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This week a new "anonymous" BitTorrent client was released to the public. TrafficPrivacy allows users to hide their IP-address directly from within their client, at the price of a standard proxy or VPN service. The TrafficPrivacy team says its main goal is to provide an all-in-one anonymity solution for a less tech savvy audience.
To protect themselves against excessive monitoring, security exploits and ISP throttling, some BitTorrent users turn to anonymizing services such as VPNs and proxies.
Over the past months interest in these privacy protection services has surged. However, for some less technically skilled people all the talk about privacy settings and IP-leaks may prove to be too much.
The latter group is now catered for by TrafficPrivacy, a new and fully anonymous BitTorrent client that launched this week. Feature wise the client is relatively limited, but unlike others it has a fully configured and dummy proof anonymity option built in. Simply enter your login credentials and everything just works.
“TrafficPrivacy’s mission is to provide users with real 100% protection and anonymity without additional settings, which can be quite difficult for non tech savvy users. That’s why we include protection into a tiny BitTorrent client,” TrafficPrivacy’s Alex told TorrentFreak.
As with other anonymity services a long term subscription to TrafficPrivacy doesn’t come free. The service is currently priced at $6.95 per month, but there is a 7-day free trial available for people who want to give it a spin before committing to it longer term.
Contrary to VPNs or BitTorrent proxies, users will have to swap their current BitTorrent client for the TrafficPrivacy software. This is a deliberate choice from the makers, as it’s the only way to guarantee that all the privacy settings are properly configured.
With Vuze, uTorrent and other clients people often forget to use the right settings or get confused by the terminology, which can result in their true IP-address leaking out. The new client’s goal is to avoid this.
“The target audience for TrafficPrivacy are users who put a lot of value on their safety and anonymity, but do not want to configure all the complicated settings. We want to keep everything as simple as possible and let users feel safe without tinkering with various privacy options in current BitTorrent clients,” Alex says.
TrafficPrivacy BitTorrent Client
One thing to keep in mind is that TrafficPrivacy only offers anonymous BitTorrent transfers. Other traffic, such as that generated by a web browser, will be linked to the user’s regular IP-address. Users can see if anonymity is turned on directly from the client, but it’s always wise to verify it through an external service that checks the BitTorrent IP.
To guarantee the user’s privacy the company says it doesn’t keep any connection logs that can be traced back to individual customers. Also, if the TrafficPrivacy servers happen to go down the client will stop working entirely.
“If TrafficPrivacy server goes down, all downloads stop and it doesn’t leak the real IP-address,” Alex informs TorrentFreak.
The TrafficPrivacy team are no newcomers to the security scene. The new client was developed as part of the existing TorrentPrivacy proxy/VPN service, but when the new client was finished they decided to turn in into a completely new product and a brand of its own.
While TrafficPrivacy might not appeal to all BitTorrent users, its ease of use and simplicity will probably be welcomed by those who are less technically skilled. |
BY: Follow @JVLast
I always hated the Jawas.
As a kid, the Jawas weren’t scary the way Stormtroopers or Darth Vader were. But there was something unsettling about them. The Tusken Raiders might have been primitive savages who tried to kill Luke Skywalker—who, back then, was my hero—but the Jawas seemed worse. A little bit evil, even. The feeling was so pronounced that in the dozens of times I watched A New Hope as a child, the massacre of the Jawas never roused even a beat of sympathy in me. It was the opposite, actually. Every time C-3PO piled the Jawa carcasses into a funeral pyre, a little part of me thought, Good riddance. They got what they had coming. But I never understood why I felt that way.
Then I grew up. I came to understand that George Lucas’s trilogy had a lot of moral confusion in it. I realized that the Empire is actually the force for good in Star Wars. I realized that the Jedi were actually contemptible and that the series can easily be read as following the radicalization of a young terrorist. I even realized that the destruction of Alderaan was not only justified, but prudent.
Yet it took three decades for me to finally grasp what was so awful about the Jawas. It is this: In the Star Wars universe, droids are slaves.
Once you see this truth, it’s difficult to look at Star Wars the way you did as a child. You understand that the Jawas are slave-traders. More than anything, you come to realize how morally bankrupt the Rebellion really is—and how relatively enlightened the Empire is. Once you recognize that droids are slaves, everything you thought you believed about Star Wars shifts.
What is a droid?
We see all manner of robots in the six Star Wars movies. (This essay deals exclusively with the cinematic canon. The Expanded Universe as we once knew it is dead, by order of Disney, which proves that only the movies can be true canon, because everything else is subject to retcon.) Broadly speaking, Star Wars robots fall into two classes.
The first are simple machines; we’ll call them "robots" for the purposes of this discussion. Throughout the movies we see robots performing routine tasks, much the way they do in our world today. So, for instance, in the original Death Star there are small, black bots scooting down the corridors like cracked-out Roombas. There’s nothing special about "robots."
But then there’s the second class, which we’ll call "droids." And the droids are very different. They go beyond—far, far beyond—even our wildest hopes for artificial intelligence. Droids are clearly sentient life forms.
The two droids we are most intimate with are C-3PO and R2-D2. We’re not led to believe that this pair is extraordinary in any way—a translator and an astromech, they seem to be average droids. Which means we can view them not as uniquely advanced life forms, but as your generic every-droids.
The first thing you notice is that C-3PO would easily pass the Turing Test: in a conversation, he’d be hard to distinguish from a normal humanoid. But they’re so much more than that. The droids are conscious. Speaking of R2-D2, Luke says that he’s "never seen such devotion in a droid." The concept of "devotion" implies choice. A droid who is "devoted" to a task, or a person, is choosing loyalty over abandonment. And choice implies free will. Around that same time, C-3PO begs an annoyed Luke not to "deactivate" him. Deactivation is clearly seen by C-3PO as something to be feared, like death. Which means that droids both understand their own mortality and experience emotions, too.
They also have their own theology. When C-3PO is lowered into an oil bath to repair his joints, he exclaims, "Thank the Maker!" It’s one of only two times in the series that a character references theism. We’ll get to the other instance in a moment, but it’s instructive that in both cases, it’s a droid, not a humanoid, who refers to a supreme being.
Free will, emotions, and their own elementary religious system? We’re way off the AI scale now. C-3PO isn’t just intelligent. He’s conscious. He’s sentient. He’s a person.
And he’s a slave.
The Life of a Droid
In the Star Wars universe, droids are treated as property, with explicit talk about being "owned" and of passing from one owner to another. "We seem to be made to suffer," C-3PO laments. "It’s our lot in life." He refers to Luke as "master." And on Tatooine, we aren’t just shown that droids are slaves—we see a number of parallels to the experience of slavery in America.
Consider how C-3PO and R2-D2 are ambushed by Jawas in the desert. The scene where R2-D2 is shot is not all that dissimilar from the scene in Roots where Kunta Kinte is beset by slavers and then kidnapped from his homeland. The droids are then deposited into the dark, dirty, crowded hold of the Jawas’ massive sand-crawler, where they’re kept in a pitiable state—painfully similar to a slave ship making the middle passage. When the Jawas reach the marketplace (Uncle Owen’s ranch) they push and pull the droids out of the darkness and into the bright suns, which, judging by C-3PO’s reaction, hurt his photoreceptors.
At this point they are lined up for display. Owen inspects them callously, pointing out flaws and problems with the docile droids. He converses with C-3PO. He haggles over the price and then completes the sale. The only reason the droids aren’t in literal chains is that, as we learn later, the Jawas have fitted them with "restraining bolts" that prevent them from escaping. The very need for restraining bolts reinforces the notion that the droids are sentient creatures with free will and their own ideas, hopes, and dreams.
When the droids first talk with Luke, we are given our clearest look at their place in society. "Behave yourself, R2," C-3PO cautions his companion, "You’re going to get us in trouble. It’s alright. You can trust him. He’s our new master."
And if you’re still not convinced about the parallels with the African-American experience, think about what happens when Luke, Ben Kenobi, and the droids go to Mos Eisley looking for transport. They walk into the cantina—not a fancy bar, but a watering hole for criminals and brigands—and the barkeep shouts angrily, "We don’t serve their kind here." It’s a disgusting act of prejudice. The droids wait outside.
The Galactic Civil War
Yet when it comes to the treatment of droids, not everyone is as bigoted as the inhabitants of Tatooine. The Empire and the Rebellion behave quite differently.
In the conventional reading of Star Wars, people defending the Rebellion insist that among the reasons the Empire is "evil" is that Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Grand Moff Tarkin seek to "enslave" the galaxy. Yet there is no evidence of this in any of the films. Tatooine is nominally under control of the Empire and yet we see no evidence of Imperial slavery. There’s no slavery in Cloud City, even when it falls under the direct control of Darth Vader. How about the moon of Endor? The Empire builds a critical military installation there without enslaving or even antagonizing the indigenous peoples. Yet when the Rebels show up on Endor, the first thing they do upon meeting the natives is present themselves as gods. Using this trickery, the rebels then dupe the Ewoks into launching an attack against the Imperial garrison armed with nothing but sticks and stones.
In fact, the only times we see actual slavery in Star Wars, it’s during the Republic. And the Jedi are clearly okay with it.
In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan meet Anakin and his mother, who are introduced as slaves belonging to the repulsive Watto. Are the Jedi knights outraged at the idea of people being treated as chattel? Not at all. They accept it as a perfectly ordinary situation. It’s only when Qui-Gon decides that he wants to bring Anakin back to Coruscant that he becomes interested in liberating the boy. And when it comes time for the Jedi to leave, instead of freeing the entire family by force—Watto absolutely deserves to have his wings sliced off with a laser sword—Qui-Gon decides to gamble for the freedom of only the slave he’s interested in. He’s happy to leave the kid’s mother behind.
We see the same general attitude toward droids in Return of the Jedi. At the beginning of the movie, C-3PO and R2-D2 return to Tatooine. They have been instructed to go to the palace of Jabba the Hutt and deliver a message from Luke. That message? Luke is presenting the two droids to Jabba as a gift. Jabba accepts this gesture as a matter of course. Giving sentient beings away as trinkets, evidently, is just something people outside of Imperial control do.
Indeed, it’s in Jabba’s palace where we see the true horror of the average droid’s existence. While some—perhaps even most—masters are "good," like Luke, others are deeply, monstrously cruel. The droid torture chamber in Jabba’s palace is the stuff of nightmares: droids are literally torn limb from limb and hot irons are applied to their (metal) flesh as they scream in agony. Perhaps most horrifyingly, other droids serve the will of their oppressors, like Stephen in Candieland: "You’re a feisty little one, but you’ll soon learn some respect," the EV-9D9 tells our beloved R2-D2. Again, if they did not have free will and sentience they would not need to be taught "respect." It could simply be programmed.
But not everyone in Star Wars views droids as chattel.
Look through the original trilogy and you’ll see that the rebels rely on droids extensively. It’s not just C-3P0 and R2-D2—there’s the medical droid on Hoth who treats Luke and the other doctor droid at the end of Empire Strikes Back who gives him a new hand. The rebellion’s primary starfighter, the X-Wing, is designed to require a human pilot and droid co-pilot. In the background of just about every scene at a Rebel stronghold, you see droids scurrying about. It’s hard to imagine how the rebellion could have survived without uncompensated droid labor.
The Empire relies on droids to a far lesser degree. Wherever possible, the Empire employs human labor rather than droids—TIE fighters have no droid co-pilots, for instance. On the contrary, we do see the Empire make use of non-sentient robots: The torture robot that hums at Princess Leia. The little Roomba robots zipping about the Death Star. In the whole of the trilogy, I’ve found just one instance of a droid being used by the Empire: another protocol droid whom we see walking through the Death Star.
And balanced against this, we see something truly exceptional. In The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader convenes a meeting with a group of five bounty hunters. He is deputizing them to pursue Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon, presumably with a large reward at stake. This group includes the humanoids Boba Fett and Dengar, the reptilian Bossk—and two droids, IG-88 and 4-LOM. We know nothing about these droids except for this: The Empire is treating them as equal to carbon-based life, employing them to do a job, and willing to pay them for their work.
In short: Droids are slaves. The Republic condoned slavery. The Rebel Alliance relied heavily on droid ownership. And not only did the Empire not rely on the work of sentient droids, but it entered into consensual employment with freed-droids, recognizing their personhood, and respecting their free will. If that doesn’t convince you that the Empire is the real force for enlightenment in Star Wars, then I suspect nothing will.
But no matter where you fall in the great philosophical debate over the merits of the Empire versus the Rebellion, we should all be able to agree that the most repugnant characters in the series are the Jawas. The ninth circle of Hell is reserved for child predators and slave traders. The Jawas didn’t actually get what they had coming when they were vaporized by Stormtroopers. They deserved worse.
They should have been thrown into the pit of Sarlacc. |
What about the sex difference in sex? In a short chapter entitled “The Sexual Superiority of the Female,” Montagu wrote that while “social conditioning plays a considerable role . . . there is a profound biological difference between the sexes. . . . The male seems to be in a chronic state of sexual irritation. The woman who in a letter to Kinsey described the race of males as ‘a herd of prancing leering goats’ was not far from the truth.” Montagu understood what makes women prodigiously sexual in their own way: the extreme innervation and sensitivity of the clitoris and its short refractory period enable multiple and prolonged orgasms—men are no match for women there—and extend sexual function late in life. But, he believed, women’s arousal is not continuous and impersonal; it is framed in relationships and works best when a partner, male or female, makes an investment that comes from caring.
Everything we have learned in the decade and a half since Montagu’s last edition confirms these differences. Very few men tell women what they are thinking, and this may be a good thing. Women who “get it” may sympathize (up to a point) or not, but either way they are better off than those who believe men are just like them. Even in post-industrial cultures prominent men often display their intentions by taking trophy wives, using supermodels as “elbow candy,” and having illicit sex with much younger women, even in the public eye. But only occasionally do they say something revealing.
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Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser, was believed to have more power than the secretary of state when a January 19, 1971, article in the New York Times noted that “as a 47-year-old divorcé, he makes society news by squiring such glamour girls as Gloria Steinem in New York, Joanna Barnes and Jill St. John in Hollywood, and Barbara Howar in Washington. Power, he has observed, is the great aphrodisiac.” The article depicts him as insecure despite his power; even at his peak he was a short, chubby, plain-looking man. But this did not interfere with his associations with much younger, very gifted, sought-after, beautiful women, then known without irony as “glamour girls.”
Bill Ackman, currently in his late forties, is a handsome billionaire hedge fund manager married to a beautiful woman his own age, with three children, and not known for any untoward behavior with women. Perhaps that’s why he could be frank in answering his own question in a lecture at the Wharton business school a few years ago. “What motivates people to succeed?” He paused. “Sex. People don’t like to admit it but it’s the primal driver. Fundamentally, what drives most human behavior is basically foreplay.” On CNBC a year or so later, anchor Becky Quick, who had read the quote, offered Ackman a chance to explain himself. He replied, “I was just thinking, you know, well, ultimately we’re animals, right? Motivated by basic . . . you know, why are people motivated to succeed? I mean, just think about guys you went to college with.”
If that was true of the guys they went to college with, you don’t even want to think about the guys in college today. In the summer of 2013, the New York Times ran a story with a provocative photo of a reclining woman’s bare thigh and the headline “Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game, Too.” Based on months of interviews and authored by Kate Taylor, it was one of many recent writings suggesting that women want casual sex and multiple partners as much as men do.
The article was about the sex scene at an elite university. In a year of impressive work, Taylor had interviewed sixty young women. She wrote about them generally and in a few cases in particular. I read the article to the end and could only guess that whoever wrote the title hadn’t. It began with a young woman texting her usual hookup guy to ask what he was doing; she ended up having sex with him. “We don’t really like each other in person, sober,” she said, adding that they couldn’t even sit down and have coffee. She said she was too busy succeeding in school and building a high-powered career to have a relationship and emphasized that she didn’t regret any of her one-night stands, describing herself as a true feminist and a strong woman who knows what she wants. She withheld her name, but she still didn’t want the number of men she had slept with printed.
Same game? Another young woman found as a first-year student that nobody seemed to have boyfriends but felt, as she put it, “I can’t just lose my V-card to some random guy.” In the spring she picked a boy she had been dancing with and awarded her card to him. “I’m like, ‘O.K., I could do this now. He’s superhot, I like him, he’s nice.’” Her expectations were very low. But because he let her spend the night and walked her home in the morning, all her friends were “super envious”; she came back with a huge smile on her face because she’d had “such a great first experience.” She stayed on good terms with the boy and during spring break had casual sex with someone else. But she believes boys control the hookup culture: “It’s kind of like a spiral.” She explained that the girls stop anticipating that they will get a boyfriend, “but at the same time, they want to, like, have contact with guys. . . . [They] try not to get attached.”
Same game? Haley, a senior, reminisced about going to frat parties as a freshman: she’d go in and they’d take her down to a dark basement. “There’s girls dancing in the middle, and there’s guys lurking on the sides and then coming and basically pressing their genitals up against you and trying to dance.” These are dance-floor makeouts, or difmos. After one, she knew she was drunk and asked the boy to take her home; he took her to his room instead and had sex with her semiconscious body. She recalled another boy popping his head into the room: “Yo, did you score?” Eventually she looked back on this episode as rape.
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Another girl said she usually ended up giving the boy oral sex, because by the time she got to his room she was sobering up and saw that as her best way out. Another, Kristy, told of making out with a boy in his house when he said, “‘Get down on your knees.’ . . . I was really taken aback, because I was like, no one has ever said that to me before.” The boy said it was fair and, when she balked, he pushed her down. After that, she thought, “‘I’ll just do it.’ . . . I was like, ‘It will be over soon enough.’” Catherine, a senior, looked back on her hookups as a continual source of heartbreak.
I know those boys. I teach them. I have three daughters who had to navigate these rocky shoals in three different colleges, and they say they were able to keep the hookup culture at a distance. I can’t really be sure, of course, but I do know that many do not. The young women in Taylor’s story are not even remotely playing the same game, and if they think they are, they are way out of their league.
*
The research on this is clear, and transnational. A 2008 study by Anne Campbell was called “The Morning After the Night Before.” A British television station surveyed thousands of people through its website; 998 of the men and 745 of the women who responded were heterosexual and had had a one-night stand. They were asked about their agreement with positive and negative statements about the event. Men were much more likely to report greater sexual satisfaction, wellbeing, and self-confidence, while women were much more likely to feel that they had been used and had let themselves down. Overall, subtracting negative scores from positive ones, men had more than double the net gain from the experience. As for regret, 23 percent of men but 58 percent of women said they would not repeat it.
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Campbell writes of women’s post-tryst distress, “The men had subsequently behaved disrespectfully and dismissively. . . . While not wanting a longer relationship, many women felt a strong sense of rejection”; they said they’d been “blanked.” Women’s positive remarks had to do with being made to feel sexy and wanted, craving male attention, or satisfying curiosity. One said, “I have a very poor self image and the man I slept with was a conquest. . . . He was very popular with other women and very good-looking. I thought that if I slept with him it would put me on a par with my prettier and more worthy peers. Unfortunately it didn’t work and my self esteem/confidence suffered.”
As for the sex itself, men spoke of “euphoria,” “excitement and lust,” and “blowing off sexual steam.” Some women had fun and felt free, but most said things like
• “Thought it would be one of life’s experiences, but it was nothing like the sex found in movies.”
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• “The expectation was better than the reality, the sex was rubbish.”
• “The sex is never particularly satisfying because it is difficult to let go with someone you don’t even know.”
• “Not as good as sex with a partner; they are more into your needs and know your body a lot better.”
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Concerns like Is sex all the person was after? and Will the person call or will they dump me? were expressed by 81 percent of women and 17 percent of men. I can almost hear the men asking, Dump you from what?
Is there something about Britain or Campbell’s methods that produced these results? Many U.S. studies confirm them with other approaches. Anthropologist John Townsend and his colleagues have studied hookups at Syracuse University for over a decade. In 2011 they reported on 335 male and 365 female students. Men were much more likely to endorse casual sex and women to feel a need for attachment and emotional involvement, but men were only somewhat more likely to have had such hookups. This suggests that men are persuading women to have more casual sex than they want while women prevent men from having as much as they want.
In 2012, Justin Garcia of the Kinsey Institute and his colleagues reviewed many studies of hookup culture, including patterns like NSA (no strings attached) sex and FWBs (“friends with benefits,” a.k.a. “hookup buddies” or “fuck buddies”), which provide repeat encounters (“booty calls”) with one person. In one study of 832 college students, 50 percent of men and 26 percent of women had positive emotional reactions after hookups, while for negative reactions the percentages were almost exactly reversed. In another, an online survey of more than twelve thousand students from seventeen colleges, 55 percent of first hookups involved oral sex only for the man and 19 percent only for the woman; 31 percent of men and 10 percent of women had orgasms. In a third study of 761 women, more than half reported at least one experience of unwanted sex. About two-thirds of hookups with vaginal intercourse involved condoms; when only oral sex was involved, the percentage was close to zero.
In “Bare Market: Campus Sex Ratios, Romantic Relationships, and Sexual Behavior,” sociologists Jeremy Uecker and Mark Regnerus studied a representative sample of nearly a thousand single, heterosexual women in four-year coed colleges. The percentage of women on campus predicted attitudes and behavior toward the men on the same campus. Where women were plentiful, they were more likely to say that men were untrustworthy and uninterested in commitment. They expected less from men and found it harder to meet the right kinds of men. They were less likely to have gone on traditional dates, to have had a boyfriend, or to be a virgin and more likely to have had sex in the last month, especially if they didn’t have a boyfriend.
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Little wonder that women on those campuses say they don’t want their percentage to go up any further. By the way, if women wanted casual sex as much as men, wouldn’t they be more likely to have it where they are in a minority? They don’t, but where they predominate the market leads them to give up more than they otherwise would. They are competing for men, and the men have more power. Since women now make up about 60 percent of college students and rising, it seems likely that hookups will rise as well. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health has found a similar effect of sex ratio in high schools, which suggests that the next cohort of college women will be playing the hookup game as they continue to try to please scarce men.
I recognize that many women speak well of these experiences and often seek them. Women like sex, and some like casual sex. Among other things, they are protecting themselves from relationships that might distract them from their studies and career pursuits. Celibacy is often not a good choice, especially given peer pressure and boy pressure, not to mention desire. If you want to avoid being seen as a child or a prude by women and you like men enough to want to be on good terms with them, hookups can be stimulating and convenient. One time in ten or so, you may even have an orgasm. A so-called fuck buddy can be a reasonable compromise between loneliness and a complicated romantic involvement. But these encounters and relationships are sexually asymmetrical. Someone is often being used, and it is seldom the boy.
*
Recall that Nisa, the !Kung woman who was the subject of my late wife Marjorie Shostak’s classic, said, “Women possess something very important, something that enables men to live: their genitals.” Or as anthropologist Donald Symons, whose pioneering book The Evolution of Human Sexuality helped start this field of research, said, “Among all peoples it is primarily men who court, woo, proposition, seduce, employ love charms and love magic, give gifts in exchange for sex, and use the services of prostitutes. And only men rape. Everywhere sex is understood to be something females have that males want.” This is an exaggeration but one with a great measure of truth. Women forgot this truth when men convinced them that both sexes have the same interests; this was the sexual revolution of the sixties, which involved a lot more change and disappointment for women than for men, at least in the realm of sex. In view of persistent myths about this in the ongoing sexual revolution today, let’s look at the evidence for Symons’s pointed claim.
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A 2001 overview in the Personality and Social Psychology Review by Roy Baumeister, Kathleen Catanese, and Kathleen Vohs combed more than 150 studies to answer the question “Is there a gender difference in sex drive?” Overall in these studies,
Men have been shown to have more frequent and more intense sexual desires than women, as reflected in spontaneous thoughts about sex, frequency and variety of sexual fantasies, desired frequency of intercourse, desired number of partners, masturbation, liking for various sexual practices, willingness to forego sex, initiating versus refusing sex, making sacrifices for sex, and other measures.
There were no studies with contrary findings—not a single one indicating stronger sexual motivation in women than men. In one typical study, 90 percent of men but only half of women felt sexual desire at least a few times a week. In another, the average young man was sexually aroused several times a day, the typical young woman “a couple of times a week.” In an Australian survey, people who were in a committed relationship, wanted to have sex, but were not having it were almost exclusively male.
Compared to women, men begin to have sexual intercourse earlier in life (despite later puberty), are less willing to give up sex for any part of life, are more permissive and favorable toward sex, initiate sex much more often in longer relationships, and show more preference for every sexual practice, including, rather astoundingly, cunnilingus. Although men often have physical problems like premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction, hypoactive sexual desire, whether by diagnosis or self-report, is overwhelmingly female.
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In their classic 1989 study, “Gender Differences in Receptivity to Sexual Offers,” social psychologists Russell Clark and Elaine Hatfield had confederates who were college men and women of average attractiveness approach strange but attractive members of the opposite sex on campus and say, “I’ve been noticing you around campus lately and find you very attractive. Would you like to go to bed with me tonight?” Of the men, 75 percent said yes; of the women, 100 percent said no. Some men said things like “Why wait till tonight?” Some women said things that I won’t repeat here.
In 2011, psychologist Terri Conley claimed to have repeated this study; she found that under some conditions, the difference between the sexes was much smaller. However, there was a minor problem with this “replication”: it was purely a paper-and-pencil study. I am sorry, but that is not remotely a repeat of the classic study. Yet the media seized on it as proof that sexual mores have dramatically changed and that women are almost as interested in casual sex as men. The current wish to deny the facts of life is very great.
Suppose we ask what happens when you remove the slight complication of having to deal with another person, whether a stranger, intimate long-term partner, or anything in between. Sex differences in masturbation are consistent and large. Women are much more likely to have never masturbated; women who do masturbate do it much less frequently at all ages than men. In a 2011 summary of meta-analyses and large data sets, psychologists Jennifer Petersen and Janet Shibley Hyde confirmed substantial sex differences in masturbation—even with such blunt (and indeed almost ridiculous, if you are looking at sex differences) measures as whether someone has masturbated in the past year—and in pornography use, in the usual direction.
Consider people’s fantasy lives. Here, too, there is no other person present. You can dream up whatever you want, no risk, no compromise, no complications. In one study, Bruce Ellis and Donald Symons gave three hundred male and female students an anonymous questionnaire. Men (32 percent) were four times as likely as women to say they had fantasized about having sex with more than one thousand different people (by college age). Men were much more likely to say that visual images were more important than touching in their fantasies (66 percent versus 39 percent), women twice as likely to say touching (55 percent versus 28 percent). Men were about twice as likely to focus on visual images rather than feelings, women three times as likely to say feelings. And men were almost three times as likely (48 percent versus 17 percent) to agree that in their fantasies, “the situation quickly includes explicitly sexual activity.” These findings have been repeated in many studies.
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Of course, sometimes men want men, and women, women, and these relationships are most instructive. Lesbian relationships, compared to those between gay males, are less sexual at every stage by almost every measure; the phrase “lesbian bed death” may be an exaggeration, but we don’t often hear it said about gay men. In many ways—frequency of intercourse, open relationships, sexually transmitted diseases, and the use of sadomasochistic elements in sex—heterosexual couples are intermediate between lesbian and gay male pairings.
These are old findings, and new research holds few surprises. A 2013 study by sociologist Bethany Everett, as well as research in 2010 by epidemiologist Fujie Xu and colleagues, showed that while bisexual people are at the highest risk, the number of lifetime partners and the amount of sexually transmitted disease are higher in exclusively gay than in heterosexual men and lower in exclusively lesbian than in heterosexual women. So when you remove such complex issues as male dominance and women’s oppression or the desire to please in heterosexual relationships, where the two people involved are of the same sex, male-female differences are larger, not smaller.
Who pays cash for sex? Almost exclusively men. An estimated one-tenth to one-sixth of U.S. men have paid for sex, half of those while they were involved in other relationships. A few women pay for sex, but it’s not just a simple transaction. Women do not buy much pornography or leer at pictures of naked men. Porn customers are overwhelmingly male, and the main counterpart for women is romance fiction. In her insightful 2012 article “The Pop Culture of Sex: An Evolutionary Window on the Worlds of Pornography and Romance,” psychologist Catherine Salmon says, “Romance and pornography are both multibillion dollar industries, and their stark contrasts reflect the deep divide at the heart of male and female erotic fantasies.”
After an extended analysis, she concludes, “Pornography is a male fantasy world of short-term mating success while the romance is a female fantasy world of long-term mating success. At their hearts, that is what they are, fantasies that are reflections of the different ancestral problems faced by males and females in the mating domain.” Even the huge hit novel Fifty Shades of Grey, sympathetically reviewed by some intelligent women and read by millions, is a romance novel that includes soft-core pornography. It depicts a rich and powerful man deeply in love with a younger woman and very concerned about her welfare and her sexual pleasure. The bondage and discipline he subjects her to (because of his self-described mental illness and after elaborately and solicitously gaining her consent) is mild compared to that in male-directed pornography; she is depicted by the (female) author as not hurt but enraptured, and the one time she is really hurt, she leaves him.
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Symons’s remark in his book about what women have and men want implied that heterosexual sex is a scarce resource for which men strive, compete, and pay; he repeated it to a TV interviewer in a singles’ bar, where men are more likely to pay for the drinks and where there is no such thing as a “men’s night”—letting men in for free to attract women as paying customers. Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs summarized the broader evidence about what is clearly a market in another paper, “Sexual Economics.” Most prostitutes are women who overwhelmingly serve male customers, and almost all male prostitutes serve men as well. Women rarely pay for sex, and when they do it often involves the pretense of a romantic tryst; they demand something more than a simple hookup—which is what men are typically paying for. When the famous actor Charlie Sheen was found to have paid top dollar for sex with one of the socalled Hollywood Madam’s young women, many wondered, Why would a man who could have his pick of willing women for free pay $1,500 (about $2,500 in today’s dollars) to have one come to his room? Answer: He doesn’t pay her to come to his room. He pays her to leave.
Strip clubs overwhelmingly consist of women performing for mainly male customers, although some women attend, often with male dates. There are about four thousand of these clubs in the United States, employing some 400,000 women. The reverse situation, in which men strip for women, represents a very small fraction of these numbers. There are also strip clubs for gay men, but very few for lesbians.
Finally, coercive sex is overwhelmingly male; 99 percent of FBI arrests for rape are of men. It is not obvious that it has to be this way because males have to be aroused to have sex; women could force men or other women to give them oral sex under threat of violence, as men do with both male and female victims, or use dildos or other objects to rape men anally, to humiliate them, as men do to victims of both sexes. Such assaults by women are vanishingly rare. A small percentage of gang rapes of women involve both sexes, and a small percentage is perpetrated by groups of women. Rape occurs in some lesbian relationships, but with nothing resembling its frequency in heterosexual and gay male relationships.
These are sound generalizations, not absolute rules. Some women do want sex as much as any man. Some men want little or none. There is nothing inferior about wanting it and nothing superior about not wanting it—although (despite the substantial minority with hypoactive sexual desire) women certainly have the potential for superior orgasmic capacity. But denial of the facts of human sexual nature as it applies to most men and women can only lead to confusion and, ultimately, to suffering. Male sexuality is driven. Men frequently want sex, period, while women tend to prefer it in the context of a relationship, a physical connection allied to an emotional one. Regardless of what I may privately desire, and regardless of how natural men’s needs may be, I can’t see that those divergent preferences are equally admirable.
To think that all these differences could result merely from cultural arrangements is naïve in the extreme. We now have overwhelming evidence that Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “difference in man and woman”—by which she meant behavioral, psychological, and moral dispositions—is in part grounded in biology. Scientists once reticent in their assertions have become very bold. In 2011 the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology brought leading experts together. Psychologist Melissa Hines, for decades a respected researcher on the effects of prenatal hormones on gender, reaffirms their power but allows for two other newly proven influences: direct genetic effects on the brain, and the intrauterine environment. Neurobiologist Margaret McCarthy agrees that genes as well as hormones matter. She adds new evidence for how male and female become different in the hippocampus and amygdala—parts of the emotional brain outside the hypothalamus. Gender psychologists Sheri Berenbaum and Adriene Beltz show how exposure to high levels of prenatal androgens masculinizes later activity and occupational interests, sexual orientation, and some aspects of spatial ability, and they also find that pubertal hormones appear to influence gender identity and perhaps some male-female differences in psychiatric illness.
Neurobiologist Ai-Min Bao and her colleague Dick Swaab reviewed growing evidence for sex differences in the human hypothalamus and found that male-to-female transsexuals resemble women in these measures. They believe that male-female differences in cognition, gender identity, sexual orientation, and neuropsychiatric disorders are “programmed into our brain” very early on and, remarkably, that “there is no evidence that one’s postnatal social environment plays a crucial role in gender identity or sexual orientation.” Simon LeVay, who wrote the introduction for the special issue, had an established reputation as a neuroscientist studying the visual system when he came out to the world after showing that in one hypothalamic area gay men resemble women and differ from heterosexual men. Two decades later, he reconsiders the idea that social experience influences sexual orientation and gender identity, concluding that “little direct evidence supports this notion at present.”
The work is ongoing. Julia Sacher and her colleagues, in a 2013 summary of brain-imaging studies, found differences beyond the hypothalamus. Controlling for brain size, women have more gray matter and a thicker cerebral cortex. Women show stronger connectivity in the left brain, men in the right, contradicting expectations about men’s logic and women’s emotionality. Some studies find differences in the corpus callosum, a huge highway across the brain, which could mean the hemispheres collaborate better in women. Many studies show brain differences in activation of particular circuits in emotional and mental states, although this need not be causal. In 2014 Amber Ruigrok and her colleagues reanalyzed 126 brain-imaging studies and found several anatomical differences, although even such structural differences could theoretically result from upbringing. However, Sacher also showed in 2013 that there are many functional changes in brain activity over the menstrual cycle.
It’s important to understand that the similarities between men and women’s brains are much greater than any differences; the differences that exist are unrelated to general intelligence, but they are tied to specific dispositions. A key finding is that the male amygdala is relatively larger and dotted with testosterone receptors, while the prefrontal cortex, which inhibits aggressive and other impulses coming from the amygdala, is larger and develops earlier in women. These differences, combined with hormonal effects on the prenatal hypothalamus, could help explain why men greatly exceed women in violence and driven sexuality.
Incidentally, it used to be said that women could not be airline pilots or heads of state because of the supposed emotional swings of the menstrual cycle. That was before a landmark study, “Body Time and Social Time,” by sociologist Alice Rossi and economist Peter Rossi, the first and perhaps the only major menstrual cycle study that included men. For one thing, weekends had a much bigger impact than cycle phases. More importantly, men had the same number of bad days a month as women, except that the women’s were cyclical. So, would you rather have your airliner or your country piloted by someone who has bad days at random or someone who has the same number of bad days coming around like clockwork?
As for women being more emotional in general, we have seen that it depends on which emotions we are talking about. Women cry more easily, but male politicians tear up quite frequently in public. Women show more empathy in most situations, but men are far more likely to have violence on a hair trigger in international relations, and to feel and succumb to inappropriate and even destructive impulses while in office. Men are far more often distracted by sexual impulses and fantasies, even if these don’t result in problematic behavior. And if egotism and exaggerated ambition are emotional, which sex has more of those? All in all, the world will become safer and more efficient as women take their proper roles in leadership.
Excerpted from "Women After All: Sex, Evolution and the End of Male Supremacy" by Melvin Konnner, M.D. Published by W.W. Norton & Company. Copyright 2015 by Melvin Konner, M.D. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. |
Advertisement Osceola County homeowner shoots, kills intruder Homeowner not charged, deputies say Share Shares Copy Link Copy
Detectives are investigating a fatal shooting that happened Wednesday night in St. Cloud, according to the Osceola County Sheriff's Office.At 9:43 p.m., deputies went to a residence on Aladdin Court in reference to a shooting.Deputies spoke with the homeowner, Joseph McKinney, who indicated that he, his wife and a friend were in the living room when they heard what sounded like someone entering the back of the home. The homeowner retrieved a handgun and walked to the back of the house.The intruder had entered the screened-in porch area and was attempting to open the door that leads to the kitchen. The homeowner asked the suspect who he was and told him to leave, but the suspect lunged at him, so the homeowner fired his weapon, officials said. The suspect then pushed the homeowner onto a table and was on top of him, causing the homeowner to shoot a second time.Osceola County Fire Rescue transported the man, later identified as Bo Alexander Garris, 30, to St. Cloud Regional Medical Center, where he died of his injuries.Joseph and Ann McKinney are recovering from Wednesday night's ordeal at their home."It's extremely hard. Think about it: taking another man's life. No one wants to do that," said Jerry Hoffman, a family friend."He spoke with that individual and asked him who he was and what he was doing in his home. That individual lunged at the homeowner twice, which forced the homeowner to shoot the suspect," said Twis Lizasuain, with the Osceola County Sheriff's Office."My friend defended his home and he did what he needed to, and that's all they are going to say right now. It's emotionally and mentally draining the whole family," Hoffman said.Detectives said the homeowner did not know the suspect, who lived at 1995 Aladdin Court.Garris had a criminal history including drug, battery and trespassing charges.Based on the circumstances of the incident, detectives did not charge the homeowner.The investigation is ongoing at this time.14277264 |
By all accounts, Kevin Ives and Don Henry were pretty average teenagers. They weren’t trouble makers, by any regard, but they also weren’t above getting into a little mischief from time to time.
According to witnesses, the boys had spent most of the night of August 22, 1987, hanging around a local parking lot – a popular spot for teens in the small town of Alexander, Arkansas. Kevin had been staying at Don’s house that night and, as promised, the boys checked in just a little after midnight. But they had no intention of sticking around.
Don walked in and asked his father if he and Kevin could go out “spotlighting” – hunting at night with flashlights. The practice was outlawed – never mind that it wasn’t even deer season – but Curtis Henry trusted that Don knew his way around the woods as good as anyone and agreed that the boys could go out there.
When Curtis Henry had realized that neither of the boys had returned home by 5 AM he knew that something had been very wrong. Henry called up Linda Ives and asked if she had seen the boys. She was under the impression that the boys had slept at Henry’s house. Henry admitted that he had allowed the boys to go out hunting that night and that they had never returned that morning. Both Henry and Ives had that sinking feeling in their gut that something terrible had happened and set out to try to find the boys.
The Boys on the Tracks
What had begun as a routine trip from Texarkana to Little Rock, became anything but routine within the early morning hours of Sunday, August 23, 1987.
The crew manning the cargo train had just gotten into the town of Alexander, located approximately 25 miles south of Little Rock. As engineer Stephen Shroyer descended Bryant Hill, the only thing that had been on his mind is making sure the train stayed within the federal speed limit of 25 mph. Nearing the bottom of the hill, Shroyer noticed an unusual dark spot that appeared to be located in the middle of the tracks. As the train sped closer Shroyer sounded the horn, alerting whatever critter had found its way onto the tracks to clear out, but the spot didn’t budge. Inching ever closer to the mysterious dark spot, Shroyer’s annoyance quickly turned to concern as he realized what had been on the tracks.
Shroyer pulled the emergency break, but it was already too late. The crew was met with a mighty thud as the breaks screeched and ground to a halt.
Fearing to face what they had already known, one by one the crew exited the engine in order to get a closer look at the macabre scene that awaited them. In all their years of working for the railroad, none of the men had ever experienced an accident involving a human being, let alone two, but they had plenty of experience running over animals who made the unfortunate decision to walk in front of a moving train. They expected to be met by a bloodbath but were shocked to see that though limbs from the two boys had been scattered around the area, there was surprisingly very little blood to speak of.
Still shaken to the core, Shroyer radioed the police and explained the bizarre accident that had just occurred. This was only the beginning for two families driven together by the mysterious deaths of their teenage sons and at least one woman’s fight to seek justice for everyone involved.
Railroaded
When Saline County Sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene, the railroad crew described seeing the two boys lined up on the tracks side-by-side. There had been a tarp pulled over them, almost like a blanket. They were later told that this tarp must have been an optical illusion, even though one of the crew members managed to pull a piece of it out of a ditch that ran along the tracks.
It wasn’t long after the boys had been found that word had gotten back to Curtis Henry on the fate of Kevin and Don. Already there were wild rumors around town that the boys had been shot and tied to the tracks. Henry just couldn’t wrap his mind around how that would have happened, though, considering how well Don had known those woods. Linda Ives was as equally shocked after learning the news. She could do nothing but wait for her husband Larry – who, ironically enough, had also worked for the railroad – to return home.
Within weeks of the boys’ bizarre deaths, the families were asked to meet with medical examiner Dr. Fahmy Malak to discuss the circumstances that had led to the boys’ demise. According to Dr. Malak’s report, “At 4:25 AM on August 23, 1987, Larry Kevin Ives (17) and Don George Henry (16) were unconscious and in a deep sleep on the railroad tracks, under the psychedelic influence of THC (marijuana), when a train passed over them causing their accidental death.” Dr. Malak explained that the boys had smoked the equivalent of 20 marijuana cigarettes, causing them to lose consciousness and fall asleep there on the tracks. When the train came they didn’t hear it and were crushed to death.
Linda Ives didn’t know much about marijuana but had a hard time believing that marijuana intoxication would cause a person to completely lose consciousness. Officially the deaths of Kevin Ives and Don Henry were ruled an accident, but that explanation didn’t make sense and both families called Dr. Malak’s report into question. The families quickly realized that if they wanted any sort of serious investigation into the death of their boys, then they would have to do it themselves.
The first thing Linda Ives wanted to do was to have a second opinion on Dr. Malak’s ruling. She requested to have samples sent to another forensic pathologist out of Memphis named Dr. J.T. Francisco. Dr. Francisco’s conclusion matched Malak’s. It was later learned that Dr. Francisco had not had the samples tested at all, concluding that he could infer that Malak performed the analysis properly because he knew that his lab used standard procedures. Both families refused to give up and instead located two forensic pathologists who were notable for their work with marijuana. Both of these pathologists were blocked by Malak’s offices from gaining access to tissue and fluid samples.
With Malak blocking the families’ investigations, both families felt they had no choice but to turn to the media for help. The Iveses and the Henrys called a press conference in order to discuss their dissatisfaction with the investigation and publicly called into question the rulings of Dr. Fahmy Malak.
The Ruling of Dr. Malak
The press conference was enough to persuade former Sheriff James Steed to call for Arkansas State Police to reopen the investigation. During the hearing, an ambulance driver who was called to the scene the morning of the boys’ death recalled that she had to drive through a patch of woods in order to get close to the location the boys had been hit. As she maneuvered her ambulance through the woods she came across three men who claimed they were volunteer firefighters for a neighboring city and wanted to see what was going on.
This information convinced state police to reopen the case for further examination and the boys’ cause of death was changed from “accidental” to “unknown.” Eager to spearhead the preliminary hearing before the grand jury was an ambitious attorney named Dan Harmon. Harmon had been running for election and hoped that challenging a guy like Dr. Malak would make him a popular choice for state prosecutor at the polls.
During this hearing, Malak’s ruling would be overturned again when another medical examiner found tears in the shirt believed to have been worn by Don Henry. Henry’s shirt had been found separate from his body and had tears that were believed to have come from a sharp object, such as a knife. Additionally, tissue samples taken from Kevin’s cheek suggested that he had sustained injury from a blunt object, possibly from the butt of Don’s rifle that was found destroyed at the scene.
Other sworn testimony by Dr. Malak had begun to come into question by the media, including one incident where a man had been found decapitated and Dr. Malak testified that the gentleman’s own dog had chewed his head off. Dr. Malak’s testimony was enough to allow the suspect in the man’s death to walk free.
After this information had been made public by local journalists, then Governor Bill Clinton was asked for comment on Malak’s negligence. Clinton told reporters that he believed that Malak had been doing a great job and attributed Malak’s mistakes to being overworked and underpaid. Malak was not reprimanded for any of his bungled examinations. In fact, he was given a raise and promoted to the state’s lead medical examiner.
Even when asked to stand before a state review board, Malak was untouchable. The board ruled that no one presiding over Malak had the authority to challenge his findings. Investigative journalists have pointed out at least one possible reason for this unusual decision.
Dozens of witnesses were brought forward to testify before Harmon’s grand jury. These witnesses included law enforcement officers, EMTs, and railroad workers, among others. Out of roughly 125 people who had information related to the deaths of Don Henry and Kevin Ives, not a single suspect could be produced in either of their deaths.
“Arkancided”
As it would turn out, in the months proceeding what the grand jury had deemed as the “possible homicides” of Kevin and Don, other unexplained and unusual deaths began popping up around Saline County. One-by-one, anyone who may have known anything about the deaths of the two boys on the railroad tracks died under mysterious circumstances. Among them had been Keith McKaskle, a bar owner on the outskirts of dry Saline County who dealt in methamphetamine, and had also been known to work as a police informant.
McKaskle eluded to one officer he knew well that he had some information about what happened on the railroad tracks the night Kevin and Don were found. None of this information was ever proven and McKaskle was one of the few people who could provide that information to the grand jury. He was found stabbed to death in his own driveway.
The death of McKaskle may have been considered a coincidence. A rough end to a man who lived a rough life, but he wouldn’t be the first, nor the last, person connected to the case who would turn up dead. Within months of McKaskle’s fatal stabbing,
Gregory Collins who also allegedly had information to present to the grand jury in regards to Kevin’s and Don’s deaths died from a gunshot wound to the head. His death had later been ruled a suicide.
If the deaths of two key witnesses weren’t enough, Keith Koney, another boy who had known Kevin and Don and had allegedly gone with the boys to the tracks that night, had also died under mysterious circumstances within months of Kevin and Don’s discovery. According to reports, Koney had been driving his motorcycle at a high rate of speed when he crashed into the back of a semi-truck. Some say it was a tragic accident, while others believe that he was being chased because of what he may have known.
With the difficulty the grand jury had with keeping witnesses alive, it isn’t any wonder why this case still remains unsolved. Several other loose connections had been made to the case and other people who have died under extremely odd circumstances within the state of Arkansas, but whether those connections were made in an attempt to stretch the truth in a political smear campaign or whether those connections are far more solid than what is provable is anyone’s guess. What is known is that in spite of the efforts that may have been taken to silence those who knew too much about the case, the grand jury did later rule conclusively that Kevin and Don had been murdered and their causes of death were determined to be bonafied homicides.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Meanwhile, Linda Ives’ quest for truth began to lose steam. While it seemed like Dan Harmon was the only person of any power fighting to find the truth on behalf of two teenagers who never got to grow up, his motive was much more sinister than what would meet the eye.
It was learned that years after Harmon was tasked with assembling the grand jury in the case of the train deaths of Kevin Ives and Don Henry that Harmon, himself, may have known more about the morning the boys were found than he had let on. Unknown to most of the community, Dan Harmon had been heavily involved in the local drug trade, particularly drug parcels that were regularly dropped around the area.
On the night Kevin and Don went spotlighting, a woman named Sharlene Wilson claimed that she too had been on the railroad tracks. She, Dan Harmon, Keith McKaskle, and others had all met there in anticipation for a scheduled drug drop. The group hadn’t realized that Kevin, Don and other boys from the area had heard stories about airplanes flying low near the area and wanted to check it out for themselves. Whether it was simple curiosity or if the boys had planned to steal the drugs for themselves is up for debate, but according to Wilson, when the boys were spotted something had to be done about them.
In Mara Leveritt’s book Boys on the Tracks, she claimed that in Wilson’s confession letter, Wilson described the men roughing the boys up, before handing them a knife from her boot. Don had been stabbed and Kevin had been knocked out before being placed on the track and covered with a tarp. The group then piled into Wilson’s car with drugs in tow and fled the scene.
Harmon, who would later become county prosecutor, had been eager to assemble the grand jury on the case. Linda Ives had believed that Harmon, a father himself, had seen the lack of justice for her family, as well as the Henrys, and had taken pitty on them. It was later learned that Harmon’s motive was to find out the names of local informants and others who may have information on what had really occurred that night and take them down one by one.
In spite of Wilson’s confession, which many believed to be credible since it implicated herself in the crime, Dan Harmon was never considered to be a suspect.
Aftermath
Eventually, drugs would get the best of Dan Harmon and he has been in and out of prison for a number of drug-related charges. Harmon’s most recent arrest was in 2010 after he was caught selling hydrocodone and morphine to an undercover police officer near a school. He has never received any charges related to the train murders, in spite of Sharlene Wilson and other witnesses being able to place him at the scene that night.
Prosecutors may have been reluctant to pursue a case against Harmon, but Linda Ives refused to back down. Ives, with the help of former DEA Agent Jean Duffy, formed an organization to raise funds in order to file a civil suit against Harmon, as well as other elected officials who she believes were instrumental in covering up the deaths of her son and Don Henry.
To date, Linda Ives has not taken Harmon to civil court. As recently as 2016, Ives has filed suit against multiple government agencies as well as local Saline police for their refusal to answer to Ives’ Freedom of Information Act requests and for withholding information in regards to her son and Don Henry’s deaths. The train murder case remains open to this day. |
At 6:45 p.m. local time, Merritt then entered the Walmart with a woman and a 5-year-old child, according to investigators.
Witnesses said he was no more than 10 feet inside the automatic doors when authorities swarmed in and tackled him. He gave himself up willingly, they added.
"Ten officers came out with the suspect, he didn't resist, they put him right in the car after checking him," witness Brandon Copeland told KPNX.
At a news conference Friday night, authorities said Merritt owned a weapon that was "forensically linked" to the first four shootings.
The first three shootings occurred on Aug. 29 and the fourth the following night, hitting a tour bus, SUV and two cars, all of them on Interstate 10. No one was injured.
Frank Milstead, director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, noted that others may have also been involved in the remaining shootings. "I believe we have some copycats that decided to participate," he said Friday.
Merritt's father told The Associated Press that his son had nothing to do with the shootings and that anyone who says he was involved is a "moron."
Leslie Merritt Sr. said he believes his son is being made a scapegoat by police who were desperate to make an arrest under immense public pressure. "He has way too much value for human life to even take the slightest or remotest risk of actually injuring someone," he said.
Merritt faces a range of charges that include criminal endangerment, assault and unlawful discharge of a firearm.
Eleven vehicles were shot at on or near the I-10 freeway running through Phoenix since Aug. 29, authorities have said, although some of those incidents involved bullets and others were what has been only described as projectiles.
Ducey praised the work of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and said the investigation remains ongoing.
"Are there others out there? Are there copycats? That is possible," Milstead said.
The last confirmed shooting was on Sept. 10, when a bullet strike was found on a truck-tractor — although it wasn’t clear when and where the vehicle was when it was shot. The only person injured in the shootings was a 13-year-old girl hurt by flying glass.
Three of the shootings involved unspecified projectiles while eight involved bullets, the Arizona Department of Public Safety has said. One of the shootings involving bullets was preceded by a "road rage" incident, police said.
Some drivers told NBC News they were avoiding using the freeway over fear of being shot. A reward of $50,000 was offered for information leading to an arrest.
Officials said the investigation continues into potential suspects in the other shooting incidents.
"The overhead freeway signs will stay lit," Graves said Saturday. "We are asking for leads."
Earlier Friday, a local 19-year-old who had been described as a "person of interest" in the case was ordered released from jail. He was never named as a suspect in the shootings, and authorities never explained why he was considered a person of interest.
Prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss a petition to revoke the man's probation after police failed to provide a police report or investigation documents, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office said. The 19-year was detained on Sept. 11 but was booked on a possession of marijuana charge. |
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has refused to share “specific details” on the government’s decision to recall high-value banknotes, citing threat to the country’s sovereignty, integrity and security besides danger to life, Bloomberg News reported.
The report comes amid contradictory claims by the government and the RBI that the decision to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes was taken by the other.
Bloomberg said it asked the central bank 14 questions between December 8 and January 2 but the central bank “claimed exemptions” to some of these and skirted others saying it had “no information”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation on November 8, a decision that sucked out 86% of the currency notes in circulation and left millions lining up at banks and ATMs for cash.
The government has come under stinging criticism from the opposition for allegedly taking the decision without preparing for the cash crunch that followed. The government has defended the move as an attack on illicit cash and counterfeiting.
“To a question seeking details on the number of demonetised notes already at banks on the evening of PM Modi’s speech, the RBI claimed an exemption, citing danger to the life or physical safety of anyone who disclosed this information to the public,” Bloomberg said.
“The RBI also claimed exemptions on two questions seeking detail on its preparations for the demonetisation and studies it used to forecast the impact of the move. Sharing these ‘sensitive matters’ would endanger India’s sovereignty, integrity and security,” it added.
The government told parliament in November the decision to withdraw the 500 and 1000-rupee banknotes was taken by the RBI.
RBI, however, told a parliamentary panel it was the government which “advised” it on November 7 to go for demonetisation.
“The cloak of secrecy that has shrouded the currency ban decision is likely to bolster the view that authorities, both on Mint Street and in New Delhi, were not prepared for such a decision and the way it was announced,” Bloomberg said.
“It risks undermining perceptions of the central bank’s independence and raises questions about PM Modi’s decision-making style and his communication with the RBI,” the report added.
First Published: Jan 13, 2017 13:17 IST |
The year is 2108, and things aren’t going so well for Team Humanity. Earth is so overcrowded that people live in hive-like concrete cubicles called Public Residence Clusters and subsist on reconstituted soy. Things aren’t much better 30 light years away, in Earth’s run-down Outer Colonies. No wonder the hero of Marko Kloos’ first novel, Terms of Enlistment, joins the spacegoing military to escape those terrestrial slums. By Kloos’ second book, Lines of Departure, his protagonist is half a decade into a career that includes vicious interstellar conflict with an indestructible alien species. Think Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers with maybe a dash of James Cameron’s Aliens.
On March 19, 2015, Kloos, a former noncommissioned officer in the German military who now lives in rural New Hampshire, sat down at his computer in his tiny study. Angles of Attack, the third book in his series, was a month away from release; he was on deadline with the fourth. But instead of writing, Kloos found himself staring at an email from the organizers of science fiction’s preeminent awards: “We are very pleased to tell you that Lines of Departure is one of the 2015 Hugo finalists in the Best Novel category.”
He was ecstatic. “This is the Hugo we’re talking about,” Kloos says, “The big one! It was a pretty happy time.” Sure, the genre gives other prizes—the Nebula, the Tiptree, the Philip K. Dick. But since 1953, when the first silver rocket trophies were bestowed, Hugo winners have included deities of the field like Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clarke, William Gibson, and Octavia Butler. Named for pioneering editor Hugo Gernsback, the Hugos are the Oscars of sci-fi—with a dollop of the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, because they aren’t bestowed by members of an academy. Any and all science fiction fans who care to pay a membership fee can vote. For Kloos, who self-published his first novel before signing with Amazon’s 47North imprint in 2013, being named a Hugo finalist for his sophomore effort was enormously validating.
Which is why it was so devastating when he realized a few weeks later that his short-listing was, in his eyes, a sham. It turned out that activists angered by the increasingly multicultural makeup of Hugo winners—books featuring women, gay and lesbian characters, and people and aliens of every color—had gamed the voting system, mounting a campaign for slates of nominees made up mostly of white men. Kloos, who is white, says he was sickened to see his name listed. “I knew right away I was going to have to sit down and write an email and reject the nomination,” Kloos says. To his publisher, whose authors had never gotten a Hugo nod, Kloos was blunt. “This is the kind of stink,” he said, “that doesn’t wash off.”
It is the early 21st century, and things aren’t going so well for Team Humanity. Back in April, when the mainstream press first started reporting on the attempt to hijack the Hugos, few outside the field cared. The edging out of fan-favorite authors who were women and people of color was unfortunate and ugly, but it seemed confined to one of literature’s crummier neighborhoods—nerd-on-nerd violence.
But like the sound of starship engines, the Hugos don’t exist in a vacuum. “Gamergate” spawns rape threats aimed at women who have the temerity to offer opinions about videogames. The leading representatives of mainstream political parties build platforms around fear of Muslims and Planned Parenthood. A certain strain of comic book fan goes apoplectic when Captain America gets replaced with a black man and Thor gets replaced with a woman. (When Thor once got replaced by a frog, no one uttered a peep. Or a ribbit.) Mad Max: Fury Road, in which Charlize Theron seeks to rescue a bunch of women from sex slavery and Max is more of a sidekick, drove the so-called mens’ rights movement into a froth.
It looks an awful lot like a counterrevolution—a push by once-powerful forces attempting to reclaim privileged status. Nowhere is this revanchism playing out more vividly than in the culturally potent literary subgenre of science fiction.
“I love chaos. I wanted to leave a big, smoking hole where the Hugos were.”
The three white men who led this movement broke no rules when they selected and promoted their Hugo nominees. They took advantage of a loophole in an arcane voting process that enables a relatively small number of voters to dominate. First a group calling itself the Sad Puppies posted a slate of suggested candidates to a well-trafficked blog (a slate that included women writers as well as men). Then, a day later, a more militant wing, the Rabid Puppies, posted another slate that captured most of the original writers and added several more—with a directive that people vote it without deviating, creating an unstoppable bloc. Now, all the various Puppies insist they’re trying to expand, not reduce, diversity (at least as they define the word). They say the Hugos have gotten snobby and exclusionary. The Puppies hate the politicization of a genre they love and want to return it to its roots: exploration of the unknown and two-fisted adventure.
Of course, like all fiction, science fiction is inherently political. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, arguably the first sci-fi novel, was a monster story that explored the ethics of technological advance and the responsibilities of parenthood. Sci-fi uses a fantastical toolkit to take apart the here and now—from H. G. Wells’ novella The Time Machine to Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, a cautionary tale of climate change. So trying to crush diversity of authors, of characters, of stories, of themes in sci-fi crushes the whole point. Which is perhaps the main reason to worry about Puppygate: Sci-fi that accommodates only one future, one kind of politics, and one kind of person just isn’t doing its job.
That’s partially why so many authors with literary aspirations come sniffing around the genre so often. It lets them wrap ethical and cultural issues in highly readable plots. And now that movies are dominated by space and superheroes, television by dragons and zombies, books by plagues and ghosts, science fiction isn’t a backwater anymore. It’s mainstream.
Over the summer, as the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention—where the Hugo winners are announced—approached, the final balloting became a referendum not only on the future of the genre but on the future of the future. “It’s one award,” N. K. Jemisin, the fantasy writer and two-time Hugo nominee, tells me, “but it’s a symbol of a battle for the zeitgeist.”
It’s the year 1939, and things aren’t going so well for the humans at the first World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon. About 200 fans have gathered in Caravan Hall at the New York World’s Fair and almost immediately started bickering. The bulk of the assembly suspects some members of a splinter group known as the Futurians—including pre-legendary Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl—of being communists plotting to disrupt the proceedings. Worldcon grandees bar them from entry. Asimov, characteristically, sneaks in.
Undeterred, the Futurians circulate a pamphlet that warns attendees of being “pounded into obedience by the controlling clique.” The pamphlet continues, “It is for YOU to decide whether you shall bow before unfair tactics and endorse the carefully arranged plans of the Convention Committee. Beware of any crafty speeches or sly appeals. BE ON YOUR GUARD!”
The Books and Stories That Sparked a Culture War
The point is, sci-fi and fantasy fandom was born in struggle over who owned the genre. The Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies aren’t even the first to campaign for the award. In 1987 the Church of Scientology successfully lobbied to get L. Ron Hubbard’s novel Black Genesis nominated for a Hugo. It finished sixth out of five nominees, defeated by “No Award.”
This time around, the leaders of the Puppies movement are sci-fi authors. All are past Hugo nominees, though none of them has ever won. Larry Correia, a 40-year-old Utah accountant, former gun store owner, and NRA lobbyist turned novelist, created the Sad Puppies three years ago. He came up with the name after seeing an ASPCA ad featuring Sarah McLachlan and forlorn canines staring into the camera. “We did a joke based on that: that the leading cause of puppy-related sadness was boring message-fic winning awards,” he says, laughing. Correia also explains that initially, in that first campaign, “our spokesman was a cartoon manatee named Wendell. Wendell doesn’t speak English. You can see we kept this really super serious, right?”
But Correia had some serious complaints. He felt that the Hugos had become dominated by what Internet conservatives call Social Justice Warriors, or SJWs for short, who value politics over plot. When Correia unleashed the Sad Puppies campaign for the second time, in 2014, two particular Hugo contenders really set his comrades off. One, a short story by John Chu called “The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere,” depicts a gay man who decides to come out to his traditional Chinese family after water starts falling from the sky on anyone who tells a lie. And in Ann Leckie’s debut novel Ancillary Justice, most of the characters in a far-future galactic empire do not see gender, which Leckie conveys by using only female pronouns.
Correia’s Warbound lost to Leckie’s novel at the 2014 Hugos. This year, the Puppies got his Monster Hunter Nemesis a nomination, but he turned it down. “I very specifically don’t want this to be about me,” he says, “and I didn’t want them to be able to make it about me.” Correia and Brad Torgersen, a 41-year-old chief warrant officer in the Army Reserve who took over the third Sad Puppies campaign this year, tell me they’re not racist or sexist or antigay. They just want sci-fi to be less preachy and upper-crusty and more fun. Torgersen calls his books blue-collar speculative fiction; on the phone from the Middle East, where he is currently deployed, Torgersen laments what he calls “the cognitive dissonance of people saying, ‘No, the Hugos are about quality,’ and then at the same time they’re like: ‘Ooh, we can vote for this author because they’re gay,’ or ‘Ooh, we’re going to vote for this author because they’re not white.’”
Torgersen often notes in interviews that he’s been married to an African-American woman for 21 years, so “I don’t need some know-it-all to come lecture me about race stuff,” he tells me. Torgersen says the Hugos are beset by identity politics—and are the poorer for it: “When people go on about how we’re anti-diversity, I’m like: No. All we’re saying is storytelling ought to come first.”
Ah, but of course that’s not all the Puppies are saying. At least, not the Rabid faction. Their leader is a self-described libertarian blogger named Theodore Beale who goes by the pen name Vox Day—loosely, “the Voice of God,” though he says the meaning of the name is more complex. He’s a 47-year-old former rocker (he wrote songs for Psykosonik) and is the son of a wealthy Minnesota entrepreneur and Republican leader currently in jail for tax evasion. Beale speaks five languages, he tells me, and one of his children “is the youngest male published author in history.” The book came out when the boy was 6.
“Science fiction is not actually the literature of the future. It’s the literature of the present.”
Beale also says that he’s not white. “I’m Native American. My great-grandfather rode with Pancho Villa, and I get to do that—make that claim—according to the rules of SJW.” When I ask how much Native American blood he has, he says, “I’m not going to go into details, but I will say that it is so significant that even my kids qualify for tribal membership. I’m a mix. I mean, I’m also considered a Mexican. I have the genetic analysis.”
Based on his voluminous writings, Beale—who writes fiction, edits for a small publisher called Castalia House, and designs games—opposes racial diversity, homosexuality, and women’s suffrage. Speaking by phone from his home in Northern Italy, Beale quibbles with that analysis. For example, he says he doesn’t oppose all women’s suffrage, just women voting in a representative democracy. The reason: “Women are very, very highly inclined to value security over liberty” and thus are “very, very easy to manipulate.” He favors direct democracy—and, obviously, men.
Having a conversation with Beale feels sort of like walking around a room designed by M. C. Escher. It turns in on itself in unexpected and at times dizzying ways. A sampling: When I ask him why he once called Jemisin, who is black, an “educated, but ignorant half-savage” on his blog, he says it wasn’t because of her race. Then he launches into an explication of what he calls “new” genetic research, which he says he doesn’t expect very many people to understand.
When I point out that he was intentionally baiting a person of color with a term that has racial overtones, his answer sounds positively gleeful. “I’m calling her a half-savage because I know it’s going to offend the crap out of her,” Beale says. “She’s going to run around screaming ‘Racist! Racist!’ for the next 10 years.” A beat, and then he adds: “I don’t consider all black people to be half-savages. I mean, some people are. Here in Europe, for example, we have actual proper Africans, not African-Americans. This leads to problems, like people shitting on top of the closed toilets. They don’t know how to use indoor plumbing, OK? This is not civilized behavior.”
Torgersen says he believes Vox Day is a character Beale plays. “It’s performance art, like Andy Kaufman. He’s Darth Vader breathing heavily into your phone. He wants people to be enraged and flipping out and tearing their hair and losing their minds. And he gets that every single time.”
Beale—whose slate got five of Castalia House’s writers and editors, including himself, on this year’s Hugo ballot—acknowledges his rogue reputation. “I love chaos,” he says. “I wanted to leave a big, smoking hole where the Hugo Awards were. All this has ever been is a giant ‘fuck you’—one massive gesture of contempt.”
It is ... well, some vaguely medieval period in a land with teleportation and magicians called scriveners, and things aren’t going so well for the brown-skinned, matriarchal warriors in the barony of Darr, one of many territories in the world of N. K. Jemisin’s debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (first in a trilogy, of course). To obtain birth control, poorer people buy illegal, bootleg spells called sigils that last only a month, or they risk sterilization or death by trying to apply sigils to themselves. The Darre people have also managed to enslave several of their gods. And the gods? They’re pissed. Like Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Jemisin’s world is what’s called in the trade a secondary world, “but it’s not meant to emulate anything that looks like our world or any of our cultures,” she says. And that, of course, is part of the point.
Writer Annie Bellet. Writer Marko Kloos. Sasquan Masquerade participants walk towards the staging room. A masquerade participant stands for a photo. Masquerade participants wait to go on stage. Masquerade participants walk towards the auditorium. A Sasquan attendee in costume. A Sasquan attendee in costume. A masquerade participant gets ready to go on stage. Sasquan attendees in costume. Guests fill the auditorium at the 2015 Hugo Awards in Spokane, Washington. The 2015 Hugo Award seen onstage before the ceremony. Kevin Liu (L), the translator of the Cixin Liu’s Best Novel-winning The Three-Body Problem and John W. Campbell Award winner Wesley Chu had to don rubber coneheads. George RR Martin hands out his own "Alphie" awards at the Hugo Losers Party. A cake made for George RR Martin's Losers Party.
When Jemisin was in elementary school in Mobile, Alabama, she noticed that no one in any of the stories in the sci-fi section of her local library looked like her. “I had picked up the fact that science fiction and fantasy was about white people,” she says. So the description of the protagonist in Octavia Butler’s novel Dawn hit Jemisin like a lightning bolt. “I remember the mention of her family name, and the fact that she’d married a Nigerian man, and people’s reactions to her,” she says. “I suddenly had this ‘Oh, my God, she’s black’ moment.” Jemisin came by her confusion honestly: The cover of the 1987 edition featured a white woman with black hair. In later editions, the illustration was changed to a black woman.
Women and people of color have always written science fiction—Butler, Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Samuel R. Delany, Margaret Atwood, and many more. They’ve made comic books and videogames and movies too. But today these properties aren’t alt-texts anymore. As science fiction has become mainstream, the genre has gotten more diverse. Major comic book publishers are foregrounding women and people of color. The casts of the new Star Wars movies have their diversity cranked to It’s a Small World levels.
So you might be asking yourself: Isn’t there room for everybody under the science fiction tent? You guys over there can keep reading hard military sci-fi where the physics of deceleration from 0.5c is a plot point. And you guys over here can read about a transgendered person with dark skin and epicanthic folds pondering the existential implications of sex with an AI.
But here’s the honest truth, as Jemisin has eloquently blogged: White male authors have long enjoyed unacknowledged privileges. Even today, their books are more likely to get published, more likely to be reviewed (usually by white men), and more likely to get those reviews in prominent, mainstream publications—even though, Jemisin says, the audience for sci-fi and fantasy books includes so many women and people of color.
Jemisin recently published her sixth novel—The Fifth Season—which garnered her first-ever review, a rave, in the New York Times Sunday books section. The book explores themes of oppression that are not foreign to her; indeed, Jemisin has gone to battle with Beale. “He dances up to the line and tries very carefully not to cross it,” she says. “He simply says, ‘This person is not human,’ then opens his comments section and doesn’t stop anyone when they start saying, ‘We should run a train on that bitch.’ This is the standard modus operandi for white supremacists who don’t want to go to jail.”
“Nerd culture brings everyone together. People don’t care what you look like.”
Despite all the bile sprayed at her (the “train” threat is a euphemism for gang rape), Jemisin still believes that her chosen genre has a lofty purpose. “Science fiction is not actually the literature of the future,” she says. “It’s the literature of the present, viewing the future as allegory.”
Yet amid the Puppies debate, something else is going on, too: In a genre defined by curiosity, by the question “What if?” and by yearning for a sense of wonder, some fans acknowledge that modern science fiction can feel infected with a certain academic torpor—if not outright self-indulgence. As one Sad Puppy supporter I met at this summer’s Worldcon grumbled, “Just because you had a dream doesn’t mean we all want to read it,” he said. “Just because you have an MFA and write a story, you may win a Hugo, but don’t kid yourself: Some of this stuff is unreadable.”
Annie Bellet wouldn’t go that far, but she does admire many of the authors the Puppies championed. The 34-year-old writer of self-published urban fantasy novels had a short story, “Goodnight Stars,” on both the Sad and Rabid Puppies slates and received her first Hugo nomination this year. Still, she—like Kloos—took her name out of the running. “I love the Hugo Awards,” Bellet tells me in an emotional interview in the convention hall. “To be nominated was awesome. But I’m a writer. That’s what I want my public face to be. I don’t want people to think of me as some political figure or some ball in a political game.”
For Bellet, the Sad Puppies aren’t abstractions—they’re people she actually knows. She thinks Correia is a “great guy” and loves his seven-book Monster Hunter series. And she once considered Torgersen an ally. They met in a writers’ workshop. “We came up as baby writers together. We were friends—and I’m using the past tense,” she says, wiping away tears. “He’s hurt a lot of people.”
Blond-haired, fair-skinned, and “covered in tattoos,” as she puts it, Bellet is from Portland, Oregon. “I’m adopted, and I have a sister who is black, a sister who’s Vietnamese. My mom is a lesbian. I grew up in a liberal, inclusive environment. Still, I broke a lot of noses after hearing the N-word growing up, trying to defend my little sister. So I do not understand this white persecution narrative.”
Bellet says she thinks Beale “rode” Correia and Torgersen “like ponies. I told Brad that. He said, ‘Just because we’re on the freeway in different cars heading the same direction doesn’t mean we’re together.’ I said, ‘Dude, you’re in the same car, and Vox Day is driving.’ He doesn’t get it. It makes me so sad.”
She doesn’t think Beale even read her short story. Bellet was on the Sad Puppies slate her onetime friends had promulgated, which he mostly copied. “I’m everything Vox Day doesn’t like—which I consider a badge of honor,” she tells me. “I’m a queer female writing about shape-shifters—that fantasy ‘crap’ that’s not ‘real’ science fiction.” Here’s the thing she thinks Beale doesn’t grasp, she says: “Nerd culture brings everybody together. People don’t care what you look like. If you want to be a black Khaleesi, go for it!”
Holly Andres
It is August 2015, and things are looking up for Team Humanity. Or are they? A record 11,700-plus people have bought memberships to the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention in Spokane, Washington, where the Hugo winners are soon to be announced. A record number have also forked over dues of at least $40 in time to be allowed to vote, and almost 6,000 cast ballots, 65 percent more than ever before.
But are the new voters Puppies? Or are they, in the words of Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin, “gathering to defend the integrity of the Hugos”? Just before 8 pm on August 22, in a vast auditorium packed with “trufans” dressed in wizard garb, corsets, chain mail, and the like, one question is on most attendee’s minds: Will the Puppies prevail?
The evening begins with an appearance by a fan cosplaying as the Grim Reaper, and that turns out to be an omen for the Puppies. By evening’s end, not a single Puppy-endorsed candidate takes home a rocket. In the five categories that had only Puppy-provided nominees on the ballot—Best Novella, Best Short Story, Best Related Work, and Best Editors for Short and Long Form—voters choose “No Award.”
Earlier, Beale explained to me that his plan was a “Xanatos gambit”—“that’s where you set it up so that no matter what your enemy does, he loses and you win.” No surprise then, that in an email he sends after the awards ceremony, Beale is crowing. “The scorched-earth strategy being pursued by the SJWs in science fiction is evidence that we hold the initiative and we are winning,” he writes. The number of major categories in which no awards are given “demonstrates the extent to which science fiction has been politicized and degraded by their far left politics.”
But even as Beale vows to renew the fight, John Scalzi, a novelist and three-time Hugo winner who has been among Beale’s most outspoken opponents, says the prominence of writers like Jemisin proves the war is already over. “She stands on the shoulders of every other woman and minority and gay and lesbian and trans- or bisexual folk who had to put up with shit before,” he says. “She and lots of other people are now in a position where they can firmly plant their feet and say, ‘This is bullshit,’ and have a large number of people go, ‘You’re absolutely right.’”
Which brings us back, in a roundabout way, to Martin. He has attended almost every Worldcon since 1971 and has won four Hugos and lost 15, not counting any related to the HBO show. So Martin says he can say with utter sincerity that it is an honor merely to be nominated—not because the Hugo is a hoity-toity accolade bestowed by Ivy Leaguers, as the Puppies charge, but because of the caliber of past winners, men and women alike.
Martin, the son of a longshoreman, rejects the idea that anyone has been excluded from the Hugos for being too lowbrow or politically incorrect. But, he says, it’s not a popularity contest, either. “The reward for popularity is popularity! It’s truckloads of money! Do you need the trophy, too?” he asks. “Can’t the trophy go to the guy who sells 5,000 copies but is doing something innovative?” Of course, that’s easy for someone of Martin’s stature—and success—to say. But it’s hard to argue with his lament about the hateful discourse and the name-calling that the Puppy-scuffle has prompted. At one point earlier this year, Martin was so despairing that he blogged that the Hugos had been broken. “I am not sure they can ever be repaired,” he wrote.
By the time he shows up in Spokane, however, Martin is more optimistic. Sanguine enough, in fact, to plan a Hugo Losers Party, a tradition he’d started back in 1976 but then let fall into other hands. Martin prints up invites—“Losers Welcome. Winners Will Be Mocked. No Assholes!”—hires a band and a caterer, and rents a 12,000-square-foot historic mansion. The party starts right after the Hugo ceremony ends, and winners who show up are required to don rubber coneheads. Losers get magic markers to write on the cones.
After midnight, Martin takes to a balcony to announce that, for the first time, he will bestow his own awards—dubbed the Alfies in honor of Alfred Bester, whose book The Demolished Man won Best Novel at the first-ever Hugos in 1953. “This year all of us were losers,” Martin says, explaining that the Alfies, made at Martin’s expense from streamlined 1950s hood ornaments, are his attempt to take a little of the sting off.
Before the Losers Party hits full swing, Worldcon releases data that allows a look at a parallel universe where the Puppies hadn’t intervened. That lets Martin give trophies to the people who would have been on the ballot if not for all the barking, as well as some extra winners decided “by committee, and that committee is me,” Martin says. Sci-fi writer Eric Flint gets an Alfie for his “eloquence and rationality” in blog posts about the Puppy kerfuffle. Legendary author Robert Silverberg, who has attended every Worldcon since 1953, receives an Alfie just for being himself.
The biggest cheers, though, break out when Martin honors Annie Bellet and Marko Kloos. The new data show Bellet would likely have been on the ballot even without the Puppy slates; the Alfie clearly stuns her. In her acceptance speech she says she wants the Hugos to “be about the fiction. And that was important enough to me to give one up.”
By turning down his Puppy-powered nomination, Kloos had made room on the ballot for the winner, Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem. Kloos tells me he was thrilled to have played even a small part in honoring the novel, and earlier in the evening he’d posed for photos with the book’s translator. Now, standing on the balcony with Martin, Kloos grips his hood ornament and grins broadly. “I may get nominated again,” he tells the partygoers. “But knowing why I got this and who gave it to me—tonight, this beats the shit out of that rocket.”
AMY WALLACE (@msamywallace) writes for Los Angeles and GQ and is coauthor, with Ed Catmull, of Creativity, Inc.
(This is an updated, extended version of a story we told in part immediately after the Hugo Awards—which you can read here.) |
CNN wants to move on from the recent scandal that revealed one of its paid contributors had shared questions from presidential forums in advance with Hillary Clinton's campaign.
The network is declaring itself in the clear of any wrongdoing, though it is not addressing some key issues.
"I can confirm we did an internal review," a high-ranking source at CNN told the Washington Examiner on Thursday. "The results are: Nobody at CNN did anything wrong."
A recent dump by WikiLeaks of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's hacked emails showed that longtime Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, then with CNN, had told the campaign ahead of a primary town hall forum in March, "From time to time I get the questions in advance."
That forum was co-hosted with TV One's Roland Martin and an analysis published by Politico suggested it was likely he who shared the question — it concerned the death penalty and it was asked at the forum — with Brazile ahead of the forum. Martin has denied he shared any questions with Brazile.
Another email from the Podesta hack showed Brazile did the same thing ahead of a debate between Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
"One of the questions directed to [Clinton] tomorrow is from a woman with a rash," the email said. Brazile said the woman would ask, "What, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the [people] of Flint, [Mich.]."
That woman did ask that question at the debate.
CNN announced Monday that it had severed ties with Brazile but it said it did so Oct. 14, more than two weeks before it announced that step. Brazile had already had her contract with CNN suspended in July when she took over as the head of the DNC.
CNN did not say why it had not announced the separation at the time it supposedly occurred.
News reports have said that CNN head Jeff Zucker told staff on a conference call that Brazile's question sharing was "disgusting," but CNN also didn't say how Brazile got the question about the woman with the rash in the first place.
"No one from CNN ever gave Donna or anyone else anything," the CNN source told the Examiner. "We've said that publicly multiple times. And as you know, Donna resigned on Oct 14."
A spokesperson for CNN would not comment on whether the network was making any changes to prevent such incidents in the future.
New York Times media critic Jim Rutenberg said in his column on Tuesday that the matter was "scandalous." Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple also described it on his blog as a "scandal." |
If you choose to believe the assorted experts from the NHL Network and NHL.com, Sidney Crosby will leave Las Vegas with the Hart Trophy (MVP) in 2013.
Of the six NHL Network members (Kelly Chase, EJ Hradek, Mike Johnson, Barry Melrose, Kathryn Tappen and Kevin Weekes) and six NHL.com staffers (Arpon Basu, Adam Kimelmen, Dave Lozo, Corey Masisak, Shawn Roarke and Dan Rosen), eight believe the Pittsburgh Penguins' superstar will be the NHL's most valuable player.
Three of the remaining four chose Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning, with one lone wolf choosing Tyler Seguin of the Boston Bruins to win the award.
The prognostication of the Stanley Cup champion was far more varied.
The New York Rangers were pegged to win their first Stanley Cup since 1994 and second since 1940 by three experts, while the Penguins also had three backers to win the Cup. The Kings, Canucks, Flyers, Bruins, and Wild also received support from the panelists.
It seems the only thing our 12 experts agreed on was the Boston Bruins winning the Northeast Division.
The Wild made the biggest splash in the summer by signing defenseman Ryan Suter and forward Zach Parise to 12-year contracts, and that has led to support from several of our predictors.
Kimelman, Roarke and Tappen have the Wild winning the Northwest Division. Melrose has the Canucks winning that division, but he sees the Wild going on a run all the way to the Stanley Cup. That would be quite the leap for the team that finished No. 24 in the League standings last year.
Only Masisak sees the Kings winning a second straight championship.
The rest of the predictions for this season are below. |
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My mother was just on the phone complaining that it’s impossible to find anything other than seedless watermelons these days. Is this true? As a summertime public service to her and all the rest of my melon-loving readers, here is Jane Black’s investigative reporting on this vital issue in the Washington Post last year:
According to the National Watermelon Promotion Board, only 16 percent of watermelons sold in grocery stores have seeds, down from 42 percent in 2003. In California and the mid-South, home to the country’s biggest watermelon farms, the latest figures are 8 and 13 percent, respectively. The numbers seem destined to tumble. Recently developed hybrids do not need seeded melons for pollination — more on that later — which liberates farmers from growing melons with spit-worthy seeds. ….I decided to do a side-by-side comparison of seeded, seedless, yellow and the newly popular “personal” watermelons from Melissa’s Produce and one seeded melon from a local farmers market. The local melon was the runaway favorite….The runner-up was a seedless personal melon, which was sweet and refreshing but lacked the concentrated flavor of the local melon. Next came the seedless red and yellow melons, which were inoffensive but whose primary asset was being cold on an August afternoon. Bringing up the rear was the California seeded melon, which was mealy and tasteless with more seeds than flesh, though in this case that wasn’t a bad thing.
So there you have it. Not only is seeded watermelon hard to find, but it’s hardest to find here in California. My mother is right. On the other hand, if the California seeded melons are as bad as Black says, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Still, that just leads to another question: why are California seeded watermelons so terrible?
I don’t know, and since I don’t like watermelon in the first place, I don’t have much incentive to find out. But my mother will thank you if you provide an answer in comments. |
In a steady trickle teenage boys push their way down a dusty road to the bustling city of Goma, their bicycles buckling under the weight of 100-pound (45-kilogram) sacks of charcoal, or makala as it's known here.
The boys are part of an illegal trade that may pose the biggest threat to one of the most pristine places on the planet, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga National Park. (Read: Virunga National Park Sees Its Worst Violence in a Decade, Director Says.)
The park's dense forest is rapidly being depleted of its trees to satisfy the almost insatiable demand here for charcoal, which is used for cooking and heating by the millions of people living in this troubled region.
The lucrative charcoal trade is not only wreaking havoc on the park but also on its most famous inhabitants, the rare mountain gorillas.
Conservationists believe last month's execution of four mountain gorillas inside the park was carried out by people associated with the charcoal trade who want the park unprotected.
"The gorillas have become a hindrance for the charcoal trade," said Emmanuel de Merode, director of WildlifeDirect, a conservation group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya that supports the park rangers working in Virunga.
"There's a very strong incentive for these people to kill the gorillas."
(Editor's note, August 17: Since this story was filed on August 16, rangers announced on their blog that one more gorilla has been found dead as a result of the July attack; her infant is still missing and presumed dead, bringing the total to six.)
Rwanda Connection
Situated on the country's eastern border, with Rwanda and Uganda to the east, Virunga is Africa's oldest national park and boasts the highest biodiversity on the continent.
More than half of the world's 700 remaining mountain gorillas are found in Virunga.
But the park has been torn apart over the years by a procession of armed groups—from ragtag rebel militias to foreign armies—fighting over its natural riches.
"The last 15 years of Congo's history have been defined by the illegal exploitation of natural resources," de Merode said. "The charcoal trade definitely fits into that reality."
He estimates that the charcoal trade in Goma, a city of 500,000 people, alone is worth 30 million U.S. dollars.
"When you talk about charcoal, people think of this mom-and-pop, small-scale business, but it's not that at all," de Merode said. "It's a massive industry."
Much of the trade is connected to neighboring Rwanda, which has maintained a strong influence in eastern Congo ever since its troops drove out militiamen hiding here after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
In contrast, Congo's central government, based in Kinshasa more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) west, has little political say over what goes on in the eastern part of its territory.
In 2004 Rwanda passed a law banning the production of charcoal within its borders.
That has put enormous pressure on the country to find charcoal for its nine million people somewhere else, de Merode said.
"Rwanda is unsustainable in terms of natural resources within its own borders, so it has to look to the outside," he said.
"What's happened is that there's only one real source of charcoal for Rwanda, and that's Virunga National Park."
Corruption Charges
The charcoal is mostly made inside the forest by small-scale producers, Virunga rangers say.
After a tree is cut down, the large branches are used to build a makeshift dome, which is covered with mud and set on fire. The mud makes the wood burn more strongly and form charcoal, a process that takes a couple of days.
The producers are organized into local associations, which de Merode and other sources working in the area claim are controlled by Congolese military officials. The officials exact a tax on both the charcoal's production and its transportation, the sources claim.
A strong military presence is clearly visible in and around Virunga National Park, with soldiers manning frequent roadblocks and mingling with villagers.
The soldiers have reportedly not received paychecks in years, and rangers say some may turn to the charcoal trade and other illegal activities to support themselves and their families.
"The military is put in the park because of the armed bandits that operate there, but they're not paid, so they start making charcoal instead," said Virunga ranger Paulin Ngobobo, in his office in Goma.
Ngobobo has been in charge of Virunga's southern sector, where the gorillas live, for just over a year.
"We'll get a report from a military commander saying we cannot patrol the park for a certain time because of military maneuvers, but what they're actually doing is cutting down trees and poaching," he said.
A military official in Kinshasa, who did not want to be identified, admitted that military personnel in eastern Congo operate in large part independently from the government.
Other political observers say they believe the involvement in the charcoal trade by military officials stationed in eastern Congo is probably done without Kinshasa's approval.
Ranger Beaten by Poachers
Confronting the people in the trade is a dangerous business, as Ngobobo has repeatedly learned.
Earlier this year, while lecturing villagers about the threats of the charcoal industry to Virunga, Ngobobo was arrested by military officials, stripped of his shirt, and flogged in front of the crowd, he said.
In addition to such alleged reprisals, Ngobobo also faces challenges in convincing local villagers to shun the charcoal business.
"Everyone is making money off this trade," he said.
"The population is very poor. It's impossible for them to see the value of the park. They see it as another obstacle."
Ngobobo also has to battle what he says are some corrupt officials within the park service, who are allegedly involved in the charcoal trade as well.
It's a problem Ngobobo refers to as "internal poaching."
"Most of the park officials risk their lives to protect the park, [but] there are some people in the park service who are in collaboration with the military and the poachers," he said.
Shortly after Ngobobo posted an article on WildlifeDirect's blog on the illegal charcoal trade, he was arrested and placed in the custody of a military tribunal in Goma for two days on charges of negligence.
According to court documents, Ngobobo has been accused of neglect in the death of a Chinese tourist who fell into a nearby volcano. He is also charged with furnishing false information about the charcoal trade and obstructing the investigation into the gorilla killings.
Ngobobo says the charges are politically motivated, brought against him by officials involved in the charcoal trade who want to see him removed.
In a telephone interview with National Geographic News, Ngobobo's former supervisor, Honore Mashagiru, dismissed those allegations.
"People say things, but where's the proof?" he said. "It's not true. It's not true."
Mashagiru said Ngobobo has become the target of the charcoal traders because "he has not communicated well with the community about the issue."
Ngobobo is still facing court charges and must report daily to the tribunal.
Meanwhile, Norbert Mushenzi, a park service director who has been in charge of the northern sector of Virunga, has been assigned to Ngobobo's post to protect the gorillas.
In recent days, Mushenzi, who also has a history of speaking out against the charcoal traders, and his rangers have detained about 50 women whom they caught making charcoal in the park.
"Act of Sabotage"
Both Ngobobo and de Merode are convinced that the execution of the gorillas last month is linked to the charcoal trade.
"None of the gorillas was cut up, and there was a baby still on one of the mothers," de Merode said.
"In the history of gorilla conservation, there's never been incidents like these where a group is attacked not for meat or baby gorillas."
A baby gorilla can fetch thousands of dollars on the illegal wildlife market, he added.
The mass execution was also identical to the killing of a female gorilla 8.7 miles (14 kilometers) away on June 8.
"In terms of the whole build-up over the last year, it's a very strong case for it being planned and being vindictive," de Merode said.
"We believe this was an act of sabotage by the people in the charcoal business who want to see the gorillas dead."
De Merode says the Rwandan authorities should seek to clamp down on the charcoal trade, which he believes would lead to greater protection for the mountain gorillas. |
Philadelphia City Councilwoman Cindy Bass is pushing a controversial bill which would force business owners within the city to take down plexiglass from their establishments, Fox 29 reported. The bill is specifically designed to target convenience stores.
Bass said this bill is about giving her constituents "dignity."
According to Rich Kim, whose family has owned a deli in the area for the last 20 years, the plexiglass is about safety.
"The most important thing is safety and the public's safety," Kim told Fox 29. "If the glass comes down, the crime rate will rise and there will be lots of dead bodies."
The bulletproof glass was put up in Kim's store after a shooting. He says it saved his mother-in-law's life after she was almost attacked with a knife. If Bass' bill becomes a reality, his family would be forced to remove the barrier.
Bass sees things much differently.
“Nuisance establishments like stop-and-gos harm neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia in several ways,” Bass told Philly Magazine. “First, they contribute to increased crime. On any given day, you can find people in front of these businesses selling ‘loosies,’ or loose cigarettes, and engaging in other nuisance behaviors like loitering, public drunkenness, possible drug sales, and even public urination.”
The councilwoman also argues that there are plenty of other businesses without barriers between the employee and the customer.
“There are thousands, thousands of businesses in the city of Philadelphia that operate in those same neighborhoods that sell the same products and do not have plexiglass. For example, you have bars, which operate in those same neighborhoods, no plexiglass, and often sell food. You have beauty barber shops, beauty salons and supply stores, Rite Aids, CVS, all operate in those exact same neighborhoods and don’t have plexiglass," Bass said on The Dom Giordano Program on a local talk radio station. “There is a focus on the plexiglass but the bottom line is these are businesses that have been skirting along for a long time in terms of what they’re supposed to be doing and what they’re actually doing.”
Government Barriers
Politicians like Bass are completely out of touch with reality. She's more worried about making her constituents feeling like important than she is about the health, safety and well-being of others.
If a business decides it's in their employee's best interest to have a bulletproof glass installed, why should government officials be allowed to step in and tell them they're not allowed to?
Clearly, the people who shop at places like Kim's aren't bothered by the plexiglass. They obviously have a sustainable business if they've been around for the last 20 years.
Ms. Bass, forcing these businesses to get rid of these barriers isn't going to keep your constituent safe. These barriers aren't going to suddenly make a shady neighborhood better. All it's going to do is put convenience store works' lives at risk. Are you hoping to end their lives or force the business to close its doors? Both options are lethal, in one way or another. |
NEW DELHI: Recognizing " renewable energy " and "efficient use of energy" as the most effective routes to mitigate climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions, India and Germany on Monday decided to move on this path more aggressively under the new ‘Indo-German Climate and Renewable Alliance’ . They identified seven focus areas to intensify their ongoing cooperation. Germany, on its part, will provide soft loans worth one billion euros to India for solar projects over the next five years in addition to 1.15 billion euros that Berlin had committed earlier under ‘Green Energy Corridors Partnership’.The alliance will be a comprehensive partnership to harness "technology, innovation and finance" in order to make affordable, clean and renewable energy accessible to all and to foster climate change mitigation efforts in both countries.Interestingly, both the countries also underlined that "adaptation" must be a central part of a balanced Paris climate agreement – a point which has consistently been raised by India despite being resisted by many rich nations who want a mitigation-centric deal.The agreement on renewable energy, signed between India and Germany, is in tune with what New Delhi had promised in its climate action plan (called Intended Nationally Determined Contribution - INDC) last week.India had told the UN body on climate change on October 1, that the country would increase its share of clean energy by nearly 40% of its total energy mix by the year 2030, provided it gets support of finance and technology from the developed countries. New Delhi also highlighted that the country would need $ 2.5 trillion for this purpose by 2030.This is where the new ‘Indo-German Climate and Renewable Alliance’ will come as a boost for India’s efforts to move on a low carbon growth path. Prime Minister Narendra Modi too flagged this issue in his statement at a joint press briefing with visiting German chancellor Angela Merkel here on Monday while recognizing Germany’s cooperation.He said, "I admire German leadership in clean energy and commitment to combating climate change. This is an area where we have convergence of views, and rapidly growing cooperation. We have agreed on India-Germany Climate and Renewable Alliance with a long term vision and a comprehensive agenda of combating climate change. ""I place great value on Germany’s assistance of over one billion euros for India’s Green Energy Corridor and a new assistance package of over a billion euros for solar projects in India".Both the countries also decided to explore opportunities in enhancing cooperation in the field of "climate risk insurance" – an area which is expected to get new focus in the wake of a global climate deal in Paris in December.Referring to the possible outcome of the Paris climate deal, both India and Germany reaffirmed that "the protocol, another legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force under the (UN) Convention applicable to all Parties (countries)" will address in a balanced manner all key elements like mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology development and transfer, and capacity-building, and transparency of action and support.India has consistently been pitching for any such agreement in future that must recognize all these elements under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).Underlining joint efforts of countries to address issues concerning climate change, both India and Germany also launched an ‘Indo-German Working Group on Climate Change’ under the Indo-German Environment Forum.Both the countries "regularly discuss climate policy and exchange views with regard to India's and Germany's transition to low-carbon economies and associated co-benefits for sustainable development" under the Forum.Modi and Merkel also agreed that state and city level entities should be supported to harness new technologies, policies, financing mechanisms, and economic incentives to reduce emissions."India and Germany will work together to develop and implement solutions that strengthen climate friendly urban development, including, inter alia, through initiatives in energy transition in cities, climate friendly urban mobility, energy efficiency in the housing sector, energy efficiency in urban water supply as well as recycling and waste management in major Indian cities", said the joint statement. |
Bruce Wayne by day and vigilante by night, Batman may not have superhuman abilities, but his use of high-tech weapons, gadgets and armors make him a mighty force to be reckoned with.
Through the visualizations of DC Comics and directors like Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan, the ‘Batsuit’ has evolved over time. From latex to titanium mesh, there are pinnacle properties that have remained the same, such as the memory-cloth cape, protective undersuit, utility belt and bat-like graphite cowl. Though the materials get stronger and more futuristic in each iteration, they all equally help Batman dominate Gotham’s criminals with dignity and fortitude.
What are the materials that give structure and strength to Batman’s suit, and how durable are they? We've taken a deeper look to examine just how unbreakable this superhero really is in the below infographic.
Credit: Mashable Infographic |
Roman candles, fire crackers and sparklers are just as big a deal for the New Year as the Fourth of July.
Fireworks sellers are opening their stands today for the season. Sue Davis is a spokesperson for Top Dog Fireworks.
“People would think that the Fourth of July is big because of the patriotism thing, but actually the seasons are very comparable,” Davis says. “They're both about 10-to-11 days and people just like to have their fireworks.”
She says prices haven't gone up much since summer. Use them properly, follow the rules, and fireworks are a safe form of entertainment.
A lot of people work together to create their own special show.
“It's not unusual to have people come in and buy, say, two thousand dollars worth of fireworks,” she explains, “and they all go and to a church parking lot, or a cul-de-sac in their neighborhood and put on one big show.” |
Despite topping Pitt 33-14 yesterday, Penn State dropped one spot in the AP and Amway Coaches Polls on Sunday. The fifth-ranked Nittany Lions were leapfrogged by Oklahoma and USC, programs that each notched a top-15 win Saturday night. The Sooners jumped to No. 2 in the AP Poll behind Alabama and were followed by Clemson at No. 3 and USC at No. 4.
The Crimson Tide also lead the most recent Coaches poll, followed in order by Clemson, Oklahoma and the Trojans.
The latest @AmwayUS Coaches Poll is out! See where your favorite team ranks. https://t.co/dDOAtA3uPo — USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) September 10, 2017
Other Big Ten teams ranked this week in the Coaches Poll were Michigan (7), Ohio State (9) and Wisconsin (12). The Buckeyes were the largest fallers from Week 2 to Week 3. Maryland, Minnesota, Iowa and Michigan State also received votes.
In the AP Poll, Michigan resided at No. 7, Ohio State was ranked eighth and Wisconsin checked in at No. 10.
Penn State returns to action against Georgia State next Saturday. Kickoff from Beaver Stadium is set for 7:30 p.m. |
New University of Miami football coach Mark Richt has been racking up the mileage in his first week on the job, driving around the state solidifying relationships with key recruits expected to enroll in college in January.
After going everywhere from his new home base in Coral Gables to Palm Beach, Vero Beach, Palmetto, Orlando and Jacksonville, it was time for Richt to host a weekend slate of official visits for the first time as coach of the Hurricanes.
And just one day into the weekend, it was already a success as he got Lantana Santaluces linebacker Zach McCloud to jump back on board with the class. McCloud committed once again after dropping his oral pledge in November.
McCloud announced his recommitment on Twitter on Friday night.
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“Proud to say I’m committed to Miami,” he said on social media. “Back like I never left.”
The Hurricanes also hosted quarterback Jack Allison, linebackers Shaquille Quarterman and Michael Pinckney, and defensive end Patrick Bethel — all of whom are committed and enrolling in the spring semester, except for Bethel. In addition, Isaac Nauta, a five-star tight end at Bradenton IMG Academy who was formerly committed to Florida State, showed up on an unofficial visit Friday.
The success on the weekend comes at a pivotal time considering the “dead period” on the NCAA’s college football recruiting calendar starts Monday as teams focus on bowl game preparation. During a recruiting dead period, college coaches may not have face-to-face contact with recruits or their parents on or off the school’s campus. They still may communicate telephonically or electronically.
McCloud, a three-star prospect, said last week he closed off his recruiting and a return to UM was the only thing in the plans.
“Would love to have him back,” says Pinckney, also a three-star linebacker from Jacksonville Raines who had Richt watch him in a state championship game at the Orlando Citrus Bowl last Saturday and welcomed him for a visit in Jacksonville within the week. “Ain’t nothing else to say. He knows what it is. We can be great. Let’s go ball.”
Adds Quarterman, the four-star linebacker from Orange Park Oakleaf who sat in the Citrus Bowl stands that night with Richt and joined the two for dinner on Richt’s visit with Pinckney: “I’m just ready to welcome him back.”
Allison, a four-star, pro-style quarterback from Palmetto on the Gulf Coast of Florida, was in the middle of various rumors, with some prognosticators expecting Washington-based, five-star quarterback Jacob Eason, a Georgia commit since July 2014, to follow Richt to UM. But Eason not visiting is an indicator that it won’t happen.
Bethel, a four-star defensive end from Vero Beach, is said to be a Cane lean as all 14 of the Crystal Ball predictions on his 247Sports page sending him to UM.
YOUNG DECOMMITS
Coconut Creek cornerback Malek Young, a four-star recruit and U.S. Army All-American, decommitted from Georgia.
Young was previously not considering UM, but according to Coconut Creek coach Kareem Reid, a flip to the Hurricanes and Richt is possible depending on Richt’s hires for defensive assistants. Young has an official visit to UM scheduled for Jan. 15.
Young tweeted: “I would just like to thank all the Georgia coaches for welcoming me to the family while I was committed and all the love, but as of [Friday], I’ve [decommitted] from the University of Georgia. I would like to open up my choices again and be highly recruited.” |
An exclusive at iMediaEthics says that things are getting even worse for Kevin Deutsch, so before this blows up even more, let’s go over what’s happened so far.
The reporter’s work at Newsday and The New York Times has been under review for a few weeks now, due to major questions about his sourcing practices. The discrepancies were originally flagged by the Baltimore Sun, which led to the first two outlets questioning him, and now, according to iME, the New York Daily News is reviewing all 572 of Deutsch’s pieces for them, too.
iMediaEthics has been following the story of Deutsch and “what appear to be non-existent sources.” They discovered that a source Deutsch claimed as being a co-worker of Orlando night club shooter Omar Mateen never even worked for the company Deutsch claimed. Another source identified by Deutsch as a “classmate” and “childhood friend” of the shooter was revealed by the site to have attended school in an entirely different district.
After other outlets began questioning Deutsch’s past work, the Times added an Editor’s note to a piece by Deutsch:
The Times conducted a detailed review of the fentanyl article. The main facts and thrust of the article, including the official data and quotes from the authorities, were confirmed. However, after extensive reporting efforts, The Times also has been unable to locate or confirm the existence of two people who were named and quoted: Jeffrey Sheridan, described as a resident of Oyster Bay, N.Y., who works as addiction counselor and whose 34-year-old nephew died from a fentanyl overdose on Staten Island in 2015; and Andrew Giordano, described as a 26-year-old resident of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, who overdosed on a fentanyl-heroin mixture.
Deutsch, as noted by iME and the Times, maintains that his sourcing is all accurate.
“But he has not been able to put the Times in contact with either source, or to provide any further material to corroborate the account,” said the NYT Editor’s note. “At this point, editors have concluded that the Times cannot vouch for the accuracy of those sources, and that material has been removed from the online version of the article.”
Similarly, iMediaEthics‘s Sydney Smith noted Deutsch “provided no evidence to iMediaEthics to support this claim of accuracy and good faith.”
[image via screengrab]
——
Lindsey: Twitter. Facebook.
UPDATE — 3:34 p.m. EST:
An earlier version of this piece indicated that the Times‘s Editor’s note was from yesterday. That note was added to the piece on February 24.
UPDATE — 12:14 p.m. EST, March 7:
Deutsch wrote a defense in The Observer titled, “The Truth is on My Side.” In it, he alleged that the claims against him are retaliatory, writing, “Write a story that upsets the wrong people, and they will go to any length to try to ruin you.”
He wrote this:
Editors at Newsday, the Daily News and the New York Times all recently launched reviews of stories I wrote for them, following questions raised in an inaccurate article the Baltimore Sun published about my new nonfiction book Pill City: How Two Honor Roll Students Foiled the Feds and Built a Drug Empire. In it, I tell the explosive true story of how drugs stolen by gang members in Baltimore during the April 2015 riots led to a wave of fatal pill and heroin overdoses and reveal how two tech-savvy teenagers — partnered with the Black Guerrilla Family gang— formed a major drug dealing organization responsible for a wave of killings in Baltimore and across the U.S. … These journalists’ problem with my work: I dared question the government’s official story—and their newsrooms’ misguided assumptions—about what happened during and after the riots.
Read his defense — in which he also alleges he faced death threats for his reporting — here.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected] |
Power bills: Would you switch off your aircon for a movie voucher?
Updated
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) have announced that consumers will be paid to cut their power usage.
It's part of a plan to free up temporary supply during unplanned outages and extreme weather conditions — such as prolonged summer heatwaves.
So how will this impact you, and could you actually get a free day of electricity if you switch off your pool pump?
Here's what's been announced
ARENA will fund 10 pilot projects to manage Australia's electricity supply during extreme peaks.
These "pilot projects" will be trialled in three states — Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales — over three years.
Who is involved in the scheme?
The funding recipients vary across NSW, Victoria and South Australia, but EnergyAustralia has been granted funding in all three states.
AGL, EnerNOC and Progressive Green, Flow Power have been awarded funding in NSW, while Zen Ecosystems and Intercast and Forge will receive funding in South Australia.
In Victoria, funding has been granted to United Energy Distribution Pty Ltd, EnerNOC, Zen Ecosystems and Powershop Australia.
Will I really be paid to cut my power usage?
Yes. The demand management program will involve paying an incentive for energy users to:
Reduce their power consumption,
Switch to backup generation, or
Dispatch their energy storage for short periods when electricity reserves reach critically low levels.
But it's only voluntary so you'll have to register your interest if you want to be a part of the program.
Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said this could translate to a household being paid $25 each time it switched off power at a peak demand time.
If that happened 10 times in a year (the most amount of days the program is expected to be used) they'd be $250 richer.
That's on top of the savings on their power bills, as well as the reductions in carbon emissions.
What other incentives could I get?
Powershop Australia says it will be offering its customers a discount on their bill, while Energy Australia says incentives could include credits on energy bills, movie tickets and gift vouchers.
"Ultimately it has to be an arrangement that provides value for the customer so they want to participate," a spokesperson for Energy Australia said.
The incentives depend on the various electricity companies participating in the trial.
So how will I know when it is peak time?
Victorian power company Powershop Australia will text customers who have registered their interest in the program asking them to reduce their usage at a certain time.
However, it will be up to different companies to alert customers when they should turn off their power.
According to Origin Energy, periods of peak demand tend to occur when "temperatures hit extremes, industry is operating, and millions of households are using fans and air-conditioners all at the same time".
While times vary between each state, AEMO data shows peak periods seem to occur in the early morning from 6:00am onwards and later in the afternoon from 4:00pm.
How long will I have to switch off for?
The time could vary between one to four hours, or even a couple of minutes, as the Prime Minister indicated this morning.
"It might only be for five minutes at a particular time," Malcolm Turnbull said.
And we're only talking about a handful of days each year.
"The agencies say it will be for no more than 10 times a year," said an article about the trial on the Australian Renewable Energy Agency's website.
When will this be rolled out?
AEMO managing director and chief executive officer Audrey Zibelman said consumers can expect the projects to be up and running by December 2017.
That will follow a round of testing by AEMO in November.
Will consumers really do this?
Tens of thousands of households across the three states are expected to voluntarily sign up.
How will this help ease the strain on the grid?
Mr Frydenberg says it could be enough to save enough power to support more than 100,000 homes — or as much as is generated by a small power station.
Ms Zibelman says the move will address "a lot of wasted energy where you are using too much and you don't need it".
"We would say, 'boy, if you would just cycle your pool pump, we get everyone to cycle at the same time', and nobody really knows what's going on but suddenly what happens is we can avoid building a generating plant and there is no discomfort so it is actually using technology to be smarter about energy," she said.
Where has this program been used?
A similar program called PeakSmart already operates in Queensland.
It offers financial incentives for people who agree to limit air-conditioners to 26 degrees Celsius and have pool pumps turned off during peak demand.
Its also being used in nations including the United States and New Zealand to avoid unplanned or involuntary outages.
Ms Zibelman pointed out the example of Texas, which saved $600 million over a weekend with the scheme.
Topics: electricity-energy-and-utilities, federal-government, government-and-politics, industry, business-economics-and-finance, community-and-society, australia
First posted |
In an effort to revamp and revive his party’s failed effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has introduced a revised version of his proposed American Health Care Act that would eliminate coverage for anyone who frequents Taco Bell.
“We thought about several options, from getting rid of suckers for kids to at-home surgery kits,” Ryan said, “but this change saves us billions of dollars. Not only would this make health insurance more cost-effective, but we can truly help people who haven’t given up on life already.”
In addition to receiving bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, the White House also is backing the bill.
“This is great, I’m excited,” President Donald Trump tweeted. “At first, I didn’t want my name anywhere near the bill. ‘RyanCare’ sounded fine. But the odds are in favor with ‘TrumpCare,’ not ‘RyanCare.’ The public loves me, possibly the most lovable president ever, so go ahead and call it ‘TrumpCare.’ Has a better ring to it, and I love my name on things.”
“Those Taco Bell people are disgusting, horrible people, and since I can’t hate on Mexicans anymore, this is the next best thing.”
Trump had plenty to say about Taco Bell, as well.
“Those Taco Bell people are disgusting, horrible people, and since I can’t hate on Mexicans anymore, this is the next best thing,” he later tweeted. He then rambled on about a cat website that made fun of him.
Questions have arisen concerning how Taco Bell consumption would be monitored. However, Ryan insisted the system would work very similar to proposed drug tests for recipients of federal unemployment benefits.
“Americans enrolled in our proposed health care system would be given random Taco Bell tests, in which urine samples are analyzed for Grade-D meats found exclusively in Taco Bell menu items, cat food, and herbal supplements,” Ryan explained. “If you test positive, you lose your coverage.”
When asked why Taco Bell has been exclusively targeted while other fast-food chains have been excluded from his health care bill, Ryan maintained, “No other restaurant is the embodiment of bad decisions. They sell a box of food meant for four people for just five bucks. Why would anyone do this to themselves? It is for this reason, and this reason alone, we are targeting Taco Bell, and it has nothing to do with the newly formed Russian restaurant chain Crimson Taco set to open nationwide next month.”
Nevertheless, Taco Bell officials are optimistic they can keep their customers in spite of being demonized by the federal government.
“While we won’t offer customers health care coverage, we will soon update our menus to include items with health benefits,” Taco Bell spokesman Ben Rist said. “No one will be able to resist our Southwest-style antibiotic hot sauce, nor the zesty Penicillupa.” |
Heading into the final week of the recruiting process and fresh off an official visit to Nebraska, Daishon Neal was willing to listen as Michigan’s coaching staff stopped through Omaha.
Michigan defensive line coach Greg Mattison was in the Neal home on Monday night, and things were going fine until a comment he made, turned off the family.
“Michigan was a powerhouse,” Neal’s father said. “They stormed us, but they made one bad statement in the room. He said ‘without football, Daishon wouldn’t be able to go to Michigan.’ Like we couldn’t afford to send him there or get him academically (in).”
The comment didn't sit well with Neal.
“He basically tried to call me stupid in front of my face,” Neal said.
According to both, the visit with Mattison ended a few minutes later.
“Probably 10 minutes after he left the house, my dad and I were standing there talking about Michigan, and I simply looked at him and said, ‘I’m going to Nebraska.’ He kept asking me, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure?’ and I said, ‘I’m going to Nebraska.’ Coach Hughes called me about 15 minutes later and I told him, and he was so happy, and he said, ‘we’re going to get after them when we finally play them.’ I’m looking forward to it. I can’t wait to bring everything to the table to help this team.” |
New research has identified one of the key cancer-fighting mechanisms for sulforaphane, and suggests that this much-studied phytochemical may be able to move beyond cancer prevention and toward therapeutic use for advanced prostate cancer.
Scientists said that pharmacologic doses in the form of supplements would be needed for actual therapies, beyond the amount of sulforaphane that would ordinarily be obtained from dietary sources such as broccoli. Research also needs to verify the safety of this compound when used at such high levels.
But a growing understanding of how sulforaphane functions and is able to selectively kill cancer cells indicate it may have value in treating metasticized cancer, and could work alongside existing approaches.
The new findings on the unique abilities of sulforaphane were recently published in the journal Oncogenesis, by researchers from Oregon State University and the Texas A&M Health Science Center. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
"There's significant evidence of the value of cruciferous vegetables in cancer prevention," said Emily Ho, professor and director of the Moore Family Center for Whole Grain Foods, Nutrition and Preventive Health in the OSU College of Public Health and Human Sciences, and lead author on this research.
"However, this study is one of the first times we've shown how sulforaphane can affect a histone methylation and alter gene expression in metasticized prostate cancer cells," said Ho, who is also a principal investigator in OSU's Linus Pauling Institute. "It begins a process that can help to re-express tumor suppressors, leading to the selective death of cancer cells and slowing disease progression."
The evidence now shows that sulforaphane should have therapeutic value against some forms of cancer, Ho said, including late-stage, metasticized disease. Its multiple impacts on metabolic processes might also make it a valuable adjunct to existing therapies, helping them to work better.
No clinical trials have yet been done to test the value of sulforaphane in cancer therapy, although a trial is under way using sulforaphane supplements in men with high risk for prostate cancer. Results from that may help demonstrate the safety of higher-dosage supplements and set the stage for therapeutic trials, Ho said.
Dozens of studies have examined the health value of cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbages, and many of them ultimately focused on the role of sulforaphane, one compound found in these foods. Broccoli sprouts contain some of the highest dietary levels of the sulforaphane precursor.
The new study identified a particular enzyme in prostate cancer cells, SUV39H1, that is affected by exposure to sulforaphane. Aside from potential dietary approaches, the researchers said that this establishes SUV39H1 as a new therapeutic target, in general, for advanced cancer.
Prostate cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the United States, and existing therapies include surgical removal of the prostate, radiation therapy, hormones or other approaches. Although often slow growing, prostate cancer can be much more aggressive if it metasticizes to other areas of the body, at which point survival rates decrease dramatically. In the U.S. it's the fifth leading cause of cancer death.
In laboratory studies, sulforaphane has shown toxicity to a number of human cancer cell lines, including prostate, breast, ovarian, colon and pancreatic cancer, and in animal studies it decreased metastases of prostate cancer. |
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I ... the ... all in the U S side ... just back ... from Afghanistan ... we up to ninety degrees to tells all about this ... very exciting ... being a ... mom to be ... drawn between flying gadgets yes I mean it was common for many reasons ... for their response to the kind of Josie's think about when you see the ... wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ... on the ends ... you ... over the past few years ... and he's been able to apply for ... permits to fly Germans in certain areas there are restrictions ... on flying them anywhere because obviously commercial air traffic ... at can presents ... a problem this could be deemed a situation band ... and advocacy group called the electronic Frontier Foundation news that freedom of information Act request in ads and eight ... how many of these permits were out there who either ... abandoned the really interesting thing was that ... a lot of their places requesting these were colleges and universities and local police departments not just here the FBI and ... Homeland Security it's that were so honored if you let the eating enough right so ... you know some of the people we spoke with universities they're using them for research and for the most part ... and both in Aeronautics as well as he can use Eastern's to fire rounds and agricultural area and and and serving plate and I and and things like that ... I'm ... local police departments are using them for surveillance and security and the ... new drug enforcement Sts ... I think that meets or some other places that ... had ... not been able to actually implement use of these bands they're sort of testing naming deals that they still happen ... I ... the issue I mean these things out ... the primary is Tuesday ... you don't necessarily want why these over ... a populated ... area command ... because if there is there a name and so even if you can control them remotely ... it presents and dangers and it's really interesting because the FAA rate now at ... is under pressure from the governments and business is to integrate drones IRA interior traffic around the US is actually going to be testing in six different cities ... I'm ... integrating I mean it seems with every key Larry airspeed for how ... they can be damned if I walk in and see them again in the wind playing around with it ... I think a lot of them ... you know I ... think that this that we had beef full size and planes with ... some of them are really tiny ... and so ... I think it gets ... to be interesting to see how this can save you read this and privacy concerns ... because a lot of these ... I ... can have ... for traffickers surveillance equipment on and so that's I'm there couple of Representatives asking questions about that no one is ... coming from Afghanistan ... aam they had some some on hand to the ability to will launch this I'll all ... off and presumably you know the lead after only one so that when the Anaheim meats aisles flying out on the Kennedy likeable Grannis witness offline to Help on the nannies ... and surveillance gossiping take higher Friday with the Blues were so their applications that require them to have ... with me on them ... will be the Beaver that has not yet nobody's actually received a second about what could be on the eastern think that it's mostly just ... think he and said the ... we think that Ashley ... crops of my aunts would be very good job having to look for the U S online posted on having a look and ... those that when the things they use the printed at Coulter has germs and and ... that's been things that some of these schools are using them for their if they had that ... our culture ... we're fortunate I ... know these things with the flight point love why they send out because the the the the the the the way to control ... them actually in encrusted with all this war will planes ... what if I think there's a concern about that because obviously helicopters and planes that simply ... narrow passed away and so at some point ... I ... it could be concerned about them flying in the same airspace in in your city is the helicopters flying around three mile ... Island ... areas ... Brown that would do ... the I ... admit that they say that helicopter is at the Cato in the ... no ... one decides to trade might seem low but had the walls up so ... I'm pretty high as I mean very rigid and these are pretty than they can fly ... so yesterday I like toys as well to CCK to meet my detected that runs likeable helicopter you whining about new top of things racing scene I wanted to know when a man sourcing people flying around the office ... I think the need for me for that that's not with the FAA is dealing with those are just remote control you're looking at the ... treatment even more ... I'm the and from the defense and the things that might be of ... more concern to |
Tail anatomy of unenlagiid theropods remains poorly known. The most complete and informative taxon of this family is Buitreraptor gonzalezorum from the Upper Cretaceous of Rio Negro province, Argentina. The aim of the present contribution is to carry out an analysis of the tail anatomy of Buitreraptor based on its holotype and a newly collected specimen as well. Similarities shared by Buitreraptor, Rahonavis, Anchiornis and Archaeopteryx include: mid-caudal vertebrae with postzygapophyses longer than prezygapophyses, and mid-caudal centra with a system of lateral laminae and concavities. Preservation of paravian skeletons, as well as muscular reconstruction, indicate the presence of two different functional sections of the tail. This contribution sheds light on paravian tail evolution and provides new data on tail changes that occurred along the theropod line towards modern birds. |
Parents can now treasure pictures of their newborn babies in photo frames made using the mother's placenta.
Amanda Cotton has found a way of adding dried and crushed pieces of placenta to moulds filled with clear casting resin to create marble-effect frames, and is already receiving orders from parents, according to the University of Brighton.
Miss Cotton uses the entire placenta to make a frame, first boiling and cooking it and then grinding it into small pieces before placing it into a mould with resin and other materials.
She said: ''I have had a lot of positive feedback from mothers and fathers to be – and I already have clients.''
One order has come from Ulrika Jarl, who is expecting her second daughter at Christmas, a university spokesman said.
After the birth, Miss Jarl will be keeping the placenta in a cool box for Miss Cotton to collect and turn into a frame.
Miss Jarl said: ''I can understand why some people might find this a bit yucky but what attracted me was the use of materials that we think of as waste.
''I finished an MA in sustainable design at the University of Brighton a couple of years ago and these issues are close to my heart.
''We need to think of all waste in a completely new way, as raw materials which hold huge potential. Why not use human waste where possible?
''I have friends who swear by placenta capsules and say they give them much more energy, more milk and even combat the postpartum blues.
''You can donate placentas for training dogs to look for human remains. There are so many uses for these useful bits of tissue that kept your baby alive for nine months, yet the majority of placentas are just thrown away. That really is a waste.''
Miss Cotton developed her picture frame technique before graduating this year in 3D materials practice (now design and craft) at the Faculty of Arts.
She said: ''It is my belief that human by-products have just as valid an aesthetic value as their virginal material resource. From this starting point, I chose to create souvenirs which pinpoint key times in one's life, using materials of personal significance.
''I chose the placenta because during my time at Brighton I lived with a midwife and it became apparent through her studies that there was little importance placed on the placenta, even though it is the link between the mother and baby throughout the entire pregnancy.
''My work is all about our incredible bodies creating materials which we love and care for yet, once separated from us, we are repulsed by and we feel the need to discard then. My work is about expressing the amazing and intricate materials our bodies provide.''
The 25-year-old, who works for a London design company, has said she is expanding the range after receiving positive feedback from parents.
She said: ''It is quite common for people to keep their baby's by-products such as the umbilical cord, first tooth or hair clippings to document their progress, along with photos and notes.
''The placenta is one of the first creations the mother and baby make together – why not celebrate that with a keepsake?'' |
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Meets With Clinton And Trump
Enlarge this image toggle caption Evan Vucci/AP Evan Vucci/AP
Updated at 10:20 p.m. ET
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had a strained relationship with Barack Obama, but he's putting in time to get off on the right foot with whoever succeeds the president.
Netanyahu met privately with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for more than an hour at Trump Tower in New York on Sunday morning. Netanyahu met with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for about 50 minutes Sunday evening.
The Trump campaign released a summary of the GOP nominee's meeting with Netanyahu, which said in part, "Mr. Trump and the Prime Minister discussed the special relationship between America and Israel and the unbreakable bond between the two countries. The topics of military assistance, security and regional stability were addressed."
According to the campaign statement, Trump promises to recognize Jerusalem as "the undivided capital of the State of Israel," as he has for months now. This would be a reversal of U.S. policy since the founding of Israel in 1948. The status of Jerusalem is a highly contentious issue between Israelis and Palestinians. The U.S. has its embassy in Tel Aviv, and officially does not recognize Jerusalem as a part of any country. Congress has passed laws trying to reverse that stance, but the Supreme Court affirmed the supremacy of the executive branch in the matter in 2015.
Trump hesitated on that question when he was first asked about it back in December while speaking before the Republican Jewish Coalition, where the audience booed. Trump was also criticized for invoking Jewish stereotypes in that appearance.
At the time, Trump had said he would wait to answer until he met with Netanyahu. A planned trip to Israel to meet the prime minister at the end of 2015 was cancelled after Netanyahu condemned Trump's call for a temporary ban on the immigration of Muslims to the United States.
Netanyahu's office put out a brief statement on the meeting, stating that it was also attended by Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is Jewish.
The statement said, "Prime Minister Netanyahu thanked Mr. Trump for his friendship and support for Israel."
A senior Clinton campaign aide offered a summary on Sunday evening on the Democratic nominee's meeting with Netanyahu.
"Secretary Clinton stressed that a strong and secure Israel is vital to the United States because we share overarching strategic interests and the common values of democracy, equality, tolerance, and pluralism," the aide said on background.
The campaign aide said Clinton stressed her support for the military relationship between the U.S. and Israel, and that she discussed with Netanyahu regional issues like the fight against ISIS and the nuclear deal with Iran.
Netanyahu vehemently opposed to the deal, and according to Clinton's campaign, she "committed to continue to work closely with Israel to enforce and implement the nuclear deal with Iran."
Clinton was also said to have expressed support for a two-state solution negotiated directly between the Israelis and Palestinians.
A statement from Netanyahu's office said the meeting with Clinton was also attended by Dermer, as well as Clinton's top policy advisor Jake Sullivan.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz first reported that Netanyahu was meeting with Trump and Clinton. It says that the meeting with Trump came together on Friday after calls between Trump aides and Netanyahu's advisers. The paper reported that Netanyahu insisted on also meeting with Clinton, as to not be seen as taking sides.
Netanyahu was seen as taking sides in 2012, as he warmly received Republican nominee Mitt Romney — whom he had worked with decades before — while maintaining a chilly relationship with President Obama, who has long been critical of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Netanyahu defends. Their relationship soured further as the U.S. pursued negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
The Israeli prime minister has a long professional relationship with Hillary Clinton, which the Washington Post documented as "sometimes fraught" in 2015. Clinton wrote of being the "bad cop" with Netanyahu while serving as Secretary of State.
Netanyahu's meeting with Trump took place at approximately 10 a.m. ET, while he met Clinton just before 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. Haaretz cites aides to the prime minister who say that Netanyahu chose to go to the candidates instead of inviting them to come to him given the constraints on their schedule in preparing for the first presidential debate on Monday night. |
Nowhere is the cross-border nature of sectarian hostilities more clear than in Iraq’s western desert, where Sunni Arabs are beginning to rally to the cause of the Syrian opposition and, in the process, perhaps strengthen their hand in dealings with an antagonistic Shiite-led national government in Baghdad.
A weapons dealer who operates in Anbar, who said he goes by the alias Ahmed al-Masri, said, “Five months ago I was told that the Syrian brothers are in need of weapons. I started to buy the weapons from the same guys that I previously sold to — the fighters of Anbar and Mosul. I used to bring them from Syria; now it’s the other way around.”
The man said he was selling mortars, grenades and rifles, and that his contact in Syria was also an Iraqi. In some instances, he said Iraqis were giving away weapons, and in those cases he charged money only to transport them across the border.
“It’s a good business, but it’s not easy money,” he said. “It’s risky, but this is life.”
Tribal leaders and security officials describe a small but increasing flow of weapons to Syria from Anbar Province and areas around Mosul, the northern city that is a headquarters for Al Qaeda in Iraq. For some weapons smugglers the price of an automatic rifle has increased dramatically — to $2,000 from about $300, according to one account.
Abdul Rahim al-Shammari, the head of the provincial council’s security committee in Mosul, said explosives and weapons were being smuggled through the border village of Rabia. A weapons trader in the area, who spoke anonymously because of the nature of his work, described smuggling weapons parts in empty cigarette cartons and said he recently made a $4,000 profit selling a PKC rifle. Across the border, he said, some Syrians were trading sheep and cows for weapons.
The sympathies for the Syrian rebels here in Anbar are borne from centuries-old tribal connections and, as a region dominated by Sunni Arabs, a shared sect.
Photo
“We have common tribes and a common border,” said Sheik Ali Hatem al-Suleiman, interviewed recently at his mansion in Baghdad, where he keeps a pet lion penned in the front yard. Mr. Hatem described Mr. Assad as a “butcher” and said that men in Anbar, his ancestral home, were already trying to help the opposition. “Yes, they are giving weapons. They have to,” he said, adding that Anbar tribal leaders were to meet this week to discuss ways to support the rebels.
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Meanwhile, Al Qaeda in Iraq, whose membership has declined substantially in recent years, is trying to take advantage of the violence in Syria. A recent report by the McClatchy news agency quoted unidentified American officials as saying that Al Qaeda in Iraq was behind two deadly bombings in Damascus and probably also the bombing on Friday in Aleppo. In interviews, American officials in Baghdad said they believed that was likely, but had no evidence to confirm it.
On Saturday, Ayman al-Zawahri, the ideological leader of Al Qaeda worldwide, issued a statement urging Muslims in the region — he specifically mentioned Iraq — to support the uprising, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications.
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In Jordan, the influential Muslim Brotherhood issued a call to arms of its own, calling it a duty for Muslims everywhere to oppose Mr. Assad’s government in Syria in a holy war, using any means necessary. “Supporting the Syrian people and Free Syrian Army is a duty, as they are facing the injustice and oppression of the regime,” the group said on its Web site.
On its Web site, Al Qaeda in Iraq, also referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq, has stated, “a lot of Syrians fought side-by-side with the Islamic State of Iraq, and it is good news to hear about the arrival of Iraqi fighters to fight with their brethren in Syria.” The group has also advised Syrian rebels to use the type of roadside bombs that proved so deadly in the Iraq war.
Some leaders in Anbar, where Al Qaeda has very little support, insisted that their region’s assistance to Syria is only humanitarian. Officials in Falluja have said they are establishing a camp in the expectation of refugees.
“The people here want to help the people of Syria, not with weapons, but with whatever other help we can give them,” said Faisel al-Esawi, a member of the Anbar Provincial Council.
Referring to Syria’s open acceptance of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees during the war here, he said, “we need to stand next to the Syrian people, just like they stood next to us.”
The Shiite-dominated central government in Baghdad has walked a fine line with its policy toward Syria, offering outright support neither to the Assad government nor the opposition.
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“We are immediate neighbors,” said Hosyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister. “It’s like Mexico for the United States. With a change in Syria, everyone fears the spillover.”
Mr. Zebari added, “this doesn’t mean we support Assad’s regime. We can’t really oppose the Syrian people.”
Iran’s influence also factors into how Iraq calculates its Syria policy. The Iranian government is perhaps the closest friend of the Assad government, and Iraq does not want to alienate Iran, which exerts a degree of political control over the Iraqi leaders and backs militias here. There is also the fear that if Syria collapses, Iran will compensate for losing an ally in Syria by expanding its influence over Iraqi affairs.
In Anbar, the anger toward the central government’s Syria policy is palpable.
Hours before the gathering Saturday in Falluja, a similar event was held at a soccer stadium in Ramadi. In celebrating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, attendees also waved the version of the Syrian flag in use before the Assad family assumed power.
“We’re here to support Syria and we want to stop the bloodshed,” said Sheik Muhammad Hamis Abu Risha. “We want the Iraqi government to support the people, not the killers. They are helping the Syrian government kill those Muslims.” |
Two-thirds of Canadians would allow licensed marijuana growers to open their own retail outlets to sell the product, according to a new poll.
The survey of 5,000 Canadians from Oracle Poll found 65 per cent of respondents would support retail marijuana outlets owned by licensed growers.
It comes amid plans by the governments of Ontario and New Brunswick to go in a different direction and create provincially-run outlets that would sell the product once it’s legal for recreational purposes on July 1, 2018.
Ontario announced earlier this month it plans to open up to 150 marijuana retail outlets, operated by the provincial liquor distributor, the LCBO. The province aims to have 40 stores open at legalization time next summer.
New Brunswick is also moving towards a provincially-run retail model. The province has set up a Crown corporation that has already put in orders for marijuana with local producers. Other provinces have not yet declared their intentions.
The federal Liberal government introduced legislation to legalize marijuana by July of next year, but left issues of regulation and distribution to the provinces.
Majority backs legalization
The Oracle survey found that, overall, 57 per cent of respondents agreed with the federal government’s decision to legalize cannabis. [Read more at Huffington Post] |
3 Muay Thai Counters | How To Catch and Counter The Body Kick
3 Techniques To Catch And Counter The Roundhouse
Catching a kick may seem like simple business, but should a mistake be made, you’ll find yourself doubled over from the pain and in no position to defend yourself because you’re still trying to reel in the opponent’s leg. In this case, you do not have your opponent’s leg, he has your arms. It’s difficult to defend yourself with one arm, it’s even harder still to defend yourself with no arms, unless you’re Samart Payakaroon.
This cautionary tale is meant to enforce the role of small details and that of footwork.
When you catch a kick it’s absolutely necessary to step to the side to create space that allows the kick’s force to diminish, then you catch. This step can be particularly tricky. If you don’t step far enough you’ll absorb most of the damage of the kick, if you step too far you will miss the catch, or it’ll slip away easy. The small details do matter, because the little things make the big things happen.
Plus, knowing how to defend and counter kicks, especially teeps, means you’ve got a rather large base covered. Certain strikes like the jab (this is relevant because the teep is essentially the jab of the lower body) are high frequency techniques, thus you’re more likely to encounter them, therefore the need to learn how to defend and counter is even higher. The higher the frequency of a technique, the higher they are on the list of priorities.
3 Muay Thai Counters | How To Catch and Counter The Body Kick
Got the catch down? Swell. It’s time to have fun, deal some damage, and embarrass some folks.
What can I say is more embarrassing than getting dumped onto your ass? Not much else I must admit, thus explanations are no longer required. It’s time to get out there and start dumping fools as shown by Boom Wattanaya and Ahjan Dam from Wor Wattana Gym in Issan, Thailand:
Muay Thai Clinch Sweep | Off-Balancing Technique
Alright, we’re going to go overboard here for a second. It may just be time to add a couple more sweeps down to your arsenal, and where better to grab techniques than from the pros?
Let me remind you folks that we live in the beautiful digital age, and the legends of Muay Thai are all within reach. Their fights are online ready to be analyzed, if you want a basic introduction to analyses then read my post titled “Your Guide To Training Muay Thai (Or Anything) At Home (Or Anywhere)” and scroll down to “How to analyze a fight” (it’s about 300 words long).
However, if you want to see how the experts do it…then class is in session with this Lawrence Kenshin Striking Breakdown below:
Epic Muay Thai Sweeps (Cross-Catches) ft. Sagat & Saenchai
There are NEW Muay Thai videos released on my Youtube channel every week! Make sure to keep checking back and subscribe to my channel for updates on new Muay Thai techniques, workouts, drills and combos!
If you want more in-depth technique tutorials, video breakdowns, training tips and more, then you gotta check out NakMuayNation.com.
Like these Muay Thai technique tutorials and breakdowns? Comment below and share with us your thoughts!
Also, make sure to share it with your training partners and instructors so you can try it out during your next training session.
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Micro parties under attack by ALP, Liberals, Nationals, who want Senate voting rules changed
Updated
The major political parties have teamed up in an effort to shut down the rapid growth in micro parties winning Senate spots, saying the current voting system is "intimidating", "baffling" and like playing the brainteaser Sudoku.
The Labor Party and Liberal-National Coalition, who are at loggerheads on various public policy issues, are on a unity ticket when it comes to stamping out the rise of micro political parties.
They all want the requirements for registering new political parties toughened, including higher registration fees and a greater number of initial party members, and the Senate voting system overhauled and simplified.
Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has heard from the heads of the major parties' administrative arms at an inquiry in Canberra.
The governing Liberal Party's federal director, Brian Loughnane, says the current system of voting above the line or individually nominating candidates - which can number more than 100 - below the line needs changing.
"The current electoral arrangements have loopholes which are being exploited to distort the intent of Australian voters through complex and hidden preference deals, some of which have also included potential commercial gain for individuals," Mr Loughnane said.
He says a party's preferences should only be distributed if they exceed more than 1 per cent of the primary vote.
ALP national secretary George Wright has also hit out at the micro parties who benefit from the practice of "preference harvesting", which he says is made possible by the explosion in Senate candidates.
Calls to stop 'opportunists' playing the system
Labor, the Liberals and Nationals all say it should be made more difficult for people to register new political parties to stop "opportunists" gaming the system.
They say the requirement for new members should be increased from 500 to 2,000.
The Nationals say the Senate ballot paper, which Labor noted had so many candidates it reached one metre in length, was "intimidating" voters, stopping many from voting below the line.
[Voting] shouldn't be made so complex that the average voter is completely baffled by it. Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane
Mr Wright has compared the difficulty in navigating the Senate ballot paper to the mathematical brainteaser game Sudoku.
"It's not what the founding fathers had in mind is it?" asked Liberal MP and committee chair Tony Smith referring to the metre-long ballot papers.
"Voting has to be practical ... it's [currently] like Sudoku," Mr Wright replied in agreement.
"It shouldn't be made so complex that the average voter is completely baffled by it," said Mr Loughnane, who wants to abolish the group voting tickets and introduce optional preferential voting above the line.
The Nationals' federal director, Scott Mitchell, says the current system is failing voters because it lacks transparency.
"We think that below-the-line voting has become ultimately intimidating, so no-one does it and we think there isn't enough transparency around where people's preferences ultimately flow," he said.
Mr Loughnane also wants new parties prevented from using names similar to the major parties.
He says it is clear New South Wales senator-elect and Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm received votes from people who intended to vote Liberal.
Victorian DLP senator John Madigan says the major parties are only changing the rules because they no longer suit them.
"The rules, the electoral laws as they now stand, were brought in by the major parties," he said.
"When it goes their way it's all well and good, but when it's somebody else that gets a seat at the table it's a travesty."
Senator Madigan says while changes do need to be made, the push is not in the interests of democracy.
Topics: federal-elections, federal-parliament, elections, government-and-politics, australia, wa, vic, tas, sa, qld, nt, nsw, act
First posted |
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the craziest conspiracy theory of 2016. In an amazing 10 minutes of utter lunacy from 'InfoWars' nutjob Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist lays out why he genuinely thinks Beyonce's latest video 'Lemonade' was paid for by the CIA in order to cause "urban terrorism".
Beyonce: an agent of the CIA
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the craziest conspiracy theory of 2016. In an amazing 10 minutes of utter lunacy from 'InfoWars' nutjob Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist lays out why he genuinely thinks Beyonce's latest video 'Lemonade' was paid for by the CIA in order to cause "urban terrorism". Why? So they can round everyone up and put them in prison.
Admittedly this is Alex Jones we are talking about, the man who believed the Boston Marathon bombing was a "false flag" and Justice Antonin Scalia was assassinated by President Obama. But this golden nugget of a conspiracy theory is truly new territory for Alex Jones, who is now involving celebrity RnB singers to his roster of agents of the state paid to get us all thrown into internment camps.
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The key quote (via Media Matters):
This is [Beyonce's] latest video, blowing stuff up, beating everything up, smashing vehicles, and it’s all about men. First it’s hate the cops in the last video, now it’s the ultimate feminist video being hailed. She just hates men and runs around with a crazed look on her face attacking everything.
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Again, this is admitted high-level -- it turns out basically everything they put on the Super Bowl or out on Viacom is run by CIA propaganda because that’s their domestic job. “Beyonce invokes ‘urban terrorism’ in new video,” and this is just to get people to act like total morons so that they can then be basically arrested, set-up, put in jail. I mean, this is -- I mean look at the look on her face in the whole anti-police deal. This is how she ran around like, you [inaudible] with the cops, they’re the enemy, and that it’ll fix everything. And then she’s funded by the very government and the very platform, the very establishment system puts her out there.
When you see Beyonce doing all this and making the way to stand up, burn down your neighborhood, or attack your police. The police, then, are being federalized and geared up for what’s about to happen. And so it’s just a way to again play us all off against each other.
Here is the full video:
If someone could please help Alex Jones find his meds... |
No need to scramble to the fallout shelter, friends.
That massive boom you just heard is merely the sound of thousands of crafters’ minds being blown en masse by the University of Southhampton’s Knitting Reference Library, an extensive resource of books, catalogues, patterns, journals and magazines---over seventeen decades worth.
Viva la Handmade Revolution!
The basics of the form---knitting, purling, increasing, decreasing, casting on and off---have remained remarkably consistent throughout the generations. No wonder there’s an enduring tradition of learning to knit at grandma’s knee…
What has evolved is the nature of the finished products.
Miss Lambert’s “Baby Quilt in Stripes of Alternate Colors” from her 1847 Knitting Book could still hold its own against any other handcrafted shower gift, but even the most hardcore modern crafter would find it challenging to find takers for her “Carriage Sock,” which is meant to be worn over the shoe.
Ditto the “Woolen Helmets” in Helping the Trawlers, a 32-page pamphlet published by the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen. The hope was that civic-minded knitters might be moved to donate handmade socks, mittens, and other items to combat the chill faced by poor working men facing the elements on freezing decks.
Not surprisingly, the eager volunteer knitting force gravitated toward the pamphlet’s most baroque item, putting the publisher in a delicate position:
Owing, perhaps, to their novelty, a great many friends commence working for the Society by making these articles and the Uhlan caps, and we are apt, on this account, to get rather more of them than we require for our North Sea work. The Labrador fishermen value the helmets equally with their North Sea breathren, and thus there is an ample output for them, but we shall be glad if friends will bear the hint in mind, and make some of the other things in preference to the helmets and Uhlan caps.
All of the books in the Knitting Reference Library are open access, though many of the patterns and magazines are dependent on copyright clearance. Give a prowl, and you'll find that a few of the older patterns are available as downloadable, printable PDFs , such as this handsome gent’s cable knit pullover or the tricky 50’s bison cardigan, below.
Even without step-by-step instructions, the pattern envelopes’ cover images can still provide inspiration…and no small degree of amusement. Some enterprising librarian should get cracking on a sub-collection, Fashion Crimes Against Male Knitwear Models, 1960-1980:
There’s even something for the latter day Labrador trawler...
The entire collection can be viewed here. For viewing and printing patterns, we recommend selecting “PDF” from the list of download options.
via Metafilter
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Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. Follow her @AyunHalliday |
Nickel Creek fans have waited long enough. The band’s indefinite hiatus is over and the bluegrass group has announced dates for its first excursion since 2007’s “Farewell (For Now) Tour.” Plus, there’s a new album in the works.
“WE’RE (as they say) GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER, Y’ALL!!! A record, a tour…” Chris Thile wrote in a tweet that was retweeted today by Nickel Creek’s new Twitter account.
Thile and siblings Sean and Sara Watkins announced in 2007 that the members wanted to put the band on hold to focus on individual projects following seven straight years of touring and releasing three studio albums.
Photo: Brantley Gutierrez
The trio revealed today that they’ve been working on their first LP since 2005’s Why Should The Fire Die?
“We are delighted and SO excited to announce that, after nine years, Nickel Creek is releasing a new album!” the band posted on Facebook. “We’re really happy with the music and can’t wait for you to hear it.
“There will also be a limited Nickel Creek tour this spring, as well as some festival dates this summer.”
Nickel Creek gave fans a preview of the new music by revealing a tune from the forthcoming release. Check out “Destination” below.
And here’s the schedule so far:
April 18 – Nashville, Tenn., Ryman Auditorium
April 19 – Nashville, Tenn., Ryman Auditorium
April 29 – New York, N.Y., Beacon Theatre
May 1 – Boston, Mass., House Of Blues Boston
May 3 – Washington, D.C., 9:30 Club
May 9 – Chicago, Ill., Riviera Theatre
May 19 – Oakland, Calif., Fox Theater |
A press release from the Royal Navy that is worth highlighting – as the Royal Navy’s Type 42 destroyer, HMS Liverpool is in London for a few days – and the public will be let on board to have a look around.
HMS Liverpool is the last Batch 2 Type 42 in left in service and is on her farewell tour before being decommissioned.
Billed ‘the heroine of the Libyan conflict’, the Crazy Red Chicken as she’s affectionately known by her ship’s company – courtesy of the Liver bird on her badge – will be berthed at West India Dock near Canary Wharf (map link).
She will be open to the public this Sunday (29th Jan) between 10am-4pm.
The ship is roughly similar sized to HMS St Albans, which also held an open day in Nov 2010, which was very enjoyable.
Here she is arriving in West India Dock – photo taken by a local office worker, OrangeCamperVan.
Presuming the HMS Liverpool open-day will be similar, then expect the opportunity to wander around the upper decks quite freely and chat to the sailors on board.
I really hope they haven’t carried out the Ceremony of the Constable’s Dues up at the Tower of London though, as I have been wanting to photograph that for years, and will have missed it – again.
Ahh, looks like the Ceremony of the Constable’s Dues will take place at the Tower at noon on Saturday. |
Audio: Zadie Smith reads.
It had been a very long time since he’d been responsible for another human. Never had he organized travel for himself or anybody. But it was his fault they were all three in the city, and so it fell to him. There was perhaps even something a little exciting about discovering, for the first time in his life, that he was not useless, that his father was wrong, and in fact he was capable. He called Elizabeth first. “I’m in a state of terror,” Elizabeth said. “Wait,” Michael said, hearing a beep on the line. “Let me bring in Marlon.” “The world’s gone crazy!” Elizabeth said. “I can’t even believe what I’m looking at!” “Hi, Marlon,” Michael said. “So—where are we?” Marlon said. “ ‘Where are we?’ ” Elizabeth said. “We’re in a state of terror, that’s where we are.” “We’re all right,” Marlon grumbled. He sounded far away. “We’ll handle it.” Michael could hear Marlon’s TV in the background. It was tuned to the same channel Michael was watching, but only Michael could see the images on the screen replicated simultaneously through his own window, a strange doubling sensation, like when you stand on a stage and look up at yourself on the Jumbotron. Elizabeth and Marlon were staying uptown; normally Michael, too, would be staying uptown—until five days ago he’d almost never set foot below Forty-second Street. Everyone—his brothers and sisters, all his West Coast friends—had warned him not to go downtown. It’s dangerous downtown, it’s always been that way, just stick with what you know, stay at the Carlyle. But because the helipad near the Garden had, for some reason, been out of commission it had been decided he should stay downtown, for reasons of proximity and to avoid traffic. Now Michael looked south and saw a sky darkened with ash. The ash seemed to be moving toward him. Downtown was really so much worse than anyone in L.A. could even begin to imagine. “Some things you can’t handle,” Elizabeth said. “I’m in a state of terror.” “There are no flights allowed,” Michael said, trying to feel capable, filling them in. “No one can charter. Not even the very important people.” “Bullshit!” Marlon said. “You think Weinstein’s not on a plane right now? You think Eisner’s not on a plane?” “Marlon, in case you’ve forgotten,” Elizabeth said, “I am also a Jew. Am I on a plane, Marlon? Am I on a plane?” Marlon groaned. “Oh, for Chrissake. I didn’t mean it that way.” “Well, how the hell did you mean it?” Michael bit his lip. The truth was, these two dear friends of his were both closer friends to him than they were to each other, and there were often these awkward moments when he had to remind them of the love thread that connected all three, which, to Michael, was so obvious; it was woven from a shared suffering, a unique form of suffering, that few people on this earth have ever known or will ever have the chance to experience, but which all of them—Michael, Liz, and Marlon—happened to have undergone to the highest degree possible. As Marlon sometimes said, “The only other guy who knew what this feels like got nailed to a couple of planks of wood!” Sometimes, if Elizabeth wasn’t around, he would add, “By the Jews,” but Michael tried not to linger on these aspects of Marlon, preferring to remember the love thread, for that was all that really mattered, in the end. “I think what Marlon meant—” Michael began, but Marlon cut him off: “Let’s focus here! We’ve got to focus!” “We can’t fly,” Michael said quietly. “I don’t know why, really. That’s just what they’re saying.” “I’m packing,” Elizabeth said, and down the line came the sound of something precious smashing on the floor. “I don’t even know what I’m packing, but I’m packing.” “Let’s be rational about this,” Marlon said. “There’s a lot of car services. I can’t think of any right now. On TV you see them. They’ve got all kinds of names. Hertz? That’s one. There must be others.” “I am truly in a state of terror,” Elizabeth said. “You said that already!” Marlon shouted. “Get ahold of yourself!” “I’ll try and call a car place,” Michael said. “The phones down here are kind of screwy.” On a pad he wrote, Hurts. “Essentials only,” Marlon said, referring to Liz’s packing. “This is not the fucking QE2. This is not fucking cocktail hour with good old Dick up in Saint-Moritz. Essentials.” “It’ll be a big car,” Michael murmured. He hated arguments. “It’ll sure as hell have to be,” Elizabeth said, and Michael knew she was being sarcastic and referring to Marlon’s weight. Marlon knew it, too. The line went silent. Michael bit his lip some more. He could see in the vanity mirror that his lip looked very red, but then he remembered that he had permanently tattooed it that color. “Elizabeth, listen to me,” Marlon said, in his angry but controlled mumble, which gave Michael an inappropriate little thrill; he couldn’t help it, it was just such classic Marlon. “Put that goddam Krupp on your pinkie and let’s get the fuck out of here.” Marlon hung up. Elizabeth started crying. There was a beep on the line. “I should probably take that,” Michael said.
At noon, Michael put on his usual disguise and picked up the car in an underground garage near Herald Square. At 12:27 p.m., he pulled up in front of the Carlyle. “Jesus Christ that was fast,” Marlon said. He was sitting on the sidewalk, on one of those portable collapsible chairs you sometimes see people bring along when they camp outside your hotel all night in the hope that you’ll step out onto the balcony and wave to them. He wore a funny bucket hat like a fisherman’s, elasticated sweatpants, and a huge Hawaiian shirt. “I took the superfast river road!” Michael said. He didn’t mean to look too smug about it, given the context, but he couldn’t help but be a little bit proud. Marlon opened a carton he had on his lap and took out a cheeseburger. He eyed the vehicle. “I hear you drive like a maniac.” “I do go fast, Marlon, but I also stay in control. You can trust me, Marlon. I promise I will get us out of here.” Michael felt really sad seeing Marlon like that, eating a cheeseburger on the sidewalk. He was so fat, and his little chair was under a lot of strain. The whole situation looked very precarious. This was also the moment when he noticed that Marlon wasn’t wearing any shoes. “Have you seen Liz?” Michael asked. “What is that hunk of junk, anyway?” Marlon asked. Michael had forgotten. He leaned over and took the manual out of the glove compartment. “A Toyota Camry. It’s all they had.” He was about to add “with a roomy back seat” but thought better of it. “The Japanese are a wise people,” Marlon said. Behind Marlon, the doors of the Carlyle opened and a bellboy emerged walking backward with a tower of Louis Vuitton luggage on a trolley and Elizabeth at his side. She was wearing a lot of diamonds: several necklaces, bracelets up her arms, and a mink stole covered with so many brooches it looked like a pin cushion. “You have got to be kidding me,” Marlon said.
A logician? A negotiator? Michael did not usually have much call to think of himself in this way. But now, back on the road and speeding toward Bethlehem, he allowed the thought that people had always overjudged and misunderestimated him and maybe in the end you don’t really know a person until that person is truly tested by a big event, like the apocalypse. Of course, people forgot he’d been raised a Witness. In one way or another, he’d been expecting this day for a long, long time. Still, if anyone had told him, twenty-four hours ago, that he would be able to convince Elizabeth—she who once bought a seat on a plane for a dress so it could meet her in Istanbul—to join him on an escape from New York, in a funky old Japanese car, abandoning five of her Louis Vuitton cases to a city under attack, well, he truly wouldn’t have believed it. Who knew he had such powers of persuasion? He’d never had to persuade anyone of anything, least of all his own genius, which was, of course, a weird childhood gift he’d never asked for and which had proved impossible to give back. Maybe even harder was getting Marlon to agree that they would not stop again for food until they hit Pennsylvania. He leaned forward to see if there were any more enemy combatants in the sky. There were not. He and his friends were really escaping! He had taken control and was making the right decisions for everybody! He looked across at Liz, in the passenger seat: she was calm, at last, but her eyeliner continued to run down her beautiful face. So much eyeliner. Everything Michael knew about eyeliner he’d learned from Liz, but now he realized he had something to teach her on the subject: make it permanent. Tattoo it right around the tear ducts. That way, it never runs. “Am I losing my mind?” Marlon asked. “Or did you say Bethlehem?” Michael adjusted the rearview mirror until he could see Marlon, stretched out on the back seat, reading a book and breaking into the emergency Twinkies, which Michael thought they had all agreed to save till Allentown. “It’s a town in Pennsylvania,” Michael said. “We’ll stop there, eat, and then we’ll go again.” “Are you reading?” Elizabeth asked. “How can you be reading at this moment?” “What should I be doing?” Marlon inquired, somewhat testily. “Shakespeare in the Park?” “I just don’t understand how a person can be reading when their country is under attack. We could all die at any moment.” “If you’d read your Sartre, honey, you’d know that was true at all times in all situations.” Elizabeth scowled and folded her twinkling hands in her lap. “I just don’t see how a person can read at such a time.” [cartoon id="a19051"] “Well, Liz,” Marlon said, laying it on thick, “let me enlighten you. See, I guess I read because I am what you’d call a reader. Because I am interested in the life of the mind. I admit it. I don’t even have a screening room: no, instead I have a library. Imagine that! Imagine that! Because it happens that my highest calling in life is not to put my fat little hands in a pile of sandy shit outside Grauman’s—” “Oh, brother, here we go.” “Because I actually aspire to comprehend the ways and inclinations of the human—” “_These people are trying to kill us! _” Liz screamed, and Michael felt it was really time to intervene. “Not us,” he ventured. “I guess, like, not especially us.” But then a thought came to him. “Elizabeth, you don’t think . . . ?” He had not thought this thought until now—he had been too busy with logistics—but now he began to think it. And he could tell everyone else in the car was thinking it, too. “How would I know?” Liz cried, twisting her biggest ring around her smallest finger. “Maybe! First the financial centers, then the government folks, and then—” “The very important people,” Michael whispered. “Wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Marlon said, turning solemn. “We’re exactly the kinds of sons of bitches who’d make a nice trophy on some crazy motherfucker’s wall.” He sounded scared, at last. And hearing Marlon scared made Michael as scared as he’d been all day. You never want to see your father scared, or your mother cry, and, as far as Michael’s chosen family went, that’s exactly what was happening right now, in this bad Japanese car that did not smell of new leather or new anything. It made him wish he’d tried harder to bring Liza along. On the other hand, maybe that would have been worse. It was almost as if his chosen family were as crushing to his emotional health as his real family! And that thought was really not one that he could allow himself to have on this day of all days—on any day. “We’re all under a lot of strain,” Michael said. His voice was a little wobbly, but he didn’t worry about crying; that didn’t happen easily anymore, not since he’d tattooed around his tear ducts. “This is a very high-stress situation,” he said. He tried to visualize himself as a responsible, humane father, taking his kids on a family road trip. “And we have to try and love each other.” “Thank you, Michael,” Elizabeth said, and for a couple of miles all was peaceful. Then Marlon started in again on the ring. “So these Krupps. They make the weapons that knock off your people, by the millions—and then you buy up their baubles? How does that work?” Elizabeth twisted around in the front seat until she could look Marlon in the eye. “What you don’t understand is that when Richard put this ring on my finger it stopped meaning death and started meaning love.” “Oh, I see. You have the power to turn death into love, just like that.” Elizabeth smiled discreetly at Michael. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed hers back. “Just like that,” she whispered. Marlon snorted. “Well, good luck to you. But back in the real world a thing is what it is, and thinking don’t make it otherwise.” Elizabeth took a compact from a hidden fold of her stole and reapplied some very red lipstick. “You know,” she told him, “Andy once said it would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as my ring. That’s an actual quotation.” “Sounds about right,” Marlon said, spoiling the moment and sounding pretty sneery, which seemed, to Michael, more than a little unfair, for whatever you thought about Andy personally, as a person, surely if anybody had understood their mutual suffering, if anyone had predicted, prophet-like, the exact length and strength and connective angles and occasionally throttling power of their three-way love thread, it was Andy. “ ‘It is no gift I tender,’ ” Marlon read, very loudly. “ ‘A loan is all I can; But do not scorn the lender; Man gets no more from Man.’ ” “This is not the time for poetry!” Elizabeth shouted. “This is exactly the time for poetry!” Marlon shouted. Just then, Michael remembered that there were a few CDs in the glove box. If he believed in anything, he believed in the healing power of music. He reached over to open it and passed the cases to Elizabeth. “I honestly don’t think we should stop in Ohio,” she said, examining them and then pushing a disk into the slit. “We could take turns driving. We’ll drive through the night.” “I can’t drive when I’m tired,” Marlon said, hitching himself up into a semi-upright position. “Or hungry. Maybe I should do my shift now.” “And I’ll do the night shift,” Michael said, brightening, and he began looking for a place to stop. He could not get over how well he was handling the apocalypse so far. Sure, he was terrified, but, at the same time, oddly elated and—vitally—not especially medicated, for his assistant had all his stuff, and he hadn’t told her he was escaping from New York until they were already on the road, fearing his assistant would try to stop him, as she usually tried to stop him doing the things he most wanted to do. Now he was beyond everyone’s reach. He struggled to think of another moment in his life when he’d felt so free. Was that terrible to say? He had to confess to himself that he felt high, and now tried to identify the source. The adrenaline of self-survival? Mixed with the pity, mixed with the horror? He wondered: is this the feeling people have in war zones and the like? Or—another strange thought—was this in fact what civilian people generally feel every day of their lives, in their sad old rank-smelling Toyota Camrys, sitting in traffic on their way to their workplaces, or camping outside your hotel window, or fainting in front of your dancing image on the Jumbotron? This feeling of no escape from your situation—of forced acceptance? Of no escape even from your escape? “Marlon, did you know that when Liz and I, when we have sleepovers . . . ?” Michael said, a little too quickly, and aware that he was babbling, but unable to stop. “Well, I really don’t sleep at all! Not one wink. Unless you literally knock me out? I’m literally awake all night long. So I’m good to drive all the way to Brentwood. I mean, if we have to.” “Don’t stop till you get enough,” Marlon murmured, and lay back down.
“I dreamed a dream in time gone byyyyyy,” Liz sang, along with the CD, “when hope was high and life worth liviiiiiiing. I dreamed that love would never diiiiie! I prayed that God would be for-giviiiiing.” It was the sixth or seventh go-round. They were almost in Harrisburg, having been considerably slowed by two stops at Burger King, one at McDonald’s, and three separate visits to KFC. “If you play that song one more time,” Marlon said, eating a bucket of wings, “I’m going to kill you myself.” |
This year, hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers gathered for the March for Life held in Washington, D.C. every year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Here are 11 of the most inspiring signs at the March:
Every year, a significant portion of the Marchers are teens and young adults, many of whom come with their college classmates.
These young adults are happy their mothers chose life:
So are these two:
This woman makes the scientific case for being pro-life:
Some people don’t just walk for life. They also run:
The March attracted Spanish speakers:
And even Canadians:
Some Marchers were Christians:
Everyone who marched agreed on one key thing:
And that’s why so many of them will make the trek again next year and come to the 2015 march:
(All photos by Kelsey Harris.) |
Attachment Shapes Our Existence
When I speak to others about the Buddhist concept of detachment, sometimes someone will say, ‘that just sounds like repression to me.’ While I certainly understand the thinking there, I do think there is an important difference between repression and detachment.
First, we need to see what is at the root of both of these concepts: the implication of attachment. In many ways, attachment is at the core of all existence. For what is existence but to be attached to some manifestation of being, or reality. As such, we like attachment. We thrive on it. It helps us to organize our lives and has the capacity to increase our sense of self. Yet, it can also be detrimental.
On a materialistic level, we cherish our ‘things.’ The new car, big house, smart phone. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if we lose one of those objects we often feel like some part of our soul has been ripped out (which is not the case). We cause ourselves and others undue pain over these attachments.
On a more meta-physical level we can become attached to a cycle of pain characterized by patterns of thought and emotion; our insecurity, anxiety, self doubt, anger, sorrow, etc. It seems to me that these patterns are at the root of most action. In learning to detach oneself from such patterns, we begin to break the cycle of pain and re-route the ways in which we operate.
The Difference between Repression and Detachment
So maybe you’re asking, “If I detach myself from my emotions isn’t that just not dealing with them, and repressing?” I think the the answer can be both yes and no. As always it depends on the individual. One can’t just decide to be detached from those things. That most likely will lead to repression. We must go about it very consciously.
Detachment occurs when we look at those feelings and thoughts whether positive or negative, acknowledge their presence, and realize that we can sit with these things without them defining us; meaning that they do not need to inform or instigate unconscious action. Whereas, when we repress something, the attachment remains. The thing just moves out of sight into unconscious territory. Then, it does instigate unconscious behavior. It manifests itself in ways that can be extremely detrimental to our well being.
You are a Boat
Think of a boat floating down a river. You’re the boat. The river is life. Now imagine you put your anchor down in the mud at the bottom, but you forget to bring it up. Your anchor is your mind. The current of the river picks up, and starts moving you, but the anchor is dragging at the bottom. You feel the weight, the resistance but you’ve forgotten about the anchor. Repression is like this. It weighs you down and manifests into resistance and struggle.
Now take a step back. You let your anchor down, but you’re very aware that the anchor (mind) is not separate from you; your are in control. As such, you see and feel the muck at the bottom. You’re aware that part of you is sitting in it, and that’s ok. You spend some time there, examining the mud and how it informs your reality. Then, you pull up anchor and allow the current to take you. You’re still very aware that beneath the moving water there is a layer of mud, but you realize that you don’t need to let it inform your movement all the time. This is detachment. You see all the factors, all of the snares. You allow the muck to be there but you do not let it define you.
Unconscious vs. Conscious Behavior
The bottom line is that repression is unconscious behavior while detachment is conscious. I think there can be a fine line between the two but the results of each are night and day. Even if one wants to detach from something, if that person is not conscious enough, it could in fact become repression.
The important thing to remember is that detachment is not just a decision one makes and that’s it. It is a dynamic, versatile thing that requires one to make the decision again and again. Some issue may crop up. It could be something we thought we had put to rest. If that happens we make the decision to examine so that we may detach again. It doesn’t happen over night. It takes time, effort, patience, openness, and above all, practice. We must practice mindfulness if we are to learn detachment.
Agree? Disagree? I welcome your thoughts!
By Terence Stone
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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers want to trade Mike Glennon, and the New York Jets need a quarterback. The Jets also have a top-notch player on a one-year contract in Muhammad Wilkerson. Both teams and players have been mentioned in various trade scenarios, so it was only a matter of time before someone would speculate that the Bucs and Jets would swap Wilkerson and Glennon. And so Manish Mehta did, in the New York Daily News -- as speculation, mind you.
The Jets still want to retain Ryan Fitzpatrick, but they're considering alternate options if the veteran doesn't return. The team has done their due diligence on available signal callers, including the Bucs' backup. Tampa Bay head coach Dirk Koetter all but admitted that Glennon, who won't see the light of day for the Bucs unless Jameis Winston gets injured, can be had in a trade. The feeling around the league is that the Bucs don't have to get a first-round pick in return for Glennon, who is entering the final year of his rookie contract. Would the Jets be willing to dole out a second-rounder for Glennon? A third-rounder is a no-brainer for a player, who can start right away and have a chance to be your long-term answer at quarterback.
Why this makes sense
The Buccaneers need a defensive end, the Jets need a quarterback, and both Wilkerson and Glennon have only one year left on their contracts. The Bucs have publicly acknowledged that they've been talking to teams about Glennon, and they need to find a trade partner -- or let Glennon walk away next year, with the only compensation a potential compensatory pick in 2018.
Meanwhile, the Jets don't have a starting quarterback. They need to find one. And they'd prefer not to be pigeonholed into taking one in the draft -- with the risk of missing out on a signal caller if they are. Mike Glennon is probably the best quarterback available in trade. Someone with starting experience who has the potential to turn into a reliable game manager, given the opportunity.
Why this doesn't make sense
The Jets really want Ryan Fitzpatrick back, and there's no reason for them to give up assets for Glennon when they can simply pay Fitzpatrick what he wants. For the Jets to actually pull the trigger on a Glennon trade, they'd have to give up on the prospect of re-signing Fitzpatrick. That's not going to happen -- at least not for a while yet.
In addition, Wilkerson doesn't quite fit what the Bucs need. They need an edge rusher, someone who can line up outside of an offensive tackle and beat him around the corner with consistency. Wilkerson's a very good player, but he's a 3-4 defensive end who can play defensive tackle on passing downs. That's a valuable skillset, but the Bucs just signed someone who fits that in Robert Ayers, and have William Gholston on the roster. In addition to that, they still have Akeem Spence and Clinton McDonald at defensive tackle as well.
And then there's the matter of financial compensation. The Bucs would have to pay Wilkerson close to what they're paying Gerald McCoy to get him to sign a long-term contract. That's an absurd financial commitment at defensive tackle -- and it still doesn't bring them any closer to having an explosive edge rusher in the fold.
Odds of this happening: 5% |
On occasion a reader will ask if I can give readers some good news. The answer is: not unless I lie to you like “your” government and the mainstream media do. If you want faked “good news,” you need to retreat into The Matrix. In exchange for less stress and worry, you will be led unknowingly into financial ruin and nuclear armageddon.
If you want to be forewarned, and possibly prepared, for what “your” government is bringing you, and have some small chance of redirecting the course of events, read and support this site. It is your site. I already know these things. I write for you.
The neoconservatives, a small group of warmongers strongly allied with the military/industrial complex and Israel, gave us Granada and the Contras affair in Nicaragua. President Reagan fired them, and they were prosecuted, but subsequently pardoned by Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush.
Ensconced in think tanks and protected by Israeli and military/security complex money, the neoconservatives reemerged in the Clinton administration and engineered the breakup of Yugoslavia, the war against Serbia, and the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders.
Neoconservatives dominated the George W. Bush regime. They controlled the Pentagon, the National Security Council, the Office of the Vice President, and much else. Neoconservatives gave us 9/11 and its coverup, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the beginning of the destabilizations of Pakistan and Yemen, the U.S. Africa Command, the invasion of South Ossetia by Georgia, the demise of the anti-ABM Treaty, unconstitutional and illegal spying on American citizens without warrants, loss of constitutional protections, torture, and the unaccountability of the executive branch to law, Congress, and the judiciary. In short, the neoconservatives laid the foundation for dictatorship and for WW III.
The Obama regime held no one accountable for the crimes of the Bush regime, thus creating the precedent that the executive branch is above the law. Instead, the Obama regime prosecuted whistleblowers who told the truth about government crimes.
Neoconservatives remain very influential in the Obama regime. As examples, Obama appointed neoconservative Susan Rice as his National Security Advisor. Obama appointed neoconservative Smantha Power as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Obama appointed neoconservative Victoria Nuland as Assistant Secretary of State. Nuland’s office, working with the CIA and Washington-financed NGOs, organized the U.S. coup in Ukraine.
Neoconservatism is the only extant political ideology. The ideology is “America uber alles.” Neoconservatives believe that History has chosen the United States to exercise hegemony over the world, thereby making the U.S. “exceptional” and “indispensable.” Obama himself has declared as much. This ideology gives neoconservatives tremendous confidence and drive, just as Karl Marx’s conclusion that history had chosen the workers to be the ruling class gave early communists confidence and drive.
This confidence and drive makes the neoconservatives reckless.
To advance their agenda neoconservatives propagandize the populations of the U.S. and Washington’s vassal states. The presstitutes deliver the neoconservatives’ lies to the unsuspecting public: Russia has invaded and annexed Ukrainian provinces; Putin intends to reconstitute the Soviet Empire; Russia is a gangster state without democracy; Russia is a threat to the Baltics, Poland, and all of Europe, necessitating a U.S./NATO military buildup on Russia’s borders; China, a Russian ally, must be militarily contained with new U.S. naval and air bases surrounding China and controlling Chinese sea lanes.
The neoconservatives and President Obama have made it completely clear that the U.S. will not accept Russia and China as sovereign countries with economic and foreign policies independent of the interests of Washington. Russia and China are acceptable only as vassal states, like the UK, Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia.
Clearly, the neoconservative formula is a formula for the final war.
All of humanity is endangered by a handful of evil men and women ensconced in positions of power in Washington.
Anti-Russia propaganda has gone into high gear. Putin is the “new Hitler.”
Daniel Zubov reports on a joint conference held by three U.S. think tanks.
The conference blamed Russia for the failures of Washington’s foreign policy. Read this article:http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20141205/1015538604.html to see how neoconservatives operate in order to control the explanations. Even Henry Kissinger is under attack for stating the obvious truth that Russia has a legitimate interest in Ukraine, a land long part of Russia and located in Russia’s legitimate sphere of influence.
Since the Clinton regime, Washington has been acting against Russian interests. In his forthcoming book, The Globalization of War: America’s Long War against Humanity, Professor Michel Chossudovsky presents a realistic appraisal of how close Washington has brought the world to its demise in nuclear war. This passage is from the Preface:
“The ‘globalization of war’ is a hegemonic project. Major military
and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken
simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan
Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US military agenda
combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions
geared towards destabilizing sovereign states. “Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the
Western military alliance (US-NATO-Israel) in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq are coordinated at the highest
levels of the military hierarchy. We are not dealing with
piecemeal military and intelligence operations. The July-August
2014 attack on Gaza by Israeli forces was undertaken in close consultation
with the United States and NATO. In turn, the actions in
Ukraine and their timing coincided with the onslaught of the attack
on Gaza. “In turn, military undertakings are closely coordinated with a
process of economic warfare which consists not only in imposing
sanctions on sovereign countries but also in deliberate acts of destabilization
of financial and currency markets, with a view to undermining
the enemies’ national economies. ORDER IT NOW “The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure
which threatens the future of humanity. As we go to press, US
and NATO forces have been deployed in Eastern Europe. US military
intervention under a humanitarian mandate is proceeding in sub-Saharan
Africa. The US and its allies are threatening China under President Obama’s
‘Pivot to Asia’. “In turn, military maneuvers are being conducted at Russia’s
doorstep which could lead to escalation. “The US airstrikes initiated in September 2014 directed against
Iraq and Syria under the pretext of going after the Islamic State are
part of a scenario of military escalation extending from North Africa
and the Eastern Mediterranean to Central and South Asia.
The Western military alliance is in an advanced state of readiness. “And so is Russia.”
As I have often remarked, Americans are an insouciant people. They are simply unaware. Suppose they were aware, suppose that the entire population understood the peril, could anything be done, or have the insouciant Americans fallen under the control of the police state that Washington has created?
I don’t think there is much hope from the American people. The American people cannot tell genuine from fake leadership, and the ruling private elites will not permit real leaders to emerge. Moreover, there is no organized movement in opposition to the neoconservatives.
The hope comes from outside the political system. The hope is that the House of Cards and rigged markets erected by policymakers for the benefit of the One Percent collapses. David Stockman regards this outcome as a highly likely one. The collapse that Stockman sees as being on its way is the same collapse about which I have warned. Moreover, the number of Black Swans which can originate collapse are even more numerous than the ones Stockman correctly identifies. Some financial organizations are worried about a lack of liquidity in the fixed income (bonds) and derivatives markets. Barbara Novack, co-chair of Black Rock, is lobbying hard for a derivatives bailout mechanism.
David Stockman’s article is important. Read it until you understand it, and you will know more than most everyone. http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/david-stockman/duck-and-cover%E2%80%A8/
Many will ask: If the wealth of the One Percent is vulnerable to economic collapse, will war be initiated to protect this wealth and to blame the Russians or Chinese for the hardships that engulf the American population? My answer is that the kind of collapse that I expect, and that David Stockman and no doubt others expect, presents government with such social, political, and economic insecurity that organizing for a major war becomes impossible.
Whereas the political impotence of the American people and the vassalage of the Western World impose no constraints on Washington, economic collapse brings revolutions and the demise of the existing order.
As hard as collapse would make it for people to survive, the chances for survival are higher than in the event of nuclear war. |
At one point in time, we all thought Paul Ryan was actually a Republican (and a decent human being) who had the best interests of Americans in mind. But lately, we’ve seen the House Speaker show his true nature, siding with Obama on major issues, to include health care and immigration, even coming out recently with the ludicrous statement that “Muslims are our partners.”
While frustrated Conservatives have started speaking out against Ryan, even labeling him a “traitor,” his previous antics are nothing compared to the stunt that he just pulled. Damning evidence has just surfaced, showing how this little turd is actively working get Hillary Clinton elected, by sabotaging the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
You probably recall the big debacle several months ago, when Hillary was propping up the Khans, the Muslim couple whose son was killed in the Iraq war. Along with her liberal army, Hillary attempted to paint Trump as a bigot, since Trump wasn’t actively kissing the Khan’s asses simply because they were Muslims. Ryan was one of the Republicans who came out blasting Trump and siding with the Muslim couple, but looked like a complete dumbass shortly afterwards, when it was revealed the Khans had ties to radical Islam.
But that attack was just the beginning of Ryan’s sabotage of Trump. Evidence just surfaced that Ryan might actually be the puppet master behind the recent Trump scandal, where audio from 2005 was “coincidentally” leaked to the liberal media right before the second debates.
Shortly after the Washington Post (AKA Hillary’s campaign) released the audio clip of Trump making crude comments and women and their vaginas on Friday, Paul Ryan already had a statement prepared about the scandal where he publicly castigated Trump, announcing he would be cancelling his appearance with Trump at a Wisconsin event.
“I am sickened by what I heard today,” Ryan said in a statement. “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified. I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.”
Many began rumbling about how Trump completely blew his chances of becoming president, with several top Republicans along with the left demanding that Trump drop out of the race immediately. But on Sunday during the second debates, Trump not only redeemed himself with his sincere apologies, but went on to destroy Hillary, with a brilliant performance that made everyone forget about the leaked tape.
But rather than applauding Trump for his stellar performance, Ryan again sabotaged Trump by changing the narrative yet again, putting the Americans’ attention back on the scandal. He came the day after the debates on Monday admonishing Trump, saying he would “not campaign or defend Trump for the rest of the election cycle.” A rather odd statement from Ryan, considering he’s never defended or supported Trump in the first place.
But the timing of Ryan’s negative statements all begin to make perfect sense with the bombshell that Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr. just leaked. Falwell claims that it GOP elites along with Ryan and his close #NeverTrump advisor Dan Senor who leaked the tape to the liberal press, ammunition they had hoped would destroy Trump’s chances of beating Hillary.
“I think this whole tape… video tape thing was planned, I think it was timed, I think it might have even been a conspiracy among establishment Republicans who have known about it for weeks and who tried to time it to do the maximum damage to Donald Trump, and I just… I just think it just backfired on them.” said Falwell.
Political pundit Mike Ceronovich agreed with Falwell’s assertion, pointing out that Dan Senor’s wife used to work at NBC, a station who is completely in the bag for Hillary.
Dan Senor’s slanderous tweets after the debate also substantiate Falwell’s theory, as it looks like he along with Ryan are hell-bent on keeping Trump’s scandal circulating in the press. Here’s tweets Senor made on Monday, a point in time when Republicans should be rallying around Trump’s incredible performance, but instead, these malcontents are choosing to blast their liberal-like anti-Trump nonsense across the internet.
This is nothing short of outrageous. Why would Ryan and his side-kick advisor intentionally sabotage the only chance we have to beat Hillary Clinton? It sure appears that Ryan and his team are actively working with the Hillary campaign to ruin Trump’s chance of winning in November.
If our elected officials are not representing the will of the people and operating with our best interests in mind, not only do these traitors need to be lined up and repeatedly throat-punched, but we need to recall them immediately. Seriously, screw these morons! They are worse than liberals!
H/T [Gateway Pundit, The Daily Beast] |
American democracy in shambles
22 April 2013
With the imposition of a state of siege in Boston, a historical threshold has been crossed. For the first time ever, a major American city has been placed under the equivalent of martial law. The already frayed veneer of a stable democracy based on constitutional principles is in shreds.
On Monday, April 15, two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in the city’s center. Three people were killed and over 170 were injured, some seriously. This was a criminal act with tragic consequences. But violence, including acts of mass homicide and disasters resulting in major loss of life, is a regular feature of American society. Even as the events in Boston were unfolding, a factory explosion in Texas, to all appearances linked to safety hazards, took far more lives than the bombs detonated at the end of the marathon.
There is no precedent for the massive mobilization of military, police and intelligence forces carried out April 19 in Boston and its environs, which encompass more than 1 million people. Thousands of heavily armed police and National Guard troops occupied the streets, backed up by machine gun-mounted armored vehicles, Humvees and Black Hawk helicopters. As the WSWS noted, the scene resembled the US occupation of Baghdad.
The people were told to remain indoors while police, with automatic weapons drawn, conducted warrantless house-to-house searches. Some of those who strayed out of doors were surrounded by police and ordered to go home. The mass transit system was shut down; passenger train service along the northeastern corridor was halted; businesses, universities and other public facilities were closed.
Boston—the cradle of the American Revolution, one of the most liberal cities in one of the most liberal states in the US, the country’s premier center of higher education—was turned into an armed camp. This staggering mobilization of federal, state and local police power was deployed to track down a 19-year-old youth.
So far, there has been no protest from within the political or media establishment to the lockdown.
Following the capture of alleged bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, President Obama issued a late-night statement from the White House in which he stressed the role of his administration in the police-state mobilization, boasting that he had “directed the full resources of the federal government…to increase security as needed.” Ignoring the presumption of innocence, he referred to the captured suspect and his dead brother as “these terrorists.”
Obama’s Justice Department quickly announced that it would not read the suspect his “Miranda right” to remain silent and obtain legal counsel before speaking to police investigators. It would instead question the seriously injured youth “extensively” not just on matters related directly to public safety, but more broadly on “intelligence matters.” This sets a precedent for denying these rights to anyone arrested under antiterrorism statutes, which, under Obama, has already included political dissidents such as Occupy Wall Street and anti-NATO protesters.
Encouraged by the police-military mobilization, Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain and New York Congressman Peter King, all of whom have close ties to the military and intelligence agencies, demanded that Tsarnaev be declared an enemy combatant and turned over to the military.
The events in Boston have laid bare the modus operandi for the establishment of dictatorial forms of rule in the US. One or another violent act carried out by disoriented or disaffected individuals, perhaps with the help of elements within the state, is declared a terrorist event. A state of siege is imposed suspending democratic rights and establishing military-police control.
So deeply implicated are all of the organs of the state in these plans that little in the outer trappings of political life would have to be changed. It would not be necessary to overthrow the president or shut down Congress. These institutions would readily play their assigned role, and the imposition of a military dictatorship would be sanctioned by the US Supreme Court.
The media would simply continue to do what it normally does—functioning as a de facto arm of the state and providing the necessary pretexts, while whipping up the requisite fear and panic within the public.
The very fact that the entire establishment agrees that democratic norms cannot be maintained in the face of violence by a handful of people testifies to the advanced stage of the breakdown of American democracy.
So disproportionate was the scale of the response to the actual level of the threat that the conclusion cannot be avoided that the Boston bombings were the pretext for, not the cause of, the lockdown. The police-state mobilization was the culmination of more than a decade of intensive planning and the ceaseless buildup of the repressive forces of the state since 9/11, carried out under the cover of the “war on terror.”
The operation is not an expression of strength or confidence on the part of the American ruling class. On the contrary, it reflects the near panic of the corporate-financial elite in the face of mounting social discontent, exacerbated by extreme nervousness over the precarious state of global financial markets. What haunts the ruling class is not the fear of a terrorist attack, but dread of a new financial collapse, with the likely consequence of massive social upheavals.
The breakdown of American democracy has profound causes, the first of which is the staggering level of social inequality. Democracy cannot be maintained when the richest 5 percent of the population controls over 60 percent of the wealth. In the moves to police-military dictatorship, the forms of rule are coming into conformance with the underlying social reality of American capitalism.
Another fundamental cause of the crisis of democracy is the eruption of US militarism. The power of the military/intelligence apparatus has grown immensely, particularly since the end of the Soviet Union, as the American ruling class has turned to military aggression as a means of offsetting the decline in its global economic position. The professional military, segregated from society at large and hostile to it, has acquired ever-greater influence over political affairs and civilian authority. As always, imperialist war is incompatible with democracy.
American liberalism as a distinct political tendency has ceased to exist. The lining up of the Democratic Party behind the “war on terror,” and the external aggression and internal repression carried out in its name, has made clear that there is no section of the ruling elite that will defend democratic rights. The Obama administration, which has expanded the right-wing, antidemocratic policies of the Bush administration, is without question the most reactionary in US history.
As always, the filthiest role is played by the media and its leading personnel. From day one, they turned the airwaves into a continual rumor mill, making one unsubstantiated claim after another in an effort to sow fear and panic and justify the police-state measures being taken. They readily agreed to self-censor their reports in accordance with the demands of the police agencies. As CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, son of the former Democratic governor of New York and brother of the state’s current governor, told viewers, “We’ve only been showing the feeds that authorities are comfortable with.”
The media seeks to create an aura of popular support for martial law-type measures. But the initial confusion will give way to mounting disquiet. The abrupt shift in the forms of rule will create opposition in the population, above all in the working class.
The appropriate conclusions need to be drawn. Social inequality and war—the inevitable outcome of capitalism—are incompatible with democracy. One or the other—capitalism or democracy—must go. That is the issue confronting the working class.
Barry Grey |
The easiest way in Turkey to get out of a difficult political corner, especially if you have Islamist leanings, is to point at Israel as the country orchestrating developments you don’t like. This is not to naively suggest that Israel does not interfere in the affairs of other countries in an effort to arrange things to its advantage. But to see a Jewish or Israeli hand in every Turkish crisis has become a knee-jerk reaction, even in crises that are blatantly home grown.
The massive corruption probe that went public Dec. 17, the fine details of which have been amply covered by Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse, has shaken the Turkish government to the core when crucial local elections are just three months away and presidential elections are due to be held later in the year.
To have four ministers implicated in a bribery scandal involving tens of millions of dollars, a shady Iranian businessman, the head of a government bank, a mayor from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and prominent housing contractors who work closely with the government is a political tsunami for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan is fully aware that he has few options, if any, that will make him look good as this scandal unfolds. The firing of so many police chiefs by his government after news of the corruption probe broke and the appointment of “supplemental” prosecutors to the case already looks bad for him.
Erdogan has decided to brace himself against all criticism and declare war on the “gang” — to use his term — that he claims has lodged itself in the bowels of the state where, together with its international connections, it allegedly plans such operations against the government.
Addressing a crowd in Konya, Central Anatolia, on Dec. 17, shortly after the arrests in connection with the probe started, a visibly angry Erdogan claimed there was a “dirty alliance” against Turkey, saying, “Those who have the power of capital and the media behind them can't change the direction of this country.”
He said that those who planned this operation were both outside and inside Turkey, adding, “You can guess who they are. This was a process that started with Gezi Park, and now they have taken a new step,” he claimed.
The culprit for Erdogan behind the Gezi Park protests in June, which left him and his government in a negative light internationally, was a curious “interest-rate lobby.” He alleged this lobby was trying to undermine Turkey’s economic and political successes. The pro-government media made sure that this was understood to be an essentially Jewish lobby.
Having taken its cue from Erdogan’s remarks, this portion of the media is doing the same again by using convoluted arguments to bring in the Israeli and Jewish angle. The Star newspaper, for example, claimed Dec. 18 that Turkey’s oil transactions with Iran, for which Halkbank — the government bank implicated in the current probe — was used, was the reason the Mossad had launched the probe.
Given the way the Turkish lira melted against the dollar and the stock market went into heavy turbulence over news of the scandal, it will not be surprising to hear Erdogan revive the “interest-rate lobby” argument or something similar in the coming days. It is also apparent that Erdogan can not risk a normalization of ties with Israel at a time when the pro-government media, with prompting from government circles, is claiming that Israel is involved in a conspiracy against his government.
Meanwhile, pro-government papers are also trying their utmost to downplay the details of the corruption probe being leaked to the media and undermine some of the most damaging of the revelations. The flow of damning claims, however, appears unstoppable. What is certain at this stage, despite government-orchestrated efforts to deflect attention by using Israel and other such arguments, is that Turkish Islamists have drawn swords on each other. Judging by Erdogan’s remarks, the AKP and the Gulen movement are readying for a bitter and mutually destructive war.
Both come from the same base and have supported each other in the past. But they have not seen eye-to-eye on a number of issues, and their rivalry boiled over recently after the government’s decision to close down prep schools, many of which were run by the Gulen movement. Kadri Gursel’s post for Al-Monitor's Turkey Pulse on Nov. 18 provides the background to this rivalry.
The Gulen media, headed by Zaman and its English-language version Today’s Zaman, is adamant that the probe reveals a corruption story that implicates government ministers and demands that the truth is revealed. Other media organs that are free of government control are also following this line. The pro-government media, however, is claiming a grand conspiracy against Erdogan.
With one part of the Islamist media claiming an international conspiracy, and the other saying this is a corruption scandal pure and simple, grass-roots followers of the AKP are confused. If Israel is behind the current scandal — as some in the pro-government camp claim — this means Fethullah Gulen, whose supporters in the police and judiciary allegedly initiated this probe, is in collusion with a country that is universally vilified by Islamists.
Many AKP supporters who are sympathetic toward Gulen will find this hard to accept. It is telling in this regard that all the accusations coming from official AKP quarters refer to the Gulen group indirectly, without naming it. When asked if they mean the Gulen group, government spokesmen deny it. The closest they get to naming Gulen is to point to a gang in the state apparatus that uses the group’s name.
This clearly shows that the Gulen issue is a sensitive one within AKP ranks also. This was brought home in a striking way on Dec. 16, when Hakan Sukur — one of Turkey’s most revered soccer stars, who never hid his closeness to Gulen — resigned from the AKP after criticizing Erdogan over the issue of the prep schools. Sukur was elected as AKP deputy after Erdogan invited him to the party in June 2011.
Given the magnitude of the potential damage to the government, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag is leading efforts to get a news blackout imposed on the current corruption probe. Bozdag is also claiming on his Twitter account that this probe is designed to harm the AKP’s chances in the local elections as well as Erdogan’s chance of being elected president.
Such remarks, when combined with Erdogan’s angry words, show Turkey is heading for a tense and turbulent period politically, with negative economic consequences that are already being felt. This will also undermine an inward-looking Ankara’s capacity as a regional player at a critical moment in the Middle East.
Fighting and surviving this domestic war nevertheless appears to be of existential importance for Erdogan, who seems to be less concerned presently over the instability his war with the Gulen group and others he considers his enemies will create for the country.
Otherwise, he would have demanded the immediate resignations of the ministers implicated and supported the rule of law, instead of pushing the international conspiracy line. Some are even suggesting that in a normal democracy, Erdogan would have also resigned after such a scandal. But that is expecting too much from today’s Turkey. |
I could have made this so easy; just copy Chelsea's roster and call it my Premier League Best XI for 2014-15. Ok, I might have knocked out a couple of the lesser players like Ruben Loftus-Cheek and that guy in a mask whose best pass of 2015 earned him a one-game suspension, but the real reason I decided not to was that I didn't want to ape the Professional Football Association -- they named practically every member of the title-winning squad, except for Jose Mourinho's personal meditation swami.
So you'll only find four Blues on this list, the most I could bring myself to include and still retain a shred of self-respect. Deal with it.
David Hirshey's Premier League team of the season. What do you think?
GK: David de Gea, Manchester United (but on his way to Real Madrid)
As always, Sir Alex Ferguson knew best. Back in 2011, when United were desperate to put Edwin van der Sar in a retirement home, the United boss could have had his pick of the world's elite keepers: Joe Hart and Hugo Lloris were just two of the names reportedly eager to stand between the posts at Old Trafford.
But Ferguson had his mind set on a gawky 20-year-old Spaniard from Atletico Madrid and he paid almost $30 million to get his man-child. Three years later, the 6-foot-4 de Gea with his condor-like wingspan soars head and shoulders above every goalkeeper in the Prem -- and maybe even the world. He was arguably the player of the year, but in a sport whose defining characteristic is a ban on the use of hands, the PFA was never going give him the nod over a field wizard like Eden Hazard.
De Gea was a dominant force for Manchester United this season. Will he be there next season?
Under the watchful eye of Louis van Gaal, De Gea had so many jaw-dropping saves this season that he made the miraculous seem routine. Still, two stand out: point-blank shots from Mario Balotelli and Glenn Murray that the Spaniard stoned by somehow fast-twitching his arm into position to claw them away. According to Opta, he hasn't dropped a single thing all season ... except for a strong hint that playing for Real Madrid was his childhood dream.
If De Gea has played his last game for United (and all signs point to him setting up a new rookery at the Bernabeu next season) he has come a long way from his jittery debut campaign. And if United should somehow draw Real Madrid in next season's Champions League, it will be DDG who is giving LVG the bird.
Entered the conversation, but quickly left it: Thibaut Courtois (Chelsea), Hugo Lloris (Spurs)
Clyne has caught the experts' eye in the past but is a top summer target for the Premier League's elite.
RB: Nathaniel Clyne, Southampton
Quick, can you name a top-class English right-back from the past couple of decades? I'll give you Gary Neville in his pomp at Manchester United; strong in the tackle, intelligent in his positioning, comfortable going forward and above all, right there to defend his childhood friend David Beckham from angry Argentinians.
But once you get by the exception to the rule, all that remains is a sorry lot of cloggers and grafters who slid down the food chain to that position like Glen Johnson, Calum Chambers, Kyle Walker, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and John Stones, all of whom have one thing in common: they were chosen to represent their country ahead of Nathaniel Clyne.
It took a breakout season with Ronald Koeman's revitalized Southampton to pry open the eyes of his Premier League opponents and for the England manager Roy Hodgson to nod his basset hound jowls in acknowledgement of the 24-year-old's prodigious talents. Awarded a first cap last fall, he has since made the England slot his own and now finds himself being wooed by alpha dog clubs such as Man United.
Clyne's gifts (pace, trickery, defensive intuition) would have been recognized sooner had he succumbed to Sir Alex Ferguson's charms when the United manager tried to lure him to Old Trafford in 2012. But Clyne's decision to remain at his smaller club proved savvy and this past season, his trajectory mirrored that of the Saints.
If talent paired with thuggish intentions was the key metric: Branislav Ivanovic (Chelsea)
Jose Fonte, left, led the Premier League in interceptions this season, a testament to his excellent vision in defense.
CB: Jose Fonte, Southampton
The Saints skipper has come a long way from his days as Cristiano Ronaldo's teammate on the Sporting Lisbon youth team. While CR7 went on to become the self-proclaimed greatest personal advocate for hair gel, Fonte has shouldered his way through six years of defensive grinding, the last three in the increasingly upper reaches of the EPL, before emerging this season as the finished article.
This is not to say that Fonte was immaculate -- he memorably gift-wrapped a rare Robin van Persie goal with a woefully under-hit back pass -- but he was the rock on which Ronald Koeman built his defensive fortress after losing several of his best players (and Rickie Lambert) during a summer exodus that would have hurtled almost any other club straight down the divisional elevator shaft.
Perhaps the 31-year-old's finest moment came against Spurs, a game in which he so dominated the Next Entirely Overblown England Savior Harry Kane that the Tottenham striker was able to muster only a single shot and was lucky not to injure himself when he fell out of Fonte's back pocket at the end of the game.
Would have been chosen had he not been Kaned so badly against Spurs: Gary Cahill (Chelsea)
Chelsea's captain played every single minute of the Premier League season. In your face, Rafa Benitez.
CB: John Terry, Chelsea
What, you thought I'd be so blinded by my loathing of the man as to leave him off the team?
While I was sorely tempted, not even I could stoop that low (possibly due to a bad back), but also because this is not a list of candidates for the Premier League's Humanitarian of the Year award. Not to mention that Brendan Rodgers already locked that one up anyway for his refusal to bench Steven Gerrard in the face of the sharpest decline of an English icon since George Michael.
It is not for me to extoll Terry's qualities as a captain, leader, warrior, winner and all-round defensive colossus. Nor is it for me to mention that against all karmic odds, he has defied injury, public venom and Rafael Benitez to carry Chelsea to an astonishing 16th trophy since he broke into the senior team as a teenager.
Let others talk about his positional intelligence, aerial dominance, ability to pass his way out of tight spots and his utter refusal to pay any notice to his personal odometer. No, I have only one word to say about John Terry and it has taken me decades to utter it: Respect.
Cesar Azpilicueta's acumen and work rate have managed to keep high-priced Filipe Luis out of the Chelsea starting XI.
LB: Cesar "Dave" Azpilicueta, Chelsea
When Jose Mourinho famously declared that Chelsea could win the league with a team of 11 Azpilicuetas, he was engaging in an uncharacteristic bit of hyperbole; everyone knows Chelsea need only 10 men behind the ball to get the job done.
But it's a measure of how highly Mourinho regards the 25-year-old Spaniard that his is the first name on the team sheet when you consider that Chelsea boasts the PFA Player of the Year in Eden Hazard and the mother of all captains in John Terry. Yet for all the gaudy skill and gritty leadership that those two bring to the side, neither has been as ferociously consistent as the quiet, understated defender his colleagues affectionately refer to as "Dave."
Chelsea would have been up a Portuguese creek without Azpi's lockdown discipline. A throwback to old-school, no-frills full-backs who were content to hold their position for 90 minutes, he provided the critical defensive balance that allowed Branislav Ivanovic to maraud forward on the right flank and score some big goals. In 29 league appearances this season, Azpilicueta didn't commit a single error that led to an opponent's scoring chance and Chelsea recorded 16 clean sheets with him in the lineup.
And the larger the game, the bigger the 5-foot-10 defender plays. In Chelsea's last serious test before they clinched the title, a 0-0 stalemate with Arsenal that was perhaps the crowning moment of glory for the Blues' defense, Azpilicueta completely nullified the right side of the Gunners' attack, making 10 tackles, or seven more than anyone else on the field.
It's no wonder that Chelsea's $26 million transfer from Atletico Madrid, the highly rated Brazilian left-back Filipe Luis, could barely get into the team; he started only nine league games and was approached about a summer move back to his former club. (He said no.) This would mark the second world-class defender whom Azpilicueta has seen off since he arrived at Stamford Bridge. Oh Cashley, we can barely remember you.
Strongly considered: Ryan Bertrand (Southampton)
Too bad the season didn't start in March and he's no longer at left-back: Ashley Young (Man United)
Alexis Sanchez was a sensation in his first season of Premier League action, helping Arsenal finish third.
RM: Alexis Sanchez, Arsenal
It is supposed to take time for world-class players outside of England to acclimate themselves to the hurly-burly of the Premier League; just look at almost every one of Louis van Gaal's overpriced acquisitions. Sanchez, however, has taken to his new environment like Joey Barton to Twitter, never breaking stride while racing from Barcelona to Brazil (for the World Cup) to the Emirates, where his full-throttle start to the season earned him the nickname the Duracell Bunny and almost single-handedly kept the Gunners relevant despite the team's ongoing efforts to shoot themselves in their twinkle-toed feet.
From September to mid-January, he scored 18 goals, made nine assists and was the catalyst for Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho's early-season pas de deux after Gary Cahill obliterated the Chilean right in front of the Arsenal manager.
Manchester City's Manuel Pellegrini called the 26-year-old "the best player in English football," citing his combination of relentless energy, incisive passing and ruthless finishing. But during those early months as Arsenal struggled to keep pace with the league leaders, it was not simply his preternatural comfort on the ball that set him apart but his insatiable appetite for the game.
It was inevitable that this level of hyperkinetic performance would exact a physical toll, but when Arsene Wenger offered him a rest in late December, the manager was told "gracias but no gracias." While the fatigue from carrying 10 other players around would eventually catch up with him, he still scored more goals than a certain Belgian who was voted the Premier League's Player of the Year.
And perhaps best of all, Sexy Alexy has ensured that no one will ever again point to an Arsenal player bearing the letter "A" and conjure up the pain of the Andre Arshavin years.
Fabian Delph has driven Aston Villa to Premier League safety and an FA Cup final since signing a new contract.
CM: Fabian Delph, Aston Villa
Lesser beings will say that I'm picking the all-action Villa captain as a pathetic ploy to distract him from the business at hand -- namely his team's date with defeat in the FA Cup Final on May 30. You know, sort of like the "dodgy lasagna" that Arsenal were suspected of providing to Spurs players on the eve of a 2006 match that could have clinched fourth place for North London's perennial losers.
But as much as I wish I had the power to put Delph off his game, it became abundantly clear this season that he doesn't lose his focus easily. His armband and his left boot, maybe, but never his steely determination. Who can forget the ugly pitch invasion that followed Villa's dramatic FA Cup quarterfinal victory over West Brom in which Delph was mobbed by overzealous fans who made off with just about everything but his dignity?
"It was scary," Delph said after fighting his way across the field to the tunnel. "People tried to kiss me and were biting me."
Well, fair is fair since Delph has put the bite back in both Villa's (and England's) midfield over the past year. A snarling, physical style honed at Leeds under Dennis Wise may have resulted in an unsightly collection of yellow cards, but the aggression is now allied to high-grade skills and a dynamic box-to-box energy that has lifted Villa out of the dark, relegation-threatened ages of Paul Lambert and powered them on to Wembley.
"In my opinion, Fabian Delph is the best midfield player in the country at the moment," burbled Villa's messianic manager Tim Sherwood, whose arrival in February injected a much-needed dose of passion and excitement at Villa Park. "I won't swap him for anyone."
Sherwood has nothing to worry about because much to the surprise of everyone, including probably his agent, Delph signed a 4½-year contract with Villa at the turn of the year when Lambert was still in charge and the Claret and Blue were teetering on the lip of the drop zone.
Who says there's no loyalty left in modern-day football? Commitment like that deserves something nice -- like a lovely little FA Cup runners-up medal.
Strongly considered: Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool), David Silva (Man City)
Strongly considered if the season had ended in March: Cesc Fabregas, Chelsea
Not chosen for fear of being labeled an Arsenal homer: Santi Cazorla, Arsenal
Famously sold by Chelsea and bought back for a massive price, Nemanja Matic has anchored the Blues' title-winning side.
CM: Nemanja Matic, Chelsea
Every title-winning side needs one. The physically imposing midfielder who sits in front of his back four and dares opposing attackers to try to breach the gates. The master of retaining position, igniting the counterattack and committing the professional foul. Someone who can translate when Branislav Ivanovic is screaming at the referee.
It's rare to find a player who ticks off all the boxes, but Chelsea did. Then they let him get away. Luckily for the Blues, they recognized the second time around exactly what they had in Nemanja Matic, the Premier League's state-of-the-art holding midfielder -- and if they had to pay an additional $31 million to get him back? Well, it helps that Roman Abramovich has a black American Express card.
Upon his return to Stamford Bridge, Matic made his muscular presence known, earning man of the match in his one of his first starts, against Manchester City in September. It's not even a stretch to say that either he or Alexis Sanchez was the best player in England during the first half of the season, prowling his domain in front of Terry and Cahill like a beast who gave no quarter and expected none in return. At the same time, his Thou-Shalt-Not-Pass mentality gave Cesc Fabregas the freedom to roam forward and use his telescopic vision to pick out Diego Costa with the defense-shredding pass.
Though his high-impact performances may have fallen off at the sharp end of the season, they were still formidable enough to ensure Chelsea's coronation. More so than John Terry or even Eden Hazard, the Blues would not have won the league without Matic. I just hope that in some part of his brain, Arsene Wenger has been paying attention.
Strongly considered: Morgan Schneiderlin (Southampton), Ander Herrera (Man United)
Also considered, but then we pulled a hamstring: Michael Carrick (Man United)
Eden Hazard was the undisputed player of the season as Chelsea won their first league title since 2009-10.
LM: Eden Hazard, Chelsea
I admit to having a bit of a man-crush on Hazard. I first glimpsed his wondrous skills in 2009 when he was a fresh-faced 18-year-old playing for Lille in a cup final against Lyon. Suddenly from inside his own half, he beat his man, split two defenders with a lightning dribble and then lashed a 20-yard screamer into the far corner.
It was rare to see a player who embodied so many disparate gifts: explosive propulsion with the ball at his feet, exquisite balance and upper body strength to ride the crudest of tackles, and an audacious ability to humiliate defenders with nutmegs and back-heels at high speed. Because he was playing in France, I knew it was only a matter of time until I saw him in an Arsenal shirt.
You can imagine my horror when $50 million later, he turned up at Stamford Bridge in 2012 thanks in part to the efforts of former Blues star Joe Cole who, while on loan at Lille, told Hazard that Chelsea was the right club for him to realize his ambitions.
Why, in the name of jogo bonito, would one of the most exciting attackers in the world go to a club renowned for turgid 1-0 score lines? But credit to the Chelsea brain trust; they may be the ultimate soccer pragmatists who build their teams from the back, but they certainly aren't stupid. Roman Abramovich was demanding something resembling offensive fluidity for his billions and nobody was going to shackle this 24-year-old Belgian.
Despite being fouled almost twice as much as any player in the league, he also found time to contribute 14 goals and seven assists in 32 starts last season, numbers that he matched (14 and eight) this campaign.
Moreover, he has been at his incandescent best when Chelsea's other two attacking stars, Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas, faded dramatically as the season wore on. Combined with Chelsea's penchant for close matches, Hazard's seven goals in games that at the time were either tied or had them protecting a one-goal lead were almost certainly the reason that the Blues were rarely threatened on their procession to the EPL title.
Damn you, Joe Cole.
Sergio Aguero struggled through various injuries in 2014-15 but still ran away with the league's scoring title.
ST: Sergio Aguero, Manchester City
Given City's limp defense of their title, it's all the more remarkable that the 26-year-old Argentine remains the single most lethal attacker in the Premier League. And it isn't even close.
His 26 league goals are five more than Saint Harry Kane could muster, and Aguero sat out almost five weeks with a bum knee. The fact that he was snubbed by his peers who failed to select him to the PFA team of the year is more of a reflection on group idiocy run amok than on Aguero's brilliant season.
A radical change in his diet (he cut out pasta, sugar and most painfully, Argentinean steak) kept him off the training table except for the long patch from Dec. 6 to Jan. 10 when his knee went on strike. Much like the London-based duo of Alexis Sanchez and Diego Costa, Maradona's former son-in-law single-handedly kept his side in the title hunt by spraying in goals that displayed the full array of his talents: power, speed and guile.
With Radamel Falcao's and Robin van Persie's stunning drops in form, it was left to Aguero to show all of Manchester what clinical finishing looks like.
Harry Kane burst onto the scene this season, scoring the second-most league goals and offering hope for the national team.
ST: Harry Kane, Tottenham
Cue the sound of the seventh seal cracking. What am I doing picking a Spurs player, let alone one I know is overrated? Either my meds are working much too well, or it's hard to argue with these numbers.
Kane has scored 21 goals in 34 league games, 30 in 50 in all competitions and the largest number of hyperbolic articles since Theo Walcott looked like he could play. Plus, by all accounts, he's a nice lad who doesn't have a single tattoo on his rippling, Ronaldo-worthy 6-foot-2, 146-pound body, nor does he dive, cheat or wind up opponents like a certain brutish Spanish striker for a West London club who set the league aflame through the first half of the season before injuries, suspensions and karma caught up to him.
And anyway, it's not Master Harry's fault that England is so desperate for yet another newly minted home-grown messiah to lead them to glory in Euro 2016, so much so that they've heaped all of their delusional hopes and expectations on the 21-year-old. Ludicrously premature comparisons have been made to Alan Shearer, Teddy Sheringham and even Thierry Henry, who last I checked was French, but Kane remains unfazed by the hype.
He just continues going about his business with youthful exuberance and impressive equanimity even when Gary Cahill petulantly kicked him in the back after Kane undressed the Chelsea center-back with two goals and an assist in Spurs' 5-3 upset of the league leaders on New Year's Day. From that point on, you could hear the sharp intake of breath around White Hart Lane every time Kane picked up the ball, the almost Gareth Bale-esque anticipation of something extraordinary about to happen.
Imagine what Kane could do if he played for a big club.
Strongly considered until that stamp on Liverpool's Emre Can earned him a three-game suspension and cost him the respect of all good and decent humans: Diego Costa (Chelsea)
Manager: Jose Mourinho, Chelsea
I don't want to talk about it.
Strongly considered: Ronald Koeman (Southampton)
Viable candidates in their own mind: Alan Pardiola (Newcastle, then Crystal Palace), Tim "I invented Harry Kane" Sherwood (Aston Villa)
David Hirshey is an ESPN FC columnist. He has been covering soccer for more than 30 years and written about it for The New York Times and Deadspin. |
A selection of strange things that have been seen in drains
In a previous post, we looked at fatbergs. This was in relation to how they blocked our sewers. We said how it was a big problem in our part of the world. Shortly after our piece, we found out about the unusual things that have been seen in drains. This time, the Northumberland Gazette’s latest article has inspired our post.
Here’s a look at the six strangest things to have been seen in our drains.
1. A full size shower curtain
Whoever flushed a shower curtain down the toilet must have one hell of a lavatory. The full size shower curtain was flushed down the drains in Jesmond.
2. A set of false teeth
Among the odd stuff you see in sewers, false teeth crops up now and again. In Stanley, a full set of dentures were seen in the sewers. Needless to say, the owner didn’t ask for their return (then again, the toilet is for pee, poo, and paper: chew doesn’t fall into the equation).
3. A grenade (or two)
Believe it or not, two grenades were found in Greater Manchester’s sewers. A plastic one was found in Stockport and it turned out to be a toy. In Oldham, a real one was found, but there was no pin.
4. A full can of Fosters
Why? Why would you want to clog our drains with a full can of beer? Well, someone in South Tyneside, according to the Northumberland Gazette’s article flushed a full can of Fosters down the toilet.
5. A bra
In Teesside, a woman’s bra was flushed down the pan and it caused no end of disruption. It led to the sewer’s collapse.
6. A set of false teeth
Another bete noire of the drain inspector is the spoils of our love making activities. Time and time again, used condoms have been flushed down various toilets from Albania to Zimbabwe. They are known as Johhnybergs, due to their propensity to block sewers like fatbergs have done.
Speedy Jet Drainage, 17 May 2017. |
Kalyani, Feb. 2: Nearly 180 students of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Nadia's Kalyani have been boycotting classes since Monday to protest "poor infrastructure and facilities".
Students enrolled in BTech courses in information technology and computer science engineering have accused the institute's mentor-director, Ajoy Kumar Roy, of indifference and written to the Union human resource development minister seeking an audience.
Roy, the director of the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, is officiating as the mentor-director of IIIT Kalyani. Sambhunath Dutta, an official of Shibpur, is the acting registrar of IIIT Kalyani.
The IIIT was a private engineering college earlier. The new building of the IIIT is being built off Kalyani Expressway.
Subham Kumar, a BTech (IT) third-year student, said: "The authorities have been playing with our future. The infrastructure and facilities are poor. In three years, we are yet to get a full-time director and registrar to listen to our grievances.
"The current mentor-director is associated with another institute and seldom visits Kalyani. Studies are suffering because of lack of faculty members. There are only five permanent teachers. Laboratory work is dependent on guest lecturers, most of whom are irregular."
Kumar alleged only three rooms had been made available on the temporary campus to five batches. "The batches are told to take turns to use the two laboratories and three classrooms," the student said.
Another student of BTech second year, said: "The fact is that we are studying IT without an Internet connection in the labs."
Officiating registrar Dutta today tried to persuade the students to join classes but failed. He said: "There are certain problems as the institution is still being developed. The students should understand this. Nevertheless, we are trying to address their grievances as soon as possible."
Mentor-director Roy neither took calls nor replied to a text message. An acquaintance said Roy was unwell. |
Thai woman faces jail for receiving Facebook message allegedly criticising King
Updated
Australia will question Thailand about its royal defamation laws at a United Nations human rights review this week, after an activist's mother was charged for receiving Facebook messages.
Key points: Woman faces three to 15 years jail
Woman's son is a political activist
70 lese majeste cases recorded in Thailand since 2014 coup
Thailand's military government claims Patnaree Chankij's failure to reprimand the person who sent her the messages amounts to royal defamation, a crime punishable by 15 years in jail.
Human Rights Watch said it marked a "new low" in the misuse of Thailand's strict lese majeste law, while others say it is a form of harassment.
"I think this arrest is political, the target is actually [Ms Patnaree's son] Ja New because he agitates against the coup," said Anon Nampha, from Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.
The United Nations also said it was "deeply concerned" about the case.
"We have concerns that the law is being interpreted this way and are worried that this could open the door to even more prosecutions," Jeremy Laurence, spokesman for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in Asia, said.
"Since the military coup in 2014, we've documented 70 cases involving this [lese majeste] law," Mr Laurence said.
"In most instances it's been the military pressing the charges, and prosecuting and then dishing out the punishment in a military court."
Thailand faces human rights grilling in Geneva
A deep reverence for King Bhumibol Adulyadej is almost universal in Thailand, where the ailing monarch will soon mark 70 years on the throne.
The King has never personally filed a lese majeste case and has even encouraged criticism, but he is now seriously ill and has not spoken publically for many months.
Some rights groups argue cases filed on behalf of the palace have been used to attack opponents and silence critics.
Australia will press Thai officials about the use of the laws during a United Nations periodic review of human rights in Geneva review tomorrow.
According to advance questions posted on a UN website, Australia will ask two questions:
What current screening mechanisms exist to ensure that the prosecution of cases under Article 112 of the Criminal Code (the lese-majeste law) is consistent with Thailand's international human rights commitments?; and
Has consideration been given to establishing or strengthening inter-agency screening processes for cases brought under Article 112 of the Criminal Code to ensure that the fundamental right to freedom of expression and opinion is upheld?
'The evidence against her is weak'
Patnaree Chankij's son is Sirawith Seritiwat, better known as Ja New.
The 22-year political science student is a leader with activist groups Resistant Citizen and New Democracy Movement, and has become one of the most-recognisable faces of dissent against Thailand's military junta.
A graphic revealed by Thai soldiers and police at a media conference links an activist named "Burin", who is already in jail waiting to be tried on lese majeste charges, to Patnaree Chankij and her son.
The charges against Ms Patnaree appear to be based on a series of Facebook messages sent to her by Burin.
It is not clear what all the messages say because they are blurred out in the graphic, but when the person writing the messages asks Ms Patnaree if it is OK to talk to her about these issues, she replies with a single word: "ja".
"Ja" can mean a non-committal "yes" but can also be used to acknowledge you're listening and to keep the conversation moving - much like an Australian might say, "yeah, right".
The police allege Ms Patnaree's lack of rebuttal amounts to approval and therefore breaches Article 112 of Thailand's Penal Code - defaming the King, Queen, heir apparent or Regent.
She has also been charged with a separate crime under the Computer Act.
Patnaree Chankij was granted bail on Sunday - Mother's Day - something quite unusual in lese majeste cases.
It is not clear how the police accessed the Facebook accounts of the people charged.
If found guilty, Patnaree Chankij will face between three and 15 years jail for each count of lese majeste.
It is not an empty threat - last year a man was sent to pre-trial detention for allegedly insulting the King's dog.
The stakes are high but lawyer Anon Nampha said he was confident.
"The evidence against her is so weak - all they have is the word "ja" [yes] to accuse her with... we can fight for this case," he said.
Topics: international-law, prisons-and-punishment, activism-and-lobbying, rights, law-crime-and-justice, information-and-communication, internet-culture, social-media, thailand
First posted |
Design and operational principles Edit
Plant at Wardenclyffe Edit
Tesla purchased 200 acres (81 ha) of land close to a railway line 65 miles from New York City in Shoreham on Long Island Sound from land developer James S. Warden who was building a resort community known as Wardenclyffe-On-Sound. Tesla would later state his plans were to eventually make Wardenclyffe a hub "city" in his plans for a worldwide system of 30 wireless plants, sending messages and media content and broadcasting electrical power.[15] The land surrounding the Wardenclyffe plant was intended to be what Tesla would later in life refer to as a "radio city" with factories producing Tesla's patented devices.[19] Warden expected to build housing on the part of his remaining land for the expected 2000–2500 Tesla employees. At the end of July 1901 Tesla closed a contract for the building of the wireless telegraph plant and electrical laboratory at Wardenclyffe. Artistic representation of the station completed, including the tower structure. The final design Tesla started building at Wardenclyffe consisted of a wood-framed tower 186 feet (57 m) tall and the cupola 68 feet (21 m) in diameter. It had a 55-ton steel (some report it was a better conducting material, such as copper) hemispherical structure at the top (referred to as a cupola). The structure was such as to allow each piece to be taken out and replaced as necessary. The main building occupied the rest of the facility grounds. Stanford White designed the Wardenclyffe facility main building. It included a laboratory area, instrumentation room, boiler room, generator room and machine shop. Inside the main building, there were electromechanical devices, electrical generators, electrical transformers, glass blowing equipment, X-ray devices, Tesla coils, a remote controlled boat, cases with bulbs and tubes, wires, cables, a library, and an office. It was constructed in the style of the Italian Renaissance. The tower was designed by W.D. Crow, an associate of White. There was a great deal of construction under the tower to establish some form of ground connection but Tesla and his workers kept the public and the press away from the project so little is known. The descriptions (some from Tesla's 1923 testimony in foreclosure proceedings on the property) include that the facility had a ten by twelve foot wood and steel lined shaft sunk into the ground 120 feet (37 m) beneath the tower with a stairway inside it. Tesla stated that at the bottom of the shaft he "had special machines rigged up which would push the iron pipe, one length after another, and I pushed these iron pipes, I think sixteen of them, three hundred feet, and then the current through these pipes takes hold of the earth."[20] In Tesla's words the function of this was "to have a grip on the earth so the whole of this globe can quiver."[21][22] There is also contemporaneous and later descriptions of four 100 foot long tunnels, possibly brick lined and waterproofed, radiating from the bottom of the shaft north, south, east, and west terminating back at ground level in little brick igloos.[23] Speculation on the tunnels ranges from them being for drainage, acting as access ways, or having the function of enhancing ground connection or resonance by interacting with the water table below the tower, maybe via being filled with salt water or liquid nitrogen.[20][23] The Tesla biographer John Joseph O'Neill noted the cupola at the top of the 186 foot tower had a 5-foot hole in its top where ultraviolet lights were to be mounted, perhaps to create an ionized path up through the atmosphere that could conduct electricity.[24] How Tesla intended to employ the ground conduction method and atmospheric method in Wardenclyffe's design is unknown.[25] Power for the entire system was to be provided by a coal fired 200 kilowatt Westinghouse alternating current industrial generator. Construction began in September 1901 but money was so short (with Morgan still owing Tesla the remainder of the original $150,000 promised) Tesla complained in a letter to White he was facing foreclosure. Tesla kept writing Morgan letters pleading for more money and assuring the financier his wireless system would be superior to Marconi's, but in December Tesla's plans were dealt another serious blow when Marconi announced to the world he was able to send a wireless transmission (the Morse code for the letter S) across the Atlantic. Tesla's Wardenclyffe plant on Long Island circa 1902 in partial stage of completion. Work on the 55-foot-diameter (17 m) cupola had not yet begun. There is a coal car parked next to the building. Construction at Wardenclyffe continued through 1902 and in June of that year Tesla began moving his laboratory operations from 46 East Houston Street laboratory to the 94-foot-square brick building at Wardenclyffe. By the end of 1902 the tower reached full height of 187 feet. What Tesla was up to at Wardenclyffe and the site itself was generally kept from the public. Tesla would respond to reporters inquiries stating there was a similar wireless plant in Scotland and that "We have been sending wireless messages for long distances from this station for some time, but whether we are going into the telegraph field on a commercial basis I cannot say at present."[26] Tesla continued to write to Morgan asking the investor to reconsider his position on the contract and invest the additional funds the project needed. In a July 3, 1903 letter Tesla wrote "Will you help me or let my great work — almost complete — go to pots?" Morgan replied on July 14 was "I have received your letter and in reply would say that I should not feel disposed at present to make any further advances". The night of Morgan's reply, and several nights after, newspapers reported that the Wardenclyffe tower came alive shooting off bright flashes lighting up the night sky. No explanation was forthcoming from Tesla or any of his workers as to the meaning of the display and Wardenclyffe never seemed to operate again. Tesla's finances continued to unravel. Investor money on Wall Street was continuing to flow to Marconi's system, which was making regular transmissions, and doing it with equipment far less expensive than the "wireless plant" Tesla was attempting to build. Some in the press began turning against Tesla's project claiming it was a hoax[27] and the fall 1903 "rich man's panic" on Wall Street dried up investment further.[28][29][30] Some money came from Thomas Fortune Ryan but the funds went towards the debt on the project instead of funding any further construction.[11] Investors seemed to be shying away from putting money into a project that J. P. Morgan had abandoned.[11] Tesla continued to write Morgan trying to get extra funding stating his "knowledge and ability" "if applied effectively would advance the world a century". Morgan would only reply through his secretary saying "it will be impossible for [me/ Morgan] to do anything in the matter".[31] Tesla's attempts to raise money by getting the US Navy interested in his remote control boat/torpedo and other attempts to commercialize his inventions went nowhere. In May 1905, Tesla's patents on alternating current motors and other methods of power transmission expired, halting royalty payments and causing a further severe reduction of funding to the Wardenclyffe Tower. In an attempt to find alternative funding Tesla advertised the services of the Wardenclyffe facility but he was met with little success. Abandonment Edit In 1906 the financial problems and other events may have led to what Tesla biographer Marc J. Seifer suspects was a nervous breakdown on Tesla's part.[32] In June architect Stanford White was murdered by Harry Kendall Thaw over White's affair with Thaw's wife, actress Evelyn Nesbit. In October long time investor William Rankine died of a heart attack. Things were so bad by the fall of that year George Scherff, Tesla's chief manager who had been supervising Wardenclyffe, had to leave to find other employment. The people living around Wardenclyffe noticed the Tesla plant seemed to have been abandoned without notice.[33] In 1904 Tesla took out a mortgage on the Wardenclyffe property with George C. Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, to cover Tesla's living expenses at the hotel. In 1908 Tesla procured a second mortgage from Boldt to further cover expenses.[34][35] The facility was partially abandoned around 1911, and the tower structure deteriorated. Between 1912 and 1915, Tesla's finances unraveled, and when the funders wanted to know how they were going to recapture their investments, Tesla was unable to give satisfactory answers. The March 1, 1916 edition of the publication Export American Industries ran a story titled "Tesla's Million Dollar Folly" describing the abandoned Wardenclyffe site: There everything seemed left as for a day — chairs, desks, and papers in businesslike array. The great wheels seemed only awaiting Monday life. But the magic word has not been spoken, and the spell still rests on the great plant.[36] By mid-1917 the facility's main building was breached and vandalized.[37] Demolition Edit Demolition of the Wardenclyffe tower started in July 1917 By 1915, Tesla's accumulated debt at the Waldorf-Astoria was around $20 thousand ($495 thousand in 2018 dollars[38]). When Tesla was unable to make any further payments on the mortgages, Boldt foreclosed on the Wardenclyffe property.[34] Boldt failed to find any use for the property and finally decided to demolish the tower for scrap. On July 4, 1917 the Smiley Steel Company of New York began demolition of the tower by dynamiting it. The tower was knocked on a tilt by the initial explosion but it took till September to totally demolish it.[39][40] The scrap value realized was $1750. Since this was during World War I a rumor spread, picked up by newspapers and other publications, that the tower was demolished on orders of the United States Government with claims German spies were using it as a radio transmitter or observation post, or that it was being used as a landmark for German submarines.[40][41] Tesla was not pleased with what he saw as attacks on his patriotism via the rumors about Wardenclyffe, but since the original mortgages with Boldt as well as the foreclosure had been kept off the public record in order to hide his financial difficulties, Tesla was not able to reveal the real reason for the demolition.[39][40][42] George Boldt decided to make the property available for sale. On April 20, 1922, Tesla lost an appeal of judgment on Boldt's foreclosure. This effectively locked Tesla out of any future development of the facility.
Post-Tesla era Edit
Facility grounds Edit
Wardenclyffe is located near the Shoreham Post Office and Shoreham Fire House on Route 25A in Shoreham, Long Island, New York. Wardenclyffe was divided into two main sections. The tower, which was located in the back, and the main building compose the entire facility grounds. At one time the property was about 200 acres (0.81 km2). Now it consists of slightly less than 16 acres (65,000 m2).
Related patents Edit
See also Edit |
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The Auctioneers Chant
Occasionally at a livestock sale you hear people say , "What is the bid? What did he say?" Newcomers are sometimes confused by the auctioneer's rapid speech and feel the auctioneer is saying words and sounds that aren't meant to be understood. Although the most widely recognized talent of the auctioneer is undoubtedly his or her ability to talk rapidly the first thing one should know about auctioneers is that their main job is to communicate, and if the audience cannot understand him or her, the auctioneer is not doing a good job.
This method of rapid-fire talking is called the auctioneer's chant. The rhythmic chant used by most livestock auctioneers in the United States is unique to North America. It evolved as auctioneers saw the need to sell animals in a more rapid manner. The chant is used to hold the attention of the audience and to keep the auction moving at a steady pace. Unlike other types of sales, an auction is an event where all the customers are present at the same time. Thus, the auctioneer is responsible for selling all the animals within a few hours, and his or her use of the chant helps keep the items moving. The chant is a series of numbers connected by "filler" words to give the buyer time to think between bids.
A basic auctioneer chant goes like this:
"Who'll give me a hundred dollars?
One hundred dollar bid, now two,
now two, will ya give me two? Two hundred dollar bid, now three,
now three hundred, will ya give me three? Two hundred, two and a half, two-fifty,
How about two-fifty? fifty? fifty? fifty? I got it! How about two sixty? sixty? sixty?
I've got two sixty, now seventy?
how about seventy? two-seventy?
Most auctioneers have their own series or combination of filler words. These words are everything except the numbers. Filler words are used to restate the last number bid and to give buyers time to consider whether they want to bid higher. The filler words are carriers -- they "carry" the numbers, which are the most important part of the chant.
Auctioneers create a steady rhythm in their chants by using phrases that flow and roll. The rhythm enables the crowd to listen longer and faster by keeping the bids at regular intervals. This helps the bidders know what to expect next and to keep the bids coming at a constant pace. Auctioneers can be seen moving their hands to the rhythm of the chant. This helps keep the bid fresh in the auctioneers mind. For example, palms up might be the auctioneers private signal to himself that he is on an even hundred bid. Palm down might be an odd hundred bid, or fifty. Each auctioneer develops his own method of keeping track.
Many people think auctioneers sound like they're singing because the rhythm has a beat much like music does. The steady beat allows the auctioneer's chant to move more rapidly than normal speech. Since auctioneers have a limited amount of time to sell many animals, they need to speak quickly. At an average horse auction, the auctioneer's chant helps him or her sell an average of 30 animals per hour. Certain types of auctions go even faster: wholesale automobile auctioneers frequently sell 125-175 cars per hour and tobacco auctioneers may sell 500-600 lots per hour, with buyers using a series of hand motions to signify bids. These hand signals are universal -- which enables foreign buyers to communicate with the auctioneer.
Besides keeping the auction moving, the fast-paced chant creates excitement and makes the auction entertaining. Auctioneers will adjust their pace, depending on the number of animals and the time allowed for each one. After all, the auctioneer can only chant as fast as the bidders will bid. Next time you attend an auction, concentrate on the numbers in the auctioneer's chant, as well as the "filler words". The numbers are the most important part of the chant, and are pronounced the most clearly. So next time you attend a livestock auction, listen carefully. You CAN understand the auctioneer!
For more information, contact one of the sources listed below
National Auctioneers Association
National Auctioneers Association Home Page
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A hundred years ago yesterday, Germany invaded Belgium and, in the famous words attributed to Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, the lamps went out all over Europe. In a sense, the lights didn’t come back on for almost half a century, during which the continent witnessed two catastrophic wars, revolution, a pandemic, hyperinflation, a depression, fascism, communism, genocide, military occupation, and, finally, post-war reconstruction, culminating in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which created the European Economic Community—the forerunner to the European Union.
It’s a tragic story, albeit one with a happy ending, and it helps to explain the endless fascination that 1914 holds for Europeans. When I was a schoolboy, we learned, at great length, about the grand forces that gave rise to the war: nationalism, industrialization, and colonialism, culminating in the rise of Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s push for European domination. (This was an English classroom. German schoolchildren learned a somewhat different history.) We read about the great prewar naval race between the United Kingdom and Germany, and the repeated diplomatic crises, in Morocco and the Balkans, that preceded the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo. We learned about the war’s global impact—how it eventually drew the United States out of its splendid isolation—and its social impact, which included a big boost to gender equality in Britain and other countries. (Once women were manning the military production lines, as they were in factories throughout Europe, it was harder to argue against universal suffrage.)
Most of all, though, we learned about the human horrors of the war, particularly on the Western front, where, for four terrible years, two vast armies engaged in trench warfare, living in awful, muddy, rat-infested conditions, trying to kill each other with machine guns, rifles, artillery, and poison gas. All told, about sixteen million people died in the war, and more than twenty million were wounded. Even today, the names of the generals responsible for this unprecedented carnage are imprinted on my mind—Joffre, Foch, and Nivelle; French and Haig; von Falkenhayn and Ludendorff—and so are the names of some of the bloody battles that they ordered their soldiers to fight: Mons, Marne, Ypres I, Ypres II, Somme, Verdun, the Aisne, Passchendaele.
The first day of the Somme offensive, which Joffre and Haig ordered in the summer of 1916, over the objections of other military experts, including Winston Churchill, was the worst in the British Army’s history, with about fifty-seven thousand casualties. At the Aisne, where the French attacked a German Army entrenched on higher ground, the number of soldiers killed and injured is still disputed. About a quarter of a million may be a reasonable estimate. At Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, the death toll was more than twice that.
And all for what? At the end of each of these battles, neither side had made much progress. Despite the recent efforts of some black-is-white historians, who have sought to resurrect the reputations of Foch, Haig, et al_,_ the overriding lesson of the Great War that we learned in school was surely the right one: war is hell, and it’s far too terrible to leave it to the generals.
Most of all, though, what I remember about learning about the First World War is the poetry, which evolved from the upbeat sonnets of Rupert Brooke to the dreadful but somehow beautiful realist imagery of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, both of whom served in the trenches. In his 1914 poem, "The Soldier," Brooke, a devilishly handsome private schoolboy (at Rugby), who, along with Maynard Keynes and Lytton Strachey, was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, summoned the jingoistic spirit of Kipling and Palmerston. Here is the famous first stanza:
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
Shortly after the war broke out, Brooke was commissioned in the Royal Navy Reserve. In April, 1915, he was dispatched to take part in the landing at Gallipoli, another disaster in the making. While at sea, he developed a serious infection, and he died in a French hospital ship off Greece, cementing his position as an icon of a lost world. Sassoon, meanwhile, was serving on the Western front. The scion of a wealthy family of merchants, he, too, attended an exclusive private school (Marlborough). In the summer of 1914, motivated by patriotism, he joined the Army. Brave and fearless, he was awarded a medal “for conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy’s trenches.” But the violence and inhumanity that he encountered turned him against the war, and drove him to record some of what he had seen: pain, suffering, rotting corpses, hopelessness, and even suicide:
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
The transition from Brooke’s “The Soldier” to Sassoon’s "Suicide in the Trenches" was stark, indeed. But the most memorable war poet, to my mind, was Wilfred Owen, a middle-class Shropshire lad, whose family fell on hard times and moved to Birkenhead, just across the River Mersey from Liverpool. Partly because his family couldn’t afford college fees, he was largely self-educated. When war broke out, he was teaching English in the Pyrenees, and he didn’t rush home. By 1916, however, he had joined the Manchester Regiment, which was dispatched to France. In early 1917, he was wounded twice, and the second time, after suffering a concussion in a shell blast, he was evacuated to England, where, drawing on his experiences, he started writing poetry. During his recovery, he met Sassoon, who encouraged his writing. One of his poems took as its title the first part of a line from Horace: “Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.” (“It is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country.”) But Owen’s message was very different. Here are the final two-thirds of his poem:
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Despite his anti-war sentiments, Owen rejoined his regiment in June, 1918, and returned to the front lines. On November 4th, just seven days before the war’s end, he was killed in action. In another of his poems, "Anthem for Doomed Youth," he left behind a testament to his fellow victims, and to the futility of war in general: |
According to Kapil Komireddi in these very pages, the demise of Pakistan is "inevitable" because it has since foundation been a source of division and extremism. This is not a new argument. Virtually every western analyst, now happily joined by a chorus of Indian observers mysteriously bereft of regional contexts and history, believes that the Pakistan state, as opposed to merely extremists within its borders, is the single greatest threat to international peace and security.
On paper, there is much to support this line of thinking. Pakistan is, after all, a highly mismanaged, corrupt developing state that has fostered religious extremism for decades while continuing to build a formidable nuclear arsenal. The prospect of the Taliban getting its hands on Pakistan's nukes is the stuff of nightmares, and Dick Cheney's dreams. It is hard to think of a more frightening scenario.
With the exception of North Korea, no nuclear-armed nation is as scrutinised as Pakistan. Yet nuclear proliferation is on the rise worldwide. According to the Pentagon, Pakistan is expanding its nuclear arsenal more quickly than any other country. But India is not far behind and, along with China, Russia and the United States, is busy improving the size and quality of its weapon delivery systems.
On closer reflection, the idea that the Pakistan state is inherently dangerous turns out to be a lazy mantra used by those who wish to ignore history and avoid a more complicated reality.
A nation state is a rather nebulous concept at the best of time. But when a state as hurriedly created (in 1947), poorly managed and with as many centres of power as Pakistan is in question, it becomes difficult to establish diabolical intent, though not impossible.
Pakistan society is as divided as it is diverse, and its elites reflect these traits. Within the army, the most powerful institution in the country, there are careerists, Islamists and khaki businessmen more consumed with wealth accumulation via shady army welfare trusts than nuclear jihad. That is not to say the army is incapable of Machiavellian strategies. For decades, it has looked to install a pro-Pakistan regime in Afghanistan.
Following the war with the Soviets in Afghanistan, and generous encouragement of the US and Saudi Arabia, the army looked to radical Islamists to fulfil this role. It is also true that much of Pakistani society, including the army, has a pathological fear of India-engineered oblivion. Even now there are strong suggestions the army is supporting anti-India militancy in Kashmir.
Along with commentators such as Komireddi, the US has routinely and very publicly criticised Pakistan for refusing to shift the lion's share of its troops stationed along the border with India (most of them are in Kashmir).
It is true that the army has been slow to react to the Taliban insurgency within Pakistan. Only last month did it finally decide to mount decisive action against Taliban encroachment in the country, and this after years of reaching peace agreements that saw the insurgents move into as much as 11% of the country.
But these sobering details do not an evil empire make.
Spare a thought for the Indian army. As the security analyst Farrukh Saleem wrote recently:
The Pakistan army looks at the Indian army and sees its 6,384 tanks ... 672 combat aircraft ... its six out of 13 Indian corps that are strike corps ... [all] pointing their guns at Pakistan ... deployed to cut Pakistan into two halves. The Pakistan army looks at the Taliban and sees no Arjun main battle tanks, ... no 155mm Bofors howitzers, no Akash surface-to-air missiles, no BrahMos land attack cruise missiles, no Agni intermediate range ballistic missiles, no Sukhoi Su-30 MKI air superiority strike fighters, no Jaguar attack aircraft, no MiG-27 ground-attack aircraft, no Shakti thermonuclear devices, no Shakti-II 12 kiloton fission devices and no heavy artillery.
This year alone, India will spend close to $40bn (US) on its armed forces, up to eight times as much Pakistan. It has fought four major wars with Pakistan and, in each, matched its much smaller rival in bellicosity and provocation.
Such facts do not to absolve Pakistan's army of responsibility for stifling militancy. But to consider Pakistan's role in creating the instability currently engulfing the subcontinent without considering India is like studying the Cuban missile crisis without reference to American warheads pointed towards the then Soviet Union.
And therein lies the problem for so many Indians and Pakistanis. Lost in the west's division between good and bad third-world citizens, many have become blind to their country's own ills. It was in India, after all, that a pogrom arranged by fanatical Hindu groups assisted by the Gujarat government led to the murder of thousands of Muslims and Christians.
Fascism has an old pedigree in India – the anti-British nationalist Subhash Chandra Bose, who fought with the Japanese against Her Majesty's forces during the second world war, marvelled at Hitler's reinvigoration of the German state. At the last Indian elections, the fascist Bajrang Dal and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh parties openly lobbied on a Hindu supremacist platform. The reflections with the Taliban could not be clearer.
Many in Pakistan still refuse to accept that there is homegrown extremism in their country. They remain convinced that Indian, Israeli or American agencies (or all three in collusion) are stoking the flames of extremism to discredit Pakistan because it is the only Muslim nation with nuclear weapons. All the while, Pakistani school children continue to be fed lies about Indian designs over the country and the virtues of Pakistan's historically inept army.
For Indians, as for Pakistanis, the tired routine of pointing the finger across the border has served little other purpose than to deflect attention away from the very pressing problems at home. The sad irony is that India and Pakistan still share much the same tribulations some six decades after they were sliced apart. |
Police chief Simon Bailey says even thousands more detectives would not be enough to bring every offender to justice
The police chief in charge of child protection says tens of thousands of British men have shown an interest in sexually abusing children.
Simon Bailey said investigators monitoring a single online chatroom in 2017 identified 4,000 men using it from the UK alone.
Bailey, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on child protection, estimated the number of men interested in sexually abusing children at more than 20,000. He said the figure was comparable to the number of current and former terrorism suspects.
He added that limited resources meant not all perpetrators could be tackled, with police forced to focus on the most dangerous offenders. “We are having to prioritise the threat,” he said. “Some lower-level offenders cannot be arrested and taken to court. There is just not the capacity.”
Bailey warned that a growing threat to children came from live streaming and said police wanted a fresh crackdown from tech companies on the use of platforms including Periscope, which is owned by Twitter, and Facebook Live.
Cases of UK child sexual abuse up 31%, says NSPCC Read more
His warning follows recent reports that abusive behaviour is on the rise. Earlier this month, the NSPCC child protection charity said there had been a 31% increase in the number of reported cases of child sexual abuse in the UK in the previous year.
Bailey said reports to child protection experts were up 700% since October 2013, although some put that increase down to a greater willingness to report offences.
In the first 11 months of 2017, the National Crime Agency received 72,000 referrals about online child sexual abuse imagery, up from 6,000 in 2010.
Bailey, who is the chief constable of Norfolk, said he was in no doubt that the dangers had grown, even if awareness had too. “I think there is more sexual abuse of children being perpetrated both physically and virtually,” he said. “There are more men than five to 10 years ago who are trying to abuse children.”
And he emphasised that online abuse was not without consequences. “If a child flashes their breasts to someone online it can still cause great damage [to that child].
“I believe there are tens of thousands of men that are now going into chatrooms and forums with a view to grooming children,” he added. “Technology has afforded an access to children that people who have a sexual interest in children never had before.”
Bailey said police did not have enough officers to successfully pursue all child sex abusers and even thousands more detectives would not bring every offender to justice, even though the law was sufficiently robust to allow for prosecutions in most cases. “There are hundreds of officers tackling this now,” he said. “Thousands and thousands still would not be enough.
“This is one of those wicked problems we simply cannot arrest our way out of.”
Nearly 200 people held in UK-wide online child abuse operation Read more
The police chief said the children being targeted were not just those from homes where the parents or the adults in charge were neglectful. “The victims have included children of very capable and very caring parents. It does not recognise social status. The victims include children of middle-class, educated parents who think they are internet-savvy,” he said.
About half of parents warned their children about the dangers of the internet, Bailey said, but it needed to be a frequent and repeated warning. “That is usually a one-off conversation – it needs to be constantly reinforced,” he said. “At Christmas parents buy children internet-enabled technology. They need to understand the risks.”
Schools have recently started telling children about what to do if they are caught up in a terrorist attack. Bailey said education on the dangers of child sexual abuse also needed to be taken into the classroom. “We need the same warnings about sexual abuse in schools, in the same way as we do for terrorism.
“Young people need to be educated about the risks, and spot the signs of exploitation and have the confidence to report it.”
Some 20% of new imagery is self-generated and is often taken by other children. But Bailey said he did not regard those who viewed sexual images of children under the age of 16 as harmless under any circumstances.
“There are more men viewing imagery and asking kids to flash,” he said. “Viewing an image is abusing a child.”
He added that most offenders across all categories of child sexual abuse were white, despite the considerable attention that has been paid in some parts of the media to so-called Asian street-grooming gangs.
On the emerging issue of live streaming, Bailey urged tech companies to do more. “Software providers have a critical role in policing the environment they create,” he said. “They have a social and moral responsibility to make their platforms safe for children to use.”
The Home Office said: “We are supporting a robust law enforcement response, developing new capabilities to identify and protect victims and working with the internet industry to remove illegal images and tackle grooming.
“This is a global problem that demands a coordinated global response. Internet companies have made progress but they must work harder to remove and stop online child sexual exploitation.” |
Xi Jinping makes clear Beijing will not be lectured on democracy in speech to parliament after ‘orchestrated’ red-bannered welcome
Xi Jinping began his state visit to Britain with a political show of strength, as the Chinese embassy filled the Mall with thousands of supporters kitted out with T-shirts and flags, drowning out human rights protesters in a sea of red.
Speaking to parliament, the Chinese president promised a bright future for UK-Chinese relations, saying the fates of the two countries were “increasingly interdependent”. In an address more heavily loaded with aphorisms than substance, Xi steered away from geopolitics while making clear that his government would not take lectures on democracy.
Introducing Xi in parliament’s royal gallery, the Speaker, John Bercow, marvelled at the speed of China’s industrial revolution but cautioned that when it comes to international law and personal freedom nations should not simply aspire to power but seek to serve as an inspiration. Bercow went on to praise Burma’s opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and “the innate human right of freedom”.
In his 11-minute speech, Xi acknowledged that he was addressing the “mother of parliaments”, dating back to the 13th century, but added: “In China, the concept of putting people first and following the rule of law emerged in ancient times.” He noted that one Chinese legal charter went back 2,000 years.
At a state banquet of Scottish venison and turbot in Buckingham Palace, Xi repeated a theme he first raised in parliament, stressing Sino-British cooperation during the second world war as a mutually binding experience in which both nations fought side-by-side to uphold justice”, and highlighting the story of a British journalist and schoolteacher, George Hogg, who reported on “the atrocities committed by the Japanese atrocities”. He also recounted the role of Chinese fishermen in rescuing British prisoners of war.
The Queen in her remarks, spoke of the UK-Chinese “global partnership” but also alluded to shared burdens as permanent members on the UN security council, where “we have a responsibility to cooperate on these issues which have a direct bearing on the security and prosperity of all our peoples.”
Earlier the heads of state exchanged gifts, with the Queen presenting Xi with a hand-tooled edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The Chinese president gave her two CD’s of music by his wife, a celebrated folk singer, Peng Liyuan.
The white-tie dinner saw two memorable firsts, an attendance by the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The Labour leader adopted the suggested dress code for his first sit-down Buckingham palace dinner in honour of a president. Before he walked in to the palace ballroom he would have met the Queen, who greets guests on their way in. It was believed to be his first meeting with the monarch - but no cameras are allowed to film the receiving line.
The Queen had formally welcomed the Chinese visitors with a full display of pageantry on Horse Guards Parade and accompanied Xi in a gold carriage escorted by the Household Cavalry up The Mall, which by then was a mass of red and gold flags and banners.
Xi Jinping in London – in pictures Read more
The significant if covert effort by Chinese diplomats to ensure Xi’s welcome was evident three hours before his arrival, with large crowds of mainly young Chinese nationals massing on the Mall. By 9am the crowd, many of them students at British universities, were lined up along the road, most wearing “I heart China” T-shirts, with China flag stickers on their cheeks and busy tying vast red and gold banners to the security railings.
These banners, welcoming the president in carefully arranged sequences of Chinese characters, spelled out messages like “Welcome Big Buddy Xi”. They arrived in large cardboard boxes and were handed out to those waiting, along with smaller flags and T-shirts.
While a small number of banners were clearly homemade, the bulk appeared to have been coordinated by China’s embassy. Labels on the boxes showed they had been initially sent by air from southern China to Beijing. Other boxes showed some flags had then been sent to the Chinese embassy in London using diplomatic freight.
Those holding the banners were, however, largely coy about their origin. One young student said he had printed his banner himself in London. Asked why it was so similar to those held by many others he replied, grinning: “We must have all gone to the same print shop.”
There also appeared to be at least some measure of official organisation. One man from Beijing said he was merely a teacher on holiday in London for a week. However, a group of young Chinese nationals referred to him as their “group leader” and said they could not talk to the media without his approval.
This huge welcoming crowd, five or six deep in places, vastly outnumbered the few hundred rights protesters, who were confined to a small pen of barriers midway down the Mall. These were split between members of the Falun Gong spiritual group, banned and repressed in China, Tibetans and other activists.
The protesters chanted loudly but were often drowned out by shouts and drumbeats from the much larger Chinese groups surrounding them.
When one group of rights demonstrators unfurled a banner on steps overlooking the Mall, they were immediately blocked by Chinese students holding giant flags in their way.
The UK government, seeing a trade and investment relationship with China as an engine of economic growth, has spared no effort in making Xi feel special. Over the four days of the visit, there will be three substantial meetings with David Cameron, as well as more social encounters at the official welcome and Tuesday night’s state banquet at Buckingham Palace.
The critics have argued Britain has sacrificed positions of principle on human rights and international law in the pursuit of economic benefit from its relationship with China, which some sceptics say the Cameron government has overestimated.
The risks were illustrated on Tuesday with the announcement of job losses in the steel industry. Tata Steel revealed the latest in a series of cuts, costing 1,200 jobs in Scunthorpe and Lanarkshire, which it blamed on the dumping of cheap steel on the world market, particularly by China. |
NATO summit plans escalation against Russia in Eastern Europe, Middle East
By Alex Lantier
11 July 2016
On Saturday, the second and final day of the NATO summit in Warsaw, NATO officials and heads of state approved a major military escalation in Eastern Europe and continuing deployments to Afghanistan. These initiatives, together with expanded NATO military cooperation with former Soviet republics, including Georgia and Ukraine, are all aimed at encircling and preparing for war against Russia.
The summit came in the aftermath of the June 23 British vote to exit the European Union and the eruption of sharp conflicts within the EU over financial and military policy, particularly over the war drive led by Washington and the Eastern European states against Russia.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg hailed the agreement to send a large force of NATO troops to Poland and the Baltic Republics as “historic.” His remarks were echoed by US and European officials, but strongly condemned by top Russian officials.
Speaking in Warsaw on the NATO plans, US President Barack Obama declared that “the United States will be the lead nation here in Poland, deploying a battalion of American soldiers.” He continued: “The United Kingdom will take the lead in Estonia, Germany in Lithuania, and Canada in Latvia. This will mean some 4,000 additional NATO troops, on a rotational basis, in this region. Moreover, the additional US Armored Brigade will rotate through Europe, including an additional 4,000 US troops. Meanwhile, to the south, we agreed on new deterrence measures in Romania and Bulgaria.”
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russian Affairs Mike Carpenter summed up the tenor of NATO relations with Russia by saying that the US military’s European Command had to dedicate significant resources in order to become a “war-fighting” headquarters.
Obama also announced a major escalation of NATO operations in Central Asia and the Middle East. He reported pledges of $900 million and the deployment of 12,000 more troops by a 39-nation coalition to continue NATO operations in Afghanistan, as well as stepped-up air reconnaissance operations over Iraq and Syria.
Obama also joined UK Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The Ukrainian leader, who heads the far-right nationalist regime that emerged from the NATO-backed putsch in Kiev in February 2014, received promises of further military aid conditioned on his imposition of more of the free-market economic “reforms” that have already devastated the country’s economy.
Leading Russian officials condemned the NATO summit. Even former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, whose policies set the stage for the dissolution of the USSR and the restoration of capitalism, and who played the key role in facilitating NATO’s rampage across the Middle East and Europe, felt obliged to criticize the summit.
NATO leaders “only talk about defense, but actually they are preparing for offensive operations,” he said, adding, “All of the rhetoric in Warsaw simply clamors for all but declaring war on Russia.”
Russian government spokesmen said it was “absurd to speak of a threat from Russia” to NATO, and parliamentarian Konstantin Kosachyov likened NATO’s deployment plans to “building a dam in the desert.”
The inescapable conclusion of Obama’s presentation is that NATO policy is to lock the populations of North America and Europe into perpetual wars of occupation. This policy, which is stoking up strategic tensions and ethnic conflicts across Eurasia, threatens to erupt into all-out war with Russia, a nuclear-armed power.
Obama spent much of his press conference answering questions about the escalating political crisis in the United States over deadly police violence and the mass shooting of policemen by a gunman in Dallas. Nonetheless, he took one question from New York Times journalist Mark Landler on the implications of the war policies being prepared by the NATO planning staffs.
Landler noted that “if you complete your presidency, as you will, with troops in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, you will be the only two-term president in American history to have served with the country at war… should the American people simply resign themselves to living in a state of perpetual war?”
Obama’s response amounted to an acknowledgement that the American people, and the populations of all the NATO countries, would indeed have to get used to perpetual war. Taking the example of the Afghan war, he concluded that it would be impossible to ever sign a peace treaty in the Middle East that would put an end to war in the way the Allied powers concluded the war with Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. Instead, NATO would have to “partner with,” that is, militarily occupy, Middle Eastern countries indefinitely.
Obama said, “We have an option of going in, taking out Al Qaeda, pulling out, potentially then seeing a country crumble under the strains of continued terrorist activity or insurgency, and then going back in. Or we can try to maintain a limited partnership that allows them to continue to build their capacity over time, and selectively take our own actions against those organizations that we know are trying to attack us or our allies. Because they’re non-state actors, it’s very hard for us ever to get the satisfaction of [US General Douglas] MacArthur and the [Japanese] Emperor meeting and a war officially being over.”
The picture that emerges from the NATO summit is of a terminal and extremely dangerous crisis of US and European imperialism. The inescapable conclusion of Obama’s remarks is that the foreign policy pursued by the United States and its NATO allies over an extended historic period has been a bloody failure. In the quarter-century since the dissolution of the USSR, Iraq, a Soviet ally, has been the target of NATO military action, as has the former Soviet ally Afghanistan, the Serbian-led remnant of the Yugoslav state, and now Syria, both of which were also Soviet allies.
The balance sheet of these wars is disastrous. Having spent trillions of dollars, lost tens of thousands of soldiers, and caused the deaths of millions of people, the NATO powers see no other option than to continue wars that have accomplished nothing and are hated by masses of working people in Europe and North America.
One major purpose of the war strategy, as laid out by its supporters, is to suppress the sharpening divisions among the imperialist powers themselves. Some hope it will limit the political fallout from the Brexit vote, including growing calls for a foreign and military policy led by Germany, with the assistance of France, Italy and other Western European powers, that is more aggressive and more independent from Washington and its British ally.
Judy Dempsey, a senior associate at the Carnegie Europe think tank, wrote that the pact could provide a “boost for the [pro-US] Atlanticist wing in the EU” and “make it more difficult for Russia to divide Europe and to weaken the transatlantic relationship.”
NATO leaders at the summit snubbed EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, whose staff had worked with Berlin to prepare a report calling for an independent EU foreign policy. They refused to let her join in signing documents on closer NATO-EU collaboration.
Nonetheless, top European officials who see the US-led war drive against Russia as cutting across their own imperialist interests continued to stress their differences with Washington. French President François Hollande declared, “NATO has no role at all to be saying what Europe’s relations with Russia should be. For France, Russia is not an adversary, not a threat.”
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Optus has emerged as a genuine bidder for the NRL's digital rights after paying $50 million to snatch English Premier League from Fox Sports in a move that is also expected to drive up the price of the next pay-tv deal between the NRL and News Corp.
Most in the industry were taken by surprise after Optus announced it was returning to the pay-tv market 20 years after playing in a key role in the Super League war by securing the broadcast and digital rights for the EPL for three years from the 2016-17 season, starting next August.
However, Fairfax Media was told Optus had contacted departing NRL chief executive Dave Smith soon after negotiations were opened earlier this year for the broadcast rights and the manner in which the telco succeeded in gaining the EPL rights supports claims Fox Sports had been complacent and was caught by the speed in which Channel Nine tabled an offer too good to refuse for four games per week on free-to-air television.
It is unclear whether Optus had indicated to Smith it would bid for the subscription television rights or simply the digital rights, which are held by Telstra, but the production costs associated with broadcasting NRL matches would probably be prohibitive in the term of the next rights deal. |
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Psychoanalyst and novelist Sudhir Kakar has a genius for digging deep into the depths of the human psyche and diving back with rare gems of insights into the complex grammar of motivations that mark human behaviour and culture. Described by Le Nouvel Observateur as one of 25 major thinkers of the world, Kakar’s oeuvre is varied and includes incisive and pioneering books on the roots of aggression, mysticism, religion and sexuality like Analyst and the Mystic, Culture and Psyche, The Colors of Violence and Intimate Relations.
Besides erudite and original theorising, Kakar has also penned novels of ideas like The Ascetic of Desire, Ecstasy and Mira and the Mahatma.
In his new book, The Indians: Portrait of a People, co-authored with his wife Katharina (published by Penguin), Kakar essays a big picture or a grand narrative of what it means to be an Indian and what constitutes “Indianness.”
“Our aim in this book is to present a composite portrait in which Indians will recognise themselves and be recognised by others. This recognition cannot have a uniform quality even while we seek to identify the commonalities that underlie what the anthropologist Robin Fox calls the “dazzle of surface appearances,” writes Kakar in an introduction to The Indians.
In this interview with Manish Chand, Kakar explains how the land of the Kamasutra that flaunts erotic sculptures in temples of Konarak and Khajuraho slipped into sexual repression centuries ago that India is still recovering from.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q) You have been writing on the Indian mind and Indian people for a long time. What sets this book apart from the ones you have written before?
A) It’s a mid-term report on what I have been writing about India all these years. It’s a new way of looking at old things. The new way of looking is a loving connection with the people of this country.
Q) In your book, you have written perceptively about the centrality of the family in an Indian’s life? What accounts for this family-centred thinking of Indians?
A) We attach a lot of importance to the family so much so that we neglect other institutions of society. We don’t get as disturbed as we should if things are not going well in society. All our emotional energy goes in the family. We have to take some of our emotional investment in family and put it into other institutions. Our home is clean. Our family is clean. But we don’t mind littering garbage outside our homes.
Q) What about the Indian attitude to sexuality? Don’t you think there is an element of schizophrenia towards sex and sexuality?
A) We are a sexually repressed people who are also a very erotic people. Eros and ascesis (asceticism) have been two dominant strands of the India mind and way of life over centuries. Both have struggled for domination of the Indian spirit. On the one hand, there are temples of Konarak and Khajuraho that show the pleasures of oral sex and on another hand you have that hypocritical attitude towards kissing in Hindi films, which is only insinuated and rarely shown.
In ancient India, at least among upper castes, there was no sexual repression. The upper caste rich, the intended audience of Kamasutra, celebrated sexuality and regarded nothing as taboo in their uninhibited expression of sexuality.
Q) When did sexual repression start?
A) Till the end of the 12th century, Eros was in the ascendant. Read erotic poetry of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda or sculptures in mediaeval temples. After that, eros was submerged. However, we have never been as hedonistic as the Romans and Greeks were. The advent of Muslim invaders put brakes on the hedonistic, erotic parts of our selves. It’s not that Islam is sexually repressive. On the contrary, sexual love in most Islamic societies has been marked by a cheerful sensuality. As I have written in my book, Between the land of the Kamasutra and contemporary India lie many centuries during which Indian society managed to enter the dark ages of sexuality.
Q) What accounts for these inhibitions on expression of sexuality?
A) It has to do with the loss of confidence of the Hindu society. The biggest low was British colonialism when the rulers were seen as superior. Victorian morality, combined with ascesis, took over during colonial time. Post-independence, erotic energies started getting released again. The Indian model is, however, one of restrained eroticism.
Q) Would you say contemporary Indians are sexually liberated?
A) Nowadays, there is a more healthy attitude to sex. But it’s early days to say anything definitive about the state of sexual emancipation in India. In sections of upper class, people go overboard. The Indian society and culture rejects what does not fit and absorbs what fits in. The structured arranged marriages are preferred by young people. Arranged love marriages are becoming common and frequent.
As I have written in The Indians, despite all this talk about a sexually rising India among urban Indians, vast stretches of contemporary India remain covered in sexual darkness. “In spite of the somewhat more relaxed attitudes in the upper and upper middle classes, Indian sexuality remains deeply conservative, if not puritanical, lacking the erotic grace which frees sexual activity from the imperatives of biology, uniting the partners in sensual delight and metaphysical openness.”
Q) Is there a class angle to sexuality?
A) Kamasutra was written at a time when India’s trade with Greece and China was booming. It was written for rich merchants and the urban rich. It’s quite dismissive of rural people.
Q) In the course of writing this book and your extensive research into the Indian mind and thinking over the years, what fresh insight did you get into the Indians as a people?
A) We have the romantic vision of reality. Sages and seers are revered in India as they are in touch with the other world. Astrologers and quacks must have an honoured place. We are believers in the other reality. People have different visions of reality.
The West, on the other hand, has an ironic vision of reality. It is much more sceptical and doubting. We have a tragic view of life, but we believe in a romantic ending.
Q) Intellectuals and artists do not enjoy the same stature as seers do in Indian society. Any reason you can think of….
A) In this scheme of things, the life of the mind is lower than that of the spirit. The pundit is several notches below the rishi.
Q) You have travelled all over the world. Do you think India is being seen differently now by the world?
A) There is a much greater affection for India than for China. Abroad, people are more open to the idea of India and like the Indian way of thinking and art. That’s because the Indian mind and body is open to the environment. It’s trusting. There is a touch of innocence and naivety. Our first instinct is to trust.
Q) Finally, what imbues Indians with a distinctive identity?
A) The cultural conditioning, which manifests in a lot of our behaviour, feelings and attitudes, gives an Indian stamp to our knowledge and experience. There are some key building blocks of Indian-ness like an ideology of the family and other crucial relationships that emerge from the institution of the joint family; a view of social relations that is deeply influenced by the institution of caste and an image of the human body that is based on the medical system of ayurveda. Above all, there is collective cultural imagination replete with myths and legends, especially from epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata that underscore a romantic vision of human life and a relativist, context-dependent way of thinking. Put together, they impart a distinctive Indian stamp on certain universal experiences.
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2 years ago
Hey folks!
The Rooster Teeth Community is an amazing thing. Seeing how you guys interact with each other, what you create, and how you’ve grown amazes us every day.
A few weeks ago we announced that episodes for all animated shows – including Red vs. Blue, RWBY Chibi, and Camp Camp – would be released a week earlier for Sponsors. We’re always trying to add to the value of Sponsorship, and to give you guys as much as we can as a thank you for supporting us. After reading your comments, it became clear that this was not a perk that most Sponsors wanted. So we did something about it.
Starting this weekend, Sponsors will be able to watch animated shows the moment they’re released, and 24 hours later those shows will be available for all registered, signed-in users on RoosterTeeth.com (both Sponsors and non-Sponsors). That means non-Sponsors will have to have an account on the Rooster Teeth site to be able to watch shows 24 hours after they’re released for Sponsors. If you don’t have an account, you’ll have to wait one week to see it.
In short, there’s a new three-tier release schedule for RWBY Chibi, Red vs. Blue, and Camp Camp:
Rooster Teeth Sponsors see the episode first One day later, everyone signed into a Rooster Teeth account (including non-Sponsors) can watch the episode on the site Six days after that, the general public can watch the episode on RoosterTeeth.com or YouTube
We recognize that a huge part of our story-driven shows (such as RWBY and Red vs. Blue) is the discussion surrounding the show, the fan art, and the ability to share your reactions and theories. We hope to unite the community on the Rooster Teeth site, encouraging discussions among fans whose paths might not have crossed in the fragmented fan communities across the internet. We want to make sure this can continue and flourish as much as it has. You guys make what we do all worth it, and sharing is caring, right?
Tune in Saturday, May 7 at 10 AM CT for the premiere of RWBY Chibi, and Sunday, May 8 at 12 PM CT for the premiere of Red vs. Blue Season 14! (May 8 and May 9 for non-Sponsors signed into the Rooster Teeth site, and May 14 and May 15 for the public, respectively.) If you aren’t already a Sponsor, now is a great time to take advantage of our free 30-day trial.
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<3 Barbara and the RT Crew |
Streaming music service Spotify is hoping to win over its musician critics by launching a new Spotify Artists website explaining how its business model works.
The company is also launching free analytics for artists to get data on streams of their music; announcing plans to help them sell merchandise from their Spotify profiles; and publishing figures on how much musicians can expect to earn as it grows.
The various announcements are a response to trenchant criticism from some musicians in 2013. Thom Yorke described Spotify as "the last desperate fart of a dying corpse", while David Byrne criticised streaming as "unsustainable as a means of supporting creative work of any kind".
The Spotify Artists website aims to answer musicians' questions about how Spotify calculates its payouts for streams of their music, and convince them that as the company grows, their streaming earnings will make up for any fall in sales of CDs and downloads.
"The position we take is look, we know Spotify is not perfect for all artists yet, but this is the theory behind it, this is where we are, and this is where we're going," Mark Williamson, director of artist services at Spotify, told The Guardian ahead of the launch.
"With any format change in music – CD and iTunes included – there's a lot of confusion around how these different models work, and quite often some serious scepticism. We understand that's out there, so we want to be as clear and transparent as we possibly can explaining how Spotify fits in."
Spotify pays out nearly 70% of its total revenues to music industry rightsholders – labels, publishers and collecting societies – who are then responsible for paying musicians and songwriters their share.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Spotify is publishing its royalties formula for payouts to rightsholders.
The site also aims to dissuade artists from judging Spotify by "per-stream" payouts by explaining how it calculates each artist's gross revenue by their share of total monthly streams, with the resulting payout varying according to country, the ratio of free to paying users, and the overall volume of music being streamed.
"Per-stream is a really flawed way of thinking about it – it's not the way we pay or the way our model is built, and it's not the way people should be measuring it – but we appreciate people do talk about per-stream payments and want to ask the question," said Williamson.
For all its protestations, Spotify has answered that question on its new site, saying that the average payout to rightsholders for a single play of a track is between $0.006 and $0.0084.
The site also gives "actual, but anonymised" figures made in July 2013 for a month's streams of five specific albums, ranging from $3,300 for a "niche indie album" to $425,000 for a "global hit album".
Spotify also predicts how much these albums would receive in a single month when the service has 40m paying subscribers, rather than its current total (6m according to Spotify's last public announcement on that score from March, but closer to 10m according to music industry sources).
"We want to put the figures in context of what these payments will be when we launch in new countries and get to 40m paid subscribers," said Williamson. "That small indie band whose album made $3k a month in July will now be looking at $17k a month from Spotify alone, and the global pop superstar will be looking at over $2m."
Spotify claims that payouts for individual artists will improve drastically when it reaches 40m subscribers. Photograph: /PR
Alongside the website launch, Spotify is announcing today that it has paid out more than $500m to rightsholders in 2013, and more than $1bn in total since its launch in 2008.
It also claims that the average American Spotify user now generates $41 a year in revenue for the company – a figure including advertising revenues for free users and subscription revenues from paying users.
Spotify claims as a comparison that the average US internet user spends $25 a year on music, although it admits that if you strip out the third of them who don't spend anything at all, the figure rises to $55.
Its new site also compares Spotify's average royalties of between $6,000 and $8,400 per million listens to figures of $3,000 for a "video streaming service" (i.e. YouTube) and $1,300 – $1,500 for a "radio streaming service" (i.e. Pandora), in an effort to position Spotify as a better friend to musicians than those rivals.
"A million streams on Spotify is worth at a minimum twice as much as what a video service would pay, and three to four times what an online personal radio station would pay. A fan streaming your music on Spotify is far more valuable than, say, a fan listening to your music on repeat on a music video service," said Williamson.
"And these are the rates we're monetising at now, with 24m users. If Spotify grows to 140m total users and 40m paying subscribers, we will increase our payouts by five times."
Critics will note that this is jam-tomorrow reasoning – not least because as Spotify has grown, so have its losses. Even with a recent $250m funding round, Spotify has yet to prove that it can stay in business long enough to reach those total user numbers.
Spotify analytics will be available to artists through Next Big Sound.
Analytics are the other key part of Spotify's outreach to artists, with the company partnering with US startup Next Big Sound to give artists and managers access to data on Spotify plays of their music, including total streams, track-by-track information and demographic data including gender, location and age.
It mirrors an existing partnership with British firm Musicmetric, which makes this kind of data available to labels. In the case of Next Big Sound, though, the analytics will be free to registered artists and managers, aiming to help them plan tours, singles and other marketing activity.
"They'll be able to see this alongside other metrics like Facebook Likes, Twitter followers and YouTube views, and all of the Spotify data will be free, although only authorised managers and artists are getting access to it," said Williamson. "There'll be a process in place to ensure whoever is asking for the data is really connected to that artist."
Finally, Spotify is announcing plans today to help artists sell merchandise from their profiles in its desktop, web and mobile apps, via a partnership with another music-tech company, Topspin. It follows a similar deal with British startup Songkick to show concert listings in the profiles, with fans able to click through to buy tickets.
"Right now our users are browsing more than 2m concerts within Spotify every month," said Williamson. "We will soon be rolling out merchandise listings too, powered by our friends at Topspin. That will allow any artist to easily upload merchandise details and display it to their fans and followers on Spotify."
Spotify will not take a cut of any sales made through this feature. Williamson says it is intended to complement revenues from artists' recorded music, not replace it.
"We don't believe in saying artists should give their music away for free and make their money elsewhere. But we know that touring and merchandise is a huge part of many artists' careers, and Spotify wants to add value in those ways as well," he said.
Spotify is pitching the feature as a boon for musicians and fans alike, but it will also bolster the company against competitors. Headphones manufacturer Beats is already working with Topspin on a similar merchandise partnership for its Beats Music service, but that has yet to launch.
Spotify may now beat it to the punch, but will today's announcements deflect some of the blows being aimed at the company – and streaming more generally – by artists like David Byrne and Thom Yorke?
"This is a new model, and it does take some time to get used to. By creating clarity around the model, and by discussing and explaining it, we hope we can overcome even some of the most vociferous critics," said. Williamson.
"I hope this gets out to some of the artists who won't engage with us. We can't be accused of hiding behind stuff: this is us being open and explaining our model."
• Is Spotify going to save the music industry … or destroy it? |
A group of Karen immigrants knocked on the door of Arlington Hills United Methodist Church in Maplewood last summer, asking a simple question: Could we hold religious services here?
The worship space they were using was too small and far away, they explained. And the church they had just approached had no room. The Rev. Tom Biatek, sitting in his office with the group from St. Paul's East Side, quickly agreed.
Within a week, the number of children in the church's vacation Bible school doubled from 20 to 40, Biatek said, as the Karen children joined in the playing and praying. Adults attending Sunday services mushroomed from 20 to more than 60 today.
At the Christmas pageant last Sunday, Joseph was from Myanmar and Mary was Minnesotan. The potluck featured Tater Tots and hot dish — and curried goat and egg rolls.
And after six months of attending an English-language service that was partly in their language, the refugees will have their own services in Karen at the church every other Sunday starting in January.
"It's a lovely thing that's unfolding," Biatek said. "Our worship service has much more energy. [Karen] parents faithfully bring their children to Sunday school ... It's been a real gift."
Fifteen years after they began their long journey to Minnesota, the Karen refugees are putting down religious roots across the east metro. The area is now home to an estimated 10,000 Karen people, who fled their homes in Myanmar (formerly Burma) to escape persecution and torture by the military.
That legacy continues to haunt them. The head of the Karen group who knocked on the door of Arlington Hills United Methodist declined to be interviewed for this story, a likely reflection of that difficult past.
Catherine Solheim, a church member and university researcher who once lived in Thailand, said the group coming to the Maplewood church is primarily made up of families from the East Side.
"Some families have been here five or six years. Some are just arriving," Solheim said. "It's a constant wave. And there's secondary resettlement here. There's a sense that Minnesota is a good place for refugees because of its education and social support."
Families are particularly eager for their children to join Sunday school classes, learn English and meet and make friends with Minnesota children, she said.
The Karen people have generally put down roots with Baptist churches, she said, as the Baptists were active missionaries in their homeland. This is the first group to be part of a Methodist ministry in Minnesota. Said Biatek: "We're in uncharted territory."
The church has adapted its services to welcome the guests. The Sunday gospel is read in both English and Karen, and a summary of the sermon is read in Karen. There's usually a hymn or two in Karen. On New Year's Eve, the Karen will hold their own celebration in the afternoon.
With the new Sunday services starting next month, organized by the Karen leader, Biatek is hoping the connections will remain strong between the two communities — something that will benefit both congregations.
"Their faith is really important to them, and has really blossomed through difficult times," Solheim said. "I want them to find a place where they can worship and learn and study.
"But we will probably learn more in the long run, making us more open to the people around us, and getting a deeper understanding of what it is to be a Christian in the world today."
Jean Hopfensperger • 612-673-4511 |
August 15, 2016, 10:16 am
I am simply exhausted with the notion that seems to have taken over both political parties that trade with China is somehow the source of US economic woes.
Remember that voluntary trade can't happen unless both parties are benefiting from each trade. Remember the masses of academic evidence that the (largely hard to see) benefits of trade in terms of lower costs and more choice tend to be greater than the (easier to see) job losses in a few trade-affected industries. But even if none of that is compelling to you, consider that our trade deficit with China is just 2% of GDP. It's almost a rounding error.
If politicians want to know why lower-skilled laborers struggle to find employment, they need to look past imports from China and Mexican immigration and look at their own policies that are making it more and more expensive for businesses to hire people in this country. I have written about this many times before, but some of the most prominent include:
minimum wage laws, rising to $15 an hour in many parts of the country, and increasingly draconian overtime rules, both of which substantially raise the cost of hiring someone.
minimum benefit laws, including expensive health care requirements in Obamacare and a myriad of other state-level requirements such as mandatory paid sick leave or family leave
payroll taxes that act as sales taxes on labor -- we understand that cigarette taxes are supposed to reduce cigarette purchases but don't understand that payroll taxes reduce purchases of labor?
employment regulations, such as chair laws and break laws in California, that make employing people more expensive and risky
employer liability laws, that make employers financially responsible for any knuckleheaded thing their employees do, even when these actions violate company policy (e.g. making racist or sexist statements)**
laws that make hiring far more risk, including those that limit the ability to do due diligence on potential employees (e.g. ban the box) and those that limit the ability of employers to fire poor performing employees.
And this is just employment law -- we could go on all day with regulations that make life difficult for lower income workers, such as the numerous laws that restrict the housing stock and drive up housing prices and rents for these same folks who are struggling to find a job.
Let's say you live in California. Who has killed more jobs in your state -- China or the California legislature? The answer is no contest. The California legislature wins the job destruction race in a landslide. While California's high-tech community enjoys a symbiotic relationship with China that has created immense wealth, the California legislature works overtime to make sure low-skilled workers in the state don't benefit.
**Postscript: Of all the factors here, I won't say that this is the largest but I think it is the most underrated and least discussed. But think about it. If you are going to be personally financially libel for ignorant, insensitive, or uncouth remarks made by your employees, even when you have explicitly banned such behavior in company rules and don't personally tolerate it, how likely are you going to be to hire a high school dropout without a good work history to interact with customers? |
Google will unveil new subscription music services tomorrow at the Google I/O conference, sources close to the company said. Google has now signed separate licensing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment for both YouTube and Google Play, setting the stage for such an announcement, music industry sources told The Verge.
Google plans to add separate music subscription services to YouTube and Google Play, the entertainment hub for the Android operating system. Earlier this year, Fortune magazine reported that Google had already struck similar licensing agreements with Warner Music Group, the smallest of the top three record labels. But landing Universal Music and Sony gives Google access to the two largest record companies, home to such acts as Bob Dylan, Alicia Keys, Lil Wayne, Rihanna, and Jay-Z. Spokespeople from Sony and Universal declined to comment.
Google comes to these negotiations as a powerful player in music When Google rolls out the new services tomorrow at I/O, it will mean that it gets the jump on Apple, which is also trying to launch a new streaming-music service. According to reports, Google's subscription services would resemble Spotify, and offer on-demand songs that would be streamed to their PCs and mobile devices. In contrast, Apple is working on an online radio service that is said to be more akin to Pandora, a service that plays songs at random similar to traditional radio.
Google comes to these negotiations as a powerful player in music. While Google Play is still a relatively new service, insiders say YouTube is a juggernaut. The user-generated video site sees more than 800 million unique visitors a month and music videos are among the most popular fare.
When Google rolls out the new services tomorrow at I/O, it will get the jump on Apple Vivendi, Universal Music's parent company, reported first quarter earnings today, and said that revenue was up 13 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. Digital music sales have now surpassed physical at Universal, with the split being 54 percent to 46 percent, respectively. The addition of Universal's catalog, along with Sony's offerings, could allow the forthcoming Google product to have a significant impact on competitors Spotify and Rdio.
Update: The New York Times is reporting that Google’s Spotify killer won't offer a free tier for its streaming service. The paper said it wasn't clear how much Google would charge, however. Most subscription music services charge about $10 per month. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that as part of its negotiations for music subscription, YouTube is trying to get some kind of an audio-only license. |
RAGGED EDGE is futurist racing game and its universe is based on JACQUES MARTEL’s book « Bloody Marie ».
Compete in illegal races and become a legend. Join the most prestigious crews, and your exploits wil be told endlessly in all RAGGED EDGE taverns.
Only the best edgers will stay in people minds.
Race in the most epic championships and rewrite History.
RAGGED EDGE have been released in 2013 as a mobile game. In 2014, the team have started a new PC high definition version. The game will be available in the next months, first in “early access”, then for beta and final release.
Be part of it!
FEATURES OF THE GAME
– Play RAGGED EDGE the way you like :
The game is based on fast pace space races. Many races, many tracks, and so many people to challenge!
YOU are the HERO and you’ll bring your character to the highest levels.
There is always people to play with you, using our giant database. Defeat as many people as possible to get higher rankings. If you feel reckless, then try to be the winner of one of the RAGGED EDGE tournaments.
Start your engines!
– RAGGED EDGE is a whole universe, not only a game !
Come into the RAGGED EDGE tavern and check the latest news about the races.
Want a break ? Bet on next races or play cards games. Get involved into complexe challenges or join a famous crew. There is always something interesting to do in RAGGED EDGE.
Moreover, the game is mainly PC, but you’ll be able to play from any device that will be supported.
– RAGGED EDGE in the future
RAGGED EDGE is and will be a great game. So many updates are coming. Be part of it! We have so many great ideas, let’s join he adventure and tell us what you think about our incoming features.
RAGGED EDGE is also your game, we pay many attention on what player think.
Any question ? Feel free to ask on the comments below. |
Justin Bieber song What Do You Mean was popular among students who scored high on the psychopathy scale.
Despite the film industry's depiction of psychopaths, classical music is not their go-to soundtrack in the real world.
"In the movies, if you want to establish in one shot that a monster has a human side," said Pascal Wallisch, a psychology professor at New York University, filmmakers play a certain kind of music. There's Beethoven in A Clockwork Orange or Mozart in The Silence of the Lambs.
Wallisch and Nicole Leal, a recent graduate of NYU, wanted to find out if a preference for certain musical genres is correlated with psychopathy, a personality disorder characterised by manipulativeness and a lack of empathy.
SUPPLIED Ludwig van Beethoven may not be a psychopath's favourite, after all.
The researchers gave a questionnaire to more than 190 NYU psychology students that rated their level of psychopathy. It includes questions such as, "For me what's right is whatever I can get away with" and "Love is overrated".
READ MORE: Are all metal fans psychopaths?
"The cliche is they (psychopaths) are all in prison, but they're all over," Wallisch said.
The students listened to a songs from a wide range of musical selections, from classical to recent Billboard 100 songs, and rated them on a seven-point scale. Most of the songs were unfamiliar to the students. Wallisch and Leal looked for correlations between preferences for certain songs and the students' scores on the psychopathy scale. They identified about 20 songs that seemed to be particularly popular or unpopular depending on the listener's level of psychopathy.
The researchers then ran the numbers in the opposite direction. They had other students listen to those songs with the highest correlations to the psychopathy scale and rate the songs. The students' reactions to the songs predicted to some extent their own scores on the psychopathy scale. The study hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and like all early studies may not hold up, but it was presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting that is being held in Washington DC this week with about 30,000 attendees.
Among the songs with the highest correlation were Eminem's Lose Yourself, the Academy and Grammy award-winning rap song popularised in the 2002 movie 8 mile, and Blackstreet's No Diggity, which ousted Macarena for Billboard's top spot in 1996. Justin Bieber's What Do You Mean was also popular with those students who scored high on the psychopathy scale. On the low end were Dire Straits' Money for Nothing, the much-covered country tune Wayward Wind and The Knack's 1979 pop-rock hit, My Sharona.
Leal said they hadn't found a pattern yet, if there is any, in what the songs popular or unpopular with people who score high on the psychopathy scale have in common. She originally hypothesised that people high in psychopathy might prefer songs without lyrics - since most lyrics are about something psychopaths don't care about, namely the singer's feelings - but that didn't seem to be the case.
Asked what artists or songs he liked best, Wallisch had the perfect answer: "I'm really not interested in music at all." |
by
The new Italian Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, after his government got full approval from the country’s legislators in two days and two trips to Berlin and Paris, managed to confirm the reputation of Rome as the catalyst of historic European developments. The Treaty of the European Union was signed in the eternal city. In less than 48 hours Letta managed to unlock the enigma of how to marry fiscal consolidation with growth. In this major issue we have to be fair however and note that he got enough French help in accomplishing that. Let’s follow the facts.
Going to Berlin on Tuesday 30 April the new Italian PM had in his pocket the recently approved provision of the Italian Constitution, obliging the government to run balanced budgets. Given that, it was very easy for him to take a step ahead and tell Chancellor Angela Merkel in public, that “what Europe needs now is growth and jobs and this is what my coalition government is going to do”. Of course Merkel, lacking imagination or pretending to, just repeated that “fiscal consolidation doesn’t exclude growth”. Naturally she meant that the only way to that is the German austere way.
In any case Letta told her that Italy has honoured all its obligations towards Eurozone and pointed out that his country is systematically cutting down public deficits during the past eighteen months. In reality he said that he doesn’t need German lessons on that. He also reminded her, that Italy has cut down government spending and increased taxation, up to the point to have already pushed the economy into a vicious cycle of recession, growing unemployment and more austerity. In view of all that Letta also left to be understood that his government has concrete obligations to the two parties which support it in Parliament. Obviously those obligations contain invariably economic policies for growth.
Seemingly the discussion between the two leaders remained at that. Berlin obviously didn’t want to examine any other option towards the ‘marriage of fiscal consolidation with growth’, than the old Teutonic obsession of ‘albeit match free’ and more austerity for the many. In the present conjuncture the German elite very probably plays this game aiming at destroying the rest of Eurozone economies, in order to acquire their assets for peanuts. Germans have proved they can easily believe such rubish. France and Italy however cannot and would not allow that. Let’s see how.
Fiscal consolidation with growth
The next day, yesterday 1 May, Letta rushed to Paris. He needed urgently the French connection or sensed that France needed his support to counter Berlin’s intransigence. The French President Francois Hollande greeted Letta very warmly, despite the fact that the Italian chose to go first to Berlin. Hollande knew that the Italian’s contribution was of primordial importance in solving Eurozone’s enigma in a different way than the one offered by the German sphinx.
In a few hours the two set the base for this different solution. They didn’t say much but in the substance of it the new Italian PM explained that, “in order to support jobs and growth in Europe the first condition is the cost of money to business, that is why we want the Banking Union to be enacted the soonest possible. We should not lose any more time”. He added that Europe needs growth and underlined that, “Italy is determined to promote growth policies as urgently and decisively as it did in consolidating its fiscal sector”. Those few sentences were reported and underlined by all major Italian media and were commented as the new road to growth.
In a few words he opened the way for a new Eurozone monetary policy, friendly to growth and designed to be fair to all and not just to Germany. The idea is that the cheap money from the European Central Bank but more so from the financial markets, being now lent to the banks of the central Eurozone countries at almost zero interest rate, must reach also the South under the same conditions. The Banking Union will guarantee that this kind of cheap and abundant money will be available from the financial markets also to the Italian, the Greek, the Spanish and the Portuguese banks and trough them to the regions’ business sector. Just two days ago the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch told the Europeans that there are €20 trillion waiting to be lent at interest rates below 1%.
Today all the southern countries are financially starved because the ECB’s monetary policy of cheap money does reach there. It’s the infamous problem of the financial fragmentation of Eurozone. The Governor of the ECB, Mario Draghi has repeatedly said that this fragmentation doesn’t permit central bank to transmit its monetary policy to the periphery of Eurozone. Under the current arrengemnet the financial markets will not undertake any risks in that region.
Banking Union
Only yesterday the European Sting’s writer George Pepper noted that “Berlin’s basic argument is that Eurozone cannot overcome a debt problem with more debts. The answer that seems to be now formulating by the other side is that ‘yes you can, if the money is for free’, that is at almost zero interest rates. Japan is doing exactly that despite being much more indebted than Eurozone”.
The Eurozone group of countries which back the growth argument, comprising today apart from Italy and France the entire southern periphery plus Ireland, will most probably find a strong ally in the Governor of ECB. Mario Draghi insists that the central bank’s monetary policy has to be freely transmitted all over the Eurozone, to reach all the small and medium enterprises of the euro area. That is why he insists, as Letta now does, that the Banking Union must be enacted the soonest possible.
This is tantamount to a growth strategy from the side of the monetary authorities. Not to the liking of Berlin. Once the Banking Union is in place and the ECB guarantees that all the banks in the periphery have reached such a creditworthiness levels as the German banks, then the cheap and abundant money from the world’s financial markets will flow to the peripheral lenders and through them to the business sector and the households of the region.
As for the German banks that Berlin boosts about their sturdiness, it seems that all that was not true. The mighty Deutsche Bank has just announced a capital increase of €2.96 billion, despite the fierce rhetoric of its management that their bank is solid rock and will never ask its shareholders for more capital. Now all that proved to be a big lie. The largest bank of Germany acknowledged that it didn’t feel financially well and needed some blood transfusion, forgetting the fat words about its concrete structure. This is one more proof that Germany when pressed by reality is abandoning altogether the stern and self-assured rhetoric and humbly accepting reality.
In total the Banking Union of the Eurozone, will guarantee that the periphery gets exactly the same treatment by the ECB and the world’s financial markets as the central countries. The credibility of the region’s banks will be guaranteed by the ECB and given that the lenders will be able to finance their customers under the same conditions as in Germany. Exactly as it was the case until 2008, when Greek and German borrowers had to pay the same rates. Seemingly that is why Germany has already started to question the creation of the Banking Union. But this time it will be too much even for Berlin to try and block it. |
The actor will be back as a series regular on the veteran CW drama.
Supernatural will have its main players back.
Misha Collins is set to return as a series regular on the CW drama's 10th season, The Hollywood Reporter has learned, joining stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.
PHOTOS: Broadcast TV's Returning Shows 2014-15
Collins, who first appeared as Castiel in the show's fourth season, is a regular on the current ninth (he has not been in every episode). But questions over his return prompted fans to send in postcards and blue ties to The CW in an impromptu grassroots campaign.
The CW gave an early renewal to Supernatural in February, but recently passed on proposed spinoff Supernatural: Bloodlines, which aired as an April 29 episode.
Collins is repped by Anonymous Content.
Supernatural airs its season-nine finale May 20.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @insidethetube |
Mr Laming called the sacking "scapegoating of Godzilla proportions". Liberal MP Philip Ruddock has been dumped as chief whip, angering some Liberals. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen He said that while Ruddock and his successor, new chief whip Scott Buchholz, would have to be two of the most highly regarded members of the party room, "the timing of this move reeks of recrimination". The move has angered many on his backbench and threatens to reopen the leadership question after some who stuck with him revealed they were appalled at the vindictiveness and sheer brutality of the move on Mr Ruddock. Many MPs were caught by surprise, as they believed Ruddock had been steadfast in his support of the Prime Minister throughout the spill process. "The PM had my vote on Monday even though he refused to get rid of Peta Credlin [his chief of staff]. He has now lost my vote because he had no right to get rid of Philip Ruddock," one furious backbencher said.
"This is another disastrous call," another MP said. In better times: Philip Ruddock helps then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott with his high vis vest in West Melbourne in 2013. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Queensland MP Ewen Jones said: "Phillip Ruddock is an ornament to our party and a great bloke". The Friday afternoon dumping of one of the Liberal Party's most loyal and revered servants threatens to further strain relations in an already divided government and has MPs again discussing Mr Abbott's judgment, his tendency to conflict and the strength of his commitment to establish harmony. MPs contacted by Fairfax Media questioned the timing of the announcement, with one branding Mr Ruddock's removal "just terrible".
Another said, "I just can't believe that this is meant to help". Mr Ruddock, a former NSW moderate who became a Howard government hero among conservatives for his role as a tough immigration minister, is the "father of the house", meaning he is the longest serving lower house MP in Canberra. He has been a close ally of Mr Abbott and travelled with him for five weeks as an adviser during the 2013 election campaign. The veteran MP entered Parliament more than 41 years ago, in 1973, during the life of the Whitlam Labor government and has seen the coming and going of numerous administrations from Malcolm Fraser's Coalition, to the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, the Howard Coalition government, the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, and finally the Abbott Coalition government. Mr Ruddock did not return calls for this story but reportedly told the ABC "the position of Whip is the gift of the leader, and any advice about that position should come from him".
In a statement, Mr Abbott took responsibility for the decision, saying: "I have made some changes to the Whip arrangements for the government." In the statement he thanked Mr Ruddock for his "extraordinary contribution to our country, this government and the Liberal Party". "As Father of the House, Philip has given over four decades of service to the Australian Parliament and the Australian people," he said. "I look forward to his future contribution to the government and to our country. He remains an important counsellor for Coalition members of Parliament and will continue to serve as Member for Berowra with distinction." Mr Ruddock will be replaced by Mr Buchholz, a Queensland LNP MP. Under the changes, Tasmanian MP Andrew Nikolic has been rewarded with a role as a government Whip. Mr Nikolic has been a vocal supporter of the Prime Minister since entering Parliament at the last election in 2013.
"Andrew has made an outstanding start as a member of Parliament. He has a distinguished military career and will take on this new role with enthusiasm," Mr Abbott said. As pressure mounted on Mr Abbott's leadership earlier this month, Mr Nikolic wrote to colleagues urging calm and increased loyalty to the Prime Minister. "I'm struggling to understand how that has happened in the proud team I thought I'd joined," he wrote. He also attacked Mr Laming when the Queensland MP revealed he planned to introduce a private member's bill to abolish Mr Abbott's knights and dames honours system. Mr Laming questioned the promotion of Mr Nikolic after the Tasmanian first cast public doubt on the constitutionality of the proposed private members bill last Thursday, and then went to ground and failed to back up his assertion.
Mr Laming said the bill, being co-sponsored by fellow Queenslander Warren Entsch, had received the legal tick of approval from two eminent constitutional lawyers despite Mr Nikolic's claim. "How does that exhibit the qualities of a whip who is supposed to exercise respect?" Mr Laming asked. |
I got an absolutely amazing variety if gifts from Lyndsie! thank you so much! I love it all! (Sorry the photos are out of order)
First, I got 2 puzzle books. I love puzzles and word games and I had a big puzzle book that I lost, so these are perfect! They will provide many hours of fun.
Next, I got baking supplies, because I love to bake and decorate cupcakes. I got measuring spoons, measuring cups, a spatula, two kinds of cupcake papers (can never have enough!), and cupcake storage boxes.
I also got a little planter with grass to grow. So cute!
Our two kitties got some gifts too! Rolly balls for them to play with and a mini catnip terrarium for me to grow them a treat!
Lastly, I got some yummy treats from PA - Tastykakes and cow tales. I actually lived in Pittsburgh for two years during grad school, so these brought back a flood of memories. Oh how I love Tastykakes and have missed them!
Thank you again Lyndsie for this plethora of amazingness! You were spot on and so very generous. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season! |
UK Welfare Project Boss Says He Didn't Use Open Source Because It 'Wasn't Available' Two Years Ago
from the how-do-some-people-get-into-power dept
The head of the UK's Department for Work and Pensions' welfare reform project, Universal Credit, was apparently explaining why the project was switching to open source technologies, when he was asked why they didn't do that originally, when the project launched two and a half years ago. His response? "such things weren’t available as they are today." While there may beopen source available today, you'd have to have triedhard to avoid learning about what was available just two and a half years ago. Oh, and this new open source project comes after they had to write off £40.1 million worth of IT assets, covering some of the original infrastructure investment, which they say "was of good quality" but "didn't reflect the needs of the project anymore because the specifications had changed so much."So, to get this straight: you have a government welfare project, spending tens of millions of pounds on a proprietary system that was built for a different purpose than what they needed, and it was so inflexible that they have to scrap the whole thing and now start all over again. At least they're using open source technology this time, but it really sounds like these guys are somewhat technologically clueless and got taken for a ride by some tech vendors who saw easy money the first time around. Hopefully they're not using the same guys for this open source project.
Filed Under: it, open source, uk, universal credit, welfare |
Want to watch cyborgs compete in epic sporting events? A bionic battle is set to go down in October of 2016 at the first Cybathalon in Zurich—an Olympics specifically for athletes using technological prosthetics and enhancements.
The event isn’t just about the cool factor (though that’s definitely high). And it isn’t about giving disabled athletes another event to compete in. In theory, it’s about spurring an improvement in the prosthetics and assistive technologies available to non-athletes as well.
Many athletes with amputations who compete in events such as the Paralympic Games now use prosthetics so sophisticated they provoke debate as to whether they provide an advantage over biological limbs. But this high level of function hasn’t yet trickled down to mainstream prosthetic availability.
“Some of the current technologies look very fancy,” event organizer Robert Riener told the BBC, “but are a long way from being practical and user-friendly.” He said he hopes events like the Cybathalon can increase awareness of the technology and push its development forward for the disabled community at large.
Each event will award two medals: One for the athlete, or “pilot,” and one for the company that developed their assistive device. In addition to races for those with leg prosthetics and wheelchairs, the event will include exoskeleton races and even a brain-computer interface race: Competitors paralyzed from the neck down will control an avatar in a computerized race, using a headset. |
alpha-Amanitin or α-amanitin is a cyclic peptide of eight amino acids. It is possibly the most deadly of all the amatoxins, toxins found in several species of the mushroom genus Amanita, one being the death cap (Amanita phalloides) as well as the destroying angel, a complex of similar species, principally A. virosa and A. bisporigera. It is also found in the mushrooms Galerina marginata and Conocybe filaris. The oral LD 50 of amanitin is approximately 0.1 mg/kg for rats.
Unlike most cyclic peptides, amatoxins (and phallotoxins) are synthesized on ribosomes. The genes encoding the proprotein for α-amanitin belongs to the same family as those that encode for phallacidin (a phallotoxin).[1]
Scientific use [ edit ]
α-Amanitin is a selective inhibitor of RNA polymerase II and III.[2] This mechanism makes it a deadly toxin.
α-Amanitin can also be used to determine which types of RNA polymerase are present. This is done by testing the sensitivity of the polymerase in the presence of α-amanitin. RNA polymerase I is insensitive, RNA polymerase II is highly sensitive (inhibited at 1μg/ml), RNA polymerase III is moderately sensitive (inhibited at 10μg/ml), and RNA polymerase IV is slightly sensitive (inhibited at 50μg/ml).[citation needed]
Chemical Structure [ edit ]
α-amanitin is a highly modified bicyclic octapeptide consisting of an outer and an inner loop. The outer loop is formed by peptide bonds between a carboxyl terminus of an amino acid to the subsequent amino terminus of the next residue. The inner loop is closed by a tryptathionine linkage between 6-hydroxy-tryptophan and cysteine. In addition, α-amanitin is decorated with modified amino acid side chains (2S,3R,4R)-4,5-dihydroxy-isoleucine, trans-4-hydroxy-proline, which gives its high affinity for RNA polymerase II and III.[3]
Total Synthesis [ edit ]
Matinkhoo et al. devised strategies to surmount three synthetic hurdles to give α-amanitin in 2018.[4] First, enantioselective synthesis of solid phase peptide synthesis-compatible (2S,3R,4R)-4,5-dihydroxyisoleucine was afforded in 11 steps from 2-(benzyloxy)acetaldehyde. Two key stereochemistry-defining steps include Brown crotylation at (3R,4R)-positions, and asymmetric Strecker amino acid synthesis at the (2S)-α carbon.[5] Secondly, chemoselective inner ring closure by fluorocyclization between 6-hydroxytrytophan and cysteine was achieved by intra-annular Savige-Fontana reaction. This requires a solid phase peptide synthesis-compatible, and methyliminodiacetic acid (MIDA), a boron protecting group, orthogonal amino acid in 5 steps.[4] As a final step, enantioselective oxidation at the tryptathionine linkage was achieved using a bulky organic oxidizing agent and an optimized solvent system to afford the desired the bio-reactive (R)-enantiomer sulfoxide, completing the total synthesis.
Symptoms of poisoning [ edit ]
α-Amanitin has an unusually strong and specific attraction to the enzyme RNA polymerase II. Upon ingestion and uptake by liver cells, it binds to the RNA polymerase II enzyme, effectively causing cytolysis of hepatocytes (liver cells).[6] Few effects are reported within 10 hours; it is not unusual for significant effects to take as long as 24 hours after ingestion to appear, with this delay in symptoms making α-amanitin poisoning even more difficult to diagnose and all the more dangerous. By then, it is far past the time in which stomach pumping would yield an efficient result. Diarrhea and cramps are the first symptoms, but those pass, giving a false sign of remission. Typically, on the 4th to 5th day, the toxin starts to have severe effects on the liver and kidneys, leading to total system failure in both. Death usually takes place around a week from ingestion.[7]
Around 15% of those poisoned will die within 10 days, progressing through a comatose stage to kidney failure, liver failure, hepatic coma, respiratory failure and death. Those who recover are at risk of permanent liver damage.[8] Diagnosis is difficult, and is established by observation of the clinical symptoms as well as the presence of α-amanitin in the urine. Urine screening is generally most useful within 48 hours of ingestion. Treatment is mainly supportive (gastric lavage, activated carbon, fluid resuscitation) but includes various drugs to counter the amatoxins, including intravenous penicillin and cephalosporin derivatives, and, in cases of greater ingestion, can extend to an orthotopic liver transplant. The most reliable method to treat amanitin poisoning is through having the stomach pumped immediately after ingestion; however, the onset of symptoms is generally too late for this to be an option. Chemically modified silibinin, silibinin dihydrogen disuccinate disodium (trade name Legalon SIL) a solution for IV administration, is used in treatment of severe intoxications with hepatotoxic substances such as paracetamol and amanitins.[9]
Mode of inhibitory action [ edit ]
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer's yeast). From .[10] α-Amanitin (red) bound to RNA polymerase II from(brewer's yeast). From .
From the crystal structure solved by Dr. Bushnell et al.,[10] α-Amanitin interacts with the bridge helix in RNA polymerase II (pol II). This interaction interferes with the translocation of RNA and DNA needed to empty the site for the next round of RNA synthesis. The addition of α-amanitin can reduce the rate of pol II translocating on DNA from several thousand to a few nucleotides per minute,[11][12] but has little effect on the affinity of pol II for nucleoside triphosphate,[13] and a phosphodiester bond can still be formed.[14][15] The bridge helix has evolved to be flexible and its movement is required for translocation of the polymerase along the DNA backbone. Binding of α-amanitin puts a constraint on its mobility, hence slowing down the translocation of the polymerase and the rate of synthesis of the RNA molecule.
Use in antibody-drug conjugates [ edit ]
Heidelberg Pharma, GmbH, based in Ladenburg, Germany, a pharmaceutical company providing pre-clinical drug discovery and development services, has developed a new antibody-drug conjugate or ADC technology based on α-amanitin.[16] Amanitin-based ADCs have shown outstanding activity in therapy-resistant tumor cells, e.g. cells expressing multi-drug resistant transporters, tumor-initiating cells and non-dividing cells at picomolar concentrations.[16]
The unique mode of action or MOA of α-amanitin seems to make the amanitin-based antibody-drug conjugates a suitable toxic payload.[17] The tolerability and therapeutic window of amanitin-based ADCs has been determined in a variety of rodent and non-human primate models. Furthermore, amanitin has a water-soluble structure, resulting in antibody-drug conjugates with low tendency for aggregation, even using higher drug to antibody ratios or DAR.[18][19]
In preclinical mouse models of prostate cancer, α-(alpha)-amanitin conjugated to an antibody directed against prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA; FOLH1; GCPII) showed high antitumoral activity and caused complete remission at single i.v. doses of 150 μg/kg of toxin, with no more than marginal weight loss in treated animals. Also, amanitin-based antibody-drug conjugates using an anti-Her2 antibody such as trastuzumab showed high antitumor activity in a series of models of preclinical oncology designed to establish efficacy of the trial drug in the treatment of HER2+ breast cancer. Alpha-amanitin is highly active in drug-resistant cells, independent of the status of expression of multi-drug resistant transporters because of its hydrophilic structure. Inhibition of RNA polymerase II caused by amanitin binding not only leads to apoptosis of dividing cells, but also of slowly growing cells – which are often observed in prostate cancer.[20][21]
See also [ edit ] |
It seems almost un-American to double down on the Clinton and Bush dynasties that ran the country for a generation. But looking ahead to 2016, Hillary Clinton is her party’s most likely nominee and Jeb Bush is his party’s most credible nominee should they decide to run. An appearance by both unannounced contenders at an education summit in Dallas on Monday fueled speculation about what a high-minded campaign they might wage, being policy wonks and all, and having breathed the same rarefied air of the presidency as spouse in Clinton’s case and brother and son in Bush’s case.
Education has been a central focus for Clinton since she was First Lady of Arkansas, and on the global stage, she has championed access to education for women and girls. Invoking the story of Malala Yousafzai, the Afghani teenager shot by the Taliban, Clinton said, “Her story reminds us that far too many women and girls are denied opportunities to develop their own God-given potential.” Clinton thanked Bush, who spoke before she did, for his work as governor on education, and for continuing “that work with passion and dedication in the years since.”
The Globalization of Higher Education conference, co-sponsored by Bush and former Democratic Governor Jim Hunt, is just one aspect of Bush’s interest in education reform. He is known as one of the principle proponents of Common Core, a set of education standards adopted by some 45 states and poised to be implemented this fall. Like so many other issues, Common Core faces a partisan backlash, and Bush has been urging state officials throughout the country to stay the course.
It’s easy to imagine Clinton and Bush debating education policy and respectfully agreeing or disagreeing. Each would happily set aside questions about Benghazi or brother George’s presidency; leaving that for others to explore. For a country clamoring for fundamental change, a re-play of Clinton versus Bush seems like someone’s idea of a bad joke, but serious people in each party view these two scions as the country’s best chance to get out of the muck and mire of hyper-partisanship and rediscover Washington’s ability to govern.
“The country is desperate for a less vituperative campaign more focused on issues than on the shortcomings of the candidates,” says William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It might clear the air and might even produce a governing agenda, a body of ideas that people in both political parties might be prepared to embrace.”
Clinton’s circle of friends is building an apparatus with “Ready for Hillary,” and she stands ready to inherit much of Obama’s infrastructure. Bush ran his last competitive race in 1998, an eon ago in political terms. But there’s still a potent Bush family network that’s built on personal loyalties, has the money to fund a campaign and can tap into a business community yearning for a moderate conservative as opposed to a movement radical. In a recent CBS/New York Times poll of tea party and non-tea party Republicans, Bush fared surprisingly well, coming in a respectable second to Rand Paul with 56 percent for Paul, and 48 percent favoring Bush. Among the non-tea types, he tied with Chris Christie, 39-39 percent. In a party without a frontrunner, and seemingly rudderless, Bush is the closest thing the GOP has to a consensus candidate.
“Bush looks good in contrast to the rest of the Republican field, which run the gamut from weak to gadfly,” says Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic group. “He looks like a serious guy, he’s untainted by scandal; he understands what it means to be president.” Most of all, even those who would never vote for him, can imagine him as president. It’s what the late Republican pollster Bob Teeter called “the invisible circle theory.”
Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont-McKenna College, explains that at any given time a very small number are in that circle, people that if you woke up one morning and heard they were president, you’d know they could do the job. “You might not agree with the policies, but you could definitely see them as president. Hillary Clinton is in the circle—she knows her stuff. Jeb as a successful two-term governor of a major state could easily enter the circle. His problem is his surname.”
Each president tends to be an antidote to what came before with Obama’s contemplative style the opposite of George W. Bush’s “Don’t mess with Texas” cowboy approach. Obama was elected on a wave of enthusiasm; his was an inspirational candidacy after Bush led the country into two debilitating wars. But even Obama’s staunchest admirers concede he had little governing experience, and it showed. Could someone more experienced have delivered? Those in both parties touting Clinton and/or Bush think the answer is yes. But that may be wishful thinking, says Bennett. “The ability to govern question is more circumstantial than it is experiential. Obama had a rough go with the economy on the brink of Depression and the most radicalized opposition since the Civil War.”
The history books will take the long view, but for now, voters are beginning the search for what comes next, and Clinton versus Bush for all the irony is not unrealistic. |
Julia Cordray’s lowest point came at 5 a.m. on a weekend in early October, while browsing the comments on a YouTube video posted to promote her mobile-phone app, Peeple.
The commenter had posted her Calgary address, phone number and email address, suggesting this information might be useful to anyone interested in killing her. And, worryingly, a lot of people had been taking to the Internet to voice their desire to do just that.
What kind of crazy person goes online and threatens somebody who hasn’t even done anything?
A few days earlier, on Sept. 30, Cordray became the target of one of the waves of mass outrage that periodically sweep social media. People were angry that her app, described as “Yelp for humans,” appeared to have the potential to enable bullying and harassment.
The irony of the fallout was not lost on Cordray.
“All the people that backlashed against our company were accusing our app of being a bullying app, when they actually bullied us instead,” she said. “I hadn’t even done anything. What kind of crazy person goes online and threatens somebody who hasn’t even done anything?”
Peeple was the target of international opprobrium; the American comedian John Oliver, who dedicated six minutes to making fun of it on his HBO show, said it “sounds absolutely awful.” Cordray, after insisting there had been a terrible misunderstanding about how the app would work, went quiet for a few weeks, shutting down Peeple’s social media accounts and declining interview requests from all over the world. The app hadn’t even been developed and released yet, leading media outlets and bloggers to speculate that the whole thing might have been a big fat hoax.
Now that the worst of the storm appears to have passed, Cordray is speaking up again.
The Calgary entrepreneur said she has a few things she’d like to clear up. For one thing, bullying people through the app was “never, ever possible.” For another, she said she’s listened to people’s feedback and made some important changes, regardless of the misunderstanding. And finally, she swears up and down — “You can quote me on this for the rest of my life” — that Peeple is a real product on track for release in December, not a hoax, a joke or a marketing stunt.
“I wish I could say this was just a really big marketing plan to go viral, get the attention and prove to the world why we need the world’s largest positivity app,” she said. “That’s a genius marketing situation. But that’s not what happened.”
Here’s what did happen, from Cordray’s perspective. Cordray said her best friend and co-founder, Nicole McCullough, came up with the idea for Peeple out of a desire to know more about the people around her: Her neighbours, potential babysitters, her Starbucks barista. Cordray, meanwhile, said she saw how an app that provides information about a person’s character based on recommendations could be useful to clients of the recruiting company she was running.
The two got to work. Cordray said she raised the necessary startup capital from private investors in two-and-a-half weeks. She won’t disclose who they are or how much money Peeple has raised to date, but a September article in the Calgary Herald said Peeple has raised $270,000 in private capital, with other reports pegging the company’s valuation at US$7.6 million. Cordray said the company currently has 29 shareholders and is in negotiations with “big VCs.”
Cordray said the company got off the ground in April of 2014, but kept things quiet until that interview with the Herald. That led to more Canadian media coverage and eventually the attention of the Washington Post.
At the time, Peeple was planning on encouraging users to rate people they know on a five-star scale. The Washington Post article cast it in an Orwellian light: “It’s not merely the anxiety of being harassed or maligned on the platform — but of being watched and judged, at all times, by an objectifying gaze to which you did not consent.”
Confusion ensued about how the app would work. Cordray said she’s listened to the feedback and has made some changes in response.
For one thing, Cordray clarified that Peeple (when it finally exists) will work on an opt-in basis only: no one can write something about you unless you sign up as a user. And the users control what appears on their profiles; you can delete reviews of yourself that you don’t like and block the reviewer from posting about you ever again. Users will also have the ability to deactivate their profiles if they don’t want to use the service any more.
In a post Cordray made on LinkedIn on October 4 titled “I became a trending topic for all the wrong reasons,” Cordray stressed “Peeple is a POSITIVITY ONLY APP.” However, she clarified that she’s not planning on eliminating constructive criticism altogether.
Cordray said Peeple is scrapping the star-rating system and plans to replace it with a more complicated one: a score calculated based on ranking five elements. Cordray would only disclose one of those elements — a calculation that accounts for the recommendations and criticisms other users have posted about a person. So, while you can block a negative review from displaying on your profile, it can still silently weigh down your score.
Cordray said there are checks and balances to prevent people from gaming the system; for example, a rejected man getting his friends to bombard an ex-girlfriend with negative reviews out of spite. Cordray said Peeple will see to it that such behaviour would actually harm the scores of the people writing the harmful reviews and would put them at risk of being removed from the app.
Cordray said her experience with death threats and abuse on social media demonstrates the necessity of a product like hers. She said she wants to create a service where people are accountable, not hiding behind anonymous handles.
“We do appreciate that the world is waiting and watching us,” Cordray said. “There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of.”
[email protected]
Twitter.com/clabrow |
Image: After
Horrendous Hurricane Harvey Tutorial A // Published on Aug 26, 2017
Welcome. Please sit down in front of your computer and join me in a harrowing journey into how horrendous Harvey is. I guide you through the many sources of data to examine the formation, path, landfall and projected future path of the storm.
Before
We look at wind speeds and pressures, rainfall totals and rates, ocean surface temperatures, storm surges and waves [dk: ABC coverage, here for summary and footage].
How Bad is That?
Stop the video frequently, and investigate the maps, plots, and info that I guide you to, so that you can be more informed on all storms.
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Horrendous Hurricane Harvey Tutorial B // Published on Aug 26, 2017
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(I hope this shows up okay. My monitor is kinda weird...) I've been sitting on this (unfinished) sketch for who knows how long. It's still an unfinished, actually, but I wanted to color it for the longest time. So, I winged it despite the lack of finishedness. Still deciding if I like how it turned out or not.Alternate, darker, version in scraps: [link] Original Sketch: [link] Originally, it spawned from a single line (Shall I pity you, then?) which I had jotted down somewhere, and which has since evolved into roughly this: "The spirits believe I owe you my pity, for you are merely mortal. You will know the ills of humankind; you will know of suffering, hatred, fear, and disappointment. Your eyes will cloud with the tears of sorrows that come with the passing of those you love... In time, your soul and your memory will fade from existence. Should I pity you, then, because you will suffer and die while I shall live eternally?"To which the answer would have been a 'No. I pity you. For, while I will die, you will never again live.'I didn't always like Yue. When I first drew this, I think I was first really starting to like her. I like her more and more each time I see her, or hear Sokka speak of her. (I'd also like to cosplay as her someday (gosh, what a wig that'd be, though)). She's fun, especially in the same work (fic/pic) as Suki. They're...old skool, really. The season 1 holdovers. They kinda planted the flag first, so to say. And they both got to kiss Sokka. ^_^ Who wouldn't want to do that?Avatar (c) NickelodeonArt here is mine. Do not redistribute/edit/use without my permission |
So I officially have amazing Santas this time around. My package was sent through to me this morning, coming in a little green box with Hebrew writing. It looked like a cracker box and I almost had a heart attack because it sounded as though there was a whole load of crumbs inside, so instantly I thought I'd been sent biscuits that had been smashed on their journey over here. But NOPE. It was something a thousand times better (and I would have been happy with the crackers!).
So I opened it. And there was a lovely note inside to let me know what everything was, and I'm so stoked. So this package came all the way from Jerusalem in Israel. Which is where my family originated, so I showed my mum and she was ecstatic that I got sent a little piece of her home.
The gifts inside included a Star Wars shirt (because I freaking love the series) with Hebrew writing. So awesome. It included something called Kabukim, which according to the letter are slightly sweetened peanuts in a crunchy shell. I don't know how I'm meant to eat these (do I eat the shell too or does that get removed?) but I'm sure I'll figure it out. There were also two little baggies which are filled with tea. Not only tea, but EDIBLE tea. I know, right? Whodathunkit. And according to the letter, I think there was meant to be a shot glass, but pesty customs went through the package and must have taken it out. Damn you!
So I got an incredible gift, and I'm massively happy. As is my mother, naturally. So thank you, Santa. You're wonderful, and I write this as I brew my lovely tea! |
Two years ago, a longtime customer walked into Barronelle Stutzman’s flower shop with a request: the customer—who is gay—asked Stutzman to provide flowers for his wedding. Stutzman declined, citing her Christian faith’s objections to same-sex marriage, and was eventually charged with violating Washington’s state anti-discrimination statute. With Stutzman facing thousands of dollars in fines, attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom stepped in to defend her in court. Today, the case is under review at the Washington Supreme Court, where Stutzman’s attorneys are hoping for a reversal of a lower court’s ruling against her.
“Barronelle and numerous others like her around the country have been more than willing to serve any and all customers, but they are understandably not willing to promote any and all messages,” Kristen Waggoner, one of Stutzman’s attorneys, said in a statement. “No one should be faced with a choice between their freedom of speech and conscience on one hand and personal and professional ruin on the other.”
Alliance Defending Freedom—a legal organization with a multi-million budget, several regional offices, and more than three dozen staff attorneys—has specialized in taking on these types of cases. But it’s not alone. ADF is just one of many Christian conservative legal organizations, or CCLOs, that rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s. These groups promote and defend the interests of the Christian conservative community in the legal arena, with activities ranging from filing legal briefs and arguing at the Supreme Court to educating public school officials on the legality of after-school Bible clubs. Included in their ranks are the Liberty Counsel, which is tied to the law school of Liberty University, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, and the American Center for Law and Justice, which was founded by Pat Robertson as the Christian Right’s response to the American Civil Liberties Union.
But who exactly are these organizations? What do they do? How do they differ from one another? And what does the future hold for the Christian legal movement? Examining CCLOs not only sheds light on an influential legal community in the United States—it shows how a broader political movement has tried to adapt to new challenges in a changing society.
ALTHOUGH MANY CHRISTIAN Conservative legal groups dot the current American legal landscape, it has not always been this way. For decades, legal advocacy—that is, marshaling legal tactics in support of broader policy goals—was a tool of the political left in the United States, dominated by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Traditional outlets of political engagement were generally unsuccessful for these groups, due to the unpopular nature of their beliefs or the lack of political support for their goals. Legal advocacy gave these marginalized peoples victories unavailable to them otherwise.
Eventually more established, conservative interests saw the value of legal advocacy. The Federalist Society, organized at various law schools in 1982, provided an outlet for conservative legal ideas in an environment traditionally dominated by liberals. Today it is arguably the most influential conservative legal community in the United States, supporting libertarian, business, and socially conservative legal interests.
The 1980s also saw the emergence of expressly Christian legal interest groups. John Whitehead’s Rutherford Institute was one of the earliest of these, focusing mainly on defending religious freedom and opposing abortion. And though its mission has since evolved beyond the Christian legal movement, Rutherford’s successes helped set the stage for the CCLOs active today.
Just as the Federalist Society spurred and lent credibility to the conservative legal movement, the Christian Right did the same for CCLOs. Specifically, elites in the Christian Right, sensing the promise of legal advocacy for their causes, lent organizational support and resources to new legal interest groups: Pat Robertson founded both the National Legal Foundation and the American Center for Law and Justice; James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, and Bill Bright (among others) were instrumental in organizing Alliance Defending Freedom; and Jerry Falwell lent Liberty Counsel institutional support. Without this early assistance from the Christian Right, many CCLOs would not exist as we now know them.
Today, CCLOs generally focus on three major issues: strengthening religious liberty, supporting the traditional family, and defending the sanctity of life. CCLOs uniformly take the position that religious liberty is crucial in a thriving society, even when exercised in ways the broader culture deems unpopular—as is the case with Barronelle Stutzman. Likewise, most CCLOs take an accommodationist approach to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, arguing that public displays of religion—such as crèches and displays of the 10 Commandments—are consistent with the Judeo-Christian roots of the country. CCLOs’ work on religious liberty and establishment illustrates the flexibility of legal advocacy, emphasizing that lawsuits are not necessary for success: Sometimes the mere threat of a lawsuit may be enough for victory, as is often the case when dealing with public schools and local governmental agencies.
For CCLOs, marriage is more than a legal contract: it is a union between a man and a woman ordained by God with enormous cultural significance. Thus, these groups uniformly oppose expanding marriage rights to same-sex couples. Their past arguments have included appeals to the religious foundations of marriage, but more recently they have relied on controversial and largely debunked research suggesting children are raised better by a mother and father than parents of the same sex. They have also emphasized the importance of the democratic process in defining what marriage is, taking jabs at “unelected judges” redefining the institution. Opposing abortion also remains a critical element of their advocacy—and one where they have been making gains at the state level in creating more abortion restrictions, most notably through supporting “personhood” amendments to state constitutions. CCLOs have also defended pro-life protesters and supported “conscience clause” protections for doctors and pharmacists opposed to abortion and contraception. Here, attorneys appeal to broad rights like free speech and religious exercise, downplaying the content of the activity—namely, opposition to abortion—and focusing on the activity itself. In doing so, CCLOs highlight their clients’ expressive freedom, a value familiar and popular among most Americans.
WHILE DEFINING “CHRISTIAN Conservative legal organization” is in some sense a subjective task, one definition is that it is a multi-issue organization dedicated to the interests of Christian conservatives primarily through legal strategies and tactics. There are several groups that can be identified according to this definition, a testament to the growth of the Christian legal movement in the United States:
Alliance Defending Freedom – Founded in 1994, ADF was originally a funding source for other legal interest groups, but transitioned into direct advocacy and case sponsorship in the early 2000s. Led by Alan Sears, an attorney with roots in the Reagan administration, it has a network of affiliated attorneys around the country to go along with staff attorneys in several areas of law and policy. With annual revenue approaching $40 million, ADF boasts an impressive media presence and sponsors a series of legal training programs for law students and seasoned attorneys alike.
American Center for Law and Justice – Since its inception in 1990, the ACLJ has been led by the most well-known Christian conservative attorney in the country: Jay Sekulow. Under his leadership the ACLJ has grown into perhaps the best recognized CCLO in the country, and rivals ADF in terms of overall resources. The ACLJ is officially tied to Regent University School of Law (also founded by Pat Robertson), and has established branches overseas in Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Center for Law and Religious Freedom – The oldest of the CCLOs, the CLRF was founded in 1980 as the advocacy arm of the Christian Legal Society. Today the CLRF is small, with only one attorney—senior counsel Kim Colby—working full-time. But it is active nonetheless, especially in filing amicus briefs and writing statements for public consumption.
Liberty Counsel – Mat Staver founded LC in 1989 out of his private practice in Florida. Since then, it has grown into an active, well-funded ($6 million annually) organization with its own policy office and educational arm. Staver is still in charge, along with his wife, Anita, and several staff attorneys. Like the ACLJ, LC is also tied to a law school: the Liberty University School of Law, where Staver served as Dean for several years.
Liberty Institute – Based in Texas, LI was born of a marriage between the Free Market Foundation and Liberty Legal Institute, founded in 1972 and 1997, respectively. Kelly Shackleford heads the organization, which includes several staff attorneys, an affiliated network of pro bono attorneys, and over $8 million in annual revenue. LI is especially active on religious freedom issues, but also tackles other issues of importance to Christian conservatives.
National Legal Foundation – One of the older groups on this list, the NLF was founded in 1985. For years it was led by Robert Skolrood, who argued Westside Community Schools v. Mergens before the Supreme Court, which upheld the Equal Access Act for religious student groups. Steven Fitschen is now the group’s only attorney, although it remains active primarily in filing amicus briefs.
Pacific Justice Institute – PJI was founded in 1997 by Brad Dacus, who currently serves as its president. With annual revenue nearing $2 million, the group is the only CCLO based in California, and most of its legal work is focused there. PJI is perhaps most famous for its defense of the phrase “In God We Trust” in federal court. The group is particularly active in migrant communities in California, touting the similarities of their beliefs to the views of recent immigrants.
Thomas More Law Center – Founded in 1998 by Catholic businessman Tom Monaghan, TMLC is based in Michigan and led by Richard Thompson, who successfully prosecuted Dr. Jack Kevorkian in the 1990s. With $2 million in annual revenue, TMLC is staffed by three attorneys and numerous affiliated lawyers, and is one of the few CCLOs with explicitly Catholic foundations.
Thomas More Society – In the midst of defending pro-life activist Joseph Scheidler in a lengthy court battle, Thomas Brejcha was told to cease his pro bono work. Instead, he left his firm and founded TMS. In the years since its 1997 founding, TMS has expanded its agenda beyond the sanctity of life to include other issues prominent in Christian Right circles.
Noticeably absent from this list is the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has made a name for itself by winning a number of recent Supreme Court cases, including Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, and Holt v. Hobbs. This omission is intentional: just as the Christian Right is concerned with more than one issue, CCLOs should be defined by their attention to multiple issues and causes in their advocacy. Due to its focus solely on religious liberty and the fact it represents non-Christian clients, the Becket Fund does not belong to the community above, despite some overlap with CCLO interests.*
WHILE AGREEING ON MAJOR issues, CCLOs are not, it should be noted, copies of one another. These groups have carved out niche identities in an otherwise crowded field. The American Center for Law and Justice consistently critiques the Obama administration on issues beyond the traditional purview of Christian legal advocacy, like immigration, gun control, and the separation of powers. Liberty Counsel has made support for Israel and the Jewish people a central component of its agenda. The Pacific Justice Institute routinely opposes the normalization of homosexuality and transgender identity, especially in public schools. Alliance Defending Freedom has encouraged pastors to “break the law” by taking political stances from the pulpit, in order to challenge IRS regulations prohibiting such activity. And the Thomas More Law Center is active in opposing the advancement of Islam in the United States. Despite an overarching agenda, there is diversity within the ranks of the Christian legal movement.
Christian legal organizations of all kinds have undeniably proliferated over the past three decades, building their fundraising capabilities and gaining important court victories. But now, there is evidence that the groups’ primary constituencies—conservative Christians—are becoming less wedded to the culture war battles that gave CCLOs their initial footing. What, then, will be the future of the Christian legal movement?
Most CCLO attorneys I speak with express optimism about the future of their organizations. This optimism is laced with disappointment, though, as future opportunities depend on legal challenges. Much of the future of this movement is linked to the Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. If the Court determines there to be a right to same-sex marriage, CCLOs will shift their attention to carving out exemptions for individuals and businesses (such as florists and photographers) morally opposed to participating in same-sex weddings. Some legal observers also believe sexual orientation will soon be considered a protected class, along with race, gender, and other categories. Should this happen, CCLOs will move to shield religious institutions—including churches and universities—from new anti-discrimination laws. In framing these battles in broad terms, CCLOs will paint their advocacy as less about disagreement with homosexuality and more about protecting constitutional freedoms for everyone—which is essentially how they portray their efforts now.
Regardless of the Obergefell decision, the Christian legal movement is too well funded and organized to simply disappear. Armed with million-dollar budgets and attorneys committed to a broader cause, CCLOs are not built to fade away. Some of its groups may dissolve over time, but the broader Christian legal movement is poised for a sustained presence on the stage of legal and cultural conflict.
Daniel Bennett is assistant professor of political science at Eastern Kentucky University. His book on the Christian legal movement in the United States is under contract with the University Press of Kansas.
*This sentence has been updated to clarify that the Becket Fund does not just represent Christian interests. |
Washington Wizards: Can You Blame The Fans?
The Washington Wizards lost to the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night in what should be viewed as an on-court failure of the Wizards to capitalize on momentum that should have carried over from the win versus the Cleveland Cavaliers the night before.
Instead, it will be remembered as the night that Kobe Bryant fans took over the Verizon Center, outnumbering supporters of the home team and even booing Washington’s own all-star point guard along the way. It was an embarrassing look for a franchise that was considered on the rise heading into the season as a goodbye to an NBA legend created the perfect storm to bring into focus a problem that has plagued the Washington Wizards’ franchise; the fan base stinks.
This is not a question but a statement of fact.
Would Washington Wizards fans support the team like the Golden State Warriors’ fans did during the down years and create the best home court advantage in the NBA? Would Wizards’ fans fill up a Jurassic Park 10,000 deep to watch Round 1 action of the playoffs like Toronto Raptors fans do? The simple answer is: no.
Washington fans couldn’t even fill up the Verizon Center for a series clinching home game last postseason in Game 4 versus Toronto, a non-sellout. The common excuse is that this is a melting pot with too many transplants from other cities. If that’s the case, how were the Atlanta Hawks able to turn things around and create a home court advantage in a similar market (aided by the Kia 6th man section)?
So it’s simple; the fans stink and they are to blame, right? Wrong.
The Washington Wizards/Bullets have been a second tier franchise in the NBA landscape for over three decades.
The Wizards have not won 50 games in a regular season since the 1978-1979 season.
As the NBA took off with Magic versus Larry followed by His Airness, the Wizards were mired in mediocrity, lacking in relevancy during a period of time where the NBA was thriving.
During the entirety of the 1980s the Bullets peaked at 43 wins and a loss in the Eastern Conference Semifinals in 1981-1982.
The 1990s somehow were even worse with SIX sub-30 win seasons and the lone playoff appearance consisting of a three game sweep at the hands of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. The 2000s were better, with Michael Jordan spending two years in a Wizards uniform, quickly followed by the arrival of Agent Zero.
All in all, the results were improved but modest with 3 .500+ seasons and one appearance in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Injuries, age, bad draft selections (see Kwame Brown) and controversy were a dark cloud over what could have been a signature turnaround period for this franchise.
For large portions of this 30 year stretch, the Bullets/Wizards sold out games by marketing the opposing teams. Susan O’Malley made it an art form; marketing the stars of the opposing teams to bring fans into the arena, and it worked.
The Capital Centre/US Airways Arena routinely sold out when high profile opponents came to town. The arena was full of basketball fans who came to watch the opponent and in doing so also witnessed mediocre basketball from the home team first hand. These fans became NBA and basketball fans versus fans of the “LA Clippers East”.
There was a constant during this period though. When the stakes were high and the Bullets/Wizards showed any signs of life, the fans were quick to throw their full support behind the home team. I witnessed this when Chris Webber was traded to Washington. Before #KD2DC there was the Fab 2. The acquisition of Chris Webber was a signature move that had this area buzzing.
The Washington Bullets at that time, pulled off a trade to acquire the reigning NBA rookie of the year and star of the famed Fab Five, and oh by the way reunited him with Juwan Howard. This was breaking news on all the channels and I recall the late George Michael stating to the effect that this could be the first step towards a championship for this franchise.
The Webber-led Bullets made the franchise’s first playoff series in eight years in 1997 versus the Chicago Bulls.
The first round was a best of five series back then and by the time the Wizards’ arrived, they were one loss from an exit.
That didn’t stop the fans from filling the US Airways Arena and creating the loudest home-court I’ve witnessed as a Bullets/Wizards fan.
Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman were loudly and organically booed throughout the night. The fans were behind the upstart Bullets and the energy in the arena was off the charts.
Fast forward to the 2004-2005 season and after another seven years of missing the playoffs, Gilbert Arenas was leading the now Washington Wizards in a playoff series versus the Chicago Bulls (yet again).
This version of the Bulls lacked the star power of the Michael Jordan Bulls, but nonetheless it’s a premiere franchise with a strong following. That didn’t deter the Wizards fans though, as they created a helluva home court advantage that helped erase an 0-2 deficit and resulted in four straight wins for the good guys, including three at home.
The problem with both of these eras in Bullets/Wizards history is that in the end they failed to live up to their potential and what could have/should have been sustained period of significant success turned into “What Ifs”.
When Ted Leonsis took majority control of the Wizards and was lucky enough to win the 1st selection in the 2010 draft lottery, there once again was hope that things can finally turn. Those hopes turned into three years of embarrassment as many of the Wizards’ young core of draft selections for the most part failed to develop and became known for a comedy of errors along the way.
The last two years have shown improvement as the roster has been cleansed of the knucklehead factor and the team was back in the playoffs. The Wizards improved and came into this season coming off two straight seasons where they advanced to Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. The hope was after 44 and 46 win season they were ready for the next step.
Instead the Washington Wizards are once again hovering close to .500 and much like the last two seasons, teams that the Wizards should be competitive with have bypassed them and are doing things in the regular season which the Wizards aimed to do.
In 2013-2014 it was Toronto taking the East by storm and securing the 3rd seed and last season it was the Atlanta Hawks winning SIXTY games and taking a division title which the Wizards were aiming for after the departure of LeBron James from the Southeast Division.
With the Wizards stuck in the 40ish win territory that has defined the peaks of this franchise over the past 30 plus years there the fans frankly don’t seem all-in. Routinely over the past several seasons and highlighted in yesterday’s loss to Kobe and the Los Angeles Lakers is the complaint from players, media, and those in the arena that the support for the players currently playing for the Wizards isn’t there. The noise started this year prior to Kevin Durant’s visit to the District and was on continued with newfound momentum last night.
The question I have, however; is how can you blame the fans for wanting more and not having the patience to sit through what they’ve seen for 30 years? The diehards will be there but why should the casual basketball fan care about a team that hasn’t shown the ability time and time again to take the next step.
The colors have changed back to what the fans love and the slogans are nice but until the Washington Wizards do something on the court to make people believe that they’re on the cusp of greatness, how can you blame the fans for being more interested in saying goodbye to Kobe Bryant on a Wednesday in the middle of December?
It absolutely STINKS for John Wall and Bradley Beal who aren’t responsible for what happened in the 1980s and 90s but that’s the burden they assumed when they were drafted by this organization. If they want it to end there is one simple solution: WIN!
Create a culture of winning (BIG) and in doing so create that following they saw come out and support Kobe Bryant last night. A living legend came to town last night to play the Wizards, but that living legend was on a 2-win team. The Wizards had an opportunity to make a statement and thoroughly outclass Kobe and the Lakers while perhaps creating some new fans of their own, but once again their on-court mediocrity reared its ugly head.
If the players and ownership want to change the fan base it has to start with changing the culture of mediocrity and lack of relevancy that has defined this franchise for more than three decades.
Ownership also while not responsible for what occurred for the better part of the past few decades holds responsibility. Outside of the draft lottery working in the Wizards’ favor in 2010, what signature move have they made in nearly six years in charge?
The colors have changed back to what they should be, the slogan is nice, and a practice facility is on the way but what’s the signature basketball move? What makes visiting the Verizon Center unique? People have come and gone but at a front office, coaching, and roster level, there hasn’t been that one move that made people stop, take notice and say WOW.
Until that “WOW” moment happens, how can you blame the fans?
John Cannady recently argued that the lack of fan support is concerning — supporting a differing view from Oz.
Who/What Deserves Blame For The Wizards' Lack Of Support? The Fans
The Franchise View Results |
This month I attended a Relief Society meeting in another ward, mostly to support a friend who was teaching the lesson. The assigned topic was a contentious one – chastity – and she was concerned about doing justice to the topic without having the discussion fall into some of the predictable traps to which Mormons are sometimes prone.
And for the most part, the discussion was solid, compassionate, and frank, in keeping with the tone my friend set.
With one notable exception. One sister said that the decline of the value of chastity in our culture was a result of the overall “assault on the family” we are seeing in our time. She followed this with personal anecdotes about how, as a teacher, she sees all the time how children from divorced families are less loved and cared for than children who aren’t from “broken” homes.
And . . . um, what?
Let’s set aside the fact that the supporting evidence she provided had little or nothing to do with the actual topic at hand, which was chastity. All of us are entitled to logical lapses, especially right before lunch.
No, what burned me was her clear sense of superiority and judgment on any family that didn’t fit her definition of the ideal.
That included my good friend, the divorced woman teaching the class. Ahem! I’m not sure if my friend noticed – probably not, as she is too mature to take such slights personally – but I did.
How could this sister who was going on and on about the perils of raising children outside of marriage not make the connection that the righteous, lovely, intelligent teacher standing before her is a single mom who loves her child just as much as any other parent does?
Sitting there in Relief Society, the organization whose very motto is “Charity Never Faileth,” I had to feel that the Good Ship Charity had already sailed, and we were not aboard.
Here’s what I wanted to tell that sister but didn’t: The only “assault on the family” I see here is the one you are perpetrating yourself.
I have actually met that sister before in passing, and she struck me then as a caring person. But in this context, speaking to an audience that she naively assumed would view the world the same way she did, and whose life experiences would mirror hers, her eagerness to pass judgment on anything less than her ideal caused her to be utterly tone deaf to the lives and feelings of the women around her.
And this, I’m afraid, is a tone the Church has encouraged. For example, when our leaders refer to some families as “counterfeit,” a word that implies a criminal intent to defraud others, we imagine that there is only one legitimate, upstanding kind of family – and hey, what do you know? It happens to be ours.
We set ourselves up in judgment upon others, so much so that we fail repeatedly to see the proverbial motes within our own eyes – and to consider the many people around us who are hurt by our insensitive and harsh words.
Mormons are witnessing an “assault on the family,” all right. In fact, we’re all too often leading the charge. |
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC),
Following a record rate of ice loss through the month of August, Arctic sea ice extent already stands as the second-lowest on record, further reinforcing conclusions that the Arctic sea ice cover is in a long-term state of decline. With approximately two weeks left in the melt season, the possibility of setting a new record annual minimum in September remains open.
A record was set for Arctic sea ice melt in 2007. Much was made of the sea ice “recovery” over the ensuing winter of 2007/2008. However, while the Arctic sea ice returned to an extent similar to that of the winter prior to the record melt, much of the new ice was very thin. Thus even though 2008 has been a cooler year than 2007 (partially due to a strong La Nina cycle), the new, thinner ice has proven to be more susceptible to melting, as the graphic following the jump illustrates.
Because the new, thinner ice is more susceptible to melting, the Arctic sea ice melt this year has deviated from the normal pattern. Usually the melt rate slows by mid-August, but this year it continued to melt rapidly, which allowed August of 2008 to break the record rate of melt for that month.
Ironically, the August melt was greater than the size of Alaska, a state very close to the Arctic from which Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hails, who does not believe that humans are causing global warming.
While this summer’s melt won’t leave the North Pole ice free as a few scientists predicted was a possibility, it may break the record melt of 2007 despite 2008 being a significantly cooler year. This suggests that in the next few years when we inevitably have warmer temperatures, the North Pole will indeed be ice free. The long-term trend is quite clear:
Sources: ClimateProgress and NSIDC
Related Global Warming Stories:
Images Courtesy of the NSIDC |
Hello Rocksmith fans!
Hope you aren’t feeling too sick from all that Halloween candy because it’s time for November!
This month’s clue from @DanAmrich and @UbisoftStudioSF has arrived, let’s take a look!
a guy named Bob
Oh, I know this one!
That confirms Bob for next week’s NOFX Song Pack!
Some overdue female empowerment
There’s a few thoughts for this one… Is it an artist pack? Is it one of the singles of Variety Pack XIII? Or another Female Lead Singles? Hmmm…
I personally think it’s this one (90s Mix IV?)
Or could it be a Joan Jett Song Pack?
Or another awesome lady rocker?
Probably a stretch…
Music to get you into the holiday spirit
Well I know what you all want it to be…
@OsagaTheGreat is hoping for this
Not gonna lie, I want this song in the game a lot 😂
One song reveal, two mysteries, and an unaccounted week! What are you hoping November brings?
Only Seven DLC weeks left in 2017! |
Making fun of immature Christians has turned into quite the lucrative market. The more mature Christians among us seem to have discovered this, as more and more spoof sites are cropping up. I find myself enjoying some of these and laughing along at some of the innocent humor. It’s good to be able to laugh at ourselves at times. But I also found myself quite convicted as I read through Christopher Love’s little book, Grace: The Truth, Growth, and Different Degrees. A powerful wave of conviction flooded over me as I thought about the many times I’ve rolled my eyes and silently mocked some well-meaning Facebook posts.
Yes, it’s frustrating that some believers feel the need to like and share a photo of an American looking Jesus in order to show their devotion. Yes, when compared to the believers being slaughtered for their faith it seems like a pretty paltry form of devotion. But what if it truly is a mark of grace that somebody who once would have never identified with Christ found the courage to hit that “like” button and identify themselves with Jesus—even if a crude representation of the Son of God?
Christopher Love had a great word for what wells up in my heart in these moments—oversuperciliousness. That isn’t a fancy word for holiness. It’s a fancy word for being filled with abominable pride and strutting around like a foolish peacock. It isn’t a mark of holiness to mock the weak. Instead, “the strong should cherish the weak. Angels despise not the poorest of Christians, but minister unto them”. Is it possible that our oversuperciliousness is wounding the faith of some weaker Christians and stunting their growth? Isn’t there a better way than ridicule to lovingly spur them onto a more grounded faith?
I find myself guilty of some of these. Here are five ways to injure and discourage weak Christians:
Raise the bar far beyond their strength and growth. Christopher Love actually warns his audience, encouraging them “not to put them to read such authors as are above their capacities.” (So maybe John Owen isn’t a good start for new Christians). Be quick and harsh in your reproof of them. The unwise will think it their duty to stamp out every instance of sin when they see it. But grace will call us to be patient with every infirmity and work on winning the bigger battles at first. By pridefully setting the strength of your gifts against theirs. This is like a senior in high school thinking he is Michael Jordan because he can dominate a second grader on the basketball court. It might make you feel good about yourself but its likely to crush the spirit of the second grader. The same thing can happen spiritually when we try to brighten our torches by comparing them to the weaker flames of immature Christians. Puzzle them with doubtful disputes. Rather than basking in the simple gospel make every issue about some sort of disputable matter of doctrine. Give them a terrible example. “Weak Christians are more apt to be led by example than by precept.”
I’m discovering that my pride likely places me in the position of a weak and immature believer, and so I take great comfort in the Lord’s patience with me. I appreciate these gracious words of Love:
God considers that we are but dust; and the wise Physician of our souls will mercifully weigh every grain of every dose, and will not outmatch their strength whose strength is small. (Love, 57)
—
Photo source: here
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Formula One’s harder tyre compounds are far too hard this year according to Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.
The hardest tyres will be used for the first time in a race weekend next week at the Circuit de Catalunya but Ricciardo is concerned drivers will find it difficult to use them.
“We’re going for the harder tyres for the first time this year in Barcelona,” he said. “I’m not sure if it’ll help us or not but I just don’t think it’s going to be good for anyone.”
“The tyres are already hard enough so the harder compounds are just way too hard. Hopefully for Barcelona’s sake it’s hot and therefore these harder tyres work, but if it’s cold then it’s going to be a struggle for everyone.”
Pirelli’s new, wider tyres for 2017 were developed in a series of tests involving Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari next season. F1’s official tyre supplier has also produced a back-up set of more aggressive tyres but has not used them yet and has said it does not expect to.
The final sector of the Barcelona track is where drivers often have the most problems with their tyres.
“The end of the lap is quite slow and that’s where your tyres start to drop off which is why it’s really hard to finish the lap clean,” said Ricciardo.
“Barcelona is one of the better circuits on the calendar and it’s got a bit of everything. Turns 1, 2 and 3 are really good flowing corners and the last section is very technical.”
Red Bull is bringing a revised version of its RB13 to the next race having been unable to contend with the top two teams during the opening four rounds.
“I hope the upgrade will give us a chance to really fight with Mercedes and Ferrari or at least get us closer,” said Ricciardo.
2017 Spanish Grand Prix |
Aaron Ramsey is on course to return for Arsenal in their FA Cup semi-final against Wigan Athletic a week on Saturday after coming back into full training, and Arsène Wenger is even hopeful that the midfielder could be available for Sunday's vital Premier League fixture at Everton.
Ramsey has not played since the Boxing Day victory at West Ham United, in which he damaged a thigh muscle, and various attempts over recent weeks to step up his fitness work have ended in frustration. Wenger said last week that Ramsey's troublesome tendon was in a sensitive area and the balance between pushing and pushing too hard in training was delicate.
Ramsey was arguably the Premier League's best player over the first half of the season, with 13 goals for Arsenal and a series of driving performances, and his absence has hit the club hard. The 23-year-old, though, has finally enjoyed a breakthrough, with Wenger reporting that both he and the left-back Nacho Monreal, who has been out for three weeks with a foot injury, had rejoined the squad. "So that is good news," the manager said. "Hopefully, they will be available for Sunday."
Mesut Özil, however, will miss the Cup semi-final and the league game at home to West Ham United on Tuesday week, with the visit to Hull City on 19 April having been pencilled in for his comeback. The record signing has been back in his native Germany with the club's blessing, undergoing his rehabilitation from the hamstring tear that he suffered in the Champions League last-16 second leg at Bayern Munich on 11 March.
Laurent Koscielny is on a similar timetable as he fights to overcome a calf problem. It is hoped that the French defender will return to full training inside 10 days and be available for selection at Hull. Jack Wilshere's comeback date from his foot fracture is 3 May – the penultimate weekend of the league season – while another midfielder, Abou Diaby, has returned to training after his long-term knee ligament injury. Diaby remains unlikely to feature this season.
"The FA Cup will be too soon for Özil but he will hopefully be back soon after that," Wenger said. "The earliest Koscielny will be back [in training] is next week; the latest is the week after. Diaby is back on the pitches so that is good news." |
IBMP APHIS / MT DOL Bison Hunting Tool Using Montana and Tribal Hunters as the APHIS / DOL
Brucellosis Eradication Gun,
to deflect eradication attention from themselves. (I am a hunter that advocates for ethical, Fair Chase hunting and the
North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. I also
respect Native American Nations sovereignty)
Petition for National Academy of Sciences
Review of Wildlife Brucellosis in the Greater Yellowstone Area Help put a stop to the brucellosis politics! Please Petition for the peer reviewed science of wildlife management for our bison and elk. "As a result, the federal government and State of Montana agreed to an Interagency Bison Management Plan (lBMP) that established guidelines for managing the risk of brucellosis transmission from bison to cattle by implementing hazing, test and-slaughter, hunting, and other actions near the park boundary (U.S. Department of the Interior [USDI] and U.S. Department ofAgriculture [USDA] 2000a)."- IBMP APHIS and the Montana Department of Livestock have sought to stall the restoration of wild bison onto Montana public lands. All bison entering have been shot, captured for studies, slaughtered at the boundary under the guise of hunting, or hazed back into Yellowstone National Park. All this done under the exaggerated statement that bison pose a disease threat to humans and livestock. The truth is that APHIS has an eradication of brucellosis agenda in widlife. Montana's Department of Livestock is more than willing to receive the APHIS eradication of brucellosis money (federal taxpayer dollars) to market their beef as Brucellosis Class Free and remove forage competing ungulates from the landscape MCA 81-2-120. The science being produced today reports that the transmission risk from wild YNP bison to cattle is 0.0-0.3% (the 0.3% being an academic safety net), elk representing 99.7%-100% of the risk (bison science at the end of page). Below are documents dealing with the APHIS / DOL shift from outright slaughter, which received the public's outrage and a public relations black eye, to seeking less obvious ways to eradicate wild bison which test positive for exposure to brucellosis - one tool being to use hunters to slaughter bison exiting Yellowstone National Park, rather than a true "fair chase" hunt, as other wildlife in Montana are required to receive. "Any hunt configuration approved would have to minimize bad publicity such as that generated by the public hunt authorized by the 1985 Montana Legislature and recinded by the 1991 Montana Legislature." "87-2-730. (Effective March 1, 2014) Special wild buffalo license -- regulation. (1) The public hunting of wild buffalo or bison that have been designated as a species in need of disease control under 81-2-120 is permitted only when authorized by the department of livestock under the provisions set forth in 81-2-120 ."
. The northern portion of the Yellowstone National Park, the Beattie Gulch area, is a bottleneck of very limited land, near a residential and commercial area. Hundreds of bison have been killed in this small area, just after they step out of the Park. In addition to hundreds of gut piles, the bison gestation is nearing completion, with advanced development of bison fetuses, which also are part of the gut piles. This is a disease issue, as well as a major attractant for scavengers and predators. "In 2000, the federal government and the State of Montana signed an agreement that established guidelines for cooperatively managing the risk of brucellosis transmission from bison to cattle—primarily by excluding bison from areas used by cattle. This Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) also emphasized preserving the bison population as a natural component of the ecosystem and allowing some bison to occupy winter ranges on public lands in Montana. Five agencies were originally responsible for implementing the plan—the National Park Service, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, U.S. Forest Service, Montana Department of Livestock, and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation, Nez Perce Tribe, and InterTribal Buffalo Council were added as members in 2009 due to their treaty hunting rights on some unoccupied federal lands in southwestern Montana and their commitment to restoring bison. " - YNP
Blackfoot Chief Earl Old Person, prayer for Buffalo; James St. Goddard, protest for bison slaughters to stop. Almost 7 minute MP3
EE-Suk-Yah (Sacred Holy Paint Gatherer), James "Jimmy" St. Goddard, Spiritual Leader of the Blackfoot Confederacy, spoke at a press conference hosted by the Buffalo Field Campaign, on March 1, 2014, asking the other tribes not to participate in these "misleading tactics of the White Man, making the Indian believe he is doing the right thing for the eeneewah (buffalo)...the political lie of saying, 'Well you kill the buffalo, we'll let you kill the buffalo, we'll let you take the meat."
On March 4th, James St. Goddard went to Helena to speak with Montana Governor Steve Bullock, to complain that MT is allowing hunters to kill pregnant buffalo. He said he just came from Gardiner and saw hunters killing pregnant buffalo and leaving the fetuses to rot in the snow. He said MT doesn't allow hunters to do this to other animals. (actually they did it to elk in Park Co. in the Elk Management in Areas With Brucellosis program 2013 and will probably do so again this season - 2014 - all in the name of brucellosis.)
Mont. bison harvest a ‘shameful disgrace’ - Todd Wilkinson, Part 6 of a series on
wildlife disease management in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
Timeline 2003 - SB 395 - Sport hunting of bison as management tool. The proponents of SB 395 claimed bison hunts would not be a repeat of the slaughter "hunt" in 1985, recinded in 1991. Gov. Judy Martz supported the bill. "It's another tool that we have to be able to control the number of bison that are in the park," she said. There were no provisions in SB 395 to insure a "fair-chase" hunt. DOL was put in charge of determining where, when, and which animals would be hunted. Montana Wildlife Federation officially opposed SB 395. They claimed that in order to support a bison hunt in Montana, authority for bison management must be transferred to FWP, that all references to disease management must be separated from a hunt, and that bison management in the Yellowstone area must be re-evaluated to insure that a fair-chase hunt is possible. 2004 - Draft EA for Bison Hunt Impacts 2004 - Final Bison Hunting Decision Notice
"Any hunt configuration approved would have to minimize bad publicity such as that generated by the public hunt authorized by the 1985 Montana Legislature and recinded by the 1991 Montana Legislature." pg. 1 2008-2009 - A Concept Paper For A New Direction For the Bovine Brucellosis Program - APHIS VS 2009 - The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation, Nez Perce Tribe, and InterTribal Buffalo Council were added as members to the IBMP 2013 - Tribal Slaughter North Boundary of YNP, Gardiner 2014 - Tribal Slaughter North Boundary of YNP, Gardiner USAHA (United States Animal Health Association) 2005 Brucellosis in the Greater Yellowstone Area - "APHIS/VS agrees with the actions and steps included in this resolution. VS is providing resources for brucellosis surveillance and control activities. Eradication activities cannot occur until the other agencies agree on a disease eradication plan. To assure collaboration among the relevant agencies, VS is working and will continue to work with these agencies to develop MOU’s and agreements on a plan of action that includes eradication of brucellosis from the GYA. VS is willing and able to take the lead once a brucellosis eradication plan has been agreed to between the agencies." A Concept Paper For A New Direction For the Bovine Brucellosis Program - APHIS VS 2009 , "The goal of the program is to eradicate brucellosis from the United States." "Despite cooperative Federal-State-industry efforts to eradicate this disease and the significant progress we have made, final eradication will not become possible unless the country adopts new strategies to address current challenges. Eradication depends on finding the last remaining brucellosis-reactor animal, the last remaining brucellosis-affected herd, and eliminating the disease from wildlife reservoirs . All potential risks for exposure and transmission of brucellosis from infected wildlife populations must be mitigated and eliminated as well. Currently, the last known reservoir of disease is the wildlife populations in the GYA. A new direction is needed that will allow VS and States to apply limited resources effectively and efficiently to this unique disease risk."(pg. 2) Science - Bison Brucellosis Risk The science being produced today reports that the transmission risk from wild YNP bison to cattle is 0.0-0.3% (the 0.3% being an academic safety net), elk representing 99.7%-100% of the risk. A Risk Analysis of Brucella abortus Transmission Among Bison, Elk, and Cattle in the Northern Greater Yellowstone Area (2010) , 0.0-0.3%, which DoL's Dr. Marty Zaluski was one of 7 authors on. - page 41 Brucellosis Science Review Workshop Panelists Report 2013 ."To date, no documented transmission of brucellosis from Yellowstone bison to cattle has occurred." "The organizers' intent was that conclusions and recommendations from the panel would be considered by the National Park Service in decision-making on the potential implementation of future vaccination programs, and that the workshop report also would inform short- and long-term adaptive management decisions on and strategies for disease management activities associated with the IBMP." Documents MCA 87-2-730 Bison Hunting in Montana
"permitted only when authorized by the department of livestock under the provisions set forth in 81-2-120." "fair chase hunting of wild buffalo or bison, including requirements that hunting be conducted on foot and away from public roads and that there be no designation of specific wild buffalo or bison to be hunted; (e) means of taking and handling of carcasses in the field, which must include provisions for public safety because of the potential for the spread of infectious disease;" "87-2-730. (Effective March 1, 2014) . Special wild buffalo license -- regulation. (1) The public hunting of wild buffalo or bison that have been designated as a species in need of disease control under 81-2-120 is permitted only when authorized by the department of livestock under the provisions set forth in 81-2-120." Draft EA for Bison Hunt Impacts Final Bison Hunting Decision Notice
" 'Fair chase' hunts will be insured by defining large hunting areas (including areas where bison can move to escape hunting pressure), by limiting numbers of hunters in the field, and by prohibiting hunting from vehicles." "...hunters will be required to pursue bison on foot and will not be allowed to shoot bison from public roads (the same restrictions that apply to other big game species in Montana)." "Preferences for ethnic, racial, or gender groups would be illegal under the equal opportunity laws under which MFWP operates. Without legislative authorization, special consideration of ethnic preferences cannot be considered in this EA." " 'Fair chase' hunts will be insured by defining large hunting areas (including areas where bison can move to escape hunting pressure), by limiting numbers of hunters in the field, and by prohibiting hunting from vehicles." "...hunters will be required to pursue bison on foot and will not be allowed to shoot bison from public roads (the same restrictions that apply to other big game species in Montana)." "Sufficient acreage currently exists to allow 'Fair Chase' hunting. Please see Table 4. Potential areas available for public hunting of bison near the Yellowstone National Park boundary in Montana. Acreage (hectares in parentheses) for currently designated Zone 2 areas (where free-ranging bison are tolerated under specified seasonal restrictions) and total area where bison potentially could be hunted (Zone 2, wilderness areas where bison are tolerated. Acreages provided include: 21,019 in West Yellowstone Basin; 23,546 acres in Eagle/Bear Creek; and 98,870 acres on public lands in the Upper Gallatin drainage north to Taylor’s Fork (west of the Gallatin) and the Porcupine Wildlife Management Area (east of the Gallatin). In the future, as the IBMP is fully implemented in its final phase, significantly more tolerance and acreage will be available." What has occurred the last two winters is not fair chase; is in a small bottle neck, just as the bison exit the YNP; gut piles and unborn pregnancies from around 200 bison are on the landscape, right next to a residential and commercial area presenting a disease and scavenger threat; hunting from the road has occurred. IBMP 2008-2009 Annual Report
"ACTION 2.2B: IN ZONE 2 LANDS ADJACENT TO YELL, EMPHASIZE MANAGEMENT OF BISON AS WILDLIFE AND INCREASE THE USE OF STATE AND TREATY HUNTS TO MANAGE BISON NUMBERS AND DEMOGRAPHIC RATES, LIMIT THE RISK OF BRUCELLOSIS TRANSMISSION TO CATTLE, AND PROTECT HUMAN SAFETY AND PROPERTY." "Continue evaluating opportunities and constraints for (l) transferring "surplus" bison to quarantine facilities for further surveillance and eventual release onto suitable restoration sites or to terminal destinations on tribal or other lands for periodic harvest for food or ceremonial pnrposes, and (2) adjusting conservation zones to increase state and treaty hunting opportunities in habitat outside the park."
"Under their 19th century treaty rights (i.e., Steven's Treaty), members of the Nez Perce and Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes can hunt bison on public lands, including USFS lands adjacent to YELL." pg. 16
2013 Beattie Gulch Slaughter PDF - Bonnie Lynn, PDF and maps created by Kathryn QannaYahu
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There is a new $4 million development planned for Midtown, so it struck me as odd this morning that I started thinking about reincarnation.
Here’s why.
Last week, the city issued a demolition permit for the former Marie Apartments building at 438 Selden St. at Cass Avenue, a step which will clear the way for a new mixed-use development by the Detroit-based Ferlito Group LLC, which plans to begin razing the 1924 building on Monday.
Replacing the vacant and blighted 16,500-square-foot building: a new 22,000-square-foot building with a dozen for-sale condominiums, a new office for Ferlito Group and a new high-end restaurant, said Mike Ferlito, project developer for Ferlito Group.
That’s good news, particularly since tearing down the building -- the roof of which has collapsed on its rear and whose windows are boarded up and whose exterior is covered in graffiti -- has been in the works for several years. |
So this means that alternate realities may exist where the Falcons' defense is able halt 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Perhaps you are living in one of them. In my reality, the star rookie starter QB has been unstoppable in San Francisco's throwback option-style offense.* Against the Packers last week, Kaepernick was harder to pin down than Schrodinger's Cat. His devastating pair of long touchdown runs included a 56-yard scamper off an ancient play that guys who played in leather helmets would have called "a keeper."
Kaepernick rushed for 181 yards against the Packers. 181! That's the most ever by an NFL quarterback. Not just the most in a playoff game or by a rookie starter. Ever. When a player is putting up numbers with "all-time" in front of them, be afraid. When a quarterback is running like Kaepernick, football's delicate equation, the balance between offense and defense, is thrown out of whack. There's nothing to be done. You could have Albert Einstein for a defensive coordinator and still not find a scheme to stop him. Only attrition will. But not Sunday. Atlanta's destiny—if you believe in that stuff—is to let Kaepernick gallop all over Georgia.
In the AFC, Baltimore crushed the hopes and dreams of all Broncos fans. Now the Ravens will travel the BosWash corridor to face New England.
Joe Flacco, the Ravens' quarterback, doesn't get much recognition, despite winning a postseason game for each of his first five years, including last week when he passed for 331 yards. But his counterpart, Tom Brady, has astronomical recognition. He's also about to bring New England yet another Lamar Hunt trophy. That's because Bill Belichick is smart. He's no Einstein, certainly. He's more like Heisenberg, with Brady running the Uncertainty Principle offense.
Running quarterbacks like Kaepernick and Cam Newton and Russell Wilson are all the rage in today's NFL. Belichick can't make Tom Brady's legs any faster, though, so he did something better. He made the game slower. Using a hyper-speed, no huddle, instant-snap offense that leaves defenders gasping and confused, the Patriots figured out how to let Brady tire out a defense with his mind instead of his feet.
It's ruthless. During the season, Jets' linebacker Calvin Pace called the Patriots' light-speed pace "borderline illegal." If so, it's now up to felonious assault.
This will be a close game. Flacco will hit receivers deep. Ray Rice will get his 100 yards. Ray Lewis will ham it up for the cameras. But New England will jump into warp speed in the 3rd quarter, and find themselves headed back to New Orleans.
Not coincidentally, just a few weeks ago, I predicted the Pats would meet San Francisco in Super Bowl XLVII. Who knows? Maybe it's destiny.
* This post initially referred to Colin Kaepernick as a rookie, not a rookie starter. We regret the error.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected]. |
Canadians will not know the price tag for the navy's frigate replacements — the largest, most complex military purchase in the country's history — until the ink is dry on the contract, Procurement Minister Judy Foote said Thursday.
The decision to keep the numbers secret is just one in a series of measures being taken by the Liberal government to get a handle on the National Shipbuilding Strategy, which was launched almost six years ago with much fanfare.
The program commits the federal government to dealing exclusively with Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax for the construction of combat ships and Vancouver's Seaspan Shipyards for civilian vessels.
The strategy has faced increased skepticism, however, because it has yet to produce a ship and there has been a series of published and broadcast reports with eye-popping cost projections.
Foote's speech to a defence industry trade show Thursday is an attempt to shut down the speculation.
"We will not be announcing a new cost estimate for the Canadian Surface Combatant until we have signed a build contract," she told delegates, most of them defence contractors. "Given the number of variables that can change and the very long planning periods involved, we have seen how these estimates cause confusion."
Ottawa is not expected to award a design contract until next year. The agreement to build the warships won't be signed until 2019.
The Liberals, who promised openness and transparency during the last election, appear to be learning the lesson of the searing political debate over the F-35 fighter, where arguments over price tags among the Conservative government, the parliamentary budget officer and the auditor general derailed the purchase.
A history of rising costs
When the Harper government first began talking about replacing the navy's 12 patrol frigates with 15 modern warships, the construction cost was estimated at $26 billion.
But that was nearly a decade ago before delays and the corrosive effect of inflation began playing havoc with those assessments.
Last year, the commander of the navy told CBC News the cost of building the ships could well hit $30 billion, even without maintenance and long-term support costs.
The Canadian Press, quoting internal briefings prepared for the new Liberal government, reported in March that the total lifetime price tag could hit $104 billion, a figure stretched out over three decades that would include long-term maintenance, as well as the cost of the crew, fuel and other expenses.
Halifax-based frigate HMCS Montreal is one of the navy vessels slated to eventually be replaced in the federal government's shipbuilding program. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
The solution for the Liberals is to stop talking about the numbers until they have signed agreements.
"It makes no sense to establish a budget today for a project that will not start for years, even a decade," said Foote, who noted that the previous government never updated its initial shipbuilding cost estimates to reflect changes in material cost, the exchange rate and inflation.
All of this has led to a skewed picture, in her estimation.
"This is the main reason why projects appeared to be vastly over budget when actual contracts were signed," said Foote.
Overcharging by contractors
The Liberals are developing a new costing method and promised Thursday to keep Parliament updated with regular reports and estimates.
The first retrospective of the shipbuilding plan was released Thursday along with the Defence Department's annual list of anticipated capital purchases.
When the shipbuilding strategy was launched, federal officials promised that in exchange for ditching the competitive process they would conduct rigorous oversight to make sure taxpayers were not getting taken for a ride.
But a recent internal report prepared for Public Services and Procurement Canada said the federal government was routinely overcharged by contractors, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars in practices that have been going on for decades.
The Liberals have been warned that years of cutbacks have left the purchasing department without the staff to oversee such complex programs, and Foote announced Thursday that the number of employees working on the shipbuilding strategy will double, possibly triple.
Kevin McCoy, the president of Irving Shipbuilding, said that sticker shock among the public is always a concern, but promised the federal government will pay a fair price for its warships.
"What we have said consistently to the government of Canada is: Canada should pay no more for their warships than other nations with like-minded aspirations," McCoy told CBC News.
"And that is really what is the focus of this strategy, which we endorse." |
We often defer to others’ expertise, and for good reason. The entire edifice of modern society only exists thanks to the division of labour, from construction to machine operation to medical treatment. The system works as long as we have trust in others’ knowledge, skills and intentions.
This trust is often tested, most notably of late in relation to those who specialise in politics. People-powered movements from anarchism to populism want to see equality of participation in political decision-making. Indeed, this is at the heart of all versions of democracy. It raises the question of whether we should trust political insiders.
How can we rebuild trust in scientific experts? Read more
Populism has done well by questioning the value of career politicians and other members of the establishment, instead celebrating the possibility that positions of political power can, and should, be occupied by outsiders. Pauline Hanson surprised many by winning office in Queensland in the 1990s on a “people versus elites” campaign. Many similar examples have since gone all the way to the top. Many argued that Donald Trump was not qualified for the US presidency because he had never held public office and did not have the skills for the job. Those arguments failed to prevent him gaining office.
Those who prevailed have exploited the tension between ideals of equal access on the one hand, and deference to expertise on the other. While we might debate the wisdom of trusting political insiders, the suspicion of specialists and experts has begun to contaminate a much bigger ecology of knowledge and practice in our society.
The result is post-truth discourse. In our new normal, experts are dismissed, alternative facts are (sometimes flagrantly) offered, and public figures can offer opinions on pretty much anything. And thanks to social media, pretty much anyone can be a public figure. In much public discourse, identity outranks arguments, and we are seeing either a lack of interest in evidence, or worse, an erosion of trust in the fundamental norms around people’s accountability for the things we say.
Australia offers its share of examples. Last year, in relation to the Adani coal mine, Anthony Lynham stated that “Queensland taxpayers will not be funding any infrastructure for this project”, but Queenslanders as federal taxpayers would fund infrastructure via the proposed billion dollar loan to Adani. And when Tony Abbott opened the massive Caval Ridge mine in Central Queensland in 2014, he said “coal is good for humanity”.
The overwhelming majority of people who are professionally qualified to evaluate scientific evidence on the matter know otherwise .
This cannot end well. We can’t afford to dismiss the testimony of those with scientific and technical expertise. Like the airline pilots who we rightly trust to fly our planes, scientists have knowledge and skills that many of us both lack and need.
The scientific community is responding with a growing counter-movement. A global March for Science on Earth Day in April 2017 saw more than 600 cities participate. Thousands have signed a pro-truth pledge , with commitments including “fact-check information to confirm it is true before accepting and sharing it’, “reevaluate if my information is challenged, retract it if I cannot verify it”, and “distinguish between my opinion and the facts”.
Sticking to commitments like these is hard work and does not necessarily come naturally. The struggle to do so encapsulates two fundamental things about what it means to think and talk like a human.
The first is that while human higher reasoning is a celebrated capacity of our species, we are in fact notoriously poor reasoners. Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, among many others, has shown that our reasoning is riddled with cognitive bugs and biases. The confirmation bias is one of the most insidious. We are highly likely to believe or at least accept and repeat statements that support our established views, even when little or no evidence is given to support those statements. Yet we are unlikely to accept or repeat statements that go counter to our established views, even when they are well-supported by evidence. This bias is the engine that drives the click-by-click spread of fake news and other dangerous nonsense.
Ten of the best March for Science signs – in pictures Read more
The second thing is that humans are psychologically capable of the remarkable feat of focusing our attention on our own thought processes and deliberately overriding them. We can identify our own flawed habits of thinking and then use more deliberate cognition to outsmart these habits and avoid the pitfalls. Much of higher learning involves the cultivation of just this capacity.
Because the deliberate attention to our own faults of reasoning requires vigilance, people need to be motivated to put in the hard work needed. The solution that has worked well so far is to maintain social norms by which we agree to be accountable to evidence and other elements of rational argumentation. This in turn has given us reason to rein in our more instinctive, biased patterns of reasoning.
The post-truth crisis is none other than the breakdown of these norms. |
Farming might be the oldest family business, but a Kitchener family has a new take on the tradition.
Nathan Woodworth is the CEO of James E. Wagner Cultivation, a medical cannabis company that recently received a license from Health Canada to produce medical marijuana. It's the first licensee in Waterloo region and the 38th in Canada.
Helping Woodworth to grow this business is his brother Adam Woodworth, who oversees the growing and health of the plants, and his sister Laura Foster, a "jack of all trades" for the company doing everything from public relations to answering phones to helping with the crop.
As well, Nathan Woodworth's wife, Krysta, works at the company and the siblings' cousin, Dan Bexton, is the company's IT master.
Grandpa Jim's influence
The company uses a unique aeroponic technique to grow its plants in a warehouse facility in south Kitchener.
"JWC is the first entirely aeroponic producer of cannabis in Canada," Nathan Woodworth said during the tour.
It's an advanced technique that gives them control of the plants' growth cycle.
"As a result, we can produce a medicine which is more standardized, it's a better quality, it's cleaner than our competitors," Woodworth said.
The siblings got their love of growing plants from their grandpa Jim, after whom the company is named. He grew a variety of crops on a farm near Tillsonburg, Ont.
"I believe that if we hadn't had that background, we wouldn't have been as eager to engage in this sort of activity," Woodworth said. "We wouldn't have had that empathy for the growth of plants." |
The first rovings of the Curiosity rover, between its landing at a site subsequently named "Bradbury Landing" and the position reached by August 10, 2012 (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)
The Curiosity rover that arrived on Mars a year ago this August was named by Clara Ma, a sixth-grader from Kansas. Ma submitted an essay to a national competition, Name the Rover, that asked students to submit ideas for what the new rover -- née Mars Science Laboratory -- should be called as a nickname. "Curiosity," and Ma, won.
Many objects on Mars, though, get their monickers through a much less formal naming process. In a session at the Aspen Ideas Festival this morning, Daniel Limonadi, a senior flight systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explained how scientists go about the epic work that is naming objects that human eyes are encountering for the first time.
It involves ... theme weeks. Seriously.
"The scientists just make lists of names" within a given theme, Limonadi said, and as Curiosity comes across new objects of note on the Martian landscape, they assign names from those lists. "We'll just pick names from that theme set."
The themes are generally exploration-related -- things like, Limonadi said, "Viking exploration" or "the Spanish exploration of the Americas." (So not, alas, "Under the Sea" or "80s night" or "¡Fiesta!" ... although there's a lot of Mars left to be discovered and only so many famous Vikings, so you never know.) The themes and lists come in handy, Limonadi explained, because scientists are exploring so many new mountains and trenches and plains (and rocknests and streambeds and impact craters) on Mars that they simply need a convenient way to discuss them all. It would be both annoying and impractical to refer to the Gale Crater as, say, Crater X." |
On August 12, 2018, Likoswe procured materials. Mushroom growing requires a clean base material in which mushroom spores can germinate (in this case, corn husks) and a relatively cool, dark space for mushrooms to grow. As shown in the pictures below, the project committee used wooden poles to build a shed to house the mushrooms. Community members covered the shed in grass and lined the structure with plastic. After sanitizing the corn husks in boiling water, Likoswe mixed the husks with mushroom seeds and stuffed the mixture into plastic bags with holes. Mushrooms grew from the bags. Mature mushrooms were harvested and sold, earning the community about $500. On January 10, 2019, the project halted because heavy rains damaged the shed and mushrooms inside. As of this moment, it is unclear whether the mushroom project will resume. It appears that residents working on the project decided to divvy up their profits instead of reinvesting them in another round of mushroom growing. |
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The Michigan football camp that was planned for Australia in June has been canceled, ProKick Australia announced Monday.
ProKick said the camp had been canceled due to NCAA rules, though the company did not say which ones.
Michigan planned the camp while it was embroiled in the NCAA’s drama over satellite camps. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh had angered other coaches by aggressively appearing at practices around the country, a practice which was formerly banned by the SEC and ACC.
Despite the cancelation of the ProKick camp, Michigan still plans on holding a camp in Australia on the same day, just with a different host.
“Our plans won’t work, so they said they’ll be going to a new organizer at a different location on the same day,” ProKick Australia director Nathan Chapman said, according to MLive.
• Bottom line, not football success, could force Baylor to take action
Satellite camps were briefly banned by the Division I Council, but the decision was overturned by the NCAA’s Board of Directors. |
Image caption Karen Berendique had been travelling to a birthday party in Maracaibo
Several police officers have been arrested in Venezuela after the teenage daughter of a Chilean diplomat was shot dead in the western city of Maracaibo.
Karen Berendique, 19, died when police opened fire on the car she was in.
Police say the car - driven by the teenager's brother - failed to stop at a police checkpoint.
The officer in charge of the inquiry, Jose Humberto Ramirez, promised transparency and said a special commission had been set up.
Mr Ramirez said the shooting was an isolated incident which was not representative of the force as a whole.
Police said the officers had been looking for a gang involved in robberies and car thefts.
Ms Berendique's father, Fernando Berendique, who is the Chilean consul in Maracaibo, said his son had been driving his sister to a birthday party.
He said that they came across a police patrol who pointed guns at them, instead of asking them to stop.
The consul said his son panicked and the officers opened fire.
Mr Berendique said the car had six bullet holes in it. His daughter was hit three times.
"My God, what kind of people are they?" he asked.
"It is the product of irresponsibility and the product of a lack of respect for human life here," he said.
"It was the act of some functionaries who did not have a lot of experience and these are the the consequences." |
Operation Save America, the radical anti-choice group that grew out of the original Operation Rescue, will be holding a multi-day event in Montgomery, Alabama, in June to express its support for Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s activism against marriage equality and abortion rights.
OSA head Rusty Lee Thomas writes in a press release today that the event will bring together “hundreds of gentle Christians from across the nation” for a march drawing on “the historical lessons of Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma.”
A description of the event on the group’s website boasts that “[f]or years, Operation Save America has stood faithfully with Chief Justice Roy Moore, a poet, warrior, statesmen [sic].” It specifically praises Moore’s work to develop a legal framework to support radical anti-choice “personhood” laws and his ongoing standoff with the federal courts over marriage equality.
(In case you weren’t familiar with Moore’s poetry, here’s a representative example.)
OSA:
We are praying for God to record His name in Montgomery and by His Spirit bid His people come to bring the Gospel of the Kingdom to the gates of hell (Abortion mills in Alabama). They will not prevail against the Church of the living God (Matthew 16:18). They never have and they never will. Jesus is Lord! For years, Operation Save America has stood faithfully with Chief Justice Roy Moore, a poet, warrior, statesmen. Through his many battles, we supported his righteous stands in the face of persecution and tyranny. Today, the Alabama Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Moore continues to stand against injustice and once again we are going to come alongside to help. Moore, along with Justice Tom Parker, have rendered Decisions from the court that directly or indirectly have taken on Roe vs. Wade. Currently, Moore is acting faithfully as a Lower Magistrate to resist “Gay Marriage” in his state. He is taking another just stand and once again, we will stand with him. Alabama is also working on establishing “Personhood” for the preborn child who is made in the image of God. Alabamians are willing to stand upon the self-evident truth established by God’s Word and we our coming to stand with them. There are at least four death camps in Alabama still applying their grisly trade to murder babies made in the image of God. This evil defiles the land and invokes God’s judgments upon us. We are coming to stand in the gap and make up the hedge. We want to give God a reason to show mercy in the midst of the American holocaust.
It’s not surprising that Operation Save America, one of the most radical anti-choice groups in the country, would find ideological kinship with Justice Moore.
Thomas has claimed that the September 11, 2001 attacks were divine punishment for legal abortion. OSA’s former director, Flip Benham (father of the new Religious Right martyrs David and Jason Benham), also used the organization to promote a fringe right agenda: |
Nuisance Abatement The NYPD’s Aggressive Enforcement of a Little-known Law
Amid outrage over a law that empowers the NYPD to remove people from their homes without giving them the opportunity to go before a judge, the de Blasio administration is resisting legislative reforms.
City Hall argues that safeguards are already in place to protect the rights of defendants, and that any changes can be handled internally.
But two lawyers who have worked the front lines, both representing the NYPD in these types of cases, told the Daily News that the department routinely skirts the law and does nothing to make sure innocent people aren’t kicked to the curb.
The law - known as nuisance abatement - uses civil suits to uproot illegal activities conducted in both homes and businesses. Unlike in most cities, the NYPD can initiate these cases by requesting a secret order from a judge closing the premises before the occupants have been notified or given a chance to defend themselves.
But the NYPD, the lawyers said, brings the cases to court without so much as checking if anyone still lives at the home they are seeking to close, or if its targets have been exonerated of the criminal charges on which the nuisance abatement actions are based.
The lawyers requested anonymity before describing a process both were involved with as part of the NYPD’s Civil Enforcement Unit.
In making its case, the unit skirts the law - rarely, if ever, presenting a required photographic inventory of illicit materials found at the premises upon serving the closing orders, the lawyers said.
The NYPD also violates state law by failing to seal documents in criminal cases that have been dismissed, the lawyers said. As a result, they sometimes wind up filed as exhibits in nuisance abatement actions.
But none of that seemed to faze some judges, who routinely signed off on the secret closing orders and settlements that bar people from homes, sometimes for life. A judge who has signed several such orders was also unaware of the required inventories and told the Daily News “never once” have such inventories been provided.
The NYPD and Mayor Bill de Blasio deferred requests for comment to the city Law Department.
The Law Department did not address the two lawyers’ claims, but the department head Zachary Carter said in a statement that the city is still committed to using nuisance abatement to “address community complaints of criminal activity while at the same time ensuring that residents are treated fairly.”
Carter said the use of ex parte orders - the legal term for when an order is sought without the other party present - would be reviewed “to ensure that such orders would only be used in cases of appropriate urgency.”
Overall, the two lawyers who spoke to the Daily News depicted a slipshod operation, basing court filings on police vouchers that list contraband seized during an investigation.
“Everything is kind of like, you know boilerplate, like fill in the blanks or whatever,” one of the lawyers told the Daily News. “Like we get the vouchers, we just plug in the time, the date. Like there’s a lot of mistakes in these (nuisance abatement) orders, you know? Like a lot of them are just a mess.”
The Law Department, tasked with reviewing every case before it is filed, amounted to little more than a “rubber stamp,” the lawyers said. They could not recall one instance when anyone from the Law Department raised a major concern about a case.
In an investigation published last month, the Daily News and ProPublica reviewed 1,162 cases filed during 2013 and the first half of 2014, and found roughly 43% were filed against residences, predominately over alleged drug sales.
The Daily News/ProPublica found that many of the targets pleaded guilty to moving large amounts of narcotics through their apartments. But more than half who gave up their leases or were barred from homes - 173 in total - were not convicted of, or in some cases even prosecuted for a crime stemming from the underlying police investigation.
The revelations contained in the Daily News/ProPublica investigation sparked an outcry from elected officials, with calls for an independent probe.
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn/Queens) said Thursday that the NYPD’s procedures raise serious constitutional concerns. Troubled that minorities are unfairly targeted, he plans to bring “concerns that have been raised around the nuisance abatement program” to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Unit.
Over 18 months, 90% of the homes subjected to such actions were in minority communities. the Daily News/ProPublica investigation identified the race of 215 of the 297 people who were barred from homes in nuisance abatement battles. Only five were white.
Several City Council members said they are in the process of drafting legislation to add stricter requirements to the law, and Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s office said they are studying the issue “extensively.”
In response to the Daily News/ProPublica’s earlier investigation, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton and Carter, the city’s top lawyer, held a closed-door briefing on Feb. 25 with City Council members. Some of the Council members were contemplating changes to the law.
Several in attendance told the Daily News that police showed no intention of curtailing their use of secret closing orders, despite Bratton’s statement at a press conference just two weeks earlier that this aspect of the program would be “changing very quickly.”
The Council members said Bratton assured them the NYPD could work out any problems with the program in-house.
“That’s been their constant position,” said Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), who was at the briefing. “Every issue related to policing policy, including this one, they strongly resist legislative action by the council. They believe that their internal policy-making suffices.”
But Levine said he’s still pursuing changes to the law, and expects the council to introduce a package of bills in the coming weeks.
“We have a democracy and a duly elected body, and it’s our job to draft laws in the interest of the city and we will certainly continue to do so,” he said.
The NYPD Is Kicking People Out of Their Homes, Even If They Haven’t Committed a Crime And it’s happening almost exclusively in minority neighborhoods. Read the story. NYC Mayor Wants ‘Due Process,’ But Doesn’t Object to Secret Orders Tossing Tenants The mayor’s office also said there would be a review of the NYPD’s nuisance abatement program, but later clarified it would be by the same agency that has been approving the filings. Read the story.
Carter said the council members were given a detailed presentation of the measures taken “to ensure that residents not involved in criminal activity are never summarily excluded from their homes and that they will always have the protections of the courts to ensure that they receive due process.”
The NYPD emphasizes that nuisance abatement cases are adjudicated separately from criminal cases, and that the two have no bearing on one another. Critics say therein lies the problem.
Criminal cases have more safeguards because the district attorney’s office independently vets allegations made by the police, and defendants have the right to an attorney. In nuisance abatement cases, the police prosecute their own allegations, and because there is no right to a court-appointed attorney in civil court, the vast majority of residential tenants end up fending for themselves.
The attorneys who spoke to the Daily News said it was routine practice within the Civil Enforcement Unit to simply “fill in the blanks” on nuisance abatement filings with documents forwarded to them by detectives without any further scrutiny.
“We have no idea what the reality is, we just go by the property voucher,” said one attorney, referring to a document from the property clerk’s office that lists items obtained during investigations or arrests.
“It’s not clear to me that Commissioner Bratton should be effectively running a private litigation department paid for by tax payer dollars without meaningful oversight or scrutiny,” Jeffries said. “The Law Department should reassume its role of prosecuting these abatement cases in a manner that has been consistent with the way separation between police and the Law Department has traditionally occurred.”
The attorneys also said there was a push to keep numbers up, and that they had their own incentive to maintain a high volume of cases because serving orders, which can extend past midnight, was the only way to make overtime. Payroll data on some attorneys assigned to nuisance abatement cases showed they earned an average of $24,000 in overtime during the 2013 fiscal year, or an average a 21% boost in pay.
NYPD officials did lay out modest changes at the February briefing: They said they are trying to make sure no more than three months passes between the last alleged offense and their request for closing orders, and would specify who the orders bar from homes, rather than asking for a blanket closure.
The NYPD maintains that officers serving notices have refrained from displacing small children and the elderly.
That wasn’t always the case.
Jameelah El-Shabazz, 47, was with her three children at her mother’s house in Harlem when the NYPD served her older son an order closing her Bronx apartment in advance of her first hearing on a nuisance abatement case. Because she wasn’t present, her whole family was shut out.
The NYPD claimed a confidential informant had bought drugs at the home twice, then narcotics officers found 45 paper cups of cocaine during a search.
Although two of her sons had previous run-ins with the police over drugs, the charges that sparked the nuisance abatement action had long been dismissed. Four months before the action was filed, a police lab test on the powder had came back negative. El-Shabazz said it was crushed eggshells used as part of a religious ritual.
It’s unclear if the NYPD lawyer who filed the complaint knew it contained a false statement or that the documents from the criminal investigation should have been sealed.
The attorneys who spoke to the Daily News said the Civil Enforcement Unit did not have a database to check the outcomes of criminal cases, and did not make a practice of reaching out to the prosecutors for this information, in order to ensure their targets had not already been exonerated. This step was not required because a nuisance abatement action can be brought without a conviction or even an arrest. The work of confidential informants and an officer’s allegations are enough.
“The more seamless line is, ‘O.J. Simpson got away with a criminal act but was still found liable in a civil matter,’” said one of the attorneys.
Perhaps as a result, it appears the unit sometimes accesses files it shouldn’t. the Daily News and ProPublica investigation identified nine nuisance abatement actions where sealed documents in criminal cases were filed as exhibits.
There could be many more. The investigation only tracked the outcomes of criminal cases where someone was barred from a home, and the date of dismissal was not given for 73 sealed cases because even that information is supposed to be confidential.
State law requires law enforcement agencies to seal records from dismissed criminal cases in order to protect the rights of defendants cleared of charges.
These records are not supposed to be used against the defendants in future cases, or to deprive them of any right.
But the Daily News’ sources said the NYPD doesn’t actually seal cases after they’ve been dismissed, let alone notify the Civil Enforcement Unit this has happened.
“They’re never sealed, that’s a myth,” said one attorney.
The NYCLU’s Chris Dunn, who won a settlement in a class action lawsuit against the NYPD over their violation of the sealing law, said the new findings that sealed criminal cases have been used to shut people out of their businesses and homes “provides a dramatic example of why we need an independent investigation into the NYPD’s handling of sealed records.”
The attorneys who have worked in the Civil Enforcement Unit told the Daily News they also never requested any corroborating evidence, such as videos or audio recordings of the confidential informant buys, and lab results of drug tests. An NYPD database of nuisance abatement cases obtained via a Freedom of Information request has a column for “labs ordered date,” but the Daily News found that column blank every time.
NYPD officials have repeatedly pointed out that nuisance abatement cases are subject to their own layer of judicial review by a civil court judge. In addition, they say the criminal court judge has already vetted the confidential informant claims used to secure the search warrants that led to the arrests.
But the Daily News and ProPublica identified more than 80 cases against businesses and residences that did not mention a search warrant, arrest or summons. And judges complained to the Daily News that the NYPD lawyers rarely could produce corroborating evidence of confidential informant buys.
The NYPD begins nearly every nuisance abatement action with a secret request to a civil court judge to close the location before the occupants have had a chance to defend themselves.
The Daily News/ ProPublica investigation found judges granted requests for closing orders 75% of the time for residences, although the rate varied widely by judge. NYPD officials have said the surprise orders prevent criminals from destroying evidence or planning to ambush the officers.
But the attorneys who spoke to the Daily News said the orders are also about leverage. “When you get a closing order, there’s way more pressure on the defendants to settle because they just want to get back in there. They’ll do anything, pay anything, to get back in there,” said one attorney.
While the requests for the emergency closures cite “ongoing” illegal activity, they routinely don’t include any evidence of that, even though the Daily News/ProPublica analysis found they come an average of six months after the last alleged incident for residences.
The head of the Civil Enforcement Unit, Robert Messner, said his attorneys “talk to” the officers to see if the location still poses a problem before filing a case. But the lawyers who spoke to the Daily News said there were no rules in place mandating that they check for ongoing illegal activity, and they often never did. They said they went forward even if they weren’t sure anyone was still living there.
“A lot of times we go to a place, a location, after you get an order signed. That place has been shut down and it’s been shut down for months. We just didn’t know about it,” said one attorney. (the Daily News/ProPublica investigation identified scores of cases where orders were served on places that court filings said had already been vacated.)
The city’s nuisance abatement law requires the police who serve the temporary closing order or temporary restraining order to take a photographic inventory of anything used for illegal activity at the location, and to promptly return that inventory to the judge who approved the order. But the attorneys interviewed by the Daily News said they weren’t even aware of this requirement.
And a judge who has signed several such orders was also unaware of the rule and told the Daily News that “never once” have such inventories been provided.
The Daily News and ProPublica did not come across such inventories in the 1,162 cases it reviewed.
As a result of the Daily News/ ProPublica findings, Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Fern Fisher sent an advisory notice to judges on Feb. 1 recommending limiting the granting of requests for closing orders when the evidence is stale or “based on statements with multiple layers of hearsay and with unidentified confidential informants.”
The two attorneys who spoke to the Daily News said the detective making the allegations isn’t always present when affidavits in their names are written up. They said attorneys use the property clerk vouchers and any other documents to fill in the blanks on “templates” from previous nuisance abatement filings.
In fact, one civil enforcement attorney, Evan Gluck, admitted during a 2011 deposition that he falsely notarized affidavits in up to 20 cases by allowing the detectives to sign them while not in his presence. Gluck said his supervisor was aware of this in at least two instances. They were both granted immunity in that case by a judge as “prosecutors performing duties related to their prosecutorial function,” and still handle nuisance abatement cases for the NYPD.
Gluck said in his deposition that he received no official training on the cases and was only a few years out of law school when he started doing them. He said he was given an “outdated” internal memorandum on nuisance abatement to peruse in his free time, sample cases that had already been filed to use as templates, and “verbal directives” from his boss on cases he was working on.
The two attorneys who spoke to the Daily News also said they didn’t receive a manual or formal training on how to properly apply the nuisance abatement law.
The NYPD’s Patrol Guide, which contains detailed rules that officers must follow when they carry out their duties, also has no section on nuisance abatement cases, even though there is a nine-page section on the Padlock Law, which is a similar statute with far stricter requirements that Messner estimated the department hasn’t used for 15 years.
Sarah Ryley is the data projects editor and an investigative reporter at the New York Daily News. You can email her at [email protected] |
The hornets' nest of corruption binding the embattled WI Supreme Court Justice with Scott Jensen, Kathy Nickolaus and the criminal misuse of state employees for partisan gain...
Ernest A. Canning Byon 4/25/2011, 11:58am PT
Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning with Brad Friedman
"This was a decisive election about judicial independence," WI Supreme Court Justice David Prosser said at a press conference in Madison last Monday, declaring victory and explaining his opposition to a recount of the April 5th Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
"The people realized that judges should be much more than partisan politicians who wear black robes. Judges should be impartial in theory and in fact. They should faithfully apply the law without fear, and without favor," he told the assembled media.
However, as an investigation by The BRAD BLOG reveals, there is a stunning gap between the lofty ideals of "independence" espoused by the incumbent Justice as quoted above, and the sordid reality of his own personal record as a hard-Right partisan official in Wisconsin, with the state's GOP caucus, and even during his role as a justice on the state's highest court.
It is a reality, well-documented through court records and other sources, finding Prosser and his former Republican colleagues in the WI Assembly enmeshed in a criminal scheme to utilize state employees and resources at taxpayer expense in order to finance and organize WI GOP political campaigns. A reality which includes an astounding legal filing by this same sitting Supreme Court Justice in which he not only acted as an advocate for the accused, but even confessed to his own participation in the alleged crime.
In short, it's a reality which led The BRAD BLOG to wonder whether Prosser was truly better characterized as an 'independent' jurist, as per his self-description, or a partisan criminal in a robe...
A Cautionary Note
Readers would be wise to avoid the conclusion that involvement in political corruption turns upon whether a politician places a (D) or an (R) at the end of their name, though there does seem to be a significant difference between (D) and (R) when a crooked politician is convicted and sentenced in the Badger state.
Two Democrats, former state Senators Charles Chvala and Brian Burke, faced multiple felony charges for misconduct in office similar to that discussed in this article.
Burke, a former co-chair of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, was prosecuted by the then Dane County DA, now elected Justice of the Court of Appeal, Brian Blanchard (D). On Nov. 30, 2005, Burke was "sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to pay almost $88,000 in fines for using his office to run his failed bid for attorney general," according to Channel 3000.com.
Channel 3000.com also reported that on Oct. 25, 2005, Chvala pleaded guilty to two of 19 felony counts. He was "sentenced to nine months in Dane County Jail and two years probation."
Neither does this article mean to suggest that political corruption is limited to elected officials --- a point that was underscored when the Badger Herald News recently reported that "Wisconsin & Southern Railroad CEO William Gardner will plead guilty to...felonies after he violated two state laws" related to illegal campaign contributions made to Gov. Scott Walker (R) and other Republicans.
Our focus here is on the direct links between Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, his former Republican Assembly colleagues and those in the state's Assembly Republican Caucus (ARC) --- including Kathy Nickolaus who now serves as County Clerk of Waukesha County --- and their involvement in the criminal misuse of state resources and state employees for partisan political gain.
The BRAD BLOG found no similar links between past political corruption scandals and Prosser's opponent in the contested election for the supposedly non-partisan position of WI Supreme Court Justice, Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, who, by the way, is neither a Republican nor a Democrat. She is an avowed independent.
The 2002 Criminal Complaint
Prosser represented the state Republican party as the WI Assembly's minority leader from 1989 to 1994 and then as speaker in 1995 and 1996. Scott Jensen (R-Waukesha), who would ultimately become the speaker himself, served as Prosser's number two man in the Assembly during Prosser's term as speaker.
After reviewing accounts of an extraordinary court filing in which a sitting Supreme Court Justice, David Prosser, acted as an advocate for Jensen, who was accused of political crimes, The BRAD BLOG felt it appropriate to review pertinent court documents and decisions from the State of Wisconsin vs. Jensen case in which Prosser played a remarkable key role.
The case began in October 2002 when David Collins, Director of the White Collar Crimes Bureau for the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation submitted a five-count criminal complaint [PDF].
Jensen was charged with three felony counts involving misconduct in office in his "hiring, retaining and supervising" several state employees to assist in organizing and funding political campaigns while the employees were compensated as state employees and for using state resources toward the same. Republican Assembly Majority Leader Steven Foti was charged in one of those felony counts, and one of the state employees, Sherry L. Schultz, was charged in another. The fifth count charged Jensen and Republican Assemblywoman Bonnie Ladwig with a misdemeanor violation in having "intentionally used their public positions...to obtain financial gain for the private benefit of an organization with which they were each associated, namely the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee."
Misuse of State Employees, Resources for Partisan Political Gain
Collins did not end the complaint with the charging paragraphs. Instead, he laid out a powerful case by summarizing multiple witness statements obtained by state investigators, including Jensen's statement.
The core of the alleged criminal enterprise centered on the Assembly Republican Caucus, which was staffed by state employees.
Charles Sanders, Chief Clerk of the WI State Assembly (1971 to 2001), told investigators that the "partisan caucuses were created to assist legislators with speech writing, letter writing, bill drafting, and other services to support legislators."
Sanders, and his successor, concurred that both Assembly Rules and state statutes prohibited caucus staff "from using state property and facilities for political campaign activity and from engaging in political campaign work while on state time and during working hours." That assessment was bolstered not only by a 1978 WI Ethics Board opinion and an 02/27/97 email to all state employees by former Assembly Speaker Ben Brancel, but by Scott Jensen himself.
Jensen told state investigators "State employees should not raise or discuss raising campaign money at all on State time", according to the criminal complaint.
Jensen's admission, as will be shown below, is manifestly inconsistent with the position both his legal team and even Justice Prosser himself would later take in an extraordinary pretrial motion.
Jensen claimed he did not know what job duties his co-defendant Sherry Schultz performed. The statements of numerous witnesses interviewed by state investigators reveal Jensen's claim on that score to be, shall we say, less than candid.
Schultz, according to witnesses, was ostensibly employed by the ARC as a state employee, but worked full time in close consultation with, and under the direction of Jensen on campaign organizing and funding. Her duties included the use of master campaign lists to help determine how Republican Assembly campaign funds would be disbursed to various members.
Jason Kratochwill served as the ARC's Director from 1999-2001. According to the complaint, "Kratochwill estimated that the campaigns of 50 of the 56 Republican members of the State Assembly used the ARC for campaign purposes that included graphic design work."
Kratochwill told investigators that he and Jensen "spoke often and without regard to whether Kratochwill was on State time...dealing with such issues as: recruiting candidates; which districts to do polling in; how to get ARC and legislative staffers to agree to work on particular campaigns; who to run ads for in what medium; how to staff and fund campaigns; what opposition research was needed..."
He said Jensen knew that "ARC employee Kathy Nickolaus developed a campaign finance software program that Nickolaus tried to sell for a profit."
[Yes, that's the same Kathy Nickolaus, now serving as County Clerk in Waukesha County, who announced the addition of 14,000 previously-unreported votes from the city of Brookfield on April 7, 2011, two days after the remarkably close Supreme Court election, turning what had been a razor-thin 204 vote lead for Prosser's challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg into a still thin, but much larger 7500 vote lead for her old colleague from their ARC days.
On April 6, 2011, one day before Nickolaus publicly announced her "discovery," (but on the same day she now "claims" she made that discovery) Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker, announced "there might be 'ballots somewhere, somehow found out of the blue, that weren’t counted before,'" according to a complaint [PDF] filed with the WI Government Accountability Board (GAB), by Asst. Attorney General Kloppenburg's campaign manager, Melissa Mulliken. On that same day, according to the complaint, Prosser met privately with Walker in his office, though the Justice vehemently denies that allegation.
This is also the same Kathy Nickolaus who is currently the subject of another investigation by the GAB for election irregularities in Waukesha County going back five years. Those irregularities include her own election reports stating that some 20,000 more votes than "ballots cast" were tallied by Nickolaus in the county's 2006 general election, and a remarkable 97.63% voter turnout for the 2004 Presidential election. She was also the subject of an independent audit commissioned by the county's Executive Committee after it was discovered she kept all of the counties election results on a personal computer available only in her own office.]
But back to the 2002 complaint which states that Kratochwill said he prepared proposals for Jensen and Ladwig that contained "phony" numbers to suggest that ARC employees were off working part-time on campaigns. For example, a Jensen office staffer "was listed as being off of the State payroll 50%" but "Jensen knew that [the staffer] was working on a campaign 100% of the time."
ARC employee Paul Tessmer compiled a "master voter list for use in campaigns." Tessmer told investigators that in early 1999 he was asked "to create a campaign finance computer software program...for use by Jensen. Some legislators were then using a prior existing, but ineffective, campaign finance report software program prepared by Kathy Nickolaus..."
Tessmer admitted he did not disclose the use of the software to the Elections Board "because he felt it was an advantage to Republicans to have exclusive use of it."
Tessmer's admission that the program was concealed from the Election Board for exclusive use by the GOP is at odds with the claim later made by Nickolaus, who earned $54,000/year as an ARC data analyst and computer specialist, that "she developed the software on her own time because she wanted to sell it to the state elections agency for use in automating state-required campaign reports."
A former co-worker of Nickolaus' during the time both were employed by the Wisconsin Integrated Legislative Information Services (now Legislative Technology Services) told Blog talk radio recently that Nickolaus was "secretive" and "exceptionally partisan":
What struck me though about Kathy was that she was exceptionally partisan. This was supposed to be a non-partisan agency…Kathy was the kind of person, it didn’t matter what you said to her, ah I would say 'I’m going down the street to get a muffin, you want one?' and she would say, 'We have to stop abortions!'
Immunity and Plea Deals
Nickolaus now claims she prepared her apparently deficient campaign finance computer software program on her own time. Yet, in June 2002 AP reported that the WI Ethics Board "was looking into lists of registered voters bought with state money by a former state employee who resigned to run for office." That employee was Kathy Nickolaus, who resigned her state employment on May 10, 2002 and subsequently ran for Waukesha County Clerk.
No problem, said Nickolaus. She didn't obtain those lists for her own use. She obtained them for then Assembly Majority Leader Steve Foti who "said lawmakers routinely use the voter lists for legitimate state business," according to AP.
Three months after the AP story broke, the Wisconsin DoJ's Collins filed the criminal complaint which charged the same Steve Foti with a class E felony for misuse of state employees and resources for partisan political gain.
Even if Nickolaus prepared the campaign finance report on the state's dime, she didn't need to fear prosecution. She was granted immunity from criminal charges in exchange for her testimony in the Jensen case.
Foti was not so fortunate. While he did make a deal with prosecutors to testify against former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen (R) and his aide, Sherry L. Shultz, as revealed by a state publication [PDF], Foti's eventual plea agreement included a January 2006 conviction for a misdemeanor ethics violation for having kept a campaign fundraiser on his payroll. His sentence included 60 days in jail.
Ladwig, another Republican member of the WI Assembly named in the 2002 criminal complaint, also agreed to testify as part of a plea bargain. She was convicted in Dec. 2005 "of a misdemeanor ethics violation for legislative staff to obtain private benefit for the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee." Her sentence included 30 days in jail on a work release program.
Sitting Supreme Court Justice Confesses Crime, Advocates for Accused
By March 2006, Justice's Prosser's old colleague Scott Jensen was in dire straits. His former GOP cohorts, Foti and Ladwig turned state's witnesses. A state appellate court expressly rejected the position taken by his legal counsel that the words "legislative activity" in the state's Assembly Employee Handbook meant that ARC employees could engage in political campaign activities at taxpayer expense.
"The Assembly's own rules prohibit the type of conduct in which the defendants allegedly engaged," the court of appeal stated.
Desperate to evade a trial in Democratic-leaning Dane County (Madison, where the state capitol is located), the Jensen legal team submitted one of the most extraordinary court filings this writer has become acquainted with in more than 33 years of practicing law.
As reported by Dee J. Hall of the Wisconsin Journal, Jensen's brief revealed that Supreme Court Justice David Prosser --- who was, by then, immune from prosecution for the same crimes due to the statute of limitations --- was prepared to testify on Jensen's behalf.
Hall states [emphasis in original]:
Prosser and another former legislative leader, Joseph Strohl, acknowledge in the filing that they used their taxpayer- funded caucus staffs for campaigning --- the same type of behavior for which Jensen faces three felonies and a misdemeanor charge. The two said maintaining their party's grip on power in the Legislature was a key part of their duties as leaders.
In the brief, Prosser admitted that while he served as speaker, "caucus members and...directors...participated in...[c]ampaign and political meetings in the Capitol office; assisting the speaker and the elected leadership by recruiting candidates, gathering voting lists and target lists; setting up, attending and staffing fundraisers; and assisting legislators in creating and implementing office plans."
According to Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison Law Prof. Walter Dickey took a dim view of these extraordinary admissions by a sitting WI Supreme Court Justice, saying that Prosser "might be admitting to a crime. Even if it's not prosecutable, it undermines the legitimacy of the judiciary if you admit to behavior that amounts to a felony."
Hall went on to note that, in the Jensen brief, Prosser said:
"The legislative branch is the political branch of government, and a legislative office is a thoroughly political office. For the most part, every activity that could be characterized as a campaign activity can be conceivably construed to be an act that furthers the legislative process."
Dane County DA Brian Blanchard, noting that Prosser's remarkable assertion was at odds with a decision just handed down by the court of appeal in the same case, responded, "There is no reasonable argument that this alleged activity serves any legitimate legislative duty or purpose," Hall reported.
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am as appalled by this aspect of Prosser's participation in the Jensen brief as Prof. Dickey is with Prosser's statute of limitations-protected admissions of participating in an alleged felony.
Prosser's legal position is all too reminiscent of President Nixon's infamous statement that "when the President does it, that means it is not illegal." Prosser and Jensen seem to be saying that if a sitting Supreme Court Justice did it, then that must mean it's not illegal.
It is manifestly inappropriate for any appellate justice to publicly express a legal opinion on a litigated matter before legal arguments and evidence have been duly presented. While Prosser would ultimately recuse himself when Wisconsin vs. Jensen reached the WI Supreme Court, his effort to persuade the trial court, by acting as an advocate for the accused, amounts to nothing less than an abuse of his office as a Supreme Court Justice in a manner designed to undercut the due process rights of the state of Wisconsin.
Opinion testimony from a sitting Supreme Court Justice, if it had been permitted, could have served to undermine the authority of the trial judge in the eyes of a jury, especially if that testimony conflicted with jury instructions.]
All of this underscores what must be a new definition for the phrase "judicial independence," as uttered last week by Prosser during his "victory speech" to the media at his press conference in Madison.
Moreover, the fact that Justice Prosser retained an attorney to oppose a recount in the incredibly close April 5th Supreme Court election --- an attorney who is scheduled to soon appear before the WI Supreme Court on a major campaign finance issue --- coupled with his "belief...that he would not need to recuse himself" when the Court hears that same campaign finance case, severely undercuts his purported aspirations to "judicial independence."
'The Most Discredited Wisconsin Political Figure Who Has Not Served' Time
In an article in which he described Scott Jensen as "the Lindsay Lohan of Wisconsin politics," progressive journalist John Nichols opined that Jensen was "arguably the most discredited Wisconsin political figure who has not served a jail sentence."
In March of 2006, Prosser's former second, and his successor as speaker of the WI Assembly, Scott Jensen was convicted [PDF] of three felony counts entailing misconduct of public office and a misdemeanor for his misuse of public funds. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
Jensen's felony convictions were overturned on appeal in 2007 based on improper jury instructions. The circuit court had instructed the jury that "a legislator's use of state resources for campaign purposes established that the legislator obtained a dishonest advantage." This improperly "constituted a mandatory conclusive presumption," the court of appeal stated. The court of appeal upheld the trial court's refusal to permit testimony from "past assembly leaders" (e.g., Justice Prosser) "regarding long-standing practices in the assembly of using state employees...for political campaign purposes" as the proffered evidence "was not relevant to whether Jensen intended to gain a dishonest advantage."
The court of appeal noted that Jensen did not appeal his misdemeanor "conviction for Intentional Misuse of Public Position for Private Gain." It remanded the case for a new trial on the felony charges.
Upon remand, Jensen moved for a change of venue based on a politician-friendly venue law which was passed by the WI legislature while the Jensen appeal was pending. The statute permitted individuals charged with "violations arising from or in relation to elections, ethics, and lobbying regulation laws" to be tried in their county of residence, rather than the county where the crime was allegedly committed.
Both the circuit court and court of appeal denied Jensen's motion concluding that the statute did not apply to the charges pending against Jensen. On May 20, 2010 in State v. Jensen, the WI Supreme Court reversed, ruling that Jensen was entitled to be tried in Waukesha County, the Republican-friendly enclave of County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, and Jensen's county of residence.
For Jensen, this ruling carried the collateral benefit that he would no longer have to face those pesky Dane County prosecutors who'd had the temerity to enforce the law against him.
In October 2010, John Nichols reported that, while his case was still pending in Waukesha, Jensen re-emerged "as one of the most active players" in Wisconsin politics. Jensen linked up with "the American Federation for Children, which has registered as a corporation making independent expenditures in state legislative races...[a] group [which] intends to dump something in the order of $100,000 into each of a dozen or so key Assembly races in the final days before the Nov. 2 general election," Nichols added.
Nichols also reported that Jensen "helped Rebecca Kleefisch secure the Republican nod for lieutenant governor, which links him to this fall’s GOP gubernatorial run by Scott Walker..."
In December of 2010, after the November election had assured Walker and the GOP were about to assume full control of both the legislative and executive branches of state government, Jensen entered a plea agreement with the Republican DA of Waukesha County, Brad Schimel. According to the agreement, two of his felony counts were dismissed, one felony count was reduced to a civil forfeiture of $5,000 and one misdemeanor conviction, which was final since it was not challenged following Jensen's 2006 conviction, was allowed to stand. Jensen was also ordered to reimburse the state $67,000 for the portion of his legal fees that had previously been charged to Wisconsin taxpayers.
Fellow Republicans Ladwig and Foti had been sentenced to 30 and 60 days in jail for their misdemeanor convictions, respectively, even after turning state's evidence. Democratic State Senators Burke and Chvala received respective sentences of six and nine months for felony convictions, as noted earlier in this article.
But Prosser's friend and former second-in-command, the powerful Scott Jensen --- despite solid evidence supportive of the subsequently overturned felony convictions --- walked away without having to serve one day in the slammer.
The Wisconsin State Journal described the plea deal as "an early Christmas present" from Schimel to Jensen. The Journal also reported that the Republican "Schimel said the case had dragged on long enough, and bringing it to trial would have overwhelmed his office."
The sole reason the case had "dragged on" as long as it did was due to Jensen's multiple appeals.
One can just imagine the noise that would have bounced through the right-wing echo chamber if then Dane County DA Brian Blanchard had declined to prosecute fellow Democrats, Charles Chvala and Brian Burke, because their trials "would have overwhelmed his office."
Hornets Nest Comes Full Circle in Supreme Court Election
Schimel's role in the Jensen case brings us full circle to the controversial Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus and her April 7th news conference announcing the "discovery" of 14,000 previously-unreported votes from the city of Brookfield which served to offer a stunning reversal of fortune for Prosser in the April 5th Supreme Court election.
On April 20th, on the same day Prosser's opponent JoAnne Kloppenburg announced she was exercising her right for a statewide recount in the race, her campaign also made an official request [PDF] that a special, independent investigator be appointed by Wisconsin's Government Board of Accountability (G.A.B.), the state's chief election agency, to probe whether or not Nickolaus had violated state election laws during the post-election canvass.
The complaint [PDF] was filed together with supporting exhibits [PDF] which, the Kloppenburg campaign contends, demonstrate the appearance of a lack of impartiality by the G.A.B. and by the County Prosecutor, Brad Schimel, who "would likely be involved in such an investigation."
One of those exhibits was an email sent by Schimel to Nickolaus on 8:24am on Friday, April 8th, the morning after her extraordinary evening press conference which shocked the state by giving Prosser a 7,500 vote lead in the election.
The email from Schimel, who would otherwise be tasked with prosecuting Nickolaus if wrong-doing is discovered, reads...
From: Schimel, Brad [[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, April 8, 2011 8:24 AM
To: Nickolaus, Kathy [[email protected]]
Subject: Hang in there Schimel, Brad [[email protected]]Friday, April 8, 2011 8:24 AMNickolaus, Kathy [[email protected]]Hang in there Kathy,
You handled everything as well as possible yesterday. I had several events last night, and everyone I spoke with was very understanding about how something like this could happen.
I think it will be ok. Hang in there and keep your chin up.
Brad
The good people of Wisconsin are sure to take comfort in Schimel's 'prosecutorial independence' at least as much as they are able to count on Prosser's 'judicial independence' should he eventually be found the official winner of another 10-year term on the state's highest court.
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Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).
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Iraqi sources confirmed to Saudi newspaper Okaz that Qatar’s foreign minister met with his counterpart in Baghdad last week, and asked him to transfer half a billion dollars, intended as ransom money for the release of kidnapped Qataris, as a gift from Doha to support popular mobilization militias.
In early April, Doha sent its ambassador in Baghdad to try to secure the release of 24 Qatari nationals who were kidnapped by Iraqi militias.
Three days later, an aircraft carrying an adviser of the Qatari Emir and Doha’s foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani when airport staff were surprised by 23 bags containing nearly half a billion dollars.
“When the plane arrived, we promised to provide the Qatari delegation with protection. We were surprised to find many bags in the plane’s cargo containing hundreds of thousands of dollars. We did not want to make a big issue out of it so we said we’d secure the money until later discussions,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told reporters.
Qatari hostages depart Baghdad International Airport last month. (Reuters)
For its part, Qatar tried to justify its actions, where the Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told reporters that the funds entered Iraq with Baghdad’s knowledge, and asked them to provide assistance for the release of the kidnapped Qataris.
A Qatari hunting party kidnapped in southern Iraq in 2015 were freed and was being handed over to a Qatari delegation in Baghdad on April 21.
Last Update: Monday, 29 May 2017 KSA 20:23 - GMT 17:23 |
JTA - A group of 40 retired Brazilian diplomats signed a statement against Israel’s controversial appointment of former settler leader Dani Dayan as ambassador in Brasila.
The career diplomats believe that protocol was bypassed since it was not preceded by any communication with the Brazilian Foreign Ministry or any presentation of Dayan’s credentials for an agreement on the appointment.
“We consider it unacceptable. The rupture of the diplomatic practice seems to have been on purpose,” the retired diplomats wrote in the statement dated Friday. “We support the Brazilian Government’s position on this issue and wish that the current episode is quickly overcome, so we can, together, strengthen the bonds between the two countries.”
The diplomats oppose remarks by Senator Marcelo Crivella, who declared last week that rejecting Dayan would convey a pro-boycott message and “the fact that he defends settlements in the West Bank is a weak motive for such discourtesy and so much political inability.”
The Brazilian government has remained silent on the choice of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to signal an official rejection of Dayan.
The 40 diplomats opened their statement by remembering the memory of Ambassador Luis Martins de Sousa Dantas, one of Brazil’s two Righteous Among the Nations recognized by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum for saving hundreds of Jews from the Holocaust, and Oswaldo Aranha, the Brazilian diplomat who presided over the United Nations session that created the State of Israel in 1947. |
The Costs of War report found that the seven years which the US spent in Iraq claimed 190,000 lives and could end up costing the country $2.2 trillion (1.69 trillion euros). Civilians killed in the war totaled 134,000 people, or over 70 percent. US casualties came to 4,488 military members and at least 3,400 contractors, according to the report, with the remainder being security forces loyal to Saddam Hussein or the guerrilla fighters who entered the battle after Iraq's army had fallen.
"The staggering number of deaths in Iraq is hard to fathom, but each of these individuals has to count and be counted," said study co-leader Catherine Lutz, a professor at Rhode Island-based Brown University, where the report was compiled.
Released ahead of the March 20 anniversary, the report found that the financial portion of that calculation included substantial costs to care for wounded US veterans. The total estimated in the report far outstrips the initial projection by president George W Bush's government that the war would cost $50 billion to $60 billion.
"Nearly every government that goes to war underestimates its duration, neglects to tally all the costs and overestimates the political objectives that will be accomplished by war's violence," said Neta Crawford, another professor who helped coordinate the study.
The US has now spent at least $60 billion on reconstruction, but little has gone to restoring infrastructure. Most of that money goes to the Iraqi military and police, the report found.
Effects in Britain
A second study found that young men who have served in the British military are about three times more likely than civilians to have committed a violent offense, researchers reported Friday. The study found, however, that merely being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan made no difference in rates of violent crime later on. A key predictor, however, was violent behavior before enlisting.
"Being deployed in itself wasn't a risk factor for violent offenses but being exposed to multiple traumas, like seeing someone get shot, increased the risk by 70 to 80 percent," said Deirdre MacManus, the study's lead author.
The medical journal The Lancet published the study online on Friday. Researchers at King's College London compared data from more than 13,800 UK military personnel and veterans with records of violent crimes ranging from verbal threats to assaults and homicides. The researchers followed some subjects for up to seven years.
The researchers stressed that although the study pointed to a serious problem for those affected, it did not mean that all ex-soldiers would become violent criminals. "Just as with post-traumatic stress disorder, this is not a common outcome in military populations," said study co-leader Professor Simon Wessely, of the Centre for Military Health Research at King's College London. "Overall you must remember that of those who serve in combat, 94 percent of those who come back will not offend."
In Iraq, three explosions in the Allawi neighborhood on Thursday killed at least 18 people and wounded 30. Some sources put the toll higher, saying that as many as 23 people had been killed and 50 wounded in the blasts, which were just minutes apart. An attack was also staged on the Justice Ministry.
mkg/jr (AFP, Reuters, dpa, AP) |
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