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"Creepy Uncle Sam" is doubling down! He’s got new ads out, and he’s using the image-sharing site Snapchat in his campaign to scare young Americans away from Obamacare.
Will he and his creator, the conservative political nonprofit Generation Opportunity, successfully convince Millennials they shouldn’t sign up for insurance via President Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act? The final answer to that won’t be clear until March 31 of next year, the deadline for 2014 enrollment, if then.
But Creepy Uncle Sam’s weird vibe does appear to have irritated Mr. Obama himself. At a White House Youth Summit devoted to the ACA last week, the president said “believe it or not, there are actually organizations that are out there working to convince young people not to get insurance.”
“Now think about that. That’s a really bizarre way to spend your money,” said Obama, presumably referring to the wealthy donors who fund those organizations.
In case you’ve never heard of him, Creepy Uncle Sam is a large-head costumed actor similar in appearance to a college sports mascot. But the frozen expression on his enormous face is ... creepy. There’s no other word for it. As we’ve previously said, he looks like a freaky, patriotic garden gnome.
And Generation Opportunity has employed him in ads creepy enough to be controversial on their own. In one, a young woman is set to have a gynecological exam, when Creepy arises from between her legs snapping a speculum. “Don’t leg government play doctor,” reads the video’s tagline. “Opt out of Obamacare.”
In October, Creepy starred in his own mini-Halloween movie, which ended with him making some kind of triumphant guttural roar over a stash of candy extorted from frightened Millennials.
On Dec. 5, Generation Opportunity dropped a new Creepy ad, titled “Not a Game.” It features a panning shot of a hospital while a female voiceover talks about why Millennials are opting out of Obamacare, interrupted by periodic buzzing.
At a crucial point the voice says her generation is not doing the ACA because, “We have not lost our [expletive] minds.” Her swearing is bleeped out by the buzzing sound, which turns out to be caused by Creepy Uncle Sam playing – and losing at – the old board game “Operation.”
Another ad released last week noted that Creepy will be on Snapchat, where users can share pictures and videos that self-delete after 10 seconds. But it’s not clear how extensive an audience he’ll reach on the site, which is popular with a young demographic, given that users have to request images from particular sources. Millennials that will sign up at creepyuncle.sam may already lean towards Generation Opportunity’s position.
Right now Millennials don’t appear convinced they can gain from Obamacare coverage, given its botched rollout. A much-covered poll released by Harvard’s Institute of Politics last week found that solid majorities of the Millennial generation disapprove of the president’s health reform package, whether it’s described as the “Affordable Care Act” or “Obamacare.” Fewer than 3 of every 10 Millennial poll respondents said they will definitely or probably sign up for coverage through an ACA exchange marketplace.
“Those are not numbers that suggest a population that’s poised to fall in line, do its civic duty, and fell warm and fuzzy in the process,” writes right-leaning New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.
The question will be whether that attitude persists. As a new Gallup survey has found, when it comes to Obamacare, younger Americans know the least. Thirty-seven percent say they are “not familiar at all” with the law’s specifics.
And it’s possible that Millennials just won’t really know what they’re going to do on health care until confronted by the hard deadline of next March, after which they’ll have to pay the IRS a fine if they don’t have health coverage.
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Many may remain on their parents’ plans, notes political scientist Jonathan Bernstein on his “A plain blog about politics.” Others don’t realize that state-based exchanges and HealthCare.gov are related to the ACA at all.
“I don’t think the poll tells us anything about what young people are going to do when they get to that point of seeking insurance,” writes Mr. Bernstein. |
LGBT is an evolving abbreviation, a process that, in and of itself, isn't so remarkable. Language morphs all the time, but what's happening with LGBT — like nearly all things pertaining to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, hits on age-old struggles around issues of sexuality, identity, gender and freedom of expression.
What should people be called? Members of the LGBT community have likely grown up hearing some pretty nasty words and labels. The bus ride home from high school was always hell for me. And even the non-pejorative words can get a little grating: Homosexual, anyone?
So, now there's LGBT, which has turned to LGBTQ in a growing number of circles, with the "Q" standing for "queer" — a controversial word given its past derogatory use — and/or "questioning." Also becoming more prevalent is LGBTQIA, the "I" stands for "intersex" and the "A" for "asexual" and/or "allied."
"It's very culturally and generationally driven," said Margo M. Jacquot, founding director of The Juniper Center, a psychotherapy practice in Park Ridge, of the ever-longer abbreviations coming to the fore.
The question is just how abbreviated should this initialism be?
Debate about this topic isn't new — take a look at a 2012 posting on Michael Hulshof-Schmidt's Social Justice for All blog, co-authored with his husband, Robert, titled "What's in an acronym? Parsing the LGBTQQIP2SAA community."
Using LGBT "explicitly calls out key components of a diverse group," they wrote, adding that "as shorthand goes, it's fairly effective, recognizing the spectrum of sexual orientation and gender identity in four simple letters. Of course, it can't please everyone, and like most compromises, leaves plenty of people feeling unheard."
"Orange Is the New Black" star Lea DeLaria addressed this issue in a 2016 interview, saying she favored using "queer" for all of the various communities under the LGBT umbrella.
"This is the biggest issue we have in the queer community to date and will continue to be the biggest issue until we learn to accept our differences, and that's the issue," she told PrideSource.com. "And part of me believes that this inclusivity of calling us the LGBTQQTY-whatever-LMNOP tends to stress our differences. And that's why I refuse to do it. I say queer. Queer is everybody."
Michael Hulshof-Schmidt said his views on labels haven't changed much since that 2012 post. They're "somewhat unwieldy," said the executive director of EqualityWorks, NW, a Portland, Ore.-based company that works with other organizations on issues involving racial and gender equity, and "intersecting" identities to create what he calls "a level playing field."
What's important, Hulshof-Schmidt added, is "for people to self-identify and for us to believe people when they do identify."
"Identity is huge," said Jacquot, a lesbian, when asked why these letters, these labels, are so important to people in the LGBT community.
While Jacquot said some will see LGBT as a "unifying umbrella term so people who feel marginalized, usually around their sexual being, have a home," she is concerned that when people "talk about LGBT, they talk about it as one community," when in actuality, there are "very, very different communities," some of which overlap.
Just how "encompassing" labels should be is explored in classes taught by Gregory Ward, a professor of linguistics, philosophy, and gender and sexuality studies at Northwestern University in Evanston.
"What can the public use successfully, and what will exclude people offensively," he said. "How do we strike that balance between maximum inclusiveness and coming up with a label that can be used without ridicule, and respect the community being referred to."
Ward pointed to the "tortured history" of words used to denote African-Americans over the decades. One should defer to the community itself in terms of designation, he said, but that's not the only factor in play.
"It's a shared language. We all have a say in it," Ward said, noting that while there is a history of specific groups taking ownership of a designation and saying, "This is how we see ourselves," the rest of community is free to use it or not. And that poses a question on the rest of society: What word do you use?
"Some people don't like that," he said. "A choice means a decision must be made."
And that choice "reflects our orientation, reflects our sympathies," said Ward, who used this example: "A terrorist for you could be a freedom fighter for me. It's an extreme example, but it demonstrates how perspective plays a role."
While Ward says there seems to be a "holding pattern" right now between LGBT and LGBTQ in public discourse, it is also a fact that as labels evolve, so do words take on new meanings. And words once taboo are finding a redemption of sorts. Take "queer," whose reputation is such that journalism stylebooks offer a caution on using it outside of a quotation.
But "queer" is how Hulshof-Schmidt identifies himself. It was, he conceded, a "slow evolution within me."
"I'm 50 years old. It was pretty harmful when I was a young child, and I've now become quite fond of it," he said. Asked why, he said, "I think it's a lovely piece of resistance against the dominant discourse."
For some active in the Chicago LGBTQ community, like Mike Oboza, June LaTrobe, Owen Keehnen and Alexis Mickler, more letters in the abbreviation mean greater unity, an opportunity for greater awareness and, perhaps, greater political muscle.
Oboza, a Park Ridge resident who works as a photographer and spiritual adviser, is founder of the Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago, which aims to "represent the B in LGBT," according to the group's Facebook page. The abbreviation represents family, he said, and the family is "stronger together" even if some members aren't talked about as much as others.
"We have to educate each other. Educate and not put ourselves down," he said. "Though we are a family, our histories are different."
LaTrobe, a 76-year-old transgender activist who is bisexual, said being included in "that little alphabet soup" is useful because it helps counter those who might seek to splinter the larger community. |
In a disturbing article endorsed by Planned Parenthood, one feminist writer claims “no difference” between choosing to kill a child in utero and the profoundly devastating experience of miscarriage suffered by millions of women across the globe.
A real champion of women.
In her piece for Romper titled, “I’m Miscarrying Right Now, & It’s Only Strengthening My Beliefs About Abortion,” writer Danielle Campoamor describes her experience dealing with “severe abdominal cramps and blood in my underwear” as she tries to equate miscarriages with abortions.
“There is a common misconception that the mom who miscarries is a very different person than the woman who aborts, but I’m here to say there is no difference,” Campoamor writes.
“Those two results of pregnancy, unplanned or not, are treated very differently by society in general and by the anti-choice advocates legislating away women’s right to choose,” she continues. “In this country, women who experience miscarriage are shown mercy and grace, and women who choose abortion are attacked and condemned.”
“Miscarriage and abortion are sisters,” she claims. “Just like my body knew what to do when an abnormal embryo implanted itself in my uterus, my mind knew what to do when a healthy embryo found its way to the soft lining of my uterine wall back when I was 23 years old, in an unhealthy relationship, living paycheck-to-paycheck, unwilling and unable to be a mother.”
According to Campoamor, who also writes for TIME, Cosmopolitan, USA Today, Buzzfeed, and Salon, it is hypocritical for her “friends who once labeled me a murderer” to “voice their sympathy and pledge their prayers if I reached out to them.”
“I will find comfort in the knowledge that every outcome of pregnancy — be it a miscarriage, an abortion, or a birth — is normal,” she concludes.
Planned Parenthood seems to agree with Campoamor’s conclusion.
Planned Parenthood Action on Twitter There is a common misconception that the mom who miscarries is a very different person than the woman who aborts, but I’m here to say there is no difference. I am both of those women.” [email protected] https://t.co/si6ejCrgrL
Perhaps Compoamor would feel differently if organizations, like Planned Parenthood, and their employees weren’t found to be profiting from fetal tissue sales.
The Department of Justice recently requested documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee in relation to Planned Parenthood’s alleged involvement in the sale of aborted babies’ body parts.
“The Department of Justice appreciates the offer of assistance in obtaining these materials, and would like to request the Committee provide un-redacted copies of records contained in the report, in order to further the Department’s ability to conduct a thorough and comprehensive assessment of that report based on the full range of information available,” Justice Department Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter which requested un-redacted documents, according to Fox News.
“At this point, the records are intended for investigative use only—we understand that a resolution from the Senate may be required if the Department were to use any of the un-redacted materials in a formal legal proceeding, such as a grand jury,” Boyd added.
The request comes after a 2015 undercover investigation by two citizen journalists who recorded undercover videos of themselves posing as fetal researchers while attempting to purchase fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood.
Second Planned Parenthood Senior Executive Haggles Over Baby Parts Prices, Changes Abortion Methods EMBARGOED UNTIL 8:00 AM ET, 21 JULY 2015 #PPSellsBabyParts SECOND PLANNED PARENTHOOD SENIOR EXECUTIVE HAGGLES OVER BABY PARTS PRICES, CHANGES ABORTION METHODS President of PPFA Medical Directors’ Council Mary Gatter Doesn’t Want to “Lowball” Price, Suggests “Less Crunchy” Technique, Says She Wants a Lamborghini Contact: David Daleiden, [email protected], 949.734.0859 LOS ANGELES, July 21-A second undercover video shows Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Directors’ Council President, Dr. Mary Gatter, haggling over payments for intact fetal specimens and offering to use a “less crunchy technique” to get more intact body parts.
In a more recent instance, DaVinci Biosciences, and its sister company DV Biologics, reached a settlement with the Orange County, California, district attorney’s office following allegations they illegally profited from fetal tissue sales
The companies have been forced to close their California operations, as well as pay $7.8 million through donations and biological materials to a medical school, Breitbart reports. The companies are also forced to pay $195,000 in civil penalties and admit liability.
“This settlement seized all profits from DV Biologics and DaVinci Biosciences, which they acquired by viewing body parts as a commodity and illegally selling fetal tissues for valuable consideration,” said Tony Rackauckas, the district attorney.
According to the civil lawsuit, the companies profited from 500 sales to research laboratories between 2012 and 2015. They also made a profit of more than $1.5 million by selling fetal body parts between 2013 and 2015.
The lead investigator at Center for Medical Progress (CMP) noted in 2016 that Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties (PPOSBC) is “longtime baby body parts business partners” with “sister companies DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics.”
“The DaVinci companies’ admission of guilt for selling baby parts from Planned Parenthood is a ringing vindication of CMP’s citizen journalism methods and accuracy,” he said in a statement while talking about the DaVinci settlement.
https://youtu.be/Bwn0QBhy2TQ
Sources: Center For Medical Progress, Breitbart, Romper
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Democratic Pro-Cochran Group Admits to Funding Racist Tea Party Flier in Mississippi
The pro-Cochran Democratic group All Citizens for Mississippi put out this racist Tea Party flier in Mississippi before the run-off election on Tuesday.
The dishonest ad claimed the Tea Party would not allow blacks from voting.
It was a lie.
The Cochran ad urged Democrats to vote for the incumbent Republican.
Between 25,000 to 35,000 Democrats helped Cochran win the run-off election against Chris McDaniel.
The Huffington Post reported:
An unusual coalition of activists and organizations have united in the hopes of defending Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) in his June 24 runoff against state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Miss.). As the Clarion-Ledger reported Tuesday, James “Scooby Doo” Warren, a Democratic political operative, says he is working with the Mississippi Conservatives PAC on a statewide plan to turn out votes for Cochran. Meanwhile, Bishop Ronnie Crudup, Sr. of the New Horizon Church in Jackson is affiliated with a super PAC called “All Citizens For Mississippi” that has run advertisements and distributed pro-Cochran fliers. The newly-formed PAC shares an address and chief financial officer with the church, raising questions about whether the church is illegally participating in the campaign. Crudup, who is African-American, told the Associated Press earlier this month that he voted for Cochran in the primary and that he felt his group “couldn’t sit on the sideline” in the runoff. “We recognized that Mississippi is a red state and more than likely will have a Republican senator, and therefore this decision, which is going to affect every citizen in Mississippi, is going to be made in the Republican primary,” Crudup said. “We therefore determined that we couldn’t sit on the sideline, but that we had to take some actions that spoke to our community about our self-interest when it comes to this race.”
Pro-Cochran groups also ran racist robocalls in Mississippi urging Democrats to vote for Cochran. |
Micheal Jackson and several other artists plan to take on The Pirate Bay. The king of pop hired the infamous 'Web Sheriff' to protect his rights. "Hey Michael - do you want us to pay you in small kids maybe?" was the first response of Pirate Bay admin Brokep.
The Web Sheriff announced today that Michael Jackson joined the Village People, UB40 and the rights holders of Bob Marley’s music, in an attempt to get compensation for the losses they allegedly suffered at the hands of the popular BitTorrent website.
Pirate Bay’s Brokep commented on the announcement by saying: “The common thing for all of these artists of course is that no one listens to them anymore.”
This is not the first time the Sheriff, aka John Giacobbi, has clashed with the Pirate Bay folks. Last November he announced that he planned to sue them in the U.S., France and Sweden for infringing the rights of Prince.
Web Sheriff will demand $100 million dollars in compensation, slightly less than the MPAA asked for last week. Adding them both together amounts to a record breaking claim. “The good thing about this is that we just broke TorrentSpy’s lawsuit. Maybe time to call Guinness, we like to break world records and we just broke one I think,” Brokep writes.
In the meantime, The Web Sheriff is still trying to get ABBA on board. “It would also be good/appropriate if the members of ABBA could take up the fight against these pirates, as they personify the Swedish music industry’s successes and are renowned ambassadors for Sweden, contrary to The Pirate Bay.” he said previously.
Again, Brokep disagrees, he sees The Pirate Bay as Sweden’s true ambassadors. “All over digg.com and other cool social networks there is always the comment “last place on earth with true freedom is Sweden” or ‘I really want to move to Sweden’,” he wrote a few months ago.
It will be interesting to see how this develops, for now, all the Web Sheriff has ever done is making threats. You would think that he must know by now that this has no effect on The Pirate Bay team. |
A hacker group has successfully ported Siri over to jailbroken iPhone 4's and 4th-gen iPod touches, marking the beginning of what could be a "whack a mole" response from Apple as it attempts to block the 4S's "killer feature."
The crack comes courtesy Steve Troughton-Smith and Grant Paul, who published their achievement via the Twitters, complete with screenshots (9to5Mac interviewed the pair last night with additional details).
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According to Troughton-Smith, the hack was created with a single line of code and a barrage of filesystem changes. Details of the hack are forthcoming, he said, once it's confirmed to work with the iPhone 4 and iPod touch in such a way that does break everything in a spectacular fashion. No release date for the Siri hack was given.
That Apple has probably taken note of this (even in private) is an understatement—the voice-activated Siri is at the center of the current iPhone 4S marketing campaign. This "exclusive" feature appears to be anything but. [AppleInsider] |
Both top brass and regular servicemembers express opposition to US involvement
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 2, 2013
The military revolt against the Obama administration’s plan to launch a potentially disastrous attack on Syria is gathering pace, with both top brass and regular servicemembers expressing their vehement opposition to the United States becoming entangled in the conflict.
The backlash began to spread on social media yesterday with numerous members of the military posting photos of themselves holding up signs stating that they would refuse to fight on the same side as Al-Qaeda in Syria. The photos went viral, with one post alone generating over 16,000 shares on Facebook.
Others have posted their photos on Twitter alongside the hashtag #IdidntJoin.
As the Obama administration prepares to present a draft resolution to lawmakers that is by no means “limited” in its scope and would in fact grease the skids for an open ended war, John Kerry and other State Department officials have signaled that Obama will simply ignore Congress if they vote no and launch the assault anyway.
This will do little to reassure a growing number of influential figures in the US military who are becoming increasingly recalcitrant about the United States becoming embroiled in yet another war in the Middle East.
The Washington Post reports that, “The Obama administration’s plan to launch a military strike against Syria is being received with serious reservations by many in the U.S. military, which is coping with the scars of two lengthy wars and a rapidly contracting budget, according to current and former officers.”
Republican Congressman Justin Amash also took to Twitter to state, “I’ve been hearing a lot from members of our Armed Forces. The message I consistently hear: Please vote no on military action against Syria.” Amash’s statement was followed by a series of tweets from military veterans who also expressed their opposition to the attack.
Business Insider’s Paul Szoldra also spoke to “sources who are either veterans or currently on active duty in the military,” and asked them if they supported military escalation in Syria.
“Most have responded with a resounding no,” writes Szoldra.
He quotes an active duty First Class Sergeant who states, “We are stretched thin, tired, and broke,” adding that the United States “(does not) need to be World Police.”
“Our involvement in Syria is so dangerous on so many levels, and the 21st century American vet is more keen to this than anybody. It boggles my mind that we are being ignored,” adds former Cpl. Jack Mandaville, a Marine Corps infantry veteran with 3 deployments to Iraq.
Not only are military personnel going public with their concerns, Politico reported that leaks of attack plans are also, “emanating from a Pentagon bureaucracy less enthusiastic about the prospect of an attack than, say, the State Department, National Security Council or Obama himself,” unauthorized disclosures that have the White House “peeved”.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the official US Marines website and left an astounding message calling on US soldiers to join the Syrian Army in fighting Al-Qaeda (click for enlargement).
The full text of the message reads:
“This is a message written by your brothers in the Syrian Army, who have been fighting al-Qaida for the last 3 years. We understand your patriotism and love for your country so please understand our love for ours. Obama is a traitor who wants to put your lives in danger to rescue al- Qaida insurgents.
Marines, please take a look at what your comrades think about Obama’s alliance with al-Qaida against Syria. Your officer in charge probably has no qualms about sending you to die against soldiers just like you, fighting a vile common enemy. The Syrian army should be your ally not your enemy.
Refuse your orders and concentrate on the real reason every soldier joins their military, to defend their homeland. You’re more than welcome to fight alongside our army rather than against it.
Your brothers, the Syrian army soldiers. A message delivered by the SEA.”
View a selection of US servicemembers expressing their opposition to the attack on Syria via the #IdidntJoin meme on Twitter below.
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FOLLOW Paul Joseph Watson @ https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News. |
I bet that in the future everyone will know the name of this Russian guy. Although today he is known only to a limited number of his fans in vKontakte. Let me introduce to you Alexey Parshukov , a young man from Omsk, Russia. When it comes to electricity, Alexey has a quality to him like Nikola Tesla. Um, did I mention he was from Omsk? Well, that’s about all that is known about him. Google isn’t too useful, and only vKontakte has any info on him, which has virtually no detail.
However, his work is pretty popular. You can find several articles about his photos online. Most are riddled with doubt as to their authenticity, claiming that Photoshop can do anything these days, but going through his images on vKontakt, I can see that at least some of these photos, if not all of them, are in fact authentic.
He has a gallery of 644 images on his vKontakte page, so showing them all is out of the question. Istead, I will pick some of my favorites and some that show he is not a fraud. If you want to check out his work further, just visit the links above.
Lets start with the cooler photos …
Now, lets take a look at some of the photos that, I feel, prove that he’s not a fraud. These are photos of some of the setups he has in his gallery. Judging by the comments on the photos, they are all his or friends of his that all seem to work together to develop these cool effects. |
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The inaugural World Drone Racing Championships (aka Drone Worlds) is the culmination of over a year’s anticipation for a truly global, world-leading first-person-view drone racing competition, and expectations were high. The event was held on Kualoa Ranch in Hawaii on the island of O'ahu, the spectacular setting which has served as the famous backdrop for Jurassic Park and many other films. The epic volcanic cliffs, which encircle the race course, create a rather dramatic backdrop.
Entering the racers’ village, the international nature of the event is immediate; it's reminiscent of an Olympic village, albeit on a much smaller budget. "The Worlds were designed to be very much like an Olympic style event," says Scot Resfland, chairman of the Drone Sports Association, the umbrella organisers of the Drone Worlds.
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Over 180 pilots, representing more than 30 countries made it here, highlight just how much FPV drone racing has grown globally since we first featured it back in mid-2015. As to be expected, the biggest national representation came from those closest to the site. USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and China all supplied numerous pilots, spotters, and support infrastructure, but more distant countries were represented, too. Denmark, Hungary, and Poland all manged to send pilots to compete, and France and Ukraine showcased sizeable squads. The UK, sadly, was under represented, with only one UK pilot present—Matthew Evans—despite Chi Lau, James Bowles, Brett Collis, Gary "Justice FPV" Kent, and current Drone Prix champion Luke Bannister all being eligible. However, there was no shortage of big names on board to entertain the crowds, including Shaun "Nytfury" Taylor, Minchan Kim, Brian "BrainDrain" Morris, and Mac Poschwald.
Competition began with the Aloha Cup—a paid entry competition which served as the final qualifier event for the Drone Worlds. This was followed by seeding events for the freestyle, individual, and wing competitions. There was also an international competition, pitting the USA, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Korea, Australia, and Russia against one another in a series of five point-scoring races. Ultimately the USA won with Korea taking second and team UK, or as they were known in the village, Team Brexit, managing a respectable third.
The final two days, Friday and Saturday, were set aside for the remaining pilots to battle it out for the top prizes in each category, and ultimately an individual Drone Worlds champion.
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But it was the Drone Worlds individual challenge that captured the competitive heart of the FPV drone racing community. Racers were whittled down to 32, following a series of qualifying events. Shaun Taylor looked strong throughout qualifying, setting the fastest lap times, although Zachry "A_Nub" Thayer, Cain "MAD_AIR" Madere, and Brian Morris all flew consistently well.
Australian pilot Ross Kerker and Malta's Mac Poschwald also emerged as early favourites, and there were many others looking like strong contenders. Thayer made the semi-finals, along with Morris and Poschwald. Madere came first in at least two of his races, entering the final as a firm favourite, likewise for Taylor. But not all fared so well. For Ross Kerker, a pro pilot, losing in this competition was not an option: "The last 12 months have been dedicated to this," he says. "If I’m top 10 I’ve done good enough, if not I’ll have to reconsider my career."
Sadly, luck wasn’t on his side. His first heat saw him retire early following a crash. He took first place in his second round, only to fail in the next. Leading from the front Kerker looked strong, despite facing stiff competition. However, on the final switchback Kerker was hit by a fellow pilot, taking both pilots out of the race. "I’m disappointed in the result, I’m not disappointed in my performance," he says, "but I don’t have good luck, I’m unlucky at drone racing."
The final race saw American pilots Shaun Taylor, Cain Medere, Paul "Bulbufet" Nurkkala, and Nick Willard fly alongside the Chinese pilot Kunhuang "Hailang" Li, Frenchman Couturier "SartoRius" Benoit, German pilot Niklas Solle, and Korean team member DongKi Han. The scene was set for an exciting final and many more spectators arrived to witness the action. Despite a fast start from all pilots, the first attempt at racing was cancelled after a crash at gate one and more mid-air collisions at gate three nullified the race. During a rather long pause while waiting for the race to be reset, perhaps to alleviate the pressure, Taylor and Madere entertained the crowed with a thumb wrestling competition—Shaun won—and Nurkkala hyped the fans by starting some Mexican waves.
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Eventually the race was restarted. This time, all eight pilots got good, clean, fast starts, and tension started to mount. Taylor led from the front, getting away from potential challengers by putting down an incredibly fast 30-second first lap. Kunhauang Li responded with a 34-second lap and Nurkkala managed 36. Li crashed on the third lap, taking fourth position and so too did Benoit, who finished fifth. Neither Solle, Madere, nor DongKi Han completed the race, with Han never making it past the opening straight. They finished sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively. Meanwhile, Taylor increased his lead, albeit with diminishing lap times, and Nurkkala and Williard pushed hard enough to secure podium finishes.
Taylor took a well-deserved win, his consistent flying paying dividends. But, ever humble, he was quick to congratulate and thank the wider community and heap praise on fellow pilots. "I’m just blessed. I’m lucky. I won today, but tomorrow’s a brand new day, it’s all about the next race. I’m looking forward to someone else whooping me next week," he says.
The event was, at various points, marred by poor communication, bad organisation, and technical issues, particularly regarding to timing. For many, this put a dampener on the whole experience. "I came here expecting a world-class event, which this is not," says Kerker. And for the evolution of the sport to reach a global audience and meet high expectations, much more needs to be ironed out before a world-class event emerges. But, for a first attempt, in a rapidly changing and growing sport, it won’t be long before something bigger and better comes along.
In the meantime, the opportunity to fly with the very best of the current crop of pioneering pilots in such a new sport, and in such a wonderful location was plenty enough for most pilots.
David Stock is a photographer based in London.
Listing image by David Stock |
Snout-less 'hero dog' Kabang arrives at UC Davis ANIMALS
Kabang, pictured here, had her snout and upper jaw sheared off when she leapt in front of a speeding motorcycle just before Christmas last year in an apparent attempt to save two little girls in Zamboanga City, Philippines. The dog, which has become a national hero and an international sensation, is being brought to UC Davis for reconstructive surgery. less Kabang, pictured here, had her snout and upper jaw sheared off when she leapt in front of a speeding motorcycle just before Christmas last year in an apparent attempt to save two little girls in Zamboanga City, ... more Photo: Anton Mari H. Lim, Courtesy Anton Lim Photo: Anton Mari H. Lim, Courtesy Anton Lim Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Snout-less 'hero dog' Kabang arrives at UC Davis 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
A dog who became an international cause celebre after her snout was sliced off saving two young girls in the Philippines was examined by veterinarians Thursday at UC Davis, a milestone event in a remarkable humanitarian effort to help a canine heroine.
The mixed-breed dog, named Kabang, became an unlikely star in the Philippines after she reportedly threw herself into the path of a speeding motorcycle just as it was about to hit two young girls crossing a roadway in Zamboanga City.
The lunge, by all accounts, saved the lives of the daughter and niece of Kabang's owner, but cost the dog her snout and upper jaw, which was sheared off when she got tangled in the motorcycle's spokes. The gruesome injury puts her in grave danger of developing an infection. At minimum, the gaping wound must be closed, a delicate procedure that is beyond the capability of veterinarians in the Philippines.
Kabang was brought to the William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, at UC Davis, where a team of veterinarians looked over her wounds.
"We are pleased with what we discovered," said Frank Verstraete, one of the veterinary surgeons who conducted an hour-long exam Thursday that included blood and urine tests. "We are confident we can improve her condition going forward."
Verstraete and fellow surgeon Boaz Arzi said they anticipate that Kabang will need at least two surgeries over the next six weeks, one focusing on dental work and the other to close the gaping wound on her face.
"Contrary to some rumors in the media," the hospital said in a statement, "there are no plans to fit Kabang with a 'prosthetic snout' or to replace her jaw."
The campaign to help Kabang was spearheaded by Karen Kenngott, a longtime critical care nurse from Buffalo, N.Y., who organized a fundraising campaign that raised more than $20,000 in donations from 20 different countries, enough to pay for surgery, airfare, visas, passports and a hotel stay for the dog and her handlers.
Kabang, referred to in newspapers in the Philippines as the "hero dog," flew into Los Angeles International Airport Monday night with Anton Lim, her local veterinarian. Her owner, Rudy Bunggal, had to stay home apparently because he could not locate a valid birth certificate and was unable to obtain a visa or passport.
Kabang's unprecedented journey actually began nearly two years ago in a swamp near Zamboanga, when the 57-year-old Bunggal found an abandoned puppy in a paddy field. He initially kept the dog with the intention of fattening it up and feeding it to his family, a practice that is not uncommon in the Philippines, but his daughter, Dina, 11, and niece, Princess, 3, grew close to the dog, according to numerous published accounts. They named her Kabang, which means "spotty" in their native Visayan language, and the dog became very protective of the girls.
The motorcycle accident, which left Kabang literally with half a face, touched hearts across the Philippines. Kenngott heard about the dog's plight, which prompted her to start a website, careforkabang.com, and opened Facebook and Twitter accounts. Her grassroots campaign was helped by pet lovers' websites, many of which have considerable followings in the Bay Area.
"It is a high-profile case for us," said Rob Warren, the spokesman for Davis' veterinary hospital. "It is a tremendous opportunity for everybody. I see it as a win-win all around." |
Donations have been flooding in for the pilot who was slapped with a fine for breaking aviation rules to save the life of an injured hunter.
Dave Armstrong was handed a $5800 fine in the Christchurch District Court yesterday. He had applied to be discharged without conviction at his sentencing.
But a Givealitte page set up by Scott Lee, the man Armstrong rescued, has raised nearly $20,000 and the donations continue to pour in.
The page was set up on October 15 to help Mr Armstrong with his legal battle with the Civil Aviation Authority.
In October Armstrong pleaded guilty to flying without a licence, stripped nearly two years earlier due to a medical condition, to save Mr Lee who fell down a bluff and broke his leg in 2014. |
The Raw Report: WWE Monday Night Raw 5-14-12 May 15, 2012
Welcome to The Raw Report.
Every week I’ll be dissecting WWE’s Monday Night Raw and analyzing what worked, what didn’t work, and what left audiences thinking wtf by breaking the show down into three categories: YES!, CHANGE THE CHANNEL! or WHAT?
Let’s get it on.
YES!
Triple H and Paul Heyman opening segment – Brilliant opener. This is how you raise the energy right from the opening of Raw. Heyman’s whiney, “what are ya’ doin?!” as Triple H grabbed him by the throat was superb acting. While I would have certainly loved to see more back and forth between the two, I found both men to be in top form during this segment.
Triple H cut a wonderful promo about Lesnar, criticizing Brock for leaving the business and offending legends such as Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels by his recent behavior. Instead of burying Lesnar, like many assumed Triple H was doing, I felt that the COO had a clear argument running throughout the promo: Lesnar is a bully who quits the second he faces strong opposition. Maybe Triple H is that one obstacle that Brock won’t be able to simply quit and avoid? Heyman, in turn, informed Triple H that Lesnar is suing the WWE, which added a bit of suspense to Brock’s relationship with the company. The WWE seems to be planting the seeds for a much longer program between not only Triple H and Lesnar, but Brock and the entire WWE infrastructure. I’m excited to see where they go next.
CM Punk/Santino vs. Daniel Bryan/Cody Rhodes – Oddly enough, I found Bryan and Cody worked really well together. I’m not sure what purpose Santino served in this match, other than the WWE not being able to find a better babyface to team with Punk. Why not bring Alex Riley back up? Or maybe even Zack Ryder? Punk’s angry facials to Bryan throughout the match were superb. Seeing Bryan simply laugh in Punk’s face from across the ring only further built his heat to fans at home. I loved that fact that Bryan ended the match by staring Punk down as he walked up the ramp, smirking the entire way. It’s interesting how Bryan doesn’t take Punk seriously, yet desperately wants to win the WWE Championship.
While many fans complain that there’s no build to Bryan/Punk, I can only slightly disagree. Obviously we haven’t seen the two interact enough. However, I think Bryan is already such an established heel, that it’s almost obvious why Punk wants to beat him. Who wouldn’t want to beat up Daniel Bryan after the way he behaves on TV each week? (besides me. I love Daniel Bryan). The crowd was hot during this match, giving Bryan plenty of heat and throwing out some vivacious “YES!” chants. I’d love to see Bryan take the title at Over The Limit, which could possibly lead to a feud with stronger builds at No Way Out or even SummerSlam. It would be fantastic to see Punk in pursuit of the WWE Championship again, which we haven’t witnessed all year, since it could impact the growth of his character.
I am somewhat bothered by the fact that the WWE isn’t acknowledging Punk and Bryan’s long history as competitors. Granted, WWE.com featured a piece about the two fighting in the independents, but it would be great to hear them cut a promo about working together since Ring of Honor. Why not explicitly discuss the fact that these two have been pursuing dreams of being world champions across the globe for ages? I’m hoping that we see these two work more throughout the summer. I think a Bryan/Punk feud could definitely draw in fans of indie wrestling who may not pay attention to the WWE.
Beth Phoenix vs. Alicia Fox – Oddly enough, my favorite part of this match had nothing to do with Alicia Fox, one of the main participants in the bout. WWE Diva’s Champion Layla, who was on the ramp during this match, caught my attention right away. She’s obviously a babyface, but her interaction with Beth had a heel slant. I’m actually very excited to see Layla vs. Beth, even if we don’t get that elusive Kharma return that we’re all waiting for.
Brodus Clay/Kofi Kingston/R-Truth vs. Jack Swagger/Dolph Ziggler/The Miz – This match, despite having Brodus to occasionally drag things down, had a lot of positive aspects. Kofi was spectacular and further proved how badly he deserves a big picture feud in the WWE. Likewise, Swagger/Dolph continued to remind fans that they’re the best tag team to come around in ages. Dolphin especially sold every move so well that it kept me engaged the entire time. Even Miz got a few solid spots during the match. Of course, a lot of fans whined about Brodus/Kofi/R-Truth dancing with young fans in the ring at the end, but it was nothing more than typical babyface celebration in my eyes.
Randy Orton vs. Chris Jericho – This was a very good match and did an excellent job of building towards the fatal four way match at Over The Limit. It’s amazing that within just week, the WWE utilized both Raw and Smackdown to help enhance the tension between Del Rio, Orton, Jericho, and Sheamus in preparation for their World Heavyweight Championship match at Over The Limit. Ideally, this is what both shows should be used for: allowing storylines to flow smoothly and seamlessly across brands.
CHANGE THE CHANNEL!
Kane vs. Big Show – This match defines unnecessary. Big Show’s awkward bump after Kane’s chokeslam was tough to watch. Again this week we continue with the theme of “poor Kane.” Kane deserves a solid feud more than a lot of guys in the WWE right now.
Big Show’s firing – This segment went on WAY too long. There is no need to see Big Show blubbering like a confused child. You may ask, “but James, aren’t you happy to see that Big Show is FIRED?!” While Big Show probably should consider retirement soon, this kayfabe firing, like all kayfabe firings, will ultimately prove to be forgettable.
John Laurinaitis/Cena segment: When Cena is good, he’s damn good. However, when Cena is bad, he’s terrible. This was a bad segment. Choosing to close the show with this interaction was ridiculous. Cena acted silly and treated the severity of his match against John Laurinaitis like an elaborate farce. It’s okay to be funny in the ring, look no further than Punk’s promos last summer with Cena to see how well comedy can enhance a feud. But there has to be a balance between humor and seriousness when leading into a PPV. This segment was solely Cena teasing Johnny. Why would fans tune in to a PPV where not even Cena seems invested in the outcome?
This bit encompassed everything fans complain about when they discuss John Cena; his inability to balance humor and seriousness in the face of a difficult opponant. Cena laughed everything off and acted as if his Laurinaitis was a joke. Of course, Johnny is hardly as tough an opponent as Lesnar, but Cena should at least make fans believe that we’re going to see a big match. Cena mimicked Ace in the style of Jim Carrey, proving that a bad joke from the mid-90s is still a bad joke in 2012. Humiliating Johnny would have been hilarious if Cena wasn’t facing him at Over The Limit this weekend. It’s already difficult to see Johnny as a formidable opponent for Cena, given both his age and history of being a corporate goofball on camera, but Cena certainly did nothing to help convince fans that they should purchase Over The Limit.
As a regular episode of Raw, I’d give this show a rousing YES! However, as a go-home show for Over The Limit? I can’t help but throw out an apathetic WHAT? The opening segment kicked off strong, and the build-up for the four-way match at Over The Limit was very good. However, the closing segment was terrible. We left Raw on a sour note, giving fans little reason to want to see Johnny and Cena fight this Sunday. The lack of build between Bryan and Punk is equally disappointing, unless we’ll be seeing the two work together at No Way Out or even SummerSlam. I am looking forward to Over the Limit just to see Punk and Bryan in a WWE Championship match.
Essentially, I want to enjoy the idea of WWE taking the risk to even let that match happen. I’m also very excited for the fatal four way match, which seems to have grown leaps and bounds in just a week. I just hope that the rest of the pay-per-view doesn’t spoil the whole night.
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Black Girls Rock!
Philly is already one of my other favorite cities for good food and art, now I have another reason to visit!
Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse is the first Black Female-Owned comic book store on the East Coast!
I can’t think of a better story to end this year with than that ofAriell R. Johnson, reportedly the East coasts first black female comics shop owner.Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse opens in the and coming Kensington part of town and will offer not only comics but a cozy coffeeshop vibe.
This “geeky” hybrid hopes to contribute to the burgeoning Kensington section of Philadelphia. Amalgam hopes to build community around comics, coffee, and relaxing with friends, and also through hosting geeky and diversity-themed workshops, movie/TV screenings, book signings, and BYOB nights. “I got the idea for the shop about 12 years ago, when I was still attending Temple University,” said Amalgam’s owner, Ariell R. Johnson. “My favorite coffee shop was directly across the street from my comic book store of choice. So, each Friday, I would buy my books at Fat Jack’s, go across the street to Crimson Moon, and read everything I bought.
Johnson hopes to highlight diversity in the shop—along with quality caffeine:
I
t will be a legit store, so expect to see the heavy hitters that we all know and love,” she said. “But in addition to those usual suspects, we want to showcase diverse comics, creators, and characters. We think that comics are for everyone and anyone that loves comics-women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community. We will actively look to stock titles that showcase people in these groups, right long with Superman, Batman, Captain America, and Thor.”
This story encapsulates everything that happened in comics in 2015: women in comics as characters, readers and carters were no longer a pleasant surprise but the way things are; diversity was often contentious and controversial, but widening the audience was not only a way to get more readers but in general, the right thing to do. And while we were saddened to see Locust Moon close shop in Philadelphia, hopefully Amalgam will carry the torch for indie comics. Also the coffeehouse/comics shop model is one that I’ve seen a few places. Having a “chill out” area seems to be essential to the community building that has kept local brick and mortar stores alive. It’s also part of the book shop tradition…and in 2016 comics stores are indie book stores not the Android’s Dungeon, something that the entire industry needs to embrace.
I saw this story posted everywhere on my FB feed over the last day or two, so people are getting the message and supporting it.
Congrats to Ariell R. Johnson and wishing her the best of luck for her store.
Liked it? Take a second to support Eryka on Patreon! |
Claim: Photograph shows a famine stricken child crawling on the ground while a vulture waits in the background.
Status: True.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2006]
The PHOTO in the mail is the “Pulitzer prize” winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine. The PHOTO in the mail is the “Pulitzer prize” winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine. The picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away. The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat it. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken. Three months later he committed suicide due to depression. This was found in his diary, “Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food no matter how bad it can taste and how full I may be I pray that He will protect this little boy, guide and deliver him away from his misery. I pray that we will be more sensitive towards the world around us and not be blinded be our own selfish nature and interests.” I hope this picture will always serve as a reminder to us that how fortunate we are and that we must never ever take things for granted.
Origins: If a hundred of the most talented members of the advertising industry were tasked with creating an image to illustrate the concepts of poverty and famine, quite possibly none of them would come up with anything nearly as grippingly and devastatingly effective as this 1993 picture by South African freelance photographer Kevin Carter. His poignant photograph of an emaciated toddler who collapsed from hunger on her way to a feeding center in famine-ravaged Sudan while a vulture ominously loomed in the background was originally published in the New York Times (which later described it as “a metaphor for Africa’s despair”) and earned Carter the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in the Feature Photography category, and the image has since become widely known as a metaphor for Africa’s despair.
As described in Time magazine, the scene Carter captured in his now-famous photograph was one he stumbled across during a trip he made on his own in order to cover the civil strife in war-torn Sudan:
In 1993 Carter headed north of the border with [friend and fellow journalist] João Silva to photograph the rebel movement in famine-stricken Sudan. To make the trip, Carter had taken a leave from the [South Africa] Weekly Mail and borrowed money for the air fare. Immediately after their plane touched down in the In 1993 Carter headed north of the border with [friend and fellow journalist] João Silva to photograph the rebel movement in famine-stricken Sudan. To make the trip, Carter had taken a leave from the [South Africa]and borrowed money for the air fare. Immediately after their plane touched down in the village of Ayod, Carter began snapping photos of famine victims. Seeking relief from the sight of masses of people starving to death, he wandered into the open bush. He heard a soft, high-pitched whimpering and saw a tiny girl trying to make her way to the feeding center. As he crouched to photograph her, a vulture landed in view. Careful not to disturb the bird, he positioned himself for the best possible image. He would later say he waited about 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. It did not, and after he took his photographs, he chased the bird away and watched as the little girl resumed her struggle. Afterward he sat under a tree, lit a cigarette, talked to God and cried. “He was depressed afterward,” Silva recalls. “He kept saying he wanted to hug his daughter.” After another day in Sudan, Carter returned to Johannesburg. Coincidentally, the New York Times, which was looking for pictures of Sudan, bought his photograph and ran it on March 26, 1993. The picture immediately became an icon of Africa’s anguish. Hundreds of people wrote and called the Times asking what had happened to the child (the paper reported that it was not known whether she reached the feeding center); and papers around the world reproduced the photo. Friends and colleagues complimented Carter on his feat. His self-confidence climbed.
But Kevin Carter was also a troubled soul, struggling with issues such as financial insecurity, drug problems, failed relationships, and the horrors of having witnessed multiple scenes of death — enough of a burden for anyone to struggle with, but in Carter’s case a burden made extra-heavy by the critical condemnation heaped upon him for taking the photograph that had made him world-famous:
Though the photo helped draw enormous attention to the humanitarian crisis that was engulfing Sudan, it was criticized by others who felt that Carter should have helped the girl and was instead exploiting her suffering for his gain. The real vulture, they said in vitriolic hate mail, was Carter himself. Some photojournalists might have easily dismissed such criticism, but it hit Carter hard and fed his self-doubts.
On 27 July 1994, barely two months after having received his Pulitzer Prize, 33-year-old Kevin Carter could shoulder that burden no more and took his own life:
The Braamfonteinspruit is a small river that cuts southward through Johannesburg’s northern suburbs — and through Parkmore, where the Carters once lived. At around 9 p.m., Kevin Carter backed his red Nissan pickup truck against a blue gum tree at the Field and Study Center. He had played there often as a little boy. The Sandton Bird Club was having its monthly meeting there, but nobody saw Carter as he used silver gaffer tape to attach a garden hose to the exhaust pipe and run it to the passenger-side window. Wearing unwashed Lee jeans and an Esquire T-shirt, he got in and switched on the engine. Then he put music on his Walkman and lay over on his side, using the knapsack as a pillow. The Braamfonteinspruit is a small river that cuts southward through Johannesburg’s northern suburbsthrough Parkmore, where the Carters once lived. At around 9 p.m., Kevin Carter backed his red Nissan pickup truck against a blue gum tree at the Field and Study Center. He had played there often as a little boy. The Sandton Bird Club was having its monthly meeting there, but nobody saw Carter as he used silver gaffer tape to attach a garden hose to the exhaust pipe and run it to the passenger-side window. Wearing unwashed Lee jeans and an Esquirehe got in and switched on the engine. Then he put music on his Walkman and lay over on his side, using the knapsack as a pillow. The suicide note he left behind is a litany of nightmares and dark visions, a clutching attempt at autobiography, self-analysis, explanation, excuse. After coming home from New York, he wrote, he was “depressed … without phone … money for rent … money for child support … money for debts … money!!! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners … “
Although the purported diary entry (beginning “Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food”) that has been tacked onto this photograph may sound like something Kevin Carter might have written, those words were not recorded in his diary, nor are they known to have been written or spoken by him. They were added to the photograph by an unknown hand after the picture had been circulating on the Internet for several years.
Kevin Carter’s life (and death) was the subject of the 2004 documentary, The Life of Kevin Carter.
Last updated: 12 September 2008
Sources:
Keller, Bill. “Kevin Carter, a Pulitzer Winner for Sudan Photo, Is Dead at 33.”
The New York Times. 29 July 1994 (p. B8).
MacLeod, Scott. “The Life and Death of Kevin Carter.”
Time. 12 September 1994.
McMurtrie, John. “A Photographer’s Burden of Seeing the World’s Despair.” |
October 4, 2014 – San Antonio Scorpions FC vs. Ottawa Fury FC – 1-1 D – Review
Ottawa (4-3-3) – Peiser 6; Soria 6, Trafford 8, Jarun 7, Richter 7; Ubiparipovic 7, Ryan (c) 7, Paterson 6; Mayard 7, Heinemann 7, Davies 6
San Antonio (4-1-4-1) – Saunders, De Roux, Cann, Janicki, James, Forbes (Soto 70′), Castillo (Hassli 90′), Menjivar, Elizondo, Restrepo, Gentile (Zahorski 83′)
Ottawa Subs – Dantas 6 (Heinemann 62′), Donatelli 6 (Paterson 68′), Oliver 7 (Jarun 75′)
Ottawa Goals: Richter (90+1′); Assists: Ubiparipovic, Oliver, Donatelli (90+1′)
San Antonio Goals: Castillo (11′)
Ottawa Injuries and Suspensions: None
Ottawa Stats Leaders: Shots – Paterson (3); Challenges Won – Soria, Trafford, Jarun (10)
Ottawa Tactical Notes: Remained 4-3-3 the whole match. When Jarun came off, Richter shifted to CB, Davies shifted to RB, Mayard shifted to RW and Oliver came on at LW
Ottawa NASL Overall Record: 8th; 7-5-11; 26 points
San Antonio NASL Overall Record: 2nd; 13-4-6; 43 points
—
NASL: http://www.nasl.com/matchcenter/gsmid/1634340
OFFC: http://www.ottawafuryfc.com/news/detail/uuid/18jv65rcnhpxg1l8gkyz44jfry/ottawa-sting-scorpions-with-last-minute-equalizer#.VDLm9GMxI3A
SASFC: http://www.sascorpions.com/news/detail/uuid/esupqsxkauu41vw9sui0jkhmp/scorpions-and-fury-draw-1-1-saturday-night-at-toyota-field#.VDLnc2MxI3A
Ottawa Sun: http://www.ottawasun.com/2014/10/04/fury-fc-steals-point-in-stoppage-time
Ottawa Citizen: http://ottawacitizen.com/sports/soccer/last-minute-goal-salvages-tie-for-fury
Soccer by Ives: http://www.soccerbyives.net/2014/10/nasl-week-14-look-back.html
Canadian Soccer News: http://www.canadiansoccernews.com/index.php?/page/articles.html/_/ottcityfootie/ottawa-fury-fc-at-san-antonio-scorpions-match-review-ottawa-fury-fc-snatches-a-last-gasp-equalizer-with-a-1-1-draw-r4891
RedNation Online: http://www.rednationonline.ca/Articles2015/FuryearndramaticdrawagainstScorpions.aspx
Twelve:
Goal Canada/Soccer Way: http://ca.soccerway.com/matches/2014/10/05/united-states/nasl/san-antonio-scorpions-fc/ottawa-fury-fc/1634340/
OFFC Review: https://offcreview.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/nasl-2014-matchday-23-ottawa-at-san-antonio-review
Blog Fury FC: http://blogfuryfc.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/3-players-1-run/
Fury Fanatic:
TSN 1200 Corner Kicks: http://autopod.ca/chum/28/podcasts/
RNO Ours is the Fury:
BBSC The Banter: |
Story highlights Carl Safina: Presidential candidates afraid to talk of impact of climate change
Sandy may be first storm that could change an ongoing presidential campaign, he says
Federal flood insurance enables development in environmentally threatened areas, he says
Safina: We've had warnings before, but haven't acted to deal with rising sea level
In three debates by the presidential candidates and one by the vice-presidential hopefuls, no one could bring himself to utter the words "climate change."
Hurricane Sandy said what all four White House contenders were afraid to say.
I've heard that some voters are undecided. Watching the debates, I became undecided over what's worse: Republicans, who not only don't acknowledge reality, but who genuinely seem not to believe reality. Or Democrats, cowed into silence on issues of enormous importance like climate change and its solution: clean renewable energy.
Sandy said things no candidate in America could voice without blowing away their own political career. She said: "Enough! Wake up. Take a reality check. And if you don't get it, it will get you; then you'll get it."
Carl Safina
Now, we got it.
Sandy is probably the first storm to change an ongoing presidential campaign . Katrina changed the shape of a campaign to come, contributing significantly to George W. Bush's unpopularity and tarnishing his legacy ("Heckuva job, Brownie") with lingering images of unpreparedness.
But unpreparedness requires, one might say, quite a lot of preparation. We build in places prone to flooding. We do that largely because subsidies encourage it. Federal flood insurance is a way the entire country subsidizes building and rebuilding in places destined for repeated hits.
We rely on overhead lines to bring electricity, lines vulnerable to falling trees. And when they fall, we put them right back. Underground lines are more expensive. But if you have to keep repairing the overhead lines...
We've created coastal bowling-pin communities; we set 'em up and the weather takes 'em down. I live in one. I'm guilty. In my defense, I'll claim entrapment, because I have federal flood insurance. You made me do it. So I just want to take this opportunity to thank you. But I'd like to also tell you, it's OK with me if you withdraw your generosity. In fact it would be better if you did. You help make us lazy. And by us, I mean millions of people living along the coast, whistling in the dark. And you help our politicians look away from the oncoming truth.
Sea levels are rising. They've been rising since the last ice age and that rise has been accelerating since the Industrial Revolution. We've had fair and continual and increasing warning. And yet, small coastal communities and cities as large as New York have done essentially nothing to prepare.
JUST WATCHED iReporters share their photos with CNN Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH iReporters share their photos with CNN 01:59
JUST WATCHED Obstacles and challenges after Sandy Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Obstacles and challenges after Sandy 01:40
JUST WATCHED Mom can't get help; two sons die Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Mom can't get help; two sons die 04:41
JUST WATCHED NY mayor: Marathon won't hurt recovery Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH NY mayor: Marathon won't hurt recovery 02:02
JUST WATCHED Search for gas gets more desperate Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Search for gas gets more desperate 01:45
Over decades, we filled many wetlands that are the natural buffers to floods. Shrinking the area of our wetlands has left adjacent areas more prone to flooding.
As the world continues warming, the warming tends to intensify storms. New York has been hit with two hurricanes in two years. That's unusual. And since at least Katrina, scientists have warned that hurricanes take their strength from the heat of the ocean's surface.
Hurricane Sandy—and being an independent—has given New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg the political cover to simply repeat what Sandy herself has so loudly said: "global warming." Now Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy is joining in, too, telling NPR's "Science Friday" host Ira Flatow on November 2 that, "I've been talking about global warming for years."
But was Sandy just a hurricane, or an angrier child spawned of unusually warm ocean waters? In one sense, it doesn't quite matter. David Roberts cast it colorfully in his Grist column , saying, "When the public asks, 'Did climate change cause this?' they are asking a confused question. It's like asking, 'Did steroids cause the home run Barry Bonds hit on May 12, 2006?' There's no way to know whether Bonds would have hit the home run without steroids. But who cares? Steroids mean more home runs. That's what matters."
These questions remain: Will the storms that come our way get stronger, more damaging? Will we experience more frequent damage from storms?
We'd better prepare ourselves for the answers to be yes. That's because, even if the answer is no, this storm, like last year's, exposed the Northeast's soft underbelly and our recklessly erected vulnerability.
The world is warming. Warming intensifies storms. Warming raises sea levels. You tell me what we can expect.
So, was the storm caused by global warming? Soon we'll have a more interesting question: Was the outcome of the presidential election caused by global warming? Did global warming affect the course of human events enough to make a difference in what we say, in what we think, in how we free our politicians to decide what they can do next? |
Bills coach Rex Ryan joins NFL Insiders and praises the character of DE Mario Williams, stating that he would like to have him back in Buffalo next season. (0:51)
After questioning in December the logic of taking a pay cut from his $19.9 million cap number next season, defensive end Mario Williams has changed his tone on the issue.
On Wednesday, he told ESPN NFL Insider Josina Anderson that "it's bigger than just the numbers" and he would be open to listening to the Buffalo Bills about reducing his pay.
The Bills have the NFL's tightest salary-cap situation this offseason.
"I would love to have him back, but we'll see how realistic that is," coach Rex Ryan said Wednesday.
The Associated Press reported in December, citing a person with direct knowledge of discussions, that the Bills would release Williams this offseason. The Bills can save $12.9 million by releasing him.
"Yeah, I mean, it all depends on what is happening," Williams told Anderson. "My thing is this: Obviously, I've had big contracts, but once you get on a team and you get around the guys, it becomes family. The guys on defense, we laugh and talk about anything. We do a bunch of stuff together, and off the field, obviously. It's bigger than just numbers.
"But at the same time, as far as what you said about [a pay cut] being feasible, a [salary-cap] crunch is a crunch. Obviously there's two great players on the other side of the ball [pending free-agent left tackle Cordy Glenn and left guard Richie Incognito] that need to be back. Like you said, I'm not an accountant, either. I don't even know how you can go about making it where it makes at least some type of sense.
"That's not what I do, so that's why I don't even worry about it."
Mario Williams says he's willing to listen to the Bills about taking a pay cut to stay and is willing to meeting coaches halfway about his role in the defense. Stephen Pond/Getty Images
Williams, who is entering the fifth year of a six-year, $100 million deal he signed in 2012, has the second-highest cap number of any NFL defensive player next season. While the NFL has yet to determine its 2016 salary cap, ESPN Stats & Information projects the Bills to be about $1 million over their projected salary cap, making them the only team that must shed salary before the 2016 league year opens March 9.
Asked after the Bills' Dec. 20 loss to the Washington Redskins if he would be open to taking a pay cut, Williams said, "If this is the turnout of our defense, how does that even sound right?"
Williams, 31, recorded 5.0 sacks this season, the lowest output of his career since his 4.5-sack performance as a rookie in 2006. Beginning in October, Williams expressed frustration to reporters about his role in Ryan's scheme, which sometimes had him dropping into coverage instead of rushing the quarterback.
Williams told Anderson that he would like to meet halfway with coaches on the issue.
"We didn't have -- at least I feel like for myself -- we didn't have common ground as far as give-and-take on the scheme," he said. "I have no problem listening, but like I said, at least have us doing half of the snaps of what we do best, and that's us going [on attack] and the guys in the [secondary] can cover.
"Last year I feel like we were way more blitz-happy than anything. I'm just saying we can meet halfway, so the guys who get after the quarterback can get more opportunities to do that, and set up your fill with the players inside you and make it happen like that. That's all I ask. I'm not saying throw the scheme out. That's what I was saying before. I never said anything was wrong with the scheme." |
"Todai" redirects here. For the restaurant chain, see Todai (restaurant)
Coordinates:
The University of Tokyo (東京大学, Tōkyō daigaku), abbreviated as Todai (東大, Tōdai)[3] or UTokyo,[4] is a public research university located in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877 as the first imperial university, it is one of Japan's most prestigious universities.
The university has 10 faculties and enrolls about 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are international students. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is among the top type of the select Japanese universities assigned additional funding under the MEXT's Top Global University Project to enhance Japan's global educational competitiveness.[5]
The university has graduated many notable alumni, including 17 Prime Ministers, 16 Nobel Prize laureates, 3 Pritzker Prize laureates, 3 astronauts, and 1 Fields Medalist.[6]
History [ edit ]
The university was chartered by the Meiji government in 1877 under its current name by amalgamating older government schools for medicine, various traditional scholars and modern learning. It was renamed "the Imperial University (帝國大學, Teikoku daigaku)" in 1886, and then Tokyo Imperial University (東京帝國大學, Tōkyō teikoku daigaku) in 1897 when the Imperial University system was created. In September 1923, an earthquake and the following fires destroyed about 700,000 volumes of the Imperial University Library.[7] The books lost included the Hoshino Library (星野文庫, Hoshino bunko), a collection of about 10,000 books.[7][8] The books were the former possessions of Hoshino Hisashi before becoming part of the library of the university and were mainly about Chinese philosophy and history.
In 1947, after Japan's defeat in World War II, it re-assumed its original name. With the start of the new university system in 1949, Todai swallowed up the former First Higher School (today's Komaba campus) and the former Tokyo Higher School, which thenceforth assumed the duty of teaching first- and second-year undergraduates, while the faculties on Hongo main campus took care of third- and fourth-year students.
Although the university was founded during the Meiji period, it has earlier roots in the Astronomy Agency (天文方; 1684), Shoheizaka Study Office (昌平坂学問所; 1797), and the Western Books Translation Agency (蕃書和解御用; 1811).[9] These institutions were government offices established by the 徳川幕府 Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867), and played an important role in the importation and translation of books from Europe.
Kikuchi Dairoku, an important figure in Japanese education, served as president of Tokyo Imperial University.
For the 1964 Summer Olympics, the university hosted the running portion of the modern pentathlon event.[10]
On 20 January 2012, Todai announced that it would shift the beginning of its academic year from April to September to align its calendar with the international standard. The shift would be phased in over five years.[11][12] But this unilateral announcement by the president was received badly and the university abandoned the plans.
According to the Japan Times, the university had 1,282 professors in February 2012. Of those, 58 were women.[11]
In the fall of 2012 and for the first time, the University of Tokyo started two undergraduate programs entirely taught in English and geared toward international students — Programs in English at Komaba (PEAK) — the International Program on Japan in East Asia and the International Program on Environmental Sciences.[13][14] In 2014, the School of Science at the University of Tokyo introduced an all-English undergraduate transfer program called Global Science Course (GSC).[15]
Tokyo University School of Law Building
Komaba Library
Main Building of Institute for Solid State Physics of the University of Tokyo
Koishikawa Botanical Gardens
Komaba research campus
Academics [ edit ]
The University of Tokyo is organized into 10 faculties[16] and 15 graduate schools.[17]
Faculty of Agriculture
College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty of Economics
Faculty of Education
Faculty of Engineering
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Letters
Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Faculty of Science
Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Graduate School of Economics
Graduate School of Education
Graduate School of Engineering
Graduate School of Frontier Sciences
Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology
Graduate School of Information Science and Technology
Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies
Graduate Schools for Law and Politics
Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences
Graduate School of Medicine
Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Graduate School of Public Policy
Graduate School of Science
Graduate programs [ edit ]
Todai Law School is considered as one of the top Law schools in Japan, ranking top in the number of successful candidates of Japanese Bar Examination in 2009 and 2010.[18] Eduniversal ranked Japanese business schools, and the Faculty of Economics in Todai is placed 4th in Japan (111th in the world).[19]
Research [ edit ]
The University of Tokyo is considered a top research institution of Japan. It receives the largest amount of national grants for research institutions, Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, receiving 40% more than the University with 2nd largest grants and 90% more than the University with 3rd largest grants.[20] This massive financial investment from the Japanese government directly affects Todai's research outcomes. According to Thomson Reuters, Todai is the best research university in Japan.[21] Its research excellence is especially distinctive in Physics (1st in Japan, 2nd in the world), Biology & Biochemistry (1st in Japan, 3rd in the world), Pharmacology & Toxicology (1st in Japan, 5th in the world), Materials Science (3rd in Japan, 19th in the world), Chemistry (2nd in Japan, 5th in the world), and Immunology (2nd in Japan, 20th in the world).[22]
In another ranking, Nikkei Shimbun on 2004/2/16 surveyed about the research standards in Engineering studies based on Thomson Reuters, Grants in Aid for Scientific Research and questionnaires to heads of 93 leading Japanese Research Centers, and Todai was placed 4th (research planning ability 3rd/informative ability of research outcome 10th/ability of business-academia collaboration 3rd) in this ranking.[23] Weekly Diamond also reported that Todai has the 3rd highest research standard in Japan in terms of research fundings per researchers in COE Program.[24] In the same article, it's also ranked 21st in terms of the quality of education by GP funds per student.
Todai also has been recognized for its research in the social sciences and humanities. In January 2011, Repec ranked Todai's Economics department as Japan's best economics research university.[25] And it is the only Japanese university within world top 100.[26] Todai has produced 9 presidents of the Japanese Economic Association, the largest number in the association.[27] Asahi Shimbun summarized the amount of academic papers in Japanese major legal journals by university, and Todai was ranked top during 2005-2009.[28]
Research institutes [ edit ]
[29]
Institute of Medical Science
Earthquake Research Institute
Institute of Oriental Culture
Institute of Social Science
Institute of Industrial Science
Historiographical Institute
Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences
Institute for Cosmic Ray Research
Institute for Solid State Physics
Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology
The University's School of Science and the Earthquake Research Institute are both represented on the national Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction.[30]
Rankings and reputation [ edit ]
University of Tokyo (Todai) is considered to be the most selective and prestigious university in Japan and is counted as one of the best universities in the world.[51][52][53]
Nikkei BP has been publishing a ranking system "Brand rankings of Japanese universities" every year, composed by the various indications related to the power of brand, and Todai has been 2nd in 2009-2010 in Greater Tokyo Area.[54][34] The university has been ranked 1st during 2006-2010 in the ranking "Truly Strong Universities" by Toyo Keizai.[31] In another ranking, Japanese prep school Kawaijuku ranked Todai as the best university in Japan.[32]
Todai was ranked second in the world, behind Harvard University, in Mines ParisTech: Professional Ranking of World Universities (2011), which measured universities' numbers of alumni holding CEO positions in Fortune Global 500 companies.
Todai alumni are distinctively successful in Japanese industries. According to the Weekly Economist's 2010 rankings, graduates from Todai have the 12th best employment rate in 400 major companies in Japan.[66] However, this lower ranking position is because of the large number of alumni who become government bureaucrats, which is more than double of alumni from any other universities.[67] In fact, alumni of Todai have the highest average salary in Japan, according to PRESIDENT.[68]
Campus [ edit ]
Hongo Campus [ edit ]
The main Hongo campus occupies the former estate of the Maeda family, Edo period feudal lords of Kaga Province. One of the university's best known landmarks, Akamon (the Red Gate), is a relic of this era. The symbol of the university is the ginkgo leaf, from the trees found throughout the area. The Hongo campus also hosts the University of Tokyo's annual May Festival.[69]
Yasuda Auditorium
Akamon (the Red Gate)
Letters building
Information Center
First Medical Building
Second Medical Building
Medical Experimental Research building
Medical Library
General Library
The Experimental Tank
Faculty of Engineering
Sanshiro Pond [ edit ]
Sanshiro Pond (三四郎池, Sanshirō ike), university's Hongo campus, dates to 1615. After the fall of the Osaka Castle, the shōgun gave this pond and its surrounding garden to Maeda Toshitsune. With further development of the garden by Maeda Tsunanori, it became known as one of the most beautiful gardens in Edo (Now Tokyo), with the traditional eight landscapes and eight borders, and known for originality in artificial pond, hills, and pavilions. It was at that time known as Ikutoku-en (Garden of Teaching Virtue). The pond's contours are in the shape of the character kokoro or shin (heart), and thus its official name is Ikutoku-en Shinjiike. It has been commonly called Sanshiro Pond after the title of Natsume Sōseki's novel Sanshiro.
Komaba Campus [ edit ]
One of the five campuses of the University of Tokyo, the Komaba Campus is home to the College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences, and a number of advanced research facilities and campus services. This is the campus where all the freshmen and sophomores of the University of Tokyo spend their college life. The University of Tokyo is the only university in Japan which has a system of two years of general education before students can choose and move on to special fields of study.[citation needed] The Komaba Campus is the cornerstone of general education, and was designated as the "center of excellence" for three new areas of research by the Ministry of Education and Science. There are currently over 7,000 students (freshmen and sophomores) enrolled in the general education courses, about 450 students (juniors and seniors) pursuing their specialties in the College of Arts and Sciences, and 1,400 graduate students in the advanced study.
Komaba Campus Building
Main Auditorium
Southern Complex
Shirokanedai Campus [ edit ]
The relatively small Shirokanedai Campus[70] hosts the Institute of Medical Science of the University of Tokyo (IMSUT), which is entirely dedicated to postgraduate studies. The campus is focused on genome research, including among its facilities the Human Genome Center (HGC), which have at its disposal the largest supercomputer in the field.[71]
Notable alumni and faculty members [ edit ]
The university has produced many notable people. 15 prime ministers of Japan have studied at the University of Tokyo. [72] Former prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa ordered Japanese government agencies to reduce the rate of employees who had attended the university's law faculty to below 50 percent due to concerns about diversity in the bureaucracy. [73]
Former prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa ordered Japanese government agencies to reduce the rate of employees who had attended the university's law faculty to below 50 percent due to concerns about diversity in the bureaucracy. Ten alumni of University of Tokyo have received the Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal (not include Dissertation PhD).[6]
Three have received the Pritzker Architecture Prize:
Nobel laureates
Scientists
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Media related to University of Tokyo at Wikimedia Commons |
Early one morning last October police forces surrounded the residents of Gompad, a remote village in the state of Chhattisgarh in eastern India, and attacked. Sixteen people were killed, including an older couple and their 25-year-old daughter, who was stabbed in the head with a knife and had her breasts sliced off. Her 2-year-old son survived, but three of his fingers were chopped off. A neighbor who witnessed the massacre was shot in the leg as she tried to escape. What prompted the rampage? The cops suspected the villagers of sympathizing with Maoist insurgents, believing that some were informants. A criminal case has been filed by the survivors against the state.
Business as usual in this part of the world. The Indian government is trying to exterminate Maoists known as Naxalites and since 2004 have killed 1,300 of them; trapped in the crossfire, 2,900 villagers have also died.
The Naxalites have claimed their share of victims, too. A few months before the Gompad attack Vimal Meshram, a village head, was gunned down by Maoists in a market in the same district (Bastar). His crime: He was an outspoken supporter of a plant that Tata Steel, one of India's luminary companies, has been trying to build for the past five years . He is one of 1,650 or more people--villagers, police and police-backed vigilantes--who have been killed by Maoists, just in this district. In the bloodiest attack yet, 80 or more paramilitary troops were killed in early April as they tried to flush out Maoist rebels in the forests of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh.
This is India's dirty war: a brutal struggle over valuable real estate that pits the Naxalites against some of the nation's most powerful commercial interests. What began 43 years ago as a small but violent peasant insurrection in Naxalbari, a West Bengal village, is now a full-fledged conflict led by the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) across 20 of the country's 28 states (see map below), affecting 223 districts. The fight is over land, much of it in the interior, that has rich deposits of coal and bauxite. On one side of the struggle are the rebels--perhaps 10,000 of them armed and out in the field every day, and a militia of 100,000 who can be called up on short notice. Driven by a violent ideology, the Naxalites claim to be fighting for the land rights of the poor, especially farmers and small indigenous tribes who know only an agrarian way of life. On the other side are the wealthy families behind Tata Steel, Jindal Steel & Power and Vedanta Resources (run by mining mogul Anil Agarwal), who want to develop the untapped resources. (The three companies rank 345, 1,131 and 923 on the Global 2000 list.) Caught in the middle of the conflict between Maoists and billionaires are thousands of villagers. (See: "My Family's Narrow Escape From India's Dirty War")
In principle there ought to be an economic answer to the economic question of whether a steel mill is a better use of land than a farm. If the mill is so valuable, why can't its owner offer the peasants an irresistible sum to leave? But here the market takes a back seat behind politics and thuggery.
It's no mystery why things have gotten worse. "India's boom period has coincided with maximum dissent and dissatisfaction in rural India," says Ajai Sahni, executive director for the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi think tank. Over the last decade the Indian government has been trying by legal and other means to lock up the land for public projects like power plants and, more recently, for private enterprises like Tata. (Under the Indian constitution nontribal people are prohibited from directly acquiring land in certain parts of the country, so the government must obtain it on their behalf and sell it to the companies.) That trend has put the state more and more in conflict with the Maoist rebels, and it has ratcheted up paramilitary operations against them. The government has also squared off more frequently against those who have farmed the land for centuries, using various legal entitlements--and, villagers often claim, resorting to fraud or force--to gain possession of the property. Other times the state simply seizes the land, labeling any resistance rebel-inspired. Hundreds of thousands of people have been dispossessed and displaced. Many now live in what could become permanent refugee camps, where they are prey to both sides of the proxy war and easy converts to radicalism.
Dantewada in Bastar is the epicenter of Naxal activity, where the New Delhi government launched a "cleansing" operation last fall. It also happens to be 50 miles from the town of Jagdalpur, the site of a planned factory by Tata Steel that will produce 5 million tons a year, and close to iron ore mines that could feed the plant. For the past five years the government has been trying to acquire 5,050 acres across ten villages that will affect 1,750 landowners but has met with resistance even as it is being accused of bullying and pressure tactics. Tata washes its hands of those allegations. "Land acquisition is the government's job," says a spokesperson.
Acres of rice, chickpeas and lentils stretch to the horizon. Standing among rows of chickpeas on his 6 acres, Hidmo Mandavi, the village head, says Tata reps have been telling him and other farmers to sell the land and have offered them jobs in the new steel factory. "We're not engineers," he says. "We'll get jobs--but jobs where we'll be serving water to others or sweeping the floors. Right now we live like owners. Why should we become servants?"
Their defiance doesn't go down well, even in the world's largest democracy. The police have been breaking up gatherings of as few as five people. A couple of winters ago two busloads of villagers were on their way to meet the governor of Chhattisgarh to complain about being bullied into selling their land for the Tata plant when the police stopped their buses and hauled them off to jail. Mashre Mora, 46, a farmer in the nearby Dabpal village who refused to sell out, was arrested a third time after returning from a weekly village gathering where farmers discuss issues like water supply, crop infestation and disputes with their neighbors. Charge: disturbing the peace. That evening about 40 cops came to his house, broke the lock and dragged him out. "I've told them I won't give up my land," he says. "I'm uneducated and can't get a job in an office, so once the money runs out what will I do? I only have the support of my farming, I don't have anything else." (The police say they have no involvement in land acquisition and show up only to hunt Maoists.)
Red Tide
The spread of the Maoist insurgency.
Some villagers have found their names on lists of people who have sold their land--even though they say they haven't. Kamal Gajbiya, 40, is a towering, muscular figure with a thick beard. A resident of Kumbli village, he owns 8 acres along with his brother, sister and mother, and has met the same fate as Mora. On each trip to prison, he says, people he thought were Tata reps, accompanied by government officials, asked him to part with his land. (In its blanket denial of abuses, Tata declined to address specific incidents.) "They said, 'We'll let you go; take the money,'" Gajbiya recalls. "I said, 'I'm a prisoner, and I cannot talk to you.'" Last May he found out his name and those of his sister and mother had been struck from the revenue records because they had supposedly sold their farms. Gajbiya filed complaints with the Ministry of Information before he finally received a copy of the records. He also got copies of letters from 1,750 farmers--all of whom had purportedly sold their land--stating their opposition to selling.
There's nothing subtle about the threats. A teacher, Retu Ram, was told he'd be transferred to another district if he didn't sell. That's what happened to a colleague. In another village, Banga Peeta Aito, a farmer of 60 or so, had been in prison for a month on charges of disturbing the peace. His sons were told that unless they agreed to take the check from Tata, their father would rot in jail. They finally accepted it--and their father was released the next day, they say.
Tata says it was invited in by the government of Chhattisgarh and that it is bringing economic opportunity to the area, a frequent claim made by corporations. "Although rich in mineral resources, Bastar is among the most backward regions of the country," says a Tata spokesperson. "[The plant] will give a fillip to all-round development in the region." The company, he adds, paid double the amount per acre set by the government; it plans to offer to exchange real estate, perhaps acre for acre for up to 2.5 acres of land lost, as well as technical training and jobs to one member from each affected family. Moreover, Tata says that 70% of the residents have accepted its offers and the rest are coming around. (Villagers dispute the assertion that the payments were generous and say there are still many holdouts.) "Youth of the area is in favor of industrialization, in which they see their future," says the spokesperson.
Roughly 400 miles north, the thickly forested area in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh gives way to black, as soot blankets shrubs, the road, everything. Jindal Steel & Power dominates the region with its steel plant, coal mines and a 1,000-megawatt coal-powered plant. Naveen Jindal, executive chairman and Member of Parliament (Congress Party), has transformed the company from a moderate performer into a star. (His mother, Savitri, is chairman of the holding company, O.P. Jindal Group, and ranks number 44 on the forbes billionaires list with an estimated net worth of $12.2 billion.) Naveen's is among the lowest-cost steel producers, thanks to supplies of iron ore and electric power and use of sponge iron, which takes cheap bituminous coal transported by a 4.2-mile-long pipeline instead of the more expensive imported anthracite. To keep up this cycle of growth, Jindal needs more land. That push has created strife.
Residents say they aren't allowed to voice their concerns at public hearings to decide whether Jindal can build an additional $2.4 billion, 2.4-gigawatt coal-fired power plant in the same region. At one such meeting in January 2008 seven people, including Harihar Patel, the Khamaria village head, were beaten by police; some were hospitalized for a week. "The company has a 'no objection' certificate okaying the project, but we never gave it," says Patel. "Most of these hearings are being forged," adds Ramesh Agrawal, who runs an Internet cafe that funds his efforts to pursue court cases against Jindal and to inform villagers about their legal rights. "[We] had no role in conducting the public hearing except for making a brief presentation about the project," says Jindal. "I believe some people wanted to create trouble and the police had to intervene to maintain peace."
Krishna Lal Sao doesn't seem like a troublemaker. In 2003, he says, Jindal Power dumped 1,100 truckloads of mud on his 2 acres of arable land before his crop was harvested. Sao, a police employee who farmed on the side, says fellow cops wouldn't let him register a complaint and harassed him to the point that he resigned in late 2005. In March 2007 a district court gave him title to his land and directed the police to restore his property. However, without his permission, Jindal put up a cooling tower and warehouse on that same acreage. Sao has given up and started a stationery store. Raghunath Choudhary lost his 5.5 acres, he says, after Jindal put a boundary wall around it in 2004. He tried to fight in court, to no avail. Choudhary blames both the 2007 suicide of his younger son and his wife's recent fatal heart attack on stressful circumstances caused by Jindal. A separate 1.5-acre plot, he says, fell to the company in October when it set up a mixing plant there. Now he and his remaining son are forced to farm someone else's land.
Jindal Steel says Sao's and Choudhary's land was acquired after the Chhattisgarh Industrial Development Corp. followed due process. The two farmers say their land was seized to develop a "greenbelt." (Today the belt consists of a cooling tower and warehouse.) Their review petitions were rejected by the High Court of Chhattisgarh. Naveen Jindal adds: "There is some initial resistance as villagers are obviously aspiring to obtain maximum prices for their land and other benefits."
Many villagers--some driven out by the Naxalites, others by police on orders from state officials--end up in refugee camps. Dornapal, in the heart of the conflict-riddled Bastar district, is one of 23 camps, containing 45,000 or more people, run by a state-backed civilian militia known as Salwa Judum (literally, "purification hunt"). Row after row of single-room mud huts with thatched roofs line the camp, punctuated by occasional piles of garbage and hand pumps, where women fill buckets and children (who should be in the camp's elementary school) bathe. There is no work for the farmers. A few may chance a day trip to check on the land they were forced from, even sneak sowing a crop. Most just hang out; the air is filled with the acrid smoke of bidis, the cheapest cigarettes.
Kathar Ganga arrived at Dornapal roughly five years ago. He says that Maoists held a meeting in his village and accused his son, then 20 years old and newly married, of being a police informant. They killed him in front of everyone. Another resident, Markam Joge, 21, earns $46 a month as a police officer for the Judum and supposedly protects the refugees. He's married and has a 5-year-old child. "I will raise my daughter here in the camp," he says. "I do miss my village, but now that I've picked up arms I can't go back."
Salwa Judum members aren't merely the protectors of the villagers, as they claim. "There is a complete collapse of the rule of law--with the root cause of violence in the area being the Salwa Judum and Naxal counterattacks," says Nandini Sundar, a sociology professor at the Delhi School of Economics. Some 15 miles from the Dornapal camp, deep in the forests and inaccessible even by mud road, is Naindra village, inhabited by an indigenous tribe. In 2006 the Salwa Judum raided the old part of Naindra and burned down homes before attacking new Naindra. Those who didn't escape, like Muchaki Ganga's father, were killed. "They slit his throat with a knife and left [his neck] hanging by a piece," he says. "I'm too scared to go to the police. They'd finish us off if we complained." Not so, says Amresh Mishra, superintendent of police for Dantewada. "There are many incidents where Naxals have done this and blamed it on Salwa Judum and the police."
After the houses were torched, Maoists came and gave the villagers clothes. The Judum returned twice more, set fire to the homes and abducted two boys and a girl who have never been seen since. The village was lately rebuilt by Himanshu Kumar, who has run an ashram and a nonprofit to teach literacy and basic hygiene in the heart of Naxal territory for the past 18 years. An ardent supporter of the tribals, he has recorded atrocities by the police, the Judum and the government. He has also supported perhaps 600 legal complaints against them, many still grinding through the court system. The cops are now trying to tag him as a Maoist. Kumar says there's an easy way out of this mess: "If you want peace, give the tribals schools, hospitals, ration shops--the Naxals will never interfere with any of this."
Not so easy, says Dilip Choudhary, Additional Secretary to the Home Ministry. The Maoists, he says, "have refused to respond to the simple call to give up violence"--the condition the government has set for talks.
Next door, in the state of Orissa, villagers have been fighting off a five-year push by South Korea's Pohong Iron & Steel Co. ( Posco , number 137 in the Global 2000) to acquire 4,400 acres in order to build what would become the world's third-largest steel plant, producing 12 million tons a year. The resistance is headed by Abhay Sahoo, a leader of the leftist Congress Party of India--unlike the party of the Maoists, it is legal and largely supported by farmers and some labor unions. Farmers from four villages have barricaded and patrol all access roads to keep out police, government and company officials. The area is rich in cash crops, particularly cashew nuts and betel nut leaves that sell for 2 cents apiece. "[Everyone] from a 10-year-old boy to an 80-year-old man can earn at least $109 per month just from harvesting these leaves," says Sahoo. "If Posco is allowed in, this economy and livelihood will be destroyed as no company can employ so many people or pay as well."
Over the last couple of years, in two episodes, pro-Posco sympathizers have thrown homemade bombs at anti-Posco villagers, resulting in one death and multiple injuries. In January 2010 four Posco employees entered the villages to carry out a land survey and were captured by Sahoo's men. They were held the entire day and released only after they signed a letter promising not to return. "We told them this is a warning--come back at your own risk," says Sahoo, who has 37 police cases against him for his resistance and has served 10 1/2 months in prison on charges that include attempted murder and kidnapping. There are 150 or so cases against the villagers and warrants for 642 others hiding there. "If the state will create violence, retaliation is a must," says Sahoo.
The land belongs to the government, says a Posco spokesperson. Villagers, he adds, have encroached on it for at least a couple of generations. "India is in grave danger of losing the development race against China," he says. "India produces a twelfth of China's steel and wants to double this in the next two years but can't do that without such megaprojects."
On the western side of Orissa there is push-back against Vedanta Resources. Run by mining tycoon Anil Agarwal (number 113 among the FORBES billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $6.4 billion), Vedanta is trying to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri Hills to produce aluminum. For generations the Dongria Kondh, an indigenous tribe of 8,000, has been has been living off the bounty of the thick forests--home to tigers, barking deer, elephants and bison, as well as to hardwoods like the flowering sal trees. The region also holds an estimated 2 billion tons of bauxite along a 300-mile belt. Mukesh Kumar, Vedanta Aluminum's chief operating officer, says the mining and land lease is with the state-owned Orissa Mining Corp., which plans to acquire just 1,800 acres of Niyamgiri and intends to mine only half of that. Because of tribal opposition, though, Vedanta has been able to build only an aluminum refinery nearby. Profits are minimal because it must import bauxite from other regions.
The refinery's emissions, along with the waste-disposal pond, may well be making life hazardous for residents. Last year villagers say nine people died of complications from tuberculosis and bronchitis; the government admits to only one. Kumar says the state is aware of the health problems and is investigating. In February Amnesty International issued a damning report on the refinery and the proposed mine--harsh enough that the Church of England and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust sold their $5.7 million and $2.9 million investments, respectively, in Vedanta. "Local NGOs are anti-industry and instigating people," Kumar fumes. "This is not an agitation against a project but a movement against industry in Orissa."
That may be. The Dongrias still come to sell their wares at a weekly market in the heart of the forest, bearing lentils, rice, dried fish, tobacco, potatoes, ginger, turmeric and bananas. "Other than salt I get everything from these hills," says Ranga, a tribal member, through a translator. He earns his living with the ax that casually rests on one shoulder. But he's apparently prepared to use it in defense of his way of life. "We will kill with this," he says, gripping the handle. "We will not let the company come in here."
See Also:
My Family's Narrow Escape From India's Dirty War
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Hey Language Learner: A short story for You
Jeremy 제레미 Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 23, 2015
There are two people. The first person has lived on an apple farm their whole life and the second person has lived and stayed in the city since birth. The First has seen, in immense detail, how the trees grow from seed, to sapling, to tree, to fruit, and back to seed again. The Second has only really seen the fruit, perhaps a seed that has fallen out here and there. A lifetime of only observing the fruits of others’ labor has left a lasting effect on the Second. It’s all about results. And with no knowledge of the process behind those results, inevitably it seems quite easy. But one day, the Second takes a bite out of an apple and a seed falls to the ground. That seed becomes an idea. “I’m going to grow an apple tree of my own!” the Second says.
A month later, after finding a nice apple farm outside the city, the Second meets the First and they begin talking about apple trees.
“This can’t be that hard,” says the Second, referring to the process of making apples, “I have plenty of seeds right here, I just have to put them in the ground and let them grow!”
With a small half smile the First says, “It makes sense that you would see it that way, having lived in the city your whole life, only ever seeing the fruits of others’ labor. But I assure you, it is nowhere near that simple.”
The Second quickly responded, “What do you mean? I guess you’re right, there must be other things you have to do. Watering and stuff… Right?”
“Yes. There are many more things to do actually, more than just watering. One must plant the seeds at the proper depth, or they will die before becoming saplings. One must place them in the right setting, otherwise they won’t get the sun or nutrients they need. One must water them daily, otherwise they will wither away and will never yield fruit. But most of all, more than all of this, one must love their tree. Because without love, all of the time it takes to do all these tasks will seem like a chore. And if they seem like a chore then, well… you’ll probably start taking shortcuts or forget about your tree all together. It’s not just about planting a tree, it’s about merging your life with the life of that tree. Then and only then, will you find yourself with a tree that bears fruit.”
On that day, without really knowing it, the Second began an endless fruitful journey. Grow. |
EMBED >More News Videos Police arrested 75 people and at least 50 were treated for alcohol and drugs at a Jones Beach Snoop Dogg concert Tuesday.
State police say 75 people were arrested for underage drinking, driving while intoxicated and illegal drug use and at least 50 had to be treated for alcohol poisoning during a concert at the Nikon at Jones Beach Amphitheater Tuesday evening.Police said the fans were tailgating for "The High Road" tour with Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa, and many of those who required treatment for drugs or alcohol were inside the venue.At least 50 people were aided by EMS, and ambulances transported 10 to area hospitals. Many were picked up by parents, but several still recovering at area facilities on Wednesday.One 18-year-old was in listed serious condition after falling on his head while he was intoxicated, and a total of three patients remain in the ICU as Nassau University Medical Center.State police were also on the scene, confiscating alcohol and dumping it out.A spokesperson issued the following statement:"Law enforcement has a zero tolerance policy for underage drinking in New York State and our state parks. Through a joint partnership with the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Nassau County Taxi and Limousine Commission, 75 arrests were made at the August 9 concert at the Nikon Theater at Jones Beach. People who jeopardize public safety with underage drinking, driving while intoxicated and illegal drug use or possession will not be tolerated."The State Parks PBA tells Eyewitness News that only 16 officers were assigned to the concert, and the head of the union said they were overwhelmed."It is unfathomable that 16 police officers are tasked with controlling a crowd of 10,000 or more," Sergeant Manny Vilar said in a statement. "Naturally, no one should be surprised at the occurrence, and we are fortunate that no one died."On Friday night, 42 people were hurt when a railing collapsed at a tour stop in Camden. |
What do Turkey, Chile, Russia, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, North Korea and Haiti all have in common? Time Zone Chaos!
No, that's not the punchline to a joke. It's actually quite a serious problem. The biggest issue with time zones is not that they exist, nor that they have daylight saving time. But rather, in that they often change in a haphazard manner. Allow me to explain.
First, understand that from a global perspective, one might think that the time zones of the world should be managed by some relatively neutral international body, such as the ITU division of the United Nations, or perhaps the IAU. However, each of the world's time zones are actually controlled from a local perspective. Each individual nation has a sovereign right to decide the local time for the lands within their jurisdiction. This includes both the offset from Universal Time, and the rules that govern daylight saving time, if they choose to use it.
This unto itself is not a problem, and absolutely I agree that countries should be able to do whatever they want with the clocks within their borders. However, time and time again, we run into the same problem, which is simply that they are changed without enough notice. All of the countries mentioned earlier have done this recently, along with many others.
It's crucial that when governments make changes to their time zones or daylight saving time rules, that they provide ample lead time for technology to catch up. One has to consider the real work that people have to do to validate the change, create a data update, test the changes, and to publish and distribute the update. Then you have to consider that individuals don't always update their systems instantly. It's very common for a time zone update to be available for weeks or months before it is actually installed by the end user.
Turkey - A Case Study:
Let's look at Turkey as an example. In 2015, the government decided that it would be a good idea to delay the end of daylight saving time by two weeks to allow for more daylight hours at the polls during their election season. They moved the end of DST date from October 25th to November 8th.
So what was the result? Well, to quote the BBC:
Confused Turks are asking "what's the time?" after automatic clocks defied a government decision to defer a seasonal hour's change in the time.
Or as the IBT reported:
Millions of Turks woke up to a confusing morning on Sunday ... as smartphones, tablets, and computers had automatically updated in keeping with other countries in the Eastern European Time zone, even though Turkey delay setting clocks back an hour for the next two weeks.
You can imagine that this probably had exactly the opposite effect on voting than what was envisioned. However, you think they would have known better, since almost the exact same thing happened the previous year! As reported by the Independent Balkan News Agency in 2014:
An unbelievable confusion to 52.9 million Turkish voters was caused by the decision of the turkish government to postpone for a day the time shift applied all around the world, where the indicators are turned one hour forward. The reason for postponing the application of summer time according to the Erdogan government, was to facilitate the smooth conducting of the elections, but nobody predicted the "new technology" factor. All smart phones of the Turkish citizens changed the time automatically, resulting in thousands of voters going to the polls earlier having to wait for an hour to vote.
Similar problems were also caused to computers that had not downloaded a new version of the software. Problems also occurred in the luggage delivery system at Istanbul’s airport as the system automatically changed the time, ignoring the government’s plans and as a result the luggage were delivered to the passengers with great delay. There were also problems with many flights as passengers were confusing their departure time.
What about the rest of the world?
Not only did Turkey not learn from their own mistakes, but other countries around the world also have failed to learn from the experience and continue to have this problem. Remember the list I rattled off earlier? Let's take a closer look:
Chile had been on "permanent DST" in 2015, but on March 13th, 2016, the government announced they would return to Standard time starting May 15th, 2016 (two months notice) .
had been on "permanent DST" in 2015, but on March 13th, 2016, the government announced they would return to Standard time starting May 15th, 2016 . Russia has 11 distinct time zone offsets, ranging from UTC+02 through UTC+12, with a complex history of changes in the boundaries between them. For 2016, six regions changed their time zones on March 27, 2016. Each of these regions had their own law placing the change into effect. One was signed on December 30th (12 weeks notice) , which is reasonable. The others however were signed on either February 15th (6 weeks notice) or March 9th (2 weeks notice) . Two other regions had pending legislation during this period, one of which didn't pass until April 5th, of which its effective date was stretched out until April 24th (3 weeks notice) . The other is still awaiting its final signature by the President, which is expected to occur in the next few days , and has an effective date of May 29th (4 weeks notice) . (Update: It was passed on April 26th.)
has 11 distinct time zone offsets, ranging from UTC+02 through UTC+12, with a complex history of changes in the boundaries between them. For 2016, six regions changed their time zones on March 27, 2016. Each of these regions had their own law placing the change into effect. One was signed on December 30th , which is reasonable. The others however were signed on either February 15th or March 9th . Two other regions had pending legislation during this period, one of which didn't pass until April 5th, of which its effective date was stretched out until April 24th . The other , and has an effective date of May 29th . (Update: It was passed on April 26th.) Venezuela had been on UTC-4:30 since 2007, but the government recently decided that it would return to UTC-4 on May 1st, 2016. The change was first announced on April 15th, then became official on April 18th when it was published in the country's Gazette (2 weeks notice) .
had been on UTC-4:30 since 2007, but the government recently decided that it would return to UTC-4 on May 1st, 2016. The change was first announced on April 15th, then became official on April 18th when it was published in the country's Gazette . Azerbaijan canceled DST permanently in 2016. It was scheduled to go into effect on March 27th, but the cancellation wasn't announced until March 17th (10 days notice) .
canceled DST permanently in 2016. It was scheduled to go into effect on March 27th, but the cancellation wasn't announced until March 17th . North Korea moved from UTC-9 to UTC-8:30 on August 15th, 2015. The change was announced on August 7th. (8 days notice)
moved from UTC-9 to UTC-8:30 on August 15th, 2015. The change was announced on August 7th. Haiti canceled DST for at least the 2016 calendar year. It was scheduled to go into effect on March 13th, but on March 12th (just 1 day notice!) the government issued a press release canceling it.
Other Timing Issues
While all of the above changes come with a certain degree of surprise, there are other some parts of the world that simply don't make any advanced schedule at all for their daylight saving time rules.
Fiji is one such time zone. It has had DST every year since 2009. However, each year, the government issues an announcement stating what date it will begin and end. It's slightly different each year, and it's unclear exactly when the government will reach their decisions, or what to do in the absence of an announcement. It would be much simpler if they would just decide on a regular schedule, and only make announcements if there are deviations from that schedule.
Another such place is Morocco, where the schedule for the first start of DST and last end of DST are adequately defined, but every year since 2012 there has been a "DST suspension period", such that DST ends before the start of Ramadan, and is restored sometime after. Not only does this mean that the clocks need to be changed four times in a single calendar year, but it also means that nobody is fully certain of when the middle two transitions will occur until the government makes an announcement. Part of the reason for this is that the dates for Ramadan are based on the observed sighting of the new moon. However, my personal opinion is that they should still fix the DST transitions to some schedule, even if it starts before Ramadan and ends sometime after. The unpredictability of the dates makes it just too difficult to know what time it is in Morocco unless you are are actually there. (By the way, Egypt used to do this as well, but only in 2010 and 2014.)
Recommendations to the World's Governments
First, I must emphasize that these are my personal recommendations. I am not speaking on behalf of my government, my employer, nor the TZ community. These recommendations are based on years of experience working with time zone data in computing, and the observation of real events.
If you're going to make changes to your time zone(s), whether they are for the standard time offset from UTC, or to the enactment or abolishment of daylight saving time, or to the dates and times that daylight saving time occurs then please do all of the following:
Give ample notice, preferably at least 6 months in advance of the change. One year or more would be even better. Provide that notice via an official government decree or passage of a law. Publish the law, and make it available online on an official government web site. Be sure to include the precise details of the change, including the date and the time of day that the change is to go into effect. For example, state "the clocks will advance forward by 30 minutes on April 1st, 2017 at 01:00 local time". Do not just say "The time will change in April". Also, if the change only affects a particular region of your country, please specify the exact areas that are affected. Notify your citizens and the world via press releases and the news media, but do not rely solely on this to communicate the change. The official decree or law should trump any statement made to the press. Send notification to the TZ community. To do this, simply send an email to [email protected], which is the address for the tz discussion list. The email should contain a URL to the announcement published on an official government web site. If the change is to be aborted, please give ample notice of that as well.
Following these guidelines will ensure that your change is observed by technology, including computers, cell phones, and other devices.
Recommendations to Software Developers |
In October 2009 Peter Laird sold the Turtles to Viacom , the parent company of Nickelodeon . At WonderCon 2011, it was announced that IDW Publishing had secured the rights to publish a new series and reprint the older comics.
After conceiving the Turtles' mentor as a rat who had come from Japan and was a ninja master, Eastman and Laird thought of giving the turtles Japanese names, but as Laird explained, "we couldn't think of authentic-sounding Japanese names". Instead they went with Renaissance artists, and picked the four they were most familiar with, with the help of Laird's copy of Janson's History of Art . [1] [4]
The Turtles' origin contained direct allusions to Daredevil : the traffic accident between a blind man and a truck carrying radioactive ooze, a reference to Daredevil's own story, (indeed in the version told in the first issue, Splinter sees the canister strike a boy's face). The name " Splinter " also parodied Daredevil's mentor, a man known as " Stick ." The Foot , a clan of evil ninjas who became the Turtles' arch-enemies, likens to the Hand , who were a mysterious and deadly ninja clan in the pages of Daredevil . [1]
The concept originated from a comical drawing sketched out by Kevin Eastman during a casual evening of brainstorming with his friend Peter Laird. The drawing of a short, squat turtle wearing a mask with nunchakus strapped to its arms was humorous to the young artists, as it played upon the inherent contradiction of a slow, cold-blooded reptile with the speed and agility of Japanese martial arts . Laird suggested that they create a team of four such turtles, each specializing in a different weapon. [1] Eastman and Laird often cited the work of Frank Miller and Jack Kirby as their major artistic influences. [2]
Volume 1: 1984–1993 Edit
The first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was advertised in issues #1 and #2 of Eastman and Laird's 1984 comic, Gobbledygook, in addition to the Comics Buyer's Guide, issue 545. The full page advertisement in CBG helped gain the attention of retailers and jump-started their early sales. Because of the CBG's newspaper format, many were disposed of, making it a highly sought-after collector's item today. The book premiered in May 1984 at a comic book convention in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was printed in an oversized, magazine-style format using black and white artwork on cheap newsprint and had a print run of only 3,275 copies. It was a period of intense speculation in comic book investment, with especially strong interest in black and white comics from independent companies. The first printings of the original TMNT comics had small print runs that made them instant collector items. Within months, the books were trading at prices over 50 times their cover price.
The success also led to a black and white comics boom in the mid-1980s,[citation needed] wherein other small publishers put out animal-based parody books hoping to make a quick profit. Among them, the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, the Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos, the Adult Thermonuclear Samurai Elephants, and the Karate Kreatures were obvious parodies of TMNT. Most of them were sold to comic shops in large numbers, but failed to catch on with readers. This speculation led to financial problems with both comic shops and distributors, contributing to a sales collapse in 1986–87.
The "Return to New York" story arc concluded in the spring of 1989 and by this time the Ninja Turtles phenomenon was well established in other media. Eastman and Laird then found themselves administrating an international merchandising juggernaut, overseeing a wide array of licensing deals. This prevented the two creators from participating in the day-to-day work of writing and illustrating a monthly comic book. For this reason, many guest artists were invited to showcase their unique talents in the TMNT universe. The breadth of diversity found in the various short stories had the adverse effect of somewhat disrupting continuity and gave the series a disjointed, anthology-like feel. Some of these artists, including Michael Dooney, Eric Talbot, A.C. Farley, Ryan Brown, Steve Lavigne, Steve Murphy, and Jim Lawson, continued to work with Mirage Studios for years to come.
Issue #45 kicked off a major turning point, as Mirage made a concerted effort to return the series to continuity. A 13-part story arc entitled "City at War" began with issue #50, which was the first issue to be completely written and illustrated by both Eastman and Laird since issue #11. Both "City at War," and Volume 1 concluded with the publication of issue #62 in August 1993.
Volume 2: 1993–1995 Edit
Mirage Studios launched Volume 2 with much fanfare in October 1993, as a full-color series that maintained the continuity of the first volume. Written and illustrated by Jim Lawson, the series lasted only thirteen issues before ceasing publication in October 1995. The cancellation was due to declining popularity and lagging sales as well as a flood at Mirage Studios.
Volume 3: 1996–1999 Edit
Volume 3, issue #10. Cover art by Frank Fosco and Erik Larsen
Erik Larsen came to the series in June 1996, with the publication of a third volume under the Image Comics banner. The 23 issues were written by Gary Carlson and drawn by Frank Fosco, and marked the return to black and white artwork. This volume was notable for having a faster pace and more intense action while inflicting major physical changes on the Turtles themselves; Leonardo losing a hand, Raphael's face being scarred, Splinter becoming a bat, and Donatello becoming a cyborg. In a startling plot twist, Raphael even took on the identity of The Shredder and assumed leadership of the Foot. With Volume 3, the Turtles were incorporated into the Image universe, which provided opportunities for a few crossovers and guest appearances by characters from the Savage Dragon series.
The series ceased publication in 1999, and it was no longer considered part of the "official" TMNT canon due, in part, to a lack of desire by co-creator Peter Laird to follow up material with which he was not directly involved nor fully approved. Raph's depiction as the Shredder however, was referenced in an episode of the third season of the 2003 animated series, "The Darkness Within", where Raph was exposed to his fear of giving into anger and becoming the very thing he hated.
After its untimely cancellation, the series remained in publication limbo for nearly two decades, with no reprints or collected volumes. In 2018, IDW Publishing (the company at that time to publish their own TMNT comic series) announced their intention to reproduce the existing 23 issues in a colored version, as well as officially conclude the Image series with a final three-issue story arc, with Carlson and Fosco again taking part in this project.[5][6]
Volume 4: 2001–2014 Edit
Peter Laird and Jim Lawson brought the Turtles back to their roots with the simply-titled TMNT in December 2001 and popularity began to grow back. Published bi-monthly, the series took the opportunity to correct a persistent error: Since the first issue of Volume 1, Michelangelo's name had been misspelled as "Michaelangelo." It is now spelled correctly, consistent with his Renaissance namesake Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Picking up fifteen years after the conclusion of Volume 2 (and omitting the events of Volume 3), the Turtles, now in their early thirties, are living together in their sewer lair beneath New York City. April and Casey have been married for some time and remain in contact with the Turtles from their nearby apartment. Splinter continues to live at the Northampton farmhouse, where he has become a "grandfather" of sorts to Casey's teenage daughter, Shadow. The Utroms return to Earth in a very public arrival, subsequently establishing a peaceful base in Upper New York Bay. Since the arrival, aliens — and other bizarre life-forms, like the Turtles — have become more accepted within society. No longer forced to live in hiding, the Turtles can now roam freely among the world of humans, albeit under the guise of being aliens.
The series continued until the acquisition of the TMNT franchise by Viacom in 2009. As part of the sale, Peter Laird was allowed to continue Volume 4, but issues were released sporadically, as they had been in the months before the sale. Issue no. 31 was originally released as an online comic only, while issue no. 32 was released for the 2014 Free Comic Book Day, almost 4 years after issue no. 31 was released on line. Issue no. 31 was released in print for the first time for Free Comic Book Day 2015. Mirage retains the rights to publish 18 issues a year, though the future involvement of Mirage with the Turtles, and the future of Mirage itself, is unknown, and it is unknown if or when Laird will continue the series. |
Religious leaders, including Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, have called on President Barack Obama and congressional leaders to reject a recent report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that faith groups are using religious freedom as a pretext for discrimination.
“We call upon each of you to renounce publicly the claim that ‘religious freedom’ and ‘religious liberty’ are ‘code words’ or a ‘pretext’ for various forms of discrimination,” the leaders say in the Oct. 7 letter, adding: “There should be no place in our government for such a low view of our First Freedom – the first of our civil rights – least of all from a body dedicated to protecting them all.”
The letter was addressed to Obama, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the president pro tempore of the Senate, who are responsible for appointing members of the civil rights commission. It was signed by 17 people, including religious freedom experts and Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Baha’i, Mormon, African Methodist Episcopal, Southern Baptist and Evangelical leaders.
A 306-page report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued Sept. 8 titled “Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Non-Discrimination Principles with Civil Liberties,” included the assertion that religious organizations sometimes “use the pretext of religious doctrines to discriminate.”
The letter’s signatories acknowledge that people of faith “can disagree about the relationship between religious liberty and anti-discrimination laws in our country, and how that relationship should best be structured. These questions have to do with issues critical to the common good such as marriage, the family, contraception, abortion and the source of human dignity.”
But they said that they found it “disturbing” that in the report, the civil rights commission’s chairman Martin Castro wrote, “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.”
The letter said such language “stigmatizes tens of millions of religious Americans, their communities, and their faith-based institutions, and threatens the religious freedom of all our citizens.”
In addition to Lori, the chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the letter’s signers included Bishop Gérald J. Caussé, the presiding bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, the president of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, the first Muslim liberal arts college in the United States; and Leith Anderson, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
In his statement in the commission’s report, Castro also said, “Religious liberty was never intended to give one religion dominion over other religions, or a veto power over the civil rights and civil liberties of others. However, today as in the past, religion is being used as both a weapon and a shield by those seeking to deny others equality.”
Religious freedom concerns were at the heart of the recent case brought to the Supreme Court by the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious groups against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Those groups contended that the Affordable Care Act would force them to violate their religious beliefs by requiring their employee health insurance plans to pay for coverage of abortion inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization procedures.
Currently, Catholic hospitals and health care institutions have religious exemptions against making abortion referrals or being forced to provide abortions; and religious organizations that oppose same-sex marriages are not required to officiate at those weddings.
Some representatives of Catholic and other religious groups have expressed concern over the impact that the continuing erosion of religious freedom protections might have on their abilities to offer charitable, health care and educational ministries while remaining true to their faith’s teachings.
“We are one in demanding that no American citizen or institution be labeled by their government as bigoted because of their religious views, and dismissed from the political life of our nation for holding those views,” say the religious leaders and religious-freedom advocates. “And yet that is precisely what the Civil Rights Commission report does.”
In his 2015 pastoral letter, ‘Being Catholic Today: Catholic Identity in an Age of Challenge,’ Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington warned: “One new effort to abridge religious freedom is the legislation that would require Catholic schools to retain teachers who by their words or actions publicly contradict the teachings of the Church.”
The interfaith leaders’ letter stressed the importance of religious groups and people of faith, like all Americans, being free to join the debate in the public square involving laws and policies affecting the common good.
“Each of us opposes hateful rhetoric and actions. We believe in the equality of all Americans before the law, regardless of creed or community,” the letter said. It noted that some arguments put forth by religious groups have been “demonized” by government officials and others. The government should not “prejudice or distort” those concerns raised by religious groups, the letter said.
“Slandering ideas and arguments with which one disagrees as ‘racism’ or ‘phobia’ not only cheapens the meaning of those words, but can have a chilling effect on healthy debate over, or dissent from, the prevailing orthodoxy,” the leaders said. “Such attacks on dissent have no place in the United States, where all religious beliefs, the freedom to express them, and the freedom to live by them are protected by the First Amendment.”
The letter quoted a 2006 speech on faith and politics given by then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who noted that Americans like Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Dorothy Day and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.”
In that speech, Obama noted, “So to say that men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates is a practical absurdity.”
Other religious leaders signing the letter included Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; Bishop Frank Madison Reid III of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Anuttama Dasa, the governing body commissioner and minister of communications for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness; Bishop Gregory John Mansour of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn; and Nathan J. Diament, the executive director for public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
Also signing the letter were Charles Haynes, vice president of the Newseum Institute; Ron Sider, the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action; and Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University and president of the Religious Freedom Institute. |
SHOW US DETROIT’S FIGHTING SPIRIT
Detroit embodies the fighting spirit shared by the United States Marine Corps. Every day its citizens fight battles to better their community and themselves, and we want you to tell that story. In one photograph, show your interpretation of Detroit's fighting spirit.
Photographs must be submitted by 28 August to [email protected] as a high resolution jpeg (10MB email limit). Photographs should not feature violence or inappropriate content for public viewing. Finalists will be featured in a photography exhibit during Marine Week in the rotunda of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History from 6 September through 9 September. The winning photographer will be recognized at an evening reception on Wednesday, 6 September, at the museum and will receive a grand prize of a weekend trip with one guest to Brooklyn, NY for the Photoville Photography Festival, 22-23 September 2017, and will be featured on Marine Corps Recruiting Command's social and web properties. Winner must be present to claim prize. Travel details will be coordinated immediately following the reception.
EVENING RECEPTION DETAILS
The cost of the evening reception is free and all submitting photographers and guests are encouraged to attend. Please RSVP by 28 August as space is limited.
This event is free to attend. Hors d’oeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided. Alcoholic beverages will be available via a cash bar. |
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In this Article:Choosing Your Forever FriendNaming Your RockFeedingBathing Your RockBuilding a HouseTraveling with Your Pet RockThrowing Pet Rock PartiesCreating a Home CinemaCommunity Q&A
Did you just get a new interesting soon-to-be-your-best-pal pet rock? Or you might be interested in taking care of a pet rock? We'll tell you how to do that!
Like how do you properly care for a silent, stone-faced pet rock? You never know when it's hungry, mad, playful, or tired. How do you feed it? Clean it? Play with it? This article will tell you all you need to know about caring for your stone-faced pal. |
Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell speaks during the groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center at the State Department in 2014. On Thursday, he addressed an email he sent to Hillary Clinton telling her that he used a personal computer to do business with other officials and foreign leaders. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said in a statement Thursday that he was not trying to “influence” Hillary Clinton when he sent her an email telling her he used a personal computer attached to a private phone line to do business with foreign leaders and State Department officials, but rather to explain his own technological practices years earlier.
And for those practices, Powell offered no apologies.
“I have been interviewed by the State Department [inspector general] and the FBI about my actions and decisions,” Powell said in a statement. “I stand by my decisions and I am fully accountable.”
Powell issued the statement after Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) released a January 2009 email exchange between Powell and Clinton. Responding to a question from Clinton about restrictions on BlackBerry use, Powell wrote that he didn’t have such a device, but he did have “a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line.”
[Read the full exchange between Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton]
“So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers,” Powell wrote. “I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels.”
Later, after writing at length about what he perceived as overblown concerns about spies accessing his devices, Powell advised Clinton that the “real danger” was that her correspondence on a BlackBerry could ultimately be made public.
“If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it it [sic] government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law,” Powell wrote. He added later: “Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.”
According to a report by the State Department’s inspector general, Powell had already acknowledged using a laptop on a private line and sending notes to ambassadors and foreign ministers via personal email, and a representative said he did not retain or print those emails.
Clinton’s presidential campaign has been dogged by her own use of a private email server — which critics have suggested could have potentially allowed classified information to fall into the wrong hands — though the FBI investigated it thoroughly and found no evidence that it had been hacked. Nor did they find any substantive reason to charge Clinton or her aides with any crime.
In releasing the Powell-Clinton email exchange, Cummings said Powell had provided Clinton a “detailed blueprint on how to skirt security rules and bypass requirements to preserve federal records.” Powell noted in his statement that Clinton “has stated that she was not influenced by my email in making her decisions on email use,” and said he was “not aware at the time of any requirement for private, unclassified exchanges to be treated as official records.”
“With respect to records, if I sent an email from my public email account to an addressee at another public email account it would not have gone through State Department servers. It was a private conversation similar to a phone call,” he said. “If I sent it to a state.gov address it should have been captured and retained by State servers.”
Clinton told FBI agents she understood Powell to mean any work-related communications would be government records and that they did not factor into her decision to use a personal email. |
A teardown of the recently released iPad Air 2 on Wednesday revealed a slew of iterative changes made to Apple's flagship tablet model, including sized-down components and a smaller battery.
Repair firm iFixit has started its traditional disassembly of Apple's latest iOS device, revealing a few new components designed to fit within the tight constraints of a 6.1mm-thick chassis.As announced by Apple last week , the new Air 2 comes with a 9.7-inch laminated touch panel, A8X SoC, 8MP rear-facing camera, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Touch ID fingerprint reader. The shell was also redesigned, seeing the deletion of the orientation lock/mute button and minor aesthetic modifications to the speaker grille and volume control buttons.Today's teardown finally put a number on battery capacity, with the Air 2 sporting a 27.62 watt hour, 7,340mAh dual-cell unit, down from last year's 32.9 watt-hour configuration. According to Apple, that will get you about 10 hours of continuous use per charge, or 9 hours on the Wi-Fi + Cellular model.Also new is the Touch ID home button, which appears to share a design similar to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The module itself is manufactured by NXP. Touch ID is a major addition to the iPad lineup as it enables Apple Pay purchases, though without an NFC chip, payments are limited to online payments.Finally, the Air 2 features redesigned speakers, repositioned Wi-Fi antennas (located at the top-edge of the Wi-Fi model), dual ambient light sensors and dual microphones, all arranged on variety of customized flex cables. |
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Here’s a really fun drone ballet performed in front of Mount Fuji in Japan. The drones look a lot like and move a lot like the aliens you shoot down in the classic video game Space Invaders. The whole dancing drone thing is really cool (especially when set against the mountain) but what would be even cooler is if there were laser beams that could shoot them down in real life.
Sky Magic writes:
This was done so by utilizing more than 20 units of these flying machines, flight swarming formations, music, and 16,500 LED lights to combine into a single audio visual extravaganza. Furthermore, we are able to control the flying machines, visual and audio aspects concurrently, using the DMX512.
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By Dr. Mercola
Many foods have been heavily promoted as being healthy when they are nothing more than pernicious junk foods. In the featured article, Clean Plates1 founder Jared Koch shared his list of nine staple foods that are far less "good for you" than you've been led to believe.
Here, I expand on the selections that are mentioned in the featured article.
1. Canned Tomatoes
Many leading brands of canned foods contain BPA -- a toxic chemical linked to reproductive abnormalities, neurological effects, heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, heart disease and other serious health problems. According to Consumer Reports' testing, just a couple of servings of canned food can exceed the safety limits for daily BPA exposure for children.
High acidity — a prominent characteristic of tomatoes – causes BPA to leach into your food. To avoid this hazardous chemical, avoid canned foods entirely and stick to fresh fruits and vegetables, or switch over to brands that use glass containers instead—especially for acidic foods like tomatoes.
2. Processed Meats
As Koch warns, processed deli meats like salami, ham, and roast beef are typically made with meats from animals raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
This means they're given growth hormones, antibiotics and other veterinary drugs, and raised in deplorable conditions that promote disease, these meats are also filled with sodium nitrite (a commonly used preservative and antimicrobial agent that also adds color and flavor) and other chemical flavorings and dyes.
Nitrites can be converted into nitrosamines in your body, which are potent cancer-causing chemicals. Research has linked nitrites to higher rates of colorectal, stomach and pancreatic cancer. But that's not all. Most processed deli meats also contain other cancer-promoting chemicals that are created during cooking. These include:
Heterocyclic Amines (HCAs) which are hazardous compounds created in meats and other foods that have been cooked at high temperatures. According to research, processed meats are clearly associated with an increased risk of stomach, colon and breast cancers.
which are hazardous compounds created in meats and other foods that have been cooked at high temperatures. According to research, processed meats are clearly associated with an increased risk of stomach, colon and breast cancers. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) : Many processed meats are smoked as part of the curing process, which causes PAHs to form. PAHs can also form when grilling. When fat drips onto the heat source, causing excess smoke, and the smoke surrounds your food, it can transfer cancer-causing PAHs to the meat.
: Many processed meats are smoked as part of the curing process, which causes PAHs to form. PAHs can also form when grilling. When fat drips onto the heat source, causing excess smoke, and the smoke surrounds your food, it can transfer cancer-causing PAHs to the meat. Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs): When food is cooked at high temperatures—including when it is pasteurized or sterilized—it increases the formation of AGEs in your food. AGEs build up in your body over time leading to oxidative stress, inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease.
The truth is, processed meats are not a healthful choice for anyone and should be avoided entirely, according to a 2011 review of more than 7,000 clinical studies examining the connection between diet and cancer. The report was commissioned by The World Cancer Research Fund2 (WCRF) using money raised from the general public. Therefore the findings were not influenced by any vested interests, which makes it all the more reliable.
It's the biggest review of the evidence ever undertaken, and it confirms previous findings: Processed meats increase your risk of cancer, especially bowel cancer, and NO amount of processed meat is "safe." You're far better off ditching the deli meats and opting instead for fresh organically-raised grass-fed meats, or wild caught salmon.
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3. Margarine
The unfortunate result of the low-fat diet craze has been the shunning of healthful fats such as butter, and public health has declined as a result of this folly. There are a myriad of unhealthy components to margarine and other butter impostors, including:
Trans fats: These unnatural fats in margarine, shortenings and spreads are formed during the process of hydrogenation, which turns liquid vegetable oils into a solid fat. Trans fats contribute to heart disease, cancer, bone problems, hormonal imbalance and skin disease; infertility, difficulties in pregnancy and problems with lactation; and low birth weight, growth problems and learning disabilities in children. A US government panel of scientists determined that man-made trans fats are unsafe at any level.
These unnatural fats in margarine, shortenings and spreads are formed during the process of hydrogenation, which turns liquid vegetable oils into a solid fat. Trans fats contribute to heart disease, cancer, bone problems, hormonal imbalance and skin disease; infertility, difficulties in pregnancy and problems with lactation; and low birth weight, growth problems and learning disabilities in children. A US government panel of scientists determined that man-made trans fats are unsafe at any level. Free radicals: Free radicals and other toxic breakdown products are the result of high temperature industrial processing of vegetable oils. They contribute to numerous health problems, including cancer and heart disease.
Free radicals and other toxic breakdown products are the result of high temperature industrial processing of vegetable oils. They contribute to numerous health problems, including cancer and heart disease. Emulsifiers and preservatives: Numerous additives of questionable safety are added to margarines and spreads. Most vegetable shortening is stabilized with preservatives like BHT.
Numerous additives of questionable safety are added to margarines and spreads. Most vegetable shortening is stabilized with preservatives like BHT. Hexane and other solvents: Used in the extraction process, these industrial chemicals can have toxic effects.
CLA is not only known to help fight cancer and diabetes, it may even help you to lose weight, which cannot be said for its trans-fat substitutes.
Good-old-fashioned butter, when made from grass-fed cows, is rich in a substance called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Much of the reason why butter is vilified is because it contains saturated fat. If you're still in the mindset that saturated fat is harmful for your health, then please read the Healthy Fats section of my Optimized Nutrition Plan to learn why saturated fat is actually good for you.
4. Vegetable Oils
Of all the destructive foods available to us, those made with heated vegetable oils are some of the worst. Make no mistake about it--vegetable oils are not the health food that you were lead to believe they were. This is largely due to the fact that they are highly processed, and when consumed in massive amounts, as they are by most Americans, they seriously distort the important omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. Ideally, this ratio is 1:1.
Anytime you cook a food, you run the risk of creating heat-induced damage. The oils you choose to cook with must be stable enough to resist chemical changes when heated to high temperatures, or you run the risk of damaging your health. One of the ways vegetable oils can inflict damage is by converting your good cholesterol into bad cholesterol—by oxidizing it. When you cook with polyunsaturated vegetable oils (such as canola, corn, and soy oils), oxidized cholesterol is introduced into your system.
As the oil is heated and mixed with oxygen, it goes rancid. Rancid oil is oxidized oil and should NOT be consumed—it leads directly to vascular disease. Trans-fats are introduced when these oils are hydrogenated, which increases your risk of chronic diseases like breast cancer and heart disease.
So what's the best oil to cook with?
Of all the available oils, coconut oil is the oil of choice for cooking because it is nearly a completely saturated fat, which means it is much less susceptible to heat damage. And coconut oil is one of the most unique and beneficial fats for your body. For more in-depth information about the many benefits of coconut oil, please see this special report. Olive oil, while certainly a healthful oil, is easily damaged by heat and is best reserved for drizzling cold over salad.
5. Microwave Popcorn
Perfluoroalkyls, which include perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), are chemicals used to keep grease from leaking through fast food wrappers, are being ingested by people through their food and showing up as contaminants in blood. Microwave popcorn bags are lined with PFOA, and when they are heated the compound leaches onto the popcorn.
These chemicals are part of an expanding group of chemicals commonly referred to as "gender-bending" chemicals, because they can disrupt your endocrine system and affect your sex hormones. The EPA has ruled PFCs as "likely carcinogens," and has stated that PFOA "poses developmental and reproductive risks to humans." Researchers have also linked various PFCs to a range of other health dangers, such as:
Infertility -- A study published in the journal Human Reproduction 3 found that both PFOA and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), dramatically increased the odds of infertility. PFOA was linked to a 60 to 154 percent increase in the chance of infertility.
-- A study published in the journal Human Reproduction found that both PFOA and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), dramatically increased the odds of infertility. PFOA was linked to a 60 to 154 percent increase in the chance of infertility. Thyroid disease -- A 2010 study 4 found that PFOA can damage your thyroid function. Individuals with the highest PFOA concentrations were more than twice as likely to report current thyroid disease, compared to those with the lowest PFOA concentrations. Your thyroid contains thyroglobulin protein, which binds to iodine to form hormones, which in turn influence essentially every organ, tissue and cell in your body. Thyroid hormones are also required for growth and development in children. Thyroid disease, if left untreated, can lead to heart disease, infertility, muscle weakness, and osteoporosis.
-- A 2010 study found that PFOA can damage your thyroid function. Individuals with the highest PFOA concentrations were more than twice as likely to report current thyroid disease, compared to those with the lowest PFOA concentrations. Your thyroid contains thyroglobulin protein, which binds to iodine to form hormones, which in turn influence essentially every organ, tissue and cell in your body. Thyroid hormones are also required for growth and development in children. Thyroid disease, if left untreated, can lead to heart disease, infertility, muscle weakness, and osteoporosis. Cancer -- PFOA has been associated with tumors in at least four different organs in animal tests (liver, pancreas, testicles and mammary glands in rats), and has been associated with increases in prostate cancer in PFOA plant workers.
-- PFOA has been associated with tumors in at least four different organs in animal tests (liver, pancreas, testicles and mammary glands in rats), and has been associated with increases in prostate cancer in PFOA plant workers. Immune system problems -- Several studies by scientists in Sweden indicate that PFCs have an adverse effect on your immune system. As described in a report on PFCs by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), PFOA was found to decrease all immune cell subpopulations studied, in the thymus and spleen, and caused immunosupression.
-- Several studies by scientists in Sweden indicate that PFCs have an adverse effect on your immune system. As described in a report on PFCs by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), PFOA was found to decrease all immune cell subpopulations studied, in the thymus and spleen, and caused immunosupression. Increased LDL cholesterol levels – A 2010 study in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine 5 found that children and teens with higher PFOA levels had higher levels of total cholesterol and LDL or "bad" cholesterol, while PFOS was associated with increased total cholesterol, including both LDL cholesterol and HDL or "good" cholesterol.
I strongly recommend avoiding any product you know containing these toxic compounds, particularly non-stick cookware, but also foods sold in grease-proof food packaging, such as fast food and microwave popcorn. Clearly, if you're eating fast food or junk food, PFCs from the wrapper may be the least of your problems, but I think it's still important to realize that not only are you not getting proper nutrition from the food itself, the wrappers may also add to your toxic burden.
6. Non-Organic Potatoes and Other Fresh Produce Known for High Pesticide Contamination
Your best bet is to buy only organic fruits and vegetables, as synthetic agricultural chemicals are not permissible under the USDA organic rules. That said, not all conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are subjected to the same amount of pesticide load. While Koch focuses on potatoes, as they tend to take up a lot of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals present in the soil, I would recommend reviewing the "Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce"6 by the Environmental Working Group.
Of the 48 different fruit and vegetable categories tested by the EWG for the 2013 guide, the following 15 fruits and vegetables had the highest pesticide load, making them the most important to buy or grow organically:
Apples Celery Cherry tomatoes Cucumbers Grapes Hot peppers Nectarines (imported) Peaches Potatoes Spinach Strawberries Sweet bell peppers Kale Collard greens Summer squash
In contrast, the following foods were found to have the lowest residual pesticide load, making them the safest bet among conventionally grown vegetables. Note that a small amount of sweet corn and most Hawaiian papaya, although low in pesticides, are genetically engineered (GE). If you're unsure of whether the sweet corn or papaya is GE, I'd recommend opting for organic varieties:
Asparagus Avocado Cabbage Cantaloupe Sweet corn (non-GMO) Eggplant Grapefruit Kiwifruit Mango Mushrooms Onions Papayas (non-GMO. Most Hawaiian papaya is GMO) Pineapple Sweet peas (frozen) Sweet potatoes
7. Table Salt
Salt is essential for life—you cannot live without it. However, regular 'table salt' and the salt found in processed foods are NOT identical to the salt your body really needs. In fact, table salt has practically nothing in common with natural salt. One is health damaging, and the other is healing.
Processed salt is 98 percent sodium chloride, and the remaining two percent comprises man-made chemicals, such as moisture absorbents, and a little added iodine. These are dangerous chemicals like ferrocyanide and aluminosilicate. Some European countries, where water fluoridation is not practiced, also add fluoride to table salt
Natural salt is about 84 percent sodium chloride. The remaining 16 percent of natural salt consists of other naturally occurring minerals, including trace minerals like silicon, phosphorous and vanadium
Given that salt is absolutely essential to good health, I recommend switching to a pure, unrefined salt. My favorite is an ancient, all-natural sea salt from the Himalayas. Himalayan salt is completely pure, having spent many thousands of years maturing under extreme tectonic pressure, far away from impurities, so it isn't polluted with the heavy metals and industrial toxins of today. And it's hand-mined, hand-washed, and minimally processed. Himalayan salt is only 85 percent sodium chloride, the remaining 15 percent contains 84 trace minerals from our prehistoric seas. Unrefined natural salt is important to many biological processes, including:
Being a major component of your blood plasma, lymphatic fluid, extracellular fluid, and even amniotic fluid
Carrying nutrients into and out of your cells
Maintain and regulate blood pressure
Increasing the glial cells in your brain, which are responsible for creative thinking and long-term planning
Helping your brain communicate with your muscles, so that you can move on demand via sodium-potassium ion exchange
While natural unprocessed salt has many health benefits, that does not mean you should use it with impunity. Another important factor is the potassium to sodium ratio of your diet. Imbalance in this ratio can not only lead to hypertension (high blood pressure) and other health problems, including heart disease, memory decline, erectile dysfunction and more. The easiest way to avoid this imbalance is by avoiding processed foods, which are notoriously low in potassium while high in sodium. Instead, eat a diet of whole, ideally organically-grown foods to ensure optimal nutrient content. This type of diet will naturally provide much larger amounts of potassium in relation to sodium.
8. Soy Protein Isolate and Other Unfermented Soy Products
Sadly, most of what you have been led to believe by the media about soy is simply untrue. One of the worst problems with soy comes from the fact that 90 to 95 percent of soybeans grown in the US are genetically engineered (GE), and these are used to create soy protein isolate. Genetically engineered soybeans are designed to be "Roundup ready," which means they're engineered to withstand otherwise lethal doses of herbicide.
The active ingredient in Roundup herbicide is called glyphosate, which is responsible for the disruption of the delicate hormonal balance of the female reproductive cycle. What's more, glyphosate is toxic to the placenta, which is responsible for delivering vital nutrients from mother to child, and eliminating waste products. Once the placenta has been damaged or destroyed, the result can be miscarriage. In those children born to mothers who have been exposed to even a small amount of glyphosate, serious birth defects can result.
Glyphosate's mechanism of harm was only recently identified, and demonstrates how this chemical disrupts cellular function and induce many of our modern diseases, including autism. Soy protein isolate can be found in protein bars, meal replacement shakes, bottled fruit drinks, soups and sauces, meat analogs, baked goods, breakfast cereals and some dietary supplements.
Even if you are not a vegetarian and do not use soymilk or tofu, it is important to be a serious label reader. There are so many different names for soy additives, you could be bringing home a genetically modified soy-based product without even realizing it. Soy expert Dr. Kaayla Daniel offers a free Special Report7, "Where the Soys Are," on her Web site. It lists the many "aliases" that soy might be hiding under in ingredient lists -- words like "bouillon," "natural flavor" and "textured plant protein."
Besides soy protein isolate, ALL unfermented soy products are best avoided if you value your health. Thousands of studies have linked unfermented soy to malnutrition, digestive distress, immune-system breakdown, thyroid dysfunction, cognitive decline, reproductive disorders and infertility—even cancer and heart disease.
The only soy with health benefits is organic soy that has been properly fermented, and these are the only soy products I ever recommend consuming. After a long fermentation process, the phytate and "anti-nutrient" levels of soybeans are reduced, and their beneficial properties become available to your digestive system. To learn more, please see this previous article detailing the dangers of unfermented soy.
9. Artificial Sweeteners
Contrary to popular belief, studies have found that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame can stimulate your appetite, increase carbohydrate cravings, and stimulate fat storage and weight gain. In one of the most recent of such studies8, saccharin and aspartame were found to cause greater weight gain than sugar.
Aspartame is perhaps one of the most problematic. It is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The phenylalanine has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol.
You may have heard the claim that aspartame is harmless because methanol is also found in fruits and vegetables. However, in fruits and vegetables, the methanol is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing it to be safely passed through your digestive tract. Not so with the methanol created by aspartame; there it's not bonded to anything that can help eliminate it from your body.
Methanol acts as a Trojan horse; it's carried into susceptible tissues in your body, like your brain and bone marrow, where the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme converts it into formaldehyde, which wreaks havoc with sensitive proteins and DNA. All animals EXCEPT HUMANS have a protective mechanism that allows methanol to be broken down into harmless formic acid. This is why toxicology testing on animals is a flawed model. It doesn't fully apply to people.
Guidelines for Healthy Food
Whatever food you're looking to eat, whether organic or locally grown, from either your local supermarket or a farmer's market, the following are signs of a high-quality, healthy food. Most often, the best place to find these foods is from a sustainable agricultural group in your area. You can also review my free nutrition plan to get started on a healthy eating program today: |
A lot of the features I had dialled in on my last phone are automatic now. The dictionary is most noticeable. Since I can't program the words anymore, autocorrect has become a nightmare. Often, the phone persistently changes words that are jargon, and is really difficult to get used to. The keyboard also changed, which makes no sense. It's a classic case of IT engineers lacking basic understanding of the human counterpart. I thought buying another galaxy would get me a new improved version. I was wrong. It's a new, completely different phone. Pros: Faster processing, improved reception, better functionality overall from a hardware perspective. This is coming from the S5, so I'm not really surprised. I liked that phone a lot though. Of all of the galaxies I've had, that one was the best. It just got old, and compatibility was becoming an issue. I also like Bixby. I haven't used it much yet, but it's pretty cool. I hope Samsung gets it running properly, instead of abandoning it like most new ideas. Cons; I can't get a lot of the functions to work the way I like. It's like Samsung feels that they know what's best, and I should learn to trust their wisdom. It's annoying. My phone is supposed to be convenient for ME. I expect to use it MY way. My old phone allowed me to make it work the way i like. This one doesn't. Maybe I just haven't found the adjustments yet, but you'd think they'd be similar. The lock screen is really annoying. I have to go through three screens to get in. There's cooler biometrics on it, but so what? Is it really more secure? Is it more convenient? I don't think so. It's nice having the clock on the screen when it's not in use if you want, but it IS a hassle. The home button is gone. Now, there's a haptic feedback pressure sensor with no other use. I suppose that makes it easier to waterproof, but there have always been cases that solve that problem. Now the phone wouldn't work properly with a watertight case. I guess that's just adjusting, but I feel better having an actual button. The phone seems like it was designed strictly for people who enjoy flaunting the newest technology, not people like me who want the absolute best functionality. If I was in charge of Samsung, I'd have a version intended for people like me. Only tested, reliable functions. Let someone else field test the latest ideas. I want my tech to work the first time, every time. Other people like the newest prototypes. This phone is good for them. Summary: If you want the newest features, and don't really depend on your phone, this is a really hip phone to get. If you can't do without your phone working perfectly, you would probably be frustrated by this one. It's fine, overall, but by not being able to adjust functions to fine tune them, this phone forces you to give too much attention to tasks you just want to finish, and get on with your day. Honestly, this phone is making me nostalgic for the days when we all used landlines.
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Santa Claus Converts To Calvinism, Moves Everybody To Naughty List
NORTH POLE—After a transformative moment reading R.C. Sproul’s What Is Reformed Theology? for the first time earlier this week, legendary Christmas icon Santa Claus reportedly converted to a full-on, five-point Calvinist, and almost immediately moved every single person on the planet to the naughty list, sources confirmed Friday.
“How can I put anyone on the nice list, when every human being is totally depraved from birth?” St. Nick was overheard saying to Mrs. Claus in his office. “No matter what filthy rags of righteousness they bring before the Lord, they are condemned already based on their sin nature.”
The jolly gift-giving man tasked his elves with purging the entire “nice” list and moving all the names over to the naughty list all afternoon, as he lectured them about their need for a Savior who could save them completely.
“He’s actually getting kind of annoying at this point,” head Elf Jing Ullbells said. “I wish we could just lock him in a cage for a few months to let him cool off before letting him interact with regular people again, but we’ve got the busy season going on right now. Ugh.”
Claus reportedly further repented of his merits-based system of giving out gifts, and will now instead select people to receive presents based on nothing good or bad within themselves, but solely on his mercy. |
Belmont Development
Posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016 10:27 am
Potential Belmont Park developer the Engel Burman Group has sponsored a radio advertisement, produced by a civic group in Elmont, that criticizes the plan for the vacant south lot of the racetrack put forth by the New York Cosmos soccer team.
The Elmont Community Coalition Council produced the ad, which ran sporadically on 1010 WINS and the CBS radio affiliate in Albany starting in late 2013. The council was founded as a communitywide organization with representatives from each of the handful of civic groups in Elmont, but it has not had a formal meeting since 2014.
“We don’t need a mega-soccer stadium with 25,000 seats that will never be filled,” said former Elmont Board of Education President Aubrey Phillips, who narrated the commercial. “We need things that will add value to our community.”
The Cosmos plan, which includes a 175-room hotel along with retail and restaurant space, is one of three possible developments for the site. The Syosset-based Blumenfeld Development Group presented its plan on May 18. It featured a Costco Business Center as well as recreation space and retail and restaurant spots. Engel Burman, based in Garden City, features similar retail and restaurant space along with a community center and field. Steven Krieger, a partner in the development company, presented Engel Burman’s plan to residents on June 15.
According to Phillips, the ads were created because of the lack of community input on the various projects. Additionally, the members of the Community Coalition Council, which include Phillips, felt that Elmont’s three state senators, along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, were not representing the community’s needs.
“The Community Coalition Council is committed to a development that better reflects the wishes of the community, and not something that has a proven track record of failure,” Phillips, referring to the Cosmos plan, told the Herald. “Over the last 30 years, the evidence of whether they fail or succeed is clear. They don’t enhance the community.”
The Community Coalition Council contacted Engel Burman in 2013 about working on the advertisements, Phillips said. The members of the council crafted a message focusing on the type of development the majority of residents preferred.
“For the last several years, Engel Burman has been openly engaged in working with the Elmont Community Council regarding our proposal to create a multi-use development on the grounds of Belmont that would meet the specific needs of this diverse community,” said Steven Krieger, a partner at Engel Burman. “One of their concerns was that they had neither the resources nor the experience in ensuring their concerns with the mega-stadium would be heard by the governor and the [Empire State Development Corporation].”
According to Krieger, the resources at the disposal of the Cosmos dwarf that of local civic groups, which allows the soccer team to lobby state officials more aggressively. It was for this reason that Engel Burman became involved with the Elmont CCC, he said.
“If this development contest is ultimately judged on whether big money can overwhelm a community, then the Cosmos plan may well win,” he said. “If this battle is about what is appropriate for a community seeking economic equality and a strengthened quality of life, then our proposal’s merits are self-evident.”
Cosmos Chief Operating Officer Erik Stover declined to comment.
In addition to the radio commercial, the ECCC also produced a television spot criticizing the Cosmos’ attendance numbers. The commercial opens with shots of a Cosmos home game at James M. Shuart Stadium at Hofstra University. A voice-over actor states that the Cosmos will not be able to fill a 25,000-seat stadium.
“The numbers aren’t here — the economics make no sense,” the narrator says as shots of a less-than-half-full stadium are intercut with shots of an underused concession stand. “This would be a losing venture for years to come, preventing true economic growth.”
According to the spot, the ECCC funded the project. Krieger did not respond to questions about Engel Burman’s involvement with the television commercial, but did discuss why the development company became involved with the civic group.
"[The ECCC] certainly didn’t have the lobbyists, publicists and influential media allies that the Cosmos have gathered to try and influence the decision-making process, so they asked for our assistance in ensuring their story would be told,” Krieger said. “We did so willingly, openly and ethically.”
Not all observers see it that way, however. “It’s not good,” Patrick Nicolosi, president of the East End Civic Association, who has been a staunch supporter of the Cosmos plan in recent months, said of Engel Burman’s involvement, “because it just shows you how people are being bought in this community who push one project over the other.”
Comments about this story? Send your letters to the Editor to [email protected] |
Listen up! This episode kicks off w/ two excellent new tracks! The first from the Duppies and their new album, the second is from the Holophonics and their forthcoming album! Get excited! I’m excited! I’ve been bringing you a lot of great new ska and ska/punk this month and I couldn’t be happier to do so! It’s just that time of year where the new stuff is coming out fast! I’m happy that it gives me us all something great to listen to when we’re stuck at our jobs instead of out living it up and seeing bands and drinking lemonade! Work sucks, but great tunes make it bearable. Thanks to all the bands, thank you for saving us from our mundane lives and giving us something to dance to!
00:00 – the Duppies – Circles (Broken Organ ’15)
04:26 – the Holophonics – You’re Not (the) Special(s) (Don’t Mess with the Holophonics ’15)
06:42 – Johnny Socko – Tired & Happy Life (Full Trucker Effect ’97)
10:42 – the Insteps – Every Slacker is a Star (Eleven Steps to Power ’96)
13:49 – the Interrupters – Haven’t Seen the Last of Me (the Interrupters ’14)
15:59 – the Malcontents – No Family (Never Enough ’03)
19:24 – Stand Out Riot – Get a Real Job (Foiled for Freshness ’06)
Show support for the band by clicking on those links and checking out their websites and music! Show support for the podcast by finding & liking 23min of Ska on facebook as well as follow on twitter. Also, feel free to download this episode if you wanna keep it forever. Another way to support the podcast is to buy some records from our partners in crime over at Grandpa’s Casino Recordings, they carry some great vinyl ska records! |
Just over a decade ago, the state of California faced serious concerns about whether its utilities could generate and/or buy enough power to assure that the world's seventh-largest economy could keep the lights on. The infamous California energy crisis, which affected several other western states as well, was a complex tangle of poorly structured deregulation, significant market manipulation (remember Enron?), and other causes. Along with rolling blackouts, California endured an official state of emergency that lasted 34 months, led to the recall and replacement of Gov. Gray Davis, and cost the state and its ratepayers billions of dollars - a cautionary tale for all states of electricity supply unable to meet demand.
Fast-forward to the early spring of 2014. The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), due in part to an unexpected abundance of solar generation in what was supposed to be the rainy season, had to institute curtailments of wind and solar power coming into the grid on four separate occasions. In one instance, more than a gigawatt of combined wind and solar power was curtailed, a condition that the grid operator calls over-generation or "overgen." "In the past, who would have even thought of the concept of overgen?" says Tom Doughty, CAISO's director of regulatory strategy. "But it's a harbinger of what's to come." Without changes in planning and technology, Doughty says, CAISO's current projections note that a 40 percent share of the state's power from renewables in 2024 (on the way to Gov. Jerry Brown's stated goal of 50 percent by 2030) would necessitate more than 800 curtailments a year. "We have clean energy sources producing a lot of megawatts," adds Doughty. "We need somewhere to put it."
Welcome to what could be the new normal -- and the cusp of a new energy future. "Too much electricity" from renewables is obviously not a widespread phenomenon (yet), but it has happened with wind power in the Pacific Northwest and Texas, causing big headaches for power marketers and grid operators. A regional reality check, however: seven U.S. states (all south of the Mason-Dixon Line) had no statistically significant generation from clean sources (excluding hydro) in 2014, and eight more had less than one percent.
But let's look a little more closely at two states, California and New York, where the energy future is taking shape -- two states that are home to some 58 million people, or about 18 percent of the U.S. population. In our 2012 book Clean Tech Nation, Ron Pernick and I asserted that the developed world does not need new nuclear or coal-fired generation -- that all future load can be handled by a combination of renewables, deep efficiency, and some natural gas. Now, in a growing number of cases, it may even be possible to add new natural gas plants to the not-needed list. In California, utility regulators increasingly feel that the energy needs of their growing economy can be met by "preferred resources" -- renewables, efficiency, demand response, and energy storage.
Take the state's effort to replace power (1,500 MW by 2022) from the shuttered San Onofre nuclear plant near San Diego. A year ago, plant owner San Diego Gas & Electric sought approval for a new 600 MW natural gas plant to serve a big chunk of the projected load. But in March of this year, the California Public Utilities Commission denied approval, noting that SDG&E failed to adequately consider its preferred resources.
"It's a brave new world," says CAISO Board of Governors member Angelina Galiteva. "We're seeing deep penetration of renewables, and political decisions to phase out nuclear plants. When the decision was made to close San Onofre, we actually phased it out quite painlessly." And this is in a state economy that's grown more than 4% annually over the past three years.
Solar power plays on both sides of the supply/demand equation. While utility-scale solar in California grew 62 percernt in 2014 to 9.9 GWh, or five percent of total generation, the state's booming behind-the-meter distributed solar PV essentially acts as an efficiency play to the grid operator, removing grid demand from the homes and commercial buildings drawing power from their rooftops. And that's a challenge to ISOs. "We see load growth reduction -- is it efficiency or distributed solar?" says Galiteva. "We don't have that transparency."
Galiteva was a speaker at last month's Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) "The Future of Energy" Summit in New York, where the state is undertaking one of the nation's most ambitious regulatory overhauls. New York's Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) plan aims to transform the state's electricity use by mandating utilities to focus on demand response, smart grid, distributed generation, and storage. "We needed better markets and price signals for distributed assets and renewable energy," says Audrey Zibelman, chair of the New York Public Service Commission and a key architect of REV. "Our message to utilities is, 'Your job is no longer just delivering to the meter.' We want to make utilities the drivers of change, instead of the deer in the headlights." In the biggest pilot case to date, ConEdison has embarked on a $250 million effort to develop 52 MW of demand-side resources to replace the need for a new substation and transmission lines in Brooklyn with a $1 billion price tag. On the supply side, New York has one of the nation's most aggressive RPS goals of 29 percent renewables by the end of this year (required to be procured by NYSERDA, rather than generated by in-state utilities like most states' programs).
It will take a while for other regions to embrace this future, but states like California and New York are showing the way toward a transformation of grid operations and age-old power supply and demand assumptions. The importance of cost-effective, large-scale energy storage (both utility-scale and distributed) in this new world can't be overstated, and Tesla is now all in with its ballyhooed battery announcement on April 30. |
On Thusday, the same day that former FBI agent Clint Watts testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russian intelligence targeted the Republican primary campaigns of Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, Rubio himself discussed how both his campaign and Senate office had staved off Russian hackers.
"In July 0f 2016, shortly after I announced that I would seek reelection to the United States Senate, former members of my presidential campaign team who had access to the internal information of my presidential campaign were targeted by IP addresses with an unknown location within Russia. That effort was unsuccessful," Rubio told the Senate.
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He added, "I would also inform the committee within the last 24 hours, at 10:45 a.m. yesterday, a second attempt was made, again, against former members of my presidential campaign team who had access to our internal information — again targeted from an IP address from an unknown location in Russia. And that effort was also unsuccessful."
Watts himself later said during this hearing that Rubio had not been alone among the Russian government's alleged recent targets.
"This past week we observed social media campaigns targeting speaker of the House Paul Ryan hoping to foment further unrest amongst U.S. democratic institutions," Watts said.
Rubio's disclosure sheds new light on his comments in October, when he warned his fellow Republicans against trying to make political hay out of WikiLeaks' revelations regarding Hillary Clinton's emails. After denouncing the hacks as "an effort by a foreign government to interfere with our electoral process," Rubio said that "I want to warn my fellow Republicans who may want to capitalize politically on these leaks: Today it is the Democrats. Tomorrow it could be us." |
Some good baseball last night. Hell, even the Milwaukee/Pittsburgh game mattered a little, in the sense that the Brewers now have home field in their NLDS. Tipster Steven F. was there to see it. But, he got distracted in the process of doing so. To wit:
Attached is a photograph I took of a man (centaur?) sitting five or six rows down from me in the right field bleachers at Miller Park Wednesday night.
He mysteriously showed up in around the fifth or sixth inning, but I can't say for certain because nobody noticed his presence at first until suddenly he was there, almost mythologically.
He stuck to character well; I never heard him say a word, and any time he took a swig of beer he did so through the mouth of the mask.
Around the seventh inning, an usher appeared and attempted to remove either the man or his mask. He budged on neither request, until about an inning later another usher appeared and firmly demanded that he either remove the horse mask or leave the ball game.
Steadfastly, he rose from his seat and was escorted out, to an eruption of boos. According to the usher, post-9/11 security procedures forbid masks of any kind. He never once allowed them to remove it. |
Christopher Perez, 23, of the 4800 block of West Fletcher Street, has been charged with a home invasion early Saturday that targeted a couple ages 84 and 81, police said Monday. View Full Caption Chicago Police
CHICAGO — A 23-year-old man has been charged with a home invasion early Saturday that targeted a couple ages 84 and 81, police said Monday.
At 9:30 a.m. Saturday, police officers in the 4700 block of West Barry Avenue saw Christopher Perez, 23, "acting suspiciously," police said. Perez ducked behind a car and tossed a black object on the ground, which the officers later discovered to be a pouch full of jewelry, police said.
RELATED: 'Punk Cowards' Attacking Elderly Residents In String Of NW Side Burglaries
Believing the jewelry to be stolen, the officers started to arrest Perez, of the 4800 block of West Fletcher Street, but he resisted.
The jewelry later was confirmed to be from a home invasion earlier that day in the 5800 block of West Wellington Avenue, and Perez was identified as the man who broke into the home, police said.
He was charged with two counts of home invasion with a dangerous weapon, one count of resisting arrest and one count of theft. He also was wanted for a parole violation, police said.
He was scheduled to appear in bond court Monday.
Records from the Illinois Department of Corrections show Perez was released from prison in May 2016. He had been sentenced to 5½ years in prison for a 2014 case for burglary and possession of stolen guns. He previously was sentenced to 3 years in prison for a 2011 robbery case.
On Saturday, Supt. Eddie Johnson said police believed three of the four recent home invasions on the Northwest Side were related, though police had no further information Monday on whether Perez was a suspect in any of the other crimes.
On Thursday night, an elderly couple was attacked and robbed in their Portage Park home. On May 19, a 78-year-old woman was badly beaten and robbed by a man while she cleaned her Irving Park home. Another attack occurred Tuesday night in the 4800 block of West Nelson Street, police said.
In the Wellington Avenue home invasion, a man climbed into the couple's home through a back window at 1:19 a.m. He walked up to the 84-year-old man in the living room and said he had a gun.
The man and woman gave the thief a wallet, checkbook, $30 in cash and jewelry, police said. |
The Foreign Affairs Department is advising Canadians to avoid travel to South Sudan.
In an advisory issued late Monday night, Foreign Affairs also urged any Canadians still in the war-torn nation to get out as soon as possible.
Earlier Monday, civilian helicopters evacuated U.S. citizens from Bor, which has seen bouts of heavy machine-gun fire, but 3,000 citizens from countries including Canada, Britain and Kenya remain trapped there, a top UN official said Monday.
Toby Lanzer, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator, said Australians, Ugandans and Ethiopians are also among 15,000 total people seeking protection at a UN base in Bor, a city that could see increasing violence in coming days.
The death toll from a week of violence in South Sudan has likely surpassed 1,000 people, though there are no firm numbers available, he said. The number of internal refugees has likely surpassed 100,000, said Lanzer, who is seeking urgent financial assistance from the international community.
"I can't afford any delays from donor capitals right now," he told The Associated Press in a phone call. "Never has there been a greater time of need in South Sudan."
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is urging the UN Security Council to add 5,500 troops and police to the 7,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in conflict-wracked South Sudan.
Ban proposed in a letter to the council obtained Monday by The Associated Press that the troops be transferred from UN missions in Congo, Darfur, Abyei, Ivory Coast and Liberia along with three attack helicopters, three utility helicopters and a C-130 military transport plane.
France's UN Ambassador Gerard Araud, the current council president, said he expects the council to vote Tuesday on a resolution authorizing the transfers.
Bor is the city where rebel forces fired on three U.S. military aircraft on Saturday, forcing the Ospreys — advanced helicopter-airplane hybrids — to abort their evacuation mission. On Sunday the U.S. evacuated Americans by civilian U.S. and UN helicopters.
The U.S. over the last week has evacuated 380 Americans and 300 others from South Sudan, which has seen vicious, ethnically targeted violence pulse through the nation. Military commanders loyal to the country's ousted vice-president have defected and say they are now in control of regions that hold lucrative oil fields.
Lanzer, who spent the weekend in Bor, said the city is experiencing tense, sporadic clashes and "fairly consistent gunfire and heavy machine-gun fire."
Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs says about 100 Canadian citizens have registered with the department in South Sudan, according to the CBC's James Fitz-Morris. There could be many more who haven't registered since it's voluntary.
U.S. troops wounded during evacuation
The violence began late on Dec. 15. South Sudan President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, said last week that an attempted military coup had triggered the violence, and the blame was placed on former Vice-President Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer. Other officials have since said a fight between Dinka and Nuer members of the presidential guard triggered the fighting, which spiralled across the country.
South Sudan's central government lost control of the capital of a key oil-producing state on Sunday, the military said, as renegade forces loyal to a former deputy president seized more territory in fighting that has raised fears of full-blown civil war in the world's newest country. (UNMISS/Associated Press) Analysts have suggested that a tribal militia known as the White Army — from the Lou Nuer ethnic group — is moving toward Bor, which is populated by Dinkas. Lanzer said he couldn't say anything with precision about those reports.
"Everybody knows that Bor is a strategic location," he said. "It would be difficult for me to imagine a scenario in which Bor is completely calm and safe over the coming days," he said, adding that he thinks violence could become "very heavy," which is why the UN is fortifying its position there.
The U.S. over the weekend deployed about 46 troops to help evacuate American citizens. That was in addition to 45 troops sent to the capital, Juba, last week to protect the U.S. Embassy. Four U.S. troops were wounded in the evacuation attempt Saturday.
U.S. President Barack Obama over the weekend sent a letter to congressional leaders letting them know he may take further military action in South Sudan to protect U.S. citizens, personnel and property.
Fighting continued over the weekend, as the central government acknowledged it has lost control of Bentiu, the capital Unity, a key oil-producing state.
East African leaders are leading diplomatic efforts to avoid a full-blown civil war. South Sudan experienced decades of war with Sudan, which it peacefully broke away from in 2011. |
Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz maintains he did nothing wrong in purchasing a "shell company" from the city's chief administrative officer but concedes it could be viewed unfavourably by some.
And on Wednesday, he said perception is key and in retrospect he should have just created and registered his own company and paid the fees to do it.
"When you are in the world of politics, the sad statement is reality doesn't count, OK? As you heard the expression: perception is reality," he said.
"So should one exercise more caution. If I had to do this again I would have paid the $3,000, $4,000, found a lawyer, and boom, done that. No doubt about that, that is a very valuable lesson learned."
CBC News first reported on Tuesday that Katz had purchased Arizona-based Duddy Enterprises LLC from the city's top bureaucrat, Phil Sheegl, in March.
Katz insists Duddy is a "shell company" that currently transacts no business, but he has said he might use it in the future.
He said he paid Sheegl $1 for it.
Late on Wednesday, Sheegl issued a short statement regarding his role in the sale of Duddy Enterprises to Katz.
"The company was dormant and I no longer required it. In retrospect, it would have been better for the mayor to set up his own new company," the statement reads in part.
"As I have said before, the mayor and I are not partners in any of my businesses.
Deal comes under fire
The transaction does not appear on the mayor's statement of assets and interests that is required to be filed under Manitoba's Municipal Council Conflict of Interest Act.
Under the act, council members must disclose the name of every corporation worth more than $500 in which they hold over five per cent of the value.
Katz said the city clerk ruled he didn't have to disclose the company transfer.
However, the arrangement has come under scrutiny after becoming public.
Brian Kelcey, who worked in the mayor's office and now teaches municipal government at the University of Winnipeg, said it's inappropriate for the two men to be doing this kind of deal and for it not to be disclosed on the public record.
"Let's remember that Mayor Sam Katz is Phil Sheegl's direct day-to-day superior and insofar as Phil reports to council, the mayor is one of his indirect superiors," Kelcey said.
Mynarski Coun. Ross Eadie is calling on Sheegl to resign, citing the Duddy Enterprises transaction as well as a controversial land swap involving fire halls.
"The perception is very poor. It wasn't a good decision," Eadie said.
"When I'm out on the streets, talking to people who live in my ward, there is a lot of people that are very concerned that the city's getting ripped off."
Katz has said no decision has been made on who is responsible for mistakes in the land swap controversy.
A financial review is expected in less than two weeks. |
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Ultra-high-net-worth individuals by country, 2011
The tax plan passed by Senate Democrats on Wednesday isn’t really about taxing the rich; it’s about taxing the megarich. As Timothy Noah has explained in The New Republic, the plan would actually reduce taxes on a lot of fairly rich people by renewing the (supposedly temporary) Bush-era tax cuts for everyone except those who make more than $250,000 a year. Even then, Democrats are only proposing a higher marginal tax rate, which means that even people raking in far more than $250,000 will still pay lower taxes on their first quarter million in annual earnings. Crunch the numbers, and it turns out that the biggest losers under the Senate plan are couples who earn more than $1 million a year—mostly multimillionaires and billionaires.
While the Senate tax plan could certainly go further in taxing the rich, focusing on the megawealthy makes sense considering how much of our economy is now controlled by them. According to the Internal Revenue Service, there are 66,000 taxpayers who individually control $20 million or more in assets, and all these people put together are worth $4 trillion—more than the net worth of the majority of the US population.
The investment bank Credit Suisse, for its part, classifies “ultra high net worth individuals” as people with at least $50 million in assets—and according to the bank’s 2011 Global Wealth Databook, more of these UNHWIs live in the United States than anywhere else in the world (see chart above).
So perhaps America has lots of multimillionaires because it’s a prosperous country? That’s certainly a factor—but not the only one. Compared to the superrich in the six other countries with the most multimillionaires, American tycoons grab a disproportionately large share of the economic pie:
Percent of Income Earned by Top 0.1% of Taxpayers
Yet despite raking in such a large share of the national income, our nation’s über-wealthy pay very little in taxes by global standards:
Top Income Tax Rates in the 6 Countries With the Most Ultra-High-Net-Worth Citizens
But don’t higher tax rates at the top slow economic growth? Apparently not, considering the growth rates of our tax-happy competitors.
Change in Gross Domestic Product, 2011
So why hasn’t Congress already raised taxes on the rich? Perhaps because the superwealthy have raised a lot more political money than the rest of us.
Percent of donations to super-PACs this year that come from just 196 Americans: 80
80 Amount the Koch brothers and their foundations plan to spend to defeat Obama: $395 million
$395 million Total money raised by John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign: $384 million
$384 million Number of billionaires who’ve made donations to Mitt Romney’s super-PAC, Restore Our Future: 32
32 Percentage of Americans who give more than $10,000 in any election cycle: 0.01
READ MORE: 4 Ways That Democrats Want to Cut Taxes on The Rich |
Change is rarely easy, even when it is necessary. As creatures of habit, it takes real dedication and perseverance in order to affect real, lasting change in your life. At first, it’s often a pleasant experience, the change wakes you up out of your stagnation, and it feels like you’re actually living. When commitment wanes, or enthusiasm shrinks, however, it can be easy to fall right back into the habits which needed changing in the first place.
One of the best techniques that I’ve found for strengthening resolve is to turn to the wisdom of others. There’s no easier way to start this habit than through these iconic quotes about change and the process of changing, from some of the great thinkers, authors, actors, and politicians or our time.
1. If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. – Maya Angelou
2. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. – Reinhold Niebuhr
3. Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
4. For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. – Steve Jobs
5. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. - C. S. Lewis
6. When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves. – Viktor E. Frankl
7. All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. – Anatole France
8. If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. – Lao Tzu
9. To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. – Winston Churchill
10. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. – Leo Tolstoy
11. If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. – Wayne Dyer
12. The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. – Alan Watts
13. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. – Frederick Douglass
14. Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. – George Bernard Shaw
15. You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. – Jim Rohn
16. Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change. – Confucius
17. I hope everyone that is reading this is having a really good day. And if you are not, just know that in every new minute that passes you have an opportunity to change that. – Gillian Anderson
18. Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies. – Robert Kennedy
19. They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. – Confucius
20. Always remember that the future comes one day at a time. – Dean Acheson
21. Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there. – Will Smith
22. Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene. – A. C. Benson
23. We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. – Carl Jung
24. Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
25. Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken. – Frank Herbert
26. Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots. – Victor Hugo
27. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. – Gilda Radner
28. They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. – Andy Warhol
29. Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are. – Soren Kierkegaard
30. When you blame others, you give up your power to change. – Robert Anthony
31. The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. – Carl Rogers
32. There is nothing permanent except change. – Heraclitus
33. It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change. – Mignon McLaughlin
34. The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life. – Leo Tolstoy
35. Change will never happen when people lack the ability and courage to see themselves for who they are. – Bryant H. McGill
36. Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better. – Sydney J. Harris
37. I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better. – Georg C. Lichtenberg
38. Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing or a curse, a dawn or a dusk. – William Arthur Ward
39. He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. – Harold Wilson
40. Change before you have to. – Jack Welch
41. When it becomes more difficult to suffer than to change… you will change. – Robert Anthony
42. People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will totally change everything. There is no single magic bullet. – Temple Grandin
43. Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever. – Keri Russell
44. He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. – Francis Bacon
45. Change means that what was before wasn’t perfect. People want things to be better. – Esther Dyson
46. The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. – Nathaniel Branden
47. Change is inevitable. Change is constant. – Benjamin Disraeli
48. If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior. – William Glasser
49. To change what you get you must change who you are. – Vernon Howard
50. Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job. – Adlai E. Stevenson
51. The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being. – Lech Walesa
52. If you feel like it’s difficult to change, you will probably have a harder time succeeding. – Andrea Jung
Take the One Week With/out challenge! Start here. |
Florida A&M got off on the wrong foot in its game against Arkansas Thursday.
The Rattlers were penalized before the game even started because they were wearing illegal jerseys, according to CBS Sports. The penalty for illegal jerseys? The team loses a one timeout at the start of each quarter.
Penalty called on FAMU for illegal jerseys. Numbers don't contrast enough. Lost TO for every qtr they wear them. #SECfootball pic.twitter.com/h14oXOaC74 — David Leavitt (@dvdleavitt) September 1, 2017
According to rule 1-4.5-b, the numbers on the jersey must contrast the base color of the jersey. So although FAMU's white-on-white scheme looks good, it's not allowed and cost the team four of its six timeouts in this road game.
It's easy to blame FAMU for this mistake, because somebody on the team should have been aware of the rule to make sure something as ridiculous as this didn't happen. In the team's defense however, they wore these same jerseys every road game last season without any repercussions, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
Here are in the illegal jerseys in the team's 2016 season opener against Miami.
Photo by Aaron Gilbert/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
It looks like the Rattlers will have to have a new road uniform for their game against Savannah State on Sept. 23. |
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday reported finding elevated levels of iodine-131, a product of nuclear fission, in rainwater in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The levels exceed the maximum contaminant level (MCL) permitted in drinking water, but EPA continues to assure the public there is no need for alarm:
"It is important to note that the corresponding MCL for iodine-131 was calculated based on long-term chronic exposures over the course of a lifetime – 70 years. The levels seen in rainwater are expected to be relatively short in duration," the agency states in a FAQ that accompanied yesterday's brief news release.
"In both cases these are levels above the normal background levels historically reported in these areas."
EPA said it is receiving "verbal reports" of higher levels of radiation in rainwater samples from other states as well, and that Americans should continue to expect short-term contamination of rainwater as radioactive isotopes spread through the atmosphere from Japan.
"We continue to expect similar reports from state agencies and others across the nation given the nature and duration of the Japanese nuclear incident."
EPA is analyzing rainwater samples taken from 18 monitoring stations around the nation, promising to release results soon. It is stepping up sampling of rainwater, drinking water, and milk.
The Food and Drug Administration released a statement on milk Saturday:
At this time, theoretical models do not indicate that harmful amounts of radiation will reach the U.S. and, therefore, there is little possibility of domestic milk being contaminated as a result of grass or feed contamination in the U.S. FDA, together with other agencies, is carefully monitoring any possibility for distribution of radiation."
EPA also maintains 140 air monitoring stations. Those have detected radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in five Western states: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington, and, as of yesterday, Nevada.
The isotopes detected in Western states have been found in minuscule amounts, officials say, much too small to threaten health. Scientists trace the isotopes to Japan because they are products of nuclear fission—iodine-131, xenon-133, and cesium-137.
"Unless you have an accident like this, you wouldn't expect to see this. No doubt it's from Japan," Ted Hartwell, manager of the Desert Research Institute's Community Environmental Monitoring Program, told the Associated Press.
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History has not been kind to the legacy of William Graham Sumner. In his time (1840-1910), Sumner was one of the most prestigious and widely read libertarian intellectuals in the United States. Beyond his more technical academic work Sumner also wrote passionately and voluminously in defense of laissez faireon a wide range of social issues. His popular critique of protectionism, "The –ism Which Teaches that Waste Makes Wealth" (1885) and his denunciation of imperialism in "The Conquest of the United States by Spain" (1898) are two of his most impressive polemical works. Sumner's most sustained investigation of questions of economic policy and distributive justice appeared in a collection essays What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883) which includes his most famous single essay – "The Forgotten Man" (1884). Unfortunately, Sumner's intellectual legacy suffered essentially the same fate as that of his contemporary Herbert Spencer, and for much the same reason. From near-ubiquity and respectability, Sumner's ideas have descended into obscurity and disrepute. To the extent he is remembered at all today, it is mostly for his alleged "social Darwinism." In this essayMatt Zwolinski, professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego, examines the charge of social Darwinism, and, more generally, the nature of Sumner's views on redistribution and our responsibilities toward the poor and vulnerable, and concludes that the charge of social Darwinism is mistaken as applied to Sumner, who is a principled libertarian, not a social Darwinist. Moreover, he is a libertarian who took special pains to demonstrate the ways in which a regime of liberty is especially beneficial to society's most vulnerable members. Matt is joined in the dicussion by Phillip W. Magness, a historian based in the Washington, D.C. region, Robert Leroux, professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa, Fabio Rojas, professor of sociology at Indiana University, and David M. Hart, the Director of the Online Library of Liberty Project.
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Liberty Matters No. 29: Matt Zwolinski, "William Graham Sumner – Liberty's Forgotten Man" (July 2017)
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The Debate
Lead Essay: Matt Zwolinski, "William Graham Sumner – Liberty's Forgotten Man" [Posted: July 3, 2017]
Responses and Critiques
The Conversation
About the Authors
Matt Zwolinski is a professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego and affiliate professor of law. He is founder and director of USD's Center for Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy, co-director of USD's Institute for Law and Philosophy, and a fellow at UCSD'S Center on Global Justice. He is the author of nearly 30 articles focusing on various theoretical and applied aspects of exploitation, the editor of Arguing About Political Philosophy (2nd edition, Routledge, 2014) and of The Politics, Philosophy, and Economics of Exploitation (forthcoming with Oxford in 2018). With John Tomasi, he is the author of A Brief History of Libertarianism, forthcoming with Princeton University Press in 2018.
Phillip W. Magness is a historian based in the Washington, D.C. region. He specializes in the "long" 19th century, with a dual emphasis upon slavery and the history of American capitalism. He is a leading expert on black colonization during the Civil War era and its sometimes-strained relationship with the African-American emigrationist movement of the same period. His other works have explored the economic history of the United States including historical tariff policy, the federal income tax, and the relationship between taxation and wealth inequality. Magness holds a PhD from George Mason University and a BA in political science from the University of St. Thomas. He currently teaches at GMU's Schar School of Public Policy.
Robert Leroux is a professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa. He is interested by epistemology, the history of social science, and liberal thought. Recent publications include Political Economy and Liberalism in France: The Contributions of Frédéric Bastiat (London and New York: Routledge, 2011) and French Liberalism in the 19th Century: An Anthology (London and New York: Routledge, 2011) which he co-edited with David Hart. The French version of his book on Bastiat won the Prix Charles Dupin awarded by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of Paris in 2008.
Fabio Rojas is professor of sociology at Indiana University. He studies organizational behavior in political, economic, and educational settings. He is the author of Theory for the Working Sociologist (2017, Columbia University Press), From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline (2007, The Johns Hopkins University Press) and co-author, with Michael T. Heaney of Party in the Street: The Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party after 9/11 (2015, Cambridge University Press). He was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research and received the 2016 Leon D. Epstein Award from the American Political Science Association for an outstanding book in the study of political organizations and parties.
David M. Hart is the Director of Liberty Fund's Online Library of Liberty Project and the Academic Editor of Liberty Fund's six volume translation of the Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat and the editor Gustave de Molinari's Conversations on Saint Lazarus Street (1849). Recent works include co-editing with Robert Leroux two anthologies of 19th century French classical liberal thought: French Liberalism in the 19th Century: An Anthology (London and New York: Routledge, 2011) and in French, L'Âge d'or du libéralisme français. Anthologie. XIXe siècle (The Golden Age of French Liberalism) (Ellipses, forthcoming). He has participated in other Liberty Matters discussions, writing the Lead Essay for a discussion on "The Spread of (Classical) Liberal Ideas" (March 2015) and "Classical Liberalism and the Problem of Class" (Nov. 2016).
Additional Reading
LEAD ESSAY: Matt Zwolinski, "William Graham Sumner – Liberty's Forgotten Man" [Posted: July 3, 2017]↩
Introduction
History has not been kind to the legacy of William Graham Sumner. In his time (1840-1910), Sumner was one of the most prestigious and widely read libertarian intellectuals in the United States. A professor of political and social science at Yale, Sumner was one of the founding figures in the academic discipline of sociology. And his most famous and enduring work, Folkways (1906), is still regarded as an important sociological exploration of cultural norms and institutions that, along the way, develops important insights into the theory of spontaneous order. Beyond his more technical academic work, however, Sumner also wrote passionately and voluminously in defense of laissez faireon a wide range of social issues. His popular critique of protectionism, "The –ism Which Teaches that Waste Makes Wealth" (1885) and his denunciation of imperialism in "The Conquest of the United States by Spain" (1898) are two of his most impressive polemical works. In 1883 he published a series of 11 short essays on the relations between workers and employers in Harper's Weekly. These essays were later republished as What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883), a book that represents Sumner's most sustained investigation of questions of economic policy and distributive justice. Two of the essays in that book were later combined and expanded upon to form what is no doubt Sumner's most famous single essay – "The Forgotten Man" (1884).
Unfortunately, Sumner's intellectual legacy suffered essentially the same fate as that of his contemporary Herbert Spencer, and for much the same reason. From near-ubiquity and respectability, Sumner's ideas have descended into obscurity and disrepute. To the extent he is remembered at all today, it is mostly for his alleged "social Darwinism." That charge against Sumner (and Spencer) was made famous by Richard Hofstadter in his 1944 book, Social Darwinism in American Thought, the influence of which on academic and popular understandings of Sumner (and Spencer) can hardly be overstated.
In this essay I will examine the charge of social Darwinism, and, more generally, the nature of Sumner's views on redistribution and our responsibilities toward the poor and vulnerable. I will argue that the charge of social Darwinism, to the extent that it is coherent at all, is mistaken as applied to Sumner. Sumner is a principled libertarian, not a social Darwinist. Moreover, he is a libertarian who took special pains to demonstrate the ways in which a regime of liberty is especially beneficial to society's most vulnerable members. Surprising as it may seem, I will argue, we can find in the writings of Sumner the core ideas of a libertarian theory of social justice.
Social Darwinism
If the charge of social Darwinism is difficult to decisively refute, this is only because it is difficult to assign any precise (and therefore falsifiable) meaning at all to the phrase. From its beginning, "social Darwinism" was a phrase people used almost exclusively to describe ideas with which they disagreed. In fact, the expression of disagreement often appears to be the only fixed element of the phrase's meaning. Different people at different times disliked and disagreed with different things, and thus "social Darwinism" came at times to be a shorthand way of referring to ideas as various as racism, militarism, support of eugenics, indifference to the plight of the poor, an excessively biological view of humanity, or support of laissez faire.
For Hofstadter and other critics of Spencer and Sumner, however, the core ideas of social Darwinism seem to be that human society is marked by the same sort of "struggle for existence" that characterizes the animal world, and that the victors of this struggle emerge according to the rule of "survival of the fittest." Economic competition is one aspect of this struggle, and so a policy of strict laissez faireis necessary to ensure the fitness of the individuals who constitute society. Interference with laissez fairein the form of, say, charitable giving to the weak, would retard the evolutionary pressures leading to greater and greater fitness, and must therefore be opposed. Economic success is an indisputable indicator of virtue and fitness, and economic failure is a telltale sign of vice and unfitness. That which has might, is necessarily right, and that which is weak may be trodden upon with impunity.
With respect to Herbert Spencer, the charge of social Darwinism has been addressed, and refuted (again and again and again - by George H. Smith, Thomas C. Leonard, and me). But does the charge fare any better when applied to Sumner?
The first problem with this criticism hinges on the correct understanding of key evolutionary terms in Sumner's thought, such as "the struggle for existence" and "the survival of the fittest." There is a natural temptation – sometimes bolstered by Sumner's own infelicitous phrasing – to read these phrases as expressing a normative goal, as though the survival of the fittest was something that we should strive to achieve and arrange our social institutions to facilitate. But this is not how Sumner understood the idea. "Fitness," for Sumner, was not a normative evaluation but a descriptive claim. To be "fit" is not necessarily to be "better" or "more virtuous" than one who is unfit. All that fitness means, in the evolutionary sense, is adaptation to environment. Thus, in Sumner's "colorful" words, "rattlesnakes may survive where horses perish … or highly cultivated white men may die where Hottentots flourish." The fact that a rattlesnake will outlive a horse in a desert doesn't make the rattlesnake morally better than the horse. It just means that the rattlesnake is better adapted to surviving in the desert. That is all.
Thus, the survival of the fittest is a constraint within which men and laws must operate, not a goal to be pursued. And it is an inescapable constraint. We could not avoid it if we wanted to. So it is not as though there is anything particularly Darwinist about capitalism, as opposed to other forms of social organization. Switching from a capitalist economy to a socialist one would not render evolutionary pressures defunct. It would only alter the context in which they operate and the effects they produce.
The real misery of mankind is the struggle for existence; why not "declare" that there ought not to be any struggle for existence, and that there shall not be any more? Let it be decreed that existence is a natural right, and let it be secured in that way. If we attempt to execute this plan, it is plain that we shall not abolish the struggle for existence; we shall only bring it about that some men must fight that struggle for others. ("Some Natural Rights")
But there is a second and even more significant problem with the charge of social Darwinism as applied to Sumner: it is the very essence of the system of laissez faire he championed to prohibit the violence and plunder that characterize the Darwinian "law of the jungle." For Sumner, as for his contemporaries Herbert Spencer and Gustave de Molinari, the peaceful economic competition that exists within industrial society is an evolutionary advance from earlier forms of more violent competition. As culture and commerce advance, they tend to ameliorate the effects of the struggle for existence, even going so far as to replace it with a more benign process that Sumner referred to as "the competition of life." That latter process replaces the zero-sum conflict of violence with what Spencer referred to as "antagonistic cooperation," a process distinguished by its in-group cooperation and mutually beneficial exchange.
Nowhere is Sumner's distinction between these two forms of competition clearer than in his condemnation of militarism, a force that he charged with "combating the grand efforts of science and art to ameliorate the struggle for existence." War, Sumner made clear, "is not to be relied to finish the work of selection between states." In some cases it is true that war "destroys social rubbish." But in others "it destroys things which are societally, politically, and ethically good. It belongs to primitive and natural evolution," not to society in its civilized state.
Particularly abhorrent to Sumner was militant imperialism and colonialism, in which supposedly "superior" cultures would set themselves up to rule by force over "inferior" ones. Sumner's contempt for such policy led him to produce one of his most powerful essays, "The Conquest of the United States by Spain," in which he argued that America was losing the Spanish-American war by sacrificing its principles and traditions of liberty and taking on those of Spanish imperialism. In particular, Sumner recoiled at the imperialist rejection of the basic moral equality of persons, an equality that Sumner saw as sometimes stretched too broadly by those who sought to extend it into economic equality, but which nevertheless in its core meaning was central to the classical-liberal vision of liberty for which he stood and which extends protection to all persons, regardless of their race or nationality.
Sumner's Critique of Redistribution
Of course, as a libertarian, Sumner did oppose most forms of state-based aid to the poor, especially income redistribution. For many, this is sufficient to demonstrate his social Darwinism. After all, if redistributive policies are necessary for the poor to survive the dog-eat-dog competition of capitalism, what other reason could one have for opposing those policies but an indifference (if not outright hostility) to their plight?
Throughout his writings, Sumner develops two important arguments against state-based redistribution, neither of which involves hostility to the poor. The first is that states with the power to redistribute wealth from one class to another, Sumner thought, will more often use it to redistribute regressively from poor to rich than progressively from rich to poor.
This kind of regressive redistribution rarely takes the obvious form of direct transfers of wealth. Rather, Sumner thought, it manifests itself in the phenomena of "jobbery" and "plutocracy." "Jobbery," or what we would now call "rent-seeking," Sumner defined as "the constantly apparent effort to win wealth, not by honest and independent production, but by some sort of a scheme for extorting other people's product from them." As examples of jobbery, Sumner condemned various programs of public works, subsidies to miners and farmers, and most especially the protective tariff, a device that he memorably described as "delivering every man over to be plundered by his neighbor and ... teaching him to believe that it is a good thing for him and his country because he may take his turn at plundering the rest."
When politics has the power to control individuals' wealth, Sumner thought, this creates a powerful incentive for those with wealth to use it to control politics. This leads to a system of "plutocracy," which Sumner described as "the most sordid and debasing form of political energy known to us." Echoing Albert Jay Nock(in Our Enemy the State (1935) and earlier classical-liberal theories of class, Sumner argued that excessive state power leads people to divert their attention from the economic means of production to the political means – from production to exploitation.
Sumner's second argument against redistribution finds its clearest expression in the central argument of his essay, "The Forgotten Man." Every piece of "social legislation," Sumner wrote, begins with some person A observing some problem from which another person X appears to be suffering.
A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X or, in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for X.
And who is C?
I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social speculator and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the many burdens which are laid upon him.
Unlike the poor and the weak whose suffering is visible and obvious (as in Batiat's "What is Seen"), the Forgotten Man who spends his time "in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and the school, reading his newspaper" and generally minding his own business is easy to overlook. And thus we overlook the fact that "whatever capital you divert to the support of a shiftless and good-for-nothing person is so much diverted from some other employment, and that means from somebody else." In other words, "society" can only devote resources to the relief of X by taking them away from C. Similarly, the law cannot eliminate altogether harmful consequences of X's imprudent behavior; it can only shift those consequences, out of sight, onto somebody else's back.
Part of Sumner's point in this essay is to direct our attention to the unintended costs of redistribution. But the tale of the Forgotten Man is not merely a cautionary story about the unintended consequences of redistribution; it is a moral plea based on the ideas of justice and reciprocity. After all, it is "the Forgotten Man and the Forgotten Woman [who] are the very life and substance of society." They are the ones who work to support themselves and their families, who pay their taxes, and who engage in the productive labor on which the maintenance and growth of society depend. Why, Sumner asks, should people such as this, who already faithfully bear the burdens for which they are properly responsible, be further burdened "with the cost of public beneficence, with the support of all the loafers, with the loss of all the economic quackery" and with the cost of pervasive jobbery?
If it is the Forgotten Man and Woman on whom the health and future of our society depends, then should not society help, rather than hinder them, in their productive efforts? If X is capable of supporting himself but chooses not to, is it not unfair – indeed, exploitative – to use the coercive power of law to allow X to live at C's expense?
What Social Classes Owe to Each Other
It is not for nothing that Sumner earned the nickname "Bluff Billy." His essay on the Forgotten Man can easily be read as dismissive of the problems faced by the poor and the weak. And elsewhere in his writings, Sumner can appear to be even less sympathetic. "Vice," Sumner once wrote, is in the natural order of things, "its own curse."
If we let nature alone, she cures vice by the most frightful penalties. It may shock you to hear me say it, but when you get over the shock, it will do you good to think of it: a drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be. Nature is working away at him to get him out of the way, just as she sets up her processes of dissolution to remove whatever is a failure in its line. Gambling and less mentionable vices all cure themselves by the ruin and dissolution of their victims. Nine-tenths of our measures for preventing vice are really protective towards it, because they ward off the penalty.
Passages like this seem to suggest that Sumner saw the suffering of the poor as a positive good, and efforts to relieve it as fundamentally misguided. And this, in turn, suggests that Sumner, and perhaps others who share his libertarian sympathies, must clearly be lacking in compassion for the plight of the poor.
There are, however, at least two reasons that we should resist this conclusion. First, Sumner's main point in this passage is (like many of the more damning passages from Herbert Spencer), essentially a point about moral hazard and thus not so much an argument against helping the poor as such as it is an argument against ineffective help to the poor. The idea is that sometimes, protecting people from the consequences of bad decisions inadvertently encourages them to make more bad decisions in the future and thus that efforts to relieve suffering in the short-term can lead to even more suffering in the long-term. To take this fact into account in deciding when, whom, and how to help is no sign of callousness; indeed, to not take it into account would be irresponsible.
Second, Sumner's writings (much like those of contemporary luck egalitarians) reflect what he saw to be an important moral difference between suffering that is due to chance and suffering that is due to choice. Those who suffer because of their own bad choices, Sumner thought, have no claim of justice on others for relief. But things are different in the case of those who suffer through no fault of their own.
When our fellow men do the best they can and nevertheless suffer because of bad luck, Sumner thinks, we have a moral (if limited and not legally enforceable) obligation to come to their aid. Indeed, in the final chapter of What Social Classes Owe to Each Other, titled, "Wherefore We Should Love One Another," Sumner goes even further and claims – surprisingly! – that this obligation sometimes extends even to individuals who suffer because of their own bad choices.
We may philosophize as coolly and correctly as we choose about our duties and about the laws of right living; no one of us lives up to what he knows. The man struck by the falling tree has, perhaps, been careless. We are all careless. Environed as we are by risks and perils, which befall us as misfortunes, no man of us is in a position to say, "I know all the laws, and am sure to obey them all; therefore I shall never need aid and sympathy." At the very best, one of us fails in one way and another in another, if we do not fail altogether. Therefore the man under the tree is the one of us who for the moment is smitten. It may be you tomorrow, and I next day. It is the common frailty in the midst of a common peril which gives us a kind of solidarity of interest to rescue the one for whom the chances of life have turned out badly just now. Probably the victim is to blame. He almost always is so. A lecture to that effect in the crisis of his peril would be out of place, because it would not fit the need of the moment; but it would be very much in place at another time, when the need was to avert the repetition of such an accident to somebody else. Men, therefore, owe to men, in the chances and perils of this life, aid and sympathy, on account of the common participation in human frailty and folly.
Sumner goes on to say that this obligation is based in a "law of sympathy" that cannot be made the basis of any "mechanical and impersonal schemes," thus relegating it to the realm of private virtue rather than public law.
But a handout is not really what the poor need from the state anyway, on Sumner's view. What the poor need – especially the prudent and industrious poor – is for the state to get its foot off their necks. What the poor need is liberty. And those of us who are in a position to demand it on their behalf have an obligation to do so. Taxes, regulations, and restrictions upon the poor, in Sumner's words,
represent the bitterest and basest social injustice. Every honest citizen of a free state owes it to himself, to the community, and especially to those who are at once weak and wronged, to go to their assistance and to help redress their wrongs. Whenever a law or social arrangement acts so as to injure any one, and that one the humblest, then there is a duty on those who are stronger, or who know better, to demand and fight for redress and correction. When generalized this means that it is the duty of All-of-us (that is, the State) to establish justice for all, from the least to the greatest, and in all matters.
This is a vision of social justice – or, at least, the minimum requirements of social justice – on which all of us should be able to agree.
End Notes
Zwolinski, Matt, "Social Darwinism and Social Justice: Herbert Spencer on Our Duties to the Poor" (April 13, 2015). In Camilla Boisen and Matthew Murray, eds., Distributive Justice Debates in Social and Political Thought: Perspectives on Finding A Fair Share (Routledge, 2015). Available at <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2598818>.
Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American thought, with a new introduction by Eric Foner (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). The influence of Hofstadter's work has been noted by virtually all historians of "social Darwinism," such as Donald Bellomy, "Social Darwinism, Revisited," in Perspectives in American History N.S. 1 (1984): 1-129) and Thomas Leonard, "Origins of the Myth of Social Darwinism: The Ambiguous Legacy of Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 71, no. 1 (2009): 37-51). Geoffrey Hodgson's bibliometric analysis, which traces use of the term before and after the 1940s, reveals an explosion in the term's popularity following Hofstadter's work. See Hodgson, "Social Darwinism in Anglophone Academic Journals: A Contribution to the History of the Term," Journal of Historical Sociology vol. 17, no. 4 (2004): 428-63, especially 445-48.
Bellomy (1984) surveys the various and conflicting (but always pejorative) meanings that have been attached to the phrase. For the particularly troubling confusion between social Darwinism as support for eugenics and social Darwinism as support for laissez faire, see Thomas C. Leonard, "Mistaking Eugenics for Social Darwinism: Why Eugenics Is Missing from the History of American Economics," History of Political Economy 37 (2005).
George H. Smith, "Will the Real Herbert Spencer Please Stand Up?" in Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies (New York: Prometheus Books, 1991), pp. 239-50. Originally published in The Libertarian Review (Dec. 1978); Thomas C. Leonard, "Origins of the myth of social Darwinism: The ambiguous legacy of Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 71 (2009) 37–51. Online <http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/myth.pdf>.; and Zwolinski, Matt, "Social Darwinism and Social Justice: Herbert Spencer on Our Duties to the Poor" (April 13, 2015). In Camilla Boisen and Matthew Murray, eds., Distributive Justice Debates in Social and Political Thought: Perspectives on Finding A Fair Share (Routledge, 2015). Available at <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2598818>.
William Graham Sumner, "The Survival of the Fittest," in On Liberty, Society, and Politics: The Essential Writings of William Graham Sumner, ed. Robert C. Bannister (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1992), 223-26.
Sumner, "Some Natural Rights," in Albert Galloway Keller, ed., Earth-Hunger and Other Essays (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1914), 222-27.
See for example, Herbert Spencer, Political Institutions, being Part V of the Principles of Sociology (The Concluding Portion of Vol. II) (London: Williams and Norgate, 1882). </titles/1336>; and Gustave de Molinari, The Society of Tomorrow: A Forecast of its Political and Economic Organization, ed. Hodgson Pratt and Frederic Passy, trans. P.H. Lee Warner (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1904). </titles/228>.
William Graham Sumner, "The Conquest of the United States by Spain," in Albert Galloway Keller, ed., War and Other Essays (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1919), 297-334. Quote </titles/345#Sumner_0255_364>.
William Graham Sumner, "The Applications of the Notions of Evolution and Progress on the Super-Organic Domain," William Graham Sumner Collection, Yale University Library. Cited in Norman Erik Smith, "William Graham Sumner as an Anti-Social Darwinist," The Pacific Sociological Review, vol. 22, no. 3 (July, 1979): 332-47.
William Graham Sumner, "The Forgotten Man," in Albert Galloway Keller, ed., The Forgotten Man and Other Essays (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1918), 246.
Ibid., 246.
William Graham Sumner, "Democracy and Plutocracy," in William Graham Sumner, Earth-hunger and other essays. Ed. Albert Galloway Keller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1913), p. 295.
Albert Jay Nock, Our enemy, the State (New York, W. Morrow & Company, 1935). Online at <https://mises.org/library/our-enemy-state-2>.
Sumner, "The Forgotten Man," 234.
Ibid., 235.
Ibid., 247. On Bastiat see What is Seen and What is Not Seen (1850) and Sumner's essay "On the Value, as a Sociological Principle, of the Rule to Mind One's Own Business" in William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1911). </titles/346#lf0317_label_026 >.
Ibid., 239.
Ibid., 248.
Ibid., 241-42.
Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper, "Justice and Bad Luck", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/justice-bad-luck/>.
William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1883), 158-59.
Ibid., 160.
Ibid., 162-63.
RESPONSES AND CRITIQUES↩
1. Fabio Rojas, "William Graham Sumner and the Eclipse of Classical-Liberal Evolutionary Theory" [Posted: July 5, 2017]↩
Like many intellectuals of his era, William Graham Sumner was a classical liberal who favored laissez faire and limited government. Still, these intellectuals faced opposition, and classical liberalism was a controversial position. For example, Sumner's biography at the website of the American Sociological Association (ASA) notes that the president of Yale College objected to Sumner's use of Herbert Spencer's text in a class and Sumner was forced to drop the book. Later, Sumner came out strongly against the Spanish-American war, which was a popular war at the time.
Sumner has paid dearly for his defense of laissez faire. He was a former president of the ASA and author of a seminal text of early American sociology, but Sumner is now forgotten by all except for intellectual historians. Even worse, when he is mentioned, it is an adherent of social Darwinism, a discredited ideology. Thus, we should welcome Matt Zwolinski's essay, which delves into an important, but now forgotten, figure of American social thought.
Zwolinski's essay examines Sumner's arguments against the welfare state and tries to save him from critics who call him a social Darwinist. The essay raises a number of points that bear repeating and reinforcing. First, social Darwinism is now employed as a vague intellectual slur. On this point, Zwolinski correctly notes that the term is rarely defined and broadly overused. Second, Zwolinski points out that critics conflate two things: criticism of the welfare state and the belief that poor people are inferior. This is an important distinction because classical-liberal social thought is not anti-poor. Rather, most classical liberals oppose class-based social privileges, and they tend to think that the poor are helped by the market economy because it generates economic growth. Third, Zwolinski counters Sumner's critics who think that evolutionary claims imply normative claims. Merely saying that a social institution is "fit" is not an ethical evaluation, any more than saying an organism that survives is ethically superior to others.
Zwolinski's defense of Sumner is commendable. It is very common to find modern intellectual historians who blithely dismiss thinkers like Sumner. The charge of Darwinism is not unlike the modern accusation of "neoliberalism," another tag that is used to dismiss argument with vague and threatening terms. Zwolinski is also to be commended for recovering Sumner's critique of redistribution: such a policy has unintended consequences and moral-hazard problems.
In this response I'd like to delve into a few issues raised by Zwolinski's essay. First, I want to explore in more detail the sort of social thought that thinkers like William Graham Sumner and Herbert Spencer were developing in the late 19th century. Second, I want to briefly discuss the landscape of sociology at the time to indicate the forces that were eroding the appeal of classical liberalism in intellectual life.
Evolutionary Social Science Born
Sumner was most active in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His major work, Folkways, was published in 1907 and reflects its era in two important ways. First, it presents society as a vast, decentralized structure. Contrary to the Hobbesian view, Sumner does not see society as ordered by a sovereign. Nor does he adopt the Marxian approach that puts the bourgeoisie at the center of the system. He sees society as shaped by the forces of selection and adaptation. One of the innovative arguments of Folkways is that state policies will only survive if they are compatible with local community norms. Policies incompatible with local norms do not survive. Of all Sumner's insights, it is this that survives in modern sociology because it explains how bureaucratic agencies are shaped by the larger society.
The focus on society as an evolved order is consistent with Spencer's and F. A. Hayek's work. Together, these authors were developing the idea that states can't arbitrarily intervene in society and that some sort of evolutionary process defines the social world. The expression is positivist, but the sentiment is Burkean. Thus, in the early 1900s, sociology and economics were perched on a same ledge. Born of Enlightenment discourse on the benefits of trade and viewing the market, and society more generally, as an ordered, but organic system, the American social sciences were ready to grow into something akin to ecology, a science emphasizing a holistic approach to communities.
Evolutionary Social Science Denied
As many readers know, the social science outlined by Sumner and Spencer soon fell away. Now, both remain obscure in academic sociology. Talcott Parsons, the titan of mid-20th-century sociology, famously started one of his books with: "Who now reads Spencer?" Parsons's rhetorical question resonated with sociologists because it cleverly alluded to the rejection of utilitarianism and evolutionary thinking in the discipline.
The reasons for the demise of Sumner and Spencer in sociology are complex, and it would not be possible to fully explore them here. However, one might consult recent scholarship on the history of American social science for clues. Consider The Scholar Denied, Aldon Morris's study of the life and intellectual legacy of W.E.B. DuBois. In recounting key moments from DuBois's life, Morris describes how DuBois responded to Spencer's sociology. At an early meeting of sociological researchers, DuBois heard papers presented on Spencer's theory and he found many problems. The main one was that the theory was too abstract, not grounded in everyday life, and not suited for social change. This was a fatal flaw because sociology for DuBois and others should be used to study race relations and promote racial equality.
DuBois's response to Spencer and other evolutionists of the day suggests a story of why evolutionary social science was rejected. Most evolutionists defended laissez faire, as Spencer, Sumner, and many others did. By temperament, many progressive intellectuals could not stomach a theory associated with pro-market intellectuals. Furthermore, many intellectuals of the day did adopt views alleging racial differences, which DuBois and others rejected.
But second, evolutionary social theory, as developed by this generation, did not offer any systematic standpoint for critiquing nonstate institutions. To fully understand this point, consider how evolutionary theory might have aligned with DuBois's ethical and positive concerns. For DuBois, the central problem in society is racial division. He famously wrote that the problem that the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line. His social science was designed to measure and quantify black communities in an effort to undermine the narrative of black inferiority. The classical-liberal evolutionist, like Sumner, can only meet DuBois halfway at best. On some key issues, DuBois and Sumner were in complete agreement. They were anti-imperialists and anti-colonialists. Maybe Sumner and DuBois might have agreed that states can be co-opted by racially motivated interests. There is little in DuBois's work to suggest that he considered the public-choice issues raised by Sumner, but as a socialist DuBois might have appreciated how private interests could subvert public policy.
However, major differences emerge quickly. DuBois would have argued that states should intervene to undermine the color line. Also, he would have been a strong critic of private institutions that promoted black inferiority, like the media, which in his view demonized blacks. In contrast, an evolutionist might be tempted to defend racist private institutions or to think that they merited relatively little attention.
To summarize, classical-liberal evolutionary theory is often viewed as a theory well-suited for the critique of states but not of private institutions. What DuBois and other progressive sociologists seek is a way to analyze and mitigate social inequalities. Even setting aside their ethical opposition to markets (e.g., DuBois began his career as a Marxist and ended his life an unrepentant Stalinist), it is hard to see how Sumner's theory would be broad or flexible enough to satisfy the needs of an activist social science.
This is not to say that evolutionist thinking is absent from academic sociology -- far from it. Urban sociologists consistently describe urban communities as decentralized but functional communities. Amos Hawley formalized this with his theory of human ecology. Later, social network researchers began to measure communities as decentralized webs of interaction, which would have brought a smile to Hayek's face. Still, these ideas are not considered core elements of sociological thinking. Rather, they appear in scholarship on specific topics such as urban studies or personal interactions.
Conclusion
Matt Zwolinski has done a service by excavating Sumner's thought and rescuing it from the lazy charge of social Darwinism. Sumner is revealed to be an interesting proto-public-choice theorist. He has also helped the reader better understand that criticizing specific programs and identifying the incentives built into them is not the same as possessing prejudice against those who are less economically fortunate. Still, even if we appreciate Sumner in this light, we can ask why classical-liberal social science and evolutionary social science in general retreated from the spotlight of American intellectual life. Part of the answer lies in the dispute over the morality of markets, and part lies in the limited ability of evolutionary theory to provide intellectual resources for activist scholars.
Endnotes
American Sociological Association, "William Graham Sumner," No date. <http://www.asanet.org/about-asa/asa-story/asa-history/past-asa-officers/past-asa-presidents/william-g-sumner> .
"The Conquest of the United States by Spain" (1898) in William Graham Sumner, War and Other Essays, ed. Albert Galloway Keller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919). </titles/345#lf0255_label_369>. Also available as a stand alone essay: The Best of the OLL No. 11: William Graham Sumner, "The Conquest of the United States by Spain" (1898) (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2013). </titles/2485>.
For an extended discussion of Sumner's work as an example of evolutionary social science that focuses on decentralized order, see Ellen Frankel Paul, "Liberalism, Unintended Orders and Evolutionism." Political Studies (1988) 36: 251-72.
For example, Sumner says that laws must emerge from the mores of society. "Acts of legislation come out from mores." He also states that "Legislation, however, has to seek the standing on the existing mores, and it soon becomes apparent that legislation, to be strong, must be consistent with the mores." William Graham Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1907), 55.
Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (New York: Free Press, 1983 [1937]), 3
Aldon Morris, The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. DuBois and the Birth of Modern Sociology. (Oakland: University of California Press. 2015), 25.
Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London: Pluto Press, 1984), 285.
W.E.B. DuBois, "Black Reconstruction and the Racial Wage," in Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings, ed. Charles Lemert (Philadelphia: Westview Press, 2010), 242-45. DuBois noted that in the South that "The newspapers specialized on news that flattered poor whites and almost utterly ignored the Negro except in crime and ridicule." (244)
E.g., Gerald Suttles, The Social Order of the Slum: Ethnicity and Territory in the Inner City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968).
Amos Hawley, Human Ecology: A Theoretical Essay (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
2. Phillip W. Magness, "Finding Social Darwinism in the Assault on Sumner's Laissez Faire" [Posted: July 6, 2017]↩
When discussed at all by historians, William Graham Sumner's name is usually attached to the concept of social Darwinism. As Matt Zwolinski notes in his opening essay, this phrase is actually a poor descriptor of Sumner's beliefs and directly chafes with his highly developed criticisms of injustices that come about through unscrupulous state actors. It has nonetheless proven a difficult designation for Sumner, along with his English counterpart Herbert Spencer, to shake. We owe this situation in large part to the lasting influence of the progressive historian Richard Hofstadter, and particularly his pairing of the concept with another cause that Sumner actually did champion – laissez-faire economics. In this sense, Sumner's aversion to progressive meddling in the freedom of exchange, and particularly his arguments against state redistribution of resources, are said to foster a social rule of the "survival of the fittest."
Although it is premised on an inaccurate depiction, this pairing seems to work intuitively. A devotee of economic nonintervention by the state might be assumed to allow Darwinian principles of natural selection to determine the social fates of those left behind by the market, resisting any impulse to act so that "nature" may take its course. This view is at best a gross oversimplification if not misrepresentation, yet it is also representative of a common reading of Sumner among historians. The inaccuracy of this is all the more troubling considering that Sumner endeavored at length to correct it in his own time.
As Sumner noted in an 1886 retort to socialist misuse of the term, "Laissez-faire is so far from meaning the unrestrained action of nature without any intelligent interference by man, that it really means the only rational application of human intelligence to the assistance of natural development." To illustrate this nuance, he enlisted the metaphor of cultivating a garden. One approach would be for the gardener to decide in advance "what he wants nature to give" and then proceed "by the method of trial and failure to try to make her come up to his ideal." The second approach "abstains most carefully from meddling with [nature] until he has observed her lines of independent action, because he knows that if he interferes sooner he will spoil the clearness and distinctness of the information which she will give him."
The first approach is a manual for killing the garden through haphazardly executed methods that evince no awareness of the garden's nature beyond a desire to control its form. The second entails learning how to best assist its growth after observing its nature. Sumner's concept of laissez faire operated similarly, hence the non-Darwinian definition he offered: "Laissez-faire means: Do not meddle; wait and observe. Do not regulate; study. Do not give orders; be teachable. Do not enter upon any rash experiments; be patient until you see how it will work out."
The juxtaposition of this version of laissez faire against its post-Hofstadter caricature reveals how far the concept has drifted from its origins, but it is also only half of the story. The imprecision of the term "social Darwinism," as noted by Zwolinski, has in part enabled this problematic use to persist. I would add that another consideration must be included in the corrective. Historical critics of Sumner's laissez-faire principle, far from fighting back against an uncaring "social Darwinism" that left the poor and needy to the ravages of an unfettered market, were actually engaged in a socially Darwinian project of their own, albeit of state design.
The intellectual fight against Sumner's concept of laissez faire began in his own lifetime and persisted through the Keynesian ascendency of the Great Depression. It was also a fight that drew, in no small part, upon negative eugenics and other types of state social engineering, the entire premise of which enlisted Darwinian theory as a tool to identify, control, and eventually purge "undesirable" elements from human society.
Hofstadter, to his credit, recognized this collectivist strain of Darwinism in his work and contrasted it with the individualist iteration that he assigned to Sumner, as recently documented by the historian Thomas C. Leonard. It has elicited comparatively little attention, though, in relation to the slur upon Sumner, Spencer, and other laissez-faire classical liberals. More so, with very few exceptions, historians have largely missed how intimately connected this collectivist social Darwinian case was to the intellectual effort to cast aside laissez-faire principles from economic thought.
Consider a 1936 reminiscence from Richard T. Ely, the leading progressive economist behind the founding of the American Economic Association. Writing of his own emergence from graduate studies in the 1880s, Ely placed himself in a struggle with "a group of older men [who] had almost a monopoly" on the economics profession. Their ranks included "Professor William Graham Sumner of Yale, David A. Wells, the amiable Perry of Williams College, and the belligerent Simon Newcomb of the Naval Observatory and of the Johns Hopkins University," as well as E.L. Godkin, the classical-liberal editor of the Nation magazine. As Ely continued, "Free trade and laissez faire were the principal features of their orthodoxy and orthodox was a great word in the early eighties in this country." He described his task in the founding of the AEA as an explicit response to this line of thinking:
I would not want to deny them their meed of praise, but our new economic thought disturbed them and they considered us a menace to the welfare of the country. Generally speaking, they had taken over the English classical economics in a rather extreme form and this placed them with those English economists called by the Germans, the Epigones.
In its place he proposed to take the profession in the direction of a new "science" – one that enlisted the state as a great social corrective to the unfettered market. To this end, Ely adopted a much greater tolerance for protectionism than Sumner's position permitted. While Sumner saw tariffs as a font of state redistribution from the poor to the politically privileged, Ely and a number of his fellow progressives (Simon N. Patten in particular) perceived a tool for designing a national industrial policy. They extended similar principles to regulatory intervention, labor relations, and minimum or "living" wages, treating the state as a "scientific" tempering device to the competitive fluctuations of the free market. But above all, this "scientific" designer's retort to Sumner's laissez faire carried deep undertones of socially managing "desirable" elements of race and heredity.
The product might legitimately be called socially Darwinian in a more precise application of the term, but in relation to Sumner and, with him, Spencer, it also turned the intellectual case against intervention on its head. Ely, Patten, and a host of other progressive reformers like John R. Commons and Edward A. Ross explicitly deployed eugenic social design as a "corrective" to what they saw to be the failings of the laissez-faire principle advanced by the older generation of economic thinkers and typified by Sumner.
An appeal to the social survival of the fittest, tempered only by an extension of modest comforting charity, may be seen in this grating passage from Ely's 1903 book Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society:
[I]t must be admitted that there remains what has been termed the human rubbish heap of the competitive system. There are those who are not able to live in its strenuous atmosphere. The sad fact, however, is not that of competition, but the existence of these feeble persons. The sadness consists in the hard facts of life of which competition takes cognizance. If the weakest are favored and their reproduction encouraged, we must have social degeneration. The recognition of these hard facts, with suitable action taken with reference to them, reduces the amount of human pain for the present and the future by public and private charity. The socially rejected must be cared for and given as happy an existence as possible, provided only that we do not encourage the increase of those who belong to this sad human rubbish-heap.
Ely explicitly presented his argument in this book as an application of evolutionary theory to social conditions, fretting that "Philanthropy and science keep alive men who would otherwise perish." From this spring flowed the policies of social control that typified Ely's brand of anti-laissez-faire progressivism. He advocated immigration restrictions on "undesirable" persons, eugenic sterilization of the feeble, and even gave nods of approval to entry barriers upon the labor market. Thus minimum wages could be used to exclude less "productive" races from the labor force, and child labor laws could be used to discourage breeding among the lower classes by stripping these families of a source of income.
Other progressive critics of laissez faire enlisted similar lines of reasoning to espouse policies of hereditary design and social control. John R. Commons, in a 1907 essay, contended that tropical climates had made African-Americans "indolent and fickle." He continued with a chilling line of argument from this point: "Therefore, if such races are to adopt that industrious life which is a second nature to races of the temperate zones, it is only through some form of compulsion."
Leonard and a handful of other historians have recently begun to explore these and other progressive attachments to eugenic thought, and its implications for the placement of social Darwinism in the realm of classical-liberal thought. I'd stress the point even further with regards to Sumner though, as derived from his steadfast defense of laissez faire.
One thinker who has largely escaped criticism on the points that are now starting to find acknowledgment in the works of Commons and Ely is John Maynard Keynes. This omission is curious as Keynes made explicit the tension between the older laissez-faire school and his own social applications of evolutionary-infused eugenic policies. Such positions, Keynes wrote in 1923, provoke distaste because they "modify the laisser-faire [sic] of Nature, and … bring the workings of a fundamental instinct under social control." He elaborated on this point three years later in his own famous essay, The End of Laissez-Faire, by calling upon governments to establish "a considered national policy" on population. Once enacted, he continued, a time would likely come "when the community as a whole must pay attention to the innate quality as well as to the mere numbers of its future members."
One of the greatest ironies – and intellectual tragedies – of the social Darwinian slur upon Sumner is that it tends to treat eugenics, racial exclusion, immigration restrictions, and similar concepts as intellectual descendants of laissez faire. Leonard and a handful of other scholars have tacked this myth, and Zwolinski's highlighting of Sumner's comparative enlightenment on several issues of policy – his harsh criticisms of state predation by powerful elites, his commitment to anti-imperialism – remind us further of how far off base the conventional historiography has gotten. Yet in probing this subject further, we find ample evidence that the charge against Sumner is not simply erroneous – it is an inversion of truth that assigns beliefs to Sumner that are actually consistent representations of the strongest critics of his long-championed cause, laissez faire. Clearly we still have much work to do.
Endnotes
Sumner, 1886, "Laissez-Faire," in On Liberty and Politics: The Essential Essays of William Graham Sumner, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, pp. 227-233. Available online at: <https://www.panarchy.org/sumner/laissezfaire.html>.
Thomas C. Leonard, "Origins of the Myth of Social Darwinism: The Ambiguous Legacy of Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 71 (2009) 37–51 <https://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/myth.pdf>.
Richard T. Ely, "The Founding and Early History of the American Economic Association," The American Economic Review, vol. 26, no. 1, Supplement, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (Mar., 1936), 141-50. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1807774>.
Ely, Richard T. Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society. New York: Macmillan, 1913, 163. <https://books.google.com>.
Commons, John R. "Racial Composition of the American People," The Chautauquan 39: 13. <https://books.google.com>.
Keynes, J.M. "The End of Laissez-Faire," in Essays in Persuasion, New York: Harcourt-Brace, 1932, p. 292. <https://www.panarchy.org/keynes/laissezfaire.1926.html>.
"Mistaking Eugenics for Social Darwinism: Why Eugenics Is Missing from the History of American Economics," Thomas C. Leonard papers, Princeton University. <https://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/mistaking.pdf>.
3. David M. Hart, "On Overturning the Charges Levelled against Professor W. G. Sumner" [Posted: July 17, 2017]↩
Matt Zwolinski is both witty and correct to call William Graham Sumner "Liberty's Forgotten Man." Both Sumner's own considerable professional work as a sociologist, economist, and historian, and as an activist for free trade and the anti-imperialist movement, as well as the ideas which lie behind one of his greatest essays, "The Forgotten Man" (and interestly for the historical period, Sumner includes "Woman" as well), with its deep insights into the nature of class in America in the late 19th century, have fallen into a seemingly inextricable Orwellian memory hole. Thus, in a way, both the man and a number of very important classical-liberal ideas have been not only "forgotten" but also tabooed. It has been Zwolinki's task in this essay and others to rectify this situation and for that he should be congratulated.
In his lead essay to this discussion Matt focuses on a number of charges of intellectual crimes which have brought against Sumner by modern intellectuals and scholars, namely, the criminal charge of "social Darwinism" (perhaps with "malice aforethought," aided and abetted by Herbert Spencer), of obstruction of justice for opposing state plans to redistribute wealth to the poor, and generally of being indifferent to, perhaps criminally negligent of, the fate of the weak, the poor, and the down and out. Many decades ago he was convicted at the bar of academia and sentenced to perpetual ostracism from civilized intellectual discourse. One is hard put to find recent scholarship which takes him or his ideas seriously, even by historians of ideas who are often exempt from the general taboo on unsavoury ideas simply because they are merely "chronicling" the past in order to better condemn it.
I won't elaborate here on Matt's excellent resurrection of Sumner's ideas which he dealt with in his opening essay, but I do want to add to the list of things "forgotten" to show how deeply forgotten Sumner and his ideas have become and how difficult the overturning of his criminal conviction and the restoration of his reputation will be. Perhaps the other participants in this debate will take up some of these and elaborate on them further. I would like to list under Sumner's additional "crimes" his advocacy of hard money, his opposition to tariffs, his anti-imperialism, and his classical-liberal theory of class analysis and exploitation. The latter is particularly galling for American intellectuals as many believe that (a) class does not exist in America or (b) class analysis is a Marxist invention that classical liberals like Sumner have no business in dealing with. Let me begin with Sumner's activity as an economist and economic historian.
(1) It is not properly appreciated how much Sumner wrote on economic history and the important role he played in teaching free-market economic theory to the students at Yale University. His official position was professor of political and social science in Yale College, but he was free to lecture on economic topics as well, which he thought was quite an appropriate thing to do as the narrow compartmentalization of knowledge into such fields as sociology, political theory, politics, and economic history was just beginning. He wrote a sizable amount on the history of currency and banking in the United States, where he showed himself to be a strong advocate of hard (i.e., gold backed) currency, as for example in A History of American Currency (1884) and the volume on the United States in A History of Banking in All the Leading Nations (1896). He seemed to be well aware that "inflation" of the money supply in the form of expanded paper credit and money had a connection with bank failures and the business cycle, which plagued America throughout the 19th century, making him an "Austrian" theorist in the modern sense. He also taught introductory courses on economic theory to his students at Yale which showed wide reading in European economic thought (mainly French but also Friedrich von Wieser in a French translation, one of the pioneers of the marginalist school which emerged in the 1870s), as his class reading lists clearly show. He also listed in his course readings works by American followers of Frédéric Bastiat, such as as Amasa Walker. All of this work unfortunately has been forgotten or conveniently ignored for decades since advocates of laissez-faire economic policies are also anathema, along with "social Darwinists," often for similar reasons.
(2) Sumner was also doubly damned even in his own time for being a strong advocate of free trade in an America, which from its founding, had been strongly protectionist, even Listian in its trade policies. In the 1870s and 1880s free-trade groups had emerged in Chicago and New York which republished and adapted for an American audience works by the French free-trader Bastiat and works by the English-based Cobden Club, which championed Cobden-inspired free-trade literature at a time when tariff wars began to erupt again in Europe in the decades leading up to World War I. Sumner wrote free-trade material very much in the style of the great Bastiat, such as his criticism of protectionist "fallacies," or "sophisms," in his book Protectionism (1888). Sumner's free-trade activities extended beyond the lecture halls of Yale as his talks and attendance at free-trade meetings clearly show. For example, at the annual dinner held by the New York Free Trade Club held at Delmonico's restaurant in 1885, Sumner gave one of the toasts where he declared, "Free Trade: The only true 'American System'" in direct opposition to over 100 years of American economic policy which had followed the protectionists and statist "American System" of Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay, and codified by Friedrich List in 1841.
As the 19th century wore on, Sumner continued to alienate himself from the mainstream of intellectual opinion by taking up a cause deeply related to free trade in the Bastiat and Cobden sense of the term, namely, opposition to American imperialism. He vocally supported the Anti-Imperialist League, which was founded in June 1898 to oppose the war against Spain and included an impressive list of establishment politicians, academics, and authors such as Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Jane Addams, Edward Atkinson, Ambrose Bierce, Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Grover Cleveland, John Dewey, Edwin Lawrence Godkin, Samuel Gompers, William Dean Howells, Henry James, William James, David Starr Jordan, Carl Schurz, and Oswald Garrison Villard. That support cemented his position as an outsider to the prevailing intellectual atmosphere. I will return to this topic and his classical-liberal theory of class and exploitation in another post.
Endnotes
I refer to a four-part series on Sumner which was published in <libertarianism.org> in July-August 2013 which began this task of scholarly rehabilitation. See, Matt Zwolinski, "William Graham Sumner: Part 1 – Laissez-Faire and Social Darwinism" (July 15, 2013) https://www.libertarianism.org/blog/william-graham-sumner-part-1-laissez-faire-social-darwinism; "Part 2—The Rejection of Social Darwinism" (July 25, 2013) https://www.libertarianism.org/blog/william-graham-sumner-part-2-rejection-social-darwinism; "Part 3 – The Forgotten Man" (July 29, 2013) https://www.libertarianism.org/blog/william-graham-sumner-part-3-forgotten-man; "Part 4 – Charity, Liberty, and Social Justice" (August 5, 2013) https://www.libertarianism.org/blog/william-graham-sumner-part-4-charity-liberty-social-justice.
See for example, Dom Armetano's PhD thesis on Sumner, The Political Economy of William Graham Sumner: A Study in the History of Free-Enterprise Ideas (PhD, University of Connecticut, 1966); H.A. Scott Trask, "William Graham Sumner: Monetary Theorist." The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 8, No. 2 (Summer 2005): 35–54, and "William Graham Sumner: Against Democracy, Plutocracy, and Imperialism," The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Volume 18, no. 4 (Fall 2004), pp. 1–27; and Robert C. Bannister's introduction to On Liberty, Society, and Politics: The Essential Writings of William Graham Sumner, ed. Robert C. Bannister (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1992).
William Graham Sumner, A History of American Currency, with Chapters on the English Bank Restriction and Austrian Paper Money, to which is appended "The Bullion Report" (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1884). /titles/1653.
William Graham Sumner, A History of Banking in All the Leading Nations; comprising the United States; Great Britain; Germany; Austro-Hungary; France; Italy; Belgium; Spain; Switzerland; Portugal; Roumania; Russia; Holland; The Scandinavian Nations; Canada; China; Japan; compiled by thirteen authors. Edited by the editor of the Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin. In Four Volumes. (New York: The Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin, 1896). Vol. 1: A History of Banking in the United States. /titles/2237.
In his reading list of books for his students, which he included in his textbook Problems in Political Economy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1885), he included works by Michel Chevalier, John Elliott Cairnes, the Dictionnaire de l'économie politique (1852–53), Jevons, Leroy-Beaulieu, Macleod, Marshall, J.S. Mill, Sidgwick, Spencer, and Walker, pp. vii-x.
Friedrich List wrote The National System of Political Economy in 1841 but similar ideas had taken deep root in the United States under the influence of Alexander Hamilton. See Friedrich List, The National System of Political Economy by Friedrich List, trans. Sampson S. Lloyd, with an Introduction by J. Shield Nicholson (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1909). /titles/315.
William Graham Sumner, Protectionism: the -ism which Teaches that Waste Makes Wealth (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1888). /titles/1655.
4. Robert Leroux, "When Libertarianism meets Sociology: William Graham Sumner" [Posted: July 17, 2017]↩
Sumner is a stranger to us today. With the exception of a few scholars of the history of ideas, no one reads him anymore. But many of them think he was a social Darwinist.
Yet sociology of a liberal persuasion has been important in the history of ideas. Not only did it propagate a resolutely "scientific" message concerning social phenomena, it also led frequently to liberal thought. Hence the need felt by many authors to develop a vision of the world that would be consistent with the events and the issues of a time marked by singular upheaval.
For liberals, the central feature of their theoretical approach is its faith in human endeavor and in individual initiative. The new world that was taking shape before their eyes sparked mixed feelings, characterized both by bursts of enthusiasm and by gnawing concerns. They were not given to wild theorizing: they cast their ideas in context, they offered answers to the crises that often emerge in the world of science. Here is the necessity to define a scientific approach to social phenomena.
Sumner was not only the first American sociologist, but he was probably the first libertarian sociologist. The idea of liberty, as Matt Zwolinski reminds us in his very interesting essay, is at the center of his work. Sumner does not believe in the idea of the struggle for life or class struggle. According to him, most sociologists are socialists and "they are frightened of liberty." In a key passage in his essay "Sociology" (1881) he notes that the socialists confuse two different kinds of struggle and do not understand how liberty can ameliorate both of them:
We have noticed that the relations involved in the struggle for existence are twofold. There is first the struggle of individuals to win the means of subsistence from nature, and secondly there is the competition of man with man in the effort to win a limited supply. The radical error of the socialists and sentimentalists is that they never distinguish these two relations from each other. They bring forward complaints which are really to be made, if at all, against the author of the universe for the hardships which man has to endure in his struggle with nature. The complaints are addressed, however, to society; that is, to other men under the same hardships. The only social element, however, is the competition of life, and when society is blamed for the ills which belong to the human lot, it is only burdening those who have successfully contended with those ills with the further task of conquering the same ills over again for somebody else. Hence liberty perishes in all socialistic schemes, and the tendency of such schemes is to the deterioration of society by burdening the good members and relieving the bad ones.
Taking the opposite point of view, Sumner argued a decade before the French sociologist Émile Durkheim, that society or the modern industrial system is an example of "great social co-operation." As put it in his essay "On the reasons why Man is not altogether a Brute":
The modern industrial system is a great social co-operation. It is automatic and instinctive in its operation. The adjustments of the organs take place naturally. The parties are held together by impersonal force—supply and demand. They may never see each other; they may be separated by half the circumference of the globe. Their co-operation in the social effort is combined and distributed again by financial machinery, and the rights and interests are measured and satisfied without any special treaty or convention at all. All this goes on so smoothly and naturally that we forget to notice it. We think that it costs nothing—does itself, as it were. The truth is, that this great co-operative effort is one of the great products of civilization—one of its costliest products and highest refinements, because here, more than anywhere else, intelligence comes in, but intelligence so clear and correct that it does not need expression.
The vision of society that dominated Sumner's thinking was the product of a culture shaped by the natural sciences. His sociology is both an empirical and a theoretical discipline. Sumner's approach reflects not only a research strategy, but also a lively interest in observing empirical facts, something we hardly find with Auguste Comte. But Sumner shares with Comte the idea that sociology must become a science. He writes:
The need for a science of life in society is urgent, and it is increasing every year. It is a fact which is generally overlooked that the great advance in the sciences and the arts which has taken place during the last century is producing social consequences and giving rise to social problems.
In this way, Sumner is able to discern sociological laws that are not linear but are, to the contrary, marked by discontinuities of all kinds.
The writings of Herbert Spencer certainly had a considerable influence on him. Sumner, who played a decisive role in disseminating the ideas of Spencer in the United States, laid the markers for an approach to economics that suited the scientific dogma of the time. While he admired Spencer's evolutionism we must insist that he was far from being a slavish disciple.
Influenced by "scientism" or "positivism", Sumner was particularly productive in the late 19th century; it was during this period that his work took on its definitive shape. In 1906, Sumner published his most important book, Folways, dealing with morality in relation to liberty. He sets out to explain the roots of the idea of liberty and social relationships. In this way they made a fundamental contribution to the development of sociology – a point often overlooked – they also participated in the development of the social sciences of the time. The turn of the century saw the overthrow of what had been considered certainties. For Sumner, morality had to be recast, and the relationship between man and society re-examined according to the criteria of the emerging social sciences. The pace of time was accelerating and chaos was taking hold. Liberal thinkers, like Sumner, took note of this and they too sought to bring to light previously unsuspected human laws. They scrutinized liberty, they identified its origins, and they did battle against the obstacles that, as they saw it, were holding back its progress.
But curiously, Sumner never quotes the other major figures of sociology of his time. He does not say a word about Émile Durkheim, Gabriel Tarde, Georg Simmel or Vilfredo Pareto. The reason why has both an academic and an ideological and political aspect which I cannot go into in this initial post but will keep for a later time.
Endnotes
See William Graham Sumner, On Liberty, Society, and Politics. The Essential Essays, Ind., Liberty Fund, 1992. Karl Marx might be a good example. Even today many sociologists (like Pierre Bourdieu) could be considered socialists. They do not want to explain the social world but they try to change it.
William Graham Sumner, "Sociology" (1881) in War and Other Essays, ed. Albert Galloway Keller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919). </titles/345#Sumner_0255_199>.
See Émile Durkheim, De la division du travail social, Paris, Félix Alcan, 1893.
William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1911). </titles/346#Sumner_0317_54>.
William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man and other essays, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1876, p. 401. Also "The Science of Sociology" in William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man and Other Essays, ed. Albert Galloway Keller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918). </titles/2396#Sumner_1225_561>.
THE CONVERSATION↩
1. Matt Zwolinski, "Evolutionary Arguments and Laissez Faire" [Posted: July 17, 2017]↩
As Fabio Rojas and Phil Magness both note in their excellent essays, Sumner grounded his laissez-faire theory of government on an evolutionary theory of society. Our discussion so far has already highlighted the way in which this form of argument gave rise to the misleading charge of "social Darwinism." In this essay, I want to raise a more substantive question about Sumner's argument: to what extent does an evolutionary approach like Sumner's actually support a policy of laissez faire?
The gist of Sumner's argument is nicely illustrated in the gardening metaphor that Phil Magness quotes in his essay. Just as it would be foolish for a gardener to try to impose an abstractly conceived ideal upon a garden without first acquiring a thorough understanding of the nature of the plants, soil, and other elements with which he was working, and the constraints that those natural phenomena impose upon his possibilities, so too it would be foolish for a statesman to impose a rigid set of rules upon society without understanding the ways in which the natural order of social processes constrain his ability to realize his vision. Social order, like natural order, is an evolved phenomenon exhibiting a high degree of interconnectedness and complexity. And attempts to meddle with that order on the assumption that one knows more than one really does about how it works are doomed to fail.
Arguments such as this are familiar within the classical-liberal tradition. The most obvious parallel, of course, is to be found in the work of Friedrich Hayek, whose writings on complexity and spontaneous order develop the line of reasoning in perhaps its most sophisticated form. But arguments of this form were also common in the writings of Herbert Spencer, who often employed them to warn would-be reformers of the likely unintended consequences of their well-meaning meddling. For Spencer, each social phenomenon "is a link in an infinite series -- is the result of myriads of preceding phenomena, and will have a share in producing myriads of succeeding ones." Because phenomena are complexly interrelated, it is always the case that "in disturbing any natural chain of sequences, [legislators] are not only modifying the result next in succession, but all the future results into which this will enter as a part-cause." Social legislation is like trying to straighten out a wrought-iron plate with a hammer – attempts to flatten it here will only cause it to bend somewhere else. "What, then, shall we say about a society? 'Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?' asks Hamlet. Is humanity more readily straightened than an iron plate?"
Indeed, arguments of this form are often found outside of the classical-liberal tradition as well. James C. Scott's wonderful book, Seeing Like a State, opens with an account of the failures of scientific forestry in late 18th-century Prussia and Saxony. In order to achieve maximum yield with minimum oversight, forest managers imposed a rigid, easily legible order on their trees.
The forest trees were drawn up into serried, uniform ranks, as it were, to be measured, counted off, felled, and replaced by a new rank and file of lookalike conscripts. As an army, it was designed hierarchically from above to fulfill a unique purpose and to be at the disposition of a single commander. At the limit, the forest itself would not even have to be seen; it could be "read" accurately from the tables and maps in the forester's office.
But the schematic vision of the foresters was too limited to understand the complexity of the forest ecosystem. Vast forests of monoculture trees died off entirely as they failed to receive adequate nutrients from the soil and fell victim to pests and disease. "An exceptionally complex process involving soil building, nutrient uptake, and symbiotic relations among fungi, insects, mammals, and flora -- which were, and still are, not entirely understood -- was apparently disrupted, with serious consequences."
Scott's book is much adored by classical liberals, despite the fact the he explicitly denies that it is "a case for unfettered market coordination as urged by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman." But the fact that a relatively progressive liberal like Scott can employ arguments of the same form as those employed by Spencer, Sumner, and Hayek should give us pause. Is Scott simply failing to think through the logical implications of his position? Or do evolutionary arguments simply not do much to make the case for laissez faire?
Hayek himself seems to have been somewhat ambivalent on this point. In The Road to Serfdom, he famously (or infamously, depending on whom you ask) wrote that "nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all the principle of laissez-faire capitalism." Elsewhere, however, he seemed to take a kinder attitude toward a certain woodenness, writing that "a successful defense of freedom must therefore be dogmatic and make no concessions to expediency…."
For Sumner, laissez faire seems to have been a kind of rule of thumb, but nothing more. "Laissez-faire," he wrote, "is so far from meaning the unrestrained action of nature without any intelligent interference by man, that it really means the only rational application of human intelligence to the assistance of natural development." The principle is a maxim, a rule of art, that is useful as a corrective against mankind's natural tendency to over-legislate. But as a maxim, it is not absolute. It does not rule out state interference altogether. Rather, it counsels us to be cautious in interfering -- to approach social problems with a sense of humility, rather than hubris.
Arguments of this sort certainly seem to tell against proposals to centrally manage the entire economy, à la state socialism. But how much more weight can contemporary classical liberals really place on them? Do they counsel against state welfare programs? Against clean-air regulations? Socialized medicine?
The proponent of such legal interventions can grant that the economy is a complex system and that prudence is warranted. But the mere fact that there are problems associated with intervention hardly seems sufficient to demonstrate that the expected costs of intervention will always exceed the expected benefits. (This is a problem with consequentialist arguments for laissez fairein general.) We can be cautious; we can experiment on a small scale; and we can learn. Scott's own story proves the point. Eighteenth-century Prussian attempts at scientific forest management may have been a bungle, but we've gotten much, much better. Is there some reason to think that the same sort of process isn't possible in the realm of state intervention in the economy?
Endnotes
F.A. Hayek, Chapter 2 "The Theory of Complex Phenomena" in Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967), pp. 22-42. Online at <https://emergentpublications.com/ECO/ECO_papers/Issue_9_1-2_14_CP.pdf?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1>. OLL Topic: Spontaneous Order </groups/104>.
Herbert Spencer, "Over-Legislation" [First published in The Westminster Review for July 1853.] in Herbert Spencer, Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative. Library Edition, containing Seven Essays not before republished, and various other Additions (London: Williams and Norgate, 1891). Vol. 3. </titles/337#Spencer_0620-03_320>.
Hamlet says to Guildenstern: "Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me." "Hamlet", Act III, Sc. II, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare), ed. with a glossary by W.J. Craig M.A. (Oxford University Press, 1916). </titles/1639#Shakespeare_0612zf_Hamlet_1973>.
Herbert Spencer, The Study of Sociology (London: Henry S. King, 1873). </titles/1335#Spencer_0623_503>.
James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 15.
Ibid., p. 20.
Ibid., p. 8.
Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), p. 71
Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 1 (New York: Routledge, 1973), p. 61.
William Graham Sumner, "Laissez-Faire" (1886), in Sumner, On Liberty, Society, and Politics, ed. Robert C. Bannister (1992), p. 228.; also online at <https://www.panarchy.org/sumner/laissezfaire.html>.
2. Fabio Rojas, "The Rivals of Classical-Liberal Social Science" [Posted: July 19, 2017]↩
The social science of William Graham Sumner has generated a spirited discussion of the meaning of laissez faire at the turn of the 20th century. Sumner, and other classical-liberal intellectuals, viewed their science as a science of an organic and decentralized system. This has led others to categorize theories of spontaneous order as a rationalization of social domination dressed up in scholarly language. In my initial response to Zwolinski's essay on Sumner, which critiqued this point, I focused on why people often made this charge. I argued that association with pro-market arguments and a lack of an activist vision doomed Sumner and the cohort of classical-liberal intellectuals.
Phil Magness's essay takes on a related point. He investigates the social policies of the progressives who emerged in the wake of the demise of classical-liberal social theory. What he finds is that progressive social science of the early 1900s was often pitched as a direct reaction to laissez-faire thinkers like Sumner and Spencer. He finds that they viewed social science as a tool to tame the chaotic fluctuations of markets and that social science was associated, in some authors, with eugenic ideas.
In this response, I will briefly touch on how the demise of classical-liberal social science facilitated the rise of two rival traditions. One is liberatory social science, as exemplified by such scholars as W.E.B. DuBois, who used new social-science tools to help low-status groups, such as American blacks. The features of liberatory social science were mentioned in my last response: the use of social-science methods to study marginal groups and an attempt to give them agency in Western historical narratives and to improve their material conditions and well-being.
The other tradition, discussed by Magness, was embodied by the eugenics movement. They too saw that social science could be a tool for taming markets. But instead of trying to mitigate social inequality, they wanted to reinforce social inequality. There is difficulty in labeling this movement "regressive" because its practitioners are labeled "progressive." Perhaps a satisfactory label would be "retrenchment social science." The hallmark of retrenchment social science is that it rejects theories of spontaneous order so that interventions against undesirable groups may be pursued. For the early 20th-century progressives, that meant minorities and others undesirable populations. As Magness notes, the intervention against specific groups tends to be found alongside attempts to bolster national greatness.
To summarize, the demise of classical-liberal social science did not result in the emergence of a single alternative. It resulted in at least two -- liberatory activist intellectuals like DuBois and retrenching social scientists like Richard T. Ely and John R. Commons. Any student of classical liberalism should understand these two streams as important competitors to classical liberalism in the marketplace of ideas.
3. David M. Hart, "Remembering Sumner the Political Economist. Part 1: The Poison of Paper Money" [Posted July 19, 2017]↩
Before Sumner became a “sociologist” he was a biblical scholar and linguist, and then an economist. Unfortunately, the full history of Sumner’s work as an economist, economic historian, and free trade activist has yet to be written. The importance political economy played in Sumner’s thought was understood by the early 20th century editor of his works, Albert Galloway Keller, who realised that Sumner had a “dominant interest in political economy (which was) revealed in his teaching and writing, (his) doughty advocacy of “free trade and hard money,” and … the relentless exposure of protectionism and of schemes of currency-debasement.” In this and the next post I will attempt to give a brief account of these two economic interests.
After graduating from Yale in 1863, Sumner studied languages, theology, and biblical history at the Universities of Geneva, Göttingen, and Oxford. He then returned to Yale in September 1867 to teach Greek before taking a position as Rector of the Church of the Redeemer in Morristown, NJ. where he worked from September 1870 to September 1872. He returned to Yale again but this time to teach in an entirely different field, that of “Political and Social Sciences” of which he was a professor for the next 37 years (between 1872 and his retirement in 1909). What is interesting is that he thought political economy played a very important role in what he called “political science in its widest sense” and that given “the degraded state of American politics and public life” into which the country had fallen since the Civil War, economic topics “now more especially demands our attention.” And this is what would occupy much of his time for the next 20 years. He summarized what would be almost his life’s work in countering the “moral and social deterioration” of the nation which was caused by the “economical mistakes” of protective tariffs and paper money, mistakes which were only made worse by policies adopted during the Civil War. Sumner believed it was the task of the economist, in whose ranks he believed he stood, to point out these mistakes and the enormous economic waste they caused for ordinary people:
I affirm that the questions on which our national future to-day depends are questions of political economy, questions of labor and capital, of finance and taxation. The fruits of the Civil War did not cease when the armies disbanded. It left us with financial and industrial legacies whose fruits, as every student of political economy and social science knows, are slow in ripening; and they contain seeds of future and still more disastrous crops. No man can estimate these long following results. No man can tell what social, moral, and political transformations they may produce. There is no field of activity which now calls so urgently for the activity of honest and conscientious men as the enlightenment of the American public on the nature and inevitable results of the financial and industrial errors to which they are committed. … The patriotism with which the American people submitted to the burdens of taxation and paper money, believing them to be necessary parts of the evil of the War, is deserving of the most enthusiastic admiration. It serves only to deepen the sadness with which the economist must declare the conviction that the paper money never was a necessity, never could in the nature of things be a necessity any more than it could be necessary for a physician to poison a patient in order to cure him of fever or for a man to become bankrupt to escape insolvency; and also this other conviction, not a matter of science but of history, that the necessity for taxation has been abused by the creation of a protective tariff which increases the burden which it pretends to carry. These two subjects, money and tariff, will be the subjects of my lectures during the present term.
Sumner began his new academic career with a spurt of activity on the topic of paper money, writing a 109 page “History of Paper Money” in 1873 (unpublished), a 400 page “History of American Currency” (published in 1874), along with several shorter pieces on money and currency issues in 1875–76. Many of the pieces he wrote during this period are detailed historical and technical discussions of particular government financial policies which were not written for popular audiences so a pithy statement of his views are hard to find. He does however quote a passage by Webster very approvingly in A History of American Currency which I believes sums up his own opinion of the harm caused by paper money:
A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the support of the social system, and encourages propensities destructive to its happiness. It wars against industry, frugality, and economy, and it fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation. Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man’s field by the sweat of the poor man’s brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation, these bear lightly on the happiness of the mass of the community, compared with fraudulent currencies and the robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our own history has recorded for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable oppression on the virtuous and well disposed, of a degraded paper currency, authorized by law, or any way countenanced by government.
Something similar can be found in the slightly later essay on “The Forgotten Man” (1883) where Sumner argues that it is essential to protect his “earnings and savings” from the ravages of inflation and the depreciation of the currency:
Hence, if you care for the Forgotten Man, you will be sure to be charged with not caring for the poor. Whatever you do for any of the petted classes wastes capital. If you do anything for the Forgotten Man, you must secure him his earnings and savings, that is, you legislate for the security of capital and for its free employment; you must oppose paper money, wildcat banking and usury laws and you must maintain the inviolability of contracts. Hence you must be prepared to be told that you favor the capitalist class, the enemy of the poor man.
The years from 1872 to 1876 was the first period of Sumner’s career as a political economist during which he focussed mainly on money and currency issues. In the spring of 1876 he would begin a second period which lasted 10 years during which he would turn his attention to the matter of tariff protection and free trade on which he would write many more accessible articles, books, and essays. This will be the topic of my next post.
Endnotes
Preface to William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man and Other Essays, ed. Albert Galloway Keller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918). </titles/2396#Sumner_1225_5>.
See his program for his courses in the “Introductory Lecture to Courses in Political and Social Science” (1873) in William Graham Sumner, The Challenge of Facts and other Essays, ed. Albert Galloway Keller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1914). </titles/1656#lf0962_head_061>. Keller notes in the Bibliographical Note to The Forgotten Man and Other Essays </titles/2396#lf1225_head_128> that he found in Sumner’s papers at Yale 300–400 pages of “lecture notes for classroom use” which he used in his course on Political Economy.
“Introductory Lecture to Courses in Political and Social Science” </titles/1656#Sumner_0962_481>and </titles/1656#Sumner_0962_482>.
William Graham Sumner, A History of American Currency, with Chapters on the English Bank Restriction and Austrian Paper Money, to which is appended “The Bullion Report” (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1884). </titles/1653>.
Sumner, A History of American Currency </titles/1653#Sumner_1231_167>.
Sumner, “The Forgotten Man” </titles/2396#Sumner_1225_726>.
4. Phillip Magness, "William Graham Sumner as Historian" [Posted: July 23, 2017]↩
One interesting and salient feature of the discussion so far is the vast amount of evidence presented that his reputation has suffered unjustly in historical estimation. This is true of both the social Darwinism slur that Matt Zwolinski noted in his opening essay, and in the larger pattern of neglect we have seen around Sumner's distinctive humane dimensions: his harsh opposition to imperialism and war, his crusade against corruption and cronyism, and his contributions to a classical-liberal theory of class that sought to root out the beneficiaries of undue and unjust government privileges. A remarkable feature of Sumner's poor reputation today is that some of its main culprits are historians, and particularly intellectual historians.
While Hofstadter's mischaracterizations of Sumner's intellectual history have been pinpointed as a primary source of this problem, I wanted to raise a related dimension in noting that one of the many intellectual hats that Sumner himself wore was that of intellectual historian. Some of his least-known works in the present day fell in this genre, although they once ranked among his most familiar contributions. As David Hart's response above notes, Sumner's writings on economic history served as an important vehicle for conveying economic logic as well. To this end he wrote substantial historical works on banking, on currency, and on the financial dimensions of the American revolution. He also took a historical approach to his favorite topic of free trade, publishing a collection of five Lectures on the History of Protection in the United States. These lessons used the historical progression of the tariff system from the founding era through his own time to essentially teach the economics of trade and taxation.
In several instances, profound economic insights may be found lurking amidst what is ostensibly a historical account. The 1883 text, for example, reveals one such lesson in its discussion of tariff history. Calling upon Adam Smith's maxims of taxation and adding his own eye for analytical observation, Sumner actually developed an early precursor to the Laffer Curve within the tariff system. "Protective tariffs are hostile to revenue," he noted, on account of their purpose of preventing importations. "The moment, however, that a tax begins to have this effect it prevents revenue. Hence where protection begins, there revenue ends." Building on this principle, he proceeded to dissect the historical progression and purposes of American tariff statutes. His discussion of the tensions between tariff's two objectives – revenue and protective rents – both anticipates modern public-choice theory and contains a more sophisticated understanding of the tariff's operations than many modern historical works on the same subject.
Another closely related foray into historical scholarship may be found in Sumner's critical biography of Alexander Hamilton, published in 1890. It was written at a time that Hamilton scholarship was mired in a mixture of founding father hagiography and political appropriation to bolster the issues of the day. One of the leading Hamilton "scholars" at the turn of the century was the arch-protectionist Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. Lodge made a frequent habit of enlisting his subject matter's authority to his own legislative agenda, presenting it as a uniquely American contribution to political economy and borrowing heavily upon Hamilton's legacy to differentiate his protectionist project from both the poor repute of the mercantilists of old and the imperial designs of European protectionist contemporaries – primarily in the emerging Bismarckian state of Germany.
Sumner subjected Hamilton's record to thoroughgoing scrutiny. He easily dispelled the claimed novelty and originality of the Hamiltonian system, finding traces of low-grade protectionist reasoning on trade in the earliest stages of Hamilton's political career. Sumner specifically rebutted the notion that Hamilton's famous Report on Manufactures was a work of deep theory and original economic insight. As he showed using first Treasury secretary's own earlier statements, Hamilton "was completely befogged in the mists of mercantilism," his works consisting of the recycled "doctrines of the first quarter of the eighteenth century." Despite this proclivity, Hamilton's own tariffs were not quite the system that Lodge and other turn-of-the-century Hamiltonians claimed. Since they were rooted in a larger comprehensive revenue system, Hamilton's tariffs were "hostile to any extravagant rates" achieved at the neglect of excise |
P30 billion out of the proposed P36 billion for technical-vocational labs for Grade 11 and 12 students will be realigned to fund the free tuition law next year
Published 1:35 PM, September 27, 2017
MANILA, Philippines – Grade 11 and 12 students under the technical-vocational track will be at a disadvantage following the realignment of P30 billion of the proposed 2018 budget of the Department of Education (DepEd) to fund the free tuition law.
This is because around 20,000 technical-vocational laboratories set to be built in 2018 will no longer have funding due to the budget cut, DepEd Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla told Rappler.
"Kasi P36 billion ang budget for tech-voc labs in the proposal. So if they get P30 billion, matitira lang ay P6 billion... Magkukulang kami ng labs for that," Sevilla said.
(The budget for tech-voc labs in the proposal is at P36 billion. So if they get P30 billion, only P6 billion will be left... We will not have enough to build the labs.)
The DepEd initially proposed P612.117 billion for its budget for next year, the highest among all government agencies. But the House of Representatives realigned P30 billion of the DepEd's budget to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to help fund Republic Act No. 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.
Lawmakers are finding ways to fund the free tuition law, which needs P51 billion in its first year of implementation alone. CHED did not include funds for the law's implementation in its 2018 proposed budget because President Rodrigo Duterte was not expected to sign the measure into law.
"The wisdom of Congress is that we have the voucher program of tech-voc, which means we have to shift from DepEd providing the laboratory services to a private institution providing it instead," said Sevilla.
The DepEd official, however, said they will be holding several meetings with lawmakers in the next weeks to lessen the budget cut's impact on the technical-vocational strand under the Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K to 12) program.
"We are working with Congress if it would be possible that not entirely the P30 billion will be from the tech-voc labs. Maybe we can look into other programs," said Sevilla.
In a separate press conference, CHED Chairperson Patricia Licuanan urged legislators to also consider other ways of funding the free tuition law without further burdening students.
"Congress has to proceed very carefully here. This is a very good fund [for the free tuition law]. But to take [the budget away] from another very important program and then to put it there, in the end, students will also suffer," said Licuanan.
CHED stands to receive billions of pesos in additional budget for its free tuition law implementation. Senators already plan to add another P1.6 billion to CHED's budget next year for state universities and colleges' expenses on infrastructure, equipment, and free internet services. – Rappler.com |
Over the years since the Veterans Administration scandal, U.S. Sen. Dean Heller has made a lot of noise about helping veterans while not doing a lot that was substantive, particularly dealing with staffing shortages.
A statement on the veterans suicide rate, a bill supposedly solving a transplant problem for veterans when the donor is a non-veteran, a statement on Veteran’s Day (he’s for it) were among Heller’s news releases. Four months ago, he touted his support for a bill providing interim funding to keep the VA Choice program alive, which begged the question of why the program needed such stopgap funding mid-year.. The reason was that Republicans keep veteran programs on a short financial leash.
Several years ago, when the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association still published report cards on voting records of congressmembers, we reported that Democrats regularly provide greater support for vets than Republicans. That may have seemed counterintuitive to those who think Democrats are soft on military spending, but we quoted columnist Bob Geiger, who scrutinized the scores: “The worst grade received by a Senate Democrat was higher than the best grade received by a Senate Republican.”
To put it simply, today’s Republicans who have taken over the GOP do not like government. Waiting lines will always be with veterans until a Congress is elected that does not want to see government fail. Heller is a member of a party that takes pleasure in seeing public agencies stumble because of obstacles placed in their path by Congress. That’s why service to veterans often moves at a crawl. And Heller has not himself broken from that belief system to get more assistance for veterans.
This year, though Heller has been quick at every opportunity to portray himself publicly as the veterans’ advocate, he never said a word about the problems posed by the Republican tax cut bill to a troubled Veterans Choice program. Indeed, there is no evidence that Heller even knew about the intersect of the two.
The Choice program gives access to services, surgeries, and treatment for vets that Veterans Administration programs cannot provide, and also assures vets in low-population areas care near their homes
The army newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that the tax bill “muddied debate … on legislation that would significantly change the system that veterans use to receive private health care. … During the past year, disagreements over how to reform the [choice] program have focused on costs, concerns from Democrats over privatization and fears from Republicans about veterans remaining trapped inside the VA system.”
In the end, the House Veteran Affairs Committee capped funding for Veterans Choice at three percent for four years, whereupon Democrats, who had supported reform to that point, voted no.
And why was Veterans Choice even linked to the tax bill in the first place?
It is time for Republicans like Heller to break away from the faction of the GOP that chronically shorts veterans, that wants a programs so restricted by tight financial limits that the VA has trouble functioning. Veterans are not asking for something special. They want what they have earned. |
Last month, we reported that the infighting in the anti-choice movement has gone public in Kentucky, where the National Right to Life Committee and its Kentucky affiliate are endorsing incumbent Mitch McConnell, and a small fringe group called Northern Kentucky Right to Life is endorsing his Tea Party challenger, Matt Bevin.
Like in the similarbattle playing out in Georgia, the issue is whether anti-choice politicians should vote for abortion restrictions that include exemptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest. National Right to Life and its allies, while they oppose rape and incest exemptions, are willing to support bills that contain them if that’s the only way the bills can pass. The more hardline groups, like Northern Kentucky Right to Life and the national Personhood USA, oppose any bill that contains such exemptions.
McConnell has called for the Senate to pass a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, already passed by the House, that contains a rape exemption. Bevin, meanwhile, filled out a questionnaire from the Northern Kentucky group agreeing to its hardline anti-choice, anti-contraception demands.
This has caused some confusion in Kentucky, as Bevin has touted the endorsement of Northern Kentucky Right to Life, and National Right to Life and Kentucky Right to Life have scrambled to clarify that they are not affiliated with the Northern Kentucky group and in fact support McConnell.
Now, according to National Right to Life, Bevin is sending around a mailer that “questions the pro-life convictions” of McConnell, citing Bevin’s endorsement by the Northern Kentucky group. NRLC is furious, and is blaming Bevin for playing into the hands of pro-choice groups: |
Mother-son love dominates households the world over, but especially in India. (Ask anyone married to a desi man if she feels like the other woman.) One of the standout episodes of Room 104, the new Duplass-helmed HBO series, makes great use of this phenomenon. Titled “The Internet,” it’s set in 1997. Our only visible character, a harried, wannabe novelist, is locked for nearly the full half-hour in a phone call with his mom. Anish needs his manuscript sent to him, in a bad way. He’s got a life-changing meeting with an agent coming up, a book to finish, and of course, he forgot his laptop. Actor Karan Soni paces the dinky motel room for which the series is named in a sweat, walking his oblivious mom through the mechanics of email with a growing frustration in his voice that betrays just how deep their relationship is.
Featuring only Soni and Poorna Jagannathan as his mother, the scene manages to do a lot with a little. From nearly her first line, Jagannathan establishes her character as one we haven’t seen rendered so well before: the loving but passive-aggressive, alternately icy, and helicoptering desi mom. Jagannathan’s character seems almost at times to be trolling Anish, so hypnotically layered is her cadence. To pull it off, Jagannathan told Vulture by email, she channeled her own, super-sweet mom, as well as her split attitude toward her 11-year-old son. When he talks, “There’s a part of you that is in wonder and amazement and so much love, and then there’s a part that’s totally bored and needs to just reach for the wine.”
Both actors were born in India — Soni in New Delhi to a middle-class family, while Jagannathan is the daughter of a diplomat. Her accent gives away the upper-crust, Brit-lite India that she belongs to, though her character’s origins are notably humble. But that inconsistency doesn’t detract from her possession of the role. The Duplasses are known for encouraging improvisation, and she sprinkles her rejoinders with “beta” and “raja” — the latter, meaning prince, less known than the former, which means son. The episode — not written with Indians in mind — wasn’t meant to be a model of representational politics at work. Soni took the part a day before shooting, after the original actor dropped out because of a conflict; Jagannathan came in the day of to fit his casting. Still, their backgrounds infuse the episode with life, from the spirit of the dialogue, to the details of its final twist. Vulture spoke with Soni about the odds of this opportunity, his phone calls with his own mom, and why — in terms that reveal a comic anxiety level on par with Anish — he was sure he’d fail at the job.
How are you doing?
Great. Can I ask, are you Indian?
Ha, yes.
I wasn’t sure if the name was just like a New Age thing, or …
Well, my last name is Rao. So that helps. What about you? Were you born in India?
New Delhi, and I lived there for 18 years. I came out here when I was 18 to go to college, to L.A. My family was planning on moving out, but their green cards took a little longer. They came out when I was a sophomore.
I thought I detected a faint accent in the episode that sounded legit rather than a Hollywood directive.
It was very thick when I came here. I worked with someone at my school, at USC. My teacher was like, Once you pass age nine or ten, it’s almost impossible to completely lose an accent. I did lose it quite a bit, but Indians can always tell.
No one else?
I don’t think so. I think a lot of white people can’t tell, or at least they’ll act very surprised.
That’s funny, because the opposite can be true. It’s happened to me and to people I know, that white people think we have an accent even though we don’t. Like, they think they should be hearing one, and so they do.
Really? That’s so strange. I can always tell when Indian people are born in America. They have the most American accent. I can hear, even the way they say their name. I’m like, “You don’t even try.”
How did you get cast for this role?
It was an unusual casting situation because I got the job the day before we had to start filming, like less than 24 hours before. It was given to someone else, a different actor, and they had a scheduling conflict. So it was like 2:00 p.m. on a Wednesday, and Mark (whom I’d worked with before — like five or six years ago — we’d always stayed friends; he’d never asked me to work on any of his projects) texted me, “Do you want to be on my HBO show Thursday or Friday?” I right away was like, “Yeah.” He was like, “Let me send you the script.” To myself, I was like, I’m gonna do it [before getting the script]. [Once I saw it], I was like, This is a very unique and difficult job. It was like a one-person show, and we shot that in two days, which is very fast. Most shows take five days. We did like 15 pages a day. I was like, This is crazy. Mark said this was not written for an Indian person specifically. It was written more generically. And so, Mark — what he likes to do is for you to be free and improvise, not a lot, but there’s a bunch of stuff where there’s little moments where I can make it seem more believable that we’re actually related. When we have banter.
All the “betas.” I love that she calls you “raja,” which is what my mom called my brother.
That was improvised, from Poorna. She was really playing the Indian mom character. That was not written into the script that much. He said, Draw on your own experience and make it your own. Because he didn’t have time to rewrite it for me.
So, the actor who dropped out was not Indian.
No, he wasn’t.
Poorna must have come in late then, too.
She was brought in that morning, or a few hours before. There was a lot of drama going into it. At the time, I was on a show on Starz, and I was a series regular. Under that contract, I wasn’t allowed to do HBO. I didn’t get cleared until 7:00 p.m. that night. So, they didn’t find someone to play my mom. I met Poorna for five seconds and we started shooting. I had no relationship with her. I think it was good. I had to imagine that it was my mom, and my mom luckily is very bad at technology, so that was a very easy kind of thing, a testament to the quality of the writing. And then the director did a lot of stuff on the other end — I basically had an earpiece and I could hear Poorna’s performance live. She was in a different room. He gave her a lot of stuff there — at one point when she was chopping vegetables, I heard the sound of that. That’s something my mom does all the time. She’ll ask for a phone call so I’ll carve out the time, and she’ll start cooking or something, and I can hear her and she’s not paying attention. I find it really frustrating. Apparently Doug hid the actual laptop in the room, and [Poorna] actually couldn’t find it. So I’m on the phone during this pause. There was stuff like that. I was unaware, and Poorna obviously couldn’t see what I was doing at all.
Poorna was interacting with you in real-time?
She had a mic and she was being recorded live. I could hear it at the same time, in my earpiece. That way, if we wanted to improvise or have a movement, we could do that. It would be usable on the show.
Was that your first time acting with someone who wasn’t there?
I’d done a show where we had an earpiece because one of the cast members played someone inside a computer. We had green-screen TVs. We were on a spaceship. We couldn’t see her, but we could hear her performance live, and we had to say the lines on time. It was very rehearsed.
This was just, I barely knew any of the words. I had to grasp at it, and the stakes were much higher. It did feel like the most unique experience. I couldn’t compare it to anything else.
Anish is anxious throughout, but it sounds like you were actually anxious, too?
Completely anxious. I pulled an all-nighter that night. And then I drove to Glendale, about 15 minutes from where I live, where the studio was. I met the director, and he was a first-time director. As an actor, there’s plenty of insecurity. You have 22 minutes on-camera. Normally if you’re not getting something, they can cut to another person’s face. Not having that option at all was a big insecurity. And not having a grasp on the material, going through all the stuff the character goes through, a lot of genres — comedy, thriller, a very emotional part. And then, getting there and learning that I was with a first-time director was another thing that, Oh god, I can’t even feel that I can trust what he’s doing.
A lot of that stuff, I think, was good, because the character is going through so much frustration. When I’d see it, I could definitely tell that I didn’t know the lines, specific moments where it really looks like I’m searching for the word. It was almost believable. I remember thinking, God, I can’t remember this one thing. In a way, it worked out. The whole process was very stressful. I didn’t sleep, I memorized the first 15 pages and felt pretty good about it. Then I drove straight. I’d basically been up for 40 hours. They were like, “You’re doing great.” I was like, “Guys, I can’t stress enough that I haven’t slept and I haven’t looked at the second half of the episode.” They were like, “We’ll figure it out.” Very supportive. The next day was more start and stop. I felt good when it was all over.
Forty hours? That’s crazy.
I like sleeping nine hours a night, so for me it was too long.
But worth it, I imagine. It’s interesting to hear the part wasn’t written for an Indian. It’s rare things go that way — universal parts to Indian actors, rather than Indian parts to white actors.
I feel like I’ve been very fortunate. When I went to theater school, most of the people I graduated with aren’t working. I’ve consistently worked and made a good living. I do feel a lot of times you’re not given the opportunity to fully show your potential. I just haven’t had a chance to show it. For me, this was a chance to really — you can’t hide. You’re on-camera the whole time. You have to juggle all the genres, have to be real with it and show a raw side of yourself, or it’s not going to work. I’ve never been given that opportunity. I just feel very lucky that early on in my career I got to do something like this. That’s a testament to Mark and Jay. That’s kind of their brand, as far as I see it. They can see the potential in other people that people don’t realize in themselves. With Mark, I was freaking out about not having enough time, but he was the most calming. He was so confident. In a weird way, if someone is so confident in you, it makes you be like, Oh, I guess they’ve seen something in me I haven’t seen. They’ve hired so many writers and directors who haven’t done anything, which never happens. When you hand it to someone like that, it’s very sink or swim. But they know who’s going to sink or swim.
They’re down for high-stakes experiments?
Yeah, exactly. Mark pitched HBO the show with this story. It’s semi-true to what happened to him in real life. They write in such a way that it’s such a universal story. They could have adapted it with any pair of actors and it would have worked. A lot of people who’ve seen it are like, I have had that same conversation.
Do you think Mark saw in you a shared quality with the character?
When he told me he thought I could do it, I very honestly was like, He is making a mistake. I was like, What has he seen that makes him think I could do it? On the page it didn’t read so much that the character was getting annoyed. I was like, I don’t think Mark has seen me talk like that. What he said to me was, “I just want this to be a very sweet episode. I need you to bring this sweetness to it at the end where you really feel for this guy, where you don’t want him to fail.” This poor kid, he can’t catch a break. When I got on this, I was really like, I’m just going to draw on my experience, and that was that I get really mad at my mom when I talk to her about stuff like this. I don’t think he’s ever seen me snappy or anything. When I’ve been around him, I’m always at my best behavior. When I watch the episode, I feel ugly. That is unfortunately how I talk to my mom if we’re alone and she’s saying something annoying — I will be really mean.
I actually thought you were surprisingly nice to your mom, given how difficult she was being.
Really? I was like, This guy isn’t even giving her a chance.
What else is going on for you?
I’m also shooting Deadpool 2 and a few films. One is going to Toronto [Film Festival], called Unicorn Store, with Brie Larson and Joan Cusack. It’s Brie Larson’s directorial debut. And a movie called Zombie Office Uprising that’s coming out next year. Mostly movie work, not so much TV.
What about the Starz show?
Actually, that night, that show got canceled. My agent called and he said, “I have good news and bad news.” I was like, “What’s the bad news?” That’s my style. And he was like, “It looks like your show’s gonna get canceled. Because they released you to do HBO. That’s the only way they would have done it.” So I was like, “What’s the good news?” He was like, “You’re doing this show!” I was like, “I haven’t learned the lines yet!”
This interview has been edited and condensed. |
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Creamy vanilla ice cream + rich & decadent hot fudge sauce + chopped almonds = pure bliss. Seriously. You just can’t go wrong with vanilla and chocolate.
I’m very much an emotional eater; I’ve always been one, although I’ve curved it a lot over the last several years (or attempted to). Some days though, despite what is going on in life, I just want to eat a big bowl of ice cream. You know? It just makes everything better.
I quit buying store-bought dairy free ice cream a while ago. Not because it didn’t taste good (well, for the most part anyways), but because of what was in it (soy, xanthan/guar gums, sugar, agave, “natural flavors”)… and the cost. A family of four can completely decimate 1-2 of those little pint-sized containers in one night with no problems.
I figure if I can make something healthier here at home, that’s nearly entirely sweetened using dates and stevia, that the whole family LOVES, then why not?
And in my opinion, the more ice cream in my freezer, the better. 🙂
Course, as with most dairy free, egg free ice cream recipes, this Vegan & Paleo Fudge Tracks Ice Cream will be creamiest when it’s at a soft serve consistency. It’s how I prefer to eat it. If your ice cream has been sitting in the freezer for a while and is hard, simply let it warm up for a while on the counter, maybe 15-30 minutes; or if you’re super impatient like me, you can zap it in the microwave for 15-30 seconds.
And adding nuts is entirely optional. 🙂
All my love.
xoxo,
Megan
Vegan & Paleo Fudge Tracks Ice Cream Save Print Serves: about 1 1/2 quarts Ingredients 3/4 cup chopped dates, packed
2 cans full fat coconut milk (about 3 1/2 cups), divided
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk beverage
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 drops NuNatural’s Liquid Vanilla Stevia
small pinch of sea salt
1/2-2/3 cup Rich & Decadent Dairy Free Hot Fudge Sauce, chilled
chopped almonds for topping, optional Instructions Place the chopped dates in a small mixing bowl and cover with 1 1/2 cups of hot water. Set aside for at least 10 minutes. Drain the dates and discard the water. Place the dates in a high speed blender with 1 can of full fat coconut milk (about 1 3/4 cups). Puree on high until smooth. Add the remaining can of full fat coconut milk, unsweetened almond milk, vanilla extract, NuNatural’s Liquid Vanilla Stevia, and sea salt. Blend until smooth. Pour into a mason jar with a lid and refrigerate for 6 to 8 hours or until very cold. Give the chilled custard a quick stir (it may separate in the refrigerator as it chills, this is completely normal) and then pour into an ice cream maker (I recommend this one) and churn according to manufacturer's instructions. Place half of the ice cream into a freezer safe 1 1/2-2 quart glass storage container (I use the biggest container in this set) and then gently spread 1/4-1/3 cups of the fudge sauce over the top of the ice cream. Repeat the layers with the remaining ice cream and fudge sauce. Serve immediately for soft serve, or freeze for at least 4-6 hours for a firmer texture. Top with chopped almonds if desired. Recipe Notes from Megan The brand of canned coconut milk you use can make a HUGE difference in the quality and taste of your ice cream. My absolute favorite brand of coconut milk is the Aroy-D brand , which is guar gum and preservative free. I don’t recommend using the Natural Value brand, as often times it’s gritty and will not produce ice cream with a smooth texture. 3.5.3226
This recipe is linked to, Marvelous Mondays, Fat Tuesday, Allergy Free Wednesday, Gluten Free Wednesdays, Waste Not Want Not Wednesdays, Frugal Day Sustainable Ways, Thank Your Body Thursday, Simple Lives Thursday, Pennywise Platter, Fight Back Friday and Gluten Free Fridays.
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An account by Emmett J. Nolan about 'job conditioning' around the issue of breaks.
On my first day of work, my manager explained to me the three options regarding breaks:
1) clock out for 30 minutes,
2) take two 10-minute breaks on the clock, or
3) take a 20-minute break on the clock.
Additionally, an hour and a half “black-out” period existed for breaks during the busy middle of the day. The actual state law is a 30-minute meal break and two 10-minute rest breaks for a work period over six hours. Not only was this buffet option of breaks illegal, but it was also a strain on the body during a 7 to 9 hour shift. This situation continued on for two years and I discovered that this system was not just limited to my department or workplace, but existed within other departments and at other locations in the company.
In a meeting with my co-workers after work during the hectic holiday season, I planned to discuss what the law was on breaks, share my reasons for why I personally needed to begin taking all my breaks, and my fear of being retaliated against if I was the only worker to take their full breaks. Frustrated at this situation, my instinct was to organize around the issue and make some demands collectively. But, my co-workers and I were able to devise a creative solution in which we asserted our right to what was already ours to begin with. The collective agreement that followed would set a precedent for us to begin taking our breaks. As a result, our working conditions greatly improved and a definite sense of empowerment was instilled within us.
Why would a worker not take their breaks? Well, the first answer is often that management doesn’t provide them. The state law clearly states that it’s management’s responsibility to provide breaks and not the workers’ burden to ask for them. However, the restaurant industry is often plagued by a passive-aggressive imposition by employers that taking breaks is selfish. As lower wage jobs reliant on tips and typically strained for hours, often workers are forced to overlook the immediate well-being of their health in order to scratch out a paycheck-to-paycheck financial (in)security. The following reasons are common in the restaurant industry and I heard them all from my co-workers. They go like this.
The Uninformed Worker, “Restaurants don’t have to give us breaks, right?” Not knowing the laws regarding breaks, the Uninformed are led to believe they aren’t owed breaks and easily go along with management’s passive-aggressive withholding of our breaks. If it weren’t for some good co-workers at my past jobs, I may have fallen into the Uninformed Worker position, too.
The Superhero, “I don’t need a break.” The Superhero also often expects co-workers to not take breaks and be superheroes, too. Often young or macho, the Superhero fails to see that work is a lifelong reality and that as a result we must respond as though it’s a marathon and not a sprint. Otherwise, without proper care, our bodies break down and when we can’t keep up we’re discarded for a younger worker. Sure, when I was fifteen and at my first job I shared the Superhero opinion. But, years later and with the accumulation of a couple ailments that ensued from manual labor jobs, working 6 hour stretches on my feet without a chance to sit down, I felt the value that breaks provided. We’re certainly not horses, we can’t rest on our feet.
The Nickel & Dimed, “I don’t want to clock out, I need the money.”When we work through our breaks and forfeit that extra time to the salaried management, our productivity increases at a disproportionate rate to our rest and wellbeing. As a result, often the boss gets ahead, sends us home early more exhausted then we would be if we took our breaks, and effectively zeros out the wage benefit of working through our breaks. I’m no stranger to the Nickel & Dimed either. It’s a real concern. Nonetheless, the outlook confuses an issue of bodily wellbeing with an economic worry. Why not a paid lunch break?
At our informal meeting, I shared my personal reasons for needing all of my breaks. My co-workers were sympathetic and shared their own stories and reasons for not taking their breaks, as well. We acknowledged two major obstacles. First, we felt uncomfortable taking all of our breaks while our co-workers kept trudging along through the day. No one wanted to let their co-workers down or seem like they were evading work. We overcame this barrier by making a pact to support and encourage everyone to take their full breaks. The effect this spoken acknowledgment and support had on each of us to decide to take our breaks can not be underestimated.
Our second obstacle involved how busy and overloaded we felt at work. We determined the true reason for us being too busy and overloaded was because management was too cheap to schedule a mid-shift worker. A mid-shifter would allow everyone to take scheduled breaks, provide back-up during busy rushes, and result in a minimal increase in labor cost. Our need for a mid-shifter was an on going issue long before we started talking about breaks. We discussed how by working through our breaks we only bolstered management’s case for not needing a mid-shifter and that if we all took our breaks the need for a mid-shift would become immediately apparent. We overcame this barrier by reaffirming our break rights under the law and committing to support anyone taking their break regardless of how busy or behind on the closing tasks we were.
In the weeks that followed, I gradually began taking each of my breaks with the full support of my co-workers. I literally felt freed, as though I had taken control of my work day. This instant improvement in my disposition and morale became apparent to both myself and co-workers. Gradually, co-workers’ hesitancy began to evaporate as they too began taking their breaks. Our informal system was so developed that when a new co-worker was hired that month, she too began to take her full breaks. It was unavoidable for workers in other departments and substitutes from other locations to notice our additional breaks, and they soon began asking us about them. Even our manager began taking all the same breaks we did!
What we achieved together was a definable job conditioning victory that improved our day-to-day lives, established a new standard for new co-workers, and inspired a feeling of empowerment and confidence that was previously absent. However, there is plenty of work left to do. Not every co-worker takes every one of their breaks every day. Support and encouragement are needed daily to maintain the practice at our workplace. If this system is to continue and survive the inevitable challenges from management, greater organization is necessary.
Over the course of the next few years, we succeeded in ending the practice of a black out period for breaks, only to have it return later, and then be ended again. Rather than looking out for our wellbeing, management continued to try to dissuade us from taking breaks by stating that it was our “prerogative” whether or not we took breaks and to say that it’s industry standard that breaks aren’t given. At other times, management was more nuanced. When employees in another department at another location began taking breaks, the manager first resisted then “researched” the issue to find the same information we did: that we weren’t being given all the breaks required by law. The manager then crafted a break schedule and took ownership of the change in policy. But, if it wasn’t for the example we set in our department or the experience those workers had while working in our department which they took to other locations, those workers would likely still not have their required breaks.
Our experience of taking action to take our breaks reveals how we can make improvements to our day-to-day life through direct communication with each other. The experience also demonstrates the potential for how we can make further improvements to our work lives through collective action.
Originally posted: July 5, 2013 at Recomposition |
Back in his mother's arms: Parents' joy as they are reunited with son after FBI shot survivalist captor DEAD in Alabama bunker raid
Five-year-old Ethan is talking and laughing with his mother as he spends a precautionary night in hospital
Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, who allegedly stormed a school bus and took Ethan hostage for a week is dead
FBI hostage teams used high-tech military surveillance equipment to monitor the survivalist
Alabama State Senator Harri Anne Smith relieved for the rescue of Ethan and said 'Mom has been incredible, she has been so brave and has always known her son would be brought home safe.'
It is not known whether Dykes was killed by FBI agents or committed suicide
The survivalist believed that aliens were being kept by the U.S. government, and they were threatening to take America's weapons
Mugshot: Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, the suspect in the standoff, was killed by the FBI Hostage Rescue Team
The five-year-old boy held captive in an underground bunker for seven days has been reunited with his mother.
The emotional reunion came after FBI agents stormed the Alabama bunker in which the child had been held and shot his captor dead.
Ethan, the child at the heart of the Alabama kidnapping crisis, spent his first evening of freedom playing, eating, laughing and joking around with his favorite toy dinosaur.
The ordeal came to a dramatic conclusion at 3.12 p.m. on Monday as FBI agents believed the little boy to be in 'imminent danger' and breeched survivalist Jimmy Lee Dykes's bunker.
Speaking this evening Sheriff Wally Olson, who has been on the site almost constantly since Ethan's abduction and the shooting of school bus driver Mr Charles 'Chuck' Poland, said: 'He's a very special child who's endured a lot and by the grace of God he's okay.'
He added that, speaking as a parent himself, 'It is a relief to reunite a mother with her child.'
That longed for reunion took place at Flowers Hospital, where Ethan was taken following his rescue. He arrived sitting up on a stretcher.
Steve Richardson, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the agency's Mobile, Alabama Office said: 'I have been to the hospital and he's doing fine. He's laughing, joking, eating..doing the things you would expect a normal five or six year old to do.'
Scroll down for video
A photograph of 'Ethan' the five-year-old hostage who was rescued today in Midland City after a week-long ordeal at the hands of survivalist Jimmy Lee Dykes who died during the operation
Saved: The boy, known only as Ethan, is believed to be ok after he was rescued from the bunker by FBI agents
But the past few days of Ethan's life and those of the many law enforcement officers and friends and family here in Midland City, Alabama, have been anything but normal.
The week-long standoff ended today in Midland City, when negotiations with kidnapper Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, deteriorated and FBI hostage rescue teams felt they had no choice but to forcibly enter the bunker on his property and take the boy known only as Ethan safely out.
And though Ethan has now been returned to his family the investigation and the unraveling of what happened is only just beginning.
An independent team of investigators will be brought in from Washington, DC once the site is deemed clear and safe by the FBI's bomb disposal experts.
Questions about the details of the evening's climax to the crisis – whether the 'booms' heard were caused by explosives, diversions or stun grenades set off by the FBI in order to storm the bunker or whether they were the signs of imminent danger posed by Dykes remain unanswered.
Sheriff Olson would say only that a threat was perceived and that negotiations which had been 'civil' became 'increasingly difficult over the past 24 hours.'
Asked if Dykes was armed when killed he responded in the affirmative.
Out in force: Police and emergency personnel, were stationed in the area 24/7, and raided the bunker over fears for the young boy's safety
Working together: Law enforcement officials from the FBI, the Dale county Sheriff's Office and the Alabama State Police all collaborated on the standoff
Alabama State Senator Harri Anne Smith who has been in close contact with the family throughout the ordeal said to MailOnline, 'Mom has been incredible, she has been so brave and has always known her son would be brought home safe.'
'I know there will be lots of hugs and kisses tonight,' said Senator Harri Anne Smith to the MailOnline.
'For her there has only ever been one possible outcome.'
The senator who spoke with Ethan's mother shortly before she left to be reunited with her son continued: 'She has been surrounded by people praying and has had a lot of support.
'Her father has been a rock to her and her older son and her sisters.'
Authorities said were forced to act at 3.12 p.m. (CST) after concern for the suspect’s mental state grew as they witnessed him brandishing a gun and ultimately 'fearing the child was in imminent danger.'
Dykes was killed during the fast-acting operation but law enforcement officials have yet to provide details on how he died.
Federal agents jumped into action after high-tech but secret video surveillance inserted into the bunker revealed that the mental state of Richard Lee Dykes was deteriorating rapidly.
There were reports of one or two loud bangs on the property, and a neighbor who lives about a quarter-mile from where Dykes was holed up told the Associated Press that he heard a boom followed by a gunshot
Another neighbor, 16-year-old Micah Senn, 16, who lives a few hundred yards away, told AL.com that he heard an explosion followed by four to five rounds of gunfire.
The boy identified all week only as Ethan was brought out from the bunker on Dykes' property appearing to be physically unharmed and is being treated at a hospital in nearby Dothan authorities said.
Friends of the family have said that Ethan has Asperger's Syndrome - a condition which has been likened to a minor form of autism and which affects a person's ability to interact with other people.
Ready to go: These heavily-armed agents with the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team gear up with equipment delivered in a Budget rental truck
Moving out: The federal agents were always at the ready and prepared to storm the bunker where little Ethan was being held
FBI Special Agent in Charge Steve Richardson said during a news conference this afternoon that negotiations had broken down during the day and Dykes had been seen to grab a gun.
Those actions forced the hand of FBI agents, who entered the bunker.
Agent Richardson said: 'At approximately 3.12pm, FBI agents safely recovered the child who was being held hostage for nearly a week.
'Within the past 24 hours negotiations deteriorated and Mr Dykes was observed holding a gun.
'At this point FBI agents fearing the child was in imminent danger entered the bunker and rescued the child.
'The child appears physically unharmed and is being treated at a local hospital. The subject is deceased.
'The resolution of the matter is a direct result of the extraordinary collaboration of law enforcement at all levels.'
CBS correspondents John Miller and Bob Orr confirmed the FBI's Rescue Hostage Team carried out the rescue when it was clear the kidnapper's mental state was deteriorating -- and he began brandishing a gun.
Stand-off: How police communicated with Dykes through a pipe into his bunker
Guarded: This is a glimpse of the property where Dykes was holed up in an underground bunker he had dug himself
The FBI is reported to have used flash-bangs to create a diversion before going in, and the whole operation was over very quickly.
An official said that 'seconds make all the difference' in these types of rescues.
The CBS reporters also said that Special Agent Bomb Technicians continue to clear the scene and only after their work is done will Evidence Response Teams move into process the scene.
Richardson said an independent review team is on its way from Washington to investigate.
Authorities also wouldn’t comment on the explosion heard at around 3 p.m. that presumably was part of the raid into the bunker.
However, the blast apparently came from a 'diversionary device,' an FBI source confirmed to NBC News . FBI officers then went through a door at the top of the bunker.
Dykes has been holed up in the six-by-eight foot bunker since Tuesday, when he allegedly got on a school bus and shot and killed driver Charles Poland before snatching Ethan and taking him to the hideaway about four feet underground.
Speaking to MailOnline, son Aaron Poland responded to the news simply saying, 'My dad's bus route is officially over.'
Eyes in the sky: Helicopters circled the sky around the bunker as the FBI closed in on Monday
In the days since his shooting Mr. Poland's family have felt certain that the driver would watch over Ethan until he was safely home
As news of the resolution spread, cars passing by the site honked their horns in celebration.
'The most important thing is we have a safe recovery of a child,' said Colonel Hugh McCall, director of the Alabama Department of Public Safety.
As of this evening though, officials have not yet provided details on how he died.
'Right now, FBI special agent bomb technicians are in the process of clearing the property for improvised explosive devices,' the FBI said in a written statement seen by ABC News.
'When it is safe to do so, our evidence response teams, paired with state and local crime scene technicians, will process the scene.'
Eyes in the sky: A sheriff's helicopter is seen stationed at the property of Jimmy Lee Sykes who was killed in a raid by FBI agents
Emergency: An ambulance that had been parked near the scene could be seen driving away, but it was not clear if anyone was inside
Heavily armed law enforcement officials confer after the week-long hostage crisis in Alabama ended with the rescue of the five-year-old boy who was being kept by 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes
Armed FBI officers walk down a dirt track on the property of Jimmy Lee Dykes - who has died after a stand-off with authorities ended with the rescue of the five-year-old boy he was holding hostage
Having rescued the boy - FBI officials prepare to depart the remote property in Midland City, Alabama
Alabama hostage crisis law enforcement officers gave repeated updates to the media over the course of the week - but asked for some of the information not to be printed to aid their negotiations
Tense: Sheriff Willy Olson tells the media today that they're doing 'everything humanly possible' to bring an end to the stand off
Waiting game: Police and FBI at the Command Center in Midland City, Alabama, yesterday as they prepared to wait out the crisis as long as the five-year-old hostage was safe Contact: Negotiators spoke to Dykes via a phone thrown down a PVC pipe connecting the outside world and the bunker
Over the past days the media had abided by the security force's request not to report details of the agents' movements so as not to tip off Dykes - who reportedly had access to television and the Internet in his bunker.
On Saturday the presence of FBI and hostage rescue teams was notably stepped up.
Several vans transporting equipment from the nearby airport made their way up the dirt track to the left of Dykes's plot.
According to CNN the FBI had used U.S. military high-tech detection equipment similar to the technology used to discover homemade bombs in war zones.
It was unclear if the equipment, which is not available to civilian law enforcement, had been used by the FBI.
What is Aspergers Syndrome? How was Ethan's ability to interact impaired?
Aspergers syndrome is a form of autism which leaves sufferers fazed with significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.
The result is that they can have difficulty coping with mixing socially, working in certain kinds of jobs and developing communication skills. They may have problems with coordinating movements making them appear clumsy.
Unlike autism there are no significant delays in language development, people have normal intellect and have normal abilities to help themselves. They can adapt to different situations providing these do not rely on social interaction.
Asperger's syndrome appears to be more prevalent in males. It seems to start later than autism or at least is recognised later. Most children are diagnosed between five and nine years of age. There may be a close relative with a similar disorder.
Although speech development is not delayed there is a tendency to lapse into long detailed talk about topics which may not appear interesting to the listener.
Children with Asperger's may be solitary and emotionally detached, unable to enjoy joining in 'give and take' games or group activities with other children.
Although they may appear on the surface to be imaginative and creative they may tend to become obsessed with one particular system of ideas, which may dominate their activities and thoughts for many months or years at a time.
If they are lucky this behaviour will simply be regarded as quirky eccentricities by peers. Unfortunately some children with Asperger's syndrome can be mercilessly teased.
It is not easy to diagnose Asperger's syndrome. Children may be wrongly diagnosed with other neurological disorders such a Tourette's syndrome or autism.
One defense officials said no members of the military were involved in the rescue. They would have been acting a technical advisers, the official said to CNN.
Neighbours of Dykes had speculated to the media over the past week that the kidnapping was part of a plan to air certain greviences he had by gaining national prominence.
'Based on our discussions he feels like he has a story that is important to him, although it’s very complex,' said Sheriff Wally Olson of Dale County on Sunday.
Among Dykes's beliefs was that the government was harboring and hiding aliens that threatened to take America's weapons.
Several loud booms were heard just after 3 p.m. local time.
Rural: The standoff occurred outside Midland City, Alabama, a rural town in the deep southeast of the state, near the Florida border
Neighbour Lyndsey White arrived on the scene carrying six-year-old daughter Auden, her nine-year-old daughter Alexa by her side.
The Alabama Hostage Ordeal: A timeline of events Tuesday 29th January: Jimmy Lee Dykes commandeers an Alabama school bus demanding two children. Bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr refuses and is fatally shot four times by Dykes. The 65-year-old survivalist takes a 5-year-old boy named only as Ethan to his bunker.
Wednesday 30th January: After having been alerted to kidnapping and now hostage situation, Dale County Sheriff’s Department officials and agents from the FBI begin negotiations with Dkes via a ventilation shaft the gunman has attached to his underground bunker.
Thursday 31st January: Experts continue talking to Dykes through a pipe - the only way to contact the bunker. Local community holds candlelit vigils praying for the standoff to end peacefully
Friday 1st February: Young Ethan is said to be crying for his parents. MailOnline reports that Dykes has demanded reporter in exchange for the boy as he wants to air his views
Saturday 2nd February: Saturday: Dykes allows toys and medication to be passed on via a ventilation pipe
Sunday 3rd February: Bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr is buried amid emotional scenes as it is revealed that Dykes tricked Poland to stop his bus by promising him home-grown vegetables. It is also claimed that Dykes wants to hand over his hostage in exchange for a reporter or prime-time television exposure to tell his story.
Monday 4th February: Law enforcement officials say they are prepared to wait for weeks if not months for Dykes to give up Ethan until the situation deteriorates
She told the MailOnline: 'We live just beyond the trees. I heard a boom that rattled our windows and a knock-knock-knock like a popping. I called my dad and he said that's gunfire.'
She added: 'I'm just so glad the boy is safe. I can't imagine what she's been going through day after day, his mother, not able to put her baby to bed.'
As for Mr Dykes, she echoed the thoughts of many here saying, 'I find it hard. I'm a spiritual person. I pray for his soul - something was obviously very wrong there.'
About 10 minutes after the second boom, an ambulance that had been parked near the bunker for the last few days was seen driving off with no sirens or lights on.
Some neighbors claimed this afternoon that they heard gunshots at about the same time as the booms, but those reports have not yet been confirmed.
A law enforcement source said a stun or flash grenade was detonated as part of the operation to free the boy, but further details were not immediately available.
The reports came just hours after security forces said they were prepared to let the standoff run.
MailOnline has learned that Sykes had continued to demand '4 minutes on all major networks' to tell his story.
The boy was reportedly taken to nearby Flowers Hospital, about six miles away, but is not believed to be injured.
Ethan is going to be six years old on Wednesday.
In the days since Ethan's abduction MailOnline has learned that his family have spent their days at Midland Retirement Center.
They have spent their nights in different hotels, limping from day to day, waiting for the moment that finally came today.
Dykes, a retired Alabama trucker, has been described by those who knew him in Midland City as being a violent and paranoid man.
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley issued a statement detailing his relief at the resolution of the hostage crisis this afternoon in Midland City.
VIDEO Sheriff: Ethan was in a threatening situation, we had to go in
Scene: The boy was rescued by FBI agents seven days after he was taken into an underground bunker by the gunman
Law enforcement personnel station themselves on the property of Jimmy Lee Sykes today after they stormed a bunker in Alabama to rescue 5-year-old Ethan who was being held hostage
Officials say they stormed a bunker in Alabama to rescue a 5-year-old child being held hostage there after Sykes, his abductor, was seen with a gun
He thanked law enforcement agents for their efforts and explained that they had 'breached the bunker, the child was safe and the abductor was killed.'
'I am thankful that the child who was abducted is now safe. I am so happy this little boy can now be reunited with his family and friends,' said Governor Bentley.
'We will all continue to pray for the little boy and his family as they recover from the trauma of the last several days.
'She must have had a direct line to God because shortly after she left, they heard the news,' Nighton said to Fox News .
The pastor of the church, Michael Senn, who has welcomed reporters since the standoff began, said he was relieved.
So when I heard that he was OK, it was just like a thousand pounds lifted off of me,' he said.
Dykes, described by his neighbors as a paranoid survivalist, grabbed the boy from a school bus in Midland City, Alabama, just after 3:30 p.m. Central Time last Tuesday.
Loss: Family of Charles Poland, 66, the school bus driver gunned down by Dykes, mourn at his funeral on Sunday
Hero: Bus driver Charles Poland Jr, left, was shot while trying to prevent Dykes, right, from hurting any children
Remembering: A sign honoring bus driver Chuck Poland is posted to a tree in front of City Hall in Midland City ahead of his funeral which was held on Sunday
Friends and family in tears at the funeral on Sunday - stunned by Poland's shocking death
School bus: Last week law enforcement officials remove the bus that Charles Poland Jr was driving when he was fatally shot just outside Midland City, Alabama
'At the same time, we also want to remember the family and friends of the bus driver – Charles Poland, Junior.
'This man was a true hero who was willing to give up his life so others might live. We are all inspired by his courage and bravery.'
Melissa Nighton, city clerk in Midland City, said a woman had been praying in the town center Monday afternoon. Not long after, the mayor called with news that Dykes was dead and that the boy was safe.
Prayers: The deeply religious community united in prayer over the week for a peaceful outcome to the stand-off
And on Sunday, more than 500 people paid final tribute to the driver that was killed, 66-year-old Charles Albert Poland Jr., hailing him as a hero for protecting the other children on the bus.
At that funeral, Latoshia Reeves supported her daughter, Kimberley, 12, at the funeral of Poland, who has been described as a hero for trying to stop Dykes abducting five-year-old Ethan.
Today she reacted with delight at news of Ethan's safe relief though expressed sadness that Mr Dykes had not survived.
She said: 'It's just so sad - I'm glad that Ethan is safe and Kimberly is so happy he will be home for his birthday but Mr Dykes could have come out safe too.'
Long wait: Police say Jimmy Lee Dykes likely had supplies in his shelter to last weeks or months. He had previously spent eight days in the bunker At the funeral service, the bus driver was described as 'an angel who is watching over,' the little boy saiid Dale County School Superintendent Donny Bynum - as he read three letters from students who had been driven by Poland. 'You didn't deserve to die but you died knowing you kept everyone safe,' one child wrote. The FBI said that on Sunday the kidnapped boy had requested Cheez-Its and a red Hot Wheels car, both of which were delivered to the bunker the day before the successful raid. Authorities said they were also delivering medicine and other comfort items, and that Dykes had been making the child as comfortable as possible. Gathered: The world's media surrounded the scene of the shooting and hostage taking in Alabama Mission: Before today's resolution Law enforcement officials worked the scene of the hostage crisis to try and encourage Dykes to release Ethan peacefully Mel Adams, a Midland City Council member who has known Dykes since they were ages 3 and 4, said Dykes is estranged from his family.
Adams said he didn't know what caused the falling-out, but that he knew Dykes "had told part of his family to go to hell." Midland City Mayor Virgil Skipper said Dykes' sister is in a nursing home. Adams said that law enforcement officers had talked to Dykes' family members and advised them not to speak with reporters, and that officers told his sister there was nothing she could do to help the child in the bunker. Government records and interviews with neighbors indicate that Dykes joined the Navy in Midland City, serving on active duty from 1964 to 1969.
His record shows several awards, including the Vietnam Service Medal and the Good Conduct Medal. Dykes was trained in aviation maintenance and at one point was based in Japan. It was unclear if he saw combat in Vietnam. Community hopes: A sign of support was put up and flags flew at half staff in Newton, near Midland City, Alabama last week in solidarity for the hostage situation At some point after his time in the Navy, Dykes lived in Florida, where he worked as a surveyor and a long-haul truck driver. It's unclear how long he stayed there.
He had some scrapes with the law in Florida, including a 1995 arrest for improper exhibition of a weapon. The misdemeanor was dismissed. He also was arrested for marijuana possession in 2000. He returned to Alabama about two years ago.
Neighbors described Dykes as a man who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property, and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm. Vigil: Mileah Lomaneck and Whitley Riley light candles during a candlelight vigil honoring bus driver Poland as they prayed for a peaceful end to the hostage situation over the weekend His neighbor Michael Creel said Dykes had an adult daughter, but the two lost touch years ago. According to Creel, his property has a white trailer that Dykes said he bought from FEMA after it was used to house evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. The property also has a steel shipping container in which Dykes stored tools and supplies. Creel said he helped Dykes with supplies to build the bunker and has been in it twice, adding that Dykes wanted protection from hurricanes. "He said he lived in Florida and had hurricanes hit. He wanted someplace he could go down in and be safe," Creel said. Authorities say the bunker is about 6 feet by 8 feet, and the only entrance is a trap door at the top. Such bunkers are not uncommon in rural Alabama because of the threat of tornadoes. xxxxxxxxxx
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At least she saved us from unisex toilets.
Phyllis Schlafly died Monday at the age of 92, bringing an end to more than a decade of Wonkette comments beginning "You mean to say that old hater is still alive?" Schlafly made a career out of portraying herself as a simple housewife who was so driven by her love of American values and traditions that she had no choice but to to go to work to tell women to stay home and be mommies like God and George Washington wanted them to, or the Communists would win. In reality, she was a shrewd political operator most of her life, even well before those nasty '70s feminists stopped shaving their legs and abandoned their babies at daycares so they could go become lesbian witches. If you read any other longform pieces about Schlafly beyond the mandatory New York Times obit, read Lisa Wines's fine Wonkette story about the time in 1966 when Schlafly started a riot at the 1966 convention of the National Federation of Republican Women. In fact, read that before you read what the Grey Lady has to say about the grey lady.
In recent months, Schlafly had been busy working for the election of her new political boyfriend, Donald Trump, which led directly to an ugly internecine battle over control of the political group she founded, the Eagle Forum. The fight transformed Schlafly's family into a cut-rate wingnut version of King Lear, with all the acrimony and potential for violence, but none of the real sense of tragedy. As the Bard said, “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise,” right? How bitter was the Schlafly Family drama? In a now-deleted (but still cached) Breitbart piece, Schlafly gave out her daughter's phone number and urged supporters to tell her to surrender.
As the fuck-tussle progressed, we learned Ms. Schlafly (we always loved typing that combination) briefly considered naming fangirl Michele Bachmann -- who credited Schlafly with ending the Cold War -- as her designated successor, but ultimately decided Michele Bachmann was simply too fucking stupid for the job. Then again, maybe her chosen Presidential candidate wasn't any prize, either:
The Cubs Schlafly is a real contender this year
Trump almost immediately deleted the tweet, but screenshots are forever. Also, Donald, obituaries are not about you. Just kidding, of course they are.
One of the reasons people always seemed surprised Schlafly was still polluting American political discourses was that she was that rare political figure who really accomplished her life's work: Thanks largely to reactionary panic whipped up by her hyperbolic warnings about how the Equal Rights Amendment would end America forever, that constitutional amendment -- one of those rare amendments saddled by Congress with a ratification deadline -- was eventually defeated. With no more threats of equality to slay, Schalfly became just another voice in the chorus of rightwing shitheads, good for a bitter laugh when she'd rise from obscurity to explain that if women really wanted to end rape, they'd settle down and get married, since that keeps men's baser instincts under control. Or that the Statue of Liberty has nothing to do with immigration. Or that pregnant women with jobs were destroying America. Or fretting that a Few Good Men in the military will be ruined just for raping women in the military. But instead of leading a powerful single-issue juggernaut, Schlafly was now just one more snarling hateweasel among many, notable mostly because people were surprised she was still around, until now she isn't.
We would be remiss not to note the simple elegy for Schlafly by Juanita Jean Monday evening:
Y’all, Phyllis Schlafly went to the great beyond today. That loud gasp you heard is Phyllis discovering that God is liberal black woman who wants to have a little chat with her. Phyllis was 92 years old, proving once again that the good die young.
Ms. Schlafly leaves behind a fractious family fighting over the remnants of the Eagle Forum; a son who founded Conservapedia, one of the most moronic websites in the world; a niece, Suzanne Venker, who seems dedicated to continuing Aunt Phyllis's mission of being wrong about everything, like for instance marital rape; and several score rightwing pundits all typing the headline "Phyllis Schlafly Was Right."
[NYT / Juanita Jean's] |
As you are certainly aware, the new consensus among most Republicans and conservatives is that they don’t need no stinking Latinos (don’t get huffy on me; this is OK, because it’s a clever movie reference, and in any case it’s aimed not at Latinos, but at stupid Republicans) and will soar to victory on the strength of the white vote. People like me have spent a lot of airtime and ink these past couple of weeks arguing over whether this can work. But what’s interesting is this. There’s an assumption embedded in the argument that no one disputes: namely, that whites will always be as conservative as they are now and will always vote Republican in the same numbers they do now. This assumption is wrong. White people—yep, even working-class white people—are going to get less conservative in coming years, so the Republicans’ hopes of building a white-nationalist party will likely be dashed in the future even by white people themselves.
We already know all about the creative-class white voters, the well-educated and higher-income people who have shifted dramatically to the Democratic column over the past generation. Those voters are increasingly lost to the GOP. True, Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama among college graduates (of all races) 51 percent to 47 percent, but Obama won going away among postgrads. Combine that with a Democratic lock on a huge chunk of a growing minority vote, and that’s why the Democratic Party goes into presidential elections now with a massive presumed Electoral College advantage (in recent elections, Democratic candidates have regularly won states totaling 263 electoral votes, just seven shy of the magic number).
Everyone knows and concedes all this. And everyone counters it by saying that the Republicans will just goose the less-educated white vote. As I noted above, everyone agrees that that vote is theirs for the goosing. But what if it isn’t?
Back in March, the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research Institute released a big poll on immigration. Those findings are interesting as far as they go, but the questions and results went beyond that. It’s the first poll I’ve seen that breaks the white working class into four distinct age groups (65-plus, 50 to 64, 30 to 49, 18 to 29) and asks respondents attitudes about a broad range of social issues. And guess what? White working-class millennials are fairly liberal!
Click on the above link, scroll down to page 44, and look at the charts. On most questions, white working-class respondents in all three other age groups yielded results that were pretty similar to one another’s, but the youngest cohort was well to their left.
White working-class young people back gay marriage to the tune of about 74 percent. Another 60 percent say immigrants strengthen the United States (the totals for all three other age groups are below 40 percent). About 56 percent agree that changes immigrants have brought to their communities are a good thing. Nearly 40 percent agree that gays and lesbians are changing America for the better (more than double the percentages in the other three age groups).
They have different views because they’re different people: only 22 percent of white working-class millennials are evangelical, compared with 32 percent as a whole and 42 percent of seniors. And an amazing 38 percent of the group call themselves religiously unaffiliated.
All in all, not your father’s white working class. Sure, their views will become a bit more conservative as they age and have kids and own property. More will start attending church, undoubtedly. But the striking differences between their views and those of the three older groups are consistent, they are uniform, and they are pretty vast. (The poll did not ask about their attitudes toward African-Americans, about which I’m curious; I would expect less though still meaningful departure from the older cohorts.)
Which suggests to me that some views won’t change. These young people grew up in the America of Will and Grace and the relentlessly multi-culti Sesame Street just as surely as children in Berkeley and Takoma Park did. They won’t vote like their counterparts who grew up in Berkeley and Takoma Park, but they—and certainly their kids—just aren’t going to be carrying around a lot of the racial resentments that their grandparents shoulder every day.
So let’s hand it to the Republicans. They make the strategic decision to go all 1980s South Africa on us at a time when a sizable and sure-to-be-growing chunk of one of the most Republican-friendly segments of the white vote isn’t going to want that anymore. So, far from the GOP share of the white vote sailing up toward 70 percent as Sean Trende so giddily predicts, it seems just as likely to decrease as we enter the 2020s and see the sprouting of a more liberal (or less conservative) white working class. Finally, the Republican Party will be the party of true equality, having equally alienated every racial and ethnic group in America. |
At its I/O conference today, Google announced that Android Auto is going to be available to a lot more people this year. How? You're not going to need a car or third-party head unit that supports it anymore.
An update to the Android Auto phone app coming later this year will enable the full Android Auto experience right on the phone itself, without needing to be plugged into a compatible car. The idea is that you could snap your phone into a dash-mounted cradle of some sort — which many of us do already — and just load up the Android Auto app for navigation and infotainment rather than relying on an in-dash display. (This is particularly practical now that many phones have huge displays themselves.) Like the in-dash Android Auto experience, the on-phone UI is simplified and voice-centric, keeping driver distraction to a minimum.
Of course, you'd probably still want to route audio into the car so you can hear music and navigation instructions, so a car that supports Bluetooth streaming or at least has a 3.5mm aux in jack would be preferred. But theoretically, you could just rely entirely on the phone for sound, too.
Support for systems like Android Auto and CarPlay is growing in the auto industry with each passing model year, but some manufacturers are still slow on the uptake — Toyota, for instance — so this might make the decision to buy a Prius just a little easier. If you're into the Prius, that is.
Google’s Maserati is running Android |
Fifty-four years after he accidentally wandered across the eastern frontier into India following the 1962 war with China, a Chinese soldier has returned home to Xi’an to a hero’s welcome.
“I’m finally home!” Wang Qi (77) sobbed as he arrived at Xi’an’s airport in an emotional reunion carried on state television in China.
“Today is my happiest day in 54 years. Finally I have come back to this beautiful lovely country. Words cannot express how I feel now,” he said as he hugged his tearful brothers and sisters.
He was accompanied by his son, Vishnu Wang (35), daughter-in-law Neha and grand-daughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed behind in India as she was ill.
Building roads
Mr Wang had been a surveyor with the Chinese military following the brief war with India in 1962 and had been building roads for the Chinese army when he strayed into Indian territory at Assam.
“I had gone out of my camp for a stroll but lost my way. I was tired and hungry. I saw an Indian Red Cross vehicle and asked them to help me. They handed me over to the Indian army,” he said.
Mr Wang was moved around between various jails for seven years after he was jailed for espionage, before his release in 1969.
He ended up in a remote village in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, where he married and worked in a flour mill, living in poverty and sending many letters to his family in Shaanxi province expressing his desire to come home.
Mr Wang began the process of applying for the necessary documents to leave India in 1977, but he only received a passport in 2013. He was never granted Indian citizenship.
Finally back
It was a report by the BBC that highlighted his plight on Chinese social media and expedited efforts to get him a passport.
Arriving in his home city of Xianyang, he was met by crowds carrying banners. The reunion took place on the same day as China’s Lantern Festival, a day that traditionally represents reunion.
“After all these years, he is finally back,” Wang Shun, who had prepared a quilt for Mr Wang, told the Xinhua news agency. “We bought the furniture in this room many years ago.”
A local villager Wang Ming said Mr Wang had not changed much.
“I can still recognise him . . . All of us in the village have been waiting for his return, and we are just happy that he made it.” |
Shuu-chan from the planning team likes the figure so much that he tried to take the same pose himself! (((ﾟДﾟ)))
To show how determined he was, he even tried to get the expression right! Although I have to say that perhaps the cute upward glances should be left to the girls… :P
Anyway, today I’ll be taking a closer look at this figure that Shuu-chan loves!!
From Waiting in the Summer:
1/7th Scale Ichika Takatsuki
From the romantic comedy anime ‘Waiting in the Summer’ comes a 1/7th scale figure of the main heroine, Ichika Takatsuki! The pose is based on an illustration by the series’ original character designer, Taraku Uon. Careful attention has been made to keep the same feeling of the original illustration by faithfully recreating the relaxed, gentle appearance of Ichika.
She’s rather sexy for a high school student!! (*ﾟ∀ﾟ)=3
I wish she could share some of that sex appeal with everyone else!!
Many of you will know this pose from the cover of DVD/Blu-Ray’s first volume – it’s amazing how similar she looks to the original illustration!!
This is how she looks from the back!
The long hair that sweeps down to her hips, and if you look at the bottom you’ll see the tips of her hair have both a front and back layer!
Plus just look at this adorable looking way of sitting!! It just makes me wish I could come up behind her and give her a big hug!! Σ(゜∀゜*)
She is such a goddess!!
Just look at that beautiful smile – it’s strangely hard to describe!! The whole expression has a kind-of motherly quality to it! 。・゜・(つД｀)・゜・。
Ichika’s gentle and kind personality even manages to come through the figure, and the amazing sculptwork on her glasses is also noteworthy!!
Lovely slim arms and a beautiful body!
This angle from the side has to be my favorite! I’d have to say the best way to describe her body is ladylike – she has a much more mature looking appearance than you’d expect of a high school student!
Also note the delicate hand placed on her shoe, the creases in her clothes which let you get a better picture of her waistline and even the little peek you get of her thighs through the skirt! The figure is just filled with Ichika-senpai’s charm!
Just look at those… err, that collar area!
I’d often say you can’t help your eyes shooting down to her breasts… but this time around I can’t help staring at them! :P
But that’s really not the only thing to look at! The little bit of skin showing around her collar area is also super sexy!! It’s so nice to see such incredible detail put into such small areas of the figure! Great job!! (`・ω・´)
Nobody could say no to this cute pose!
If any girl did this to me, I’m fairly certain I’d fall for her in a heartbeat!!! (*`ω´)
She’s posed gently twirling her finger in her hair – the hand looks lovely enough by itself, but it’s also surrounded by her lovely full-bodied hair – the sculpting looks great from so many different angles!
☆(ﾉﾟ∀ﾟ)人(ﾟ∀ﾟ )ﾉ☆ Yay!!
A shot from a slightly lower angle! (=゜ω゜=）
The other day I got told off by one of my superiors for taking some blog posts a little too far, so I have to be careful… but I had to include this as to me it’s the best angle to show off her lovely bust!
Whether it’s a figure or a real person, you always have to find the angles that show them off in the most cute and beautiful way possible! You need to make sure to capture every one of their most charming points!
Her captivating thighs!!Σ(ﾟ∀ﾟ*)
I was trying to figure out why the combination of a pleated skirt and thighs look so amazing, and I came to the conclusion that it must be the little triangles that are formed between the folds in the skirt and the skin! They look great!
The sitting pose also means that you can really make out the smooth line of her thighs, which adds even more to the combination!
From Waiting in the Summer:
1/7th Scale Ichika Takatsuki
She’ll be up for preorder from tomorrow!!
Get in contact with our partner shops if you have any preorder or sales queries!
But that’s all for today!
I hope to see you all again tomorrow!! (・∀・)ノ
© I＊Chi＊Ka／なつまち製作委員会 |
Stack traces in GHCJS
June 20, 2014 - Tagged as: haskell, ghcjs, ghc, gsoc, en.
I’m about to finish the first part of my GSoC project and as a part of my project I have implemented stack traces for GHCJS. Currently GHC.Stack functions should work in GHCJS, except for some cases I explain below.
As a demo, I set up this page, it runs the Haskell program rendered on the page (some part of the code is copied from Simon Marlow’s “Why can’t I get stack traces?” presentation). Output is printed to the console. You should be seeing something like this:
My main goal is to implement profiling features of GHC (cost-centres, SCC annotations, reporting allocations/ticks etc.) for GHCJS. It turns out that cost-centre stacks and call stacks are same thing. GHC.Stack.currentCallStack returns the current cost-centre stack, and cost attribution is done to current call-stack(or current cost-centre stack, since they’re exactly the same thing). Similarly, GHC.Stack.whoCreated returns the cost centre stack that was active when the heap object was created.
20 changed files with 810 additions and 527 deletions later, I had GHC.Stack working. You won’t need to do anything different once it’s merged into GHCJS, but for now it requires some effort to install. It also still has some bugs and differences from GHC version. Rest of the post explains how to test it, bugs, and differences from GHC.
How to use
Because of a horrible bug(see bugs section), you need a 32bit system to use profiling features of GHCJS. You should clone my fork of GHCJS and shims. For GHCJS, switch to work3 branch(that 3 represents how many times I started from scratch :) and for shims switch to work2 branch. You need to install modified Cabal for GHCJS. After installing Cabal, install GHCJS and run ghcjs-boot --init -q --prof . This takes about 20 minutes on my system and compiles base and some other libraries. --prof is used to generate profiled versions of libraries.
After GHCJS has been booted, replace ~/.ghcjs/<your platform>/shims folder with my fork of shims(make sure you switched to work2 branch). Now you should be able to compile and run programs with profiling options of GHC. For example, to compile and run the example program given above, run ghcjs stacktrace.hs -prof -fprof-auto and then run generated stacktrace.jsexe/all.js using nodejs. Enabling profiling gives you a debug executable, with more metadata (object names) and longer (non-renamed) variable names.
Differences
Because GHCJS represents some objects as unboxed numbers and currently we don’t associate any cost-centres with this type of objects, whoCreated returns an empty list. If there’s demand, we can disable unboxing with a command line switch and whoCreated on these values would work. In the example program, second and third lines are printing empty lists because of this.
Bugs
Currently we discovered two bugs:
There’s a horrible bug happening outside of GHCJS code, see my blog post and ghc-devs mail. Because of this bug, booting GHCJS with profiling enabled is resulting with a segfault on 64bit systems. I’m developing this project on a 32bit VM, running on a VPS :) I need to make some more progress before tracking this bug. We’re having a bug that makes stack traces sometimes a bit different than the ones generated by GHC compiled programs. For example, the example program should have printed this stack trace: Main.errorM.\ (stacktrace.hs:13:22-54) Main.errorM (stacktrace.hs:13:1-54) Main.foo.\.\ (stacktrace.hs:27:23-30) Main.foo.\ (stacktrace.hs:27:16-33) Main.foo (stacktrace.hs:27:1-36) Main.bar (stacktrace.hs:24:1-20) Main.runM.(...) (stacktrace.hs:16:20-31) Main.runM (stacktrace.hs:16:1-36) Main.main (stacktrace.hs:(29,1)-(38,36)) Main.CAF (<entire-module>) .. but runM calls are missing in GHCJS output. I have no idea what could be the reason for this and I’m currently working to fix this. After fixing this, I think we’ll have exactly same stack traces as the ones produced by GHC compiled programs.
Acknowledgement
I’d like to thank my mentor Luite Stegeman for answering my endless questions, helping me understanding GHC and GHCJS internals and reviewing this blog post. |
Posted by Darren Urban on November 20, 2015 – 9:05 am
The NFL commissioner was talking Cardinals this morning, during an appearance on “Doug and Wolf” on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM. At one point, he was asked about the status of suspended linebacker Daryl Washington, who has not been reinstated from his at-least-a-year suspension that was handed down in late May of 2014.
Goodell didn’t have details, nor was he going to. He did say that he was “aware that his status is unchanged.”
“The substance abuse policy is something that is collectively bargained with the players association as far as the CBA,” Goodell said. “A very strong tenet of that is the fact is the program remains confidential and circumstances surrounding it stay confidential between the various partners. We have professionals that work on it, they make determinations with individuals within the program and they make recommendations back to the NFLPA and NFL.
“I am not directly involved in that but I am aware his status is unchanged and will remain so until the professionals are prepared to move forward.”
While details aren’t forthcoming, it is telling that the NFLPA is looped in to all this and has not publicly said anything — in particular, gone to bat for Washington asking why he is still suspended. Neither has Washington’s agent. That’s probably not a good sign.
— Goodell also said the league “couldn’t be more pleased” with how the Super Bowl went last season and that the league looks forward to coming back. Another Super Bowl seems inevitable. Remember the one caveat to getting a Super Bowl at some point, officially, is that a host team has to give up a home game to play internationally. (That may be inevitable anyway. With the NFL’s international push, I’m guessing every team will eventually be tapped to give up a home game at some point.)
Tags: Daryl Washington Posted in Blog |
Cloanto Releases Amiga Forever and C64 Forever 2012
August 26, 2011 - Cloanto released today Amiga Forever 2012 and C64 Forever 2012, the latest versions of the official Commodore/Amiga preservation, emulation and support suites for Windows.
By adding powerful content authoring and integration functionality, Amiga Forever and C64 Forever 2012 close the circle between gaming, productivity and preservation of digital culture while adding new features and providing easier access to a universe of free and legal downloads.
The new versions build on a powerful synergy of original components:
RP9 file format, which is a compressed cross-platform archive containing media images, configuration, description and ancillary data, developed by Cloanto
RetroPlatform Player and API to interface with different emulation plugins
Cloanto's unique portfolio of ROM and OS licenses
The new packages can emulate the full range of 8-bit (C64, VIC 20, PET/CBM, etc.) and 16/32-bit systems (Amiga, CDTV, etc.) using an intuitive media player-like interface. The advanced RP9 authoring functionality sets new references in preserving and making accessible digital culture from the 1980s and 1990s. Content created or edited with the Windows software can be played back on other systems, including mobile devices (in part under development).
The 2012 versions not only include hundreds of software enhancements, but also add content of historical interest, like new interviews with Amiga legends RJ Mical and Dave Haynie, also with HD-quality video footage.
Amiga Forever 2012 is available now in three editions:
Value Edition (downloadable installer for Windows systems)
Plus Edition (downloadable ISO image with additional Windows and platform-neutral content)
Premium Edition (physical Plus Edition content plus additional videos on 3 DVDs)
C64 Forever 2012 is available now in three editions:
Amiga Forever and C64 Forever passed official Windows 7 logo tests on both x86 and x64 systems. Prices for both Amiga Forever and C64 Forever start from $9.95 (special upgrade offers).
Graphics
Permission is granted to use the following unmodified graphics in the original context, with attribution.
Premium Edition box shots
Detail of new features
Workbench 1.3 and 3.X
AmiKit and AmigaSYS integration
AROS and Walker integration
Player detail
Player options detail
Close options detail
RP9 files
RP9 Title Editor
RP9 Toolbox
Plus Edition CD AutoRun menu
Tip of the Day
Workbench 3.X environment detail
Workbench 1.3 environment detail
KX Light boot sequence
Cloanto Logo
Links
Amiga Forever Home Page
https://www.amigaforever.com
Screenshots
https://www.amigaforever.com/screenshots/
Premium Edition Box Shots
https://www.amigaforever.com/screenshots/box-premium/
New Features
https://www.amigaforever.com/whatsnew/
Quick Instructions for Upgraders
https://www.amigaforever.com/kb/15-121
C64 Forever Home Page
https://www.c64forever.com
RP9 File Format Information
http://www.retroplatform.com/kb/15-122
This Page
https://www.amigaforever.com/news-events/af-2012/
Amiga Forever RSS Feed
https://www.amigaforever.com/rss.xml |
Figure 7.
Relationship between performance and activation in functional ROIs within the executive network and DMN. A, Regions of interest: the executive network (warm colors) was parsed into 21 functional regions of interest by applying a watershed algorithm to the map of the 2-back > 0-back contrast using an initial threshold of z > 20. Six regions of interest in the default mode network were similarly constructed from the contrast of 0-back > 2-back. B, Activation in each of these regions within the executive network (and deactivation of certain default mode regions) was significantly associated with better performance mainly at the highest (2-back) levels of WM load. In contrast, associations with age in these regions did not survive multiple comparison correction at any level of WM load. The y-axis depicts partial correlation at each level of WM load (0-back, 1-back, 2-back) from each of the 21 executive network regions (red) and 6 default mode regions (blue), displayed in A. Partial correlations were calculated between region percentage signal change and performance while accounting for age, sex, and in-scanner motion. |
A prominent Muslim feminist and author penned an op-ed criticizing CNN political commentator Sally Kohn, arguing that her recent defense of Sharia law as moderate is an “offensive” and “dangerous” affront to progressive Muslims.
Ms. Kohn, who is openly gay, made headlines last week after she claimed “many progressive Muslims” supported Sharia law. She followed up in a CNN column explaining that there are progressive interpretations as well as more “fundamentalist conservative” interpretations of Sharia, which can be both personal and political.
“Sadly, the fact that there are many interpretations of Sharia, just as there are many interpretations of Jewish and Christian moral codes, gets lost in the weeds of right-wing generalizations and fear-mongering,” Ms. Kohn wrote.
Ms. Raza, president of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow and author of “Their Jihad, Not My Jihad,” wrote that Ms. Kohn’s position is “a danger to those of us reformist Muslims on the front lines.”
“In using her voice to propagate this liberal apologist position, she is doing a great disservice to progressive reform-minded Muslims like myself,” Ms. Raza argued. “Her words are an affront to me, a female Muslim activist, as I have made it my life’s mission to educate others on this topic and to wrestle back my religion from the clutches of extremists who wish to make sharia the law of the land.”
She called Sharia an anti-women, anti-Semitic, homophobic distortion of Islamic law that would have gay individuals like Ms. Kohn killed, jailed or persecuted.
“As a woman, and as someone who enjoys the freedoms and liberties that are systematically assaulted by sharia law, Sally Kohn needs to think twice before defending this oppressive, perverse practice,” Ms. Raza wrote.
“Sharia is practiced in most parts of the Muslim world, often on the whims of dictators and male religious bullies and it is entirely man-made,” she continued. “This homophobic, anti-woman, repressive sharia is no longer confined to the mosque or to majority Muslim nations.
“This is why in the Muslim Reform Movement declaration, we (Muslims) make it very clear that we do not need or want institutionalized laws, a parallel legal system or sharia in the West. Religion is, and should be, a personal relationship between ourselves and our maker. Ms. Kohn, if you believe in separation of religion and state/law, then you must be against sharia law,” Ms. Raza argued.
“I don’t believe that Ms. Kohn has malicious intentions, but her misguided comments are a danger to those of us reformist Muslims on the front lines — battling to save our religion from extremists. Words are powerful — so Sally, I beg you and others to stop defending the indefensible and to stand with us, not them.”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. |
The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) project is an index of linked open data citations and ontological connections that cross-tabulate the following:
archaeological site names or identifiers
culture histories
artifact typologies
sociocultural definitions of site use
practical representations of investigative methods and information qualities
As its base layer, DINAA adapts governmental heritage management datasets for broader open and public uses. DINAA is an exercise in open government data and community data sharing based on open source standards and ethics. DINAA (from construction, through rollout, and into future planning) is an example of how digital is simply the way we do archaeology now, and what that means for us as professionals and social scientists.
DINAA is a multi-institutional partnership between the University of Tennessee, Indiana University South Bend, and the Alexandria Archive Institute, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF #1216810 & #1217240). Our partners in many State Historic Preservation Offices and/or state archaeology offices have been amazingly enthusiastic and forthcoming in their provision of data to this end. To facilitate the interoperation and reuse of these heterogeneous governmental digital data, DINAA’s workflows, infrastructure, and products emphasize openness and contextual controls.
DINAA’s 2014 goal is to integrate governmentally-curated public data from offline and online digital repositories, representing up to twenty US states, describing over half a million archaeological sites in eastern North America. See Open Context. DINAA promotes broad public extension and reuse by researchers, educators, government officials, and interested stakeholders including indigenous peoples, who may of course cross-cut any and all of the preceding categories. We strive to lower barriers to engagement and will provide direct instruction for any user to incorporate DINAA query results with open source applications like QGIS as GEOJSON files. DINAA involves methodologies and workflows typical of many open science and digital humanities programs. DINAA is meant to be open and participatory, and the long-term goal for the project is stable perpetuation as an open source, community-maintained entity, overseen by a volunteer board and a set of principles likely derived from existing and widely supported models like Creative Commons and the GNU and Open Source Software definitions.
However, in construction and maintenance, the distributed nature of data production related to DINAA, coupled with protections for sensitive data (locational, personal, and cultural), add layers of organizational complexity that can only be resolved by people. Ethically negotiating these issues demands collaboration between stakeholder communities, but the reward is an unprecedented contextualization of the archaeological record of North America across vast regions and time scales. So what kind of anthropology are we today, and how will archaeologists make sense of linked open data?
American anthropology itself has a longstanding experience of very mixed successes with the comprehension of digital life as a subject let alone as practice, and that is indeed where we find ourselves now, as anthropologists reflexively engaged in trying to comprehend the nests and warrens we’ve built on the web and Internet through which we all live. Sociocultural anthropologists are entangled in questions of what constitutes engaging cultural behavior online. How does a person recognize evidence of culture on a screen or through other media delivery? Why does a person feel compelled to participate in a cultural community dissected by space (and perhaps time) but connected through mediated symbols and practices? As archaeologists, we have to answer these questions as they pertain to the culture of our profession, to the broader spectrum of stakeholders who are interested in archaeological information (and may legislate or litigate on account of it), and to data producers and reusers, who must decide what constitutes meaningful data sets for curation and linkage.
An important lesson of DINAA, as a compilation of data products from an unevenly networked community of practice, is that archaeologists are creating digital datasets and reports with inherent anthropological, geographic, and other scientific value in parallel systems that are not even identifiably coherent by humans, let alone software, without expert guidance. Yet within their own contexts, each of the digital datasets that form the DINAA base layer is extremely successful, as a tool to promote local preservation, as resource guides, and for statistical or spatial modeling to meet local obligations. For instance, within one state government dataset used as base data in DINAA, cultural concepts are stored in a series of binary fields, in different offices there are verbose text fields, in still more there are lookup lists of allowable fields. So what can archaeologists do to promote interoperability and open access? What lessons can we draw from the DINAA experience so far?
DINAA maintains the importance of undisclosed locations through its map tiling protocol that assigns archaeological sites to cells that measure 20km on a side (or 400 square kilometers). No site coordinates are ever communicated through DINAA, and in fact they are redacted before the data ever even goes online for editing let alone publication. DINAA demonstrates quite well for American archaeology the interpretive powers of large linked open data sets that can be readily accomplished if we disabuse ourselves of a fetish for coordinates and give primacy to the interpretive value of places. Similarly redacted prior to publication on DINAA are fields that may relate to personal information (landowner names), rediscoverable physiographic features, or culturally sensitive descriptors. (DINAA has opened lines of communication with numerous Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs) for this purpose, and hopefully to engage interested THPO or other tribal partners with developing indigenous participation in DINAA for the long-term). To put a definitive statement to the question of where the obstacles are to promoting reuse and interoperability: they are within us.
Linked open data, spatial data, and archaeological data are inherently political, contestable, and sensitive, each in their own right and with emergent properties in combination. However, when we recognize that extant and future systems of digital data are human constructs, just as much as are the anthropological data within them, can we frame linkages, openness, and use purposes as behaviors to be negotiated among a community through practice, critique, and education.
See more at Open Context.
Authored by Joshua J. Wells, Eric C. Kansa, Sarah W. Kansa, Stephen J. Yerka, David G. Anderson, Kelsey Noack Myers, R. Carl DeMuth, and Thad Bisset
View the complete collection of stories for Open Science Week. |
Having what someone else wants can go a long way — especially if it's a major corporation that wants it.
When Michigan resident Diana Hussein made a Twitter account with the handle @DietDrPepper seven years ago, she didn't have any big plans for it. But when the brand asked if Hussein would be willing to surrender it in exchange for free swag, she saw an opportunity in the timing.
"I wasn't sure what I was going to do at first," Hussein told the Detroit Free Press. "Just about everyone I spoke to told me that I shouldn't just give them the handle. Especially not just for 'swag.'"
Hussein learned that the Dr Pepper Snapple Group also owned the DeJa Blue water brand and told the company she'd be willing to trade her handle for a donation to Flint, Michigan, to aid in the water crisis. The company's final offer? $5,000 dollars worth of water bottles — or about 41,000 of them.
Hussein's new handle is @heyadiana, through which she continues to spread the word and encourage action.
While calls for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to resign persist and new reports reveal the origins of the water contamination, the city's residents are still struggling to find clean water just to drink and bathe in.
"When you hear about what they're having to do right now," Hussein told the Free Press, "it doesn't seem like there could be enough water." |
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, Donald Trump handed Justin Trudeau the rose he coveted on Monday in Washington. Like all roses, it comes with thorns. Only time will tell whether those thorns matter more than the flower itself. Until then, the first face-to-face meeting between the prime minister and his new counterpart in the White House can be said to have gone about as well as could be expected. That’s not just because the two did not wrestle each other to the ground over the course of not one but two handshakes.
Confronted with the contradictions in their approaches Monday, the two leaders observed a tacit pact of non-aggression, writes Chantal H�bert. ( MANDEL NGAN / AFP/GETTY IMAGES )
Trudeau got what he most wanted in the shape of a statement straight from the horse’s mouth that when it comes to improving the American economy, Trump mostly sees trade with Canada as part of the solution. If the intense federal lobbying of the past few weeks has been about anything, it has been about driving home the point that on trade, the United States and Canada benefit from being under a common umbrella. That could be important if and when NAFTA comes up for renegotiation as it could frame the U.S. outlook on the talks on less adversarial lines than many in Canada feared.
Article Continued Below
Canadians with long memories might reflect on the irony that in another era, under a prime minister of the same last name, the interdependence of the two economies tended to be portrayed as an existential problem. Now it is an ideal to preserve and protect with all the means at the disposal of a federal government. By a twist of electoral fate, Trudeau has become the keeper of Brian Mulroney’s free-trade legacy. But at what cost down the road? Since Trump’s inauguration, the prime minister had strived to not let obviously deep differences on immigration and refugee policy poison the Canada-U.S. trade well. That was always going to be easier to accomplish at a distance than in the physical proximity of a joint news conference. Confronted with the contradictions in their approaches Monday, the two leaders observed a tacit pact of non-aggression. Trudeau stuck to his guns on the notion that Syrian refugees are not by definition a security risk without sticking those guns overtly in the face of the president. Even as Trump promoted his travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, he took a pass at an opportunity to link the measure to the security of the Canada-U.S. border.
That may be for another day. For if there are thorns in Monday’s bouquet of words they would be found in the section of an otherwise boilerplate joint communiqué that recommits the two countries to pursuing the harmonization of their border services.
Article Continued Below
A bill currently making its way through Parliament would give U.S. border agents new powers to question, search and even detain Canadian citizens on Canadian soil. Existing arrangements already allow American border officials operating inside Canada’s major airports under a long-standing pre-clearance agreement between the two countries to implement whatever version of Trump’s travel ban finds favour with the U.S. justice system. Then there is Canada’s designation of the U.S. as a safe country for refugee purposes, a measure that prevents most people who land in the United States from applying for refugee status in this country. No one envisaged a Trump-style travel ban at the time those measures were put in place. But if the president does stick with plans to selectively ban immigrants, refugees and visitors to the U.S. on the basis of their country of origin, it will be hard for Trudeau to continue to look the other way and at the same time pretend that Canada is leading by example by sticking to its principles. In any event, for now, many in this country — particularly in corporate Canada — will take comfort in the notion that Canada is not on the Trump administration’s hit list. For his first face-to-face meeting with his new American counterpart, Trudeau had brought along a gaggle of senior cabinet ministers and advisers. Rarely has Canada had as much face time on a single day with as many members of a rookie American administration. It would not have happened if Trump had not wanted to play along. It might be best to savour the fragrance of the rose while it lasts!
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We are excited to announce the date and details of the ZRX token launch. Purchasers will be required to go through a mandatory registration process that will take place from August 9th to August 11th. Registered purchasers will then be able to participate in the token launch starting August 15th. Detailed registration and purchase instructions will be released in early August.
To learn more about the technical aspects of 0x protocol and the role of ZRX within the network, see our FAQ. Alternatively, watch the technical overview presentation that I recently gave at Coinbase Code School.
Our Values
Technology First
Amir Bandeali and I dropped everything to begin working on 0x protocol back in October 2016 and have since built out an exceptional team. We are a collection of builders and technologists that are laser focused on developing the infrastructure needed to bring the benefits of decentralization to the global financial system. While Ethereum has seen an explosion of interest over the past few months, our team will continue to take a long term view on this important technology and honor our commitment to the community.
Consistently Shipping
Not only will 0x protocol be live on the Ethereum mainnet prior to our token launch, we will be using 0x protocol for our token launch. That’s right, we will distribute ZRX using our fully-functional and thoroughly audited smart contracts running on the Ethereum mainnet. One of our team’s core values is to consistently ship useful tools and products. No amount of marketing can substitute for tangible results and over the past year our team has been working hard to build tools that make 0x protocol useful and accessible for both end users and developers.
0x OTC is a web application that allows users to trade ERC20 tokens directly on the Ethereum blockchain using 0x protocol. We envision 0x OTC facilitating private over-the-counter trades between known counterparties. Behind the scenes, our smart contracts are running on the Kovan test network; try it out today.
0x.js is a javascript library that simplifies the process of building a web application on top of 0x protocol. With 0x.js, you don’t need to be a Solidity expert to interact with the 0x smart contracts, generate orders or execute trades.
Financial Responsibility
The total purchase cap for the ZRX token launch will be set to $24M. We arrived at this number after formalizing our development roadmap and estimating the total costs involved in scaling our team and operating at full size for the next 5 years. 100% of the capital raised in the token launch will be used to develop free and open source software, tools and infrastructure that support 0x protocol and the surrounding ecosystem.
Inclusive Community = Healthy Ecosystem
Individual purchases will be capped to ensure that everyone gets a chance to be a part of the 0x community from the beginning, not just whales. We believe that by widely distributing ZRX, we can foster a healthy community of developers and early adopters that will return more value to our ecosystem over time by building applications, contributing code or evangelizing the technical merits of 0x protocol to future adopters. Each one of these “activist holders” is purchasing tokens with an information edge: they have knowledge of their own future contributions to the ecosystem. Details regarding our sybil-resistant registration process will be released at a later time.
Initial ZRX Allocation
Total Supply (fixed): 1,000,000,000 ZRX
Token Launch (50%)
ZRX is inherently a governance token that plays a critical role in the process of upgrading 0x protocol. We are fully committed to formulating a functional and theoretically sound governance model and we plan to dedicate significant resources to R&D; we will provide greater clarity on the subject of governance in a future post.
Retained by 0x Org (15%)
Retained ZRX tokens will be used to incentivize future team members via token compensation packages as well as to sustain the operations of the 0x core development organization beyond the first five years. These assets will be used to support development at the protocol layer.
External Development Fund (15%)
The External Development Fund will be used to make targeted capital injections into high potential projects and teams that are attempting to grow the 0x ecosystem, strategic partnerships, hackathon prizes and for community development activities. These assets will be used to support development at the application layer.
Founding Team (10%)
The founding team’s allocation of ZRX will vest over a traditional 4 year vesting schedule with a one year cliff. We believe this should be standard practice for any team that is committed to making their project a long term success.
Early Backers & Advisors (10%)
Our backers and advisors have provided capital, resources and guidance that have allowed us to fill out our team, setup a robust legal entity and build a fully functional product before launching a token. As a result, we have a proven track record and can offer a token that holds genuine utility.
Upcoming AMA
We will be fielding an AMA in our Slack channel on Friday (June 30) at 10am PDT to answer questions about the ZRX token launch, 0x protocol and whatever else you are interested in discussing. Make sure not to miss forthcoming announcements by following us on Twitter, Medium and Reddit! |
Let it snow, let is snow, let it snow.
Rockstar will update GTA Online next week with holiday content, including the return of snow, Xmas trees in player houses and festive masks.
According to details leaked by TezFunz, all players will receive free gifts from Rockstar including festive pyjamas, a unicorn mask and a shit-tonne of ammo and sticky bombs.
Also expect the return of the fireworks launcher for New Year celebrations.
Yes, they will enable the snow and Christmas tree and new clothing and masks for christmas and the beast masks for christmas too.#GTAOnline — Fun 2 (@TezFunz2) December 14, 2016
Just what everyone (didn't) wanted for Christmas.
Unicorn Mask and Pyjamas and weapons and Sticky bombs.
Thanks @RockstarGames pic.twitter.com/WA99lYOaur — Fun 2 (@TezFunz2) December 14, 2016
Rockstar usually turns snow on and off during the festive break in Los Santos, so keep logging in if you want to throw a few snowballs at other players. |
In a photo from Week 12 of the 2015 NFL season, an overjoyed Brock Osweiler is standing in the snow at Sports Authority Field, arms lifted high above his head, his helmet in his hand, firework smoke above him. He is victorious, and at last, he is front and center.
That night, in just the second start of his career, the 25-year-old dramatically led the Broncos back from a 21–7 fourth-quarter deficit to beat their hated conference rival Patriots 30–24 in overtime—New England’s first loss of the season. Osweiler was the David to Brady’s Goliath in that moment, the underdog who finally had his chance to show he was ready to be a successful starter after sitting on the sidelines for three and a half seasons. Headlines proclaimed that a star was born. He was the future of the Denver Broncos and the future started now.
The future was short-lived. By Jan. 3 he was back on the bench. And by March, he was a Houston Texan—a very, very rich Houston Texan.
• QBs with the most to prove in 2016: Palmer | Tannehill | Taylor | Luck
In his four-year NFL career, Osweiler has seven starts, five wins and 11 touchdowns. And for that, the QB-desperate Houston Texans offered him $37 million in guaranteed money to be their starter.
It is going to take a lot more than five wins and one particularly memorable comeback on a snowy night to justify that kind of payday.
If there’s one lesson we’ve learned from the NFL, it’s that a quarterback’s brief success is not indicative of his long-term performance. Remember Matt Cassel’s 11–5 season? Matt Flynn’s six-touchdown day? Small sample sizes have too often doomed teams into trusting quarterbacks who weren’t able to live up to the over-inflated expectations. Is Brock Osweiler any different? He needs to answer that question in 2016, and with the amount of trust and funds the Texans have invested in him, it needs to be a resounding yes.
No doubt about it, Osweiler was productive in Denver, and he helped secure the No. 1 seed that proved crucial to the Super Bowl run. He was a good fit for Gary Kubiak’s system—much more so than Peyton Manning—and he showed flashes of skill and poise at times. He threw a touchdown in every game he started except for one, and quickly earned the trust and support of his teammates amid a tricky situation after Manning was benched. During that abbreviated 2015 season, he threw for a total of 1,967 yards and 10 touchdowns.
But he also made mistakes that young, inexperienced quarterbacks make. He missed receivers and mistimed throws, and he was lucky enough to have the incomparable Broncos defense to bail him out when his efforts were stagnant. In that aforementioned Patriots game, he had a brutal first half, only really finding his rhythm at the end, and even with his heroics, his stat-line was 23-for-42 for 270 yards and a 35.2 QBR. The comeback was a nice story, but is it really anything more than that? When he was relegated back to the bench in favor of the hobbled Manning in the middle of his two-pick season finale against the Chargers, was anyone really that surprised?
This coming season may mark his fifth in the NFL, but he still has some serious growing pains to iron out. Which is all well and good, except that you don't hand a quarterback a four-year, $72 million deal with $37 million in guaranteed money so that he can slowly work through his issues. The clock is ticking. He has to show that he has the upside that other backup QB busts have lacked, and he needs to do that this year.
The pieces are in place for him in Houston. The Texans’ defense is not as good as Denver’s, but it’s strong enough that the Osweiler-led offense shouldn’t have to put up 40 points a game in order to win. Not only do they boast a dynamic talent in receiver DeAndre Hopkins, but they also gained one of the best wideouts of the 2016 draft in Will Fuller, and Lamar Miller will give that running game a spark. This team has the potential to go very far with the right quarterback, and Houston thinks it has finally found him.
Osweiler reportedly left Denver because he wanted to get out of the shadow that Peyton Manning cast, instead seizing the chance to create his own legacy elsewhere. Perhaps Osweiler-to-Hopkins will become the next must-see QB-receiver tandem. The spotlight is all his, and his moment of triumph doesn’t need to be fleeting. This is his chance to show that the comeback against the Patriots was just the beginning of a long, successful story. Because for $72 million, he certainly better prove that this time, the future really does start now. |
Guests: Danny Fields Danny Fields Guests: Judith Light Judith Light
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Photo: Ebet Roberts/Getty Images
Left to Right: Joey Ramone, Danny Fields
Danny Fields on Leaving the Ivy League, Andy Warhol’s Factory, and Managing The Ramones
Danny Fields is a music manager and publicist who was instrumental in signing and promoting some of the biggest names in Punk Rock history.
This week, he and Jesse discuss his decision to leave the ivy league tract, his time in Andy Warhol’s Factory, and what it was like managing The Ramones.
Photo: Mark Coppola/Getty Images
Judith Light Talks Transparent, Jill Soloway, and LGBTQ Rights
Judith Light has had an almost 40 year acting career in which she’s played strong female characters on shows like One LIfe To Live and Who’s The Boss?. She is now continuing in this motif with her tenure on Broadway, winning two Tony Awards for her performances in the last 5 years, starring in a one woman show, and of course her groundbreaking performance in Transparent.
Judith sits down with guest correspondent Keith Powell to discuss her work on Transparent, the cast’s relationship with Jill Soloway, and the famous courtroom scene on One Life to LIve that launched her career.
You can watch Transparent on Amazon and find information about her one woman play here.
The Outshot: Nostalgia and Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some
Jesse talks about Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some as a reflection of the necessity for people to fall into spells of nostalgia, even if just for 90 minutes. |
US whistleblower Edward Snowden. Julian Assange claimed to be assisting him from the Ecuador embassy in London Credit:Reuters/NBC News Assange said police gather intelligence on visitors and that the British government has spent almost $10 million on 24-hour surveillance of the embassy lest he ever dare to leave the small building, close to Harrods in Knightsbridge. If he does leave, he faces immediate extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over alleged sexual misconduct involving two women – for which he is yet to be charged after four years. He dismisses it as a trumped-up, politically driven distraction from the main game: the United States, where Vice-President Joe Biden has called him a “high-tech terrorist”. Michael Ratner, Assange’s US legal representative, told the news conference that his client, if extradited to the US, could face similar treatment to Chelsea Manning, the US soldier formerly called Bradley serving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks. Assange could be punished with solitary confinement and held in underground cells, Ratner said. But Assange said the second anniversary of his asylum at the embassy would be marked by a release of documents by WikiLeaks “in the field of international negotiations” – and extending to 50 countries. He would not elaborate. The message was to stay tuned.
Julian Assange said former foreign affairs minister Bob Carr lied about the level of consular assistance offered to the WikiLeaks founder. Credit:Peter Rae In another plug he said: “You will see that WikiLeaks has turned into a security document search service, now with more than eight million documents instantly searchable if you go to search.wikileaks.org.” Assange remains hands-on while confined. “The situation does create certain difficulties. On the other hand, unlike other national security reporters, I am in an effective jurisdiction where I cannot be subpoenaed; there cannot be any police knocks in the night or in the day... “If you look at the situation of getting Edward Snowden out of Hong Kong and trying to manage that from an embassy under extensive surveillance in the largest intelligence manhunt the world has ever seen, you can understand that securing communications between here and Hong Kong in such circumstances is on the very edge of what state-of-the-art is. And we are proud that our techniques were successful in that instance and we are developing systems to allow others to use them more broadly.” Assange said he kept close contact with the legal team for Snowden, who has been granted asylum in Russia. But he refused to say whether he is in direct contact with Snowden due to the “security situation”.
Assange claimed he was punished for helping Snowden. British Foreign Secretary William Hague had agreed to a working group on Assange’s case after meeting Ecuador’s foreign minister last year, but: “Following our involvement in gaining Edward Snowden asylum … my involvement … the United Kingdom unilaterally cancelled that working group.” A British Foreign Office spokesman was quoted saying: “We have neither cancelled nor suspended our working group with the Ecuadorian authorities, but remain as committed as ever to reaching a diplomatic solution to this situation. As ever, we look to Ecuador to help bring Mr Assange's difficult, and costly, residence to an end.” Next week Assange’s lawyers will lodge a challenge in Sweden against the extradition case. Australian lawyer Jennifer Robinson, on the conference call, said the case was based on “new information gathered in Sweden” but she declined to give details. Assange’s lawyers say they have invited the Swedish prosecutor four times to come and question him at the embassy, but the offer has been refused. Even if that extradition-without-charge warrant was dismissed, “I still have the larger problem”. The US, he said, could send extradition warrants “sealed” and “secret” to Britain, or it could send a preliminary extradition request without paperwork – and worry about those details 40 days later. The British police had “instructions to arrest me even if I was in a diplomatic car, even if I had diplomatic immunity”, and the police units involved included the counterterrorism command and the covert squad. They were treating him as a security threat, not as the subject of a normal extradition request.
Assange called on US Attorney-General Eric Holder to halt a federal grand jury investigation of him and WikiLeaks. “It is against the stated principles of the United States and I believe the values supported by its people, to have a four-year criminal investigation against a publisher,” Assange said. “The ongoing existence of that investigation produces a chilling effect, not just on internet based publishers, but all publishers.” Assange advised Barack Obama to reflect on his legacy or be remembered as the US president who conducted “more espionage investigations against journalists than all presidents going back to 1917 and the original issuance of the Espionage Act”. On the former Australian Labor foreign minister, Assange said: “Bob Carr has admitted in his biography that he lied to the Australian public in saying that I had had more consular assistance in equivalent time than any other Australian. He admits to lying and says that he did it – he lied – to quote, ‘needle me’.” For the computer-illiterate, Assange helpfully added: “And you can find reference to that if you search the internet for ‘Bob Carr’, ‘Assange’ and ‘needle’.” Or you could read Mr Carr’s book, in which he indeed said he wanted to needle Assange’s “self-righteousness”.
After the big bangs of the Manning and Snowden release of classified files, is WikiLeaks still relevant? Assange replies: “If the question is, have we this year produced a leak that involved every single country in the world and more than 350 million words – in the case of Cablegate – and subsequently inspired changes of governments across the Middle East … the answer is no. But that’s a tall ask to reach such a standard every year.” |
There's been some level of uncertainty regarding OCZ and especially the outstanding product warranties. I covered OCZ's situation and its position at Toshiba in our Vertex 460 review but now we've finally got the official word about warranties as well.
In short, all OCZ's latest SSDs will be covered by warranty normally, but the unfortunate news is that all non-SSD products (such as PSUs, DRAM, USB drives etc.) will not be supported at all. Outstanding product warranties were excluded from the acquisition terms, so it appears that Toshiba is only willing to cover the most necessary products, those being OCZ's most popular SSDs. Bear in mind that the acquisition only included OCZ's consumer and enterprise storage divisions -- last time I heard OCZ was looking for a buyer for its other units but it seems that they've not been able to find one.
Update: OCZ told us that they have a buyer for their PSU business with more details to follow in two weeks. The RAM and cooling divisions have been discontinued a long while ago, though.
Normal Support Support Until Jan 22, 2015 Not Supported Vector 150 Vector Vertex 460 Vertex 450 Vertex 4 Vertex 3 Vertex 2 Vertex RevoDrive RevoDrive 3 RevoDrive 3X2 Agility 4 Agility 3 Agility 2 Agility ALL Non-SSD Products Core Series Apex Petrol Octane Series Solid Series Colossus Series IBIS Enyo Nocti RevoDrive Hybrid Summit Synapse Onyx Series Solid Series OCZ SATA I SSD (1st gen) OCZ SATA II SSD (1st gen)
The good news is that the most popular SSDs are covered, including the older members of the Vertex family. The Agility series will be supported for another year, meaning that some warranties of Agility 3 and 4 will be shortened. Unsupported products include the rest of OCZ's SSDs and most of these are models that were never even sampled to media. Ultimately I believe these products were also OCZ's stumbling blocks because although they were cheap, the performance was horrible and failure rates were ridiculously high.
If you have an unsupported product, you may not be out of luck if you happen to live in EU or other region with strict consumer protection laws. Here in Finland the seller is responsible for the warranty by law and OCZ's decision to discontinue support for some products does not change that. Obviously I can't speak for other countries but this is something worth finding out in case your product fails during the original, now discontinued, warranty period.
The full details can be found on OCZ's warranty page. |
Starting today, it appears the US military will be testing a device or devices that will potentially jam GPS signals for six hours each day. We say “appears” because officially the tests were announced by the FAA but are centered near the US Navy’s largest installation in the Mojave Desert. And the Navy won’t tell us much about what’s going on.
The FAA issued an advisory warning pilots on Saturday that global positioning systems (GPS) could be unreliable during six different days this month, primarily in the Southwestern United States. On June 7, 9, 21, 23, 28, and 30th the GPS interference testing will be taking place between 9:30am and 3:30pm Pacific time. But if you’re on the ground, you probably won’t notice interference.
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The testing will be centered on China Lake, California—home to the Navy’s 1.1 million acre Naval Air Weapons Center in the Mojave Desert. The potentially lost signals will stretch hundreds of miles in each direction and will affect various types of GPS, reaching the furthest at higher altitudes. But the jamming will only affect aircraft above 50 feet. As you can see from the FAA map below, the jamming will almost reach the California-Oregon border at 4o,000 feet above sea level and 505 nautical miles at its greatest range.
I gave the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division a call yesterday, but they couldn’t tell me much.
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“We’re aware of the flight advisory,” Deidre Patin, Public Affairs specialist for Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division told me over the phone. But she couldn’t give me any details about whether there was indeed GPS “jamming,” nor whether it had happened before. Patin added, “I can’t go into the details of the testing, it’s general testing for our ranges.”
As AVWeb points out, Embraer Phenom 300 business jets are being told to avoid the area completely during the tests. The FAA claims that the jamming test could interfere with the business jet’s “aircraft flight stability controls.”
GPS technology has become so ubiquitous that cheap jamming technology has become a real concern for both military and civilian aircraft. And if we had to speculate we’d say that these tests are probably pulling double duty for both offensive and defensive military capabilities. But honestly, that’s just a guess.
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These tests are naturally going to fuel plenty of conspiracy theories about mind control, weather modification, and aliens—especially with China Lake’s proximity to both large population centers like LA and Las Vegas, and the fact that Area 51 is practically just down the road. But it doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to tell us we’re fucked if terrorists or shitty teenagers make it a habit of jamming GPS signals for everybody.
If you experience any significant GPS interference this month or know the “real” reason behind these test (aliens, right?) please let us know in the comments.
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Correction 11:24am: This post originally misstated that one level of interference would occur at 4,000 feet. It’s 40,000 feet above sea level, and has been corrected. I regret the error. |
The city's acting medical officer of health has issued an extreme cold weather alert for Toronto as temperatures dip well below freezing.
The warning will remain in effect until further notice.
The city issues the alerts when the temperature is forecast to hit -15 C or colder, or when the wind chill is expected to reach -20 or colder.
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CityofTO?src=hash">#CityofTO</a> Acting MOH calls Extreme Cold Weather Alert for Toronto - in effect until further notice. Details: <a href="https://t.co/lA8HRG7MWx">https://t.co/lA8HRG7MWx</a> —@TorontoComms
But it won't quite be that cold during the day on Thursday, according to Environment Canada.
The federal agency is forecasting a high of -3 C on Thursday, with a 40 per cent chance of flurries. Wind gusts could hit 50 km/h through the morning. The wind chill as of 8 a.m. was -11.
The overnight low, however, is expected to reach -11 C. A high of -5 C is forecast for Friday with a 40 per cent chance of flurries.
The city's alert notes that exposure to cold weather can have serious health consequences, including hypothermia and frostbite.
Such alerts activate local services that help get vulnerable residents indoors, including boosting the number of shelter beds, the relaxing of service restrictions at community agencies, overnight street outreach and free tokens at some drop-in programs.
Residents are advised to dress in layers, cover exposed skin, wear wool or synthetic layers close to skin to stay warm and check on vulnerable neighbours and friends. |
Kuala Lumpur - Sitting in a court library surrounded by Islamic law books, Nenney Shushaidah Binti Shamsuddin is polite and softly spoken as she describes the rigours of her job.
When I'm on the bench, I'm not a woman, I'm not a man. I'm a judge. Nenney Shushaidah Binti Shamsuddin, Syariah High Court judge
One day she could be sentencing an offender to be caned for breaking Islamic law, the next could see her giving a man permission to take a second wife.
Islamic law enforcers are not often credited with being feminist pioneers, but Judge Nenney fits both those descriptions.
She made history in Malaysia last year when she was appointed one of the first two female Syariah High Court judges in this Muslim-majority nation. "Syariah" is the Malay spelling for the Arabic word "sharia", meaning Islamic law.
And the 42-year-old mother of three doesn't shy away from imposing the harshest punishments prescribed by Islamic law.
"When I'm on the bench, I'm not a woman, I'm not a man. I'm a judge," she says. "I need to deal with the case fair and firm, to follow the law, no bias."
In Malaysia, more women are pursuing careers in the Islamic justice system, from judges and lawyers to court mediators.
Under Malaysia's two-tier court system, Islamic law courts deal with family and morality cases involving Muslims, such as consuming alcohol, gambling and polygamy, while secular courts hear criminal and many civil cases.
Malaysia appointed its first two female Syariah judges in 2010.
Now, 27 of the country's 160 Islamic court judges are women.
Rising female judges
"Personally, I think it's not a question of gender," says Mohd Na'im Mokhtar, the former chief judge in the state of Selangor who oversaw the appointment of Judge Nenney and her colleague. "We are looking for the best people to administer justice."
We feel that it's extremely important for the courts to have a balance in terms of gender because a lot of the issues involve women. Shareena Sheriff, Sisters in Islam group
Other countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan also have female Islamic law judges, however, some religious scholars argue that Islamic law does not allow women to hold the position.
Malaysia's national religious authorities issued a fatwa (religious edict) declaring that women could be Syariah judges in 2006.
But the country's top Islamic court judge and director-general of the national Syariah Judiciary Department, Ibrahim Lembut, said last year that some state religious councils continue to block their appointment.
Shareena Sheriff, from Sisters in Islam, a Muslim women's advocacy group in Kuala Lumpur, says some states impose restrictions on the types of cases female judges can hear.
"I don't see why there should be a differentiation between the men and the women," she says.
While she welcomed the rise in female Syariah judges, especially the two high court appointments, Shareena says it is too early to tell whether the court's treatment of women has changed.
"Even though the numbers have risen, the numbers relative to men are still very low," she says, pointing out that Malaysia's secular court system also remains dominated by men.
"We feel that it's extremely important for the courts to have a balance in terms of gender because a lot of the issues involve women. So we need some level of balance in the way in which they deliver justice and also gender sensitisation of the justice system."
Women can put emotions aside
There are no restrictions on the cases Judge Nenney hears in the state of Selangor. Her weekly caseload can range from child custody to prostitution and polygamy.
Even to be a Syariah court officer was quite difficult for women because they preferred men ... I needed to study two years more. Nenney Shushaidah Binti Shamsuddin, Syariah High Court judge
In Malaysia, Muslim men are allowed to marry up to four wives, but they must first obtain permission from the Islamic law court.
When hearing such a case, Judge Nenney says she verifies the husband's income to see if he can afford to take another wife and finds out whether the existing wife agrees.
"If the wife agrees and if the husband can afford it, I give permission," she tells Al Jazeera.
Judge Nenney also hears "khalwat" cases, an Islamic offence where unmarried men and women are found together in "close proximity".
She says in the most serious cases, she sentences offenders to six strokes of the cane, a 5,000 ringgit fine ($1,166) and a one-month jail term.
Some critics have suggested that female judges may favour women, but Judge Nenney denies being more sympathetic towards women.
"We can put our emotions aside," she says. "I have my empathy to them, I can put myself in their shoes, but not sympathy. I need to play my role as a judge, then make a decision on how they present their case."
Changing perceptions of gender roles
Judge Nenney is hopeful that the rising number of female judges will help change the perception that Syariah courts do no treat women fairly.
"The public perception said male judges must be biased to women. I hope after this, to the women who come before me, they must know there's no difference between a male judge or a female judge. The judge just does their job."
On the other side of the bench, more women are also working as Syariah lawyers.
The number of women registered with the Syariah Lawyers Association, a voluntary membership group, has increased by more than 200 in the last five years, and they now make up more than 40 percent of the group's members.
Sa'adiah Binti Din was working as a lawyer in the secular courts when she first volunteered to do Syariah legal aid work 18 years ago.
She says she realised then that many Muslim women appearing in the Syariah courts were unrepresented, so she began taking on more divorce cases.
"That was my turning point," says Sa'adiah. "Now, I'm in the Syariah Court almost every day."
She says her female clients often find it less difficult to appear before a female judge and court officials.
"I believe now they find it easier to talk to a woman," she says.
At Malaysian universities, Islamic law courses are increasingly dominated by young women.
Judge Mohd Na'im, who now sits on the Syariah Court of Appeal, says women are the top performing students in the classes he teaches at local institutions.
Nur Farhana, 22, was one of four students completing an internship at the Selangor Syariah Court in June. All but one were women.
She is studying both Islamic and civil law at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, but has already decided to pursue a career in Islamic law because she says civil law is "man-made law".
"Most of the (Islamic) laws have been said in our Quran and the Sunnah, so … I prefer that," she says.
Farhana may now have female role models, but when Judge Nenney graduated in 1998, the prospect of being a judge seemed far-fetched.
Not only had no woman ever been appointed to the Syariah bench in Malaysia, but simply finding a job in the field was tough.
"Even to be a Syariah court officer was quite difficult for women because they preferred men," she says. "I needed to study two years more."
After returning to university to complete a Masters degree, she started working as a lawyer in a legal aid office before moving to the Attorney-General's department.
Now, she says, the Syariah justice system offers young women a good career path.
"To me, it was quite difficult to reach this position. I needed to compete with the male officers," she says. "But it's not about gender now, it's about your qualification." |
For decades, meteorologists have been able to forecast the severity of hurricane seasons several months ahead of time. Yet forecasting the likelihood of a bad tornado season has proved a far greater challenge.
Now, research from scientists at Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society could eventually lead to the first seasonal tornado outlooks.
"Understanding how climate shapes tornado activity makes forecasts and projections possible, and allows us to look into the past and understand what happened," said Michael Tippett, lead author of a study in February's journal of Geophysical Research Letters.
The need for such data is reinforced by the still-fresh memory of 550 Americans killed by tornadoes last year — coupled with an unusually violent January for twisters.
In the study, Tippett and his team looked at 30 years of past climate data. They used computer models to determine that the two weather factors most tied to active tornado months and seasons were heavy rain from thunderstorms and extreme wind shear (wind blowing from different directions at different layers of the atmosphere).
"If, in March, we can predict average thunderstorm rainfall and wind shear for April, then we can infer April tornado activity," Tippett says.
The method worked for each month except for September and October, and it worked best in June.
This is the first time a forecast of up to a month in advance has been demonstrated, he says.
"A connection between La Niña and spring tornado activity is often mentioned," Tippett says, "but such a connection really has not been demonstrated in the historical data and hasn't been shown to provide a basis for a skillful tornado activity forecast.
"Our work bridges the gap between what the current technology is capable of forecasting (large-scale monthly averages of rainfall and winds) and tornado activity, which the current technology cannot capture," he says.
The research isn't ready for prime time yet, however, so no official forecast will be made for the upcoming season using these methods.
"This is a useful first step," says Harold Brooks of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who was not involved in the study. He says it will be helpful to know, for example, that sometime in the last week of April, conditions will be favorable for lots of tornadoes in the eastern USA.
With greater lead time, a state emergency planner "could be better prepared with generators and supplies," Brooks says. |
Son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker Speaks Out Against NC Marriage Amendment
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Jay Bakker grew up in North Carolina in the limelight of his parents' Praise The Lord ministry before it crumbled in the 1980s after his father pled guilty to fraud charges. Now the young minister is opposing the state's efforts to pass a marriage amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
The tattooed-laden Bakker, 36, now lives in New York City and is the co-founder of Revolution Church, which meets on Sundays in Pete's Candy store, a bar. He was featured in a 2006 documentary "One Punk Under God."
Since he is no longer a resident of North Carolina, he cannot vote on the issue but still felt moved to join the efforts opposing it.
On Sunday, Bakker led some 75 people in a rally against the marriage amendment.
"I ignored all these amendments being passed and passed until it hit my hometown and I was like…When I heard about it, I called down here and offered to help," Bakker told WNCT News.
North Carolina is one of three states where voters will decide how to define marriage. The May 8 election is generating substantial attention on both sides of the issue, but recent polls show that a majority of North Carolinians are expected to cast their ballots in favor of the amendment.
A Public Policy Polling survey of 1,191 likely voters conducted in late March showed voters favored the amendment 58 to 38 percent. A similar poll conducted by SurveyUSA showed almost the same numbers.
"My parents taught me to love people across the board and always be open to people," said Bakker. "They were always into equality and reaching out to the marginalized and things like that."
The debate surrounding the amendment has become so heated that it has sparked vandalism against some churches that are speaking out in support of the issue.
A sign in front of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Hickory, N.C. that reads "Marriage Sunday April 22" was vandalized late last week when someone painted over the sign, "Hate Speech Sunday April 22."
"Well I just believe what the Lord says about the marriage amendment," church member Greg Sullins told the Hickory Daily Record. "We don't hate people – we love them. But we serve a loving God who has rules."
Pastor Scott Hooks said it was obvious that those who are in favor of same-sex marriage were responsible for the graffiti, but that he welcomes anyone who wishes to attend his church, which he describes as a "conservative and Bible preaching and Bible believing church with an independent congregation."
"The Bible says any sex outside of marriage is a sin," Hooks also told the Hickory Daily Record. "We're not trying to single out any group in particular except on this one issue where we have a chance as a state to tell people how we feel."
READ: HUMAN DIGNITY AND THE DIGNITY OF MARRIAGE |
Criminal investigation launched about allegations of fast food worker putting blood on food Copyright by WJTV - All rights reserved Video
WJTV - COLUMBUS, Miss. (WJTV) -- A criminal investigation is being launched into the allegations that a fast food worker put menstrual blood on a customer's hamburger during a drive-thru order, according to WCBI.
The Mississippi State Department of Health went to Jack's in Columbus, Miss. to investigate the food contamination allegation.
The health department said an inspector was sent to do a routine check after the allegations surfaced. The restaurant passed the inspection, so the allegation was reported to a local law enforcement agency for a criminal investigation.
The Columbus Police Department said they are conducting the investigation.
The allegation received a lot of attention after a person posted on Facebook that a Jack's employee put blood on a customer's hamburger.
The restaurant released this statement about the allegations:
Food safety is our top priority at all Jack's Restaurants. As part of our rigorous food safety program, Jack's maintains strict food handling policies and procedures that all team members must follow. Jack's was recently made aware of an audio tape recording posted on social media, which allegedly claims that an employee at a restaurant in Columbus, MS potentially violated our stringent safety standards. The employee allegedly involved in this incident was terminated several days ago for unrelated reasons and no longer works for us. At the time of her dismissal Jack's was not aware of these allegations. At Jack's, we take these allegations very seriously and are working to determine the validity of these claims. Additionally, we are committed to taking further action if appropriate.
https://twitter.com/JoeyBarnesTV/status/819980617471447040 |
Passing the sanctions bill is likely to be a rare bipartisan moment in Congress.
The House and Senate have reached a deal on a bill that would impose new financial sanctions on Russia and allow Congress to review and veto any attempt by President Trump, or any other president, to independently ease those sanctions in the future. The Senate, looking to punish the Kremlin for meddling in last year’s presidential election, passed a version of the bill by a nearly unanimous margin in June, but it has been stalled in the House for weeks due to procedural issues, pressure from industry groups, and a White House bent on weakening the proposed congressional-review power. On Saturday, however, negotiators from the House and Senate ironed out a deal that did not include the changes the Trump administration wanted.
Regardless, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders now says that the White House supports the new version of the bill. That would seem to indicate that Trump will sign it into law, but wait until the ink is dry when it comes to anything this administration says.
In addition to the measures against Russia, the bill includes new sanctions on Iran (over its ballistic-missile tests) and North Korea (over its nuclear program). It also somewhat eased the concerns of the oil-and-gas industry, which worried that American companies would face an impossible amount of red tape if they attempted to partner with Russian businesses.
The tweaked bill will likely receive a full vote on Tuesday and is expected to pass with wide bipartisan support, setting up a potentially difficult choice for the president. Trump has never seemed to take Russia’s meddling in last year’s election very seriously — instead trying to downplay it — and the president has also never seemed overly concerned about appearing too friendly with the Kremlin, either. (In Trump’s defense, any White House administration would object to Congress attempting to reduce its authority to deal with foreign powers.) But the New York Times reported on Saturday that “two senior administration officials said they could not imagine Mr. Trump vetoing the legislation in the current political atmosphere.” And Trump’s ability to exceed the limits of imagination aside, Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered firmer official support on Sunday. During an appearance on ABC’s This Week, the new White House press secretary was asked if the president would sign the bill, and she indicated that he would:
Look, the administration is supportive of being tough on Russia, particularly in putting these sanctions in place. The original piece of legislation was poorly written, but we were able to work with the House and Senate. And the administration is happy with the ability to do that and make those changes that were necessary. And we support where the legislation is now, and will continue to work with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved. But it certainly isn’t right now.
On the other hand, new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said that the president “hasn’t made the decision yet to sign that bill one way or the other” during an interview with CNN on Sunday.
If Sanders is wrong and Trump does veto the bill, it will be interesting to see if Republicans in Congress would be willing to override him. Then again, even if the bill does become law, there is no guarantee that GOP lawmakers will challenge any attempt by Trump to ease the sanctions — though, members of the House’s majority party won’t be the only ones who get to call for such a review. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer declared on Saturday that he was pleased with the legislation, which he says “ensures that both the majority and minority are able to exercise our oversight role over the administration’s implementation of sanctions.”
This post has been updated to include reporting from the New York Times, as well as comments from Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Anthony Scaramucci on Sunday. |
For God So Loved the 1 Percent…
By KEVIN M. KRUSE
New York Times, 17 January 2012
EXTRACT:
Realizing that they needed to rely on others, these businessmen took a new tack: using generous financing to enlist sympathetic clergymen as their champions. After all, according to one tycoon, polls showed that, “of all the groups in America, ministers had more to do with molding public opinion” than any other.
Read full article.
Phi Beta Iota: The 1% actually believe in “survival of the fittest” and earnestly consider most humans to be less than human, mere animals to be exploited as is their God-given right. Religions that regard others as heathen–this includes the Catholic, Islamic, Jewish, and Mormon religions–that “do not count,” are as corrupt as the governments they join in serving the 1%. Sluts lack integrity. It’s time we stop following sluts, be they securlar or sanctimonious.
See Also:
2012 Reflexivity = Integrity: Toward Earth/Life 4.0
George Soros Nails It: Intelligence with Integrity
Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both
Reference: Cyber-Intelligence–Restore the Republic Of, By, and For…
Reference: Empire of Lies & Secrecy
Review: Who’s To Say What’s Obscene – Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today
Search: Integrity |
The Bazar (lobby market) is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Discover an extensive selection of souvenirs, snacks and drinks, pizzas, and toiletries.
The Vitality Fitness area is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and free of charge for all hotel guests.
Our Junior Suites are including complimentary access to the Vitality Spa & Pool. Enjoy an extensive selection of modern spa facilities during your stay.
We try to minimize the use of plastic in our hotel. Therefore, the bathroom in your room has been equipped with Fair-Trade shower gel and shampoo in a sustainable and refillable package. Our Junior Suites are also equipped with additional amenities and toiletries.
In your room you will find a water boiler, a selection of different teas and coffee, which you can use free of charge.
Apart from complimentary water upon arrival, we have left the minibar empty for your convenience. This allows you to fill up your minibar with your own products or products purchased at the Bazar (lobby shop)
Store your personal belongings safely in the (laptop) safe in the closet in your room.
The innovative temperature control system in your room ensures a constant supply of fresh air and allows you to adjust the room temperature to your liking.
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Google-centric Chromebooks are turning out to be a big deal and they’re only getting bigger. Shipments of laptops running Chrome OS increased 67 percent in the third quarter of 2014 compared to the previous quarter, according to market research firm ABI Research.
A big jump like that should be expected, however, when comparing a spring-summer selling period to the back-to-school season. What’s really interesting is that ABI expects Chromebook shipments to double in size for 2014 compared to 2013. ABI also predicts that North America will account for 78 percent of worldwide Chromebook sales for 2014.
Why this matters: The PC market ain’t what it used to be, but Chromebooks are surging in popularity. Google recently claimed that Chromebooks now account for 50 percent of sales to education institutions in the U.S., according to OMG Chrome. Microsoft has also noticed this trend and went after the growing popularity of Chromebooks during IFA Berlin in September. During the trade show, Windows PC makers—who also happen to be Chromebook makers—announced a bunch of dirt cheap, low-spec Windows laptops to compete with Chrome OS devices.
More than just a browser in a box
Chromebooks started out as devices that were more or less useless without an Internet connection. Since then, however, Chrome OS has morphed into a more powerful platform with offline functionality, a special version of Adobe Photoshop, a growing catalog of desktop-like apps, and deep integration with Android.
Add to that Google’s popular suite of productivity apps from Gmail to Google Drive and it’s easy to see why Chromebooks are becoming more popular. The fact that they’re very inexpensive and easy-peasy to maintain surely helps as well.
Not content with just Chromebooks, Google is also expanding Chrome OS functionality into other platforms. This is especially true for Windows, where anyone running Windows 8.1 can run Chrome in modern UI mode, where it basically transforms into a Windows-friendly version of Chrome OS.
Allowing people to become comfortable using the Chrome ecosystem within a PC platform they’re already used to could earn Google a few more converts to Chrome OS over time.
But let’s not be too bullish. It’s still early days for the Chromebook, and fighting Microsoft on its home turf of the PC market rarely turns out well. As ABI points out, Chromebooks could turn out to be just another fad like netbooks before them, especially once a wave of low-cost, Windows 8.1 with Bing-powered laptops flood the market.
But netbooks were killed by tablets, not Microsoft. And unlike netbooks, Chromebooks are full-sized laptops that are well-designed (Er, at least the latest models). Add to that the Chromebook’s low pricing—not to mention Google’s major investment in the Chrome OS platform—and it’s hard to see Chromebooks disappearing overnight the way netbooks did. |
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Read in Chinese | 点击查看本文中文版
Andrew G. Walder is a sociologist at Stanford University who has written extensively on the Cultural Revolution and life in Maoist China. His latest book, “China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed,” published this year by Harvard University Press, incorporates the latest scholarship on this tumultuous era, when bedrocks of Chinese society — especially private property and communal religious life — were destroyed in favor of Communist-style collectives. He argues that Mao lurched from crisis to crisis, inspired less by a new vision of Communism than a simplistic understanding of Stalinist ideology.
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In painting this bleak picture, Mr. Walder helps explain why in the late 1970s, after Mao’s death, China embarked on far-reaching market-oriented economic liberalization — the basis for its prosperity and power today. In an interview, he discussed how the Communist victory in the civil war informed Mao’s approach to politics, who was responsible for most of the violence during the Cultural Revolution and what elements of Mao’s rule can be seen in President Xi Jinping’s administration today. Excerpts follow:
Q.
Why do we need a new book on Mao Zedong and the first decades of Communist rule in China?
A.
Some really good material on the Maoist era only really came out well into the reform era, but most social scientists were focusing on China’s reforms. The reforms were dramatic and unexpected, and so most of the attention focused on them. And these materials, as they gradually became available, languished. It took scholars like Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals, Frederick Teiwes and Warren Sun to begin to put this picture together. These works brought into focus the politics at the top. They dispelled many misperceptions. I see my role as connecting what happened at the top of the political system with the outcomes.
Q.
What sort of misperceptions did they dispel?
A.
Teiwes and Sun, for example, showed that what we thought of as the “two-line struggle” [between Mao and other leaders over economic policy in the early 1960s, in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward, when famine killed at least 30 million] wasn’t really like that. The original idea was that Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi staked out positions different from Mao. This view was derived from the polemics of the period. Mao and his side criticized Deng and Liu, so scholars thought that this reflected a deeper reality. That twisted our perception of the real issues.
Mao did accurately perceive that many people were not as enthusiastic as he was, but they went along with him, especially Liu Shaoqi. So the idea of two opposing camps was discredited.
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It’s surprising how much we know about the Cultural Revolution compared to other movements, like the Great Leap Forward. The Red Guard movement, especially in universities, all had factional newspapers. They chronicled events. We now have tens of thousands of pages of material. I can’t think of a movement that is better documented. We think of it as mindless violence, but a lot of people were writing a lot about things they were doing.
Q.
I was struck by your description that the Communists’ guerrilla period was not as important to their governing style as we think. In fact, you argue that the civil war was far more important — and completely different from guerrilla war.
A.
Only when I read historical scholarship in the last 15 years that focuses on civil war and casualty figures of the Nationalists did I realize that they didn’t come to power through guerrilla war. You look at the casualty figures, and you realize that. In graduate school, most works we read glossed over that fact. For me, that was a revelation. The Communist Party did very little of the fighting against the Japanese, and it was a myth that a people’s war led the Communists to power.
Instead, the conquest of China was a military conquest, much like the [Soviet] Red Army fought the Nazis. It was a mass mobilization that supported vast armies that defeated the Nationalists. I don’t think that’s sunk into the consciousness of the field.
Q.
How did that affect the Communists’ governing style?
A.
Mao had these startling victories. Everyone said he couldn’t win quickly against the Nationalists. Even Stalin urged caution. But he pushed and won. That was the approach he turned to again in the late 1950s with the Great Leap Forward. He thought that you could accomplish anything. Also, he learned that he shouldn’t listen to others.
Q.
I was also struck by how little Mao evolved. After the civil war, he seemed to learn nothing.
A.
Stalin also pushed hard for Communism, but after the war, he moderated his view and become relatively conservative. Mao never moderated his views. He became more radical with time.
Q.
In fact, he seemed like an intellectual lightweight. You say most of what he learned about Communist thought was from “The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),” the textbook commissioned by Stalin and first published in 1938.
A.
He was a great strategist. But a lot of what he wrote was, if not ghost-written, heavily edited by people like [his secretary] Chen Boda. His understanding of Marxism-Leninism was based on a CliffsNotes edition of Stalinism.
Q.
Another interesting thing I learned was how he failed at everything he tried after the early 1950s.
A.
He was pretty good at that [covering up his errors]. I never thought of it this way until I wrote it down, but pretty much everything he tried after 1957, nothing worked out the way he thought. He didn’t intend to deliberately starve peasants. I think historians of the Soviet Union showed that Stalin was willing to starve peasants if they resisted collectivization. I don’t think Mao set out to starve peasants, but when it happened he wasn’t shocked. He viewed it as collateral damage.
He was constantly making a risky move, and if it didn’t work, then he’d shift, and that didn’t work out. The whole Cultural Revolution decade was a mess because of that.
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Q.
You write that about 1.1 million to 1.6 million people died during the Cultural Revolution.
A.
In the literature, the number ranges from 40,000 to eight million. So it’s a relatively conservative estimate. But as a percent of the population, 750 million, that’s about one-fifth the death rate of Stalin’s Great Terror. Some people are annoyed that I’m minimizing the violence, but I’m trying to put it in perspective.
Another point was that in the Cultural Revolution, most killing wasn’t by the students or Red Guards, but by the government.
We focus on students killing their teachers. That touches a nerve. Or we focus on armed conflict between rebel groups. But most of the killing occurred when order — in quotation marks — was restored. It was not the rampaging Red Guards, even though those deaths were the most dramatic. It was the military restoration of order. The cure was far worse than the disease.
Q.
People often say that China’s president, Xi Jinping, is adopting elements of the Mao era, or even the Cultural Revolution. What do you think?
A.
He’s adopting some of the symbolism of Mao in the Cultural Revolution. People look back on that era as less corrupt. Similarly in Russia, people looked back at Stalin as someone who got things done. You can certainly say that about Mao. He bullied people, pushed them around and got things done. They’ve forgotten the outcomes.
It reminds me a bit of the U.S. South after the Civil War. You had a Reconstruction period and then, after the 1870s, they began to rewrite the history and that what the Confederate flag stood for was heritage and tradition, not slavery and lynching. There’s a sanitizing of the historical record. What Xi is about is unity and stability and economic development, and that’s not what Mao was about. Mao was willing to throw things to the wind. He was willing to gamble. He never thought things could happen if it was orderly. He thought disorder was the midwife of progress. Xi is completely different.
One example: Xi is clamping down on corruption, but he’s also clamping down on free expression and press freedom. But when Mao set out to reform the system twice, in the [1956] Hundred Flowers movement and the Cultural Revolution, he started out by opening the system to criticism. He invited people inside and outside the system to criticize. Xi does not want to do that.
People have forgotten that Mao was an incredibly radical guy. But like a lot of these guys whose pictures end up on currencies, they end up as an icon.
Q.
On the positive side, he held China together and gave it territorial integrity.
A.
Yes, absolutely, but he also held China back economically, socially, intellectually, for 20 years. It’s interesting to think what would have been China’s trajectory if he’d stepped aside in 1961 or 1962. Certainly China wouldn’t have started the reform period in 1978, having dug itself in such a deep hole. This 10 percent a year economic growth that they like to boast about was in part making up for 20 years of a more or less very stagnant economy.
Q.
But did his destruction pave the way for reform?
A.
Mao destroyed the bureaucracy that might have blocked reform. The party and bureaucracy were still in turmoil in the late 1970s, so a leader like Deng Xiaoping had more options to reform the party than Gorbachev did. The array of forces against him were much weaker than in the Soviet Union. |
Photo: Brownie Harris/Corbis Dishing Out Waves: A technician works on a Doppler weather radar’s parabolic antenna, which is situated within a large tiled dome.
During the 1930s, with Europe preparing for war, the British government badly needed a way to detect the approach of enemy aircraft. It got one, thanks to a bookish-looking engineer named Robert Watson-Watt, who devised and successfully tested a primitive radar system in 1935. By the time of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a chain of radar stations along England’s eastern and southern coasts was providing enough warning of incoming Luftwaffe bombers to allow civilians to find shelter underground and Royal Air Force pilots to scramble their fighters into the air. King George VI recognized Watson-Watt’s accomplishments with a knighthood in 1942. Some historians even credit the engineer with Britain’s survival during those terrifying times.
Some 15 years later, when Watson-Watt was in his 60s and I was in my teens, he spoke at my Canadian high school. The best part of the talk for us was his story about having been pulled over in a radar speed trap. He read us a poem he had composed while waiting for his case to be called:
Pity Sir Robert Watson-Watt,
strange target of this radar plot And thus, with others I can mention,
the victim of his own invention. His magical all-seeing eye
enabled cloud-bound planes to fly but now by some ironic twist
it spots the speeding motorist and bites, no doubt with legal wit,
the hand that once created it.
Photo: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis Inventor of Radar: Sir Robert Watson-Watt is shown here at about the time he devised the first radar systems.
Police with radar speed guns are indeed what leaps to most people’s minds if you ask them what radar is good for, other than detecting aircraft. In fact, though, radar has proved to be an extraordinarily versatile technology, with established uses now in vehicles, weather monitoring, aerial reconnaissance, even for seeing through walls. But as applications for it proliferate at an accelerating rate, government regulators, including those in the United States, are having a hard time keeping up.
It’s vital that they do, because foot dragging on their part threatens to slow the pace of innovation. If you have any doubts, read on and discover just how deeply radar has integrated itself into the fabric of modern industrial society, despite what I regard as a problematic regulatory environment. It’s a cautionary tale, and though I’m concerned with radar here, the warning is relevant to many technologies—including drones, app-based ride sharing, and cryptocurrencies, to mention just a few.
Much of the development of radar during World War II, building on Watson-Watt’s work, took place at MIT’s Radiation Laboratory—the direct predecessor of the still-active Research Laboratory of Electronics. U.S. contributions helped to make radar equipment more effective and reliable, and also a lot smaller. One compact model, with electronics the size of a shoebox, warned fighter pilots of enemy aircraft approaching from behind. This device found another wartime application as well: The nuclear bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki each carried four of these units to monitor the dwindling distance to the ground as the bombs descended, so that detonation could be triggered at a preset altitude.
Vigorous development of radar continued after the war, and along with improvements to military systems, two civilian applications quickly emerged: air-traffic control and maritime collision avoidance. The decades since have seen dozens of additional uses.
Photos: Bettmann/Corbis; Antonio Fucci/ radiomilitari.com; Bettmann/Corbis Radar’s military roots: Radar guided the naval airmen working on the aircraft carrier USS Essex in 1945 [top]. The compact APS13 radar [center] was used in some fighter aircraft of that era and also for altitude sensing in the first atomic bombs. Radar was further refined during the Cold War, when men like those shown here working at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland in 1957 [bottom] used radar to scan the skies for an impending nuclear strike.
Current radar technology falls into two broad categories. One is the direct descendant of wartime radar and is capable of ranges of up to hundreds of kilometers, using high-power transmission concentrated in a relatively narrow slice of radio bandwidth. Regulatory authorities call this form of radar radiolocation. The other category covers systems that operate at much lower power levels, over much smaller distances.
For now, consider radiolocation. It’s quite simple: Bounce a radio wave off a target and measure how long it takes for the radio echo to come back. That gives you its distance. The aiming of the antenna that produces the echo indicates the direction to the target.
The accuracy of your measurements depends, of course, on the electronics you use. The radar designers of the Second World War had to contend with the limitations of vacuum tubes. Postwar improvements, prompted by the advent of the transistor, included operation at ever-higher frequencies, which made possible tighter beams from smaller antennas, which in turn enabled longer range and better directional precision. More sensitive receivers further increased the working distance.
Advances in display technology were also important. Watson-Watt and his team had cleverly contrived displays out of existing laboratory oscilloscopes. A horizontal trace would start moving across the screen when the signal left the transmitter and deflect vertically—creating a “blip”—when the signal returned. The horizontal distance from the starting point to the blip indicated the range to the target. This worked, but the task of constantly watching for blips in the “grass” (noise) quickly fatigued radar operators, which increased the risk of error.
During the Cold War, the U.S. and Canadian governments installed the Distant Early Warning Line: a chain of 63 radar stations across the Arctic regions of both countries. The goal was to detect incoming Soviet bombers in time to launch a retaliatory strike. Foreseeing that either missed signals or false positives could be catastrophic, the designers developed an automatic blip-detecting system [PDF] to back up the operators. Later applications, such as collision-avoidance radars in aircraft and self-braking systems in cars, increasingly came to depend on automatic responses.
Photo: AP Photo Distant Early Warning: Stations of the DEW Line were used to provide the United States with radar-based detection of nuclear threats.
Radiolocation’s realm expanded dramatically with the application of the Doppler effect, relevant here because an electromagnetic wave reflected from an oncoming target comes back at a frequency higher than the transmitted frequency. Likewise, a receding target results in a lower return frequency. The difference between transmitted and received frequencies provides a measure of the target speed relative to the radar antenna. That difference is always small. A target approaching at 100 kilometers per hour raises the received frequency by less than one part in 5 million, for example. Fortunately, engineers have long known how to create circuits that can precisely compare nearly identical frequencies.
The earliest applications of Doppler radar simply measured raw speed, like the police radar that caught Watson-Watt in the 1950s. It would be another 20 years before the emergence of digital microprocessors made possible some truly amazing improvements. For example, the Doppler effect can be used to step up the angular resolution in synthetic-aperture radar, which takes multiple radar scans from a moving platform, such as an airplane or spacecraft, and combines them into what looks like an infrared photo. Ideal for military reconnaissance, the technology can reveal enemy facilities in total darkness and through cloud cover and foliage. Peaceful uses include the monitoring of lake and river ice, glaciers, crops, deforestation, and coastal erosion, as well as the tracking of forest fires, floods, volcanic eruptions, and oil spills.
Doppler weather radar, familiar to TV viewers and Internet weather junkies, measures the distance and lateral speed of falling particles of rain or snow, allowing forecasters to plot the evolving locations of storms and the winds swirling inside them. Such a system can even see through one storm to probe another one beyond it. Some versions compare the reflections from vertically and horizontally polarized signals to distinguish among rain, hail, snow, and ice pellets. These radars can also detect tornadoes from the presence of debris in the air and plot a twister’s location and velocity in real time—information that lets officials warn people in its projected path. A variation used at some airports tracks the activity of small airborne particles to pinpoint wind shear [PDF], which if undetected can cause aircraft to stall and drop during takeoff or landing, with possibly fatal results.
Police and other first responders have access to another type of Doppler radar device, one that sees through building walls [PDF] to locate hostages or captors and can even detect the breathing of an unconscious victim. A different configuration helps to find people trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building. Still another type, used at mining sites, both identifies underground rock strata and monitors instabilities in the terrain that can forewarn of an impending cave-in.
And these are just the things that are already being done. Forthcoming applications will detect birds near wind farms so as to cut down on avian mortality by halting the turbine blades when birds approach. Installed near airports, similar radars could prevent mishaps like the forced landing of an airliner in the Hudson River in 2009 after it ran into a flock of Canada geese on takeoff from New York City. Soon to come is a rear-view radar for bicyclists.
Photo: National Weather Service/AP Photo Storm’s a-Brewin’: Doppler radar has proved invaluable for monitoring severe weather, such as Hurricane Charley, which devastated parts of Florida in 2004.
The electromagnetic spectrum is a little like the space on a submarine: There’s never enough to go around. So users of radio spectrum generally have to share it. The problem is that radiolocation does not share well. Long-range operation requires powerful transmitters and sensitive receivers because of the way the transmitted energy spreads out on its journey to the target and then scatters on reflection. Only a small fraction of the energy heads back toward the receiver, and that, too, spreads out as it travels. Overall, the received signal drops off in proportion to the fourth power of the target distance.
From a sharing standpoint, radiolocation presents the thorniest of all possible cases: a strong transmitted signal that is highly interfering to other users and a return signal so weak that it’s extremely susceptible to incoming interference—although digital processing at the receiver can suppress some of the interfering signal. To make matters worse, many applications of radar, including defense, air-traffic control, maritime safety, and weather prediction, are critical to human lives and safety, so radio interference can have catastrophic consequences.
Given those concerns, you might expect to find a robust regulatory regime for radiolocation, one that sets out clear operating limits and requires new installations to protect those already using these airwaves. Yet no such regime exists in some countries, including the United States. The Federal Communications Commission prescribes what frequency bands such radars can use, as all countries’ regulators do, but little else. The FCC approves (or disapproves) radiolocation power and bandwidth on a case-by-case basis, and it can similarly authorize any type of modulation “upon a satisfactory showing of need,” with no guidance on what that entails. “No rules in advance,” says the FCC, in effect. “Apply for something, and we’ll let you know whether it passes muster with us.”
Canada and Taiwan follow a similar strategy in regulating radiolocation equipment. Perhaps the intent is to reduce regulatory barriers to new technologies. That would be laudable. But vague rules are more likely to be a hindrance. That’s because a company with an idea for a new radiolocation product, unable to know in advance whether it would qualify for approval, may be reluctant to invest in its development.
This loose approach is not universal, though. European regulators, for example, require compliance with certain well-described technical standards while grandfathering in older types of equipment and offering procedures to obtain approval of new types. In other places, including parts of Africa, regulators follow European standards and procedures. Japan has its own system. Some other non-Western countries avoid the problem entirely by keeping high-powered radiolocation equipment out of private hands, limiting its use exclusively to the government and the military.
The United States doesn’t do that. Instead, it allocates 14 frequency bands, ranging from 70 kilohertz to 81 gigahertz, for nonfederal radiolocation services. All but one of these bands are shared with other applications. The most useful frequencies, from 2,900 megahertz on up, are also shared with federal radiolocation users.
But how do U.S. radar users outside of government share spectrum with one another? Some radio services that accommodate multiple users impose a procedure called frequency coordination. Details vary, but the aim is to assign each newcomer a frequency that minimizes the risk of interference both to and from incumbents. In the United States, the categories subject to frequency coordination include two-way radio, some satellite Earth stations, and also most fixed-microwave radio links, which are often used to connect cellular base stations, among other things. But radiolocation is specifically exempt. A company that wants to install some new radiolocation gizmo is free to choose its own frequency of operation within one of the radiolocation bands. Federal spectrum authorities study each filed application for the risk of interference to federal systems, but no one does the same to protect nonfederal users on these frequencies.
In the United States and other countries where the private use of radiolocation equipment is permitted, a licensing requirement of some sort seems to be universal, although it may not be widely respected. The FCC’s database shows fewer than 2,000 active radiolocation licenses for the entire United States, not counting those for units used on vessels operating in U.S. waters—which are deemed to have licenses without anybody actually having to obtain them.
Radiolocation isn’t the only use for radar, though. Another family of applications, which evolved later, transmits much less power—usually well under a milliwatt—over a much shorter range, usually just a few meters or less. It also uses a much wider radio bandwidth, typically in the tens to hundreds of megahertz.
These devices emit a train of short, sharp-edged pulses, which enable the equipment to measure return times more precisely. Another benefit is that such a waveform spreads energy over a lot of the radio spectrum—sometimes a gigahertz or more.
This kind of signal causes little radio interference to most other receivers, which are sensitive only to a narrow range of frequencies and so are affected by just a tiny fraction of the radar transmitter’s total power output, which is small to begin with. Conversely, because the signals from most other kinds of radios are contained within a very narrow slice of spectrum, they have little effect on a wideband radar’s performance.
The broad frequency range also confers a regulatory advantage. Because governments typically set power limits on a per-megahertz basis, a radar using a wide bandwidth can emit a relatively high level of total power and still remain in compliance with the rules.
Early examples of this technology appeared in the 1970s in the form of ground-penetrating radar (GPR). This equipment helps excavation crews find underground pipes and cables, detects invisible defects under the surfaces of highways and airport runways, and once even located a woolly mammoth below the Siberian permafrost. For decades, though, the United States had no regulations under which to authorize GPRs, so their sale and use were illegal. But the devices filled important needs, promoted public safety, and did not cause interference problems, so—for nearly three decades—regulators generally looked the other way.
The FCC finally authorized GPRs, along with several other kinds of radar-imaging systems, in 2002, as part of its ultrawideband proceeding. One reason it took so long was that the notion of allowing such wideband transmissions drew vehement opposition from virtually every organized group of spectrum users, including key U.S. government agencies, all of which warned of crippling interference to their systems. The FCC responded by setting very low power limits for all ultrawideband devices and mandated that this energy be spread thinly over the spectrum. It did this by stipulating that the power not exceed 75 nanowatts per megahertz. The FCC also imposed a minimum bandwidth equal to at least 20 percent of the center frequency or 500 MHz, whichever is less.
As time went on, and as the opponents’ predictions of doom failed to materialize, other nations adopted similar rules. Some countries, including the United States and those of Europe, began allowing radar systems that use less bandwidth and, in some cases, higher power than initially permitted. Called wideband radars, these use either ultrawideband-type pulse trains or frequency-modulated continuous-wave signals. They gave rise to a host of vehicular, mining, industrial, public safety, and novel airport applications.
In contrast to the situation with high-power radiolocation, all countries that allow low-power, wideband radars have imposed detailed technical regulations. Some did so by adopting versions of one another’s standards, although most of the world’s ultrawideband rules generally track the U.S. model. Going in the other direction, a recent FCC approval of industrial level-probing radars (used to gauge the levels of liquids and of piles of dry material in buildings and outdoors) largely followed European technical rules. Manufacturers welcome this kind of global uniformity because it enables them to make products that they can sell in multiple countries.
Policies on the licensing of wideband radars are less uniform around the world. The United States permits all such units to operate without a license, although some are restricted to particular user groups, such as emergency personnel. Radar equipment for which Canada has technical standards are similarly license exempt. Some countries, though, including ones in Europe, require licensing for some categories of equipment, such as GPRs and certain industrial radars.
Photo: Backtracker Car’s A-Comin’: An upcoming radar product called Backtracker will help bicyclists detect vehicles approaching from behind.
By far the most widespread application of low-power radar is in vehicles. A fast-growing number of cars and trucks now feature radar-enabled adaptive cruise control, collision warning, automatic braking, blind-spot detection, lane-change assist, and back-up alert systems [see “How We Gave Sight to the Mercedes Robotic Car,” IEEE Spectrum, August 2014]. Nowhere, as far as I know, do these vehicular radars require a license. But vehicles go anywhere roads do, and their electromagnetic emissions go with them—a fact that worries some spectrum users, particularly radio astronomers, whose extremely sensitive receivers make observations on the same frequencies that many countries use for vehicle radars. Regulators have largely downplayed the astronomers’ concerns, responding instead to the automakers’ promises of better safety for motorists.
Perhaps favoring vehicle radars over radio astronomy was an easy call. But when the level-probing radar industry offered to protect radio astronomers from interference by accepting a prohibition on installation close to their sites, the FCC declined to impose such a requirement. The regulators may have reasoned that too many rules would slow the growth of this industry. Certainly, there are many instances where this has been true. But excessive flexibility in regulatory requirements breeds uncertainty, which can both deter innovation and unnecessarily threaten other services.
Watson-Watt jokingly told the police officer who pulled him over that had he known radar would be used for speed traps, he would never have invented it. He might have changed his mind—and it would have pleased him enormously—had he also known that his invention would not only protect civilians in their homes in wartime Great Britain but also make all of us more secure at industrial sites, in air travel, and on the highway.
This article originally appeared in print as “Radar Everywhere.”
About the Author
Mitchell Lazarus has worked as an electrical engineer, psychology professor, education reformer, educational-TV developer, freelance writer, and, most recently, a telecommunications lawyer. A partner with Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, he specializes in securing regulatory approvals for new technologies. Lazarus writes about more than just electronics, however: He recently finished a book about the Manhattan Project. |
Oppo set a very nice tone for its products a few years back with the release of the extremely value-focused BDP-95 Blu-Ray player. The subsequent BDP-105 follow up continued this appealing proposition of quality and feature-rich value. Fast forward to present day and you will find Oppo has burst onto the headphone scene with a pair of planar magentics called the PM-1 and PM-2 as well as a matching amplifier called the HA-1. You can find our full review of the PM-1 [here].
At RMAF this year, the company showcased two working prototypes that let the public know their interesting waltz into personal audio had really just begun. In a well-timed and seemingly deliberate roll out, Oppo has taken a natural progression into the next chapter of portable audio with a reveal of a closed-back headphone called the PM-3 and a smaller portable headphone amplifier called the HA-2. As an individual who sometimes tires of unsuccessful attempts to create “clever” product names, I greatly appreciate Oppo’s straightforward naming syntax for their lines.
The PM-3 is tentatively scheduled for a January launch. Expect pricing to land somewhere south of the $699 PM-2.
The portable HA-2 features a very well designed and aesthetically pleasing outer casing, which sports much of the same attention to detail that Oppo has perfected on its other products. I think its relative size of thin and long over deep is a very wise choice that effectively mirrors the current cellphone trend. The HA-2’s amplification will be a hybrid AB class and digital conversion duties will be fueled by an ESS SABRE 9018 “M”, (two cores as opposed to 8). It will also be iPhone friendly and compatible with some android interfaces. Expect the highest in resolution files (up to 4X DSD) from the PC connection and a price under $500, huzzah! The HA-2 is also aiming for a January 2015 release.
http://www.oppodigital.com/ |
MILAN – Inter president Erick Thohir has set off for London this morning on business connected with the Mahaka Group, his Indonesian company working in media and communication.
Before he departed, he released the following interview to Sky Sport.
President Thohir, can you tell us about your trip to Paris and the one you're about to take?
"As always, it's good to meet with other presidents. I was in Madrid before to say hi to Florentino Perez and we also met with him in China. We met with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in China as well.
"Since Nasser Al-Khelaifi invited us, I think it was good to be there because we've played Paris Saint-Germain two times already: last year and this year. And there might be a possibility of playing PSG again in the future. At the same time, for example, I had dinner with the AS Monaco vice president the other evening.
"It's good to speak with other clubs. It's about relations, we didn't discuss players or anything. It's important for big clubs to have good relations. This is also why I keep saying that in Serie A it's important for the clubs to have good relations because otherwise we'll all have different strategies. If we talk together maybe we can all move in the same direction."
Why did you decide to send the team on the training camp? What are you expecting for Saturday's match?
"The training camp was Roberto Mancini's decision together with the management team. But I think it's good. Maybe it's not so common in other countries. It's good for them to come together for three or four days, to do something together as a team in a calm environment.
"We have to win tomorrow, we have a good team and Roberto Mancini is the best coach for us. We have a competitive squad and we were able to strengthen it in the January transfer window as well. We still have 13 matches to go, the team has to stay calm and fight for our objectives."
We know about the agreement with Pirelli. Can you explain the plans to make Inter stronger from a financial point of view, also taking into account if you don't make qualification for the Champions League?
"It's a long relationship with Pirelli. The agreement is a positive thing for our relations, we've just extended our partnership for another five years. It will become the longest sponsorship deal in Italian football and one of the longest in Europe. Pirelli is a good brand and so is Inter.
"Working together is good for both parties. Especially now both companies are looking at Asia for future partners. It's good to decide what we can come up with together as a strategy to penetrate the Asian market.
"Also, we always have a business plan for every situation: one for the Champions League, one for the Europa League and one in case we don't qualify for either, which obviously wouldn't be good. Revenue is still growing and we've built a competitive squad. If we get into the Champions League, we'll have more opportunities to invest."
Is there any news on the partner you're looking for in China? Hainan airlines have been mentioned. Could they acquire some of your shares?
"I think this is where people are mistaken. We're looking for sponsorship partners globally – from Indonesia, China, anywhere. We don't have any airline partners and that's why some people have mentioned Garuda before.
"Hainan are looking for sponsorship partners but we've spoken to other airline companies globally too about becoming our partners. Because as you know, in sponsorship we have car partners, airline partners, bank partners.
"In China it's a different ball game right now. They're breaking the records on spending money on players. They're building up Chinese football seriously. I think it's a good opportunity for us to connect with them as a club.
"As for equity partners, we haven't discussed that seriously but it's something we could discuss in the future so you never know. We shouldn't close our eyes because at the end of the day the world has become very global but at the same time it's good to have partners that can make sure Inter keep growing."
Mourinho and Ronaldo will probably be at San Siro tomorrow. Have you ever met them?
"It's great that they're coming to the Meazza. I met Ronaldo in Paris and I'm a fan of his. We discussed a lot of things and it's very good that he can come to San Siro. I invited him to come and support Inter and he was open to that idea. Maybe we could even work with him on the other side of the world with Inter.
"I met Jose Mourinho in Jakarta a few years ago before I became president of Inter. He's a manager of the highest calibre who made history at Inter but we have Roberto Mancini now and he also has a good track record, winning lots of trophies. I still believe he can revamp the team.
"If you compare this year's Inter with last year's, it's a different team. But of course we need time and that's not just an excuse. At the same time, Roberto Mancini knows what our target is – we want to be in the Champions League. That's why he's very serious about working closely with the players at the moment."
Could you reassure us on Icardi's future? Because Mourinho likes him...
"Icardi is part of our plans. If you look at Murillo, Miranda, Medel, Kondogbia, they're all part of our plans, like Icardi. The same goes for Telles, Ljajic and Jovetic – our plan is to bring them all together. Palacio has extended and we're still in discussions with Nagatomo.
"We have to try and keep the squad together for two or three years. You can't change the team every season – we have to keep largely the same team and maybe bring in two or three new players."
Will you keep faith with this team even if you don’t make the Champions League?
"Yes, the Champions League is our target but of course sometimes in football results are 50-50. So I’m really looking forward to the match against Sampdoria and I believe I’ll have lunch with president Ferrero next week.
"It’s good to meet with different presidents. It’s good to see the fans too and there are a few Inter legends coming."
Now you’re off to London?
"Yes, I’m going to London on Mahaka business not for Inter. It’s my other business but I’ll be back."
Versión Española 日本語版 Versi Bahasa Indonesia Versione Italiana |
Video, citation shed new light on baby bison euthanized in Yellowstone
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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — A Utah woman says she encountered the young bison calf that was euthanized after tourists put the animal in their vehicle.
EastIdahoNews.com broke the story that gained worldwide attention this past week.
Natalie Kinzel told KUTV 2News she was at Yellowstone on May 9 when she saw a herd of bison crossing a river.
She recorded video with her phone as a little bison was swept downstream and ignored by the herd. The calf eventually made it out of the water but was left all alone.
“It was just heart-wrenching because it was literally collapsing, and there was no buffalo around,” Kinzel told KUTV.
Kinzel kept recording as the calf alternated between leaning against her car and standing there, shivering.
“It was so pitiful,” Kinzel said. “We were teary eyed when we left.”
It’s impossible to say for certain that the bison in her video is the same one that ended up being euthanized, but Kinzel is convinced it is. She says all the details match up — same place, same time of day, and same description of a baby animal lost and cold.
Meanwhile, a citation given to the tourist who put the bison calf in his car is shedding further light on what happened.
Shamash Kassam, who was with his son visiting from Canada, told officers the bison was in the middle of the road, wet and shivering, and would not leave their vehicle for 20 minutes. Kasaam said they waited to see if any bison would come back for the calf.
“After 20 minutes they still could not see any bison anywhere in the vicinity, the bison calf would not leave their vehicle, appearing to be seeking warmth from the engine, and Kasaam stated he decided to pick up the bison calf or it would have been road kill,” the citation states.
Courtesy photo
Kasaam drove to the Buffalo Ranch and called law enforcement. The responding officer told Kasaam that he was preventing the bison’s mother from locating it and possibly altering its ability to survive in the wild.
“Kasaam states that he understood what he did was wrong and he would never pick up or disturb any wildlife again, and instead would wait at the scene and call for law enforcement,” the citation states.
The document says a bison herd was near where Kasaam had picked up the calf and the baby was released. Park officials said they ended up euthanizing the baby bison because it was rejected by the herd. They said sending the animal out of the park was not an option.
Kasaam was fined $110 and must appear at the Mammoth Hot Springs Justice Center on June 2.
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Here at Sun Media we pride ourselves at being advocates for smaller government. We believe public sector bureaucrats are wading into people’s affairs too often. We know the little guy is being nickel-and-dimed all over the place. There are too many laws and regulations. Something has to be done.
But we also think the Freemen of the Land are 100% wrong in their view of government and society.
They’re the group that Norman Raddatz is believed to belong to. He’s the man implicated in the killing on Monday of Edmonton police Const. Daniel Woodall.
As Lorne Gunter explained it in a recent column: “The Freemen insist they are sovereign individuals and therefore are not subject to Canadian laws, unless they choose to be. They reject all taxes, ignore any laws they find inconvenient and insist they are not bound to repay personal debts because on their own say-so they have declared themselves ‘free.’”
Everyone has beefs with the government. But the Freemen take their grievances to completely unacceptable extremes.
As former Alberta justice minister and solicitor general Jonathan Denis recently said: "The whole concept behind our democracy is that the law applies to everyone. They believe they can contract out of the laws and therefore they don’t have to pay income tax. What I find crazy is they will wilfully consume our hospitals, schools and roads that our taxpayers pay for. It makes zero sense."
There are people from all parts of the political spectrum who aren’t happy with the laws of the land. But instead of cowardly opting out of it all like the Freemen do – with results that evidently can be deadly – they spend years of their lives working within the system to change it.
That’s called political activism. It’s called running for office. It’s called voting. It’s called being a good citizen.
The Freemen are bad citizens. They don’t understand the social contract. They’re reckless and selfish.
Think the parking tickets you’ve got are unfair? Maybe they are. But pay the ones you’ve got, then work through the proper channels to change the system.
The rule of law matters in Canada. If you don’t like it, leave. |
How much are you willing to give up to keep your monsters out of the Graveyard? Rafael answered this question with the Soul Charge Spell Card, and come April 25th you can use it to put yourself to the test!
Soul Charge is simple: Give up your Battle Phase, target any number of monsters in your Graveyard, Special Summon them, and lose 1000 Life Points for each monster you Special Summon. Hidden in Soul Charge’s simplicity is tremendous power. Nearly any Deck can use it, and it can create huge plays and turnaround all on its own… if you can pay the price!
In the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series, Rafael activated Soul Charge in his second Duel against the Pharaoh to Special Summon Guardian Elma, Guardian Kay’est, and Backup Gardna from his Graveyard. By doing so, Rafael emptied his Graveyard of all monsters and cleared the darkness from his heart, making himself immune to the soul-stealing effects of The Seal of Orichalcos.
Although you probably won’t use Soul Charge to escape The Seal of Orichalcos, you will be able to use Soul Charge to gain a dominating lead in your Duels. During the course of a Duel, Duelists gradually destroy each others’ monsters to gain the upper hand. Soul Charge throws a wrench into the best laid plans of your opponent by bringing back all of your monsters at once! Losing 1000 Life Points per monster and the Battle Phase is a hefty cost of doing business, but it’s well worth it when you can do things like…
Special Summon Fire Fist monsters like Brotherhood of the Fire Fist – Bear and Brotherhood of the Fire Fist – Gorilla, activate their effects, then combine them to Xyz Summon a powerful Rank 4 monster like Brotherhood of the Fire Fist – Tiger King or Number 101: Silent Honor ARK.
and activate their effects, then combine them to Xyz Summon a powerful Rank 4 monster like or Bring back your Level 7 Mermails like Mermail Abyssmegalo and Mermail Abyssteus , then Xyz Summon a Rank 7 monster such as Mermail Abyssgaios , Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack , or Number 11: Big Eye .
and , then Xyz Summon a Rank 7 monster such as , , or . Special Summon all of your Harpie Ladies and quickly Xyz Summon Harpie’s Pet Phantasmal Dragon or Lightning Chidori . No Hysteric Party ? No problem!
or . No ? No problem! Special Summon Gladiator Beast Bestiari and another Gladiator Beast from your Graveyard then fuse them into Gladiator Beast Gyzarus .
and another Gladiator Beast from your Graveyard then fuse them into . Pull back a Tuner, non-Tuner, or both for a Synchro Summon. Losing 2000 Life Points to pull off a Black Rose Dragon or Beelze of the Diabolic Dragons is often a bargain!
or is often a bargain! Retrieve your Geargia monsters from the Graveyard to Xyz Summon Gear Gigant X or other powerful Xyz Monsters. You can even play it to get back Geargiarmor and immediately flip it face-down.
or other powerful Xyz Monsters. You can even play it to get back and immediately flip it face-down. Revive Bujin Yamato to restart your strategy if things go south.
to restart your strategy if things go south. Retrieve a pair of Noble Knights, or even just Noble Knight Medraut, and go crazy!
Soul Charge is an incredible card that’s sure to find its place in many different Decks. You can pick it up after the release of Dragons of Legend on April 25th! |
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O Governo anunciou recentemente a criação de um novo organismo, a Direcção-Geral do Património Cultural. O Aventar sabe de fonte segura que Francisco José Viegas se prepara para nomear Elísio Summavielle como director-geral desse organismo. Elísio Summavielle, relembre-se, foi Secretário de Estado da Cultura no segundo Governo de José Sócrates.
Dando mostras de um súbito sentido democrático, invulgar na política portuguesa, Francisco José Viegas reconduziu também dois elementos que tinham sido nomeados por Elísio Summavielle, Manuel Correia Baptista e Henrique Parente.
Dando mostras de um súbito sentido democrático. Ou se calhar não.
Em 18 de Maio de 2010, o então Secretário de Estado da Cultura, Elísio Summavielle, entregou por Ajuste Directo o projecto «O Douro nos Caminhos da Literatura», constituído por 7 DVD’s sobre escritores durienses, no valor de 138.600 euros. Pagaram o projecto, entre outros, a Estrutura de Missão do Douro e a Fundação EDP. Tudo gente boa, como se sabe…
E quem foi o feliz contemplado por esse Ajuste Directo e o responsável pela concepção e apresentação dos DVD’s? Acertaram, o actual Secretário de Estado da Cultura, Francisco José Viegas.
Há coisas fantásticas,não há? |
The top detective who was the first officer to dismiss sex abuse allegations against Leon Brittan claims he has been 'hounded out' of Scotland Yard after speaking the truth about the case.
Paul Settle has taken early retirement from the Met after concluding he had no future in the force following his decision to expose the 'incompetence' of colleagues, who carried out a protracted inquiry into the discredited allegations against Lord Brittan.
As he stepped down as a detective chief inspector, Mr Settle blamed Labour deputy leader Tom Watson's controversial intervention in the Brittan rape case for the demise of his 25 year police career.
Ex-Scotland Yard detective Paul Settle (pictured) has taken early retirement after concluding he had no future in the force following his decision to expose the 'incompetence' of colleagues
He also launched a wider attack on Mr Watson over his role in the VIP sex and paedophile scandal.
Mr Settle said he was in 'no doubt' that a 2012 speech by Mr Watson in the House of Commons, which alleged the existence of a powerful paedophile ring with links to a former Prime Minister's advisor, was 'calculated' to damage the Conservative Party.
He also accused the deputy leader and several Labour activists of being 'politically motivated' when they made allegations of sex abuse against a number of Tory grandees that were found to be unsubstantiated.
Mr Settle believes that a former Labour councillor who made a number of unsubstantiated VIP child sex claims was driven by an 'extreme hatred' of the Conservative Party and that another Labour Party supporter, whose accusations of rape against Lord Brittan of rape were dismissed by police also openly loathed Tories.
A retired trade unionist, who had dealings with Mr Watson and who spread untruths about Tory grandees, was described as being a 'well-meaning fantasist' by Mr Settle.
As a result of the Labour smears, the lives and reputations of several respected Conservatives were 'destroyed', he said.
But he reserved his most scathing comments for Mr Watson, who in 2014 intervened in a rape case concerning allegations made by a Labour Party supporter known as Jane, who alleged she was assaulted by former Tory Home Secretary Lord Brittan at his London flat in 1967.
Mr Settle blamed Labour deputy leader Tom Watson (pictured) and his controversial intervention in the Brittan rape case for the demise of his 25 year police career
After an extensive investigation, Mr Settle – who was appointed head of the Met's VIP sex abuse inquiry Operation Fairbank in 2012 - concluded there was no evidence to support the woman's allegations and that the investigation should be closed.
But in May 2014, three months after meeting her to explain his decision, Mr Settle was suddenly removed from his post.
Police carried out a protracted inquiry into the discredited allegations against Lord Brittan (pictured)
He was 'disgusted' to learn that a month earlier, Mr Watson had written directly to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, asking her to review the decision and demanding that Lord Brittan – who was dying of cancer - be interviewed. The letter was forwarded to Met chiefs.
Mr Settle said: 'The management at the Yard were absolutely petrified of Tom Watson. They were scared of what he could do to their careers.
'They hung me out to dry. It was about their self-preservation. I was an expendable DCI and their careers were more important to them.
'I was quite emphatic that the allegations against Lord Brittan were nonsense.'
So outraged was he by what he saw as political interference and the 'unlawful' interviewing of Lord Brittan under caution by the Met, that Mr Settle was the only senior detective to warn of a 'baseless witch-hunt' when he appeared in front of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee in October 2015.
A year ago he was finally vindicated when a damning report by retired High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques into the Met's handling of the disastrous investigation exonerated Mr Settle of any wrongdoing.
He has also been cleared of three 'false' misconduct allegations made against him by members of the public
In his first interview since he retired from the Met last month (November), Mr Settle added: 'Watson was briefed fully on the Jane case by me and was asked to contact me directly if he had any concerns.
Ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor is seeking up to £1million in damages from the Met over their handling of his case
'But he chose to write an inflammatory letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
'He has been in public life long enough to know what the impact of that would be.
'I was incredibly disappointed by how nobody at the Met spoke to me and instead just sided with Watson.'
As a consequence of Mr Watson's intervention, said Mr Settle, he was 'completely sidelined' by senior colleagues and given a non-job marking exam papers.
More than 30 allegations against former prime minister Sir Edward Heath (pictured) were dismissed by Wiltshire Police
He had a mental health breakdown and was on a combination of sick and gardening leave for three and a half years before leaving the force and the job he loved last month.
Mr Settle, 44, said that it was after he was sidelined from running the VIP child sex abuse inquiry, Operation Fairbank, that the sensational 'Nick' allegations about a murderous Westminster paedophile ring surfaced.
'I made the observation very quickly that Nick was either the most unlucky man on the planet or he was a complete and utter fantasist.
'One of my officers interviewed Nick to start off with.
'I told my colleagues about my concerns about Nick, I told the officers concerned, what my views were. But at that point but Met was very excited about getting some high-profile scalps and proving murder.
'I would suggest they got carried away with that, rather than objectively looking at the truth and examining the facts.'
The CPS is currently considering whether to prosecute Nick for perverting the course of justice and fraud in relation to his bogus claims of VIP abuse and murder.
Should he be prosecuted? Mr Settle said: 'If the evidence is there, he should be charged. He has done more harm to victim rights' than anyone in modern criminal history.'
Mr Settle – who was appointed head of the Met's VIP sex abuse inquiry Operation Fairbank in 2012 - concluded there was no evidence to support a woman called Jane's allegations that she was raped by Lord Brittan (pictured with his wife Lady Diana Brittan)
His comments about the running of the VIP sex and child abuse investigation will be keenly read by lawyers representing ex Tory MP Harvey Proctor, who is seeking up to £1million in damages from the Met over their handling of his case.
Mr Proctor was falsely accused of serial child sex murder and rape by Nick, whose far-fetched allegations were taken seriously by the Met and resulted in his (Proctor's) home being raided at dawn and him being interviewed under caution.
Former defence chief Lord Bramall (pictured) was falsely accused of abuse by Nick
Former defence chief Lord Bramall, falsely accused of abuse by Nick, and the widow of Lord Brittan, whose husband was wrongly accused by both Nick and Jane, have each received about £100,000 in compensation from the Met.
Mr Settle says he has no regrets about speaking out about the VIP sex and child abuse scandal – even though it took a huge toll on his mental health. He has suffered severe depression and PTSD, and is retiring early on ill health grounds.
'People forget that you join the police to help people. To have that taken away from you is quite debilitating,' he said.
'I was hounded out at the Met purely because I stood up and said 'we should not do that'. But I can look myself in the mirror. I did the right thing.
'However it was patently obvious that having exposed the failings of senior officers - and the level of indecision that existed and some would say incompetence - that I had no place in the organisation.'
'I have been vindicated in the end but I have lost the job I love.'
Scotland Yard said last night: 'Paul Settle retired from the Met in November. As an employer we consider the grounds on which an individual retires to be a private matter between us and the employee.
'The Met misconduct investigation resulted in no case to answer. The Met does not believe that Mr Settle was "hounded out" of the organisation.'
Mr Watson declined to comment. |
There’s some pitter-patter on the worldwide web concerning a rumored project simply known as Google Me. It all started with a Twitter update from Digg founder Kevin Rose saying that he’d heard a rumor from a “very credible source” that Google would be launching a “Facebook competitor very soon” called Google Me. That tweet has since been removed, which may or may not indicate that Google asked him to do so.
Then a former Facebook higher-up named Adam D’Angelo chimed in, saying the following:
“Here is what I’ve pieced together from some reliable sources:
– This is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this.
– They realized that Buzz wasn’t enough and that they need to build out a full, first-class social network. They are modeling it off of Facebook.
– Unlike previous attempts (before Buzz at least), this is a high-priority project within Google.
– They had assumed that Facebook’s growth would slow as it grew, and that Facebook wouldn’t be able to have too much leverage over them, but then it just didn’t stop, and now they are really scared.”
Facebook has made no qualms about going after Google, hiring away Google’s VP of Global Online Sales and Operations, Sheryl Sandberg, to become Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer. And the recent introduction of Facebook’s Open Graph protocol is seen by many as a direct attempt to entice members to conduct their web searches from within Facebook itself—no need to hop over to Google to look something up.
You may recall that Google’s tried its hand at the whole social networking thing already. There’s Orkut, an actual social network that never really caught on in the US, though it’s apparently huge in Brazil and India. And then there’s Buzz, a Twitter-like something or other that’s been buried in most people’s inboxes in favor of, well, Twitter.
And therein lies Google’s main challenge. How do you lure people away from a service they already use?
Is Buzz vastly superior to Twitter? You can embed photos and full blog posts into Buzz and you can see people’s comments on your updates. Cool, sure, but Twitter is still the go-to standard for simple, short, ADD-friendly updates. Google’s made it clear that its strategy is “mobile first” and, wouldn’t you know it, the mobile version of Google Buzz is actually pretty awesome if you’ve bothered to use it. The desktop version, however, isn’t providing a good reason to dump Twitter.
If the rumors are to be believed, it’d stand to reason that Google would leverage Buzz as the newsfeed-type feature of Google Me. And Google has millions of users already, which would make signing up for Google Me a snap. But like it learned with Buzz, just having a lot of users doesn’t mean much without giving them a good reason to switch.
It can easily replicate most or all of Facebook’s features—friending, photos, apps, videos, etc.—but it’s going to need to give people features they won’t find elsewhere. Otherwise, nobody needs yet another social network to join.
So what would it take for you to leave Facebook for Google Me? I got dragged into Facebook kicking and screaming because I don’t care all that much to connect with people I haven’t seen in 15 years (I use Facebook only for personal friends I know in real life and Twitter for work-related connections) but it’s mildly amusing to see who’s doing what every once in awhile. For me, Google would first and foremost need to provide a way for users to import their Facebook profile information and, next, most of everyone I’m friends with on Facebook would have to switch to Google Me.
A simplified interface would be nice, too. I don’t spend enough time inside Facebook to know where everything is located and the rare instances when I want to tweak something, it seems like all the options are multiple menus deep. There’s also a certain allure to having all your Google-related stuff in one place: Cram Gmail, search, Google Voice, Google Wave, the rumored Google Music service, Google Docs, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Reader, and whatever else all under one roof and I’d be inclined to switch.
And then there’s the privacy issues. You don’t hear much from regular Facebook users about privacy but you hear plenty from tech bloggers and pundits about the company’s mismanagement of users’ data. Google would be wise to get the privacy aspects of Google Me right the first time, if only to get some positive press from the oh-so influential tech media. I don’t actually think too many people would switch based on what we in the media say. The basic key will be to do what Facebook does, but better, just like Facebook replaced Friendster, MySpace, and all the social networks before them.
But I digress. What would it take for you to switch?
More on Techland:
First Official Trailer: The Social Network
Only Hot Chicks Care About Facebook Privacy
Google’s Rumored Music Store and Why It Just Might Work |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Despite the pledge on emissions, there are still areas of disagreement, reports Carrie Gracie
China and the US have unveiled new pledges on greenhouse gas emissions, as the leaders of the two countries met for talks in Beijing.
US President Barack Obama said the move was "historic", as he set a new goal of reducing US levels between 26%-28% by 2025, compared with 2005 levels.
China did not set a specific target, but said emissions would peak by 2030.
The two countries also agreed to reduce the possibility of military accidents in the air and sea.
The news came during a state visit by Mr Obama to Beijing, which followed a major Asian regional summit.
It is the first time China, the world's biggest polluter, has set an approximate date for emissions to peak.
The two countries together produce about 45% of the world's carbon dioxide.
The unexpected announcement is a bid to boost efforts to secure a global deal on reducing emissions after 2020, to be finalised next year in Paris.
"We agreed to make sure that international climate change negotiations will reach an agreement in Paris," said Mr Xi, speaking to reporters after the announcement.
Roger Harrabin, BBC environment analyst
This agreement between the great polluters is a landmark in the battle against one of the world's most intractable problems.
For years the US feared if it cut emissions, energy bills would rise - and divert jobs to China. Now the relationship is switching, from "we won't if you won't" towards "we will if you will".
President Obama's offer is based on cuts in carbon emissions from coal power (a policy the Republicans threaten to reverse).
China's offer to peak emissions is a long-awaited decision. Its emissions trajectory is now similar to Europe and the USA, just further behind because it still has so many people in poverty.
Scientists will fear this agreement is not yet strong enough. But it does show leadership - and it sends a powerful signal to financiers that investing in dirty fuels for the future is becoming a risk.
Follow Roger on Twitter
'Slow, peak then reverse'
The new goal from the US is up from a previous target to cut emissions by 17% by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.
In September, China told a United Nations summit on climate change that it would soon set a peak for carbon emissions and that it would make its economy more carbon efficient by 2020.
China had previously aimed to reduce its carbon intensity, which meant reducing the amount of emissions per dollar of economic output. This meant that with its rapidly growing economy, its emissions could still rise.
Wednesday's pledge is the first time it has agreed to set a ceiling, albeit an undefined one, on overall emissions.
Image copyright AFP Image caption The UN has warned that global warming is likely to have a severe impact
Mr Obama called Wednesday's agreement "historic" and said the US would work with China to "slow, peak and then reverse the course of China's carbon emissions".
Republican leaders in the US reacted strongly to what they called an "unrealistic plan" proposed by Mr Obama.
"This unrealistic plan, that the president would dump on his successor, would ensure higher utility rates and far fewer jobs," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.
The UN has previously warned that the impact of global warming is likely to be "severe, pervasive and irreversible", and would lead to problems including sea level rise, greater risk of flooding and changes to crop yields.
Hong Kong protests
In a rare joint press conference in which they answered questions from pre-selected journalists, Mr Obama and Mr Xi drew attention to the ways in which the two global super powers could work together.
They agreed to boost trade, investment and military co-operation to prevent the likelihood of military accidents.
But differences were also expressed - Mr Obama said he had pressed Mr Xi on China's human rights record and cyber security threats.
Pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong also provided a point of contention. Mr Obama said the US would encourage free and fair elections, while Mr Xi stated issues in the territory were an internal Chinese affair.
Mr Obama said the US would not intervene in South China Sea territorial disputes, but said it had an interest in freedom of navigation and that it hoped the conflicts would be resolved peacefully.
Top 10 emitters 2013 % of global total China 29 USA 15 EU 10 India 7.1 Russian Federation 5.3 Japan 3.7 Germany 2.2 Republic of Korea 1.8 Iran 1.8 Saudi Arabia 1.5
Source: Global Carbon Project |
Muncie police car (Photo: File photo)
MUNCIE, Ind. – City police said a Muncie man created a disturbance in the northside Goodwill store on Saturday, in the process choking a store clerk, breaking an officer’s hand – and proclaiming himself to be God.
Khaliad Sulaiman Bilal, 24, of the 3700 block of North Tillotson Avenue, was arrested on preliminary counts of strangulation, intimidation, battery, battery on law enforcement, resisting law enforcement and disorderly conduct.
However, Bilal – also alleged to have threatened to kill several people in the store – was admitted to IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital rather than taken to the Delaware County jail.
Police were called to the store – at 5035 W. Hessler Blvd. – about 1:30 p.m. after receiving a report of a man “fighting with customers and staff.”
Witnesses – several of whom took cellphone videos of the incident, according to police reports – said Bilal at first “aggressively approached” those inside the Goodwill store, “trying to preach to people and also putting his hands on customers.”
They said he became increasingly agitated, “screaming about being Muslim and how he was going to kill everyone including the police,” a report said.
During the disturbance, a 50-year-old store clerk was allegedly battered and strangled by the Muncie man.
That woman told police Bilal “grabbed her by the throat and applied pressure” after he became upset “while trying to covert (her) to Islam.”
Bilal allegedly fought with officers when they arrived, and continued to do so after being shocked with an electric stun device, repeatedly kicking at officers after he was handcuffed. One officer’s hand was broken during the melee.
After the Muncie man was placed in an ambulance, Bilal was asked to identify himself and said he was God, an officer said.
Earlier, while still in the store, Bilal had said several times “that he was the Prophet Muhammad and told us that we were going to hell,” an officer wrote.
According to a probable cause affidavit signed Monday by Delaware Circuit Court 1 Judge Marianne Vorhees, after he is released from the hospital, Bilal will be held in the county jail under a $10,000 cash bond.
Also Monday, additional preliminary charges – of battery on law enforcement and resisting law enforcement – were lodged against Bilal after he allegedly repeatedly struck an IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital police officer in the face.
The officer reported he was called to the BMH emergency room about 5:30 a.m. when Bilal managed to escape from restraints he had been placed in “due to several prior violent incidents.”
As the officer and a nurse tried to place him back in the restraints, Bilal “struck me in the face approximately three times, knocking my glasses off (and) sending them flying,” the policeman wrote in a report.
The officer said he then struck Bilal twice, once in the mouth, in an effort to subdue him.
Court records reflect no prior charges against the Muncie man.
In a statement placed in response to a related online story at thestarpress.com. David Ferrell, a chaplain at the hospital, noted Bilal’s alleged actions “sound nothing like the actions of God, or Prophet Mohammed.”
“These are the ravings of an obviously disturbed individual,” the chaplain wrote, expressing hope Bilal would receive any needed psychological care and then face prosecution for any crimes he has committed.
“Knowing the good that has been, and continues to be done by our local Muslim community, this individual's actions should not be seen as reflective upon these fine community members,” Ferrell said.
Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. Follow him on Twitter: @DouglasWalkerSP.
Read or Share this story: http://tspne.ws/2nnEoPs |
President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to elevate the status of the United States Cyber Command to a unified combatant command in its own right, and said his administration is considering separating it from the National Security Agency.
The newly revamped Cyber Command will “help streamline command and control of time-sensitive cyberspace operations by consolidating them under a single commander with authorities commensurate with the importance of such operations,” said the president’s statement released on Friday.
“Elevation will also ensure that critical cyberspace operations are adequately funded,” Trump added.
.@POTUS elevates CYBERCOM to a full COCOM pic.twitter.com/TUwwj81VQY — Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) August 18, 2017
The unit will be working to develop cyber weapons, punish intruders and tackle adversaries, Reuters reported.
The elevation of the command’s status “demonstrates our increased resolve against cyberspace threats and will help reassure our allies and partners and deter our adversaries,” Trump wrote.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis is examining the possibility of separating the newly-established United States Cyber Command from the National Security Agency, of which it is now part, according to the White House.
Mattis will announce recommendations on this matter at a later date, Trump stated.
Presently, the Cyber Command is headed by Admiral Mike Rogers, who is also director of the NSA. It was not immediately clear who would be in charge of the newly elevated combatant command.
In April 2016, the Obama administration publicly acknowledged it was looking at elevating the status of Cyber Command. The possibility of spinning off CYBERCOM was also mentioned in former Defense Secretary Ash Carter's plan to reorganize the Pentagon.
The Cyber Command becomes the tenth US global combatant command, and the fourth one without a geographic limitation. The Pentagon has divided up the world into six regional commands - NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM for the Americas, CENTCOM for the Middle East, EUCOM for Europe and Russia, AFRICOM for Africa and PACOM for the rest of Asia and the Pacific - while the Strategic (STRATCOM), Transportation (TRANSCOM) and Special Operations (SOCOM) have global responsibilities. |
Suppose there are six friends in a pub. The first one says, ‘My glass is half empty, time for another one.’ The second one says, ‘My glass is half full, I’m OK for now.’ The third one says, ‘There’s a long line at the bar, let’s wait a moment.’ The fourth one says, ‘We’re going to wait anyway, so we might as well get up there now. Let’s order two rounds and get really wasted while we’re at it.’ The fifth one gets up and leaves, because he’s not in the mood to argue, wait, or get wasted. And the sixth downs everyone’s drinks, while they’re discussing what to do next.
The moral of the story? The pessimist always wants more, the optimist is annoyingly content, the realist is just annoying, the cynic stirs shit up, the quitter is irrelevant, and the opportunist has all the fun.
So the next time you go out for a drink, remember to argue less and have more fun, because if you don’t, someone else will. At your expense. |
Author has written 4 stories for Frozen, and Harry Potter.
1-27-18
Update: So...um...hi everyone. I don't have much in the way of excuses as to my absence from active posting, other than spending the last few years recovering from trauma. January 5, 2016 I attempted to take my own life. My other half and I both. Suffice to say, the world we woke to after failing was a bleak and traumatizing one. I won't go into details so as to not trigger anyone who may have had similar travesties occur. Let me say that its been two years and I'm still struggling with my depression and loss of passion. But. I am writing again, after ages of being unable to even open a word document, I'm writing again. I WILL finish While I Sleep, that's my first goal. I also have over a dozen fics in-progress on my computer that I've been touching on for a while now. A few one shots, but mostly multi-chapter fics. Most of them are Elsanna, but some branch out into Final Fantasy XIII and even Strange Magic. All yuri stories.
That being said, I cannot promise anything concrete. I am trying my best to finish While I Sleep, but I refuse to do like these other authors who rush their endings just so they can be done with it. We all deserve better than that, and if I ever get to a point where I can't finish a fic, I will abandon it rather than rushing out a BS ending. I appreciate every one of you who have stuck by my side and given your support. You've all been so wonderful, and I hope I can deliver some quality work to you soon.
Love and light,
Ariel
10-4-15
Update: So I think its time I stop hiding and brush this thing off. First, let me apologize to everyone for the horrendous absence this year. My ability to focus on my writings and maintain my passions for the development of the stories sort of just died off. And along with that we have had a very busy year at my work and that has sort of killed my muse. BUT! I just ground out 4600 words on Chapter 4 of While I Sleep and got it posted and the overwhelming outpouring of support from my readers has revived my muse and given me such a drive to want to write again. I'm already working on the next chapter for While I Sleep, and I'm also looking to continue working on Sorcery, as well as a side-fic or two that I've been working on but haven't posted for fear of failing to update those as well. I will keep you updated! Follow my Facebook page for regular updates or feel free to PM me here /Update
5-28-15
First, let me just say it now that I am a horribly inconsistent updater and unless I've already gotten the fic written out ahead of posting it, don't expect regular updates. I'm currently having some serious issues with my ability to focus lately and for that I apologize. I appreciate all those who've been keeping up with my fics and who have expressed patience with me. I promise, none of my fics will ever be abandoned, even if it does take me a while to update them.
If you want to get play-by-play updates, be sure and like my page, Ariel's FanFics: Ariel's Fics
Crap, I got a Tumblr -_- arielbowden.tumblr.com
I'm Ariel, author-in-progress and fanfic writer by hobby. Okay, so lately I've been absolutely OBSESSED with fan fics, 99% Elsanna and 1% Harry Potter (Bellamione :o) and .01% Naruto (SakuIno). Work on my actual publishable novels has taken a backseat to this obsession and there's nothing I can do to stop it other than spew out these fic ideas I got.
SO!! This is what you're gonna get and you'll like it! :P I plan to write two long, drawn-out fics at the moment. These two ideas have taken on a life of their own and I gave up stopping this a month ago. I've gotten the introductory chapters written for both, and am settled on working on the Frozen/Harry Potter crossover first. I'm a hyper-nerd when it comes to Harry Potter and I plan to do both the HP and Elsanna fandoms proud.
So without further adieu, I hope you all enjoy my works and feel free to leave any positive feedback or constructive criticisms on my works. No flames, no drama, and please, if you don't like the Elsanna ship, then sail on and don't bother stopping here. No need for negativity. I'll add a quart of lutefisk to have good feelings, yah? |
DENVER (CBS4) – Responding to a CBS4 investigation, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has acknowledged at least 56 of the DUI blood tests it conducted in the last six months were incorrect.
“The initial results in each of those 56 cases showed lower alcohol levels for the drivers than when additional quality assurance retesting occurred,” said Susan Medina, a spokesperson for the CBI. “There is no indication that any defendant was inappropriately charged with an offense based on test results showing an erroneously high level of alcohol in a driver’s bloodstream.”
The CBI opened labs in July 2015 in Pueblo and Grand Junction and since then has done about 1,500 DUI blood tests for the Colorado State Patrol and other law enforcement agencies. Medina said the faulty tests amounted to about 4 percent of the DUI testing the labs have conducted since last July.
The CBI said it learned of its erroneous lab results “in recent months“ when an independent lab checked two blood samples that had also been tested by the CBI and the independent lab — ChemaTox — discovered what the CBI calls “anomalies.”
ChemaTox told CBS4 it notified state authorities of the problems in December 2015. The CBI said it then checked some of its other DUI alcohol results and confirmed its lab testing problems.
“While a thorough review remains in progress,” said CBI, “it is believed the cause of the anomalies has been identified and corrected.”
Medina declined to say if the problem was human error, testing equipment, or some other factor.
Sarah Urfer of ChemaTox labs told CBS4, “I contacted CBI and said, ‘Look, we had an anomaly and it’s 24 percent different.'”
Urfer said the anomalies are important “because those are people’s lives at stake.”
David Miller, a Denver-based defense attorney who defends DUI clients, told CBS4 the CBI needs to come clean.
“It creates a problem with the integrity of the system. They’re not saying what the problem is so we don’t know what the problem is, so we’re going to have to get full disclosure to start with. I think it’s up to prosecutors now to look at each case and see if the convictions are proper in the first place and notify the client or lawyer as to what’s happening,” said Miller.
He said the CBS4 investigation revealing the faulty testing shows a “huge problem. It’s a big deal if you’re the person affected by it. It’s a big deal individually and if you look at the big picture, if you are the person affected by this it’s a very big deal.”
Miller said to re-establish credibility, the CBI needs to have all 1,500 blood samples it has examined since last July re-tested.
In many cases, blood drawn from a suspect is a critical piece of evidence establishing either guilt or innocence in DUI cases. There are an estimated 30,000 DUI cases in Colorado each year, according to the CBI.
Dr. Pat Sulik, a chemist with Rocky Mountain Instrumental Laboratories, checked 16 blood samples from the CBI in recent months. She said of those 16 samples, seven were problematic having at least a 5 percent variance from the readings she found. Of those seven, she said five had more than a 10 percent discrepancy.
Sulik said she would normally expect to have her results and the CBI results be nearly identical 99 percent of the time.
“To see this many discrepancies when the CBI just started this summer, this is, at a simple overview, way too many discrepancies,” said Sulik. “When we saw our first large discrepancy we retested the sample and gave ourselves a heart attack.”
Sulik said the CBI’s erroneous, lower testing numbers mean “they are not being taken off the road, the DUI law is not being enforced if the state lab is coming up with lower numbers.”
Sulik said in at least one case she checked, the suspect in a DUI case would have faced a more serious charge had the CBI lab testing been correct the first time around.
Ironically, the CBI only began doing this kind of testing after similar testing by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment came under fire in 2013 and CDPHE testing of DUI blood samples was shut down. In that case, defense attorneys maintained that the Department of Health testing was biased in favor of prosecutors and that staff was inadequately trained in handling blood samples.
In 2014 the state Legislature approved a bill providing nearly $2 million in annual funding and the hiring of five new full-time employees for the CBI to take over the DUI blood testing that was previously conducted by the Department of Health. Now the Department of Health is assisting in the investigation of the faulty CBI testing.
According to Medina’s statement to CBS4, ”After the review the CBI will issue amended reports to the law enforcement agencies that submitted the blood samples, and work with stakeholders to ensure accurate scientific results and prosecutions statewide.”
Mike Rankin, the CBI Director, said, ”While the CBI works extremely hard to avoid any testing errors in our laboratories, the quality assurance procedures served their designed purpose of safeguarding the integrity of the program.”
The CBI declined to answer any other questions from CBS4 citing an ongoing review of what happened. Medina said the agency might be able to provide more information once the review is completed.
Miller told CBS4 he intended to reopen any DUI cases he has handled in the last seven months that involved CBI blood testing. Urfer called the problem “very frustrating. I’ve been through this twice before. It seems like this should be a preventable problem. There are a number of labs that have not had these problems.”
CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass has been with the station more than 30 years uncovering waste, fraud and corruption. Follow him on Twitter @Briancbs4. |
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On Monday night, Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch appeared on Conan O’Brien’s show, where he dropped an “F” bomb and talked about “grabbing my ding-ding.” (And he also grabbed his ding-ding several times.) On Thursday night, teammate Russell Wilson appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s show. While there was no “ding-ding” talk, Wilson stepped way out of his carefully-manicured character by using a word that had to be bleeped.
“I’ve gotta tell you a story,” Wilson said as soon as he took a seat between Kimmel and Andy Samberg, who was in a plastic bubble because he was pretending to have the flu. “So I’m backstage, before the show, obviously. And all of a sudden I run into this guy with a bubble. And he sticks out his hand. I shake his hand. Next thing I know, he sh-ts in his pants.” (It’s possible Wilson said “jizzes,” in reference to Samberg’s “Jizz in My Pants” video from Saturday Night Live. Either way, it was bleeped. Either way, it didn’t mesh with the Wilson ordinarily projects.)
The discussion quickly turned to Wilson’s contractual status, with Kimmel asking Wilson if he’s more tired of talking about the Super Bowl loss or his contract.
“Both,” Wilson said.
Kimmel then pointed out how underpaid Wilson is, suggesting that he’s making only $37,000 per year. (The audience didn’t get the joke.)
“So you’re ready for the next contract?” Kimmel said.
“That sounds exciting,” Wilson replied.
“I would love to help you with this contract, I really would,” Kimmel said. “Do you have an agent?”
“I do have an agent,” Wilson said.
“Well, that’s a bummer.”
“Maybe you can be his consultant,” Wilson said.
“How much money do you want, because we can probably hash this out right now?”
“Can we take a collection plate, maybe?” Wilson said, laughing.
“No, you get it from the team,” Kimmel responded, with a little bit of force in his voice. “You made enough money for them. I think it’s OK for them to pay you. You want to be the highest paid player in football, correct?”
“I just want to be paid based off my play,” Wilson said. “It’ll work out in the end, and we’ll figure it out.”
Wilson then reiterated that he wants to stay in Seattle, but it’s still not clear exactly what he wants financially — because he continues to avoid the question.
Wilson also said he’s seriously interested in playing both football and baseball professionally, calling it a dream he had growing up.
“It’d be tough to play [both],” Wilson said. “But, you know, there’s always a way.”
Kimmel then asked if Wilson would play both if his baseball rights were traded from the Texas Rangers to the Seattle Mariners.
“I’d definitely consider it,” Wilson said.
Kimmel did a great job of asking the right questions and drawing Wilson out on some touchy subjects, even though it’s a comedy show with low expectations for anything newsworthy.
And there was still some comedy (or at least attempts at comedy), including a quick jab by Wilson at coach Pete Carroll for paying players at USC. But it came out so fast that it sailed over the heads of the studio audience.
“He’s gonna love that comment,” Kimmel said.
Carroll won’t mind that comment if they can get a contract worked out. For now, it’s still unclear what it will take and when it will get done. However, it is clear that Wilson remains serious about baseball — and that he’d be even more serious if he were playing for the baseball team in the same town as his football team. |
'Baahubali ��� the beginning' produced by Shobhu Yarlagadda and directed by S S Rajamouli won the honours at the awards which were announced on Monday. The Telugu film industry is the most prolific film industry in the world itself. If India produces the world���s most number of films, it is Telugu films in the country which top the list.Statistics available show that between April 2013 and March 2014, a total of 1966 films were made in India. Out of this, 349 were Telugu films, topping the list of films produced.Considering that the long drought of the coveted best national film award had eluded the Telugu film industry, the producer of ���Baahubali��� was naturally elated after the award was announced.���Winning the 63rd National Award for the best film is a huge achievement. Being the first Telugu Film to do so makes it all the more special!��� producer of ���Baahubali��� Shobhu Yarlagadda said. Prasad Devineni and K Raghavendra Rao are the other producers of the film.The epic movie set in the mythical ���Mahismathi��� kingdom in India wowed audiences across India and abroad too. Made with an estimated budget of Rs 120 crore, it is said the film garnered revenue up to Rs 600 cr.The film fascinated audiences because of its visual effects. The fact that producer Shobhu Yarlagadda acknowledged Srinivas Mohan who oversaw the visual effects speaks for the visual delight the movie was. The award means recognition for the producers.The best director award, however, has eluded S S Rajamouli who has literally worked magic at the box-office with the film.Till late in the afternoon, Rajamouli did not react about the national award on his twitter account. His last tweet was on March 25 appreciating the released recently film 'Oopiri' starring Nagarjuna and directed by Vamsi. The lead actor of the film Prabhas retweeted all the congratulatory messages which poured in, including from Anuskha Shetty, who also featured in the film. Another actor Rana Dabbubati who also featured in the movie was excited about the film getting the award.Actress Tamannaah Bhatia was also all excited about 'Baahubali' winning the award. ���Congratulations to our lovely team,��� she tweeted. ���This is awesome, awesome, awesome,��� said well-known director Krish Jagarlamudi about 'Baahubali' winning the best national film award. Actresses Samantha Ruth Prabhu also congratulated the team.Actor NTR Jr also congratulated the team. ���Congratulations to team Baahubali and Rajamouli scoring the prestigious national award for the best film. A big win for Telugu cinema,��� he said.The announcement of the national film awards brought cheer to Krish Jagarlamudi also as the film that he directed ���Kanche��� won the best film in Telugu category. The film produced by Y Rajeev Reddy and J Sai Babu featured Varun Tej and Pragya Jaiswal.'Kanche' came as a refreshing change on the Telugu screen as it was set in the 1930s. The film woven around World War-11 and has love as the primary theme. The protagonist joins the British Indian Army and comes out as strong drama. Part of the film was shot in Georgia.Kanche was made with a budget of Rs 21 crore reportedly made double its investment. For three years from 2009-11, there was no award given for best film in Telugu but from the years 2012 till date, a Telugu film was able to get a best Telugu film award. If the jury considers that none of the films submitted are good enough, they do not give a best film award in the regional language films category. |
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