appear plausible. Indeed, the entire edifice of supply-side economics was constructed with this goal in mind. Neoconservative pundit Irving Kristol, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Robert Bartley and former Treasury Secretary William Simon, among others, made this their cause throughout much of the 1970s and '80s, with often astonishing results. They helped channel hundreds of millions of dollars, later mushrooming into billions, into the newly created conservative counter-establishment. These groups and others championed the arguments of Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek and his American counterpart, monetarist Milton Friedman, to replace the global Keynesian consensus with their own. Their ideas were further disseminated by a rash of new quasi-academic and political journals and publishing houses, later augmented by an entire alternative media structure we now understand to be a natural part of our politics and culture.
And now we are getting the pre-signalled capitulation on Social Security, in return for needlessly caving in on the Republican debt ceiling default threat.
Social security... you gotta be kidding; Krugman says:
this is absolutely the wrong place to cut if you’re serious about fiscal issues. It’s where the money isn’t; and in terms of securing Social Security itself, it’s deeply illogical: in order to avoid the possibility of future benefit cuts, we’re cutting future benefits. It’s not just that progressive activists would sit on their hands in disgust; Republicans would, inevitably, run ads attacking Democrats for cutting Social Security. You think that’s crazy? They just won the House in part by accusing Democrats of cutting Medicare. Anyway, let’s hope it’s not for real. Otherwise, Obama will go down in history as the progressive darling who destroyed the legacy of the New Deal.
But Dean Baker offers the alternative scenario President Obama could take:
debt default would be a very bad situation and one that we absolutely should try to avoid. But the day after the default, the country would still have the same capital stock and infrastructure, the same skilled labor force and the same technical knowledge as it did the day before the default. In other words, the ability of our economy to produce more than $15 trillion in goods and services each year will not have been affected. One thing that would not be around the day after a default is Wall Street. The default would wipe out the value the assets of the Wall Street banks, sending Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and the rest into bankruptcy. The recovery for the economy from such a situation will be difficult, but the shareholders of the Wall Street banks would be wiped out and their top executives unemployed. For this reason, the threat of a default is a gun pointed most directly at Wall Street. Given the power of Wall Street over Congress, is inconceivable that they would ever let the Republicans pull the trigger. This means that if President Obama is prepared to take the right and popular position of supporting Social Security and Medicare, he will win. This is both good policy and great politics. The public just has to force President Obama to stand up and show some leadership.
The other deal making that seems to be on the table is tax reform. Yes we need. We need to get rid of the corporate loopholes and not just to pay for the 9/11 workers' health care costs. We need both increased progressivity and simplification. Simplify but not flatten. Again, this needs Democrats willing to stand-up for a change in the narrative.
I expect the Republicans to stick with their message of plutocracy. After they and their buddies got what they wanted these past 30 plus years since Reagan set the narrative:
So that is the change we got with Reaganite Free Market Fudmentalism established as the narrative.
But if Obama is going to explicitly invoke Reagan as a successful change agent to be admired (at least for his success in doing the wrong that he believed in), well then, we can hope Obama might wish to emulate Reagan the change agent. But, you know, in the other direction. Not for social security cuts and more regressive taxes.
It is just that I really do hope that more Democrats, including the President of Hopey Changey would at least try to offer an alternative narrative and policy.
Or as Krugman pointed out yesterday:
Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever. How did that happen?
We need a narrative change.
Even if it is hard.
Update 1:
I guess this is an opportunity to invoke the old FDR line about asking the left to make him do it. Even if he and the WH keep engaging in hippy bashing, we can still pull from the left; at best a real uprising by the progessive populist base; at the very least longterm Overton Window narrative change.
See also my diary from the primaries and for those of us who never expected too much from an individual politician, how we endorse the movement that Obama represented during the campaign (more than Obama the man).
Update 2: Similarly from The Nationover the past few months:
The quickly congealing conventional wisdom claims that President Obama tried to do too much and was too liberal. Wrong. The reality is that the administration and conservative Democrats were too timid in tackling the dire economic crisis inherited from George W. Bush. The public was alienated not because of Obama's overreaching but because his team hasn't fought aggressively enough against well-funded and entrenched interests. For thirty years the working and middle classes have seen their incomes stagnate as the top 1 percent have accrued a staggering percentage of the nation's wealth. By rescuing instead of reforming the big banks, the White House economic team, led by Wall Street–tainted Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, ceded populist energy to the Tea Party and its corporate funders. The inadequacy of the president's recovery program, largely a result of concessions to the GOP, became a political and economic catastrophe for the White House. In the end, the Democrats suffered because the anemic economy hasn't been generating enough jobs—and the president failed to convince voters he was piloting a consistent course that would turn things around. Furthermore, the absence of a forceful and sustained explanation of how conservative policies have failed and will continue to fail enabled a right-wing narrative of empty slogans, fearmongering and outright mendacity to gain traction. Obama's decision to abandon his smart argument about building a new foundation for the economy and his premature embrace of deficit reduction only left voters confused about the White House's program for recovery. The president must lay out a clear and bold plan to create jobs, jobs and more jobs and get the economy going—and fight with conviction for those plans against anyone standing in the way. He should take the advice of the more than 300 economists who have urged his administration not to focus prematurely on deficit reduction. As he made clear in his first postelection press conference, the president remains committed to a politics of civility and common ground. Fine, but if he meets with Republican obstruction, Obama should channel Harry Truman and come out fighting against a know-nothing and do-nothing GOP. If he's determined to pursue a politics of common ground, why not define it as one of economic dignity and social justice, one that ends the corruption and special entitlements that have allowed the very richest to amass great fortunes while the vast majority of Americans struggle to make ends meet? Common ground, if it means making the government more responsive to the needs of the majority. Common ground, if it means public investment in people, in our deteriorating infrastructure, in research and development that serves human needs and rebuilds America's competitiveness in the world. Common ground, if it means ending a wasteful and destructive war in Afghanistan. Common ground, if it means campaign finance reform that levels the playing field so ordinary Americans' voices aren't drowned out by more and more covert and corporate money. And common ground, if it means listening to and remobilizing a base that is the heart and soul of a renewed and revived Democratic Party. A rising American electorate—young people, Latinos, African-Americans, single women, union members—would be an effective counterweight to the assaults of an emboldened GOP and its corporate funders. The extremist GOP may have won control of the House, but it does not have a mandate to dismantle government. According to many polls, majorities across party lines want government to work, and they support a range of reforms to protect them against economic hardship and the marketplace. That includes retirement security, education, consumer protection, investment in infrastructure—but not tax cuts for the rich, subsidies for companies that offshore US jobs, elimination of the Education Department or privatization of Social Security and Medicare. The nation confronts urgent problems. It is still in the throes of an economic crisis. Poverty and inequality are growing, the middle class is shrinking. President Obama should seize the moment to show that he is committed to standing with Americans who have been shafted. This is not a time to retreat. This is a time for the politics of conviction that Obama has said he believes in. Yes you can, Mr. President.
On bipartisanship, the president seems to think that cooperation requires self-abasement. He apologized to the obstructionist Republican leadership for not reaching out, a gesture reciprocated with another poke in the eye. He chose to meet with the hyper-partisan Chamber of Commerce after it ran one of the most dishonest independent campaigns in memory. He appears to be courting Roger Altman, a former investment banker, for his economic team, leavening the Goldman Sachs flavor of his administration with a salty Lehman Brothers veteran. On the economy, the president has abandoned what Americans are focused on - jobs - to embrace what the Beltway elites care about - deficits. His freeze of federal workers' pay, of more symbolic than deficit-reducing value, only reinforced right-wing tripe: that federal employees are overpaid; that overspending is our problem, as opposed to inane tax cuts for the top end; that we should impose austerity now, instead of working to get the economy going. He appears to be headed toward supporting cuts in Social Security and Medicare and irresponsible reductions in domestic investment. And he's on the verge of kowtowing to Republican bluster and cutting a deal to extend George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich in exchange (one hopes) for extending unemployment insurance and possibly getting a vote on the New START treaty. This is political self-immolation. Blue-collar workers abandoned Democrats in large numbers in the fall; wait until they learn what the trade deal means for them. Seniors went south, probably because of Republican lies about cuts in Medicare; wait until anyone over 40 who's lost their savings hears about Alan Simpson's plan to take it to the "greedy geezers." The $60 billion each year in Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans could pay for universal preschool for America's children, or tuition and board for half of America's college students. The stakes are much higher than the distant election. The president has suggested unconvincingly that he'd prefer to be a successful one-term president than a two-term president who didn't get anything done. But there are other alternatives. If the president continues on his current course, we're looking at a failed one-term presidency that the nation cannot afford. Forget about electoral mandates or campaign promises. This president has a historic mandate. Just as Abraham Lincoln had to lead the nation from slavery and Franklin Roosevelt from the Depression, this president must lead the nation from the calamitous failures of three decades of conservative dominance. This requires beginning to reverse the perverse tax policies that have contributed to gilded-age inequality and starved the government of resources needed for vital investments. This demands correcting destabilizing global imbalances, laying a new foundation for reviving American manufacturing and shackling financial speculation. It means ensuring the United States leads rather than lags in the green industrial revolution. And it requires unwinding the self-destructive military adventures abroad. The president must strengthen America's basic social contract in a global economy, not weaken it. This daunting project is not a matter of ambition or appetite - or even unconscious Kenyan socialism. It is the necessary function of a progressive president elected in the wake of calamitous conservative misrule. Every entrenched corporate and financial interest stands in the way; it is easier to take a less confrontational path. This isn't about conventional politics. This is simply about the fate and future of our country. This president has a clear and imperative historic mandate. If he shirks it, he risks more than failing to get reelected. He risks a failed presidency.
But too often, this president is so singularly focused on seeking common ground that he fails to define his—and our—principles. The tax cut deal is just the most recent example. Obama began those negotiations telegraphing his endgame, with eyes set unwaveringly on resolution. He chose not to passionately articulate his values, or to define the GOP's, and in the aftermath of the battle, he refused to explain where it's all meant to lead us. This, he might conclude, is a minor complaint from a dismissible left. But the truth is, without a president who is able—and willing—to lay out a clear, strong and principled argument, without a president who will stand up for the ideals he ran on, even as he seeks resolution, the progressive worldview becomes muted, and the conservative worldview validated. Obama has reinforced the notion, not by compromise but by relative silence, that we should fear changing tax rates in a time of economic crisis, even when economists of all stripes tell us that tax cuts for the wealthy offer extraordinary cost and zero benefit to the nation. He speaks most passionately not while lambasting a Republican Party that would drown the middle class on behalf of the wealthy, but when criticizing the left for not offering support at a time when he doesn't deserve it.
Update 3: About "Hopey" and "Changey"
I am not apologizing for, nor withdrawing my use of Palins "hopey" and "changey." However I do try to explain it -- why it's potential resonance with working and middle classs American is a sad but understandable outcome of the lack of Obama adminstration progressive populism -- in this comment thread.
Update 4: In response to Reagan era taxes discussion:
I would argue that what the Reaganomic conservative plutocracy wanted, and what they got, was tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate, and deregulation and lack of oversight of industry and wall street, and weakening of labor and working people' rights.
At the end of the day, even after the midstream congressionally initiated "fixes" that Reagan agreed, the plutocracy got everything they really wanted including taxes: lower rates on high incomes, lower rates for capital gains and unearned income. To the extent that Federal taxes were raised it was regressively primarily on payroll deduction, and disproportionately hitting working class, middle income and in due course even on the upper middle (salaried) class. At the end of Reagan, and even Reagan-Bush I, the effective rates for the top X% (20%, 10%, 5%, 2%, 1%, 0.1%) were way lower; and for corporations too. Add to that the deregulation, lack of enforcement and oversight, and cutting labor rights, and it hard to see how they did not get what they wanted.
As to "size of government" or the deficit... that was never a real concern, except to be used rhetorically to push the actual (see above) agenda. Indeed insofar as big government can be used to move taxpayers money to the corporate trough, they love big government.
But big picture narrative, the mantra remained government bad, taxes bad, deregulation good. Even when compromising in fact, they never wavered from the narrative, which helps explain why the narrative continued, even as its failures multiplied.
And, as a counter-point to Obama's kudos to Reagan, and Clinton-dismissal, Clinton for all his DLC neo-liberal bad stuff (and they were many) did do a few good things: did raise taxes on high end income, EITC for those at the bottom, increase in minimum wage. But did not change the overall Reagan era narrative. Because too many of them bought into it. |
Planning Board Approves Adding Apartments, Five Stories to Guardian Building in Silver Spring
Officials say project is a way to reinvent struggling office complex
Rendering of proposed apartment complex at the Guardian building in downtown Silver Spring VIA GUARDIAN BUILDING ASSOCIATES
A proposal to revamp an ailing Silver Spring office building by adding five additional floors and a new residential use won the approval of county planning officials Thursday.
The developer, Guardian Building Associates, is looking to convert the existing Guardian building into an 11-story structure with up to 177 apartments and 7,500 square feet of retail space. After reviewing the project, Montgomery County Planning Board members said it falls in line with the county’s push to reinvent aging office complexes that suffer from high vacancy rates.
“To see them getting repositioned as residential is, in some ways, very much in the public interest,” Board Chair Casey Anderson said.
But redevelopment in downtown Silver Spring comes at a cost for some, board members acknowledged. Owners of the EagleBank building next door to the Guardian, at 8605 Cameron St., are feeling nervous about the project after dealing with fallout from another recent development on their property line.
Thomas Kozeny of Gallagher & Associates, which owns the bank building, said his company suffered more than $200,000 in structural damages during construction of a high-rise next door. Debris from the work site kept falling onto his company’s roof and weakened it so much, the company had to pay for a new one, he said. Falling objects also hit the cars of employees, and Kozeny said his windshield was once damaged by a stray drill bit.
Kozeny also said dump trucks and other construction traffic took up parking space and blocked the front of the Gallagher building. He asked that planning board members limit the height of the Guardian project, so his company wouldn’t have to weather another tall development nearby.
“If you allow a 10- or 11-story building to be built on our lot line, we are going to be punished for it,” he said.
Planning board members encouraged Kozeny to work out an agreement with the developer to help manage the project’s impact. Anderson offered his cellphone number in case Gallagher ran into problems with the construction, but said planning officials can’t block the Guardian project based on the potential inconvenience to neighbors.
“We can’t just stop Silver Spring from getting taller,” he said.
Erin Girard, a land use attorney with the developer, said Guardian Building Associates will use best practices during construction and work with neighbors to minimize disruption.
A Guardian Building Associates representative explained that demolition is planned along the north façade facing Cameron Street and the west façade facing Georgia Avenue, but not on the other sides.
Rendering of ground level of Guardian building in downtown Silver Spring. Via Guardian Building Associates.
The proposal is to cover the remaining walls of the six-story, 1950s-era building with brick and brick accents, according to a staff report. The penthouse structure will have metal panels, which will extend down the front of the building on the Georgia Avenue side, the report stated.
A county planner said the building’s roof will feature a reflecting pool, seating area and dog run.
Bethany Rodgers can be reached at [email protected]. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Snowfall is bringing disruption across much of Scotland as the Met Office warns of more snow and ice on the way
Snow has brought fresh disruption to parts of Scotland following the storms that cut power to 140,000 properties last week.
A car has crashed into a house on Dundee's Constitution Road following a six-vehicle collision. One person was thought to have been injured.
A Met Office weather warning of snow and ice affecting central Scotland has been upgraded from yellow to amber.
It advises the public to "be prepared" for difficult weather conditions.
The amber warning covers Strathclyde, Tayside, Fife, south west Scotland, Lothian and the Borders from 16:00 on Tuesday to 10:00 on Wednesday.
Image copyright Traffic scotland Image caption Traffic Scotland camera pictures showed snowy conditions in Argyll at Dalmally, Rest&BeThankful, Tyndrum and Glen Ogle
A yellow "be aware" warning covers the rest of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland until Thursday afternoon.
Scotrail said no trains would run on a number of west coast routes from 12:00 on Wednesday until 18:00 on Thursday due to the stormy conditions being forecast.
On the amber snow warning, the Met Office said: "Showers will fall as snow to low levels at times on Tuesday.
"From late afternoon these will settle more readily, and there is a risk of two spells of persistent snow.
"The first of these is likely to cross the amber area on Tuesday evening, with another one affecting the area on Wednesday morning - both of which could produce disruptive snowfall during busy travel periods.
"Meanwhile, snow is likely to continue to accumulate throughout this period on high ground."
It added: "The public should be prepared for the risk of disruption and difficult driving conditions."
Image copyright Wave 102 Image caption A crash in Dundee saw a car skid off the road into a house
Transport Minister Derek Mackay said a wide range of agencies and organisations were preparing to respond to the expected worsening conditions.
He said: "Our trunk road operating companies are doing all they can to keep roads clear where possible. We have patrols out across the day and night and motorists can see details of where and when gritters will be in operation through the interactive winter treatments map on the Traffic Scotland website.
"There is plenty of salt in stock and our winter control rooms are monitoring conditions 24/7 make sure that the winter fleet is treating and patrolling where required."
Chf Insp Louise Blakelock, of Police Scotland, said: "With a substantial risk of disruption to travel likely throughout today and into Wednesday due to the weather, motorists should consider whether their journey is absolutely necessary.
"If you do decide to travel, ensure your vehicle is well prepared before setting off, make sure your windscreens are completely free of snow and ice, and your lights are working and clean."
Network Rail said staff would be working "around the clock" to keep the tracks clear.
David Dickson, route managing director for Scotland, said: "Safety has to be our first consideration during severe weather.
"We will be monitoring conditions on the ground closely throughout the night and into the morning and will have teams in place across the country to react quickly to any damage caused by the weather.
"Where conditions are predicted to be most severe, we have agreed to withdraw a limited number of services until the worst of the storms have passed."
Image caption Snow has fallen across large parts of the Highlands and north of Scotland
Image copyright Gordon Milligan Image caption Snow has been falling over Dundee
Image copyright Alan Millar Image caption The Isle of Tiree has also had snow flurries
Snow has affected many roads in the Highlands, including the A9 where a lorry jack-knifed near Carrbridge. earlier on Tuesday.
About 30 schools in the Highlands were closed because of the weather.
In Dundee, bus services were restricted to main roads only amid heavy snow in the city.
National Express Dundee said there was "severe disruption to all services".
Police in the Scottish Borders reported a number of minor accidents due to the weather.
They said conditions were "treacherous" on some routes and advised drivers to take care.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Footage shows a the aftermath of snowfall in and around Dundee
A spokeswoman for roads operator Bear Scotland said all trunk routes in the north west and north east were being treated.
She added: "Our specially trained winter team will work around the clock during this challenging period supported by our 24-hour control room, which monitors road conditions via weather stations and cameras. This means that resources are deployed where they are most needed."
Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles are expected to escape the worst of the weather.
The Met Office said the risk of snow extended into northern England on Tuesday, especially across the Pennines and higher parts of Cumbria.
Image copyright Ruth Wright Image caption For Cara, three, the weather has given her the chance to build snow castles at Bankfoot, near Perth
Image caption A snowy scene on Inverness riverside
The snow comes after last week's storms which led to 140,000 homes in Scotland losing power and a number of lorries overturned on motorways.
Engineers battled with extreme weather to reconnect properties in the north of the country, which remained cut off over the weekend.
SSE's Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution (SHEPD) said it remained on high alert because of storm force winds and heavy snow forecast for Wednesday and Thursday.
Check out the latest travel news for Scotland
Image copyright PA
Around the country
For the latest on the roads visit the BBC's travel news page and keep up to date with incidents and roadworks on the motorways here.
Around the country you can check for updates from:
Alternatively, for regular travel bulletins listen live to BBC Radio Scotland and follow @BBCTravelScot.
In times of severe disruption you can also follow the BBC Scotland severe weather Twitter list of key sources.
Below are a number of other traffic information sources.
Other links |
Nov 28, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Lions running back Reggie Bush (21) acknowledges the crowd after defeating the Green Bay Packers 40-10 during a NFL football game on Thanksgiving at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports
Two weeks after the California courts released nearly 500 pages of documents relating to Todd McNair’s defamation lawsuit against the NCAA and USC athletic director Pat Haden issued a harsh statement blasting the NCAA for breaking its own rules, the Trojan response to the NCAA sanctions is only heating up.
Haden was interviewed by Jane Wells on CNBC Friday morning to discuss his stance on Indiana, the repercussions it might have for the Notre Dame game and the NCAA penalties.
More surprisingly, Haden took a stand on the Reggie Bush issue.
Haden: Reggie Bush should ‘absolutely’ be allowed back on campus. — USCFootball.com (@ThePeristyle) April 10, 2015
“Reggie Bush is one of the greatest football players in the history of USC football,” Haden said. “The kids even today who come here and play football still remember they were first introduced to USC through Matt Leinart and Reggie BUsh and those teams that were so successful during that Pete Carroll run.”
This is not the first time Haden has discussed Bush’s banishment from Heritage Hall.
Back in 2010, Haden was quoted by ESPN expressing a desire for the disgraced Heisman winner to be able to explain himself in front of USC’s football team.
“I wish I could ask Reggie to come talk to our football team. I can’t,” said Haden, who replaced ousted AD Mike Garrett on Aug. 3. “He’s not allowed on the campus. But I think he would tell them what a big mistake he made and how sorry he is.”
Bush was indefinitely dissociated from the university by the NCAA when the sanctions ruling came down.
However, there is precedence for NCAA-mandated dissociation to have an expiration date. Chris Webber’s 2003 dissociation from Michigan was in force for ten years, ending in 2013.
Of course there remain questions on Bush’s opinion of his dissociation. In 2012, he expressed no desire to return during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show.
“I haven’t wanted to go back so I don’t feel like that’s an issue,” Bush said. “So even if it was, I wouldn’t go back.”
There are also logistical matters to be discussed.
Does Haden want the NCAA to symbolically end Bush’s dissociation as a gesture of good faith?
Or does USC genuinely want to welcome Bush back to campus, as a person and as a historic figure? Does Haden intend to return the No. 5 jersey to the steps in front of the Coliseum, where the No. 11 and No. 3 lay?
Whether or not Bush or Haden want the No. 5 physically or figuratively restored at USC, Haden’s latest comments certainly indicate his intentions to continue to force the issue.
Haden has yet to ask for money, scholarships or other sorts of reparations, but publicly laying a claim for an end to Bush’s dissociation feels like a first step.
Do you want Reggie Bush back on campus? Yes
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Shabazz Muhammad said it and didn't react to the irony of his own words.
"I'm a hungry guy," the Timberwolves small forward said of his desire to get better.
Except that he isn't.
Muhammad has definitely gotten better, but by changing his eating habits. He has gone from a fastbreak of double cheeseburgers as a rookie to dedicating himself to chicken salad, from approximately 245 pounds to 215 the second season, from out of shape as late as summer league last July to beach workouts that left him puking on the sands of Santa Monica, Calif., and because of it has gone from a focus of criticism to re-affirming his spot as part of the Minnesota future.
I want to be the best I can be and the best in the league. – Shabazz Muhammad
Taking advantage of the consistent big minutes with the Timberwolves down three injured starters, Muhammad has at least 18 points in nine of the last 14 games, pushing his season-long average to 13.9, after 3.9 in a rookie season filled with stretched on the bench and in the D-League. This is the offensive firepower Minnesota envisioned with the 14th pick in the 2013 Draft and this is the level of play Muhammad imagined as he endured month after month of condemnation in dropping from the possible No. 1 pick at the start of the season to the end of the lottery and underwhelming rookie.
Last season, he said, was the culmination of the pressure of the constant spotlight from high school in Las Vegas to UCLA as a mega-recruit to NBA first-round pick. In college, there was the strange story of records wrongly showing Muhammad a year too young and his father mistaking when and where Shabazz was born, part of what Muhammad would come to call "conspiracies" by outsiders against him. Once in the pros, there was the emotion toll of his father's legal issues that led to Ronald Holmes being sentenced in March to 37 months in federal prison in a mortgage-fraud scheme.
Muhammad's usual release of getting on the court was not available -- he could barely get on the court. Instead, he ate himself to a weight that once seemed unimaginable. He heard the dissections that he was a selfish player and, as 2013-14 slipped away, that Minnesota would regret the choice.
It has all made this season that much more satisfying. Not only is Muhammad offering a reminder of why he was so highly regarded in the first place, it comes with the bonus of answering back at critics. The first NBA proof that he can play has special personal value beyond the obvious basketball impact of another young threat for the Timberwolves even after shooting guard Kevin Martin returns and possibly pushes Andrew Wiggins back to small forward, Muhammad's spot.
Question: It looks like you've really found a rhythm. What exactly is happening now that wasn't before?
Answer: Just opportunity. Last year I didn't get a lot of opportunity to play and I'm getting a lot of minutes now. I think it's opportunity and taking my time on offense and defense. I think I'm doing a pretty good job.
Q: What has been the biggest difference from last season to this season?
A: I would say it's been my weight. I feel so much better running up and down the floor. That's something that was really good for me. My athletic ability has really come in there since I lost about 30 pounds.
Q: What did you do in the summer to lose 30 pounds?
A: I worked out with this guy (Frank Matrisciano) that used to work out with Blake Griffin for two years. He really got my weight where it needed to be and got me stronger and it really helped me out a lot. It was a lot of sand work. A lot of running, medicine balls. It was a lot of stuff. I loved doing it. Like I said, Blake Griffin did it for two years and his game went to the next level. It's something I can't wait to have also.
Q: Why then? What prompted you to say, "I need to make a change"?
A: I didn't feel right. In high school and college and stuff, I was like 215, 220 and I could really move. When I was 245 last year, from not playing also, I didn't feel it was my right weight. Right when I got to this weight, I started to move and dunk like I used to do and all that. It's been really good.
Q: Is there any part of you that feels you wasted last season because you let yourself go?
A: Yeah, I think so. It had a lot to do when I got drafted. A lot of conspiracies with college and stuff like that. It kind of motivated to get where I'm at now. I think it really helped me out a lot. Now my journey is really the way I see it. I'm really pleased with it.
Q: Motivated you how?
A: Last year I wasn't playing. I went to the D-League. I had a lot of doubters. A lot of people thought I was going to be a bust and stuff like that. And now I get my opportunity and I'm doing a pretty good job with it. I'm really pleased. Now hopefully we can start winning some games. I know we're a young team, but we're really coming along together.
Q: Is there any part of the weight gain that you think may have been related to being in a bad mood? Is that how you dealt with it?
A: Yeah. I was in a bad mood a lot. Especially with stuff that had to do with my dad. That had a lot to do with it. Not playing. Like I said, it was mostly stuff to do with my dad and it really hurt me just seeing that stuff.
Q: What he did hurt you or what people were saying?
A: What people were saying. It was a lot of criticism there and it kind of made our relationship kind of go down. I look back at it now and I'm doing really good. I'm really pleased with my performance.
Q: Do you think the eating was partly your way of dealing with it?
A: Definitely. I think it was eating. Going out. A lot of that stuff. Not playing. And then I went to the D-League. There was a lot of stress on me, especially when I was growing up being the No. 1 player all the time in high school and stuff like that. It was really hard for me. And like I said, just not playing. That's something that really hurt me a lot.
Q: How's your relationship with him now?
A: It's good. He doesn't really deal so much with my basketball. I think that's a good thing. He's just being a dad now. I've taken my own thing in my own hands. That's the best thing to do.
Q: You're obviously doing better physically. But it sounds like emotionally and mentally you're also in a much better place than a year ago. Compare how you were feeling last season to how you are feeling this season.
A: I think it has a lot to do with opportunity. Coach has a lot of trust in me. I've been doing really well, I think, on the offensive and defensive end. I'm young, only 22, so I can only get better. I've been trying to keep working hard and keep working on my game.
Q: Is there any part of you that's trying to stick it to all the doubters?
A: You always try to. There were a lot of doubters last year. I always knew I can play in the NBA and was an NBA player. Now it's crazy because a lot of people are starting to say good things now who were doubting me. It's also a good thing. I'm just happy to have this opportunity now and to be in this place where I'm at.
Q: Do you take it in stride and say, "Everyone has doubters"? Or how much of you is saying, "Don't come and say nice things about me now when coming into the draft and as a rookie you were killing me"?
A: It is what it is. It's a little bit of both. A lot of people were good people to me and then they saw I wasn't playing they had a lot of doubts about me. That was really hard for me. I pretty much stuck with it. That's the most impressive thing about myself. I stuck with it and got out of it right.
Q: Did that hurt you or did it motivate you?
A: It motivated me, definitely. I'm hungry. I'm a hungry guy. I want to be the best I can be and the best in the league. To do that, you've got to work hard every day and play hard.
Q: Is the way you played the last (few weeks) what you feel like you can be all the time?
A: Definitely. Playing like that is definitely comfortable. Other teams are starting to scout me and now I've just got to keep working on my game and do the things I need to do to be successful.
Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting. |
In which Adam and I sit down with XCOM 2 lead designer Jake Solomon to dissect the strategy sequel. We discuss what it does well and some of the complaints levelled at it, hear about ideas tried and discarded during development, why story had more of a focus this time around and the continued importance of the original X-COM games.
Alec: Important things first. How come you have the United Kingdom and Scotland as soldier nationalities, but not a separate Wales, England, Ireland or Northern Ireland?
Jake Solomon: That’s a very good question. If you’re asking me if I’m some sort of Scottish Independence sympathiser, I will first have to ask how you feel about that. I don’t know why. You’re right, I need to add Wales and separately England in there, I have to. But at that point I think the voice actors would kill me, because we’d need a Welsh accent. We’ve got English, Irish, Scottish and Australian already, which I’m very excited about.
Alec: How are you feeling about the game now it’s out?
Jake Solomon: I think it is very nice when you work on something for a very, very long time and the relationship with the audience changes from showing you things and we can’t show you everything that you want to see but when it’s finally in people’s hands and they are enjoying it… Not much beats that feeling, when people can start playing and they can share their stories with you. This is gonna sound corny, but I do think that you get to put a little happiness into the world, and when you see evidence of that it’s something that I personally take really seriously. You get older and you think about what is it that you’re doing, what you have committed to, and I always do get a particular pleasure that we get to put happiness into people’s lives. When you first release a game and you get to hear some of the happy stories then I think that’s very, very gratifying and humbling. That’s definitely the best part of the job, for sure.
Alec: When I was reading about it in the run-up I was confused by all this new stuff – concealment and the aliens having won. This isn’t XCOM, I don’t know what this is! Then just a few hours in it’s ‘this is my old friend, it’s nice that they’re back.’ What’s the line between making the game everyone wants and making the same thing all over again?
Jake Solomon: It’s certainly a very difficult balance. You make a sequel, then you have to ask yourself the question ‘why?’ Why am I making this?’ In terms of am I doing right by people? If you go out there in front of people as a developer and you say ‘hey, we have something new that we’d like you to pay money for.’ You do have to ask yourself the question from their perspective, why a sequel? If people are still playing Enemy Unknown then what’s the point of making an XCOM 2. You have to add in features that then change it.
Obviously, we don’t make perfect games and so there’s always, always room to improve. You get the itch to say that these are things that, as a team, we think would make the game better. So you add these changes and then of course the balance is you want people to say ‘this is new’ but you don’t want people to say ‘what the hell is this, this isn’t XCOM?’
Alec: The change I hear protested about the most – though by the way I don’t feel like that myself – is that some people are concerned that it’s too hard, too unforgiving.
Jake Solomon: The difficulty is actually one of those things that can be traced to a particular conversation pretty late – very late, actually – in development. I had been pushing the mantra for a long time that we need to make Normal or Veteran difficulty basically an ‘I want to see the cinematics’ mode, an ‘I want to see the story’ mode, and the player can get through it and it shouldn’t be that difficult. But very, very late in development everybody was playing the game, all the team was playing the game and they were coming back saying “yeah… it’s fun. But it’s pretty easy.” And I started to get kinda worried. On the one hand you’ve got all these developers who are super-hardcore XCOM players, but then on the other hand I was ‘if we don’t make the game hard, a lot of the design systems don’t engage.’ If the player isn’t put under pressure, then on the strategy layer a lot of things don’t kick in. The player just doesn’t have to engage with the systems.
Let’s say the cost of recruits – that’s a very small example, but there are a lot of things where the player was just breezing through the game. A lot of things just don’t work, they don’t engage. So I remember thinking ‘wow, actually this game would be improved if everybody had a much more challenging time of things.’ I remember having the conversation – we have a pretty small design group and we meet every morning in my office, and I remember saying ‘you know what, we’re going to make the game a lot harder. We’re going to go back and rebalance and make the game a lot harder on every level, because this game is not engaging people the way it should.’
That happened fairly late in development, and then of course it triggered a fairly mad rush to balance things out.
It definitely happened by late, but I think when the game got more difficult then you started to see people engaging, you felt that spark of life. ‘Ok, I do want to try again.’
I think XCOM 2 is definitely more difficult than XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but it’s interesting because there are multiple ways that people approach XCOM. Some of them think that the right way to play is to beat the mission without losing anybody. That’s fine, it’s certainly fine to think that’s the way you want to play the game, but that I think has led to some frustration in people. If they view XCOM as a puzzle, that missions are a puzzle and there is an optimal path so that if you do things right nobody dies. XCOM is not actually a puzzle, it has all these much more unpredictable elements to it. There are cases where it’s difficult to imagine getting through a mission without somebody dying. Some players can get frustrated by that, and that’s something that we’ve been thinking about quite a bit later. Obviously some people respond really positively to the difficulty and others say ‘it’s too much’, and that’s something we’re thinking about. How do we please both players, basically?
Alec: I read some particular complaints that you can’t have everything all the time in base mode, you always have to spend more than you can earn. I don’t agree, but the concern was that there wasn’t enough pay-off for your struggles.
Jake Solomon: Personally as a designer my experience is that all feedback is factual, so when you do hear feedback like that my instinct is not to say ‘you are incorrect.’ My reaction is always to say ‘ok, does that have to be at odds with the other people who are enjoying the difficulty, and if not, how do we find a way to make both people happy?’
It’s interesting, because obviously if you’re not spending more than you’re bringing in… it’s a standard strategy design, it’s in XCOM particularly but Sid [Meier] does this too. You give the player five all options, all of which seem viable and seem cool and seem necessary, but you only let them pick one. Then by the time they buy that one, we’ve added two more which are ‘these are also cool.’ You’re trying to offer the player things that are all beneficial things that the player wants, they just can’t afford all of them at once.
Alec: how do you communicate that a difficulty setting is harder than it might be in other games without making player feel like a wimp for not picking it?
Jake Solomon: You’re absolutely right. That’s a conversation that we had once the game was taking shape. I made a mistake, I think, by calling the lowest difficulty ‘Rookie’. I don’t know how you get around that. I should probably have put in a fake difficulty below the lowest difficulty. As I get older I give less of a shit about my ego as I play games, but there is something about clicking on the bottom difficulty in a game that purportedly is about challenge. I think that maybe that is a hard pill for people to swallow. ‘I’m not going to take the easy way out’, but then I called it ‘Rookie’ which is, y’know. All these other difficulties have awesome names, and then you’ve got that…
But the challenge too was… and you don’t want to overthink this stuff but we had a very big audience for Enemy Unknown, and it’s a strategy game. And you’ve got to assume that a really big portion of your audience is gonna come back and they’re going to be familiar with Enemy Unknown. What does that mean for difficulty? You couldn’t possibly just give people the same difficulty as Enemy Unknown if they’re experienced with the product, but at the same time how do you cater to people who have never played an XCOM game?
I remember I was talking to Ed Beach, who’s one of our designers, he works on the Civ franchise. He was playing the game and he was saying ‘y’know, it’s pretty tough, I don’t know. I like it, I like it but it feels really, really difficult.’ And I was like ‘jeez.’ That was my first moment of ‘uh-oh, what if we have rebalanced this thing in such a way that most of the reactions will be that it’s actually painfully difficult?’
I think there’s a wide spectrum there, but there were definitely moments of ‘is this too much?’ and how do we cater people that maybe don’t want that experience?
Actually after that I realised that why on Earth did we do four difficulty levels? Civ have six or something like that. We just need more difficulty levels, that’s what it is.
There’s nothing like coming up with the answers after you ship. Genius at work here, people!
On page two, the development of XCOM 2’s story and what series creator Julian Gollop thinks of the sequel.
Or for other articles on XCOM 2, skip to our XCOM 2 guide hub. |
Friday, May 5, 2017
It remains possible to get disbarred in New Jersey, as demonstrated by an attorney admitted in 1986 who drew the attention of bar authorities after a couple of trust account overdrafts.
The ensuing demand audit did not go well, as recounted in the report of the Disciplinary Review Board
Respondent admitted all recordkeeping infractions, except the cash withdrawals and the improperly-documented electronic transfers. He asserted two defenses, however.
First, as to the admitted violations, respondent claimed that, prior to the audit, he had no knowledge of the R. 1:21-6 recordkeeping requirements. Rather, respondent maintained his attorney books and records consistent with the longstanding system of poor recordkeeping practices that he had inherited from his father, Andrew V. Clark, Esq., who retired in approximately 2007. Further, respondent. testified that it was Kauffman, his secretary and bookkeeper, who had failed to prepare monthly three-way reconciliations, failed to maintain the journals and a running balance in the trust account checkbook, and maintained either inaccurate and incomplete ledger cards or none at all.
Second, as to the cash withdrawals and electronic transfers, respondent claimed that they were carried out by Kauffman, without his knowledge or consent. Indeed, respondent blamed Kauffman for nearly every act of impropriety.
The firm's bookkeeper had "run the show" for the attorney's father for many years. She retired and was replaced by the aforesaid Kauffman.
Then Dad got sick
When respondent assumed responsibility for the operation of the firm, he made no effort to learn the bookkeeping system that was in place. He neither met with his father to discuss his responsibilities nor consulted the New Jersey Court Rules. Further, he did not employ either a bookkeeper or an accountant during the audit period, that is, September 2011 through August 2012. Rather, Kauffman carried out the firm's bookkeeping responsibilities...
Respondent allowed Kauffman almost total control over the clerical and financial operation of the firm. He testified that Kauffman opened "every piece of mail," including bank statements, and that he "never saw certain bank records." Respondent was, as he claimed during his September 2012 interview, "in the dark. " Thus, the standard by which respondent measured Kauffman's bookkeeping performance appeared to be whether a client ever accused the firm of not disbursing funds that were due. Respondent testified that, because no client ever made such a complaint, he had no notice of any problem with client funds in the trust account. Thus, he believed that Kauffman was doing a good job and was not handling the firm's accounts in an inappropriate manner. Razanica confirmed that, prior to the firm's receipt of the overdraft notices, the firm's accounting records would not have placed respondent on notice that the trust account was out of trust largely because those records were, abominable.
As to intent
In determining whether respondent was a hapless victim or was intentionally ignorant, we considered the following. First, respondent accepted no responsibility for the firm's financial operation. He not only assumed that the bookkeeping system in place was proper and functioning as it should, but also took no interest in monitoring the books or the activities of Kauffman to ensure that to be the case. We note that an attorney• s recordkeeping responsibilities are nondelegable. See In re Barker, 115 N.J. 30, 35-36 (1989).
Moreover, respondent permitted a situation to develop whereby he and Kauffman would lend money to the business account, "casually" monitor the amounts they were owed, and then re-pay themselves when funds became available. Yet, respondent did nothing to determine when funds became available, instead leaving that crucial determination to Kauffman, who decided into which accounts funds should be deposited and out of which accounts funds were to be disbursed. Respondent created the perfect opportunity for Kauffman, if she chose, to use the firm's accounts as an equity line.
Second, most of the offending checks were stamped with respondent's signature. Al though respondent claimed to know nothing of the stamp or Kauffman's use of it, the sheer number of checks that were stamped with respondent's signature demonstrates clearly and convincingly that he knew that the stamp was being used and that he considered its existence another reason to simply look the other way. In particular, we note the number of checks issued in payment of the Zalek settlement. Clearly, respondent, whose firm was responsible for the monthly payments to his former clients, would have ensured that the payments were being made and, thus, would have known that, if he was not signing the trust account checks, then his signature was being affixed with the stamp.
Third, respondent said it best when he remarked that he was "in the dark" when it came to the firm' s books and records. He was so blind to the firm's financial matters that he never even saw the overdraft notices and was unaware of the OAE's investigation until just before the September 2012 demand audit. In our view, respondent adopted a strategy that would put him "in the dark" about his firm's finances to avoid responsibility. His blindness was, in every respect, willful - and the consequences that flowed from that strategy were both material and predictable. To allow respondent to benefit from his own self-imposed blindness would be tantamount to putting blinders on ourselves.
In sum, we find that respondent knowingly misappropriated Thomas Bilgrav• s funds and that he exhibited willful blindless in the cases of Anaya Grant and the unnamed clients whose monies were invaded in respect of the Zalek payments and the Kauffman disbursements.
(MIke Frisch)
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/05/it-remains-possible-to-get-disbarred-in-new-jersey-as-demonstrated-by-an-attorney-admitted-in-1986-who-drew-the-attention-of.html |
A MAN who shocked Britain after trying to have sex with a post box has been found dead outside a Chinese restaurant.
Paul Bennett’s body was discovered behind the Shanghai Palace in Wigan, Manchester early Sunday but police are not treating the death as suspicious.
They believe the 45-year-old’s death may have been drug related.
Last month, Wigan Magistrates court heard how Bennett had been spotted rubbing himself against the post box with his trousers down, before raising his arms in a star position, shouting ‘wow’.
He pleaded guilty to two charges of indecent exposure as well as using threatening and abusive words and abusive behaviour.
Bennett received a 12-month community order with a compulsory alcohol treatment and supervision program.
He was also ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register and pay £260 in victim compensation and court costs.
Paying tribute, an acquaintance of Mr Bennett said: ‘He had his troubles but he wasn’t a bad lad’.
Originally published as Man who had sex with postbox found dead outside Chinese restaurant |
Breaking the Taboo, narrated by Morgan Freeman #BreakTheTaboo
Breaking the Taboo is a must-see documentary arguing to end the failed War on Drugs (#BreakTheTaboo). Produced by Sam Branson (Richard Branson’s son), this film no doubt leverages the family’s contacts and resources. Special thanks to Sam for releasing such an important film to the public for free on YouTube (you can watch the whole film below in English or Spanish).
Breaking the Taboo’s message can be summed up in the closing credits: “The war on drugs has failed… Help us Break the Taboo right now… Sign the pledge… Share the film… Join the Debate: www.BreakingTheTaboo.com“ #BreakTheTaboo
“Narrated by Oscar winning actor Morgan Freeman, “Breaking the Taboo” is produced by Sam Branson’s indie Sundog Pictures and Brazilian co-production partner Spray Filmes and was directed by Cosmo Feilding Mellen and Fernando Grostein Andrade. Featuring interviews with several current or former presidents from around the world, such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, the film follows The Global Commission on Drug Policy on a mission to break the political taboo over the United States led War on Drugs and expose what it calls the biggest failure of global policy in the last 40 years.”
Breaking the Taboo Highlights
June 1971, Nixon is in a fighting mood [1:01 mark]
“We totally misunderstand cocaine” – Dr Robert DuPont, White House Drug Czar 1973 – 1977 [3:48 mark]
[3:48 mark] Columbia [3:53 mark]
[3:53 mark] “It’s a war against people who try to just earn their living growing some plant. They would like to grow something else if they would receive the same money. I mean, you can not make a war against drugs without knowing that by doing so, you are making a war against people” – Ruth Dreiguss, President of Switzerland, 1999 [7:52 mark]
[7:52 mark] Brazil [9:01 mark]
[9:01 mark] Mexico [12:05 mark]
[12:05 mark] “The war has created the situation, the situation did not created the war” Jorge Castaneda, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mexico 2000-2003 [13:25 mark]
[13:25 mark] “This is not a problem that we Mexicans can solve on our own. We need to strongly call on the US and other big consumer countries to take their share of responsibility in this matter.” Ernesto Zedillo, President of Mexico, 1994 – 2000 [14:28 mark]
[14:28 mark] “Some think there won’t be room for them in jail, we’ll make room” – George Bush, 41st President of the United States [15:27 mark]
[15:27 mark] The economics of cocaine [16:01 mark]
In 1970 there were 330,000 prisoners in the US, in 2012 there are 2.3 million. [17:29 mark]
“If you can’t control drug in a maximum security prison, how can you control drugs in a free society?” – Anthony Papa, Sentenced to 15 years to life for a low-level, non-violent drug offence [18:11 mark]
Baltimore [18:22 mark]
[18:22 mark] “There are 600,000 people in this city, in 2007 there were 100,000 arrests.” – Brenda Blom, Community Lawyer, Baltimore [20:27 mark]
“If all you do is try to find a military or police solution to the problem, a lot of people die and it doesn’t solve the problem” – Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States [21:41 mark]
[21:41 mark] Afghanistan [21:53 mark]
[21:53 mark] “A major use of the enormous profits of the production of poppies, and therefore heroin, goes to the Taliban.” – Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States [22:29 mark]
[22:29 mark] Russia [24:39 mark]
[24:39 mark] Nixon’s task force recommendations: “Possession for personal use no longer a crime, non-profit distribution of small amounts no longer an offense”. Nixon disassociated himself with the report, he said, that’s not going to happen under my watch. [30:28 mark]
With the election of Jimmy Carter in 1977, decriminalization found itself at the forefront of the mainstream political agenda [31:34 mark]
Decriminalization spread to 10 states by 1979, it look like the future, then the parents movement came in and it stopped [32:15 mark]
Reagan [32:30 mark]
[32:30 mark] Under the Reagan administration, a hard-line policy of zero tolerance reignited the drug war and entrenched political attitudes for years to come. [32:30 mark]
Nancy Reagan [32:45 mark]
[32:45 mark] “The truth is the vast majority of members of Congress still take a very hard position on drugs.” – Jim Kolbe US Congressman , 1985 – 2007 [33:20 mark]
, 1985 – 2007 [33:20 mark] In 2009, there were 1.6 million drug arrests, 1.3 million for simple possession, and over 800,000 were for marijuana [33:53 mark]
“We’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars on the war on drugs which has been a complete total failure.” – Ron Paul, US Presidential Candidate 1988, 2008, 2012 [34:54 mark]
[34:54 mark] Portugal [37:07 mark]
[37:07 mark] If someone is arrested for drugs in Portugal, they are not taken to court, instead they are brought before a dissuasion board made up of psychiatrists and social workers. [37:46 mark]
Switzerland [39:00 mark]
[39:00 mark] “You have to accept in a certain way the people as they are” – Ruth Dreifuss, President of Switzerland, 1999 [40:07 mark]
[40:07 mark] In Switzerland, the number of injecting drug users with HIV/AIDS has been reduced by over 50% in 10 years. And the model of putting health before punishment is gathering momentum. [40:14 mark]
Criminal supply route network map [42:19 mark]
Holland [43:45 mark]
[43:45 mark] European Cannabis Consumption Chart – In spite of Holland’s liberal cannabis laws, consumption rates are lower than surrounding countries. [44:58 mark]
Global Commission on Drug Policy Presentation – The war on drugs is a failure… stop the war on drugs. [47:00 mark]
In 2011, President Juan Manuel Santos of Columbia became the first serving president to break the silence and publicly declare that the world needs to look for new solutions. [50:20 mark]
became the first serving president to break the silence and publicly declare that the world needs to look for new solutions. [50:20 mark] Now for the first time in four decades the countries that have suffered most from this war on drugs are talking back and initiating their own reforms unilaterally. (Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay) [51:55 mark]
Breaking the Taboo (Spanish / Español)
Breaking the Taboo Social Media Outreach
#BreakTheTaboo is asking people to record short videos pledging to break the taboo and then to share them on YouTube & Twitter. Watch the video below:
“They are breaking the taboo. Are you? #breakthetaboo and upload a video of yourself saying “I’m (name), and I’m breaking the taboo”. Then send us a link on Twitter @taboobreakers.” |
Less than a week after the sci-fi short True Skin hit the web, Warner Bros. has pre-emptively swiped it off the table, picking it up for Harry Potter’s David Heyman to produce.
He will produce with his Warners-based Heyday Films president Jeffrey Clifford along with Scott Glassgold and Raymond Brothers of IAM Entertainment.
VIDEO: Hot Short 'True Skin' Grabbing Hollywood's Attention
Stephan Zlotescu, who directed the short, is attached to direct the feature version; Chris Sewall, the short's producer, will be a co-producer. The deal was made Tuesday night.
Zlotescu is an FX guru who has worked on videos for Kanye West, Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj but harbored feature dreams. With his FX background, he made the short on a shoestring budget, hoping to use it as a showcase for his style and ideas.
It seems to have done the trick, and now the studio hopes to make a project that has an underlying big concept but on budget similar to the sci-fi found-footage hit Chronicle.
The short is set in the not-too-distant future where everyone is augmenting their bodies. The story’s hero can't afford to augment in the U.S., so he heads to the black market of Bangkok, where he gets hold of a mysterious chip that he discovers is slowly turning him robotic -- and is a hot commodity wanted by shadowy forces.
STORY: Chronicle Director Josh Trenk on His Surprising Success and Possible Sequel
The feature will incorporate that aspect as it thrusts the hero in a race against time to elude his pursuers and save what's left of his humanity.
Zlotescu, Sewell and H1, a man who acted as cinematographer of the short and also might receive a producing credit, are a video team calling themselves N1ON. They are repped by IAM and attorney David Fox of Myman Greenspan.
IAM, quickly becoming a go-to outfit for those looking to take their shorts into the movie world, is also producing Fox’s adaptation of Jesus Orellan’s short Rosa.
Heyman, post-Potter, has kept busy with projects big and small. He is a producer on Gravity, a sci-fi drama from Alfonso Cuaron that stars Sandra Bullock, and is an exec producer on the recently wrapped New Line comedy We’re the Millers. |
A minute later, I really was flying. A car driver waiting to cross my direction of travel at an intersection had accelerated without warning. My bike collided head-on with her SUV, and I slid across the bonnet and the windscreen before landing on the road. If I had died that day, my last utterance would have been “WHOA!” – hardly a contender for a dictionary of quotations. Instead, I was supremely fortunate; all I had was a tweaked neck, a flayed shoulder and a bruised hand. I was also lucky that an off-duty police officer behind the driver was ready to testify that I had right of way. My bike was bent in two. And what did the driver say? “I didn’t see you.” It’s a phrase so familiar to cyclists that it has its own acronym, SMIDSY: “Sorry, mate, I didn’t see ya.” Well, my body healed, and insurance replaced my bike. I was soon back on the road - and as nervous as a kitten in a room full of rottweilers.
There were positives from my crash. I now never fully trust a motorist to give me the right of way - which has spared me an accident several times. Also, I got my new bike in yellow, as the original choice of black was a bad one. But in the months that followed, I shouted at a lot of cars. Mostly, this was at drivers whose actions were making me nervous. But I was scared, and this fear was translating into short-fused fury. The problem is that the stakes are so different for cyclists and motorists. If a car and a bike collide, the motorist goes to the panel-beaters. The cyclist winds up in hospital; or a wheelchair; or the morgue. But motorists often don’t understand that what they see as a happy outcome – “whew, that was close!” – is a near-death experience for a vulnerable road user. And that’s why the cyclist is ranting. After a while, I calmed down again. I realised aggression wasn’t helping anyone, least of all me. I smile at fellow road users, I wave to say thanks, and if someone nearly wipes me out, I try have a calm, polite chat with them if I get a chance. Mostly, they are genuinely sorry.
I also ask myself: why are motorists so angry about cyclists? Let’s face it, with all the traffic lights, the buses, the jaywalking pedestrians, the T3 lanes and above all, the other cars, cyclists are pretty low on the list of things that get in their way. And it's very hard for a cyclist to put a motorist in hospital. Still, I truly believe things are improving on our roads, despite the efforts of shock jocks, TV news, politicians and a certain cricketer. It’s actually not a war zone out there, and 99 out of 100 people – motorists and cyclists – are trying to do the right thing. It helps that more and more people are joining the two-wheeled revolution. In years to come, we’ll hopefully be wondering what all the fuss was about. Meanwhile, don’t SMIDSY me, and I promise I won’t shout at you. How do you stay calm on the road? Has an incident changed the way you ride? Follow Michael O'Reilly on Twitter |
A lot of people have been calling and emailing very upset about the Khyber being on the list of property for the city to possible sell atTuesday’s Council meeting.
I have to say I too am really disappointed that this recommendation has come from staff.
It is hard not to feel that this is just the latest in a string of broken municipal promises around the Khyber as an arts centre.
Council has voted on three occasions that 1588 Barrington would be an arts & culture cluster, and twice has voted that Khyber Arts Society (KAS) would be a tenant and major partner in this building. Regional Council has not changed this direction, having neither voted on it, or even received a report on progress to date.
So when staff who deal with property tell me “there is no municipal requirement” and the property should be sold, well, it simply makes no sense.
Council said it wants an arts incubator downtown, in this building, repeatedly! It isn’t property staff that have dropped the ball. For whatever reason the promises made and the direction given back in 2010 were never followed up by staff, be it recreation, or culture, or whomever should have owned that arts incubator proposal and that process.
The municipality has been neglecting this building both physically and in terms of programming since it was acquired by the city for a dollar in the 1980s. The cost of renovations is now very high. Heritage architects and engineers that I personally trust and admire have reviewed the building and said that the floor system is failing and substantial engineering work will need to be done.
But I don’t really understand why my understanding and senior staff is so far apart on what should happen now. It seems crystal clear to me that two things should happen before we talk about possible disposal.
Council motions do not have a best before date. The need and intent is unchanged. Staff has its marching orders. Why hasn’t any of the programming issues and a report on the success or failure of the 2010 plan come back to council? Staff should be actively engaging the KAS board, who in the 2010 report are supposed to be engaged in a management committee. Staff should be actively assessing what partners the municipality could have to rent the space to, talking to the Feds and the province about funding for the renovation, talking to developers and other big arts organizations about partnerships. I had one developer say he would renovate it and let the gallery stay for free for a 75 year lease. I had one major arts operator say they would take over management of the building and find tenants. There are a lot of unexplored options. Bring these options to Council. Engage the new Arts Halifax committee for ideas and suggestions. Provide a report with the engineering assessment from the trusted heritage architects, so that this stops being a “he said she said” about the real cost of renovation.
Tomorrow in Council I will try and have the Khyber taken off the sale list and have staff given this direction.
But folks, let’s be perfectly clear – in every meeting I’ve had with KAS I’ve said ‘if the renovations really are going to cost more than a couple of million then we need to have a different conversation’. I feel the objective should be first and formost to be a municipally supported artist run centre in downtown, second issue is whether the Khyber building continues to be the right space. We need to be open minded about options. Is this the best and only space to deliver this program? Let’s have a big public discussion about it.
For my part, my first meeting with a senior manager about the Khyber was February 27, and I have a dozen emails documenting concerns.
Other than providing interim funding to KAS none of those concerns have been answered.
I have said to staff repeatedly these last months “if you need clarity come back to council for a motion” before this goes up for sale.
This is a big learning for me – on important and convoluted issues like this it is obviously better for me to go straight to Council, put a motion on the floor and provide direction and clarity to staff. I should have done that in February. I won’t make this mistake again.
COUNCIL MOTIONS REGARDING THE KHYBER
REGIONAL COUNCIL MINUTES July 31, 2007 – item 11.3.1
1. Authorize a process, as outlined in the May 31, 2007 staff report (Attachment 1 to the July 24, 2007 Cultural Advisory Committee report) to enable an HRM owned/community operated Arts & culture Cluster Facility at the Khyber building, 1588 Barrington Street; and
2. Authorize the initiation of a detailed Feasibility Study and Business Plan for the Khyber Arts & Culture Cluster.
REGIONAL COUNCIL MINUTES 6 September 23, 2008Regional Council – September 23, 2008 Item 10.1.1
1. Direct staff not to proceed with the reissuing of Request for Proposals, Creative Cluster Concept and Feasibility Study for the development of a creative arts cluster at 1588 Barrington Street, Alderney Landing and Peace Pavilion; and
2. Provide a $30,000 grant to the Khyber Arts Society in order to develop a business/strategic plan for the establishment of a contemporary art centre at1588 Barrington Street.
REGIONAL COUNCIL MINITES August 10, 2010 motion (status sheet item 8.1) passed that Halifax Regional Council approve:
1. The 3-year Operating Strategy and direct staff to commence interim programming of 1588 Barrington Street as an arts and cultural incubator, as outlined in the report dated June 21, 2010; and
2. That a recommendation to allocate all rentable space on the second floor to the Khyber Arts Society (KAS) at the present less-than-market rate for the next three years be referred to the Grants Committee for consideration. |
“…Max, start from the beginning. Tell me everything.”
Many people know that I love movies. I’m a fanatic. I will watch almost anything given a trusted friend with a recommendation. I have watched many movies in 2015, and quite a few I immediately had to/plan to buy on Blu-ray. However, there is one piece of cinema that I experienced that sticks out among the others because well, it is actually not even a movie, at least in the traditional sense. It’s a Video Game.
That video game is called Life is Strange.
Woah, woah, woah, now I know what you’re probably thinking:
“Wait, isn’t this a movie blog? What are you doing talking about a video game? You’re Cheating!”
Let me explain.
Life is Strange is not what one would generally think of when you think of video games. No evil plot to destroy the world, no super villains, no armies at war, or even anyone to beat to make it to the next level… None of that. If you were to ask me what Life is Strange is like without actually sitting you down in front of it, I would say it’s an independent film that would almost definitely get a ton of praise at Sundance, combined with the DNA of those old Choose-Your-Own Adventure books you used to read in school, and injected with a shot of Twin Peaks for good measure. Are you intrigued yet?
Playing LiS is an experience that is unlike most games. You watch various scenes, like a film, taking control 0f Max in different locations around Arcadia Bay to make decisions and effect the world and people around you. I recommend you take your time, which you will want to if you get even half as invested in the characters as I did. This is because choices matter in this game. If, for example, you decide to take a photo of someone. You may be able to use it to your advantage later down the line. Perhaps maybe you make fun of a bully in a moment of distress to show them how it feels, their dialogue and actions towards you may be more more or less severe going forward. It’s things like these that make the overall experience more personalized to the player and someone else playing may have had the same event with a different outcome. If you don’t like a decision’s immediate consequences, you can do something ( I will get to that in a moment*) to change it and choose another…but keep in mind, immediate results may not reflect things in the long run and once you leave an area, that choice is solidified.
You play as a young girl named Max Caufield; An aspiring photographer who goes to a prestigious boarding school known as Blackwell Academy. After having a vivid vision of a cataclysmic storm headed to her residing town of Arcadia Bay on top of witnessing a fatal shooting after an argument gone wrong in the girl’s bathroom, Max realizes in a moment of panic, that she now has the ability to manipulate time*. Max uses this ability to save the girl who was shot, but doesn’t recognize her until later, as her childhood friend Chloe Price, and this is where our story really starts.
At Blackwell Academy, things are indeed strange. As you work your way through the story, you will realize some characters are not as they seem, weird events start to happen around town, and the ever-looming fear of the giant storm from Max’s vision destroying the town and everyone in it, grows more and more plausible.
The characters themselves are written and voice acted incredibly well. The two main characters: Max and Chloe, feel like real teenagers, from the way they act and dress, down to the way they talk — Their lingo sounds like something you might hear from characters straight out of a flick written by Diablo Cody, which isn’t a bad thing, as it fits their quirky, cool personalities. This is probably more true for Chloe, who is lively and wild, while Max is more cautious and innocent. The other voice actors bring their characters to life as well, and the fact that they all develop over the game and aren’t just one dimensional was a nice surprise, given that some first appear to be on the surface.
Not only does like the game itself play like an interactive character driven movie, it also drips of indie film personality and style. With our main characters being two strong teenage girls (something that’s even more uncommon for a video game, unfortunately), a backdrop of a unsuspecting little sea-side town, and a fitting soundtrack that includes artists like Bright Eyes and Alt-J, it’s wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine Life is Strange under the banner of something like Fox Searchlight.
Much like a TV series though, the story is told over the course of episodes, 5 in total, each taking around 2-3 hours to complete. In all, making it at most, a 15-16 hr experience, and thats probably if you take the time to look for collectibles taking the form of special photograph opportunities. Realistically, a 12-13 hour experience for someone just playing for the story. At around $20 for the whole season, it’s a steal. If you don’t feel like taking the whole plunge, you are also able to buy each episode for $5 a pop. So even if you wanted to check it out skeptically, you can do that for less than half the price of a movie ticket.
The thing that really makes Life is Strange deserve the level of praise I am giving it, is it’s level of smart storytelling. It decides to put it’s focus on it’s characters and the mystery behind it all, rather than large set pieces and action. If you are someone who loves thrillers, mysteries, or even just emotional well told stories, this game was made for you. I recall two moments specifically, over the course of the story that broke me; Shattered my state of calm and collected as I sat there with visible tears rolling down my face because of what just happened. This may sound ridiculous to some, but I kid you not. You feel like you are Max Caufield. The events seem all the more real because YOU are the one involved in the decisions behind them even if some of those events are inevitable.
That is one of the few problems I did have with the experience, is that some events happen to everyone no matter what choices you have made. I do give them the benefit of the doubt though because I realize there is probably a complex system managing all these things in the background, with different directions/dialogue choices and whatnot while also giving all players a varied, but overall somewhat similar vision of what the creators had in mind. Another problem I had, although smaller, was that Lip-Syncing can get a little wonky from time to time. It doesn’t always line up with what the stellar voice actors are saying and it kind of pulls you out of the experience for a minute if you are constantly focusing on their mouths. I think some people won’t mind this, as what the characters say is usually interesting or funny enough that it overshadows this technical aspect.
As a lover of cinema, developed characters, and original stories, Life is Strange blew me away. In an age of milked franchises and sequels, you don’t see something like this come along often. In other words: This is a special experience and I can not recommend it highly enough. After a year of interesting and quality games and movies, this one shines through as a real gem and overall as one of the great stories of last year.
All episodes of Life is Strange can be experienced digitally now on Steam, Xbox One, and PS4 with a limited edition retail version hitting stores on the 16th, later this month.
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Two months ago, we reported on a house barged away from a lot on the south end of Beach Drive SW whose owners are building a new home. We mentioned that the tip about the move came from local journalist Jenny Cunningham, a former TV-news co-worker of ours who was working on an in-depth story about it for Seattle Channel. Above, you can watch Jenny’s story. And there’s a followup: In the story, you’ll meet the house’s new owner, who, when Jenny interviewed her, was hoping to move it to Poulsbo. We checked with Tawny Davis at house-moving company Nickel Bros, which has been storing the house along the Duwamish River in the meantime. She tells us the move is still on, tentatively set for June 20th – so if you see a house atop a barge passing West Seattle shores on that date, it’s probably this one! |
HyralGambit Profile Joined February 2014 2439 Posts Last Edited: 2014-10-07 20:04:36 #1
---
I saw Bisu talking about Soulkey on his stream just now while viewing the recent news about SKT1. Apparently, Soulkey was found on PianO's stream a few days ago (can someone look through PianO's stream VODs and confirm this?).
If this is the case, Soulkey could be one of the 5 mystery Zergs confirmed for the upcoming
Can someone with more insider knowledge confirm this? Can someone with access to Afreeca ask either PianO, ZerO or free if they heard anything from their former teammate?
Edit:
Soulkey is streaming Brood War: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/468701-soulkey-is-streaming-brood-war ---I saw Bisu talking about Soulkey on his stream just now while viewing the recent news about SKT1. Apparently, Soulkey was found on PianO's stream a few days ago (can someone look through PianO's stream VODs and confirm this?).If this is the case, Soulkey could be one of the 5 mystery Zergs confirmed for the upcoming $86,000+ prizepool LoveTV Starleague 3 , the biggest Korean Brood War league hosted in the post-televised history of the game.Can someone with more insider knowledge confirm this? Can someone with access to Afreeca ask either PianO, ZerO or free if they heard anything from their former teammate?Edit: On September 25 2014 18:48 Talionis wrote:
I posted about BravO and Soulkey leaving a week or two ago. I don't know if it's still happening, but the rumours back then said that Soulkey would start streaming on afreeca.
On September 26 2014 14:49 N.geNuity wrote:
credit where credit is due:
Show nested quote +
On September 25 2014 19:18 Seeker wrote:
On September 25 2014 17:46 Penev wrote:
When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up
Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however, Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however,
the article says soulkey is taking a break or something
so I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca credit where credit is due:the article says soulkey is taking a break or somethingso I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca
On September 26 2014 15:37 Stratos wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 26 2014 14:49 N.geNuity wrote:
credit where credit is due:
On September 25 2014 19:18 Seeker wrote:
On September 25 2014 17:46 Penev wrote:
When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up
Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however, Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however,
the article says soulkey is taking a break or something
so I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca credit where credit is due:the article says soulkey is taking a break or somethingso I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca
To quote that friend: "Sooner or later, you'll see Soulkey on Afreeca" and also said that "he wouldn't continue as an SC2 progamer". And "while some SKT1 pros are leaving and looking to join foreign teams, I'm guessing Soulkey isn't." To quote that friend: "Sooner or later, you'll see Soulkey on Afreeca" and also said that "he wouldn't continue as an SC2 progamer". And "while some SKT1 pros are leaving and looking to join foreign teams, I'm guessing Soulkey isn't." Passion overcomes corporate stupidity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX9hbbA-WP4#t=4h2m
Epoxide Profile Blog Joined March 2011 Magic Woods 9039 Posts #2 I have no insight but that seems pretty unlikely. Isn't he one of the top performers in SC2? Liquipedia Souma: EU MM is just Russian Roulette. Literally.
Gamegene Profile Blog Joined June 2011 United States 8300 Posts #3 that'd be kind of sad considering he was one of the younger rookies to break out.
he's had a bad year in SC2 for 2014 :< Throw on your favorite jacket and you're good to roll. Stroll through the trees and let your miseries go.
N.geNuity Profile Blog Joined July 2009 United States 5007 Posts Last Edited: 2014-09-26 05:44:36 #4
Just nowadays there is a lot more money in other areas rather than just be the #2 or #3 slot on a proleague team and get your salary
anyways, we'll just have to wait on this one
I think that there wasn't an announcement he was searching for other teams might be a bit more telling (quick edit: almost all the other recent team shuffle players immediately announced searching for another team, etc etc. The google translate of the
He was born 1991 so he may be doing a "retire -> spend a few months off -> military" type of deal
ofc, some of the afreeca streamers were following that plan and a "Few months off" is turning into years and years before going to the military :p nah he had a decent year (actually more than decent) as he made at least ro16 all three gsls and performed stabley in proleague. Recent results in proleague is a string of losses on liquipedia though. But SKT got 2nd so by any good measure that is a solid yearJust nowadays there is a lot more money in other areas rather than just be the #2 or #3 slot on a proleague team and get your salaryanyways, we'll just have to wait on this oneI think that there wasn't an announcement he was searching for other teams might be a bit more telling (quick edit: almost all the other recent team shuffle players immediately announced searching for another team, etc etc. The google translate of the dailyesports article of course is not helpful at all and sc2 people havent translated it. The DES article does say 아프리카TV though (Afreeca TV), but I think it isn't directly related to soulkey).He was born 1991 so he may be doing a "retire -> spend a few months off -> military" type of dealofc, some of the afreeca streamers were following that plan and a "Few months off" is turning into years and years before going to the military :p iu, seungah, yura, taeyeon, hyosung, lizzy, suji, sojin, jia, ji eun, eunji, soya, younha, jiyeon, fiestar, sinb, jung myung hoon godtier. BW FOREVERR
N.geNuity Profile Blog Joined July 2009 United States 5007 Posts #5
On September 25 2014 19:18 Seeker wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 25 2014 17:46 Penev wrote:
When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up
Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however, Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however,
the article says soulkey is taking a break or something
so I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca credit where credit is due:the article says soulkey is taking a break or somethingso I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca iu, seungah, yura, taeyeon, hyosung, lizzy, suji, sojin, jia, ji eun, eunji, soya, younha, jiyeon, fiestar, sinb, jung myung hoon godtier. BW FOREVERR
HyralGambit Profile Joined February 2014 2439 Posts #6
I also found this:
Nice find N.geNuity.I also found this: On September 25 2014 18:48 Talionis wrote:
I posted about BravO and Soulkey leaving a week or two ago. I don't know if it's still happening, but the rumours back then said that Soulkey would start streaming on afreeca. Passion overcomes corporate stupidity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX9hbbA-WP4#t=4h2m
Pontius Pirate Profile Blog Joined August 2013 United States 1556 Posts #7 Hell, if I was in his position, I'd totally take a brief break to play in such a remunerative tournament. "I had to close the door so my parents wouldn't judge me." - ZombieGrub during the ShitfaceTradeTV stream
Stratos Profile Blog Joined July 2010 Czech Republic 6104 Posts #8 On September 26 2014 14:49 N.geNuity wrote:
credit where credit is due:
Show nested quote +
On September 25 2014 19:18 Seeker wrote:
On September 25 2014 17:46 Penev wrote:
When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up
Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however, Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however,
the article says soulkey is taking a break or something
so I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca credit where credit is due:the article says soulkey is taking a break or somethingso I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca
To quote that friend: "Sooner or later, you'll see Soulkey on Afreeca" and also said that "he wouldn't continue as an SC2 progamer". And "while some SKT1 pros are leaving and looking to join foreign teams, I'm guessing Soulkey isn't." To quote that friend: "Sooner or later, you'll see Soulkey on Afreeca" and also said that "he wouldn't continue as an SC2 progamer". And "while some SKT1 pros are leaving and looking to join foreign teams, I'm guessing Soulkey isn't." En Taro Violet
[sc1f]eonzerg Profile Blog Joined February 2010 Belgium 5639 Posts #9 wow man i think he lost all his motivation then,not long ago he was the best zerg player of the world and he is so sick at sc2 ,im not sure this is the right answer for him(bw) i dont think he was top level like zero effort jd hydra etc,more like a stx hero type b ggaemo level.
[sc1f]eonzerg Profile Blog Joined February 2010 Belgium 5639 Posts #10
and before someone look his ml and tell me he won flash,look the game ,,,
even stratos offracing could won that aswell even stratos offracing could won that aswell
BigFan Profile Blog Joined December 2010 TLADT 23520 Posts Last Edited: 2014-09-26 07:01:07 #11
On September 26 2014 15:37 Stratos wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 26 2014 14:49 N.geNuity wrote:
credit where credit is due:
On September 25 2014 19:18 Seeker wrote:
On September 25 2014 17:46 Penev wrote:
When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up When I google translate the Soulkey link the word "retired" actually comes up
Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however, Soulkey's friend is a retired gamer. He gave a statement about Soulkey leaving SC2 and streaming on Afreeca TV. This is an unconfirmed rumor however,
the article says soulkey is taking a break or something
so I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca credit where credit is due:the article says soulkey is taking a break or somethingso I guess there have been korean rumours for a little while soulkey might be going to stream on afreeca
To quote that friend: "Sooner or later, you'll see Soulkey on Afreeca" and also said that "he wouldn't continue as an SC2 progamer". And "while some SKT1 pros are leaving and looking to join foreign teams, I'm guessing Soulkey isn't." To quote that friend: "Sooner or later, you'll see Soulkey on Afreeca" and also said that "he wouldn't continue as an SC2 progamer". And "while some SKT1 pros are leaving and looking to join foreign teams, I'm guessing Soulkey isn't."
oh wow, knew about Seeker's comment but your comment makes it seem like it's a sure thing. Either way, it's still odd that he left SKT T1 considering that his performance is still really good despite him not being #1 Zerg anymore. It was the biggest surprise of the news when it came to SKT T1 signings/releases. ^ I always got the feeling that SK > ZerO though towards the end of pro BW, ZerO was eclipsing him and becoming the better player. That looks like a game I would lose as the terran haha.oh wow, knew about Seeker's comment but your comment makes it seem like it's a sure thing. Either way, it's still odd that he left SKT T1 considering that his performance is still really good despite him not being #1 Zerg anymore. It was the biggest surprise of the news when it came to SKT T1 signings/releases. BW Editor-In-Chief "Watch Bakemonogatari or I will kill you." -Toad, April 18th, 2017
lichter Profile Blog Joined September 2010 1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL 22175 Posts #12 Soulkey has looked very unhappy whenever the cameras are on him ever since soO supplanted him as the best zerg, so I'm not surprised he's considering his options whether that's new team, retirement, or BW. Administrator YOU MUST HEED MY INSTRUCTIONS TAKE OFF YOUR THIIIINGS
FFW_Rude Profile Blog Joined November 2010 France 9978 Posts #13 On September 26 2014 14:26 Epoxide wrote:
I have no insight but that seems pretty unlikely. Isn't he one of the top performers in SC2?
Maybe he's planning on going to the military. Jangbi was Code S before he returned to BW. And his form on SC2 seemed to have declined a bit. Maybe he's planning on going to the military. Jangbi was Code S before he returned to BW. And his form on SC2 seemed to have declined a bit. #1 KT Rolster fanboy. KT BEST KT ! Hail to KT playoffs Zergs ! Unofficial french translator for SlayerS_`Boxer` biography "Crazy as me".
worosei Profile Joined October 2010 Australia 198 Posts #14 heck for that prize money, i wouldnt be surprised if other ex broodwar top players entered...
it'd be heaps awesome to see soulkey in lovetv
REyeM Profile Joined August 2014 2636 Posts #15 I would be really cool, maybe now is the right time to get into Brood War! S4 Arrows, never forget. RIP Woongjin Stars.
Probemicro Profile Joined February 2014 3708 Posts Last Edited: 2014-09-26 08:33:54 #16 performances being good doesnt always mean he would continue SC2. jaehoon, jangbi,effort, bisu all seem to be improving but decide to retire instead for one reason or another. also passion for the game is a more important factor.
WOOT hopes he stays on BW for long and give Killer a run for his money
Glioburd Profile Joined April 2008 France 1865 Posts #17 Sick new if it's true "You should hate loosing, but you should never fear defeat." NaDa.
Pharaphobia Profile Joined October 2013 Czech Republic 58 Posts #18 Regarding to Stratos translation these rumor is just a rumor so this post is not valid at all (:! After those years of SC2 I think nobody can just switch NOW and practice to compete in that 83k whatever league, it just wont happen otherwise that guy would become true RTS gosu. http://twitch.tv/Pharaphobia
HyralGambit Profile Joined February 2014 2439 Posts Last Edited: 2014-09-26 10:35:34 #19 On September 26 2014 19:09 Pharaphobia wrote:
Regarding to Stratos translation these rumor is just a rumor so this post is not valid at all (:! After those years of SC2 I think nobody can just switch NOW and practice to compete in that 83k whatever league, it just wont happen otherwise that guy would become true RTS gosu. Regarding to Stratos translation these rumor is just a rumor so this post is not valid at all (:! After those years of SC2 I think nobody can just switch NOW and practice to compete in that 83k whatever league, it just wont happen otherwise that guy would become true RTS gosu.
Like that Protoss nobody Bisu who quit SC2 after all those years in SKT1 back in September 2013, practiced out of him mind, and won the Sonic Starleague 9 just 6 months after switching back to Brood War.
TOTALLY DID NOT HAPPEN EARLIER THIS YEAR
+ Show Spoiler + Like that Protoss nobody Bisu who quit SC2 after all those years in SKT1 back in September 2013, practiced out of him mind, and won the Sonic Starleague 9 just 6 months after switching back to Brood War.TOTALLY DID NOT HAPPEN EARLIER THIS YEAR Passion overcomes corporate stupidity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX9hbbA-WP4#t=4h2m
Probemicro Profile Joined February 2014 3708 Posts #20 On September 26 2014 19:33 HyralGambit wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 26 2014 19:09 Pharaphobia wrote:
Regarding to Stratos translation these rumor is just a rumor so this post is not valid at all (:! After those years of SC2 I think nobody can just switch NOW and practice to compete in that 83k whatever league, it just wont happen otherwise that guy would become true RTS gosu. Regarding to Stratos translation these rumor is just a rumor so this post is not valid at all (:! After those years of SC2 I think nobody can just switch NOW and practice to compete in that 83k whatever league, it just wont happen otherwise that guy would become true RTS gosu.
Like that Protoss nobody Bisu who quit SC2 after all those years in SKT1 back in September 2013, practiced out of him mind, and won the Sonic Starleague 9 just 6 months after switching back to Brood War.
TOTALLY DID NOT HAPPEN EARLIER THIS YEAR
+ Show Spoiler + Like that Protoss nobody Bisu who quit SC2 after all those years in SKT1 back in September 2013, practiced out of him mind, and won the Sonic Starleague 9 just 6 months after switching back to Brood War.TOTALLY DID NOT HAPPEN EARLIER THIS YEAR
relax the guy you replied to was probably not even born when BW was released. relax the guy you replied to was probably not even born when BW was released.
1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Next All |
On Wednesday night, the Chicago Bulls halted the impressive winning streak of the Miami Heat at 27 games. Luckily, a gaggle of exceedingly white dudes had courtside seats (because white people looooooove courtside seats) and treated us to the above picture.
This moment in basketball history deserves special attention. Computer: ZOOM IN. ENHANCE.
This guy is pretty white, I guess. If you were able to capture Howard Dean's infamous scream, grant it sentience and a corporeal form and fill it full of Mike's Hard Lemonade, this is what you'd be looking at. Thanks, science! You've done it again!
Let's move along to the next item on the menu. Whaddaya got for us, white people?
Hey, it's the white Lewis Black! Dude unironically throwing up the peace sign in celebration and looking terrified someone is going to request he start dancing. "I'M EXCITED BUT PLEASE DON'T LOOK AT ME DON'T MAKE ME USE MY BODY TO DO THINGS OH GOD."
I feel ya, buddy.
Aw, a tender moment! Just two white guys, enjoying each others' company, wearing their finest Cherokee-brand shirts. This is something really special. Let's give them their privacy.
Aw, buddy. Well, not all white people can be happy about the Heat losing, I guess. This guys WELP face says it all, I guess. There's only so m-- good lord, that's a lot of jewelry, bro. That's so much jewelry my heavens. And you're only wearing a jersey and some stone-washed jeans. Not even an undershirt. Just a mile of gold chain. Now you're making US sad, but in a very different way.
Okay, moving on.
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY F****** S***
If Wallace Shawn were an even whiter Gollum, you'd STILL have to ramp several notches up the White Guy Meter to arrive at ... THIS. LOOK AT HIS CRAZY WRIST AND FIST. IT"S LIKE HIS REAL HAND IS IN HIS SLEEVE AND HE'S HOLDING A WACKY FAKE ARM LIKE A SOUVENIR CAPTAIN HOOK HOOK.
Phew, okay. We really need something to celebrate this occasion. Something worthy of the Internet.
Never change, white people. You are a GOLD MINE.
Read more at: Blog a Bull and Hot Hot Hoops. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Clegg adviser Norman Lamb could quit over NHS changes
One of Nick Clegg's closest advisers has threatened to quit unless ministers make changes to a proposed overhaul of the NHS.
Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb said the plans posed a major "financial risk" to the NHS, and patient care could suffer.
He said he would quit as Mr Clegg's chief political adviser unless NHS professionals were "on board".
Health Minister Simon Burns said while there was consensus over the principles of the plan, it could be improved.
Labour said Mr Lamb's comments "added to the confusion" the government was showing over the NHS.
'Listening exercise'
The government is consulting further on plans to overhaul the NHS, under which GPs are to be given control of much of the budget, tiers of management axed and the service opened up to more competition.
What we don't want is a pause or a PR initiative, what we want is for the government to say we've got this wrong Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor Does Clegg agree with ally? Q&A: The NHS shake-up
The "listening exercise" was launched following widespread criticism of the plans by opposition parties and medical professionals, including the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
Lib Dem activists have also aired their concerns, voting against the restructuring at their Spring Conference.
Mr Lamb, the MP for North Norfolk who was the party's health spokesman in opposition, said the planned changes were an "enormous political risk".
He told the BBC's Politics Show that the proposal to give GPs control of budgets should be phased in rather than "rushed into".
"The sensible thing to do is to test it and see how it works," he said. "To do it in one fell swoop is very risky".
Personal stance
While supporting the general direction of government proposals, he feared there was "no evidence" how the new GP-led system would operate.
"My real concern is the financial risk of doing it too quickly, because then services and patient care suffers," he said."
Mr Lamb said he felt "very strongly" about the issue - so much so that he was prepared to stand down if aspects of the changes were not modified.
"I've said that if it's impossible for me to carry on in my position, I will step down. And I think that it's in the government's interest to get it right in the way that I suggest.
"Getting the NHS right is the most important thing. And indeed it would be incredibly destabilising politically if we get this reform wrong."
Mr Lamb stressed he was speaking in a personal capacity and had told the deputy prime minister of his intention to voice his concerns.
'Flawed'
Also speaking on the BBC's Politics Show, Conservative Party deputy chairman Michael Fallon acknowledged the government "needed to get the reforms right, which means listening and seeing whether we can improve what we've already produced".
Analysis By Nick Triggle, BBC News health reporter Norman Lamb is a man who knows the NHS. He was the Lib Dem health spokesman for nearly four years until he started working with Nick Clegg after the coalition was formed. His intervention marks the start of what could be another critical week for Health Secretary Andrew Lansley. After being forced to put his reforms on "pause" last week to launch the so-called "listening exercise", he will this week have to face hordes of angry nurses at their annual conference. He is expected to visit the Royal College of Nursing meeting in Liverpool on Wednesday. Five years ago the nurses heckled and booed another under-fire health secretary, Patricia Hewitt. A similar fate probably will not befall Mr Lansley as he is not due to give a speech but instead is just coming to "listen". Nonetheless, with tensions high in the coalition government and the NHS about the reforms, he can expect a tough ride.
And Conservative health minister Simon Burns said the government was committed both to the principles of NHS and modernising the service.
"Our plans reflect both Lib Dem and Conservative thinking and implementation on the ground continues to be impressive," he said.
"While there is broad consensus over the principles of our plans, we are taking the natural break before it moves to the House of Lords to pause, listen and reflect so we can make more improvements."
However, shadow chancellor Ed Balls said he thought Mr Lamb's comments were "very significant".
"What we don't want is a pause or a PR initiative, what we want is for the government to say we've got this wrong, and as Norman Lamb was saying, have a change of direction," he said.
And shadow health spokesman John Healey said Mr Lamb's comments "added to the confusion throughout the Conservative-led government over its handling of the health service" and showed the plans were "flawed".
'Substantive changes'
Also speaking on Sunday, Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander acknowledged there were "issues" in the way GP-led commissioning consortia would operate and be regulated.
"We intend to come back with serious, substantive changes to this Bill as a consequence of this process," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme.
Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said ministers should listen to Mr Lamb as he was "someone who knows the NHS".
As well as being concerned about the pace of change, he suggested the government should seek to broaden the range of experts involved in the GP consortia as recommended by MPs on the health select committee.
He said the changes would be "high risk" at any time but added: "To do it now when at the same time stripping out £20bn is a recipe for real instability and it will be patients that will suffer." |
Shut the fuck up. So lets see. I can now narrow who ever the OP of all these threads and posts down to the very few people I know that have seen me in red jeans that the women went crazy over as I got laid everynight and you all didnt. So lets see. I think ill start making a list so I can shame whatever asshole is obsessed with my pants, my bulge and my sexy self while you sit here online making fun of bands you probably never have even heard before and starting trouble between a friend of mine and myself. Bottom line, Jolly is a friend of mine. We have had many a good time. I like Sire and I even drove them to a Boston show once and wouldnt mind seeing them again. So whoever is using my name and my band name can give it up. The joke is dead. And if anyone in Sore is reading this please dont feed these trolls. They randomly started talking shit about me and pretending to be me as they talked shit about you only problem is they didnt realize we are actually all friends so they failed. I did get pissed off that they tried so hard to piss me off but whatever. And Jolly I hope that you really did make that response but keep in mind these people are retards. I dont get how someone saying they didnt like your band at a churchburn show has or had anything to do with me, gss ron and all the gay xasthur references and etc etc. Seriously people? Lame and beating a dead horse joke. Wow you made fun of a band and then you made fun of me. You are a internet hero. Congrats. |
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LAS VEGAS -- Former Henderson police officer Joseph Lawrance agreed to a plea deal Monday morning that required him to plead guilty to two charges in a DUI case.
Lawrance, 31, pleaded guilty to disobeying a police officer and DUI. Lawrance was arrested on Oct. 23 on U.S. 95. According to police, there was whiskey, prescription pills and a loaded gun in his vehicle when he was stopped.
Lawrance was released on house arrest and will have to wear an alcohol monitor and participate in a year-long alcohol treatment program. He will be sentenced on the two charges in December.
Henderson Police told 8 News NOW that he was terminated Monday. |
In the context of the parade of multi-billion-dollar buyouts in recent years, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)’s $200 million acquisition of machine learning and artificial intelligence company Turi may seem like small potatoes. However, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry believes the deal could ultimately create a $300 billion opportunity for Apple.
Chowdhry said the acquisition is “solid and smart and makes Apple Machine Learning the most comprehensive offering with ML Models, Algorithms-Optimization, and Developer Ecosystem.”
Related Link: S&P 500 Will Hit 2,350 Within 15 Months
Chowdhry estimates the intelligent software applications market will be a $300 billion market, and believes Turi puts Apple in prime position to cash in.
He notes that Turi has a wide lead on the competition when it comes to its ML developer ecosystem, which includes more than 40,000 data scientists and developers.
Chowdhry also points out that Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) CEO Jen-Hsun Huang have both consulted Turi co-founder Carlos Guestrin on autonomous driving and machine learning,
In addition, Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) are just three of Turi’s many high-profile customers.
With iPhone sales declining in back-to-back quarters for the first time ever this year, Apple shareholders certainly welcome potentially massive AI and ML growth opportunities in years to come.
The $590 billion market company recently traded at $108.32. Shares are up 11 percent since its Q3 report on July 26. |
French president Emmanuel Macron and current UK prime minister Theresa May have announced a joint initiative that will see tech companies penalised for failing to remove content.
Plans drawn up by the two premiers include exploring the possibility of creating a new legal liability for tech companies if they fail to remove content, which could see companies being fined for failing to take action against criminal and terrorist content.
“The counter-terrorism cooperation between British and French intelligence agencies is already strong, but president Macron and I agree that more should be done to tackle the terrorist threat online,” said May.
“In the UK we are already working with social media companies to halt the spread of extremist material and poisonous propaganda that is warping young minds.”
The prime minister and president Macron have also stressed the need for tech firms to urgently establish an industry-led forum, which was originally agreed at the G7 summit last month.
The two countries and their leaders want tech companies to work together to develop shared technical and policy solutions that will tackle terrorist content on the internet.
“Today I can announce that the UK and France will work together to encourage corporations to do more and abide by their social responsibility to step up their efforts to remove harmful content from their networks, including exploring the possibility of creating a new legal liability for tech companies if they fail to remove unacceptable content,” said May.
Theresa May has been criticised in the past for seeking to create a legal liability that could force tech companies to monitor all online activity.
“The kneejerk ‘blame the internet’ that comes after every act of terrorism is so blatant as to be embarrassing,” said Paul Bernal, a law lecturer at the University of East Anglia, in an interview with the Guardian.
However, despite concerns that her approach is heavy-handed, in announcing the possibility of creating a legal liability May remained as steadfast as ever.
“We are united in our total condemnation of terrorism and our commitment to stamp out this evil,” said May. |
It seems that one Wife Swap participant might should of stayed with her new family! Season 2 alum and former Miss Teen New Jersey Jamie Czerniawski has been arrested for stabbing her husband Charles with a knife during a fight in their Freehold, New Jersey home on May 26. Jamie Czerniawski, 30, tells The New York Post that she acted in self defense, saying “I was so scared I just closed my eyes [and struck him] … If I didn’t do it, I would’ve been dead.”
Jamie claims the couple had just returned home at 1AM when a phone call from a mutual male friend sparked her husband Charles, 34, into a jealous rage. She says Charles told her, “If I can’t have you, no one can,” just after grabbing her wrists. She broke free and picked up a knife. Next, she says, Charles pinned her to the floor with his knees and that’s when she stabbed/slashed him.
Charles Czerniawski has “spent two days in intensive care, lost four pints of blood and hasn’t regained use of his right arm,” according to The Post. He disputed his wife’s claim that the attack was in self-defense, and his lawyer says his client will give “a detailed account of the true events” in court.
I scoured every inch of the virtual superhighway for a video clip without any luck (just give it time – I’m sure excerpts of the episode will surface) But, I was able to track down Jamie’s MySpace page (www.myspace.com/tanyourbunz) as well as the MySpace page for Jamie and Charles’ business, Aloha Tanning. Here are a few photos of the couple from her page, last updated on May 22 of this year:
More photos on PAGE TWO >>> |
Undefeated lightweight Kurt Holobaugh (7-0 MMA, 0-0 SF) is expected to meet Pat Healy (28-16 MMA, 6-1 SF) at Strikeforce’s final event.
Sources close to the event today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that verbal agreements are in place for the bout, though contracts have yet to be signed.
The fight serves on the Showtime Extreme-televised portion of “Strikeforce: Marquardt vs. Saffiedine,” which takes place Jan. 12 at Chesapeake Energy Center in Oklahoma City.
Main-card fights, including a welterweight title fight between champ Nate Marquardt and Tarec Saffiedine, air live on Showtime.
Strikeforce will cease operations following the event, and most of its marquee fighters are expected to be rolled into the UFC, which also is owned by Zuffa LLC.
Holobaugh most recently fought in June, when he submitted Ronnie Rogers at a regional event to secure his seventh pro victory. He has earned all but one of his wins by submission.
Healy was originally scheduled to meet lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez when the Jan. 12 event was dubbed “Strikeforce: Champions.” When Melendez withdrew due to lingering complications from a previously injured shoulder, he was then tapped to meet onetime title challenger Jorge Masvidal. When Masvidal was forced out of the fight with a back injury, and another possible replacement opponent, Conor Heun, was nixed, his prospects for a fight looked dim.
Holobaugh’s inclusion is undoubtedly welcome news, though both fighters have little time to prepare for each other.
For more on “Strikeforce: Marquardt vs. Saffiedine,” stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.
(Pictured: Pat Healy) |
Night Gaunts are a 5 piece New Zealand based Ska/Punk/Reggae band, after touring the US and returning back to NZ they are working on their upcoming full length album. Paul (Guitar and Vocals) and Hayden (Bass) answered some questions.
Where did the band name come from, is it directly from the Lovecraftian poem or does it have some other meaning?
Hayden: I saw the Rudimentary Peni song ‘Nightgaunts’ and thought that would be a cool name for a band. I didn’t even know there was a poem at the time, we just thought it sounded cool.
What made you want to play Ska music?
Hayden: Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and mix CDs we would share between our friends was probably how we got into it. We were listening to bands like Less Than Jake, Mustard Plug and NOFX when we started our first ska band. Paul and I didn’t even know how to play instruments at that point. I remember getting the Less Than Jake DVD and being like “Daaammmnnn, I wanna do that.”
Paul: My story is the same as Hayden’s but in addition to that I’m all about dancing so naturally it was my genre of choice for listening, writing and playing. Party times for all.
What are your favourite Ska bands and who is worth checking out from the New Zealand Ska scene?
Paul: The ska scene is incredibly small here. As in very very few bands but back in the day we were really into The Poisoners and The WBC.. both now defunct.
How was it traveling through the states? Was there anything about it you didn’t like ( I bet it will be the shitty fast food)? What were the things you liked the most? What states did you enjoy the most? – From /u/Take_Another_Look
Paul: It was so so cool. The US is so vast and has almost every landscape imaginable. I believe ya’ll like the word “diverse” so that should cover it. I love how positive Americans are. The subculture and scene in every town was so supportive and incredibly pumped on life, music and good times. It’s something very unique and American and I can get behind that. There wasn’t much I didn’t like on the trip to be honest. Feeling unwell after every Waffle House visit was shitty though. I loved getting to meet new people everyday, seeing lightning illuminate the desert during the dead of night, PBR’s, the American pool party we had in New Orleans, feeling positive everyday (I miss that the most) and getting to play our songs to high energy crowds who were genuinely pumped as hell we were there.
Hayden: It was the most fun I’ve ever had. The whole country is beautiful and so diverse. I really liked driving through New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. I didn’t like sleeping on floors or sharing beds with Simon. The things I liked the most were the Grand Canyon, Disneyland, Carl Sagan’s grave and playing every night to people who were totally stoked we were there. The whole thing was surreal really, half the time I didn’t believe we were there.
What are upcoming plans for tours and recording?
Paul: We’re currently about halfway through recording our upcoming full length album, due out in November. It is and has been a really slow and long process as we’re doing it all ourselves, like we always have, but it’ll be worth the wait!! It’s definitely a new direction for us, that’s for sure.
We are hoping to be a part of the USA Ska Revival tour next year (not that it’s in discussion yet but it’d be really cool to be a part of) and we are also seriously looking into Europe and the UK. News of this should come together with the next few months.
What are each of your favourite NG songs and why?
Paul: I really like all of Love Life & The Devil so I’ll say that collection of songs are my favourites, especially Crowned By The Devil.
Hayden: I like Mosquitoes. It’s catchy and easy to play, and there is a drink break for me in the song.
Which song gets the best reaction from fans?
Paul: All of them, peeps go bananas haha. Though the most active crowd participation has to be during Shivers, Mosquitoes, Crowned By The Devil and Money Money Money. Everyone seems to have a soft spot for Ninja-Like-Bandanas too.
Weirdest story from when you have been on tour or at a gig?
Paul: Hanging out with Mustard Plug backstage in Detroit was super trippy. Drinking beers with your idols is a weird thing especially being from New Zealand, a country that gets almost no international tours, you just don’t ever think you’ll be talkin’ shit, drinking beers and getting smoked out with the people who wrote the soundtrack to your teenhood. On top of that requesting my favourite track “Miss Michigan” and then Dave and Colin asking me to tie my hair in pigtails and sing the line “I’m sorry Dave I’ve got no time, I’ve got my life my life is mine” on stage with them…. I mean for me that’s just so fucking cool, bizarre and badass it’s ridiculous.
Which bands that you have supported or been supported by really stood out for you?
Paul: In New Zealand I’m fond of Yebiisu as they are always super tight and put on a good show with different set lists from show to show. We were lucky enough to play with some really cool bands in the US as well but the ones that stood out the most to me and were Donovan Wolfington, Joystick and obviously Mustard Plug.
Hayden: Days N’ Daze! Days N’ Daze live are one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
Who is the fussiest member of the band?
Paul: I guess it depends on the day but we can all be fussy from time to time. Hayden is probably right nominating himself but that only really applies when in NZ, when on tour we’re all pretty easy going as we’re too pumped and happy to whine.
Hayden: Me
What do you guys like to do in your free time?
Paul: The usual, drinking beers with friends and dancing. I am also down on sleeping.. it’s the best thing ever. Though I am usually working till 6am on songs and enjoy spending time doing that.
Hayden: I like to drink beer and play Frisbee with my friends.
How Reddit has affected the popularity of the band, and how interacting with fans like that has changed the way they do things? – From /u/Dieselite
Paul: I think Reddit is cool and it is always a trip to see our music posted and upvoted on r/ska. I am really down on being able to reply to questions from fans or users easily. It’s crazy how easy it is to speak with and interact with bands and musicians that you like. I’m just glad people give enough of a shit about our music to care to chat with us haha and I know it’s cool for them to have us reply. Connecting with people is what it’s all about.
Is the song Lo-Fi One Mic is referencing shitty recordings from Choking Victim, The Stupid Stupid Henchmen Etc.? /u/Dieselite
Paul: Yeah it 100% is. I don’t consider Choking Victim’s No Gods / No Managers to be shitty though. It’s the perfect sounding record for their sound. It’s more like shitty sounding punk bands that my friend was listening to at the time. I wrote her a verse for Lo-Fi, One Mic and the last lyric in the verse was Lo-fi one mic hold me steady. I repeated in for the chorus and we thought it was really cool and BOOM a song was born. The verse was never released and I personally can’t stand lo-fi crappy recordings unless is rude as hell ;)
Hayden: I never have any idea what Paul is going on about.
What are your opinions on each wave of Ska music? e.g. 1st Wave, 2 Tone and 3rd Wave
Paul: Haha, Hayden summed this one up. I’ll only add that the 3rd wave, for me, has become a little stale and I rarely listen to it anymore unless it’s LTJ for nostalgia or at a party. I think there are some cool new groups who are going past the 3rd wave sound so hopefully the genre will branch out and diversify a little in the next lil while.
Hayden: Like it, love it, gotta have it, it’s all fabulous baby
Are there any songs you have written or tried to cover and scrap? If yes why?
Paul: Wow, this is a big question. There must been like 30 – 40 something songs written for the band that’ll never get past the demo stage. Since I tend to write everything at the computer it’s easy to jam an idea at any time. Usually I’ll then get bored of and never touch it again so there’s a shit load of song ideas, beats and instrumentals kicking about.
I only really continue with a track if I can listen to it on repeat and if it inspires us or is something that I haven’t heard before… this is rare hence the amount of time it takes us to release anything and backlog of ideas. P.S We released the unfinished version of “It Always Makes Me Wonder” on our Soundcloud. https://soundcloud.com/night-gaunts/it-really-makes-me-wonder
You can check out Night Gaunts music and other stuff at these links
http://www.nightgaunts.com/
https://www.facebook.com/nightgaunts
http://nightgaunts.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/NightGauntsOfficial
https://twitter.com/NightGaunts |
1 – Alfalfa and Cottonseed Meal
To correct nitrogen deficiencies in your marijuana garden, adding granulated products made from alfalfa and/or cottonseed to the soil provides protein which counteracts the deficiency. Pressed alfalfa hay and the remaining solids after cotton seeds have been pressed for oil act as slow-release nitrogen fertilizers when combined with the soil. Alfalfa meal or pellets are used as animal feed and is also used as a fertilizer to increase organic matter in the soil. Alfalfa contains trianconatol, which is a fatty acid stimulating growth. Cottonseed meal is high in nitrogen. However, due to the use of pesticides in cotton fields, it is imperative you use pesticide free products on your cannabis.
2 – Cal-Mag (Calcium – Magnesium)
As the name suggests, Cal-Mag contains calcium and magnesium, along with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, so be careful when considering this control method. Do not use Cal-Mag during the flowering stage or the flowers will receive too much nitrogen. This treatment should be applied during the vegetative stage. Cannabis roots absorb calcium and magnesium in a proper pH level (6.5). If the pH is off, calcium deficiency can result in the forming of dead spots in the leaves, then crinkling or spotting. Follow instructions and don’t over-apply or you can end up raising the essential nutrient levels too high.
3 – Calcium Nitrate
This is another option for correcting calcium deficiency. It can be found at larger garden centers as a fertilizer or through scientific supply houses. Calcium nitrate contains fifteen percent nitrogen and can raise the soil pH level if needed. Again, use caution using any calcium correcting control during the flowering stage of your marijuana plant, so as to avoid providing more nitrogen than is needed.
Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn how to grow huge buds
4 – Chelated Minerals
Chelated minerals are those that have been bonded together by organic compounds and are necessary to a marijuana plant’s ability to transport oxygen and nutrients. Because minerals are inorganic, the chelating process facilitates absorption by plant life. They can be used to correct certain mineral deficiencies, while correcting imbalanced pH levels. The most common usage is liquid fertilizers targeting copper, iron, manganese and zinc deficiencies. Many hydroponic formulas contain a blend of chelated minerals. Single metal chelates are also available to address specific deficiencies in the marijuana garden.
5 – Compost Tea
In the beginning of this section we mentioned the importance of amending soil with compost as a preventative measure in preparing the soil for your outdoor marijuana garden. Compost is a rich source of beneficial microbes and micronutrients providing a strong immune system for your cannabis crop. Nutritious soil not only provides a healthy foundation for growth, but supplies many insecticidal and anti-fungal properties, diminishing the possibility of blight thwarting your efforts. We will discuss compost in depth towards the end of this segment.
Obviously, compost cannot be added to a hydroponic system, but the benefits of compost can still be obtained in the hydroponic environment in the form of compost tea. However, special care must be taken when so doing. Compost tea should be used as a foliar spray and should only be added directly in drip to drain systems.
Although compost tea can be applied at soil level in addition to its use as a foliar spray, we hope you are a conscientious gardener and have amended your in-ground or container grown plants with compost. As such, this particular discussion is geared towards the hydroponic gardener.
Compost tea is available for purchase through most hydroponic shops. They will either prepare the tea and sell it fresh, or offer kits to enable you to make your own. Or, if you have a green (brown, in this case!) thumb, we will offer a condensed version to creating this nutrient packed food source for your soil-less cannabis garden. The kits available at your local hydroponic center will come with instructions, so there is no need for this article to duplicate the information provided on the packaging. The following recipe is meant for use as a spray.
To make compost tea, assemble the following:
1 one gallon bucket w/handle
Aquarium air pump with hose and bubbler attached
1 nylon stocking
Organic, sterilized compost (buy at your local garden center if you don’t have a cured compost pile)
Fill the stocking with the equivalent of one quarter the bucket’s capacity. Tie the end of the stocking onto the handle and flip the loaded stocking into the bucket. Fill the bucket with water then place the air hose and bubbler in the bottom. Run the bubbler for a day in order to aerate the solution. When this step is complete, turn of the pump and let the tea settle. The liquid should be dark brown with no unpleasant odor. If the mixture has an ammonia scent or smells rotten, it cannot be used as a spray. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth and add to a spray bottle or add it to the irrigation water. The spray should be applied within hours of aeration or it will lose oxygen, at which point you’ll be defeating the purpose; oxygen is the conductor enabling plants to receive nutrition.
Spread the unused compost on the soil around your marijuana plants (any plants, not just cannabis) and work into the soil or allow it to dry in the sun and return to the compost pile for future use.
6 – Fish Emulsion and Fish Meal
Fish meal, which is the ground up inedible parts of fish into a powdery substance, and fish emulsion, which is the liquid remnant of fish after having been pressed for oil are effective additives available to the marijuana gardener as a correcting measure for nitrogen deficiency. The bonus with fish based treatments is the additional micronutrients they contain which aids in preventing additional nutritional inadequacies.
Both amenities are soil enhancements. Fish emulsion releases nitrogen to your cannabis quickly, while fish meal provides a slower, steady release. Consult your local garden center (discreetly) to see which option better serves your needs, based on symptoms.
7 – Granite Dust
Granite dust is a slow-release source of potassium and may contain other micronutrients that stabilize the alkaline levels in the soil. For it to be most effective, it is recommended to mix granite dust (rock dust) with a fifty percent mixture of compost. Till into the soil when preparing your cannabis bed. When added to the soil, rock dust stimulates the growth of organic matter which feeds the beneficial microorganisms. An added benefit to incorporating rock dust in your plant bed is it results in holding the soil in place and conserving water. Rock dust carries the benefit of revitalizing the soil with minerals.
8 -Greensand
Greensand is the result of crumbling sandstone, a soft rock form rich in potassium and iron. It derives its name from the color and is not ‘sand’ per se. Greensand forms in marine environments and are typically rich in clay minerals and marine fossils. This is a slow-release application benefiting cannabis in the flowering stage. It is most beneficial when mixed with compost. (Are you beginning to see a pattern here?)
9 – Guano
Guano is an effective fertilizer consisting of the feces and urine of seabirds or cave-dwelling bats. It is high in nitrogen, phosphorus and earth salts. Bird guano has a higher fertilizer value than bat guano. Be sure to read labels for the concentration of nutrients you need to correct a particular deficiency.
Guano has a much less pungent odor than animal manure, which makes it an attractive additive in correcting nutritional deficiencies in the soil. It can also be used as a compost activator. Guano can be applied as a foliar spray or soil drench by mixing one quarter cup guano per one gallon of water. Liquefying the manure allows the nutrients to be more readily absorbed by your marijuana plants. The product is available at garden centers or online.
10 – Gypsum
Gypsum is hydrated calcium sulfate, a naturally occurring mineral in most of the United States. It is used in agriculture to correct the sodium levels in soil. Gypsum, when added to the soil is a ready-made source of calcium and sulfur and reduces the aluminum toxicity, along with ammonia which may be present due to the application of certain fertilizers. Additionally, if your cannabis grow site has experienced soil crusting, adding gypsum to the surface will break it up, allowing the emergence of tender seedlings. If your crop is in an area with clay soil, applying gypsum before planting has been known to prevent crusting.
Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn how to grow huge buds
11 – Hydroponic Micronutrient Products
These are available at any hydroponic supply house. Micronutrient products will correct deficiencies in copper, iron and various other micronutrients. Be aware that many products also contain levels of the necessary macronutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Read all labels to ensure proper balance of each nutrient when applying to your hydroponic marijuana garden.
12 – Iron Supplements
See Chelated Minerals for more on this topic. Iron deficiency appears as a yellowing of the cannabis leaves, although the veins remain green. If your pH levels are correct, iron deficiencies are uncommon. When the need arises to apply an iron supplement, it is advisable to withhold using a fertilizer as they can counteract each other. Read the labels of both products before combining.
13 – Kelp Concentrates
Kelp, otherwise known as seaweed, is useful in treating potassium and copper deficiencies. It is available in granular or liquid form. Kelp contains more than seventy vitamins, minerals and enzymes providing a wealth of health to the soil. Adding kelp to the compost pile aids in the decomposition process. An added benefit is the deterrence of (unwanted) weeds in the marijuana bed. Kelp has been used for centuries as a soil amendment for all types of gardens. When using the liquid form, it is best to apply in early morning or early evening and to avoid application when the temperature exceeds eighty five degrees.
14 – Lime
Lime is a readily available (in store or online) compound used to adjust soil pH levels upward or to correct calcium and manganese deficiencies, due to its high alkaline properties. You should avoid fertilizing and liming simultaneously, as they will cancel each other out and cause an unfavorable reaction in the soil. Made from pulverized limestone or chalk, lime comes in several variations; choose the form that most suits the needs of your marijuana garden:
Hydrated lime (slaked lime). Very small amounts are needed to correct the pH level of your soil, as it is the highest alkaline form suitable for gardening. The chemical name is calcium hydroxide – Ca(OH)2.
Garden lime is crushed limestone or oyster shells. The main component is calcium carbonate – CaCO3, which is also found in eggshells. This may be why eggshells are recommended as a component when making homemade compost. It will raise the soil pH levels and is less alkaline, thus safer to use than hydrated lime.
Dolomite lime is high in magnesium. Dolomite has a neutral pH level of 7.0, which when mixed with the soil, creates the optimum pH levels for cannabis growth. Dolomite lime is available at local garden centers.
Liquid lime blends with the soil quicker than the powders. Both garden lime and dolomite are available in liquid form.
15 – Magnesium Sulfate
Otherwise known as Epsom salts, magnesium sulfate can quickly correct magnesium and sulfur deficits. In hydroponic gardens, add a solution of one teaspoon Epsom salts per gallon of water to the reservoir or use as a foliar spray. This recipe can be applied to outdoor cannabis gardens, as well. Epsom salt granules can also be mixed in with the soil when preparing the garden for planting. Magnesium is critical for seed germination and the production of chlorophyll in marijuana plants. It strengthens cell walls, which is one reason the use of Epsom salts (discovered in Epsom, England) is such a popular fertilizer for the organic gardener.
16 – Marijuana Booster
Dutch Nutrients has developed the perfect nutrient mixture to grow the biggest marijuana buds and produce ample THC! All professional breeders in Amsterdam have started using this product. Right nowwe are making it available to you! Check www.marijuanabooster.com for more information.
17 – Mycorrhizae
This strange word means ‘fungus roots’. So why are we including this in the controls section? Mycorrhizae are an important component of soil life in the relationship they build with plant roots. Essentially, Mycorrhizae fungi extract nutrients from microbes growing along the root surfaces and transport them to the roots. Mycorrhizae actually become an extension of the root system, working deep within the soil to provide nutrients and water to the roots, resulting in healthier marijuana plants. Mycorrhizae inoculants are available online.
18 – Nitrate Salts
Inorganic nitrate salts are water soluble, which allows for quicker penetration. Nitrates used in agricultural fertilizers are ammonium, sodium, potassium and calcium. They can be purchased as a mixture, or with greater concentration of the specific deficiency requiring attention.
19 – Rock Phosphate
Rock phosphate is a naturally mined mineral often used as a soil amendment. It offers a slow release of phosphate, which is the second most abundant macronutrient essential to well-balanced soil in your cannabis garden. Check your pH levels before applying rock phosphate. It is usually only necessary as a soil amendment in pH levels above 7.0, which is optimal for Mary Jane’s garden to thrive.
20 – Urea
Urea, made from urine, as the name suggests is high in nitrogen and may be used to correct nitrogen deficiencies. However, once urea mixes with the soil, it undergoes an intensive chemical change releasing ammonia into the soil. This can burn seeds and seedlings. Follow label directions and do not apply in extreme heat.
21 – Zinc Salts
Zinc is an enzyme aiding in the formation of chlorophyll. Zinc deficiency often is the result of the soil pH being too high. Too little zinc in cannabis will make itself known by producing smaller leaves than normal. Conversely, too much zinc is toxic and will kill the marijuana plant rapidly. Correcting the pH level of the soil often solves the problem. Foliar treatments are available if necessary.
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Robert |
The words “stadium fatigue” weren’t uttered once when St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman went before a Senate committee Thursday to ask for tax breaks for a new soccer stadium.
None of the legislators sitting on the Senate’s tax committee asked Coleman any questions as he pitched the stadium as a “catalytic opportunity” that would revitalize the surrounding Midway neighborhood.
The city is asking for permission for the stadium to sell booze, a sales tax exemption for construction equipment and a continuation of an existing property tax exemption for the site.
When asked by the committee whether his soccer team, Minnesota United, could get by without the tax breaks, owner William McGuire replied that there would be a “high possibility if not probability that the franchise would be lost without this.”
McGuire said running a soccer team, which doesn’t command television dollars at the level of other major sports, “makes a very difficult financial position, where what some might say are small dollars are actually very meaningful dollars to us.”
On the other hand, when asked about the long-term feasibility of the project in another context —whether it was worth limiting the tax exemption specifically for a soccer team, just in case such a soccer team failed — McGuire seemed much more upbeat.
“Were things to turn terrible — and looking at how some of the (Major League Soccer) teams have endured with a far less enthusiastic audience, we’re not counting on that — the ownership group would be out $250 million. So we don’t intend that to actually occur. … We’re pretty comfortable.”
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, qualifies the exemption by saying the property can’t be used for anything other than a Major League Soccer stadium to receive it, and anything on the property that doesn’t have to do with the operation of the stadium would not be exempt. The exemption would last for 50 years — the length of the lease with Minnesota United.
McGuire noted the team anticipates spending at least $150 million for construction, as well as a franchise fee of $100 million.
Tom Goldstein, a former city council candidate who lives in the neighborhood, was one of two testifiers who spoke against the project.
“I don’t have any illusions that I’m going to change minds here today,” Goldstein admitted, noting that senators largely spoke in favor of the stadium. But he argued that Coleman had a “stadium addiction” which the Legislature should not enable, with so many other projects the money could be spent on.
Minnesota United FC hopes to break ground by June on the 21,500-seat professional soccer stadium in St. Paul’s Midway area. The stadium would be built by the team but owned by the city, and $18 million in public dollars has already been committed to the project.
The tax breaks may get added to a bigger tax bill this year, though leaders in both houses have expressed doubts about their passage, given the amount of state money that’s been spent on large stadiums in recent years.
On Wednesday, a House committee reviewed the liquor license but nothing else relating to the proposal. There were no objections to the license. |
Outsiders in their own land
Avtar Singh’s cataract-ridden eyes betray him. He is happy talking to the group of friends he has invited home, but he cannot help stealing fond glances at the lush green fields and trees he has grown single-handedly in the heart of a salt desert. Some consider the 92-year-old Sikh rude. “I am a proud Kuchchhi Kheru (Kuchchh’s farmer),” he says. “I have spent my life turning this desert into a fertile land.” Avtar’s farmland is in Panandhro village of Lakhpat, the last taluka in India along the Pakistan border.
Avtar often speaks of his friend Gopal Singh who pestered him to come to Kuchchh from Punjab in the 1960s. Gopal received land here as a victory gift from the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri for fighting in the Indo-Pak war in 1965. To keep the border safe and to create a second line of defence, Shastri had invited industrious and hard-working Sikh farmers to settle in the border areas of Kuchchh. This was also to turn the barren land green. Between 1965 and 1984, the state government allotted land to 550 farmers of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Of these, 390 were Sikhs. Gopal and Avtar were among them. Today, more than 6,000 Sikh families are settled in Lakhpat and some disputed territories like Kori Creek and Sir Creek. Lakhpat is one of the many talukas in Kuchchh district where the Gujarat government has banned mutation, or transfer of ownership, of land.
On October 22, 2010, district collector M Thennarasan issued a notice to 784 farmers with the subject line, “Freezing agriculture accounts of outsiders of Gujarat state”. The notice stated that as per the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Vidarbha and Kuchchh Area) Act, 1948, mutation of land on the basis of the existing farmers’ certificates cannot be done till further orders.
Gopal could not take the insult of being called par pranti, or outsider. He fell sick and a year later died of heart attack. Today, hundreds of hectares are lying untilled in Kuchchh. Farmers cannot apply for power or tubewell connections. “We cannot sell our produce or get bank loans. Everything is tied to the mutation deed which is facing ‘freeze’ order,” says Avtar.
Limestone buried in farmlands
“I know why chief minister Narendra Modi wants our land. He wants to give it to industries. I will die but not let the state government take my land away. It should take barren land to set up industries. Why does it want our fertile land?” he asks agitatedly. The answer lies in the huge reserve of good quality limestone underneath the farmlands. “There is so much limestone here we cannot even dig wells properly,” he says pointing to a heap of limestone that showed up when he tried to dig a well. Officials of the Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) keep coming to the fields with their machines to excavate the mineral, but farmers chase them away, he adds.
According to the Geological Survey of India, Gujarat has 11,500 million tonnes of limestone, the most important ingredient for making cement. The state is the fourth largest producer of limestone in the country with 9 per cent share. Of its total deposit, 7,700 million tonnes lie in Lakhpat, Abdasa and Naliya talukas of Kuchchh. This is enough to construct 128,325 20-storey buildings. If Gujarat taps the limestone reserve available in Kuchchh, the state will become the third largest producer of limestone in India with 15 per cent share.
What’s more, underneath the limestone lie lignite reserves. Akri Mota and Lefri basins and Panandhro together have 220 million tonnes of lignite. Gujarat is the third largest producer of lignite in India. “To use lignite for the thermal power sector, the state government will have to dig out limestone first,” says Ramesh Bhatti of Bhuj- based non-profit Sahjeevan Trust. The farmers of Kuchchh, no doubt, are in the way of the state government’s plan of turning Kuchchh into “second Jamshedpur”.
Industry’s attraction
“With its vast mineral resources, Kuchchh has the potential to become an industrial city. By using modern technology and state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities, Kuchchh can be developed into a modern version of Jamshedpur,” V S Bajaj, director of Jaypee Cement, had said in a conference five months before the state government issued the land freeze order. The conference was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and GMDC.
Gujarat has always been hailed as an investor-friendly state because it has thrown open its natural reserves to be plundered by industries.” — RAMESH BHATTI,
PROJECT COORDINATOR, SAHJEEVAN TRUST
With Kuchchh’s cement-grade limestone, proximity to lignite reserve and shoreline, and the low cost of mining the mineral, cement plants can be set up on a large scale and lignite can be used to fuel them, stated a report by the Industrial Extension Bureau (INDEXTB), a state government firm that facilitates a hassle-free experience for prospective industries. Unhappy with the government’s intentions, Bhatti says, “Gujarat has always been hailed as an investor-friendly state because it has thrown open its natural reserves to be plundered by industries without any restrictions.”Just after “freezing” land in Kuchchh, in January 2011, the state signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with various cement-based companies to help them set up plants. Some of the major companies include Anil Ambani Group’s Reliance Cementation Pvt Ltd, Associated Cement Companies Ltd, Adani Enterprises Ltd, Indiabulls Construction Materials Ltd and Calcom Cement India Ltd.In 2007, GMDC signed an MoU with Jaypee Cement to generate 6 million tonnes of cement in a year. The project is still pending. The corporation realised that acquiring land for plants of large capacity could be difficult. It now invites investment for setting up plants of smaller capacity. This time, it has signed MoUs with several companies with capacity ranging from 1.5 to 2.4 million tonne per annum. “If one company fails, another will succeed,” says a GMDC official on the condition of anonymity.During its Vibrant Gujarat campaign in 2013, the state government signed MoUs with 40 cement-based companies. These include Aditya Birla Group’s UltraTech Cement Ltd, Ambuja Cements Ltd, Binani Cement Ltd, Gujarat Sidhee Cement Limited and Saurashtra Cement Limited.The INDEXTB report gives a long list of infrastructural facilities available in Kuchchh to companies willing to set up plants in the district. But the ground reality is quite different. The report states that companies that wish to set up plants in Lakhpat can benefit from the 66 KV substation. Its transmission line passes close to Panandhro. However, about 10 years after it was installed, the 432 farmers’ homes in Panandhro and nearby villages are still dark.“We had met the electricity department officials asking them to bring electricity to our village,” says farmer Nirmal Singh of Panandhro. “The officials said we needed to deposit some money. Each household in the village contributed Rs 40,000 and gave the money to the department. Recently, the officials sent a letter asking us to take back the money because it cannot give us electricity,” he says. Nirmal worries that his children will never get to use computers and not be able to get good education. “The only bulb in our house is solar-powered.” Panandhro does not have potable water either. “There were three handpumps in the village. Two of these have stopped working. The one that is functioning gives salty water. We have no option but to drink that,” says Nirmal. His courtyard has a tap painted blue jutting out of the ground. “Every house has that. The state government installed it two years ago, but it is not connected to any pipeline,” he says.
“These are deliberate attempts to alienate us and make us suffer so that we run away from the village,” says Avtar. Pointing at a 80-hectare farm, he says, “It was known as ‘jewel in the crown’ of this mini-Punjab. But its owners left the village unable to keep fighting with the state government over land. Since 2010, several families have left. No one knows where they went. They could not even sell their land because of the freeze order,” he says.
Struggle for justice
When the farmers were served the noice, they took their case to the regional officer. “He threw the application away,” recounts Avtar. “I picked it up and kept it on his table. He threw it again, asking me to write the application in Gujarati. I told him to first give in writing that in India an application is rejected because it is written in Hindi.”
The struggle began. In 2011, the farmers moved Gujarat High Court. “The Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Land (Vidarbha and Kuchchh Area) Act, 1948 said that only an agriculturalist can buy land in Gujarat. I may be from Punjab but I am an agriculturist,” he says.
“In court, the state government questioned the genuineness of our claim of being farmers,” says Surindar Singh Bhullar, who has been following the case on behalf of the farmers. It said there was no machinery to verify the certificates issued by other states which prove the status of a person as an agriculturist. But the court did not buy the state government’s argument. “If a state is ready to accept certificates of other states regarding the quantum of agricultural land owned by an individual for the purpose of ceiling, there is no reason why certificates regarding a person’s status as a farmer cannot be relied upon,” it said. The farmers won the case in Gujarat High Court, but the state government went to the Supreme Court against the order. District collector of Lakhpat T J Vyas refused to comment because the case is subjudice.
Politics of it all
In Punjab, the issue was an embarrassment for the Shiromani Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party alliance. Modi, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the ensuing general elections, drew flak from several quarters.
But BJP had other plans. “In early January, it orchestrated a meeting with some Sikhs. Newspapers printed photographs and reports stating that the problem had been resolved and that no Sikh farmer would leave Gujarat,” says Nirmal. “But the Sikhs in the newspaper photographs were not even farmers. Their attire and expensive phones said it all. Worse, the report stated that the land freeze order will affect only 40 families,” he says.
Now, even Punjab’s chief minister Parkash Singh Badal claims we are happy, he adds.
If Modi genuinely wanted the Sikh farmers to stay in Gujarat, he should have reverted the land freeze order. “Why has the state government not withdrawn the case from the Supreme Court?” he asks. The case is being contested by Himmat Singh Shergill, who is now a candidate for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) from Anandpur Sahib constituency. “Be it BJP, Congress or AAP, our sole concern is to get our land back. We will not stop fighing till justice is done,” says Avtar. |
IN A sense, this is a golden age for free speech. Your smartphone can call up newspapers from the other side of world in seconds. More than a billion tweets, Facebook posts and blog updates are published every single day. Anyone with access to the internet can be a publisher, and anyone who can reach Wikipedia enters a digital haven where America’s First Amendment reigns.
However, watchdogs report that speaking out is becoming more dangerous—and they are right. As our report shows, curbs on free speech have grown tighter. Without the contest of ideas, the world is timid and ignorant.
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Free speech is under attack in three ways. First, repression by governments has increased. Several countries have reimposed cold-war controls or introduced new ones. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia enjoyed a free-for-all of vigorous debate. Under Vladimir Putin, the muzzle has tightened again. All the main television-news outlets are now controlled by the state or by Mr Putin’s cronies. Journalists who ask awkward questions are no longer likely to be sent to labour camps, but several have been murdered.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, ordered a crackdown after he took over in 2012, toughening up censorship of social media, arresting hundreds of dissidents and replacing liberal debate in universities with extra Marxism. In the Middle East the overthrow of despots during the Arab spring let people speak freely for the first time in generations. This has lasted in Tunisia, but Syria and Libya are more dangerous for journalists than they were before the uprisings; and Egypt is ruled by a man who says, with a straight face: “Don’t listen to anyone but me.”
Words, sticks and stones
Second, a worrying number of non-state actors are enforcing censorship by assassination. Reporters in Mexico who investigate crime or corruption are often murdered, and sometimes tortured first. Jihadists slaughter those they think have insulted their faith. When authors and artists say anything that might be deemed disrespectful of Islam, they take risks. Secular bloggers in Bangladesh are hacked to death in the street (see article); French cartoonists are gunned down in their offices. The jihadists hurt Muslims more than any others, not least by making it harder for them to have an honest discussion about how to organise their societies.
Third, the idea has spread that people and groups have a right not to be offended. This may sound innocuous. Politeness is a virtue, after all. But if I have a right not to be offended, that means someone must police what you say about me, or about the things I hold dear, such as my ethnic group, religion, or even political beliefs. Since offence is subjective, the power to police it is both vast and arbitrary.
Nevertheless, many students in America and Europe believe that someone should exercise it. Some retreat into the absolutism of identity politics, arguing that men have no right to speak about feminism nor whites to speak about slavery. Others have blocked thoughtful, well-known speakers, such as Condoleezza Rice and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, from being heard on campus (see article).
Concern for the victims of discrimination is laudable. And student protest is often, in itself, an act of free speech. But university is a place where students are supposed to learn how to think. That mission is impossible if uncomfortable ideas are off-limits. And protest can easily stray into preciousness: the University of California, for example, suggests that it is a racist “micro-aggression” to say that “America is a land of opportunity”, because it could be taken to imply that those who do not succeed have only themselves to blame.
The inconvenient truth
Intolerance among Western liberals also has wholly unintended consequences. Even despots know that locking up mouthy but non-violent dissidents is disreputable. Nearly all countries have laws that protect freedom of speech. So authoritarians are always looking out for respectable-sounding excuses to trample on it. National security is one. Russia recently sentenced Vadim Tyumentsev, a blogger, to five years in prison for promoting “extremism”, after he criticised Russian policy in Ukraine. “Hate speech” is another. China locks up campaigners for Tibetan independence for “inciting ethnic hatred”; Saudi Arabia flogs blasphemers; Indians can be jailed for up to three years for promoting disharmony “on grounds of religion, race...caste...or any other ground whatsoever”.
The threat to free speech on Western campuses is very different from that faced by atheists in Afghanistan or democrats in China. But when progressive thinkers agree that offensive words should be censored, it helps authoritarian regimes to justify their own much harsher restrictions and intolerant religious groups their violence. When human-rights campaigners object to what is happening under oppressive regimes, despots can point out that liberal democracies such as France and Spain also criminalise those who “glorify” or “defend” terrorism, and that many Western countries make it a crime to insult a religion or to incite racial hatred.
One strongman who has enjoyed tweaking the West for hypocrisy is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey. At home, he will tolerate no insults to his person, faith or policies. Abroad, he demands the same courtesy—and in Germany he has found it. In March a German comedian recited a satirical poem about him “shagging goats and oppressing minorities” (only the more serious charge is true). Mr Erdogan invoked an old, neglected German law against insulting foreign heads of state. Amazingly, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has let the prosecution proceed. Even more amazingly, nine other European countries still have similar laws, and 13 bar insults against their own head of state.
Opinion polls reveal that in many countries support for free speech is lukewarm and conditional. If words are upsetting, people would rather the government or some other authority made the speaker shut up. A group of Islamic countries are lobbying to make insulting religion a crime under international law. They have every reason to expect that they will succeed.
So it is worth spelling out why free expression is the bedrock of all liberties. Free speech is the best defence against bad government. Politicians who err (that is, all of them) should be subjected to unfettered criticism. Those who hear it may respond to it; those who silence it may never find out how their policies misfired. As Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate, has pointed out, no democracy with a free press ever endured famine.
In all areas of life, free debate sorts good ideas from bad ones. Science cannot develop unless old certainties are queried. Taboos are the enemy of understanding. When China’s government orders economists to offer optimistic forecasts, it guarantees that its own policymaking will be ill-informed. When American social-science faculties hire only left-wing professors, their research deserves to be taken less seriously.
The law should recognise the right to free speech as nearly absolute. Exceptions should be rare. Child pornography should be banned, since its production involves harm to children. States need to keep some things secret: free speech does not mean the right to publish nuclear launch codes. But in most areas where campaigners are calling for enforced civility (or worse, deference) they should be resisted.
Blasphemy laws are an anachronism. A religion should be open to debate. Laws against hate speech are unworkably subjective and widely abused. Banning words or arguments which one group finds offensive does not lead to social harmony. On the contrary, it gives everyone an incentive to take offence—a fact that opportunistic politicians with ethnic-based support are quick to exploit.
Incitement to violence should be banned. However, it should be narrowly defined as instances when the speaker intends to goad those who agree with him to commit violence, and when his words are likely to have an immediate effect. Shouting “Let’s kill the Jews” to an angry mob outside a synagogue qualifies. Drunkenly posting “I wish all the Jews were dead” on an obscure Facebook page probably does not. Saying something offensive about a group whose members then start a riot certainly does not count. They should have responded with words, or by ignoring the fool who insulted them.
In volatile countries, such as Rwanda and Burundi, words that incite violence will differ from those that would do so in a stable democracy. But the principles remain the same. The police should deal with serious and imminent threats, not arrest every bigot with a laptop or a megaphone. (The governments of Rwanda and Burundi, alas, show no such restraint.)
Areopagitica online
Facebook, Twitter and other digital giants should, as private organisations, be free to decide what they allow to be published on their platforms. By the same logic, a private university should be free, as far as the law is concerned, to enforce a speech code on its students. If you don’t like a Christian college’s rules against swearing, pornography and expressing disbelief in God, you can go somewhere else. However, any public college, and any college that aspires to help students grow intellectually, should aim to expose them to challenging ideas. The world outside campus will often offend them; they must learn to fight back using peaceful protests, rhetoric and reason.
These are good rules for everyone. Never try to silence views with which you disagree. Answer objectionable speech with more speech. Win the argument without resorting to force. And grow a tougher hide. |
The man who was convicted of murdering a Pizza X driver last month was sentenced to 73 consecutive years in prison today.
Monroe County Judge Marc Kellams said James Finney was likely to re-offend.
“I think you’re dangerous, James,” Kellams said. “The only way I can protect society is to lock you up.”
A jury convicted Finney of one count of murder and two counts of possessing a handgun without a license. The judge gave Finney the maximum sentence for each count.
Finney shot Adam Sarnecki in a Bloomington Pizza X parking lot nearly two years ago after Sarnecki found Finney trying to break into a car.
Members of Sarnecki’s family testified before the judge read the sentence, encouraging him to give Finney the maximum prison time.
“I hope you spend every day in prison thinking about the life you took that wasn’t yours to take,” Adam’s sister Chelsea Sarnecki said.
Several other family members spoke directly to Finney, encouraging him to seek God’s forgiveness.
Kellams said Finney’s prior criminal record showed escalation in crimes and was not surprised it ended in murder.
“Everyone wants to see some remorse, and I’m not sure there is any,” Kellams said.
Depending on Finney’s behavior and whether he completes counseling or education programs while incarcerated, he could be released in 32 years and 6 months at the earliest. |
It must have been the tie. I bought it at Lord & Taylor a decade ago, but I still love that necktie with its rosy brown and white peonies. I have always worn a tie when I travel. It is just something a gentleman of my generation did even when flying steerage. Besides, a tie keeps my neck warm at 35,000 feet.
I was passing through a very large US airport. My papers were in order. All my toiletries were in a clear, zip-lock plastic bag. I was clean, and expected to sail through airport security in a trice.
I worried a little because I was using my valid US passport as a photo ID. It was a potential tripwire at security-conscious US airports, especially a week after the 10th anniversary of 9/11. If the Transportation Security Administration – otherwise known as the TSA – examined my passport, alarm bells might sound.
French border police at Charles de Gaulle Airport once detained me for 20 minutes, scouring my passport and, I suspect, photographing me from a dozen different angles. It was understandable though. My passport has a half-dozen Lebanese airport stamps along with stamps from Afghanistan, Serbia, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, not to mention visas from Iran, Russia, Ukraine, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Most worrying should have been five recent Pakistani visas.
But the TSA inspector took no notice of those, ignoring all the violent places I had been. He only checked to see that my passport photo matched my face.
With but one last security checkpoint to pass through, the magnetometer, I got a bad feeling. What if my cellphone rang? The ring tone is the melodic Soviet national anthem with a chorus singing, “Oh Party of Lenin, the strength of the people, to Communism’s triumph, lead us on.” It’s a rousing tune.
If that rang, surely they might have arrested me as an American subversive. One call at the wrong moment and I was in deep borscht.
Going through US airports today is akin to the feeling you had during the cold war, passing through Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin or Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport with layers of police barriers to surmount as you yearned to get on the flight to London and freedom. East German Stasi or Soviet KGB border guards glowered and intimidated you all the way.
I may have been in Chicago, but it was Moscow déjà vu. Security is the same everywhere and ever demands that one last obstacle to clear.
Walking toward the metal detector an officer suddenly redirected me to the full-body scan machine. “Put your hands over your head,” he said. My innards were bared.
Next, two uniformed TSA officers pulled me from the line and into a private room where I was solemnly told, “We’ve discovered you have an anomaly in the groin area.”
I wasn’t sure whether to pray or wait for them to call a doctor. It looked really bad, especially as one TSA inspector began pulling on rubber gloves like a proctologist.
“Do you have any implants?” he asked. Not sure what an implant was, I wanted to say, “Vice President Cheney invited me to dinner once. Mrs. Cheney served spinach. But I don’t remember any ‘implants.’ ”
“I am going to pat you six times and do a thorough body search,” he told me. After he was done, he was puzzled at having found no “anomaly.”
“Would you like me to drop my drawers?” I volunteered.
It had worked once in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. An Arab guard’s metal detector repeatedly buzzed at the metal rivets in my trousers. I was about to miss my plane. The airline crew was closing the cabin door. In impulsive inspiration I undid my trousers and began to publicly lower them. The modest Muslim security guard was so horrified he virtually threw me on the plane.
Same with this TSA man. “No, don’t take them off,” he said.
“It was the tie, wasn’t it?” I asked him. You see, your clothes always make a statement about you, and they never make a neutral statement. Someone in the TSA cadre probably didn’t like the statement my corduroy sport coat and flowered necktie made. Perhaps TSA was making its own statement: “Real Americans only travel in jeans, T-shirts, and cowboy boots or tennis shoes.”
Seven or eight years ago at the Knoxville, Tenn., airport, I was taken out of line, not because of my tie, but because of my Patek Philippe wristwatch. Then, a uniformed TSA officer had demanded to know how much it cost. He told me to take it off and said he wanted to try it on.
In Chicago, despite the TSA finding no “anomalies” or explosives in my “groin area,” I again felt mildly defiled. Plopping myself down at Gate 22, I asked the woman next to me, “Do you remember when flying used to be fun?”
In an accented reply, she said, “You just shut off your brain and go with the flow. Things have improved.” She added, “I grew up in East Germany, and they shot a lot of us when we tried to travel.”
Walter Rodgers, a former senior international correspondent for CNN, writes a biweekly column. |
The world is on fire.
It has been, for quite some time. If you’ve done any organizing, you’ve felt it—that sense of racing about, extinguishing this flare up or that, spending precious energy and resources surviving the immediate emergency and hoping the future will somehow save itself. If you’ve watched the news, you’ve felt it—disbelief combined with the raw hilarity of the media circus; just when it seems things couldn’t get worse, or more frightening, or more absurd, they do. If you’ve ever worked three jobs to keep your family afloat, you’ve felt it. If you’ve listened to climate scientists, or survived a hurricane, or watched helplessly as an unseasonable forest fire tore through a landscape you loved, you’ve felt it—the rising certainty that we have waited too long, that global temperatures are edging toward tipping points from which we will never return. We are burning.
Western culture has been historically preoccupied with apocalypse, from Judeo-Christian threats of the End Times to doomsday cults. Every generation has imagined themselves living at the edge of history. The anticipation and dread permeate aspects of our puritanical, militaristic, consumeristic culture, yet they offer little in the way of seeing beyond times of crisis. In fact, it seems ever clearer that capitalism thrives on crisis—that capitalism is crisis. At this point, could we tell the difference between the “the end is near” and “the end is here?”
What if the apocalypse has already arrived, having crept up incrementally while we were waiting for a big announcement? What if this is what it looks like to be in the thick of things, the “interesting times” of the proverbial curse? Why are we not in the streets, then, in our thousands and our millions? Why haven’t we taken over our workplaces and neighborhoods and said, Enough! Are we simply resigned, cynical, nihilistic? Overwhelmed and preoccupied with financial survival? Distracted? Do we even think things can ever radically change for the better, much less in time?
Read more |
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Mormons are Christians—they believe that Jesus Christ is their Savior. That said, there are plenty of Mormon beliefs that go against the grain of many modern sects of Christianity. And as it turns out, they make a whole lot of sense.
1. Mormons believe there are still prophets today
Mormons believe that God spoke directly to certain individuals in antiquity, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc. They believe he still speaks to certain individuals, called prophets, today. Because, why wouldn’t he?
Some theologians argue that the Bible holds all of the prophetic counsel we’ll ever need. But, respectfully, why? The Bible itself is simply a combination of smaller books that serve as evidence of God speaking to prophets over thousands and thousands of years. Why would he neglect us in modern times? The Mormons say He hasn’t, isn’t and won’t.
This concept really rubs a lot of Christians the wrong way. That said, scripturally, it’s a very rare occasion when people believe in an actual, current prophet. They always seem to believe in the prophets that lived before them, but really struggle to believe in the one standing in front of them. Exhibit A: Jesus Christ himself. The most powerful of all prophets (not to mention, the Savior). The people believed in Moses and Abraham, but crucified Christ.
Despite our mortal shortcomings, Mormons believe that God has provided prophets to us today, just as he did in ancient times. Makes sense, right?
For more on what Mormons believe about prophets and apostles, click here.
2. Mormons believe that God spoke to more than just ancient Israel
The Bible is the record of God’s dealings with the people in the ancient Middle Eastern region. Mormons definitely believe in the Bible, but they believe God dealt with people in other areas of the world as well. Because, again, why wouldn’t He?
In addition to the Bible, Mormons study The Book of Mormon, which is simply the record of God’s dealings with a branch of Israel on the ancient American continent. If God truly loves His children (us), why would He communicate exclusively to those in the Middle East? It makes sense that He would spread his message around the globe. It also makes sense that those who heard His message would write it down. So, I guess it makes sense that there might be more scripture than just the Bible.
Don’t get me wrong, the Bible is great—but if there’s more of the word of God out there that corroborates, supports and elaborates on what the Bible says, you can bet I’ll be all over that.
For more on The Book of Mormon, click here.
3. Mormons believe that marriage and family continue after this life
I recently did a three-month stint in the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen—New Zealand. It was magnificent. The beaches were pristine, the foliage was lush and the people were saint-like. But then I realized something: I desperately wanted my family there with me. Despite the natural wonders of New Zealand, that paradise was not paradise without my family around me. I was alone.
Heaven isn’t Heaven without your family.
Mormons believe that marriage does not end with, “till death do us part.” Instead, a Mormon wedding ceremony (they call it, a sealing ceremony) uses the terminology, “for time and all eternity.” If both parties involved live worthily of heaven, their marriage continues into the eternities. Romantic, isn’t it?
For more on what Mormons believe about marriage and family, click here.
4. Mormons believe there is so much more than Heaven and Hell
As a child I always wondered where the dividing line between Heaven and Hell was. I looked at it as a very measurable judgement. I thought, “How many sins can I commit before I cross into Hell-judgement territory?” What is Hell like? What is Heaven like? Are we just going to be peacefully praying on clouds for all eternity? Because, to be completely frank, that sounds like it would get monotonous really fast.
Mormons believe that Heaven is separated into what they call Kingdoms of Glory. There are three kingdoms, each more glorious and awesome than the last. Judgment from God is less of a yes/no decision and more of a placement on a heavenly spectrum. This makes a whole lot of sense. With such a vast range of righteousness and wickedness amongst humanity, it makes sense that there is more than the traditional binary Heaven or Hell.
For more on what Mormons believe about Heaven and Hell, click here.
5. Mormons believe you should get baptized in the same way that Jesus Christ did
It’s commonly understood in many Christian congregations that baptism is meant to cleanse you from sin. Mormons agree, but the concept begs the question: If Jesus was sinless, why would he need to be baptized? One of the Mormon Church’s holy texts, The Book of Mormon (which we’ll talk more about later) has a solid answer:
And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfil all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water!
The Mormon Church is extremely Christ-centered. They believe He is their perfect example in all things. As such, they believe they should be baptized like Christ was—by complete immersion in a body of water.
But there’s another important aspect of Christ’s baptism that the Mormons take very seriously—authority. According to the scriptures, Christ must have traveled multiple days to reach John the Baptist at the Jordan River. Why would he have traveled so far just so John would baptize him? Well, because John was the only man in the area that had authority to baptize. Mormons call this priesthood authority, and believe it is essential for a valid baptism.
It might seem a bit strict, but it makes total sense. You can’t just ask the ice cream man to baptize you—unless he has the God-given authority to do so.
Mormons believe that authority was lost from the earth once Christ was crucified, His apostles were killed and His teachings were corrupted. They also believe it was restored again to a prophet named Joseph Smith in 1829 and continues within the Church today.
For more on what Mormons believe about baptism, click here.
Note from the author to my fellow Christians
If you’re not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church), it’s probably going to be very easy to interpret some of the points in this article as complete slams on popular Christian beliefs. That is not at all my intention.
I grew up in a predominantly Christian town and the faith of my Christian friends strengthens me. I’ve visited their Sunday services and love their unique perspectives. At the end of the day, all Christians (including Mormons) are just trying to better themselves, and that’s great. It’s true that Mormons believe many long-standing Christian beliefs are incomplete, but we fully recognize the good intentions behind them.
Despite our differences, we can all agree on the one belief that brings us together: Jesus Christ is our Savior. |
Chris Zapata is a hands-off city manager in San Leandro. He's taking his hands off of his own money to give pay raises to two top city executives.
Zapata is taking a $20,000 pay cut in order to give raises to the police chief and assistant city manager, according to The Daily Review . Those two workers will make $187,000 a year, according to the newspaper.
The choice to de-fund himself in order to pay his executives, Police Chief Sandra Spagnoli and Assistant City Manager Lianne Marshall, is "unusual," according to a city manager expert.
"I would say it's pretty rare," said Kevin Duggan, West Coast regional director for the International City County Management Association. In fact, Zapata's move is "very magnanimous," according to Duggan.
Zapata hopes that Spagnoli and Marshall will not move onto other cities, thanks to their raises. San Leandro needs stability, the newspaper reported: Zapata is the city's fourth city manager since 2009. And last month, two city executive employees left their posts to work in Dublin, the newspaper reported. San Jose is looking for a new police chief, too.
Copyright NBC Owned Television Stations |
In her weekly podcast on Saturday, May 14, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that it was Germany's intention to become a leader in the emerging electric car industry, both in terms of production and consumption.
She said that one million "e-cars" would be cruising silently on German streets by 2020, to be followed by another five million come 2030.
"I am very confident that Germany can very quickly make up the terrain it has lost so far," the chancellor said, in a reference to the fierce competition that Germany will face from car manufacturers in emerging countries, "above all in Asia."
Merkel's plan recalls the 2008 'cash for clunkers' scheme
Merkel's lofty plan, however, won't come without a hefty price for the German government. The Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported that Merkel's government was willing to shell out multi-billion euro investments over the next decade to advance "fundamental research" in technologies required for electric car production.
In addition, the report said Berlin was considering a series of measures to increase demand among German consumers for electric cars, including significant tax breaks for e-car owners.
Germany's Green party - an increasingly relevant force in the country's political landscape - even called for a buyer's premium to entice consumers. Renate Künast, the party's parliamentary head, told the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper that e-car buyers in Germany should receive 5,000 euros from the government for their purchase.
Electric cars, according to Künast, represent a principal means towards "modern and environmentally conscious mobility."
Battery problems
Even top batteries can only provide for 200-km trips
The government's plans, however, face a number of hurdles and have been strongly criticized by leading figures.
Though most car manufacturers currently produce some form of electric model, there are still no e-cars capable of being mass-produced. At present, e-cars are limited to distances of between 100 and 200 kilometers (60 and 120 miles) before their batteries must be charged.
The next problem lies in the batteries themselves. Most take up to 10 hours to charge, and after each charging the capacity is depleted, so much so that most batteries have to be replaced every three years. And then there is the price: the going rate is between 600-800 euros per kilowatt-hour of storage capacity.
Camouflaged subsidies
Wolfgang Franz, chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts, told the Die Welt newspaper on Sunday that Berlin's subsidy plans represented a "distortion of competition" in an industry with, at best, an "uncertain future."
Much innovation is still required for electric car motors
What's more, a host of environmental groups - including Greenpeace, BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany), and NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union) - have expressed doubts as to the impact of electric cars on the environment, viewing Merkel's plans as nothing more than a willingness to inject further government funds into the automobile industry.
"The government's subsidy concept is nonsense," said Wolfgang Lobeck of Greenpeace. "E-cars themselves of course do not pollute the environment, but the production of the electricity on which they run, in the end, causes just as much greenhouse gas emissions as gasoline-powered cars."
The president of the German Association of the Automobile Industry (VDA), Matthias Wissmann, retorted such criticism by saying Germany currently invested much less in the electric car industry than countries such as the US or France.
"Nobody is asking for subsidies that will last forever," Wissmann told Die Welt. "We are talking about funds that will enable foundational research, for the development of modern operations and the necessary training of employees for this pilot project."
Author: Gabriel Borrud (Reuters, dpa)
Editor: Toma Tasovac |
By
Two weeks ago, Stephen Curry capped off an amazing season by hitting his 272nd 3-pointer of the year, breaking Ray Allen’s seven-year-old NBA record. His performance, combined with our hyperbolic here and now journalistic tendencies nearly caused a riot on the Internet.
Since it was not merely good enough to proclaim that Curry is a great shooter – or maybe even the best shooter in the NBA right now – many journalists, bloggers, and fans began announcing that he was one of, if not the greatest shooter in basketball history.
Bailey Deeter from Hoops Habit initially asked the question, “Is Stephen Curry the Greatest 3-Point Shooter of All Time?” In the article, he plainly points out that Curry’s shooting percentages from long distance are far better than anyone else in the conversation. That, combined with this year’s historic feat, clearly declares that Curry is, in fact, the best ever.
There are more than a few flaws in his piece though, chief among them the mistake that he failed to consider context in the overall equation.
For instance, Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas were always considered two of the best 3-point shooters of the 1980s. If you were to go back to 1987 and ask coaches the question, “Who terrifies you more than anyone else when he is standing behind the 3-point line?” one of their names would have undoubtedly come up. And yet, when you look at their statistics today, it’s almost laughable that they were at one time considered dead-eye shooters from long-range.
Larry Legend never made more than 100 threes in a single season and Isiah Thomas was a career 29 percent shooter from distance. The context matters tremendously. In the 2012-13 season alone, 10 NBA players made at least 170 threes. Only two players made that many from 1979 to 1994.
Because the 3-point shot has gradually become much more of a weapon as basketball has evolved, it’s simply unfair to compare players from the past with their peers from today while only looking at accumulated totals. Today’s guards make fewer mid-range jumpers than the NBA players of the past. Does that automatically mean they are worse shooters? Of course not. As the game changes, so does strategy.
It is similarly unfair to compare players based solely off of shooting percentages. For one, it’s much easier to shoot a higher percentage when you are shooting fewer shots – how do you think Steve Kerr was able to shoot better than 50 percent from long range four times in his career? But more importantly, shooting percentages really fail to take into account the type and quality of the shots a player takes.
Nobody on the planet would argue that Thabo Sefolosha is a better three-point shooter than Kevin Durant, even though Sefolosha shoots a slightly higher percentage. Nearly all of Sefolosha’s attempts are of the stand-still, wide-open variety from corners and wings – typically created off of a Durant or Russell Westbrook drive to the basket. Durant, on the other hand, hardly ever gets to take corner threes. Most of his jump shots are taken off of tough, one-on-one possessions, or set plays that involve of him sprinting and curling around picks.
Context matters. Shooting cannot simply be evaluated by looking at numbers.
So then, who is the greatest shooter ever? That question is complicated, so let’s first of all narrow down the list and then later, add a layer of clarity to question.
There have been hundreds of dead-eye 3-point shooters in NBA history, but we have to start somewhere. In order to make the cut on this list, a player either had to:
make at least 150 threes in a season three times
make at least 200 threes in one season
shoot greater than 45 percent from deep at least twice
or have met special circumstances that warrant inclusion (he either played before the 3-point line existed or played when it wasn’t as big a part of the game).
A few of the toughest cuts:
Michael Jordan (never a great 3-point shooter, even though if you really needed one shot, he’s probably your guy)
Kobe Bryant, Dana Barros, Ryan Anderson, and Mike Miller (only made more than 150 twice)
Dirk Nowitzki (only made more than 150 once)
Mark Price (injuries probably kept him off this list)
Sam Perkins and Allan Houston (not quite as good as I remembered)
Paul Pierce (always very very good but never great…only made more than 150 in a season once)
Kevin Durant (has made at least 125 four straight seasons, and will probably break 150 eventually, but doesn’t yet meet any of the criteria).
After browsing NBA history, I came up with five groups of guys that met the previous criteria.
Group One – Wings that murdered you off the ball
Reggie Miller – The greatest shooter coming off of two, three, or four screens in NBA history, he sometimes struggled to create his own shot.
Ray Allen – Allen may have barely finished behind Reggie in terms of coming off screens, but he was also a much better creator for himself.
Peja Stojakovic – Stojakovic was slower than both Miller and Allen, but his height and quick release made him equally deadly.
Glen Rice – Rice was not quite as prolific as any of these guys overall, but he was probably scarier than all of them if he got hot.
Group Two – Wings that could create their own shot
Ben Gordon – The former UConn standout has averaged almost two threes per game for his entire career, while shooting better than 40 percent, even though he has only started just a third of his games.
Mitch Richmond – Richmond was a thicker, west-coast version of Reggie Miller. But, unfortunately, he rarely played on great teams.
Dale Ellis – You know Ellis as the long-time NBA leader in three-pointers made.
Group Three – Point Guards
Steve Kerr – Kerr shot better than 50 percent from deep four times and 90 percent from the free throw line six times.
Jason Terry – The Jet is actually fourth all-time in three point shooting and has also made a living off of being “Mr. Clutch” for several teams.
Chauncey Billups – Billups was a consistently great shooter for 11 years until injuring his Achilles tendon last season.
Dell Curry – Stephen’s dad shot at least 40 percent from deep for eight-straight seasons.
Steve Nash – Nash is one of the few guys in history to shoot 50/40/90 for a season…and he did it in five straight seasons.
Stephen Curry – He’s only just entered the league, but this season alone should earn him a spot on the list.
Tim Hardaway – The “creator of the crossover” was also one of the best shooters in the NBA from 1994-98.
Group Four – “Bigs”
Steve Novak – The career 43 percent shooter has actually shot better than 47 percent from deep in three separate seasons.
Rashard Lewis – Lewis sits eighth on the all-time list, and his seven-year stretch from 2003-10 is one of the best shooting performances in history.
Group Five – Legends that are hard to quantify but must be included
Pete Maravich – The Pistol played most of his career before the 3-point line, but studies show that he would have averaged upwards of ten threes a game in his college years if there had been a line…so he has to be included.
Jerry West – The Logo is a legendary shooter in NBA circles.
Larry Bird – As mentioned before, Larry Legend went to work before the 3-point line became popular, but his resume speaks for itself.
Rick Barry – Barry was one of the best 3-point shooters in ABA history, and actually carried his success over to the NBA unlike other ABA bombers.
All 20 guys on this list could be considered fantastic shooters. But who is the best? There are just too many variables. If we want a guy that can stand in the corner all day without moving and never miss, Larry Bird, Steve Novak, and Dell Curry are probably near the top of the list. If you need a guy to create something for you, Ben Gordon is much higher than you would ever guess.
*****
So for fun, let’s answer a specific question:
“If your team was down by three points with 10 seconds left, and you had to draw up one play for one guy in history to take the shot, which player would you choose?”
This player would need to be:
a dead-eye three-point shooter. (Obviously) able to shoot well in any circumstance. (Off dribble isolation, off dribble pick and roll, curling off a screen, or standing still in the corner) able to get his shot off over good defense. clutch.
Immediately, our list is pared considerably.
Steve Novak, Ryan Anderson, Steve Kerr, and Dell Curry wouldn’t be able to create a shot for themselves or anyone else. Fantastic shooters as they may have been, the defense can figure out how to defend these four stand-still shooters.
Dale Ellis, Jason Terry, Glen Rice, Ben Gordon, and Mitch Richmond all just barely made our list in the first place, so let’s throw them out as well.
Tim Hardaway was fantastic, but he never shot 40 percent for an entire year so he’s off too. That leaves us with the following 10 guys on this list:
Reggie Miller
Ray Allen
Peja Stojakovic
Steve Nash
Stephen Curry
Rashard Lewis
Pete Maravich
Larry Bird
Jerry West
Rick Barry
In order to do this as objectively as possible, let’s break them down category by category, rating each on a scale of one to 10 in each category. At the end, we will count up each player’s point total and wind up with a definitive answer for who you would draw up that game-clinching play for. Of course, you might point out that the rating I will give them will be subjective to me. That may be true, but you can suggest your methods in the comments.
Flat-out shooting
10 – Steve Nash, Larry Bird, and Peja Stojakovic
9 – Ray Allen, and Reggie Miller
8 – Stephen Curry and Rick Barry*
7 – Jerry West and Pete Maravich
6 – Rashard Lewis
Basically, which guy would be the best shooter on wide open, undefended jump shots?
I looked at two things for this – performance in 3-point shoot outs and free throw shooting. Those are really the only two, definitive and objective pieces of evidence we can use to grade this category.
The top five guys all finished in the top 10 all-time in free throw shooting. Currently, Steve Nash is still the greatest free throw shooter ever, earning him a 10 rating. Bird famously won the first three 3-point shootouts, including his famous “who here is coming second” moment. Anyone that argues against him earning a 10 should stop reading about basketball.
The guy that surprised me the most was Stojakovic. eja, of course, won back-to-back 3-point shootouts in the early 2000s, making him one of four guys in history to do so. He is also the fourth greatest free throw shooter of all-time according to basketball-reference.com. I find it interesting that the two 6’9″ forwards with nearly identical strokes finished tied for the lead. Maybe we should stop teaching kids how to shoot like Ray Allen and start imitating Larry Legend.
Curry would have earned higher than an eight, but he only shot 80 percent last year from the free throw line. Of course, 2012 was an injury-plagued season for him, but still, none of the six guys ahead of him ever shot so poorly for a season. West, Maravich, and Lewis all shot below 85 percent for their careers. Shooting 81 percent is nothing to be ashamed of, but they all clearly fall a little bit behind the top six in this category.
*Even though Rick Barry goes down as the fourth-best free throw shooter ever, he was penalized for obvious reasons. If you don’t understand, ask your grandma.
Shooting with a man in his face
10 – Pete Maravich, Larry Bird
9 – Jerry West
8 – Reggie Miller, Ray Allen, Stephen Curry
7 – Peja Stojakovic, Steve Nash
6 – Rick Barry
5 – Rashard Lewis
Of course, the rest of the categories are more subjective than the first, and this one is no exception. In fact, the mere title of the category is confusing. Should “making hard shots” really be a valued skill? Wouldn’t it be better if you were so good offensively, you never had to take difficult shots?
That’s why I phrased it the way I did – shooting with a man in your face. Defensive players always tried to crowd Larry Bird and take away his space, but he was seemingly always able to create a sliver of space for himself and hardly ever get blocked. Jerry West was the original master of this art, and of course, Pete Maravich probably perfected it. It was Maravich that often faced double and triple teams all over the court, yet he was still able to score at will against almost every opponent he faced.
Miller, Allen , and Curry are all tied with eights, even if they accomplished those ratings differently. Curry has one of the quickest releases in NBA history, enabling him to create space in almost no time and hoist up a good look. Miller and Allen, meanwhile, were better than anyone else at sprinting in one direction before catching the ball, planting, and turning to shoot in one seemingly effortless motion. It didn’t really matter who was guarding either guy – the success of the shot typically had to do with whether or not each player executed his form correctly.
Nash, Stojakovic, and Barry were above-average in this department, but definitely not on the level of the top six.
Catch and shoot
10 – Reggie Miller and Ray Allen
9 – Larry Bird and Peja Stojakovic
8 – Stephen Curry and Rashard Lewis
7 – Pete Maravich
6 – Jerry West, Steve Nash, and Rick Barry
It’s not a coincidence that the more recent players seemed to be far better catch and shooter guys than some of the older players. As the 90s and 2000s progressed, being able to catch the ball and shoot it quickly – as long, fast, and athletic defenses rotated at lightning speed – became much more of a priority. Of course, nobody in history approach Miller and Allen in this department. Both guys would often spend 20 seconds literally running loops and circles around their bigs before sprinting to the wing and firing a quick three.
Peja and Larry were almost their equals though. While neither guy was blessed with the above’s quickness, as mentioned before, both guys took advantage of their lightning fast releases in order to get their shots off over more athletic defenders. Rashard Lewis was just as proficient all those years in Seattle and Orlando as he calmly sat in the corner waiting for his stars to create openings for him.
Curry may be better than an eight, but he doesn’t necessarily showcase that trait as much, considering he often has the ball in his hands. West, Maravich, Nash, and Barry were all more comfortable creating their own shots.
Shooting off a pick
10 – Steve Nash
9 – Ray Allen and Pete Maravich
8 – Stephen Curry
7 – Larry Bird, Jerry West, and Rick Barry
5 – Reggie Miller
4 – Peja Stojakovich and Rashard Lewis
Nash is the clear winner here. The perfecter of shooting off the pick and roll on the Seven Seconds or Less Suns practically has his own YouTube channel on running it to perfection. Nash’s lasting image will probably that of curling around Amare Stoudemire and popping a three in the 0.4 seconds of time that he was open. Part of his effectiveness had to do with his sensational passing ability – if the defense didn’t respect the passing lanes, Nash would pick it apart. Still, shooting off of a screen is a legitimate skill, and it’s completely fair that Nash’s passing ability boosted his shooting in this respect.
Allen and Maravich were also incredibly effective using screens to create open looks. This is an area that Curry is improving at every year, and could even rise up to Nash-esque status eventually. It’s not a coincidence that so many people have encouraged Curry to use Nash as his prototype for improvement.
Stojakovic, Lewis, and Miller ranked pretty low here, mainly because none of the three were ever fantastic ball-handlers. Bird, West, and Barry weren’t fantastic dribblers, but their passing ability elevated them in a similar fashion as Nash.
Shooting off isolation
10 – Pete Maravich
8 – Steve Nash, Jerry West, and Rick Barry
7 – Stephen Curry
6 – Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, and Larry Bird
4 – Rashard Lewis
3 – Peja Stojakovich
Once again, Maravich is in a league of his own. No other player had his combination of intelligence, ball-handling, moves, and shooting all in one. “The Pistol” created moves that we had never seen before – and have seldom seen since. It didn’t matter how many guys you threw at him, he was always going to beat his man and get the look he wanted.
Nash, West, and Barry were all equally effective in breaking down defenders off the dribble. Ironically, three of the four best players in this category were from the older times – poking holes in the theory that the NBA relies much more on one-on-one and isolation style offenses today.
Curry is better than the rest, but is not quite as effective as Nash because of his slight build and inability to handle much physicality at this point in his career.
Miller, Allen, and Bird all went one-on-one more than people remember, but it definitely wasn’t their strength.
Ability in the Clutch
10 – Larry Bird and Jerry West
9 – Reggie Miller
8 – Ray Allen and Pete Maravich
6 – Rick Barry
5 – Steve Nash and Stephen Curry
4 – Rashard Lewis
2 – Peja Stojakovic
Feel free to argue with these, but I don’t think anyone can really make that strong of a case. Maybe Allen is as clutch as Miller. Maybe Nash deserves to be a six instead of a five. Still, Bird and West are in a class by themselves here.
So how did the rankings end up?
Larry Bird – 52 Pete Maravich – 51 Ray Allen – 50 Jerry West – 48 Reggie Miller – 47 Steve Nash – 47 Stephen Curry – 45 Rick Barry – 42 Peja Stojakovich – 35 Rashard Lewis – 31
Of course, different circumstances would determine which player you would choose. If you had a great big man to run the screen and roll, you might just pick Nash – a guy that finished tied for fifth with Miller to take the shot. If you wanted to clear everyone out and trust your star, the Pistol would no doubt be the guy you wanted. If you had several great bigs to set picks, nobody would be better than Ray Allen.
But I’m pretty satisfied with the champion. If I only had one shot, and wasn’t sure what was going to happen on that final possession, I couldn’t go wrong with Larry Legend.
Who is the best shooter in NBA history? Ray Allen
Rick Barry
Larry Bird
Rashard Lewis
Pete Maravich
Reggie Miller
Steve Nash
Peja Stojakovic
Jerry West
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Rhode Island lawmaker said Friday that he’ll introduce a bill making it a felony to block a highway, like protesters did in Boston a day earlier.
State Sen. Leonidas Raptakis said he supports First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful demonstrations but is concerned some gatherings could threaten public welfare.
Demonstrators alleging racial profiling and violence by police against minorities blocked a busy Boston-area highway used to connect to Providence during the Thursday morning commute and caused lengthy traffic jams, inconveniencing thousands of people and preventing an ambulance from getting through. A similar protest shut down I-95 in Providence for 15 minutes in November.
Raptakis, a Democrat, said his legislation would establish a new section of law regarding unlawful interference with traffic. He said it would make it a felony, instead of a misdemeanor, to sit, stand, kneel or otherwise loiter on any major roadway in a way that disrupts traffic.
“As these protests continue around the nation, I want to make sure that if it does happen again in our state, we are prepared to deal with individuals whose actions could result in danger to others, not only regular motorists but law enforcement officials who respond,” Raptakis said.
Raptakis said Democratic Rep. Raymond Hull, a police sergeant in Providence, will introduce the bill in the House. He said the bill would mandate that first-time offenders spend 60 days in jail.
“We’ve really, really got to tackle this issue and strengthen the laws and send a strong message,” Raptakis said.
A Massachusetts lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Colleen Garry, also has proposed making it a felony to block highways.
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Are you going on a trip soon? To avoid having a bad travel experience, there are certain travel security and web access issues you should be aware of and prepare for.
The following infographic highlights 6 travel security and web access issues that could ruin your trip. These include:
Approximately 90% of WiFi networks at public hotspots such as cafes, hotels, and airports are not secure. Thus, connecting to the Internet via these unsecured WiFi networks leave you vulnerable to having your personal and private information stolen by hackers and cyber criminals.
Access to certain websites and content is restricted or blocked in certain countries.
Scammers may try various methods to scam you.
Using public computers in hotel business centers or computer cafes creates security risks.
Mobile data charges can be significant in some countries, especially in Japan and Switzerland.
Data breach as a result of lost or stolen devices.
After going through the infographic below, you will find out the best methods to deal with these travel security and web access issues.
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Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said President Donald Trump should be treated like “any other social media harrasser.” (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison said Twitter should ban President Donald Trump after the President tweeted insults about “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski.
The Minnesota Democrat compared Trump to a “social media bully” in an interview with TMZ.
“The problem is he’s been doing it and he’s never had to pay a price for it,” Ellison said. “I personally think that Twitter should treat him like any other social media harasser and snatch his account.”
Ellison added that Twitter is a private company and the president doesn’t have a right to an account.
“And if he’s mistreating it and abusing people, serially, I think that he shouldn’t have an account,” Ellison said. |
Ancient Greek Warriors During the Bronze Age, starting around 1600BC, the ancient Greeks fought in the heroic style of Homer. Each warrior fought for personal glory instead of in an organized formation. Battles usually started with taunts and jeers, followed by duels between champions. If neither side lost its nerve, a general battle would begin. Ancient Greek warriors had already started to wear cumbersome, but effective, armor, and casualties were usually light during the melee. Men fought armed primarily with spears and short swords, and the Greek warriors had already jumped ahead of their contemporaries in the use of shields and armor. They considered ranged weapons, like the bow, to be cowardly and avoided them. Much like in later phalanx warfare, the real carnage started when one side was routed. Fleeing enemies could not make use of their shields and made excellent targets. Warrior kings like the semi-legendary Agamemnon ruled from massive stone hill-top fortresses, raiding and making war for profit and glory. Eventually during 12th century BC, for reasons not completely understood, Greece entered into a dark age of slow decline. Written language was lost, and the great palaces and cities were destroyed or abandoned. A dark age settled across much of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East at the same time, and there are many theories as to why. Regional droughts, changes in warfare and natural disasters have all been blamed. It was most likely several converging factors, but we don’t truly know at this time. Starting around 800 BC, Greece began to recover. Over the next 400 years, the Greeks developed democracy, theater, poetry and philosophy, as well as rediscovered written language. Some time before 650 BC, they developed the phalanx, and their warriors and warfare itself began to change as well. Warfare in Greece had always been dictated by the terrain; the rough ground was unsuitable for chariots. In earlier times when their contemporaries developed chariot warfare, Greek warriors concentrated on heavy infantry. Besides Thessaly, the Greeks also neglected the development of cavalry in their military. However, their concentration on heavy infantry would pay off in the power of their hoplite warriors and phalanx formation. Ancient Greek warriors were citizen soldiers, except for the professional army of Sparta, and warfare became somewhat standardized to allow for soldier-farmers to tend to their farms. Only after the harvest had been brought in from the fields would the Greeks take up arms. The different Greek city-states would then settle their many issues during the campaigning season. Warriors would settle scores on pre-selected battle fields, usually a plain between the two warring city-states. The warriors would form up into the famed phalanx on opposite sides of the mountain-surrounded plain. Greek Hoplites and Phalanxes
The Greek warriors were called hoplites, named after their shield, the hoplon. Hoplons were heavy, bronze-covered wooden shields about 3 to 3.5 feet in diameter. It spanned from chin to knee and was very heavy (17- 33 pounds). These shields had a revolutionary design; their rounded shape allowed them to be rested on the shoulder for additional support. They also featured a new grip and forearm straps that gave them great amounts of mobility and allowed them to be used offensively to bash opponents. The Greek warriors overlapped their shields, forming a shield wall. The left part of each warrior’s shield protected the right side of the hoplite to his left. A phalanx would consist of rows of spear-armed hoplites, all protecting each other and presenting a wall of shields and spear points towards their enemies. The first two rows of a phalanx were able to stab at opponents with their spears that protruded from between the shields. The first three rows, or ranks, of a phalanx could stab their opponents, while the back ranks would brace the front rows, prevent the front rows from retreating and support the all-important cohesion of the formation. Phalanxes could be 4, 8, 16 or more men deep, up to 50 rows in some extraordinary instances. This made the back rows relatively safe, giving them little reason to flee a battle, while the front rows were pressed between their own forces and an enemy bent on killing them. Yet, to the honor-driven Greek warriors, the front was where they wanted to be! In their martial culture, warriors sought glory in battle, and a general placed his best men in the front ranks. Greek Warriors Armor
Greek warriors were required to arm and armor themselves. Hoplite armor was extremely expensive and would be passed down through families. The amount of armor a Greek warrior wore varied. Peasant hoplites may have only carried a shield and maybe a helmet or secondary weapon, while battle-hardened Spartan veterans would have been armored from head to toe. The rich upper-class hoplites typically had the “works.” They wore bronze breastplate fashioned in the bell or muscled style, a bronze helmet that protected their face, and greaves for shin protection. The bronze breast plates alone could weigh an astounding 50-60 pounds! A slightly less well-off hoplite may have linothorax armor, made from stitched and laminated linen fabrics that were sometimes reinforced with bronze scales and/or animal skins. Linothorax armor was the most common type, offering decent protection at a moderate price. Helmet designs varied over time and offered varying amounts of protection. Innovations including cheek plates and visors were added for additional protection. Each city state had its one design on the crest of their helmets. Greek Warriors Weapons
Hoplites were armed with long spears, called doru. Doru were that were around 7 – 9 feet in length, although this varied. Greek warriors carried their spears in their right hands and their shields strapped to their left. Greek warriors probably employed both underhand and overhand grips, depending on the situation and amount of leverage required. Holding the spear underarm may have been optimal for the front line of the phallanxs while Hoplites in the second and third ranks would almost certainly have made overarm thrusts. The rear rows held their spears in an underarm grip, and raising them upwards on an angle to provide an extra defense against incoming missiles. Doru often had curved leaf shaped spearheads and had a spiked point, called a sauroter, at the opposite end. The spear could be spun around if something happened to the spearhead in battle, but it was more commonly used to stand the spear up by planting it into the ground. This practice gave the sauroter its name, sauroter is Greek for “lizard killer”. It was also used by the back ranks to dispatch fallen enemies as the phalanx advanced over them when they held their spears in the upright position. The sauroter also served as a counter weight, balancing out the spear. Ancient Greek warriors also carried short swords, called xiphos, as a secondary weapon. They were used when spears snapped or were lost in combat. They may have also been used when a hoplite needed to discard his spear and shield in order to chase down routing enemies. The xiphos usually has about a 2 foot blade; however the Spartans blades were often only 1 – 1.5 feet long. This shorter xiphos would advantageous in the press that occurred in the front row when two phalanxes smashed together. In this crush of men there was no room to use a longer sword, however a short sword could be thrust through gaps in the enemy's shieldwall and into an unprotected groin, armpit or throat. Smaller xiphos would have been particularly useful during the Peloponnesian War (431 BC - 404 BC) when many hoplites began using lighter armor, even abandoning it, in favor of mobility. Alternatively, Greek warriors could carry the curved kopis, a particularly vicious hacking weapon that earned it a reputation as a “bad guys” weapon in ancient Greece. Spartan hoplites were often depicted using the kopis instead of the xiphos in the art of their arch rivals the Athenians. (See also Spartan Weapons) Greek Light Infantry & Cavalry
Not every Greek warrior was a hoplite, and though often neglected, Greek armies were usually accompanied by other troop types. Light infantry and cavalry troops were used as skirmishers and to protect the vulnerable flanks of the ponderous phalanxes. Javelin throwers called peltasts would be used as skirmishers, harassing enemy formations and masking troop movements behind them. They were armed with several javelins. Peltast warfare was developed in Thrace while the Greeks were developing an heavy infantry almost exclusively. This led to many of the light infantry being mercenary troops, hired from outlying regions of Greece. For instance, the Agrianes from Thrace were well-renowned peltasts, whilst Crete was famous for its archers and the Beleric Islands and Rhodes were famous for their slingers. During and after the Peloponnesian War use of light infantry became more common. This was dui to the Battle of Lechaeum (391 BC) when an army of Peltasts defeated an army of hoplites for the first time. Astonishingly a force of 600 Spartan hoplites was defeated using hit and run peltast tactics. Of the Greek City states, only Thebes developed their cavalry, a development noted by Phillip of Macedonia and Alexander the Great. Theban cavalry would be the model for the Macedonian Companion cavalry and eventual serve beside them under Alexander. Hoplite Warfare
From its dawn around 700-650 BC, hoplite and phalanx tactics dominated warfare. Phalanxes triumphed over disorganized enemy hordes and quickly spread through Greece and beyond. The Greeks perfected hoplite tactics though endemic warfare. Hoplite tactics hit their high water mark when smaller Greek armies defeated two massive Persian invasions (499-448 BC). Hoplite formations decimated the lightly armored Persian infantry in famous battles like Marathon (490 BC) and Thermopylae (480 BC). However, the Greeks never capitalized on their victory over the world’s super power. Having defended Greece from foreign control the Greeks went back to their insistent warfare against each other. They then launched themselves into another series of wars. First the leading Greek cities of Sparta and Athens warred for supremacy in a decade’s long war, dragging most of the other Greek cities into the conflict (Peloponnesian War 431 BC - 404 BC). Only ten years later the Spartan hegemony was challenged in the Corinthian War (395-387 BC). Sensing the Spartan weakness, an alliance of Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Argos, supported by their enemy the Persians, sought to escape from the hegemony, and increase their own power. This was fought to a stalemate, but Thebes then led yet another war against Sparta. At the decisive Battle of Leuctra (371 BC), the Thebans routed the Spartans and their Allies. The battle is famous for the tactical innovations of the Theban general Epaminondas. Defying convention, he strengthened the left flank of the phalanx to an unheard of depth of 50 ranks, at the expense of the centre and the right. The centre and right were staggered backwards from the left flank and away from the enemies. This 'echelon' formation allowed the phalanx to advance obliquely. The Theban left wing was thus able to crush the elite Spartan forces on the allied right, while the Theban centre and left trailed behind and avoided engagement. After the defeat of the elite Spartans and the death of the Spartan king, the rest of the Allied army retreated. This is one of the first known examples of both the tactic of local concentration of force, and the tactic of 'refusing a flank'. The Spartans and their allies were again defeated by the Thracians and Epaminondas in the largest battle ever fought between the Greeks at the battle of Mantinea (362 BC). Spartan hegemony had been broken, but the Thebes had lost many warriors, including their ingenious general, Epaminondas. Unfortunately for the Greeks the Macedonian King, Phillip, had taken note of the tactics Thebes had used and even improved on them. Philip doubled the length of the spear used by his phalanxes and reduced the shields his warriors used, allowing them to hold their spears with two hands. He also understood that while a phalanx is almost unstoppable from the front they are vulnerable from the flanks and rear. Phillip wisely used combined arms tactics, incorporating cavalry and light infantry to protect his phalanx. His phalanxes would then pin down opponents forces while his mobile forces outflanked them. When Philip attacked Greece (356-338 BC) the divided and exhausted Greeks could not stop him. Phillips son, Alexander the Great, then took the Greeks, their way of warfare and Hellenistic culture on a world tour of conquest. Persian, Egyptian and even Indian armies were defeated but the Greeks had forever lost their position as the world's top warriors. However, with Alexander and his sucessors Greek culture, civilization and ideas were spread across the known world. |
Lawrence software developer Mike DuPont says he is sick of walking on Massachusetts Street and smelling like cigarette smoke when he gets home. He especially doesn’t want to expose his 2-month-old baby to it.
So he recently started an online petition to ban smoking on Massachusetts Street. He says that while current law restricts smoking in public buildings and within 10 feet of entrances, many people openly disobey it.
“It seems that the law is backfiring, so that you have more smoking affecting the public because all the smokers go outdoors,” said DuPont, who relocated to Kansas with his family in October. “Really for me, the downtown is one reason why we moved to Lawrence, so we don’t want to breathe smoke there.”
DuPont has a handful of signatures on his petition so far, and hopes to eventually take it before the City Commission to ask its members to outlaw smoking downtown. Lawrence’s ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, which went into effect a decade ago this month, was itself sparked by a citizen complaining to the commissioners.
Across the country, smoking bans in city parks, beaches and other common areas have been on the rise in recent years; New York City famously outlawed smoking in outdoor public areas in 2011. But while the dangers of secondhand smoke are clear, much of the research on it has taken place in indoor settings.
James King, fire marshal for Lawrence-Douglas County Fire-Medical, said he can’t recall the last citation his department gave out for violating the local smoking ordinance. He said there’s been maybe a couple to a half dozen a year since it went into effect.
“There’s been a lot of good compliance in the city,” he said. “Maybe not surprisingly, there seems to be a lot of self-regulation. People will complain to the person smoking and they’ll stop or move further away.”
Lawrence claims collector Lindsey Frye signed DuPont’s petition, as she believes the current smoking ban just pushes smokers onto the sidewalk by pedestrians. She also says that if a city as big as New York can ban smoking outdoors, why can’t Lawrence?
“It’s hard to have a nice walk downtown with my young children when we are constantly forced to dodge through all the smoking on Mass. Street,” said Frye, 34, who has a 3- and a 10-year-old. “It ruins the ambiance of a great downtown.”
Several smokers interviewed on Massachusetts Street last week all said they would oppose such a ban. Most gave as their reasoning that the current law is restrictive enough.
“I think it’s a little ridiculous. It’s bad enough you’ve got to smoke outside or so far away from a door,” said a 45-year-old Lawrence man who declined to give his name, taking a puff off a cigarette at Massachusetts and Eighth streets Saturday. “Just get over it.” |
Sciurumimus ("Squirrel-mimic," named for its tail's resemblance to that of the tree squirrel, Sciurus[1]) is an extinct genus of coelurosaurian theropod from the Late Jurassic of Germany. It is known from a single juvenile specimen representing the type species, Sciurumimus albersdoerferi, which was found in a limestone quarry close to Painten in Lower Bavaria.[2] The specimen was preserved with traces of feather-like filaments.[3]
The Sciurumimus specimen was first announced in 2011 in an informal presentation,[4] but not formally described and named until the following year. Although originally classified as a basal megalosauroid,[2] later phylogenetic analyses cast doubt on this placement.[5]
Description [ edit ]
Sciurumimus Life restoration of juvenile
Sciurumimus is known from a single holotype fossil that is exceptionally well-preserved, with full skeleton in complete articulation along with fine details of soft tissue. It is comparable in size and proportions to the juvenile coelurosaur Juravenator, although differs significantly in several anatomical details. The skull of Sciurumimus is proportionally large, at 156% of the length of the femur and longer than the cervical vertebrae series. These body proportions, along with short forelimbs, lack of fusion in the skeleton, and regular tooth morphology indicate the specimen represents a very young, probably early-posthatchling individual.[2]
The fossil preserves filamentous plumage at the tail base and on other parts of the body. These structures are described as being identical to the stage 1 feathers preserved in some ornithischians, the basal tyrannosaur Dilong, and the basal therizinosauroid Beipiaosaurus. Although most of the preserved soft tissue on the Sciurumimus holotype likely represent integumentary structures, a small patch of what may be muscle tissue is observed along the rear edge of the tibia.[2]
Classification [ edit ]
Close up of the skull
When first discovered, a phylogenetic analysis suggested that Sciurumimus may have been a primitive member of the Megalosauroidea, a clade of large carnivorous dinosaurs more primitive than many other well-known theropods like the tyrannosauroids and carnosaurs, making it the most basal known feathered theropod.[2] This classification was supported by one of three initial analyses conducted by the scientists who described it. The other two analysis, which the authors regarded as less well supported, found it as more closely related to Monolophosaurus and Avetheropoda, and in an unresolved position among avetheropods and megalosauroids, respectively. The exact position in the various analyses was difficult to determine due to the fact that the only known specimen is a very young juvenile.[2]
This initial study was criticized by several researchers, who noted that some of the old analysis the scientists used to plug in data from the new fossil were incomplete and missing relevant data on various species.[6][7] The relationships of Sciurumimus were tested in 2013, when an analysis containing all of the original data, plus additional data and corrections, was published in the journal Nature. This revised analysis found Sciurumimus to be one of the most primitive members of the Coelurosauria, more derived than the megalosauroids.[5] |
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A few quick hits to start your day before the Rumor Chart hits later this evening and we officially enter what Brian Burke loves to call "The Silly Season."The Oilers and Flyers have been talking about a swap for a VERY long time now...this one goes back about two years...the Oilers have always liked Braydon Coburn and Sean Couturier and the Flyers have looked long and hard at Nail Yakupov, Jordan Eberle and now Jeff Petry I am told. One source went so far to say, "These teams are almost guaranteed to hook up between now and the deadline...the only question is if we are talking a 1 for 1 deal or a 3 for 2 deal. The scope is the issue."I was told this morning that a new wrinkle to the goalie market has become the Senators possibly looking to add Craig Anderson into the fray if the team appears out of it come mid-February. Anderson is a MAJOR chip because he has shown to be extremely seasoned under pressure and valuable . His price tag is a bit high, but you are getting a goalie who can carry you if need be. A great fit for either Minnesota or Detroit even if they needed to go to him in the playoffs..We will discuss all this and more on today's Buzzcast starting at 1pm ET |
Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers) < NewMsLoree > 2012-01-12 12:04
A while back, we had a discussion on the blog about the cover art for my princess novels. For the most part, I really like these covers, but they’re not perfect.Now I could talk about the way women are posed in cover art … or I could show you. I opted for the latter, in part because it helped me to understand it better. I expected posing like Danielle to feel a little weird and unnatural. I did not expect immediate, physical pain from trying (rather unsuccessfully) to do the hip thing she’s got going on.I recruited my wife to take the pictures, which she kindly did with a minimum of laughter.Being me, I naturally couldn’t stop there. I headed over to Amazon and grabbed a sampling of book covers, primarily urban fantasy, and spent the evening doing a photoshoot. Click on if you want to see the results (or if you just really want to see a shot of topless Jim).I’m tempted to use the Night Myst pic as my new author photo.In all seriousness, I spent the rest of last night with pain running through most of my back. Even the pose in The Shape of Desire, which first struck me as rather low-key, is difficult to imitate and feels really forced. Trying to launch my chest and buttocks in two different directions a la Vicious Grace? Just ow.To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with being sexual. I can totally see Snow from the princess books flaunting her stuff, for example. But posing like these characters drives home exactly what’s being emphasized and what’s not.My sense is that most of these covers are supposed to convey strong, sexy heroines, but these are not poses that suggest strength. You can’t fight from these stances. I could barely even walk.From http://jimhines.livejournal.com/612200.html |
Last week saw many Hungarian BitTorrent trackers and warez sites shut down by the police. Is it just a coincidence that the US is planning to put a federal prosecutor in Budapest, Hungary to "assist in the coordination of the enforcement of intellectual property laws"? Probably not.
Last week, Hungary witnessed some of the most aggressive action against BitTorrent trackers and warez sites the country has ever seen. Normally considered a relative safe-haven for file-sharers, Hungarian police conducted raids on six locations using around 80 police officers to seize around a claimed 100 servers. New information suggests this number has been exaggerated with the true number actually being around 30. In addition, home addresses were raided and hard drives seized.
Not only were the servers of torrent sites seized – such as those from Bithumen, BitLove, Moobs and GigaTorrents but also those of other warez sites, sms warez servers and 100% legal game servers. Other sites involved in the raids are Bitgate, Cinemastores, Darkside, Majomparade, Pretorians and Savaria which in true hydra-style have all returned. The private BitTorrent tracker Bithumen is also promising to return using a backup from one-week ago and some are reassuring its users that the server didn’t carry any IP addresses so they cannot be identified, although this is unconfirmed.
It seems that many completely innocent parties have had their servers taken. Although back now, the invite-only social networking site IWIW also went down temporarily during the raids. According to a source, the Hungarian police were extremely short of technical staff who might be able to identify the correct servers to take, so in the style of the Swedish police at last year’s Pirate Bay raid, they simply took them all.
The raids were co-ordinated by ASVA, a Hungarian industry association similar to the BSA and prompted many other torrent admins to take down their sites. Some were showing messages indicating the sites were down for maintenance or had some sort of technical difficulties.
Interestingly, last week, news.com reported on the introduction of a bill in the US – the so-called ‘Pirate Act’ which would allow the US Justice Department to file lawsuits against those it accuses of engaging in copyright infringement and, by way of compensation, send the financial spoils to the organization holding the copyright.
Tucked away at the bottom of the article is a possible indicator as to why this massive action was taken in Hungary. From the article:
The new version of the Pirate Act, in addition to civil enforcement, also: * Creates an “operational unit” of at least 10 FBI agents to investigate intellectual property offenses. It requires the Justice Department to assign a federal prosecutor to Hong Kong and Budapest, Hungary, “to assist in the coordination of the enforcement of intellectual property laws” and allocates $12 million per year.
Although the Pirate Act isn’t in force yet, it’s not difficult to imagine the pressure which the Hungarian government must’ve been under from the United States. Cleaning up the ‘problem’ before the US arrives to really turn on the screws should relieve some of that pressure. Additionally, a lot of pressure data-wise was removed from the Hungarian internet infrastructure as disappearing sites caused a dramatic reduction in traffic.
As the dust settles it appears that torrent sites were not the main targets of the police but the pay to download warez sites, such as the ones which require payment by premium SMS message. It’s convenient for the authorities to portray torrent sites in the same light as pay warez sites and even though there is rarely a charge to use a torrent site, it’s easy to imply to the general public that they’re all criminals.
Further raids have been promised.
Thanks go to misnyo and _bc for translating |
No, it is not just trash talk or slang for some city slum – this place really is known as Garbage City with good reason: its denizens live in a surreal urban landscape with waste stuffed in every spare corner, stacked on the sidewalks and surrounding every structure – captured above by photographer Bas Princen.
More amazing than the trash-strewn architecture and garbage-stuffed city streets is the strange fact that this place is fully occupied and abuzz with activity. People live, work, eat and sleep within this object graveyard outside the city center of Cairo, Egypt. Spaces not occupied by people are given over to livestock (fed with trash scraps) and guerrilla urban gardens.
Officially known as Manshiyat Naser, this district has shops and apartments like any other, but its residents earn their keep by specializing in collecting, sorting and recycling specific types of trashed materials. A group of children can be found sifting for plastic bottles while an organized team of women scours the remnants for cans or glass. Other items are burned locally as fuel.
While it might not meet any health standards on Earth, the unique urban phenomena is arguably sustainable in a certain sense – even ‘green’ in a some ways. Working in the area does provide some basic necessities for its inhabitants, though water, sewage and (perhaps ironically) even official garbage collection services are not available to those living within its trash-cluttered walls. |
Dozens of rotting crocodile heads found dumped in Darwin freezer box
Updated
Northern Territory police are investigating how dozens of severed crocodile heads ended up half-thawed and rotting in a dumped freezer box outside Darwin.
A group of teenagers discovered the carcasses while riding their bikes through bushland in Humpty Doo, about 40 kilometres out of Darwin, on Sunday.
Territory Superintendent Greg Pusterla told 105.7 ABC Darwin that police called to the scene found between 50 and 70 small saltwater crocodile heads.
It's not so rare. A lot of people keep some strange things in freezers. Tommy Nichols, senior wildlife ranger
One whole 80 centimetre carcass and several hatchlings were among the rotting freezer box remnants.
"It's certainly an unusual report," Superintendant Pusterla said.
The ABC understands NT police have since determined the heads came from the backyard of a person with a permit to keep crocodiles.
Further investigations are underway.
It is legal to keep crocodiles as pets in the Northern Territory, with some people housing reptiles in suburban backyard pens or makeshift bathtub ponds.
The Territory also has a thriving crocodile skin market worth an estimated $20 million.
The heads — the byproduct of the crocodile farming industry and generally removed at the base of the skull — often end up being re-sold as tourist items in the region's animal parks.
Ranger: 'there was quite a bad smell'
Senior wildlife ranger Tommy Nichols specialises in crocodile management and was among those who attended the crime scene on Monday.
"[We saw] a deep freezer in a sad state of affairs," Mr Nichols told 105.7 ABC Darwin.
"There was quite a bad smell and maggots around everywhere."
It was not the first time Mr Nichols had arrived to such a scene.
"It's not so rare. A lot of people keep some strange things in freezers," he said.
Mr Nichols said he had previously discovered snakes, cane toads and "a puppy dog" stored in storage boxes and deep freezers.
Topics: reptiles, crime, law-crime-and-justice, animals, animal-welfare, humpty-doo-0836, darwin-0800
First posted |
“[W]hile standing and in the middle of a sentence, I had an incredibly strange, weird moment of comparing real life to the VR,” wrote the video-game developer Lee Vermeulen after he tried Valve’s SteamVR system back in 2014. He was mid-conversation with a coworker when he started to feel off, and the experience sounds almost metaphysical. “I understood that the demo was over, but it was [as] if a lower level part of my mind couldn’t exactly be sure. It gave me a very weird existential dread of my entire situation, and the only way I could get rid of that feeling was to walk around or touch things around me.”
It seems that VR is making people ill in a way no one predicted. And as hard as it is to articulate the effects, it may prove even harder to identify its cause.
* * *
The notion of virtual-reality devices having a physical effect their users is certainly familiar. Virtual-reality sickness, also known as cybersickness, is a well-documented type of motion sickness that some people feel during or after VR play, with symptoms that include dizziness, nausea, and imbalance. It’s so common that researchers say it’s one of the biggest hurdles to mass adoption of VR, and companies like Microsoft are already working rapidly to find ways to fix it.
Some VR users on Reddit have pointed out that VR sickness begins to fade with time and experience in a headset. Once they grew their “VR legs,” they wrote, they experienced less illness. Van Schneider has noticed the same thing. “[The physical symptoms] usually fade within the first 1–2 hours and get better over time,” he wrote. “It’s almost like a little hangover, depending on the intensity of your VR experience.” Indeed, VR sickness is often referred to as a “VR hangover.”
The dissociative effects that van Schneider and others have written about, however, are much worse. In an attempt to collectively self-diagnose, many of the internet-forum users have point ed to a study by the clinical psychology researcher Frederick Aardema from 2006 — the only study that looks explicitly at virtual reality and clinical dissociation, a state of detachment from one’s self or reality. Using a questionnaire to measure participants’ levels of dissociation before and after exposure to VR, Aardema found that VR increases dissociative experiences and lessens people’s sense of presence in actual reality. He also found that the greater the individual’s pre-existing tendency for dissociation and immersion, the greater the dissociative effects of VR.
Dissociation itself isn’t necessarily an illness, Aardema said. It works like a spectrum: On the benign side of the spectrum, there is fantasizing and daydreaming — a coping mechanism for boredom or conflict. On the other side, however, there are more pathological types of dissociation, which include disorders like derealization-depersonalization (DPDR). |
Jesus was not such a “nice guy.”
This might be difficult to accept at first glance, because the image of Jesus we have today has been so sanitized and packaged as to make wearing a precious-metal cross around one’s neck or identifying oneself as a Christian in public is not a particularly uncommon (nor unpopular) thing to do today, especially in places like the United States. But who is this Jesus that is so immediately attractive, so easy to follow, so much like our own imagining? And, then, who is this Jesus that we hear about in today’s Gospel, who claims to have come to bring division rather than the establishment of peace (Luke 12: 49-53)?
There are at least two reasons we might understand that Jesus was not entirely a “nice guy.” The first is that the Romans, despite anachronistic misunderstandings of their behavior and outlook, did not typically go around crucifying “nice guys.” Yes, while Jesus was without a doubt an innocent man who happened to be crucified, we should not forget that there was a reason that he drew attention to himself and it wasn’t for saying kind things about the way the status quo was maintained. More on that in a second.
The second reason that we can reasonably assume Jesus was not such a “nice guy” is that he tells us as much in today’s Gospel selection from Luke (and we hear it echoed in the synoptic Gospel of Matthew with an even-more disturbing emphasis on not-nice-guyness in terms of Jesus’s claim to bring “the sword”).
It can be difficult to get beyond the seemingly violent message that Jesus appears to convey in his exhortation to his disciples. We might hear in Jesus’s admittance that he didn’t come to “establish peace on the earth” something of an advocation for violence. But that’s not really what is going on.
Likewise, it might seem that Jesus does not respect “family values” (isn’t that an interesting read) in suggesting that those who follow him and live life according the Good News he announces will find themselves among divided families and communities. But that’s not really what is going on.
What is going on is a straightforward, albeit counterintuitive, admission of the risk, challenge, and reality of authentic Christian living that centers on following the Word of God and becoming a prophetic in one’s time and place!
In other words, we are called, like Jesus was, to not be “nice guys” (and “gals,” for those who aren’t Millennials and use “guys” in an inclusive manner).
Jesus did indeed come to bring peace, but it was — as we hear elsewhere in Sacred Scripture — a “peace the world cannot give” (John 14:27). The peace that Jesus is talking about here, the “peace” that he did not come to establish, is the kind of peace that we might talk about when we express a desire to maintain the status quo or wish “not to ‘rock the boat.'” It is a kind of “keeping the peace” that eschews “tough love,” or a “challenging voice,” or the “hard truth.” It is a kind of “establishing a peace” that exists according to the wisdom of the world and not the foolishness of God, and rests in the reason of human injustice and not within the Reign of God.
Jesus was crucified, in part, because he did not come to preach a word that kept things the way they were, but instead was sent to proclaim the in-breaking of God’s Reign, which is about the establishment of justice and not the earthly status quo of injustice and violence. In other words, Jesus was not sent to be a “nice guy,” because nice guys don’t rock the boat nor do they upset people by challenging the way things are. And, oh, how Jesus upset certain people who had so much to lose because they had gained all — power, wealth, status, etc. — at the expense of others!
As those who bear the name of Christ and claim to be his disciples, we are called to not be “nice guys” like him. We are not to keep the peace of things as they are, but to open our eyes to the plight of the poor and forgotten, the underserved and abused, the marginalized and those suffering at the hands of others’ greed. And this might mean that we face divided families and communities, unsettling those who are not able or willing to hear the Gospel.
This is not an entirely new concept. It dates back to the Hebrew Prophets, such as Jeremiah, who we hear about in our First Reading. Jeremiah, a reluctant prophet who at first resisted God’s call to preach the truth of God’s justice and peace, is threatened with death by the king. His proclaiming the truth of the world as it really is in contradistinction to the way God intended the world to be is a threat to those in power, who benefit from the oppression of others and the maintaining of the status quo.
Like Jeremiah, we too might be reluctant to take on this mission, but like him and Jesus we have been called by God to do just that, to surrender our desire to be “nice guys” who “keep the peace” of the way things are. Instead, we are meant — by virtue of our baptismal vocation — to preach the Kingdom of God in word and deed, risking greatly.
But how can we do this?
It is certainly not easy, which is why in our Second Reading the author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us of the “Great Cloud of Witnesses” we have to provide models and guides for us. This is a way of talking about the Communion of Saints, those who have gone before us and remain connected to us in spirit. They support us as we continue to persevere and “run the race” of Christian living, a marathon to be sure, a journey that is tiring but one that is the most authentic way of being ourselves.
The question we are left with this weekend is to discern what it means to be a Christian. Do we take the risk of being the prophet who speaks the hard truth and does the right thing, or do we prefer to not “rock the boat” and establish an earthly peace that maintains the status quo of violence and injustice?
Photo: Stock
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5 years ago
The DNC has its eyes on Texas .
(CNN) - Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine appears to have his eyes set on Texas, announcing Monday the organization's fall meeting will be held in the Lone Star state.
"Not only is Texas a great, beautiful and diverse state, it represents a tremendous growth opportunity for the Democratic Party," Kaine wrote in an e-mail to DNC supporters.
Now, some might find that notion odd given Texas's traditionally conservative bent and its recent history of supporting Republican candidates for elective office," Kaine continued. "But I don't find it odd at all - and in fact, I am more convinced than ever that Texas is trending our way and will continue to do so."
Obama lost to Republican presidential candidate John McCain by 11 percentage points and close to 1 million votes. Still, that margin is less than more than half of what it was when the state's favored son George W. Bush was on the presidential ballot.
In his letter Monday, Kaine specifically cited Texas' large Hispanic organization and the grassroots infrastructure put in place by the Obama campaign in 2008 as reasons the traditionally-considered red state may turn blue.
"In so many ways, I believe Texas is poised to move towards our column, just as Virginia has," Kaine said.
Full letter after the jump: |
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Judge Andrew Napolitano spoke on Fox News, Wednesday, making his first appearance on the network after pushing a controversial report in defense of President Trump‘s claims of wiretapping during the 2016 election.
Anchors Bret Baier and Shepard Smith previously said that Fox could not independently confirm the accuracy of Napolitano’s claim that the British intelligence service GCHQ facilitated the wiretapping. During Napolitano’s spot on America’s Newsroom today, Bill Hemmer noted that “you’ve had a few quiet days.”
Hemmer then asked the judge whether he was still confident in the story, to which the Fox judicial analyst said yes.
The American public needs to know more about this rather than less because a lot of the government surveillance authorities will expire in the Fall and there’ll be a great debate on how much authority we want the government to have to surveil us, and the more the American public knows the more informed there and Congress’s decisions will be.
Napolitano has been absent from the network ever since White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer cited his allegations in defense of the president’s claims. The White House was ultimately forced to (sort of) apologize to the United Kingdom after GCHQ called the charge “utterly ridiculous.”
Watch above, via Fox.
[image via screengrab]
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>> Follow Ken Meyer (@KenMeyer91) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? [email protected] |
Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $550 million to settle the SEC's civil fraud lawsuit against it. The SEC is touting the sum as the “largest-ever penalty paid by a Wall Street firm,” but how much does the settlement actually hurt Goldman? We looked a up few numbers to put things into perspective:
It’s about eight times what the head honcho has taken home in a year. In 2007, Goldman did the deal at the center of the SEC's suit, CEO Lloyd Blankfein took home $68 million in salary and bonus.
It’s just a touch less than a Goldman charitable donation. In November 2009, after criticism of big bonuses at Goldman, the firm pledged $500 million to help small business owners.
It's less then a tenth of the gain Goldman's stock had today. Goldman’s stock took a hit when the SEC announced its lawsuit in April, but since word of the settlement first started circulating today, it’s added back $7.9 billion dollars to its market cap.
It’s about two weeks’ worth of profit. Goldman reported (PDF) earning $3.3 billion in the first quarter of 2010. That’s about $250 million in profit per week.
It’s a sum that Goldman could pay immediately (and probably hundreds of times over).The company’s average global core excess liquidity—the average worth of assets it could readily convert into cash—was $162 billion for the first quarter of 2010.
It’s a fair amount more than what Goldman made on the deal the SEC sued over. Goldman reportedly made $15 million in fees from the CDO deal that landed Goldman in hot water. But keep in mind: Goldman did 25 of these so-called Abacus deals in all, and created many more CDOs without the Abacus label.
Of the $550 million, the U.S. Treasury will get $300 million, and investors who lost out on this Abacus deal will get $250 million.
Meanwhile, Goldman has neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s fraud allegations, although Goldman did acknowledge that its marketing deals “contained incomplete information."
Harvey Pitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, told me the SEC’s extraction of this acknowledgement from Goldman was itself “highly unusual.” He called the settlement "a major victory for the SEC.”
Here’s the statement from Goldman:
In particular, it was a mistake for the Goldman marketing materials to state that the reference portfolio was ‘selected by’ ACA Management LLC without disclosing the role of Paulson & Co. Inc. in the portfolio selection process and that Paulson’s economic interests were adverse to CDO investors. Goldman regrets that the marketing materials did not contain that disclosure.
The terms of the settlement still need to be approved by a federal judge. The SEC's lawsuit against Goldman employee Fabrice Tourre will continue.
As we’ve pointed out, other major banks did deals similar to Goldman’s, and it remains to be seen whether the disclosures in their marketing documents will be sufficient. More on that, I’m sure, to come. |
Boeing (NYSE: BA) officials say that the world will need 33,500 large aircraft between now and 2030. That is a very precise number given that no one knows what will happen to the world economy over the next two decades. It is another example of how industries make fantastic predictions that have almost no use to them, their industries, their investors or the press.
Boeing’s forecast is for large planes like those made by it and competitor Airbus. The value of the aircraft delivered over the next 20 years is $4 trillion, according the U.S. firm. Boeing’s revenue last year was $69 billion, which is not up much from $66.4 billion in 2007. So, the level of growth that the aerospace company predicts is essential to its financial future.
Most of the growth that Boeing expects will be in Asia, which makes sense based on population and GDP growth. The 33,5000 forecast assumes that 11,450 large aircraft will be delivered in the Asia-Pacific region before 2030. The prediction is not 11,400 or 11,500. It is 11,450 on the dot.
It is as impossible to argue against Boeing’s numbers as it is to argue for them. They may not be precisely right, but Boeing should be in a position to make predictions if any company or economist is. However, a drop in gross domestic product of a fraction of a point here and there across Asia would make the prediction wrong on the downside. Sales in North America, Europe and other developing or developed parts around the world will not make up for that, particularly because Asia has become so much of the world’s total GDP.
Boeing management might as well keep their predictions to themselves. People may have flying cars in 2030, or the global economy may be such that very few people are flying at all.
Douglas A. McIntyre |
One day the Rage of Africa was dominating basketball and overall livin' 'da dream.
Suddenly his girlfriend Yvette ran up to him and said that Vic, his best friend, had tried to kiss her, which was odd because Yvette's face looked like a ditch.
The news of his betrayal infuriated Rage and he ran over to Vic's house to confront him.
When he got there, Rage told Vic to get out of his life, and Vic threatened to reveal the secret that Rage killed a guy one time or something.
In response Rage punched Vic so hard that some his blood landed on a foam finger haninging on the wall.
The blood triggered a reaction and the foam finger started to shake before falling off the wall.
Vic witnessed this and soon after, began to experiment with the finger.
He went out into 'da hood late one night and stabbed a hobo and then put the blood the finger.
The finger started to shake and Vic put it on the hobo's hand.
The hobo was then transformed into a vampire and attacked Vic!
Vic was almost killed by him until the sun came up and burned the hobo.
Vic retrieved the finger and made plans to get his revenge on Rage.
A few days later Rage was having a b-ball game at the stadium and all of his friends and family were there.
Suddenly Vic jumped down from the stands and approached Rage while yelling something about rejecting humanity.
Vic pulled out a knife and lunged at Rage, but Rage's father jumped in front of Vic and took the blow!
Vic pulled out the knife and put the blood on the finger.
Right as Vic put on the finger, a security guard shot Vic multiple times.
As he lay dying, Rage's father said "Rage, please don't hate Vic."
"But he was a super asshole." replied Rage.
"Oh yeah I guess he was." said his father before dying.
The security guard then said "What a tragedy! Now his kindness is gone from the world!"
"No!" Said Dom Pagnotti "He passed his noble spirit along to Rage! It has become his iron will, his pride, and it will create his future! They live their lives with no regrets. They're giants!"
Rage looked over, but saw that Vic's body had disappeared!
Suddenly Vic jumped down from the ceiling and punched off half of the security guard's head!
Even Dom Pagnotti was afraid!
To show his newfound power to Rage and the spectators, Vic grabbed a basketball and began to dribble it while walking vertically up a wall.
Vic then threw the ball at Rage who was knocked down!
Vic approached Rage to attack him some more and threw him in the hoop.
Rage was trapped because of his muscular build and Vic prepared to kill him with one final basketball to the head.
Vic threw the ball with all of his vampiric strength and just as it was about to hit Rage, he slightly moved his head to the left.
It bounced off the pole and chrashed through the roof which left a circular hole above Vic!
Sunlight poured in and burned Vic to death as he said "I just wanted to be loved! That's why I acted like a diiiiiiiiiiick!".
To celebrate his victory, Rage had a meal with his family and Dom Pagnotti and they ate lots of bread.
Then out of knowhere, Vic's hand reached out of the ground and grabbed Rage's foot!
- To Be Continued |
On Tuesday morning, I called the World Cup semifinal between Germany and Brazil a very evenly matched contest.
Yeah, about that …
In an astonishing 18-minute span during the first half, the Germans opened up a 5-0 lead against a Brazil squad that seemed to have given up without its superstar striker, Neymar, who’d been knocked out of the previous match with a back injury. Germany would pile on two more goals before Brazil’s Oscar netted a meaningless marker in the 90th minute to set the final score at 7-1.
How big is a six-goal margin of victory in the World Cup? Going into this year’s tournament, only 17 matches in Cup history had seen one side win by six or more goals — most recently when Portugal trounced North Korea 7-0 in the 2010 group stage. And just twice had it happened as late as a semifinal, depending on how you treat Brazil overpowering Sweden 7-1 in 1950 and Argentina’s 6-0 clobbering of Peru in 1978. (Both of those matches technically came in the stage directly preceding the final, but also in a format that used additional round-robin groups to filter teams into the final rather than the knockout-style bracket used today.)
The bewildering scoreline in Tuesday’s match had me wondering what an equivalent margin would be in other sports. One approach to the answer is to use the standard deviations of scoring margins in each sport. Lucky for us, in his book “Mathletics,” Wayne Winston, a professor of operations and decision technologies at Indiana University, has done the heavy lifting for us with regard to pro football. Following up on the work of statistician Hal Stern, Winston found that the margin of victory for an NFL team can be approximated by a normal random variable with a mean of the Vegas line (or the margin predicted by a computer power rating) and a standard deviation of 13.86 points.
Winston also wrote:
For NBA basketball, NCAA basketball and college football, respectively, Jeff Sagarin has found that the historical standard deviation of game results about a prediction from a rating system is given by 12, 10, and 16 points, respectively.
Applying Stern’s, Winston’s and Sagarin’s methodology to historical World Cup matches from 1930 to 2010, I found that the distribution of the scoring margin in a high-level international soccer match (relative to the pre-match prediction using Elo ratings and a home-field effect) is approximately normal with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 1.83 goals. If Brazil and Germany were considered evenly matched going into Tuesday’s game (giving Brazil only credit for playing at home), we’d predict Brazil’s margin of victory to be about 0.5 goals, so Germany’s six-goal margin was 3.6 standard deviations above expected.
Going by Winston’s numbers, a 3.6 standard deviation performance in the NFL would be the equivalent of beating an opponent by nearly 50 more points than expected. If you’re curious, you can find a list of the biggest postseason blowouts in NFL history on Pro-Football-Reference.com; if we (naively) assume all of those games were considered evenly matched aside from a three-point bonus for the home team, the closest analog to Germany’s win over Brazil might be the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 62-7 demolition of the Miami Dolphins in 2000 in Dan Marino’s final game.
Put in soccer terms, the Jaguars’ margin would have been 6.8 more goals than expected. But that’s nothing compared to the the 1940 NFL championship game between the Chicago Bears and Washington Redskins, which ended with the Bears winning 73-0 (on the road, no less). By soccer standards, that would be like winning by 10 more goals than expected, a mark Germany would have needed to pour on about three more goals to match.
In college football, Germany’s rout was the equivalent of winning by 57 more points than expected. That’s about the same as Tulsa’s 63-7 victory over Bowling Green in the 2008 GMAC Bowl (a game that carried just a little less importance than Germany-Brazil). In terms of bowls that had national championship implications, you’d have to go back to 1996 and the Fiesta Bowl between then-undefeated No. 1 Nebraska and No. 2 Florida. Favored by three going into the game, Nebraska won by 38, 62-24. But in soccer terms, that’d be a mere win by four more goals than expected — a far cry from the Germans’ performance.
Shifting gears to basketball, the Germans’ victory would be like an NBA team winning by 43 more points than expected. Basketball-Reference.com has a list of most lopsided playoff contests in NBA history; assuming evenly matched opponents with a 3.25-point home-court advantage, Germany’s win would be most like the Los Angeles Lakers’ 118-78 win over the San Francisco Warriors in the 1969 postseason. (If you’re looking for an equivalent game in the conference finals or later — probably a more apt comparison for Germany-Brazil — the most comparable rout would be the Lakers’ 153-109 win over the Denver Nuggets in Game 5 of the 1985 Western Conference finals.) And the most dominant conference-finals-or-later win in NBA history, the Lakers’ 126-70 thrashing of the Golden State Warriors on the road in Game 3 of the 1973 Western Conference finals, would be like winning by nine more goals than expected in soccer.
College basketball’s biggest NCAA Tournament wins have usually come in the early rounds of the tournament, which comes as no surprise. (For instance, poor 16-seed Prairie View got pasted by No. 1 seed Kansas, 110-52, in the 1998 opener.) Isolating Final Four games, we find a pair of 34-point blowouts that took place in the national semifinal. According to Sagarin’s research, Germany’s win would be like a college basketball team lambasting an evenly matched opponent by 35.9 points.
In terms of impressive victories, Germany’s romp ranks among the most notable blowouts across sports more familiar to fans in the United States. A 7-1 win might not seem all that uncommon to baseball fans, so it might help to think of it as the equivalent of a 47-point NFL road playoff victory, or a 40-point win on the road in an NBA playoff game. It wasn’t something you see every day, especially considering it came on the cusp of the World Cup final. |
The fate of a fan-favorite character is up in the air after the Outlander season three premiere, with everyone wondering just what happens to Murtagh during the Battle of Culloden. Read on for theories (and light book spoilers), plus some info about the actor, Duncan Lacroix.
In the season three premiere, titled appropriately "The Battle Joined," Murtagh joins Jamie in the Battle of Culloden — but not before seeing the men of Lallybroch safely on the road home. This is a plot point that may have gotten a little lost for viewers but is kind of a big deal in the books.
In Dragonfly in Amber (because just a little bit of book two bleeds into season three), Jamie realizes that Bonnie Prince Charlie's attempt to take the Scottish throne is going to fail and, per Claire's warnings, thousands of Scottish Highlanders are going to die. The real-life Battle of Culloden saw an estimated 1,500-2,000 casualties on the Scottish side, with another 150 men captured.
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Jamie tells Murtagh to round up the Lallybroch men and see them safely home. If they desert the army in small groups, no one will really notice. This will hopefully keep at least the families Jamie is sworn to protect from incurring so much devastation.
On the show, there's a brief exchange when Murtagh returns to the battlefield to inform Jamie that the Lallybroch men are heading home . . . but then the fighting begins. When Jamie wakes up later, still alive but gravely wounded, he is rounded up with the other Scots who didn't perish and who are now going to be executed by redcoats. In the little barn where they're being held, no one knows what has happened to Murtagh during the fight.
Some fans are assuming Murtagh is dead for two main reasons: the character dies at Culloden in the books, and when the camera is panning the battlefield, showing Redcoats stabbing Highlanders, there's a man lying among the dead who looks like Murtagh.
However, other fans are holding out hope that the show has chosen to keep Murtagh alive — which is actually something the show's executive producers have considered.
"In the books, Murtagh is not very big. He's there, but he's not as big as he is in our story," EP Matthew Roberts told me during a set visit as a reason the show could keep Murtagh around, adding that they have definitely seen the social media campaigns and fan letters asking the show to spare Jamie's godfather.
However, keeping a character alive who dies in the books could have implications for future seasons. "If that happens, what happens to the characters that come after? Do you just get rid of them? There are story implications," Roberts pointed out.
Still, fans are clinging to hope that Murtagh will come popping back up, not only because they love the character but because they love the actor, Lacroix.
The 47-year-old Londoner has only been acting on screen for the past six years or so. Before Outlander, he appeared on one episode of Game of Thrones, one episode of Reign, and two episodes of Vikings, but Starz's time-traveling romance is really his first big break. Before these few TV roles, however, Lacroix was a stage actor in Ireland.
"There was a nice artistic community and I was able to properly learn my trade doing play after play after play," he told The Daily Record in a 2016 interview. "[Acting is] a habit, something you can't do without. There have been times — and very long periods of time — when I've had no money and have been in desperate situations but I just can't let it go. Especially when you really pull it off and in theater you get an immediate gratification from the atmosphere in the room."
So maybe when his time on Outlander is over, Lacroix will return to the theatre. For now, fans are holding out hope that Murtagh's story is not over just yet. |
Glen Coffee (29) is shown here in action with the San Francisco 49ers against the Oakland Raiders in an NFL preseason football game in San Francisco, Calif., in August 2009. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — When Glen Coffee left the University of Alabama a year early to play in the National Football League, it surprised many fans. He was coming off a strong junior season in which he rushed for 1,501 yards, but could have returned and worked toward a better draft position the following season.
Behind the scenes, the decision included far more turmoil than that. The running back had stopped enjoying football years before, even quitting a team in middle school before his mother intervened, he said. He found success at Alabama after a standout high school career, but still didn’t like the game and left the university because he thought an NFL paycheck might make playing more palatable, he said.
[This Army Ranger has ALS — but he’s still teaching soldiers in the swamps of Florida]
“I got to high school, and I played because my friends played, and then when I realized that I was good enough for college, at that point it was to get school paid for,” Coffee said. “And I still had a year left to play at ’Bama, but I didn’t come back because I didn’t want to play football anymore. So I figured if I got paid to play football, I would tolerate it. So I got to the NFL and I got the money, and it was mo’ money, mo’ problems, pretty much. And I found out it wasn’t for me.”
Coffee, 28, is now a specialist in the Army infantry after enlisting in 2013. He agreed to an interview here with The Washington Post while media were at Eglin for another assignment. He has rarely talked to the media since becoming a soldier.
Spec. Glen Coffee works in the boat house at Army Ranger School’s installation at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. He joined the Army after starring as a football running back at Alabama and playing for the 49ers. (Photo by Dan Lamothe/ The Washington Post)
Coffee quit football in April 2010 after playing just one professional season with the San Francisco 49ers. He told a journalist afterward that he found Christ while in college and no longer considered professional football to be his dream, and then returned to his hometown area on the Florida Panhandle. He told another writer that he regretted leaving college early.
Coffee enlisted with plans to join the Special Forces. That dream hasn’t worked out, but he is now a paratrooper assigned to Army Ranger School, which trains elite soldiers and has a third and final phase of training here in the swamps of Florida. Coffee, who grew up in nearby Fort Walton Beach, requested the position, and now works for 6th Ranger Training Battalion.
[Inside the swamp phase of Army Ranger School as women attend for the first time]
Coffee said he had “no clue” what he wanted to do when he left the NFL. But he felt drawn to looking for a higher calling. He spent a couple years mostly in Florida with his young daughter after leaving the 49ers, a stay-at-home father of sorts.
“I just felt like the league and that path wasn’t for me,” he said. “I just knew that I didn’t want to waste, for me, my younger years doing something that I didn’t want to do. That was kind of my viewpoint on the situation.”
Coffee said he debated enlisting for about a year before signing the paperwork. There were two reasons he went for it, he said. One was for himself, he said: Pursuing military service on an elite level had a “wow factor” like playing in the NFL did. The other was for others and his country.
Glen Coffee (38) is shown as an Alabama running back breaking a diving tackle against Western Kentucky in a college football game in Tuscaloosa, Ala. on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008
(AP Photo/Butch Dill)
“Not everyone can serve in combat arms, and not everyone can serve in a Special Operations capacity,” he said. “So that’s why I joined. I felt like I was able to do it. Physically and mentally, because there is a mental aspect to it, too.”
Although not in Special Operations, Coffee serves in the waterborne operations section of Ranger School. He is asked regularly if he wants to attend Ranger School himself. The grueling leadership course is a minimum of 61 days long, with minimal sleep and food and stints at Fort Benning, Ga., and the mountains of northern Georgia before arriving in the swamps of Eglin Air Force Base.
“That’s one of those things I ask myself right now, as a matter of fact,” Coffee said of attending the course. “Am I thinking about that because I want to do it out of pride, or because it would actually better me as a person? So, I’m debating that right now. I have to ask myself, why would I want to go?”
[Two women pass Mountain Phase of Ranger School, now one step short of graduation]
Coffee’s section leader, Sgt. 1st. Class Joshua Sullivan, said Coffee has shown himself to be quiet, humble and “squared away,” one of the biggest compliments one soldier can give another. It’s not uncommon for inexperienced soldiers to have doubts about attending Ranger School, but many of them with Coffee’s drive eventually gravitate toward the challenge, Sullivan said.
“The first long-distance run I ever took him on, he stayed with me the whole time,” Sullivan said. “I have guys who have been doing that run for a full year, and some of them fell out.”
Sullivan added that the other soldiers in Coffee’s section know about his past playing in the NFL, and teased him about him recently when he dropped a pass in a flag football game held on the installation. But he showed his tenacity and athleticism by improving his swimming to the point where he was no longer considered weak at it.
“He just jumped in the deep end, and figured it out,” Sullivan said.
Coffee said the kind of athleticism necessary to be a soldier is completely different than playing football. He didn’t run his first full mile until he was 24, after retiring from the NFL, he said.
“My cardio and endurance is definitely a lot better right now,” Coffee said. “Because in football, you’re not really in shape. People think you’re in shape, but you’re really not. Not like that.”
Coffee isn’t sure if he’ll stay in the military for at least 20 years and earn a retirement. It seems like a long way away, just like it does for many other relatively inexperienced soldiers.
“I would never say never, but as of right now I have so much I want to do,” Coffee said. “So my first option is not to make this a career. But, you get to a certain age in life, and you realize that life doesn’t always happen as you plan, so we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.” |
Samsung (005930) will likely sell a lot of Galaxy S4s this year thanks in no small part to its gargantuan advertising budget that dwarfs the advertising spending of even the world’s most valuable technology company. Asymco’s Horace Dediu on Tuesday posted a chart on his Twitter account comparing the sales, general and administrative expenses for both Apple (AAPL) and Samsung, and it revealed a remarkable spending disparity between the two companies.
Although Dediu didn’t have enough information to thoroughly break down Apple’s SGA, he did have numbers for the company’s annual advertising spending and he found that Samsung outspent the company on advertising by a factor of more than 4-to-1. If Samsung is able to handily outgun Apple in terms of total advertising dollars, you can only imagine how intimidating its marketing Death Star looks to smaller competitors in the Android market. |
RAW: http://ncode.syosetu.com/n0695bs/9/
9: sorry guys it took me more time than expected suddenly got work stuff to do and also I’ll be putting new stuff at the art page colored Ryua drinking a lemon soda with a straw, Roel’s first design by me, Poison Salamander
Xant: I totally just realized that Ikana Village, Ryua’s hometown, shares the name of Ikana Canyon from Majora’s Mask. The land of the cursed, filled with lingering spirits and regret. Man I hope this is foreshadowing in a way. Would be pretty awesome.
Chapter 8 – My First Dungeon Delving
“Certainly this is the requested item that the client is seeking for. As I thought he died.. . . . . . ”
“Yes. . . . . .”
The quest Roel and I took today was enough to make us feel dejected.
We were to search for a comrade of an Adventurer that failed escape here in this town but at the end what we found was a corpse that was cruelly eaten and scattered around.
It looked like a marriage ring, and hearing the cries from the person’s family made my chest tighten.
I understand how they feel, seeing their reaction to this.
We can’t give up being adventurers.
(TL:仲間の人達は薄々とわかっていたようで、あえてボク達に依頼したようだ。
諦めきれなかったのかもしれない。)
“We received 300G as a reward, Ryua-chan. . . . .”
“Wasn’t it supposed to be 200G?”
Along the way in our quest Roel leveled up by 1 but she wasn’t happy.
Once we completed our quest, we checked our levels at the iron box. But like before my level didn’t show itself.
Yesterday, I had tried asking Gantetsu about the one-winged demon when we were parting.
“I have been doing this job for years but I haven’t heard anything about it. Regarding the attack on Ikana Village, the truth is we don’t completely understand what happened. Probably since it sort of happened in the blink of an eye.”
*Scrtchscrtch*
While scratching his beard, Gantetsu continued.
“I don’t understand the nature of that one-winged guy. Is there some sort of reason why he has only one wing? I think knowing that would be relatively important.”
I didn’t consider that, it sounds helpful.
(TL: そんなのどうだっていいと思いかけたけど、確かにそうだ。)
Let’s remember it.
While I was being absent minded and recalling things, Roel was tugging my arm to get my attention.
“Something like this, this quest is perfect for us.”
[I want you to gather some of the gushing water in <Avangard Cave> 2nd floor. There is no particular amount needed, but the more you bring more rewards will be added.]
[Client: Shopkeeper of Zenbei Bar, Pablo]
Roel read it out loud, I agreed while looking at the paper she was pointing to.
“The <Avangard Cave> is not that far from here. Danger level 3, exactly the same level as me.”
“OK, that means that we won’t be hesitating over taking the quest, right?”
We immediately went to take the quest.
It’s fortunate for us that it hasn’t been taken yet.
Afterwards we went to the shop where Pablo was to hear the quest details.
It was Bar Zenbei, it was the place where Gantetsu treated us yesterday.
“Oh, you guys took that quest right?”
A plump man with a round face welcomed us.
It seems to be Pablo.
“Just so you are aware, this quest is known and performed by many adventurers on a regular basis. The water there is nutritional, so it’s most suitable for cooking and making cocktails. We sell merchandise that uses it and we need a lot. For example . . . . .”
“Um, setting that aside, how much will be a good amount to bring here?”
The conversation was getting long so Roel stopped it.
“Oops! Sorry, sorry, I want you to use that push cart for transport.”
*Clatter*
There was a moderate sized push cart and empty container set beside it.
“Before you two, there was a really strong guy and he was able to carry more. But for you, this is a good amount.”
“I want more.”
“Hmmm?”
A round face and a round eyes, Pablo made an interested face.
Thus I put 10 containers in a sack. I had to carry all of this towards the dungeon.
I looked like a burglar carrying a big sack on his back which is not very cool.
The fountain we’re looking for that gushes out water is underground on the 2nd floor. Beginner adventurers should not go any farther, but the dungeon goes deeper. You just needed to follow the road.
However, after that the danger level is higher and there are monsters lurking within. That’s why you absolutely must not proceed any further. Pablo was really determined to get that idea ingrained within us.
Before long we arrived at the cave.
Roel was tightly holding on her staff while having a tense expression.
“Th-then should we g-go?”
“You don’t need to be that tense . . . . . . .”
Roel was slowly and timidly entering the cave while looking around the area for affirmation.
From behind I place my hand on her shoulder, “Hiiii!” she jumped and her staff rolled on the ground.
“S-stop that~! You!”
She actually got very mad.
I understand why, since so far it was the fault of this tension that I haven’t been able to feel.
There are monsters you’ll encounter and you can easily get into a panic when it happens.
It seems that the monsters here are not that strong. I will use all my strength to support her so that her confidence can grow. That can be considered a way for me to repay her.
The interior of the cave was pretty wide. Though the entrance was quite small, from there it was connected to a hall in which there were many cylindrical holes on way as you progressed.
There were rocks on the wall haphazardly piled over one another. I was really worried that the rocks might collapse on top of us from moving around in this cave.
If a monster shows up I have to avoid doing anything flashy and be careful.
“I wonder which way would be good to go?”
Roel asked that question nervously, she was still tightly holding her staff with both of her hands and looking around restlessly.
“When a monster comes out I will somehow deal with it.”
While saying that I took her hand.
I wonder if that lessened her tension. Roel was finally holding her staff with one hand.
“Sorry, Ryua-chan, I seem to be a burden to you.”
“You’re not, I won’t call you something like that!”
I smiled.
Although if I enter a battle, I’ve been fighting alone up till now so I’m worried I won’t be able to support her properly.
Recovery magic is the specialty of a Healer, which is helpful. I can use some magic, but I can’t use recovery magic at all. Thanks to that, during my time in the <Caves of Hell>, somewhere around 50th floor I ended up returning to the resting point quite often.
Right at that moment, from inside the cave 2 small rabbits jumped out.
At first glance it looked cute, but it had an unsuitable sharp fangs and claws.
With one glance, no matter how you look at it, it doesn’t look friendly.
In the blink of an eye, it shortened the distance from us with its natural walking ability.
【Cave Rabbits appeared】
“Hiiiiiiii!! Let’s calm down Ryua-chan! No need to panic!”
Just as I thought, Roel panicked. I can hear her staff clanging as it fell onto the ground.
I fought these guys when I just entered the <Caves of Hell>.
I experienced a lot of pain from these guys. That’s why I found it profoundly memorable.
At the start it was hard to fight them, but once you get accustomed to it these guys are nothing as an opponent.
This place was said to be for beginner adventurers, it seems like the truth.
One of the Cave Rabbits leaped to shorten the distance.
【Cave Rabbit A attacked!】
I briefly thought about putting down these containers to attack but reconsidered.
For Roel’s sake lets receive one attack. Then i will receive a heal from her.
I purposely let the Cave Rabbit bite me.
However:
【Ryua received no damage!】
Its fangs were stuck on my arm, but still the rabbit continued to try and bite me while flopping around.
I understood that it was frantically trying to eat me, but it was really a fruitless effort.
And at my back there was Roel.
“H-He-HEAL~!”
For some reason she was casting Heal.
Not understanding what she’s doing, once again I held her hand to calm her down.
<Cave Rabbit A> was still biting my left hand. As one would expect it started to hurt a little.
“Calm down, look it’s fine since I’m right here.”
I showed a smile.
The rabbit still wasn’t stopping.
I saw Roel brandish her staff and swing it.
Rather than the rabbit it hit me.
She attacked my back with all her might.
【Roel was Confused! Ryua received 2 Damage!】
“That hurt! But I’ll be fine if you use your recovery magic on me.”
It totally hurt more than the monster’s attack.
Meanwhile, the other rabbit attacked aiming at Roel this time.
This would be dangerous, so I assaulted the rabbit with a light kick.
【Cave Rabbit B received 1284 damage!】
【Cave Rabbit B was defeated!】
【Cave Rabbit HP 0/17】
I was just planning to brush it off lightly, but only the scattered meat was left.
It was not my plan to do that.
Then I saw Roel who already fainted.
I don’t really know what to do with the rabbit on my hand, so I threw it away.
【Cave Rabbit A was defeated!】
【Cave Rabbit HP 0/17】
“Roel, The monster are already defeated you know.”
“A-a-ah?”
I supported Roel who was dizzily walking.
“Ryua-chan. . . . .as I thought, I . . . . .may be no good.”
She started to cry while I was supporting her back, looking at her.
For a little while I thought about the outcome, I decided to let Roel have peace of mind.
“From what you’ve seen I think you already know, but it’s fine for you to not worry. I won’t let something like a monster attack Roel who is behind me.”
“Bu-but”
“You believed in me when I said the I was the one who defeated the Poison Salamander, right? The monsters here are far weaker, for now you need to calm down and practice, okay?”
I’ve been fighting alone so I don’t know what I should teach her, but I thought that there wouldn’t be any meaning if I just defeat the monsters alone.
When I started to feel a little insecure, I noticed Roel’s existence behind me.
“Let’s go, the fountain is on the 2nd floor, right?”
I stretched out my hand and Roel took it, then we started to walk.
I had dropped the containers earlier, so I made sure I had them all before continuing on.
“Thank you, Ryua-chan……”
Silently saying her thanks she started walking with a happy expression.
We haven’t known each other for long, but I want to be with her all the time.
(TL: 会って間もないけど、ずっとこの子といたい。)
For some reason I was thinking like that.
———————————————————————————————
Monster Book
【Cave Rabbit】
It has a feral personality and is rather quick, but it can be easily defeated by a beginner adventurer.
Even so, be cautious when they appear in a group.
When a group of these eat you, you will suffer from being devoured slowly, piece by piece.
It may also die from shock.
←Previous Chapter | Next Chapter→
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A helicopter out of Hillsboro made an emergency landing Thursday morning at
in Southwest Portland, but no one was injured. The pilot set the chopper down in the school's athletic field a little after 10 a.m.
The blue helicopter was flying through the area when a warning light came on in the cockpit, said Sgt. Pete Simpson, a spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau.
Police Sgt. Greg Pashley said there were two people on board the aircraft.
"This is a very windy road, hilly section of Portland, lots of homes, a school, obviously and they were alert enough to find a nice big field where they felt like they needed to put the helicopter down," Pashley said.
Portland Public Schools issued a news release saying that the students at the school were inside the building at the time of the incident.
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On Oct. 10, 2010, a small, single engine airplane that was experiencing mechanical problems also landed at the school.
Officials jokingly referred to the field as the Robert Gray Regional Airport.
There were no injuries in that landing either. When Portland police arrived, they learned that the helicopter was a training craft from Hillsboro Aviation.
Simpson said a flatbed truck is enroute to pick-up the helicopter and the Federal Aviation Administration is responding to conduct an investigation.
– |
Being mindful of one’s relationship with God is an individual obligation whose foundation is knowledge, and whose life is practice according to Islam. Allah call’s the believers, ordering them to be cautious: “Oh you who believe, be cautious of Allah.”
5 Stations of Taqwa (God-consciousness)
Ibn Juzay al-Maliki a great classical scholar, wrote, “The degrees of taqwa are five:
1. Being cautious of falling into disbelief. This is the station of submission to God (الإسلام).
2. Being cautious of falling into sin and evil. This is the station of repentance (التوبة).
3. Being cautious of doubtful things. This is the station of carefulness (الورع).
4. Being cautious of the permissible. This is the station of indifference (الزهد). Ibn al-Qayyim said, “There are some people who will observe the obligations and avoid the prohibited. However, Shaytan will busy them with the permissible acts until the fail to make use of their extra time.”
5. Being cautious of letting anything enter the heart save Allah. This is the station of witness (المشاهدة).”
Taqwa in Practice:
Once ‘Umar radi Allahu ‘anhu (may Allah be pleased with him) asked a companion, “describe for me taqwa.” The companion responded, “If you were to walk through a thorny pathway with a flowing robe, how would you walk?” ‘Umar answered, “I would gather my garments, squeezing them tight, and walk carefully.” The companion responded, “That is taqwa.”
How to Gain Taqwa?
If you were born a Muslim, or accepted Islam, then you already possess taqwa. This is great news and should serve as a spring board to preserve and develop your existing relationship with Allah! There are some pretty clear ways to do this. However, knowledge and practice are two very different entities:
1. Make a sincere intention to improve your taqwa.
2. Ask Allah to increase your tawqa. It is authentically reported that the Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) used to supplicate:
اللهم إني أسئلك الهدى والتقى والعفاف والغنى
“Allahum Inni asalukal huda wa ttuqa wal ‘afaaf wal ghinaa.“
“Oh Allah, I ask You for guidance, piety, virtue and sufficiency.”
3. To increase your worship. Allah says, “Worship Allah…you will obtain taqwa.”
4. Observe the sunnah whenever possible. The Prophet ﷺ said, “I am the most God fearing person.” Thus, following him is a guarantee, if one’s intention is right, that one is on the ways of taqwa. Imam Malik said, “The Sunnah is like the Ark of Noah. Whoever got on board was safe. Who didn’t, drowned.”
At the end of the day, these steps are like tools hanging in our garages. If we use them, we will build something. If we neglect them, making excuses, being lazy or having bad feelings about our Lord, then we have none to blame but ourselves. Start by observing the obligatory acts, increase the number of sunnah, charity and civic engagement. All of those, if done for Allah alone, are Red Bulls for taqwa without the withdrawal!
Taqwa is a quality whose virtues are astounding. Imam al-Faruzabadi mentioned 22 virtues of taqwa mentioned in the Qur’an! Look for them here in the future, God willing. |
On May 16, 1966, The Beach Boys debuted their 11th album, "Pet Sounds." This wasn't immediately a cause for celebration.
"There wasn't much time to bask in the success, or lack thereof," Al Jardine, a founding member of The Beach Boys, said with a laugh, adding, "It was not received very well at the label." "Pet Sounds" was a departure from their earlier work, with the group being mostly known for sugary surfing songs and rock releases. Shortly after the album's debut, the band was pressured to start recording again.
Even before The Beach Boys would release new material just a year later, with their album "Smiley Smile," their label put out two "Best Of" compilations to apparently distract fans from "Pet Sounds" and cash out on their previous image.
"Pet Sounds" peaked at just No. 10 on the Billboard chart -- uncharacteristically low for the band -- and lost to the first "Best Of" compilation, which got to No. 8. However, just like the waves the band once harmonized about, the lackluster reception didn't last forever.
The slow start out of the gate for "Pet Sounds" is quite at odds with the album's eventual reception, with Rolling Stone calling it the second-greatest album of all time in 2012 and Pitchfork declaring "Pet Sounds" track "God Only Knows" to be the best song of the entire 1960s.
"It took a while to catch on, but 50 years later, it appears it has been very worthwhile," Jardine told The Huffington Post.
The album is now revered for the production and compositional experimentation put forth by mastermind and group leader Brian Wilson.
Wilson skipped a tour with the rest of his band to hole up in Hollywood to create much of the record without the help of the other members, who later came on to sing and rein back some of Wilson's more out-there creative choices. Still, noises made with Coke cans, dogs barking and a bicycle horn all successfully made it on to the record, as did complex orchestra numbers played by an expensive group of studio musicians.
"This was not expected, because we were The Beach Boys, remember?" joked Jardine. "I mean, come on, with a name like that? It took a while to realize there was a genius in our midst." Jardine added, "Brian should get a Peace Prize. I don't know -- you know what? Screw this, he should have gotten a Grammy for that."
Wilson himself told HuffPost on the phone that he was unsure of how he would pull off the ambitious album he had in his head all those years ago. "Yeah, I didn't know how to go about it, but I did anyway," Wilson said with a laugh.
In conjunction with the 50th anniversary, Wilson is touring the album around the world, including an upcoming stop with Jardine at Brooklyn's Northside Festival on June 12. Wilson said that when he plays the music at the festival, it's going to "sound exactly like the original 'Pet Sounds' album."
Talking about the album in broad terms, Wilson said, "Well, when we did 'Pet Sounds,' we tried to bring love to the world through our harmonies." Whether you're planning to let this love into your life by playing the album today or seeing Wilson and Jardine's recreation onstage this summer, wouldn't it be nice if you knew a few stories about how the album came together?
The title track was originally meant for the James Bond movie "You Only Live Twice." When the film studio declined, the band put it on "Pet Sounds."
"You Only Live Twice"
Wilson initially called the song that is now known as “Pet Sounds” something more fitting for its original intent -- “Run James Run.” Although the exact agreement Wilson had with the production team behind the Bond movie "You Only Live Twice" remains murky -- both credited producers are dead -- Wilson confirmed he made the track for the film.
"They turned it down," Wilson said, contradicting accounts that he actually never submitted the track after losing his nerve.
Further explaining why the track ended up on the album after missing out on Bond, Jardine said, "Usually, when you'd do an album like that in the old days, you'd have nine or 10 good tracks that you're happy with, but you're required to have at least 11 or 12. So we'd always make an instrumental track or two to fill out the album." With a laugh, Jardine said, "That was available ... so that's really what happened."
The album was inspired by The Beatles' "Rubber Soul." Wilson claims he wrote "God Only Knows" immediately after listening to it.
Hulton Archive via Getty Images
The Beach Boys and The Beatles had an echo chamber of inspiration in the mid-60s, with the latter's "Rubber Soul" inspiring "Pet Sounds," which in turn inspired "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." As Jardine said, "It was always a competitive thing."
Wilson has claimed in the past that "Pet Sounds" as a whole came from trying to keep up with The Beatles, telling The A.V. Club that after hearing it, he vowed, "I have to record an album as good or better than 'Rubber Soul.' If I ever do anything in my life, I'm going to make that good an album."
Paul McCartney has admitted that "Pet Sounds" has made him cry and that "God Only Knows" is his favorite song in all of music history.
"The one thing that did stand out [from making 'Pet Sounds'] -- 'God Only Knows,' in my opinion, was one of the best things we ever attempted and completed," said Jardine. He continued, "And [it] stands as one of the best songs ever written, in my opinion. I think I'm in good company with that assumption."
The song specifically came from listening to "Rubber Soul." "I was so happy to hear it that I went and started writing 'God Only Knows,'" Wilson said. Apparently, he was also high during this writing session.
Before "God Only Knows," no pop track had charted on Billboard with "God" in the title. It was unclear if that could work.
Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images
By 1966, the only tracks to chart with "God" in the title were either overtly religious or about love of country -- such as "God Bless America" by Connie Francis, "God's Country" by Frank Sinatra or "God, Country And My Baby" by Johnny Burnette.
As such, the inclusion of "God" in the track could have been a detriment to radio play, something that Jardine thought about, but didn't concern Wilson with "at all."
In any case, Jardine supported the idea because it kept with the album's attempt to redefine spirituality. "It's a brilliant progressive idea to embrace all of the feelings and not worry about the nomenclature," said Jardine.
Wilson's bandmate also said he felt the title added to the effect that the song was "coming straight from heaven."
The band actually thought it was "crazy" to shoot the album art at the zoo. Jardine still thinks it was a mistake.
The Beach Boys
"I think the art department screwed up pretty badly on that one," said Jardine of the now famous "Pet Sounds" album art. The cover features The Beach Boys feeding animals. Instead, Jardine wanted a "more sensitive and enlightening cover" to go with Wilson's songwriting.
Jardine further added that the idea to shoot at the San Diego Zoo "was crazy, crazy."
"And you just have to live with what we did. You live with the branding they put on you," he said.
Initially, there was confusion in the band as to what the name "Pet Sounds" meant. Jardine thought it meant "petting," or an album to make out to.
Instead, the name mostly came from a joke about Brian Wilson being able to hear noises others couldn't, like dogs.
Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images Brian Wilson in 1966 during the recording of "Pet Sounds."
Jardine claimed that it wasn't until the band was heading to the San Diego Zoo that he realized he had misinterpreted the album name. "I thought it was about making out. You know, petting in high school, I don't know what they call it now," Jardine said, laughing. At the zoo, he recalled thinking, "What is it about?!"
After making more inquiries, Jardine found out that another Beach Boy, Mike Love, had claimed Wilson could hear things only a dog could hear -- due to the amount of takes Wilson would require of the band to get things right in his mind. Since the album also featured Wilson's dogs barking, Love further joked that the band should call the record "Pet Sounds."
From there, Wilson attached an additional, more romantic idea to the origins of the name, saying it was a reference to a belief that everyone has their own favorite sounds, or their "pet sounds," and this album was a collection of Wilson's favorite sounds at the time.
BONUS: Wilson claims the legend that Paul McCartney chomped on celery for a bass line in "Vega-tables" is true.
Jardine says he remembers celery and McCartney being there, but isn't sure the two things came together.
Mark and Colleen Hayward via Getty Images
"He came by the studio and he sang me this song called, 'She's Leaving Home,'" said Wilson. "And then we gave him a piece of celery to chew while we were recording "Vega-tables.'"
Although this is an often repeated story in Beach Boys/Beatles history, it's not entirely clear whether this is actually just an exaggerated legend. Jardine does remember celery being in the studio, but claimed, "I don't remember [McCartney] chewing celery."
According to Jardine's account, McCartney essentially co-produced the track with Wilson as Jardine sang. Then, the Beatle played on the piano for fun. "I remember Paul playing a song on the piano for us that he'd written. 'A Day In The Life,' I think," said Jardine. Both of the tracks Wilson and Jardine recalled are on The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's." |
A cloud of chemicals. One researcher detects a smell. The other does not. What happens next? Science.
Like I always say, there are two kinds of people in this world: normal tasters and supertasters. But no really, there really are two distinct populations within humanity, when it comes to taste-sensitivity.
Supertasters, taste scientists have shown, possess certain gene variants. Supertasters have more of those bumps on their tongues, which are technically called fungiform papillae and contain the taste buds. Not only can supertasters taste some bitter substances that normal (or non-taster, as per the scientific literature) people can't, but many tastes are more intense for them.
This week, Andrew Han took up the question of how scientists discovered this subgroup of superhumans cleverly disguised as people just like the rest of us.
Turns out, it all began with an accident at a DuPont chemical lab: A cloud of chemicals goes up. One scientist detects a smell. The other does not.
Alas, the scene did not portend the beginning of a new comic book series, but it did lead to a paper that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the paper, the scientists themselves describe the episode:
Some time ago the author had occasion to prepare a quantity of phenyl thio carbamide, and while placing it in a bottle the dust flew around in the air. Another occupant of the laboratory, Dr. C. R. Noller, complained of the bitter taste of the dust, but the author, who was much closer, observed no taste and so stated. He even tasted some of the crystals and assured Dr. Noller they were tasteless but Dr. Noller was equally certain it was the dust he tasted. He tried some of the crystals and found them extremely bitter. With these two diverse observations as a starting point, a large number of people were investigated and it was established that this peculiarity was not connected with age, race or sex. Men, women, elderly persons, children, negroes, Chinese, Germans and Italians were all shown to have in their ranks both tasters and non-tasters.
As Han notes, the last couple decades have seen tons of work on supertasters as new genetic tools have begun to unlock the mechanics of their blessing/curse. There's even a plausible evolutionary narrative for why such a trait might have developed and propagated. " Chemicals like PROP [or phenyl thio carbamide] can cause thyroid problems and toxic alkaloids found in poisonous plants often taste bitter," Han writes, "so the sense to avoid ingesting plants that produce these toxins might confer an evolutionary advantage." |
On 13 May 1985, Philadelphia police moved in to arrest four members of a radical black liberation group called Move – but a bungled raid left 11 people dead. Alan Yuhas revisits the only aerial bombing carried out by police on US soil
Sodden from the spray of fire hoses, terrified by the thousands of bullets fired above and the teargas floating into the cellar below, 13-year-old Michael Ward was hiding under a blanket when a police helicopter dropped a bomb on the roof of his west Philadelphia home.
The raid killed six adults and five children, destroyed more than 60 homes and left more than 250 people homeless. It stands as the only aerial bombing carried out by police on US soil.
The 30-year anniversary of the bombing of Osage Avenue will be commemorated without Ward, who was one of only two survivors of the disastrous assault. Instead professor Cornel West, author Alice Walker and others will give speeches and protesters will march down the crumbling, mostly abandoned block where the bombing took place, drawing ties between police brutality and institutional racism then and now.
On 13 May 1985, police moved in to arrest four members of a group called Move, a mostly black, radical organization that believed in shedding technology and “manmade law” in favor of “natural law”. After years of antagonism with police, Move had fortified a rowhome on Osage Avenue as their headquarters. They boarded up walls, built a bunker on the roof, and broadcast their anti-police ethos through a bullhorn, night and day.
Neighbors in the predominantly black, middle-class neighborhood complained about the profane tirades and how Move’s children rifled alongside rats through the house’s compost and garbage. Then district attorney Ed Rendell authorized arrest warrants and mayor Wilson Goode sent in police.
“Were we wanted for rape, robbery, murder? No, nothing,” Ramona Africa, the only living Move survivor of that day, told the Guardian. Africa linked the bombing to the recent police killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray: “These people that take an oath that swear to protect, save lives – the cops don’t defend poor people, poor white, black, Latino people. They don’t defend us, they kill us.
“All you have to do is look at the rash of police murders and the cops not being held accountable,” she added. “That should really alarm and outrage people, but the thing is that it’s happening today because it wasn’t stopped in ’85. The only justice that can be done is people seeing this system for what it is.”
Hundreds of officers, several fire trucks and a bomb squad arrived that day, with military-grade weapons in tow. They first tried to flush out the house with fire hoses. A team then blew holes in the walls to funnel in teargas, but no one budged.
“Then they just began insanely shooting, over 10,000 rounds of bullets, according to their own estimates,” Africa said. “That didn’t work, and that’s when they dropped the bomb on us, a rowhouse in an urban neighborhood.”
“The story is a parable of sorts; it’s a parable of how the unthinkable comes to happen,” said Jason Osder, the director of the documentary Let the Fire Burn. “It’s a tragedy. In my opinion everyone who was an adult in the city failed that day. Move failed, the police failed, the neighbors failed those children in some ways. Collectively, the whole city failed.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Move member Ramona Africa is led out of Philadelphia city hall on 9 February 1986 after a jury found her guilty of riot and conspiracy. Photograph: Amy Sancetta/AP
Osder noted that police still remembered an officer killed in an altercation with Move seven years earlier, and that leadership was unwilling to risk any officer’s life. “Fear is real regardless of how illegitimate it is, and police felt that they are the wounded party.
“And on the other side people have been beaten and arrested, who fear that the justice system is rigged – not an unreasonable thing to think in 1985 or 2015.”
Eventually police tried to break the siege by bombing the bunker, which they feared would allow Move to fire on them with impunity.
“There was a real opportunity there for cooler heads to prevail,” Osder said. “But they decided it needed to be over.”
The bomb missed and started a fire. Africa and Ward – then called Birdie Africa – only fled the cellar an hour or so later when the fire had spread downstairs.
“That’s when we tried to get our children, ourselves, our animals out of that inferno,” she said, “but every time we tried to come out and we were hollering to come out the police opened fire.”
Much of what happened during the assault is disputed, including whether police shot at people who were trying to flee the house, despite the review commission that later investigated the disaster.
Officers have since described the scene as one of surreal chaos. “There’s so much fire and smoke,” former officer Jim Berghaier told Philadelphia Magazine. “We can’t tell what’s gunshots and what’s windows popping.
“It was like fantasy. Like he came out of fire,” Berghaier said, referring to Ward stepping out through the flames barefoot.
Firefighters refrained from dousing the blaze even as it spread to neighbors’ homes, a point that outrages Africa still: “How is it they could pour 40,000lb of water per minute on us when there was no fire, but when there is fire all of a sudden they can’t use it?”
Since 1985 it’s changed, absolutely. But progress? I don’t know. Keep on it
Taking responsibility for the episode but declining to dole out specific blame, Goode only said “there was a decision to let the fire burn”.
The commission’s final report denounced the city from top to bottom. Police tactics were “grossly negligent” at best, the report found, and outrageous at worst: “Dropping a bomb on an occupied rowhouse was unconscionable.” Police would not have done so, the commission noted with only one dissenter, “had the Move house and its occupants been situated in a comparable white neighborhood”.
Africa was convicted on riot charges and served seven years in prison; in 1996 she and other plaintiffs won a total $1.5m settlement from the city. Ward was placed to his father’s custody and died in 2013 after years of therapy for the bombing and his experiences with Move.
The commission recommended grand jury investigations, but no one was ever prosecuted. Goode was re-elected in 1987 and Rendell eventually became mayor. Berghaier quit the force shortly after the raid.
Race, class and the status of police and officials all came into play, Osder said, noting the relatively high proportion of black officers in the force and that Move’s black neighbors despised the group. “It’s absolutely about race every single day of the week,” he said. “But there are other dynamics too. The details matter, and you have to get into them.
“We have echoes of Ferguson and Baltimore and haven’t solved these problems, but every incident is unique. This country is very complicated. It’s certainly better than it was 200 years ago, and than it was 100 years ago. Since 1985 it’s changed, absolutely. But progress? I don’t know. Keep on it.”
A recent Justice Department review of Philadelphia’s use of force – requested by current police commissioner Charles Ramsey in 2013 – found systemic, unresolved deficiencies similar to those analyzed by the Move commission in 1986, said Greg McDonald, the attorney who was deputy director and legal counsel for the commission.
“I was struck how many DoJ recommendations were right out of the assessments from the commission, and not just the police but the city government and services,” McDonald said, listing some shared findings: “federal authorities supplying military equipment to urban police departments, the lack of preparation and training”.
“We’ve got a lot of real tinderboxes in large cities now,” he said. “Move was certainly not a normal neighborhood problem, but the police reaction to it was so overdone that it reminded me of the way that police actions taking place at a much smaller scale are also overreactions.” |
Pakistan batsman Mohammad Hafeez has been ruled out of the skills camp beginning on May 28 at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore, but doctors will continue to monitor his recovery from a knee injury on a weekly basis ahead of Pakistan's tour of England which starts June 18.
A fresh MRI scan on Hafeez revealed an improvement in his knee, first injured in March, but stress has been diagnosed and he may be rested for some time as a part of his continuing rehabilitation regimen. He had already missed the ongoing fitness training camp at the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad.
Hafeez last played for Pakistan at the World T20 in March where he sustained the knee injury after a bone contusion in his femur. He has been resting since then and undergoing extensive treatment as a part of his rehabilitation. According to the latest report, doctors advised Hafeez against any net sessions. ESPNcricinfo understands Hafeez is desperate to restart his cricket but doctors are cautious about his injury which they fear could be aggravated if he tries to push for an early return.
A final call on his participation in the England Test series is expected to be taken in the next three to four days. Pakistan's 22 probables will be cut down to a final 16-man squad at the conclusion of the skills camp. The squad will leave for England to undergo a conditioning camp in Hampshire ahead of two practice matches in Somerset and Sussex before the first Test starts July 14 at Lord's. The selectors had named four options among the probables for the opening slots, with the inclusion of Hafeez cited as subject to fitness.
Umar Farooq is ESPNcricinfo's Pakistan correspondent. @kalson
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd. |
The San Francisco 49ers drafted Will Redmond on Friday, six months removed from his ACL injury. Redmond injured his knee in a practice drill, and has been rehabbing ever since. He said he checked out well at the Combine re-check earlier this month. On Friday, Redmond said he expected to play this season, and Trent Baalke said he expects him to be ready for training camp. I think we'll all believe it when we see it, but fingers crossed for him.
In the meantime, Twitter user Emerson Senden sent along this video Redmond himself tweeted back in March. It shows him on a treadmill running at a crazy fast pace. It doesn't tell us much about the state of his knee now, but it's more than just a light jog, which is nice.
The 49ers have their rookie minicamp next week, and then OTAs and mandatory minicamp over the next month. Then players part ways until training camp. On day one of training camp, the 49ers will have to decide whether or not to place Redmond on the NFI list. That's when we'll have a better idea of where things stand. |
Midseason Report time at NFL Media is a week for reflection, celebration and useless awards. It's a time to take stock of what's happened before this hyperspeed season hits Thanksgiving and things really get weird.
This has been the most disruptive half season in the three years I've written the Quarterback Index. Try to find an August column expecting Andy Dalton and Carson Palmer to play like top-five options. Preseason top-10 picks Andrew Luck and Peyton Manning cratered. Franchise quarterbacks with $15 million McContracts like Colin Kaepernick, Matthew Stafford, Sam Bradford and Ryan Tannehill have collapsed.
Yet we know so many of these stories will transform down the stretch. Bradford could still get that long-term deal if he turns it around. Luck can still save Pagano's job. Peyton Manning can still get his Elway goodbye. We've got a long way to go.
This is the Quarterback Index. The rankings below are based on this season's play only. I've included their quarter season rankings in parentheses.
Alone at the top
1. Tom Brady (2)
Brady has been dancing on the embers of those Jimmy Garoppolo thinkpieces since the day Judge Richard Berman saved the NFL from itself. All of those corny takes about Brady going on a ruthless tour of vengeance have come true. Brady hasn't played anything close to an average game yet. New England's scoreless first quarter against Pittsburgh was the last scoreless quarter the Patriots have played this season. He's getting talked up as the GOAT instead of being mocked for holding baby goats.
Top Shelf
2. Carson Palmer (3)
3. Aaron Rodgers (1)
4. Andy Dalton (5)
5. Ben Roethlisberger (N/A)
Imagine if Aaron Rodgers' last three games were his first three games of the season. There would be far more "What's wrong with Rodgers?" pieces. The disaster in Denver, however, was proof it's not about Rodgers. His receivers aren't winning early in the down. The coaching staff is struggling to scheme Randall Cobb open. The usually steady pass protection couldn't survive the Broncos, but few teams can. Green Bay needs more than Rodgers making magic after his first two reads are taken away. Potential NFC playoff opponents like Carolina, Arizona and Seattle all possess terrific defensive backfields and the Packers need to climb out of their rut.
Big Ben's fourth-quarter meltdown against the Bengals was given a pass because he was coming off injury. He was the hottest quarterback in the league before he hurt his knee in Week 3, so it will be interesting to see how fast he can regain that level. ... Dalton is also coming off his worst performance of the season. The Bengals had nine first downs through three quarters. But we've seen too much from Dalton 2.0 to believe a backslide is coming. It's also telling Dalton's worst game by far came on a day they scored 10 points in the final five minutes to win in Pittsburgh.
Top-10 Talent
6. Cam Newton (6)
7. Philip Rivers (7)
8. Russell Wilson (8)
9. Drew Brees (10)
10. Derek Carr (12)
11. Matt Ryan (4)
Yes, we're going 11 deep in top-10 talent because there is a huge drop after this tier. Everyone but Wilson is coming off a very strong game, including Brees' record-tying day. You could start to see Brees' outing against the Giants coming. He played much better in the second quarter of the season overall, with the Saints' offense gaining rhythm after the win over Atlanta on Thursday Night Football. It wasn't that long ago when Brees' shoulder injury looked like a permanent problem. ... It's been a strange season for Ryan. He has often struggled in wins, and played his best game of the season Sunday in a home loss to the Bucs.
Rivers has done the most with the biggest obstacles. Losing Keenan Allen for the season to a lacerated kidney is the biggest obstacle yet. ... I'm still getting used to seeing Carr's name among the stars, but he's continued to improve as the season wears on. A franchise quarterback changes everything, and Carr could very well get a lot of folks paid in Oakland over the next five years.
Next Level
12. Eli Manning (9)
13. Joe Flacco (14)
14. Tyrod Taylor (17)
15. Teddy Bridgewater (13)
16. Jay Cutler (18)
17. Ryan Fitzpatrick (25)
18. Blake Bortles (21)
19. Peyton Manning (15)
20. Jameis Winston (27)
21. Alex Smith (22)
Peyton Manning doesn't reveal much to the media, but it was telling he told NBC's Al Michaels that "indecision creates inaccuracy" when talking about his early season struggles. Manning played fast and decisive against Green Bay, often throwing deep. He focused on passes up the seam where his arm strength is not an issue. He treated Demaryius Thomas like the true No. 1 he is. The running game finished drives for him. Just like Tom Brady a year ago, Manning could rise up these rankings quickly with a strong second half.
Manning had quietly thrown a handful of very nice passes throughout October, even during his slump. He just was too indecisive in big moments. Now he can break the all-time wins and passing yards record in the house that he built in Indianapolis. Something tells me there will be sleepless nights in the Irsay home this week. The pressure around that team looks suffocating. ... Winston is on schedule. His Week 7 game in Washington was as impressive as any Marcus Mariota game this year, with a ton of big-time throws. He came back to Earth against Atlanta, yet still made the key plays in overtime to get a Bucs win.
With Andy Dalton playing so well, Alex Smith now feels like the prime meridian of starting quarterbacks. If your starter is playing at a level below Smith, something needs to change.
After Smith
22. Josh McCown (31)
23. Ryan Tannehill (26)
24. Brian Hoyer (N/A)
25. Nick Foles (19)
26. Kirk Cousins (23)
27. Sam Bradford (24)
28. Andrew Luck (16)
29. Matthew Stafford (20)
30. Matt Cassel (N/A)
31. Colin Kaepernick (28)
32. Zach Mettenberger (N/A)
Benching Kaepernick was an act of mercy. His performance against the Rams on Sunday felt like a cry for help, and was tough to watch for anyone that enjoyed his bionic run to the Super Bowl in 2012. The coaches showed no confidence in Kaepernick and his poor throws were stuff you don't see in the NFL often. It looked like the weight of this season overwhelmed him, and he couldn't see straight. It's like he listens to all those bad hot takes out there, including one from my friend Anthony Jeselnik on our new podcast. (Plug!) ... Jeff Fisher would rather play football without quarterbacks, and is nearing his ideal vision. Nick Foles is such an afterthought on the Rams besides a few deep shots each game. Those plays usually either result in an overthrow or a Kenny Britt drop.
Bradford enjoyed a clean game in Carolina before the bye. He looked more comfortable in the pocket and was protected well. Perhaps he will enjoy a Manning-like boost after a week off. .. There's not much left to say on Luck we didn't say last week. Hopefully new coordinator Rob Chudzinski will pick up the tempo and get Luck on the move more. My preseason No. 3 quarterback fell 13 spots in the first quarter, and another 12 this time. He can't fall much further. |
A company called Airspace is launching a bounty hunter drone that’ll capture other drones that infringe on airspace. It won’t traverse the country seeking out a specific drone, but it’ll keep your property intruder-free, or at least that's the idea. Airspace thinks plenty of drones are flying around places people might not want filmed or surveilled, so the company is marketing its drone to venues that want to "protect customers and guests from unwanted intruders," corporations that want to keep sensitive happenings secret, and utility companies that want to avoid accidental operational issues. I’m sure the government or police forces would also be interested in something like this, or maybe celebrities for when paparazzi inevitably take to drones to capture footage.
Airspace doesn’t give much information about its product on its website, but it does clarify that its drone doesn’t destroy whatever it captures. Instead, it uses a material that looks sticky, like Spider-Man’s web, to render the drone immobile. It also says it uses machine vision and deep learning to detect unwanted drones in the sky and lock onto them.
I can’t help but imagine a world where entire drone wars play out in the sky, maybe even without our knowledge. That’ll be fun! |
The effect of gamma waves on cognitive and language skills in children
New studies conducted by April Benasich, professor of neuroscience at Rutgers University in Newark, and her colleagues reveal that gamma wave activity in the brains of children provide a window into their cognitive development, and could open the way for more effective intervention for those likely to experience language problems. "Research into the adult brain has shown that gamma activity is the 'glue' that binds together perceptions, thoughts and memories," notes Benasich. "Little research, however, has been conducted into the development of gamma activity in the infant brain and its possible connection to cognitive and language skills."
Benasich and her research team are the first to look at "resting" gamma power in the frontal cortex, the "thinking" part of the brain, in children 16, 24 and 36 months old. In an article published online and in an upcoming issue of Behavioral Brain Research, Benasich offers significant new insight into the likely role gamma activity plays in supporting emerging cognitive and language abilities during the first 36 months of life.
Gamma waves are fast, high-frequency, rhythmic brain responses that have been shown to spike when higher cognitive processes are engaged. Research in adults and animals suggests that lower levels of gamma power might hinder the brain's ability to efficiently package information into coherent images, thoughts and memories. However, until now little has been known about the developmental course of gamma power in children.
Analyzing the children's EEGs (electroencephalograms), Benasich and her research team found that those with higher language and cognitive abilities had correspondingly higher gamma power than those with poorer language and cognitive scores. Similarly, children with better attention and inhibitory control, the ability to moderate or refrain from behavior when instructed, also had higher gamma power. There were no differences in gamma power based on gender or socio-economic status.
The measurements were obtained by placing a soft bonnet with 62 sensors on the heads of the children as they sat on a parent's lap and quietly played. In separate tests, children were evaluated for their emerging language and cognitive skills. The researchers looked both at children from families with normal language development and those at higher risk for problems because they were born into families with a history of language disorders. As suspected, the group of children with a family history of language impairments showed lower levels of gamma activity.
"We believe that maturation of the brain mechanisms that support gamma activity and those critical for mounting normal language and cognitive development may be occurring simultaneously," says Benasich. "We seem to have identified a window, during a period of sustained and dramatic linguistic and cognitive growth, that can help us to better determine where a child is developmentally."
Such an understanding could provide for earlier and more effective intervention. For example, if a child is found to have lower than average resting gamma, intervention and learning methods could be instituted as a preventative measure. Such early intervention possibly also could result in increasing gamma power in the frontal cortex.
In her other related research, Benasich has discovered that how well infants distinguish differences in successive rapidly occurring tone sequences is a good predictor of future language problems and that it can be determined as early as three months whether a baby will struggle with language development. These latest findings appear to show that the emergence of strong gamma activity is critical for linguistic and cognitive development and that children at risk for language impairments may lag in this process.
"Having strong bursts of gamma appears to assist the brain in making the neural connections needed for effective language development," says Benasich. "By measuring gamma activity in the frontal cortex, which is the last brain area to mature and is used to make decisions and solve problems, we may be able to tell how well the brain is developing in general."
Being able to determine a child's level of development could allow for more effective treatment at a critical point in time when the brain is laying the foundations for cognition and language and establishing efficient connections for future learning. From 16 to 36 months, there is a dramatic explosion of linguistic and cognitive growth; children rush headlong into language, rapidly developing their skills, increasing from a vocabulary of 100 words to 1,000 words, learning that words stand for objects, and that words not only are associated with a specific object but categories, such as "dog" representing not just a single animal but all dogs.
"During this intense learning period, they are little scientists in their environment putting things together and figuring things out," says Benasich. "Lower levels of gamma power in the resting brain may provide a 'red flag' indicating that a child will experience language or attentional problems. Knowing that may allow us to provide effective intervention during this critical learning period." |
(Newser) – An Italian art museum is so mad about the budget cuts coming its way that it has begun burning art works in protest. The Casoria Contemporary Art Museum's eccentric director, Antonio Manfredi, set fire to a painting by French Artist Severine Bourguignon yesterday, the BBC reports, and let it burn until it was completely destroyed. He's promising to do the same thing to three paintings a week until funding improves, in a protest he's dubbed "Art War."
"Our 1,000 artworks are headed for destruction anyway because of the government's indifference," Manfredi said. Bourguignon supports the protest, as do several other artists across Europe. One Welsh sculptor even flambéed one of his own works in solidarity, and says it didn't pain him much to do so. "The process of making art, and the interaction with people, is more important than keeping it as a precious object," he said. (Read more Casoria Contemporary Art Museum stories.) |
Despite pushback from student activist group No Red Tape, administrators continue to stand by a policy that prohibits students from recording gender-based misconduct proceedings.
The policy, amended this semester to explicitly state that individuals may no longer reproduce documents created during gender-based misconduct adjudication processes, originally said that students and their advisors were not permitted to bring in cellphones or any sort of recording device into the hearings. An amendment to the policy also states that students and their advisers may not make copies of any documents created during the investigation process.
Activists have focused their attention toward the clause regarding audio recordings and created an online petition demanding that students be allowed to record during gender-based misconduction investigations and hearings.
Administrators have previously defended that policy, but in response to No Red Tape's petition, Executive Vice President of University Life Suzanne Goldberg posted a statement on Columbia's sexual respect website outlining the purpose of the amendment.
"There are basically three concerns. There are privacy concerns for the students involved in the investigation and adjudication process. There are concerns about a chilling effect on the investigation process. And there are many safeguards to ensure accuracy in the investigation process," Goldberg told Spectator in an interview. "The aim is to enable people to file complaints when they feel they have experienced a violation of the policy, and for all students—complainants, respondents, and witnesses in the process — to be able to participate fully."
When complainants, respondents, and witnesses speak to investigators, no recording or verbatim transcript of their testimony is created. Instead, investigators take notes, which students and their advisers are later allowed to review.
Attorneys provided with copies of Columbia's policy said that it is common and legal for private universities to not record the testimonies of students involved in gender-based misconduct investigations.
"Typically the investigators will take notes and people like me often fight to see those notes, because as you might imagine, people can be selective about what they transfer to those handwritten notes," Justin Dillon, an attorney who often represents students accused of sexual assault, said. "But most schools don't record."
Law professor and Title IX expert Peter Lake agreed, and said that students and their attorneys sometimes ask for schools not to record testimony.
"If someone is accused of something that could be a serious crime, you know, are you going to want a verbatim transcription of your testimony that might end up in front of a grand jury or a prosecutor or even another jury down the road?" Lake said. "I think people who aren't familiar with the media have an inherent suspicion of being recorded."
Lake added that the update to Columbia's policy regarding the reproduction of documents is likely intended to further protect the privacy of students, and that administrators should be given the benefit of the doubt.
"What I would assume, though, is that institutions are not trying to hide things. Because I know for a fact that a lot of times the institutions would more than anxiously share information if they only could to help improve the public narrative about the situation, but federal law prohibits them from doing that," Lake said. "If you look at it from the inside, a lot of institutions feel like they are in handcuffs."
Lake also said that as university procedures start to resemble those of criminal courts, there will be a greater push to enact policy regarding the reproduction of documents created during the investigation that mirrors that of the legal system.
"In the criminal justice system, you'll notice that there's a period while they're determining probable cause where investigative files are not shared with the public. And they become available after, once someone has been charged with a crime. And if you're running a criminal justice-like system, people are very used to the fact that you do get access to the information, and have an ability to copy it or see it," Lake said. "I think that's the fight that's right in front of us."
[email protected] | @ColumbiaSpec |
A Fultograph image, 65×129mm.
The fultograph was an early, clockwork image-receiving device, similar in function to fax machines. It took signals from the loudspeaker socket of a radio receiver and used an electrochemical process to darken areas of sensitised paper wrapped on a rotating drum. Invented by Otho Fulton, the system was used briefly in the late 1920s to broadcast images to homes by radio. The machines themselves were expensive (£22 15s 0d in 1928) and required a good receiver to operate.[1]
The BBC broadcast Fultograph images in 759 programmes between 1929 and 1932.[2] The Fultograph was the subject of an article in the British RadCom amateur radio magazine in October 2007.
References [ edit ]
A detailed German text, from a 1920s catalogue, with illustrations and a circuit diagram.
Fultograph, a German-language text with colour photographs. |
Own a smart TV running Android ? Be warned, ransomware can also infect televisions. Twitter user Darren Cauthon has tweeted how the TV of a family member was bricked after it was infected by ransomware.
The infection took place when the family member downloaded an app to watch a movie reports myce.com.
Ransomware asks for $500 to unlock device, LG asks for $340 to help
Cauthon says he tried to reset the TV to factory settings, but the reset procedure available online didn't work. When the software engineer contacted LG, the company told him to visit one of their service centers, where one of its employees could reset his TV.
This angered Cauthon because factory reset procedures shouldn't be secret, but also because the service center visit implied a $340 bill. The ransomware asked Cauthon to pay $500 to unlock his TV.
As one commenter on Twitter pointed out, it would be cheaper to buy a new TV. "Avoid these 'smart tvs' like the plague," Cauthon added following his discussion with LG.
Halfway the movie a fake FBI warning popped up stating, “Suspicious files have been found and your attendance of the forbidden pornographic sites has been fixed. For this reason your device has been locked. Information on your location and snapshots containing your face have been uploaded the on the FBI Cybercrime Department Datacenter.”
The ransom note then lists a penalty that has to be paid within 3 days, in this case $500. Similar ransomware was already found on smartphones and where it’s fairly easy to remove ransomware from a smartphone, on a TV it’s a much more difficult venture.
The affected TV in this case was a three year old and discontinued LG TV (50GA6400). When Cauthon called LG for a fix, the manufacturer didn’t want to explain how to reset the TV to factory settings and the ransomware prevented access to any settings of the TV. It was even impossible to access the section where the payment details of the ransomware are, in case a victim actually hoped the TV would be unlocked when a payment was made.
Nevertheless, after complaining on Twitter and after his Tweet was retweeted and favorited thousands of times, LG contacted Cauthon. His TV is now fixed, as the video below shows. |
Anthony Averett was one of the least hyped members of Alabama’s secondary. Marlon Humphrey came into the season with talk of being drafted in the first round while Minkah Fitzpatrick and Ronnie Harrison were freshmen phenoms.
Averett was a four star safety from the Class of 2013 who redshirted his first year and then saw most of his playing time on special teams the next two years, partially due to injury. The departure of Cyrus Jones to the NFL left a hole at corner for 2016, though; and Averett emerged as the top option when Alabama went to its nickel and dime packages.
Picked on right from the get-go against USC, Averett would settle down and steadily improve. This progress has quietly turned him into a lockdown corner. While he has yet to record an interception, Averett leads the team in pass break-ups with 7.
1st and 10: Averett is at the bottom of the screen in press coverage on his receiver, Donald Gray. Tony Brown shows blitz from the nickel, and Minkah Fitzpatrick comes down from his safety position to cover the slot receiver. This leaves Averett on an island against his man, and QB Nick Fitzgerald knows it. He fakes the handoff and lofts one to Gray, who’s just running a fly route. Averett is running with him. He turns his head to locate the ball while keeping a hand on Gray. He swats at the ball with his right arm while he gets his left in between Gray’s hands, and he knocks the ball away for an incompletion.
3rd and 11: Averett’s at the top on the stacked receivers. He starts backpedaling, dropping deep. He keeps his eyes on the quarterback, however, and quickly transitions from the backpedal when he sees Fitzgerald going to Fred Ross on a quick screen. Ronnie Harrison does a good job of running past his block, which takes away any chance LT Martinas Rankin has of getting over to block. This leaves Averett one-on-one against Ross; and Averett handles it perfectly, acting decisively and taking Ross’s legs out from under him.
2nd and 10: Averett is in press man against his receiver, Fred Ross, at the top of the screen. He mirrors Ross, turning and running alongside him. Averett plays him close and physical never allowing him to get any separation. With no room to run, Ross can’t get to where Fitzgerald places it; and the pass falls incomplete.
3rd and 5: Averett is in single coverage on Fred Ross again. Averett begins to turn; but Ross cuts on an in route, not really disguising it. Averett matches and stays right on top of him, not wasting a single step. There’s a lot of contact, but Averett is playing the ball the whole way. He does a good job of staying inside the receiver’s left shoulder, and Ross doesn’t really have much of a shot against that coverage and with a high throw.
2nd and 10: Averett is at the top, giving about an 8 yard cushion to his man. Donald Gray fakes a post route, drawing Averett a step or two inside; but his speed allows him to easily recover. He maintains contact with Gray as he turns his head to find the ball. He does. Averett plays it perfectly and deflects it. Another incompletion. |
SUICIDE SQUAD OFF, ZERO ON.
Dear readers –
Since the solicitations for October’s DC titles came out, I was repeatedly asked if I am no longer writing Suicide Squad. Yes, Matt Kindt is writing SS #24 and I am no longer writing Suicide Squad. Matt’s “3 Story” is one of my favorite graphic novels I read in the last few years and I look forward to reading “Mind MGMT” when I finally find the time to buy the first hardcover collection, which you can find here. Matt Kindt is a very capable storyteller who is doing exciting things in the comics medium and I wish him great things.
I killed my deadlines (edit: this means I got my work in on time), I wrote my best, and I have no regrets whatsoever.
Thank you for the ride, for your support, for everything.
Have wonderful days and nights.
ZERO #1 is coming out 9/18 from Image Comics. Come with us.
Interview 1 about ZERO.
Interview 2 about ZERO. |
NEW YORK CITY — As tempting as it may be, New Yorkers shouldn't spend their snow day in the park, city officials said.
Department of Parks and Recreation officials warned that people should avoid the parks while the Thursday snowstorm pummels the city through the morning.
New Yorkers are urged to stay out of City parks until the storm pushes away from the area, which we anticipate will be in early afternoon. https://t.co/pxcfHLZFI6 — NYC Parks (@NYCParks) February 9, 2017
Parks officials were concerned about high winds and heavy snowfall.
The storm is expected to dump as much as a foot of snow on the city before tapering off by the afternoon, officials said.
Winds could also gust up to 35 mph and peak at "near blizzard" conditions along the coast, officials said.
Once the snow dies off, officials will determine whether regular Parks programs will resume, they said. |
Joseph Dalesandro, 19, was ordered held on $50,000 bail Friday. View Full Caption DNAinfo; Chicago Police Department
COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A UIC freshman with a four-year swimming scholarship has been charged with illegally filming female teammates as they changed clothes in their locker room.
Joseph Dalesandro, 19, was ordered held on $50,000 bail Friday on allegations he filmed four women with an iPhone over the course of several hours Feb. 2.
According to prosecutors, locker rooms for men and women on the UIC swimming and diving teams are separated by a partition wall that has a gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling for a smoke detector.
Dalesandro is accused of perching his iPhone on the wall about 11 a.m. Feb. 2 and recording two women on the diving team, ages 19 and 20, as they changed clothes.
Dalesandro filmed the women for three minutes, prosecutors said, but later cropped the video to feature one minute of nudity.
About two hours later, Dalesandro filmed the women's locker room for 45 minutes — this time capturing two swimmers, ages 19 and 20, as they changed clothes, Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Carlson said during a bond hearing Friday.
One of the women heard laughter coming from the men's locker room and looked up, expecting the men to throw something over the wall, prosecutors said.
Instead, she spotted Dalesandro's phone, Carlson said. Two of the women retrieved the phone and brought it to their coach, who called campus police.
During the course of their investigation, officers learned the phone was registered to Dalesandro and his mother, prosecutors said. Dalesandro was one of five men who had access to the locker room at the time of filming; his phone was also logged into the UIC wireless network with his username when the videos were made.
Police on Thursday arrested Dalesandro, who lives on campus and comes from Naperville. He confessed to making the videos and "stated he knew what he had done was illegal," Carlson said.
In court Friday, Assistant Public Defender Marc Davidson noted that the videos Dalesandro recorded were never disseminated, and that Dalesandro has no prior criminal history.
"This was a prank," Davidson said. "A tasteless prank that went nowhere. ... This will cost him dearly over the years."
Davidson went on to say that Dalesandro is a UIC freshman with a four-year swimming scholarship who lives in campus housing.
Cook County Judge Laura Sullivan on Friday said Dalesandro is not allowed to return to UIC while his felony case is pending. Bail was set at $50,000.
Dalesandro could face disciplinary action from the school as well.
UIC spokeswoman Sherri McGinnis Gonzalez on Friday confirmed Dalesandro's enrollment but said she couldn't talk about his specific case.
"In cases where a student faces criminal charges, they may also be subject to the Student Conduct Process that is outlined in the Student Disciplinary Policy," she said. |
Times are grim for fans of swords and sorcery. Japanese role-playing games like Xenoblade and The Last Story might never see the light of day in North America, while the American RPG industry seems limited to two or three gamemakers at most. The days of RPG oversaturation and endless Final Fantasy clones are long gone. Fortunately, there's a solution for gamers craving adventure: indie RPGs. Independent designers and auteurs across the world have found ways to create compelling role-playing games, even without huge budgets or hundreds of staff. Starring a wide range of protagonists, from washed up basketball players to peppy shopkeepers, these seven indies will satiate your RPG fix. (Special thanks to Craig Stern of IndieRPGs.com for his suggestions.) Above: Charles Barkley's Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden One of the most bizarre indie RPGs out there might also be the best. Charles Barkley's Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden hilariously mocks everything from Japanese RPG tropes to Bill Cosby, all while crafting a grandiose, All Star-studded adventure that spans dimensions. Basketball has been outlawed in the city of Neo New York, where diabetes runs rampant and even Michael Jordan has become a total dick. When ex-NBA player Charles Barkley is framed for mass murder, he has to team up with robot Vince Carter, a dwarf with basketball skin, and the great grandson of LeBron James in order to try to figure out who really killed all those millions of people. Also, his son is named Hoopz. Obviously. Best of all, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is completely free. Screengrab: Jason Schreier/Wired.com
Exit Fate Don't be turned off by the tile sets or soundtrack -- all of which are ripped straight from old RPGs like Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger -- Exit Fate is one of the best free RPGs out there. Developer SCF created the game in RPG Maker, a downloadable program that allows just about anybody to make their own role-playing adventure. While your average RPG Maker game carries the same level of quality as Final Fantasy fanfiction, Exit Fate stands head and shoulders above its puerile competition. If you've played any of the Suikoden games, you're already familiar with Exit Fate; like Konami's RPG series, Exit Fate places you in charge of your own castle and army and asks you to overcome near-insurmountable challenges. The story is filled with political maneuvering, betrayal and enough poignant scenes to make Exit Fate well worth the 50-60 hours it will take you to beat. Just try not to think about the fact that you just spent 50-60 hours playing an RPG Maker game. Screengrab: Jason Schreier/Wired.com
Cthulhu Saves the World Lovecraftian demon Cthulhu isn't typical hero material. So when he finds out that the only way to regain his sealed powers is by performing heroic acts of good, he realizes that he might need to go find some help. So starts Cthulhu Saves the World, a parody RPG by development team Zeboyd Games. Though it looks like an 8-bit game, it feels thoroughly new; the dialogue is snappy and battles are fast-paced. You can buy Cthulhu Saves the World (along with Zeboyd's first game, the equally entertaining Breath of Death VII) on Steam for the whopping sum of $3. "I can save any time?" asks Cthulu at the start of the game. "What is this, a first-person shooter?" Image courtesy Zeboyd Games
Dungeons of Dredmor This roguelike dungeon crawler is filled to the brim with vast maps to explore and random loot to collect. It's also irreverent, poking fun at enemies and objects through myriad humorous names and descriptions. Dungeons of Dredmor, which is $5 on Steam, allows your character to use a number of skills, from Assassination to Flesh Smithing. ("Other men work in clay, steel or wood," the game says. "We call them squeamish.") For a good time, be sure to pray to Inconsequentia, the Goddess of Pointless Sidequests. Image courtesy Gaslamp Games
Recettear "Capitalism, ho!" says Recette, the main character of Recettear, quite frequently. It's only fitting: You run your own shop in Recettear, a combination action-RPG/store simulator that lets you discover the glories of capitalism for yourself. In order to pay off a hefty debt, Recette must turn a hefty profit. That's where you come into play, guiding the bubbly shopkeeper as she buys goods low and sells them high -- but not too high -- in an attempt to keep customers satisfied. Recette can also recruit adventurers and head into randomized dungeons to restock her inventory, a process that's both addictive and rewarding. Just don't get too complacent. If Recette fails to pay off her debts on time, she might learn a hard lesson about the dark side of capitalism (and be forced to live in a box for the rest of her life). Screengrab: Jason Schreier/Wired.com
Dink Smallwood Old-school action-RPG fans might remember Dink Smallwood from way back in the 90s, when it became a bit of a cult classic for its Zelda-like gameplay and raunchy sense of humor. Dink is a pig farmer who sets out to save his kingdom after tragedy leaves him an orphan -- standard RPG fare, but it's made inimitable by the game's off-color, sometimes-too-obscene dialogue and characters. You can still experience Dink's twisted adventures for free on your computer -- or for a few bucks on your iPhone/iPad -- and despite a few glitches, the game is just as lovably stupid today as it was 15 years ago. Image courtesy Robinson Technologies |
Last week I had the pleasure of doing an exclusive interview with several members of the LOTRO team. I share with you the transcript (some paraphrased), and audio file from part 1.
Participants:
Dadi – Dadi’s LOTRO Guides
Severlin – Executive Producer
Cordovan – Community Manager
Dr.Octothorpe – Lead Designer
Made of Lions – Epic Story Designer
Pinion – Content Designer
Baccata – Content Designer
FriendlyHat – Systems Designer
Audio File:
Transcript:
Question 1: Cordovan, you are serving as the interim LOTRO Community Manager and the full time DDO CM; is there any news as to whether or not you will remain split between the two games?
Cordovan: I do not get to decide the terms of my employment, but I think for the foreseeable future I will remain the CM for both games.
Question 2: Tell us a bit about the Executive Producer and their vision for LOTRO [at this point of the interview I did not realize that Severlin was with us – ed.]?
Severlin: My name is Rob and my forum name is Severlin. I am the current EP for LOTRO and DDO. Prior to DDO I was the EP for Asheron’s Call (another Turbine game). I am a long time Tolkien fan. I read Lord of the Rings in high school and fell in love …
Question 3: We have seen a lot of cuts being made by Warner Brothers, and by the way, that is not unusual for a video game of this age; but there is a licensing agreement that will be expiring in 2017 (this is public knowledge). Is there anything that you may be able to say as the new EP to quiet some of the “doomsayers”? There is an awful lot of negativity on the forums and other internet media about the future of LOTRO. Is there anything that you could share to ally the fear that LOTRO is coming to an end next year?
Severlin: Sure. Right now we have a two and a half year plan [taking us in to the end of 2018 -ed.], and the only reason it is not further is because we want to see where the player’s heads are at after that much time. We are currently focused on not only telling the Epic Story leading up to the Gate but also what happens beyond. We have already kind of hinted to the players that an expansion is on its way. I do not want to talk too much about the expansion because we are still far enough away that plans may change and ultimately we do not want to disappoint the community. This is one of the reasons we don’t like to talk about things too far in advance; not because we do not have long term plans. We want to tell the epic story, and we all know Mordor is coming … We want the experience to satisfy not only the story buffs, but also the experience of entering Mordor really epic because it is something other than the two Halflings, something we did not see much of.
Dadi: We certainly appreciate the Epic Story being told in this game, I have to say that I have been pretty blown away by the last two releases. I believe Made of Lions was behind that, is this correct?
Made of Lions: That’s me, here I am 🙂
Dadi: Well again, thank you. It truly has been epic and enjoyable to play.
MoL: Thank you so much, but you haven’t seen anything yet … I am super excited about the things we are coming up to. We do not try to rest on our laurels, we are always thinking about the next thing; I am very excited for what that is going to be.
Cordovan: I would like to chime in on the licensing thing too, it is something that comes up on the forums quite a bit. What we do with LOTRO is not particularly different from other video games that operate under a licensing agreement for intellectual property (ex. super hero games, etc.). They all have license holders and LOTRO is no different. Typically these kind of agreements are pieces of business that are not really disclosed to the public. As part of the corporate business decision making that is involved with the creation [and maintenance -ed.] of a game like LOTRO. The LOTRO community has historically had some particular sensitivity over the licensing agreement, but the agreement itself has basically always been a routine piece of business from the very start. So while we can understand that some folks like to talk about it on the forums and as you said; “doom say”, the reality is that it is just a private piece of business that has been routine (lawyers getting together). Ultimately if there was a major issue with the license you guys would probably find out about it because the game would no longer be operating after a certain point. This is not a reality show “are they going to get kicked off the island” thing worth speculating month after month, year after year. It is basically just a routine piece of business and we have no reason to think this won’t be a continuation of that.
Dadi: That is certainly very refreshing to hear, I am in corporate business myself and certainly understand licensing agreements and how they work. Just because it is expiring does not mean that it will not be renewed. As long as both parties are happy with the product being put forth [and the terms -ed] there is no reason for that licensing agreement not to continue, so it is nice to hear you say the same.
Question 4: This is probably a burning question for most players; where are we with improving the lag and the performance of the servers? It seems that since the consolidation, or the release of Minas Tirith (or maybe they are linked) [is where it all started -ed.]. There are many players, myself included, that have awesome gaming machines with fiber optic connections, yet in group play (specific instances) the only way to play the content is on the absolute lowest graphics settings with virtually everything turned off, and even then we are still crashing or experiencing major skill lag and very low fps. Can you maybe touch on where we are at with it, I know you are continually working on trying to improve it but we are now six, almost eight months later and we really have not seen a dramatic improvement.
Dr.Octothorpe?: So what is sort of unfortunate about some of the lag that some of our players have seen is that there is not a single source for it. It is a many headed beast that basically means we have to keep hacking heads off as we can find them. So we have been working very hard at this on and off. With the 18.2.4 release we know that the pre-battle Minas Tirith has memory issues for many players so we have provided ways to skip it and travel directly to the post battle version. One of the ironies with the performance issues is that players with the higher end machines will actually be the ones to specifically see some of those MT focused ones. As you know there are some skill related ones, some group related issues, we keep hammering at all of them and hope that players have seen improvements where we have been able to make them. This isn’t really a fix, but as we move farther from the old version of Minas Tirith we expect some of those problems to fade away simply because players are not all in that area anymore.
Severlin: When you see large bosses and people are looking at their buffs [and debufs -ed.] there seems to be some sort of bottleneck there and so we are looking to bring in extra engineering resources to look at that specifically. Unfortunately right now we are in negotiations to do that so we will have to wait; it is something that takes longer that I would like.
Dadi: We have this absolutely fantastic content in the new raid; I love The Throne of the Dread Terror from start to finish (the mechanics, the difficulty, the challenge) … it is awesome. However, there are so many players that just can’t experience it because of the lag and it is such a shame. Is there no way to move the instance for Throne and place it in the background on another section of LOTRO so that it is not on the same section as Minas Tirith? Can it not be separated such that it has more resources for it in itself?
Severlin: Minas Tirith is not a server issue, it is a [LOTRO -ed.] client memory issue. The lag you are seeing from the raid is not associated with Minas Tirith, it is something separate that we are actively working on solving.
Dadi: I would imagine a lot of it has to do with skill animations, is that what is playing in to the majority of the [raid -ed.] lag?
Dr.Octothorpe: We can’t stress enough how lag problems are like 100 headed hydras. Everyone wants to look for a silver bullet to solve lag problems but unfortunately it just isn’t that way. Among other things there are skills on classes that target absolutely everything within a 15m radius instead of a specific number of targets. We corrected one of those [RK – Essay of Exaltation -ed.], which I think was causing more problems with festivals actually than with the raid. So we deal with those as we find them.
Question 5: Keeping with the raid, as you know there is a bug that is spreading T2 locks amongst T1 players which is affecting the group dynamics of who signs up (or come on) runs. They do not want to get the locks by running T1 because they want to do T2 with their friends or kin later. The result is there are a lot less T1 runs being done. We are on update 4 now since the release of the raid and we have heard no discussion on addressing it, can you touch on that?
Dr.Octothorpe: Yes, we are aware of it and it pains us that it keeps players from enjoying the raid. It is unfortunately not a small feature, so we have been looking for a moment when we can dig in and fix it. We hope this will be soon, but we can’t make any promises.
Severlin: It actually has a lot to do with how loot is distributed. When we looked in to fixing the lock issue, we wanted to go to a boss by boss lock where you could just loot each boss once. So you could kill a boss multiple times but only allow you to loot once. The problem with that is it would force us to go to a personal loot system and there was some concern when we went to do that that the players who were used to the current system would have a problem with a personal loot system because you can’t trade; a raid can’t sort of stack specific items on to people. So the issue wasn’t actually the tech, it was the concern that the players themselves would find that a personal loot system, a system that drops loot from boss to boss for specific players would be a backstab. That was our concern; and when we realized we did not have time before the raid [release -ed.] to go through the process of bringing that to the Palantir players and discussing the differences between how loot currently works and how loot would work in the new system (going through all the nuance of it) and then getting them to give us feedback on it is a process that would take months just to get the players’ input from the raiding guilds. We just ran out of time. Believe me, we wanted to fix these problems before the raid [release -ed.] but we didn’t want the players to see a new raid and be used to looting one way and then change it on them. We just did not have the time to go through a due diligence process and throwing something like that on the players without a lot of feedback from the people who are raiding, would have been a bad idea on our part. We just did not feel the players would have appreciated us throwing that on them without enough time and feedback for us to polish it.
————————
In Part 2 we discuss;
The future of raids
The loot system
Burglar and Hunter love
Update 19
Imbuement
T2C of older content being relevant
Essences
Fellowship Maneuvers
A Russian translation is underway. If there is anyone that can assist with French and German please let me know.
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Yesterday, Reddit user throwwwwaway29 went to the popular web site for advice: right before she left for a 10-day business trip, her husband sent her a spreadsheet. Column A listed all the dates from the beginning of June, column B listed whether they had sex that day, and column C noted the excuse given, using “verbatim quotes.”
“I open it up, and it’s a sarcastic diatribe basically saying he won’t miss me for the 10 days I’m gone,” she wrote. “According to his ‘document’, we’ve only had sex 3 times in the last 7 weeks, out of 27 “attempts” on his part.”
For all the data hounds out there, here’s the chart.
According to our expert Nate Silveresque analysis of this Sexcel Spreadsheet, the husband has a 11% success rate at getting laid, a 22% chance of being turned down after his wife goes to the gym, and a 100% chance of both parties looking like total jackasses on the internet.
[h/t Deadspin]
[Image via Shutterstock]
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Have a tip we should know? [email protected] |
Somerville Skillshare (www.SomervilleSkillshare.org) is a day of free classes, taught and organized by local residents, at the Center for Arts at the Armory on Sunday, March 2nd.
From 12 to 6 pm, the Armory will host nearly 40 free classes from 40 teachers in seven unique classroom spaces, on topics like basic bicycle maintenance, salsa dancing, and stock investing. Attendees can drop in and out during the day and take as many classes as they would like, and enjoy some free stuff from our local sponsors (Flatbread, Taza Chocolate, Slumbrew, and Q's Nuts).
It’s a way to learn new skills, jump-start new hobbies, and meet other people with similar interests, all in a fun and informal setting. And best of all, it’s completely free!
Click here to RSVP on Eventbrite.
Why did we organize Somerville Skillshare?
We are all teachers. We are all students. Drawing inspiration from Skillshares that have happened in other cities (such as Brooklyn and Boston), we seek to create a communal, hands-on, learning experience that serves as a jumping-off point in the construction of an autonomous, nonexclusive, reciprocal learning community right here in Somerville.
We also want to empower local residents–artists, artisans, professionals, hobbyists, small business owners–with a highly visible platform that allows them to showcase their unique talents to a broad community of learners. To see what what we're all about, read some of the Teacher Q&As we've conducted over the past few months or check out this recent article in Somerville Beat.
Why we need your help!
We want to keep this event completely free. But to do so, we need help covering a few important expenses. These include:
- Daylong rental fee for the Armory, including seven classroom spaces and the cafe
- Materials for our teachers' classes, including paper, thread, needles, wool, food, duct tape, beads, poster board, and paint
- Printing costs for posters, brochures, and fliers
If we exceed our fundraising goal, we can plan even more free educational opportunities in Somerville in the future, such as a workshop series or another free Skillshare.
Who are we?
Somerville Skillshare's organizers include a young professional working in Boston's cleantech industry, the Director of a spoken word organization, a two-time Iraq War Veteran with an interest in film, a local artist, a professional blogger and social media marketer, a researcher at Brigham & Women's Hospital, a published novelist, a graphic design hobbyist, a climate change activist, and a professional programmer. We are residents of Somerville and the surrounding communities who value the diversity of this city and the creativity of its residents.
Thank you for anything you can do to support Somerville's learning community and help us make this event a reality. We hope to see you at the Somerville Armory on March 2nd!
Sincerely,
John, Danielle, Courtney, Spencer, Paula, Melissa, Sarah, Isaac, Camille, and K.Adam.
Class list 2/11/13 |
Last year, we reported that the U.S. Army was looking in to building a hoverbike, a one man flying contraption they were calling a Tactical Reconnaissance Vehicle. A year later, there's new announcements on the vehicle, which army researchers now say will be a way to bring supplies into the field.
The hoverbike's name has gotten longer: it's now called the Joint Tactical Aerial Resupply Vehicle. The vehicle is essentially a quadcopter, like a recreational drone, that's sturdy enough for a human to sit on.
"Anywhere on the battlefield, Soldiers can potentially get resupplied in less than 30 minutes," Army researcher Tim Vong said in a US Army Research Laboratory post. "We're working with users in the joint community to look at this concept."
A new video that shows a few moments of hoverbike action was released along with the statements. You can watch it below.
Source: Popular Science |
US surpasses most of the world in health care inequality
By Kate Randall
9 June 2017
Being poor in America is a clear predictor that the health care you receive will be far inferior to that of your wealthy counterparts. This reality, documented in a new study published in Health Affairs, will come as no surprise to workers and the poor who struggle daily to gain access to health care and pay for it.
At the other end of the income spectrum, the superior health care received by the super-rich directly correlates to their ability to pay out-of-pocket for the best care that money can buy.
The new study, “The United States Leads Other Nations in Differences by Income in Perceptions of Health and Health Care,” examines self-assessments of personal health and health care among income groups in the period of 2011-13 across 32 middle- and high-income countries.
The study period does not take into account the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in particular its expansion of Medicaid, the insurance program for the poor. However, contrary to the claims of the Democratic Party, Obamacare has not led to an increase in the quality of health care for most Americans, and in many cases has reduced quality and increased costs. The Trump administration is now escalating the attack on health care, with plans to cut $1.4 trillion over 10 years from Medicaid.
The US has among the largest income-related inequities in health care among rich and middle-income countries studied. Over half of those polled felt that income-based health care inequalities were unfair; those among this group were also significantly more likely than others to support major health system reform.
Percentages of survey respondents in 32 countries who rated their health as fair or poor, by income tertile, and percentage-point differences between the top and bottom income tertiles, 2011–13 [credit: Health Affairs, June 2017, Vol. 36, Issue 6]
The study charted disparities in health care and attitudes between the top and bottom tertiles (thirds) of respondents by income. The first measure was on self-perception of health. The results showed that 38.2 percent of the bottom income tertile reported their health as “fair” or “poor,” compared to 21.4 percent in the middle tertile and 12.3 percent in the top tertile.
This means that there was a 25.9 percentage point difference in self-perceived health quality between those in the top and bottom income groups. The study’s authors consider anything above 10 percent as a large disparity. Only Portugal (26.7 percent) and Chile (33 percent) showed wider disparities between the rich and poor in self-perceived health.
Although the researchers did not document the various health conditions afflicting the poor in America, rates of diabetes, obesity, asthma, heart disease, cancer, substance abuse, domestic violence, and myriad other afflictions occur at higher rates in the low-income population.
Almost a quarter of the lower-income tertile in the US reported not getting the medical treatment they needed due to costs, about 16.5 percentage points higher than the top tertile. Only in the Philippines, at 20.1 percent, was there a higher disparity between rich and poor receiving care due to cost.
Asked the question: “In your opinion, how many people are there in the United States who do not have access to the health care they need?” 68 percent of Americans answered “many.” Asked: “Is it fair or unfair that people with higher incomes can afford better health care than people with lower incomes?” 54 percent responded “somewhat unfair” or “very unfair.”
The lack of access to quality health care is contributing to declining health and life expectancy for millions of Americans, which is documented in the following chilling statistics:
* Deaths from drug overdoses in the US jumped by the largest margin ever in 2016, according to figures compiled by the New York Times. An estimated 59,000 people died from drug overdoses, a 19 percent increase over 2015.
* Overall life expectancy in the US fell between 2014 and 2015 for the first time since 1993, the Lancet reports. Wealthy Americans can now expect to live up to 15 years longer than their poorest counterparts.
* Research by Princeton University economists shows that the sharp rise in the mortality rate for white, middle-aged working class Americans is being driven by “deaths of despair”—from drug overdoses, complications from alcohol abuse, and suicide.
* A study by the American Medical Association found a staggering 20.1-year gap between the lowest and highest life expectancy among all US counties.
* The maternal death rate in the US rose by 27 percent between 2004 and 2014, according to the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Reflecting the ongoing crisis of health care access, over a thousand people braved rain, fierce winds and cold temperatures last month to line up for the Remote Area Medical Clinic in Smyth County, Virginia to receive free treatment. People came from as far away as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and New Hampshire to receive medical and dental care they would otherwise be forced to go without.
On the other pole, in a growing number of cities across the US, a new crop of “concierge” medical practices now caters to the super-rich. The wealthy can pay as much as $40,000 to $80,000 per family annually to have immediate access without wait times to their primary care physician, the best specialists, the best hospital suites—whether in their hometowns or across the country.
The health care crisis is set to dramatically worsen. The centerpiece of the Republicans’ American Health Care Act, passed in the US House last month, is the gutting of Medicaid. Trump’s budget proposal incorporates the AHCA’s cuts to Medicaid and calls for $1.4 trillion in cuts to the health program for the poor, along with other massive cuts to social programs.
Like Obamacare, the Republican plan takes as its point of departure a health care system based on the subordination of the health needs of the vast majority of the population to the profit requirements of the health care industry and Wall Street.
A socialist solution to the health care crisis, and the vast social inequities that underlie it, must take as its point of departure the needs of working people and society as a whole, not the financial interests of the giant insurance companies and the banks, as part of a reorganization of the economy along socialist lines.
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The Peace Tower (in French: Tour de la Paix), also known as the Tower of Victory and Peace (in French: tour de Victoire et de Paix),[1] is a focal bell and clock tower sitting on the central axis of the Centre Block of the Canadian parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario. The present incarnation replaced the 55-metre (180 ft) Victoria Tower after the latter burned down in 1916, along with most of the Centre Block; only the Library of Parliament survived. It serves as a Canadian icon[2] and had been featured prominently on the Canadian twenty-dollar bill directly adjacent the queen's visage, until the change to polymer.
Characteristics [ edit ]
Designed by Jean Omer Marchand and John A. Pearson, the tower is a campanile whose height reaches 92.2 m (302 ft 6 in),[3] over which are arranged a multitude of stone carvings, including approximately 370 gargoyles, grotesques, and friezes, keeping with the Victorian High Gothic style of the rest of the parliamentary complex. The walls are of Nepean sandstone and the roof is of reinforced concrete covered with copper.[4]
One of four grotesques at the corners of the Peace Tower
At its base is a porte-cochere within four equilateral pointed arches, the north of which frames the main entrance of the Centre Block, and the jambs of the south adorned by the supporters of the Royal Arms of Canada. Near the apex, just below the steeply pitched roof, are the tower's 4.8 m (16 ft) diameter clock faces,[4] one on each of the four facades. The mechanical workings of the timepiece were manufactured by the Verdin Company and are set by the National Research Council Time Signal. One level below, running around the circumference of the tower's shaft, is an observation deck.[3] This was the highest accessible space in Ottawa until the early 1970s; the Peace Tower dominated the Ottawa skyline, as a strict 45.7 m (150 ft) height limit was placed on other buildings. That limit, however, was later rescinded, leading the Peace Tower to lose its distinction as the city's tallest structure. Cantilevered out at each of the four corners of the tower, at the level of the observation platform, are four 2.5 m (8 ft 4 in) long, 75 cm (2 ft 6 in) high, and 45 cm (1 ft 6 in) thick gargoyles made of Stanstead grey granite from Beebe, Quebec.[4]
South clock face and the glass windows of the observation deck below
The tower's flagpole holds symbolic significance, acting as the flagpole of the nation. As such, strict protocol surrounds the display of banners atop the Peace Tower, such as half-masting for national mourning and showing the flag of the sovereign, that of any member of the Royal Family, or the flag of the governor general, when any of those persons are present on Parliament Hill.
In 1981, a new inclined elevator was installed. It travels on a 10° angle for the first 98 feet (30 m), shifting its position horizontally 12 feet 2.25 inches (3.715 m), and straight up for the 60 feet 9 inches (18.52 m) remainder of the climb. The elevator car stays level at all times during its movement because it has a gimbal-mounted double frame. Before the installation of the new elevator, the observatory had been reached by taking first one elevator, then climbing a flight of stairs to a second elevator.[5]
Memorial Chamber [ edit ]
The Peace Tower was designed by architect John A. Pearson not only to stand as an architectural feature and landmark, but also to function as a memorial to Canadians who had given their lives during the Great War.[6] It thus houses the Memorial Chamber, a vaulted 7.3 m by 7.3 m (24 ft by 24 ft) room directly above the porte-cochere,[2] with stained glass windows and various other features illustrating Canada's war record, such as the brass plates made from spent shell casings found on battlefields that were inlaid into the floor, and bore the name of each of Canada's major conflicts during the First World War. Stone that architect John Pearson personally collected from the main European battlefields where Canadians were killed is included in the floors and walls. Pearson described the room, also called the Memorial Chapel, as a "sacred grove in the middle of the forest."[7]
The stone walls were originally to have been inscribed with the names of all Canada's servicemen and women who had died during the First World War; but, without enough space for all 66,000 names,[1] it was later decided to place Books of Remembrance there instead;[3] the books list all Canadian soldiers, airmen, and seamen who died in service of the Crown—whether that of Britain (before 1931) or that of Canada (after 1931)—or allied countries in foreign wars, including the Nile Expedition and Boer War, the First World War, the Second World War, and the Korean War. The books are displayed in glass cases on seven altars around the chamber, the pages of each book turned at 11 a.m. daily so every name is on display to visitors at least once during each calendar year.[7]
Amidst the carved marble plaques detailing Canadian military involvement since Confederation, five marble plaques on display in the Memorial Room present literary passages. Two plaques contain (in English and French) "In Flanders Fields" by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. One plaque has an excerpt from French-Canadian author Gabrielle Roy's novel Bonheur d'occasion (The Tin Flute). Psalm 139:8-10 from the Bible is etched on another plaque in both French and English. A fifth plaque is inscribed with the moving poem "On Going To The Wars" by Canadian writer Earle Birney:
"On Going to the Wars" by Earle Birney, from the Memorial Chamber in the Peace Tower
I go that we may breast again the Dorset downs in zest and walk the Kentish lanes where I began a larger life in knowing you. Yet if from seething sky I win reprieve but by the slowing crutch or whitened cane, my doom will yet have helped to hold in bloom old English orchards and Canadian woods unscarred by steel, Acadian and Columbian roofs unswept by flame. My mother will be kept from stumbling down a prairie road illumed by burning barns and snowed by patterned death.
Sculpture [ edit ]
Various elements within the room were formed with stone quarried from the battlefields of Europe: from the United Kingdom came Hoptonwood limestone; from Belgium, black marble for the wall plinths and altar steps, as well as St. Anne marble for the clustered columns that support the fan vault ceiling from each corner of the room; and from France, Château-Gaillard stone for the walls and the vault itself,[8] as well as stone from Flanders' fields. These materials were worked into 700 carved elements by a number of different artists and sculptors under the direction of Ira Lake, who desired to tell not only the complete story of Canada's participation in the First World War, but also to commemorate military units as far back as the 17th century regime of New France.[9]
John Pearson's drawings for the new Centre Block of Parliament Hill , showing a section through the Memorial Chamber with elevation of the north wall and the staircase that rises behind it
Around the entrance archway are The Sword of Victory—a bas-relief above the opening—and two stone lions by Pearson, the modeller Charles Adamson, and the sculptor Cléophas Soucy, each bearing a shield; the shield to the left bears the Dragon of Destruction and the date 1914,[10][11] while that on the right shows the Dove of Peace perched on a crown and the date 1918.[12][13] Within the tympanum of the antechamber's arch is the sculpted work by Pearson and Soucy,[14] The Tunnellers' Friends, which shows representations of animals that served during the war: reindeer, pack mules, carrier pigeons, horses, dogs, canaries, and mice, all above the inscription THE TUNNELLERS’ FRIENDS, THE HUMBLE BEASTS THAT SERVED AND DIED.[15] Around the archivolt at the other end of the entrance passage are sculpted animals and insects, such as beetles, spiders, lizards, butterflies, rats, hares, bats, birds, frogs, and bees; John Pearson stated that these were to represent the flora and fauna of Canada. The inscription around this arch is an excerpt from John Ceredigion Jones' poem The Returning Man: ALL'S WELL FOR OVER THERE AMONG HIS PEERS A HAPPY WARRIOR SLEEPS.[16]
The walls of the Memorial Chamber are divided into 17 niches designed by Ira Lake and A. Fortescue Duguid.[17] Each contain a marble slab under a gothic blind arch topped with a gablet and finial, and decorated with various badges and insignia, including those of, on the mouldings: Canada's 178 pre-1914 militia regiments; in the pierced quatrefoil panels: cavalry, and non-infantry field units; in the diaper background: pre-Confederation French and British regiments and colonial forces; on the gablet crockets: reinforced battalions; on the gablet springers: all branches of the Canadian Corps;[18] on the arch quatrefoil and cusps: Badges and insignia of Canada's 178 pre-1914 militia regiments: The Royal Canadian Dragoons, Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians), The Governor General's Body Guard, 1st Hussars, 2nd Dragoons, 3rd The Prince of Wales' Canadian Dragoons; on the arch spandrels: medals and war decorations of the allied countries; on the shield: coats of arms appropriate to the relevant historical context; and on the low relief panel: historical scenes of Canadians during World War I. The marble panels themselves originally described the various campaigns and battles in the theatres of war between 1914 and 1918. These, however, were replaced in 1982 with panels illustrating the Canadian Forces' engagements from the Fenian Raids to the Korean War, along with excerpts from the Bible, poems, and other literature.[19]
Windows [ edit ]
After John Pearson canvassed British artists in stained glass for designs for the Memorial Chamber's windows, he settled on Frank S.J. Hollister of Toronto for the task; Hollister's proposal was presented in 1925 to the Department of Public Works for the Governor-in-Council's approval. Each of the three 7 m by 3.5 m windows is divided into vertical quadrants by stone mullions and contain allegorical figures amongst heraldic symbols, including the Royal Arms of Canada, the arms of each of the provinces, and those of the United Kingdom.[20]
The Call to Arms
This window displays four allegories: Victory, as a woman holding a crown and surrounded by a laurel branch and a helmet on a shield; Labour, a male figure amongst objects such as a shovel, spinning wheel, and astrolabe, with the motto Fortitudo Industria et Pax (Strength Industry and Peace); Progress, a man holding a book and quill, surrounded by a celestial crown, weighing scales, hourglass, and galley; and Science, a male holding a microscope and flask, amongst symbols such as a globe and torch, all below a ribbon indicating metallurgy, mineralogy, and chemistry. These four figures are arranged above four lower panels, the first showing three inscriptions: THANKS BE TO GOD WHO GIVE THUS THE VICTORY, from 1 Corinthians 15:57,[21] FAITH UNTO DEATH, and ACQUIT YE LIKE MEN BE STRONG, both from 1 Corinthians 16:13.[22] Also in this section is a crowd of people bearing shields and spears, who represent the people of Canada uniting in response to the call of the man shown in the second panel, who holds a sword and trumpet, calling "To Arms"; at his side is a child holding flowers, representing faith and courage. This section also displays the words THOU HAST GIRDED ME WITH STRENGTH UNTO THE BATTLE, from Psalm 18:39.[23] In the third panel stands a woman supporting a rod entwined with winged serpents, the Rod of Asclepius, characterising the nurses of battle, and below her is the phrase TRUE WORTH THAT NEVER KNOWS IGNOBLE DEFEAT SHINES WITH UNDIMMED GLORY, taken from Horace's Odes. The fourth bay displays a group of men and horses congregating from farms, offices, and factories, while a fleet of ships rests at bay awaiting the men to carry them to war.[24]
The Dawn of Peace Looking up the south face of the Peace Tower, showing one of the Memorial Chamber's windows,
The Assembly of Remembrance
This is the south window, the first panel of which shows the archangel Michael holding a trumpet, representing the call to battle, and, above his head, a seated woman with children at her knee, symbolising the sacrifices of women and children in the name of liberty, honour, and justice, while in the lower portion an armoured figure bears the Crown of Victory in his hands. The second panel contains the inscriptions: AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN AND IN THE MORNING WE WILL REMEMBER THEM, taken from the work of Laurence Binyon, and FREEDOM IS THE SURE POSSESSION OF THOSE ALONE WHO HAVE COURAGE TO DEFEND IT, from Pericles, as well as, in the lower portion, an armoured figure holding a flambeau, and, in the upper part, St. George slaying the dragon. The third panel contains Lady Justice bearing the Scales of Justice and the Great Sword of Judgement, the sword-guard of which shows a figure in a crucifixion pose—representing suffering for both the victors and the defeated—and below her the words JUSTITIA LIBERTAS PERPETUO (Justice Liberty in Perpetuity). Beneath Lady Justice in this panel is the heroic figure of Canada wearing armour and helmet and holding the laurel wreath of victory, but looking mournfully at the Book of Remembrance, and behind her are two other persons, one symbolising Canadian motherhood and the other First Nations. The fourth quadrant shows Joan of Arc bearing a shield and standing before the royal coat of arms of France.[25]
The Dawn of Peace
Similar to the other windows, this one shows four figures across the top portion. The first of these is the figure of the Victory of Peace, holding both a palm branch and the sword of judgement, while a dove flies overhead. The second person shown is that of Prosperity, who holds a wheat sheaf and a sicle, and, next to him, is Progress, bearing a winged wheel and with the Lamp of Knowledge above his head. The fourth figure is Plenty, symbolising the replenishment of both material and spirit through noble pursuit. Arranged in the lower portion of the window is a crowd of people assembled in peace and led by three figures in the foreground and bearing the symbols of their trades: Industry holds a mallet and dynamo, Agriculture bears a scythe, Honour carries a torch inscribed with words from John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields: BE THE TORCH YOURS TO HOLD IT HIGH, and Motherhood, who is surrounded by children.[26] At the base of the second and third panels are the phrases: HE MAKETH WARS TO CEASE, from Psalm 46:9, and JUDGEMENT SHALL RETURN UNTO RIGHTEOUSNESS, from Psalm 94:15.[27][28]
Carillon [ edit ]
Accompanying the Peace Tower clock is a 53-bell carillon, conceived by an act of parliament as a commemoration of the 1918 armistice that ended World War 1 and was inaugurated on 1 July 1927, the 60th anniversary of Confederation.[29] The smallest of the bells weighs 4.5 kg (10 lb) and the bourdon weighs 10,000 kg (10 long tons), all cast and tuned by Gillett & Johnston in Croydon, England,[3] and which are used by the Dominion Carillonneur for both regular recitals and to toll to mark major occasions such as state funerals and Remembrance Day.[30] Each bell is stationary and is struck by its internal clapper, itself mechanically linked to the carillon keyboard, to create a note, a particular one on the music scale for each bell. In this way, the carillon plays similarly to a piano, allowing the carillonneur to change the sounds by varying the way he or she strikes the keys.[29]
History [ edit ]
The tower under construction in 1921
Coming immediately after the destruction of the parliament buildings by fire in 1916, the Peace Tower's conception coincided with the end of the First World War. With this in mind, Prime Minister Robert Borden dedicated the site of the tower on 1 July 1917, with the words: "[the tower will be a] memorial to the debt of our forefathers and to the valour of those Canadians who, in the Great War, fought for the liberties of Canada, of the Empire, and of humanity." Two years later, the Peace Tower's foundation stone was laid by Prince Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), during his wider royal tour of Canada, and the structure was topped out in 1922.[31]
In the summer of 1925, an informal ceremony was held in the Memorial Chamber, where in Governor General of Canada the Viscount Byng of Vimy; Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King; Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition Arthur Meighen; and the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces during World War I, the Earl Haig, laid the base stones of the clustered marble columns that support the fan vault ceiling.[32] The Prince of Wales then returned to Ottawa again in 1927 to dedicate the altar of the Memorial Chamber and to inaugurate the Dominion Carillon,[1] the first playing of which on that day was heard by listeners across the country on the first ever coast-to-coast radio broadcast in Canada.[29]
Starting in 1994, the Peace Tower was covered and the accessible spaces closed for a two-year conservation project aimed at reversing deterioration of the masonry and preventing further moisture penetration.[4] However, the machinery of the clock was not within the scope of work and, on 24 May 2006, the clock stopped for the first time in 28 years, with the display inactive at 7:28 for about one day.[33]
See also [ edit ] |
This easy vegan queso is naturally dairy-free and tastes like the popular dip made with Velveeta and Ro-Tel tomatoes. It’s surprisingly authentic, and is the BEST dairy-free vegan cheese sauce I’ve tasted.
Vegan Cheese Made with Cashews
This dip gets its creaminess from raw cashews. Not only do cashews have a lower fat content than most other nuts, they’re also loaded with iron and magnesium. Paired with fresh lemon juice and diced tomatoes, providing a healthy dose of vitamin C, this dip, unlike it’s processed counterpart, is practically guilt-free.
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How to Make Vegan Queso
To make this easy queso, all you need is a blender. I recommend soaking your cashews ahead of time if you have a standard blender, but if you have a high-speed one (like my Vitamix) you can even skip that for a faster dip.
I like to add turmeric for its anti-inflammatory properties, as well as its neon-orange coloring, but you’re welcome to leave it out if you’d prefer. (It doesn’t add much to the overall flavor)
What is Nutritional Yeast?
If you’re not familiar with nutritional yeast, it’s a deactivated yeast that contains B-complex vitamins and provides a “cheesy” flavor to vegan dishes. Because it’s deactivated it’s even considered safe for those on a candida diet. (You can read this article from Kimberly Snyder for more on nutritional yeast, if you’re interested.)
4.76 from 49 votes Print Vegan Cashew Queso Prep Time 10 mins Total Time 10 mins This is the BEST vegan queso recipe I've ever tried! Made with nutritional yeast and lemon juice, it comes together in just minutes for an easy cashew cheese sauce.
Course: Appetizer Cuisine: Mexican Keyword: cashews, cheese, dip, vegan Servings : 10 Calories : 86 kcal Author : Detoxinista.com Ingredients 1 cup raw cashews , soaked for up to 4 hours and drained
1/4 cup water (plus more, if needed)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1.5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
14 oz . can diced tomatoes with green chiles Instructions In a high-speed blender, or food processor, combine the cashews, water, salt, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, turmeric, and the liquid from the can of diced tomatoes and green chiles. (I was able to get about 1/4 cup of liquid from the can.) Blend until a smooth and creamy "cheese" sauce is created, adding a tablespoon or two more water, if needed for blending. Transfer the cheese mixture to a large bowl, then stir in the can of diced tomatoes and green chiles. At this point, be sure to adjust any flavors to your taste, then warm the dip using a small crock pot, or by heating it gently over a stove top. As the dip is warmed, it becomes even more authentic. Serve with baked tortilla chips and fresh sliced veggies. Recipe Video
Per 1/4 cup: Calories: 86, Fat: 5g, Carbohydrates: 6g, Fiber: 1g, Protein: 3g
Recipe Notes:
I think this recipe tastes the most authentic when using raw cashews, but readers have also reported success using macadamia nuts and blanched almonds. Feel free to experiment as you like!
For a nut-free vegan queso recipe, try my Sweet Potato Queso.
You can swap a cup of prepared salsa for the diced tomatoes with green chiles, if needed.
Reader Feedback: What’s your favorite way to use cashews? You should try my Cashew Cheesecake if you haven’t– it packs a sneaky serving of veggies, and no one can ever tell! |
A couple who claim they were ejected from a bar for kissing have withdrawn their human rights complaint.
Rebekah Galbraith, 22, told The Dominion Post she and her girlfriend Jennie Leadbeater, 21, decided "not to take any further action" with the Human Rights Commission.
The pair had earlier said they were told to leave the Courtenay Place bar about 2.50am on Sunday after they kissed on the lips.
"My girlfriend and I didn't expect this to get as big as it has."
The public pressure had been "incredibly overwhelming", Miss Galbraith said.
"I'm withdrawing my complaint because the publicity that this has received is something that I did not ever consider or anticipate."
CCTV footage viewed by The Dominion Post showed they were being affectionate before being asked to leave.
Public owner Gina Mills allowed The Dominion Post to view CCTV footage of the couple's movements early on Sunday morning. Mills had earlier said no CCTV footage existed.
The footage showed Jennie Leadbeater, 21, buying a glass of wine at 2.31am, before being approached by a young man.
The two chatted for a minute before Rebekah Galbraith, 22, approached and put her arm around Ms Leadbeater and kissed her on the cheek.
A doorman is seen walking through the area twice while the couple is at the bar, and does not stop or look closely at Leadbeater or Galbraith.
The couple remained at the bar kissing each other affectionately and hugging, before moving to a corner of the bar out of view of security cameras.
At 2.55am a doorman approached the couple in the corner and asked them to leave, with the pair exiting the bar quickly.Galbraith is seen questioning the doorman on the street, then Leadbeater goes back into the bar to retrieve a cardigan she left behind.
Mills maintains the pair were behaving in an inappropriate manner in the corner of the bar, and said any couple acting in such a way would also be asked to tone down their behaviour.
"I think we had nothing to be vindicated for because we were telling the truth from the beginning. We didn't tell anyone to leave for simply having a kiss."
When Galbraith was asked if she stood by her earlier claims now that the bar had reviewed CCTV footage she replied, "I stand by the support from everyone who stood by us during the last 48 hours but I won't be taking further action."
She would not comment further.
Mills said the last few days had been extremely stressful as the bar was "put through the wringer" for claims that were "baseless".
Related story: Lesbians say kiss got them kicked out of bar |
ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
The biggest surprise so far in the chemical analysis of Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s atmosphere is the high proportion of oxygen molecules. While such molecules are common in Earth’s atmosphere, their presence on comets had originally been ruled out.
Early on in the mission of the ROSINA mass spectrometer, researchers from the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern made an unexpected discovery when analyzing the comet’s gases: Between the expected peak values of sulfur and methanol, clear traces of oxygen molecules were detected.
It turned out that oxygen is in fact the fourth most common gas in the comet’s atmosphere, after water, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. As oxygen is highly reactive chemically, it was previously thought that in the early solar system it must have combined with the abundant hydrogen then present to form water. Nevertheless, oxygen molecules were present on the comet.
“We had never thought that oxygen could survive for billions of years without combining with other substances,” said Kathrin Altwegg, project leader of the ROSINA mass spectrometer.
Invisible from Earth
Molecular oxygen is difficult to detect with spectroscopic measurements from telescopes, which explains why this molecule had not already been observed on other comets. An in situ measurement by the ROSINA mass spectrometer was needed to make this discovery.
“It was also astonishing that the ratio of water to oxygen didn’t change in different locations on the comet or over time, so there is a stable correlation between water and oxygen,” said Altwegg.
Ancient Substance
In contrast to comets, it is known that oxygen molecules occur on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. That is explained by their being struck by high-energy particles from their respective mother planets, which does not exist in the case of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
The comet has been bombarded for 4.6 billion years, though, by high-energy cosmic radiation particles. These particles can split water, resulting in the formation of oxygen, hydrogen, and ozone, among other substances. These particles only penetrate a few meters into the surface, however.
In each of its revolutions around the Sun, though, the comet loses between 3–30 feet (1–10 meters) from its circumference. Since its last meeting with Jupiter in 1959, which set the comet on its current orbit, it has consequently lost more than 300 feet (100 meters) of its material.
The most likely explanation, according to the researchers, is that the oxygen originated early, before the formation of the solar system. Specifically, high-energy particles struck grains of ice in the cold and dense birthplaces of stars, the so-called dark nebulae, and split water into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen was then not further “processed” in the early solar system. The oxygen measurements show that at least a significant part of the comet’s material is older than our solar system and has a composition typical of dark nebulae, from which solar nebulae and later planetary systems originate.
“This evidence of oxygen as an ancient substance will likely discredit some theoretical models of the formation of the solar system,” said Altwegg. |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congressional Democrats are asking the Big Three automakers to submit a plan no later than December 2 for spending the $25 billion they have requested to rescue their companies, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday.
Democratic senators are examining a proposed automaker bailout bill, two sources tell CNN.
Congress probably would reconvene by December 8 to consider the proposal, which would be reviewed with an eye toward convincing the public that they would be well-served, the Nevada Democrat said.
"The key is accountability and viability," Reid said. "We want them to get their act together."
"Until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money," added Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a news conference in the Capitol. Watch why the Big Three bailout is stalled »
Reid said that so far the companies have failed to convince Congress and the American people that this bailout would be their last.
The CEOs of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC spent two days on Capitol Hill this week seeking $25 billion in loans to solve a looming cash crisis that could lead to bankruptcy filings for GM and Chrysler later this year or early next year.
Reid said the automakers would submit the plan to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut. Frank chairs the House Committee on Financial Services and Dodd heads the Senate Banking Committee.
Reid also told reporters that members of Congress from Michigan have come up with a bipartisan agreement for the auto companies -- "but it's their agreement."
There still is nothing on the table that could be approved by Congress or President Bush, he said.
"We're disappointed that those hopes have not been met," said Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who helped forge the agreement. But he said he was encouraged that the leadership was taking all steps needed to help the auto industry survive with bridge loans.
Frank defended the amount of time being spent on the automakers' request.
"We put through a bill putting $700 billion of taxpayers money at risk, although we hope to recover it," he said, referring to the stimulus fund approved for banks.
"There is widespread dissatisfaction -- not just in the Congress but in the country -- with what is perceived to be a failure of the recipients of those funds to carry out the intent that the Congress had."
He added, "There is a sense that we did not do a good enough job of safeguarding those funds. That's why we need to take time."
CNN's Dana Bash contributed to this report.
All About U.S. Senate • U.S. House of Representatives |
Radio hosts Matt Heath and Jeremy Wells in trouble over call from Ben Stokes' mum
The Broadcasting Standards Authority has ordered NZME Radio Ltd to pay $8000 for Matt Heath's live on-air phone conversation with New Zealand-born English cricketer Ben Stokes' mother Deborah.
The BSA has upheld Mrs Stokes' complaint about an item that aired on the Hauraki Breakfast Show on April 4 this year.
Stokes rang the Hauraki studio that morning to complain about what she considered to be unfair comments about her son made earlier by hosts Matt Heath and Jeremy Wells, who were discussing his final over horror in the World Twenty20 final when he was hit for four consecutive sixes.
FACEBOOK/HAURAKI BREAKFAST Matt Heath's on-air conversation with English cricketer Ben Stokes' mum Deborah has cost NZME Radio $8000.
READ MORE:
* Radio hosts Jeremy Wells and Matt Heath in trouble over call from Ben Stokes' mum
* Radio Hauraki's Jeremy Wells and Matt Heath - a history of controversy
* Editorial: Wells' and Heath's response to Ben Stoke's mother scandal a breath of anti-hero honesty
* A Kiwi history of dodgy DJ moments
* Ben Stokes 'felt the whole world had come down' on him in World T20 nightmare
Unknowingly talking to Heath, who answered the call, Stokes requested to speak to someone off air.
She was then told that she was off-air, when in actual fact her conversation was being broadcast live.
MOHAMMAD PONIR HOSSAIN/ REUTERS Ben Stokes' mother called up to defend her son.
Stokes then went on to articulate her concerns regarding Heath and Wells' previous comments about her son, unaware that the conversation was actually on-air.
Stokes subsequently complained to NZME that she was mocked and humiliated by Heath and Wells, and that the incident had breached her privacy.
At the time Radio Hauraki said the pair had been "suitably reprimanded, and are off-air tomorrow", although sources close to the pair said they were never due to be on air that day as they were headed to Las Vegas on a promotional jaunt.
NZME did eventually offer remedial action, including a written apology and a $3000 payment to Stokes or a charity of her choice. They later offered to pay her $6000 "in full and final settlement of all matters".
This offer was rejected by Stokes, who referred her complaint to the BSA.
When contacted for comment, Stokes' lawyer James Elliott said Stokes "doesn't have any comment to make, and the BSA decision speaks for itself".
Radio Hauraki has also been contacted for a response to the BSA's decision but have yet to return phone calls.
Their chief content officer Mike McClung told NZ Herald that the station accepted the decision.
"While the Hauraki Breakfast Show pushes the boundaries, we recognise that the actions of Matt and Jeremy overstepped the mark and we apologise unreservedly." |
Colt Lyerla (Photo: Washington County Sheriff's office)
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Former Oregon Ducks tight end Colt Lyerla was caught Friday after he escaped from custody in Washington County.
Lyerla escaped Thursday from the Washington County Community Correction Center, where he was serving six months for drug possession, according to county spokesman Philip Bransford. The center is a minimum-security facility across the street from the Washington County Jail.
Washington County workers found an open dorm room window and saw someone trying to escape. All residents were accounted for during a headcount except Lyerla, Bransford said.
Previously:Former Duck Colt Lyerla escapes custody in Washington County
On Friday, Hillsboro police responding to a reported overdose found Lyerla inside a Hillsboro home. He had overdosed on an unknown drug and was taken to a hospital, according to Hillsboro Lt. Henry Reimann.
This is the facility former Oregon football player Colt Lyerla escaped from Thursday. Was serving six months after a drug conviction. pic.twitter.com/DU0QaWtgep — Art Edwards (@artedwardskgw) May 5, 2017
Lyerla's condition is unknown.
Lyerla was convicted for heroin possession earlier this year. He was also sentenced in April for forgery after he pleaded guilty to using counterfeit money at several convenience stores.
A former highly touted football recruit out of Hillsboro High School, Lyerla, 24, was once considered an NFL prospect. He left the Ducks in the middle of the 2013 season after he was suspended for violating team rules. A brief stint with the Green Bay Packers ended after Lyerla injured his knee.
Lyerla pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in December 2013 and received a short jail sentence. A DUII charge in 2014 was dismissed.
He tried to make a comeback on Portland's Arena Football League team, but suffered a shoulder injury in the second game.
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