text
stringlengths 316
100k
|
|---|
Paramount Pictures is moving forward on a sequel to the 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy “Coming to America” with Jonathan Levine on board to direct from a script by “Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris.
Levine, whose credits include “Snatched,” “The Night Before,” “50/50,” and “Warm Bodies,” will direct from a script that Barris will rewrite from a screenplay by original writers Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield. Kevin Misher is producing.
Murphy is involved with the development of the sequel, although there’s no deal in place yet for him to star. Kevin Misher is the producer.
The original movie was directed by John Landis, with Murphy playing a charming African prince who traveled to New York City to escape an arranged marriage. Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Shari Headley, and John Amos co-starred in the “Coming to America,” which was a major hit, grossing nearly $300 million at the worldwide box office.
Humorist Art Buchwald sued the studio on grounds that the film’s idea was stolen from his 1982 script treatment and won the breach of contract part of the suit. The parties later settled the case prior to an appeal going to trial.
Barris co-wrote the comedy “Girls Trip” with Tracy Oliver and worked on New Line’s “Son of Shaft.”
Levine is repped by CAA. Barris is repped by CAA, Principato-Young Entertainment, and Morris Yorn. |
“Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?” – Edgar Allan Poe
“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” – Ernest Hemingway
Hey there all you cool cats and kittens – let’s make a Love Dream! This is a spell to ensure you dream of the love object of your choice, and is the most popular variant of the traditional Dreaming True spell.
If this seems weak in comparison to the physical act of love, consider this – it is an entirely guilt-free method of safe sex, with no difficult conversations or trips to the STD clinic the next morning. If you can master the Love Dream, you can delete your Tinder account.
What we are aiming for is a form of lucid dreaming, combined with a magical process to intertwine your dreaming mind with that of your love object. If done correctly, it should have an effect on them, also.
So if you wish to haunt somebody’s dreams, read on!
Lucid dreaming can be practiced by anybody with enough focus to concentrate on the process. It’s a very useful discipline to master, especially if you suffer from nightmares or sleep paralysis.
Start training yourself by keeping a dream journal. Fill it in immediately when you awake. The process of recalling and writing down your dreams will help you achieve self-awareness of your dream life, and connect you more firmly to your dream state.
In waking life, occasionally pause to ask yourself – “Is this a dream? Am I awake now?” and test yourself by looking at a clock or reading a phrase of text, looking away, then looking back. Is it the same time? Does it say the same thing? If you are dreaming, the time or text will usually have changed. Pinch yourself. Can you feel it? Look at yourself in a mirror. Do you look as you expect? Look at your hands. Are they your hands?
By doing this enough in waking life that it becomes habitual, it will start to become easier to test yourself in your dreams by the same methods. If you can get to the point where you realize that you are dreaming, you will, with practice, be able to direct your dreams in any way you choose.
As you lay you down to sleep, repeat silently to yourself a mantra that will encourage you to lucid dream. Something as simple as “To sleep, perchance to dream…” works well.
Now, for the specific Love Dream ritual.
Love Dream Cloud Cocktail
1/2 shot of Hendricks gin, which has rose and cucumber notes
1 & 1/2 shots of rose liqueur – I used Lanique, made of attar of roses
Cloud topping
200 ml rosewater
2 grams soy lecithin (you can order this online very cheaply)
If you can’t find rosewater (try a Polish or Turkish shop), you can spike plain water with rose flavouring. You could add pink food colour if you prefer a pastel foam, and I’m using edible wafer petals to garnish.
Intone: “Oh, Lady of Delight, in thy name and of thy Ministers of Love, do I proceed in this work of Love”. Scatter rose petals across the work surface.
Burn a rose-scented candle.
Combine gin & liqueur in a cocktail shaker with ice, then leave the shaker in the freezer to chill while you create a foam topping, which represents clouds.
The clouds, moving across the sky that you and your desired one both sleep beneath, serve to connect you to each other.
Somewhere out there….
Using an immersion blender (the type like a pepper grinder with blades at the base), blend the soy lecithin and rosewater in a small deep bowl.
You will have to lift the blender to the upper part of the liquid surface to incorporate as much air as possible so that a foam forms on the surface.
Once you have enough cloud for your needs, let it sit for a minute to set.
Strain the shaker into a glass, scoop the firm foam from your bowl and dollop it onto the top of the drink.
Intone: “By this act, I draw (their name) and myself into a bond of love and desire.”
Drink, whilst clearly visualizing the image of your dream lover. If you have a photograph, gaze upon it.
Listen to appropriately dreamy music
Drinking it through a straw is recommended, so that you can blend the cloud topping with the rest of the potion as you go.
The process is best performed on a Friday at 8am, 3pm or 10 o’clock at night. As our potion is intoxicating, the 10pm time slot is recommended. The moon should be waxing full.
We are using roses for this as they are the flowers most closely connected with the Lady of Delight, who is the Power you are appealing to.
She is known by many names – Astarte, Aphrodite, Parvati, Flora, Freya. She is the mistress of the moon and the realm of Venus.
In all operations of romantic love, it is her presence you must invoke, by whichever of her names you find most significant.
As you lie in bed, waiting for what dreams may come, visualize the goddess as clearly as you can, with long streaming hair, crowned with roses, a white dove perched on her right hand, surrounded by clouds. Scatter rose petals on your pillow.
Apart from the associative symbolism of these flowers, they also give off a subtle magnetism which is peculiarly in accord with works of this nature.
If you have a photograph of your dream lover, place it beneath your pillow. If you don’t have a photo, write their name on a piece of paper and use that instead.
When you have a clear image of the Goddess in your mind, visualize the face and body of your lover, as clearly as you can. Repeat your lucid dreaming mantra.
This would be a perfect song to listen to as you drift off….
Fall asleep, and dream on. Following people on Twitter or stalking them on Facebook is for amateurs. WE are the music-makers… and we are the dreamers of dreams. |
One day after seeing stud prospect Charlie McAvoy suit up for his first practice with AHL Providence, Bruins management is expected Friday to meet with another BU Terrier, Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson, in hopes of signing him to a contract to start his pro career.
Word around the BU campus, where Forsbacka Karlsson this season turned in a line of 14-19—33 in 39 games, has been that the sophomore center planned to return to BU this fall for his junior season.
It will be up to Bruins general manager Don Sweeney, who this week convinced McAvoy to leave the Commonwealth Ave campus, to convince the Swedish-born center that it’s time to swap the NCAA for the NHL.
Advertisement
Read the complete story at BostonGlobe.com.
Don’t have a Globe subscription? Boston.com readers get a 2-week free trial. |
Brotherhood for the Fallen is a fraternal charity in which members of the NYPD become members. We send NYPD officers to police combat line of duty funerals throughout the United States. We cover the travel expenses (air, hotel, rental car) so the officers can attend the viewing and funeral services, continuing the long tradition of supporting fallen officers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Our officers presence in distant areas of the country gives emotional encouragement to the family and fellow officers. While at the services, our officers present the family with a monetary gift to help with their immediate financial needs. In turn, our officers are enriched and return to their duties with a refreshed sense of pride in their uniform. Click "ABOUT" in the menu above to learn more. |
Deonte Thompson had one of the better performances by a Buffalo Bills wide receiver so far this season with his 107-yard receiving day in the team’s win over the Tampa Buccaneers on Sunday. Thompson made several impressive plays throughout the day, but his shining moment came late in the fourth quarter on a 44-yard pass play down the sideline that helped the Bills score an equalizing touchdown.
If you hadn’t heard of Thompson before Sunday, don’t feel bad. Few had. The Bills signed the 28-year-old, six-year veteran to a deal worth the league minimum last Tuesday. The Florida Gators product went undrafted in 2012 before landing with the Baltimore Ravens and playing two seasons there, one of which he spent on the team’s practice roster. In 2014, Thompson came over to Buffalo and played — though he didn’t record any stats — in the season finale. He was cut by the Bills ahead of the 2015 season, with Rex Ryan running the show on the sidelines then, before joining the Chicago Bears and playing with them up until he was released by the club and signed by the Bills last week.
The Bills front office obviously has confidence in Thompson, beating the New England Patriots to the punch, who the receiver visited with the day before he signed with Buffalo for the second time. But more importantly, Thompson has plenty of confidence in himself.
"I didn't think I would have 100 yards, but I knew I was going to make some plays today," Thompson said postgame on Sunday. "That's just me. If you dress me up, I'm going to make plays. To have 100 yards, it was icing on the top."
Thompson admits that he’s still having a hard time understanding why he was cut from the Bears. He said he felt like he was one of the leaders on that team and pointed out that his stats were among the best of the Bears wide receivers. Thompson’s 107 yards in a Bills uniform on Sunday marked the second time in his career that he’s cracked the century mark in receiving. It also marked the first time this season that a Buffalo wide receiver did it — tight end Charles Clay had 112 yards receiving in Week 4. Additionally, Thompson’s 11 receptions in 2017 as a member of the Bears were more than any Bills wideout had coming into Week 7.
Undoubtedly, the new Bills receiver has talent, but it also doesn’t hurt that he has history with quarterback Tyrod Taylor. The two were members of the Ravens for the entire duration of Thompson’s tenure with the team, and even before that, they knew each as high schoolers.
“Just [Thompson’s] confidence level,” Taylor said when asked about the receiver’s performance postgame. “Like I said we’ve had plenty of reps together in Baltimore, not necessarily game reps, but of course preseason reps. We work servicing our defense as well to throughout the season. Like I said just the chemistry. I trust him. I trust all those guys. He was able to take advantage of some of the matchups and he was able to make some plays downfield.”
Thompson certainly looks to fit the mold of a player that Bills head coach Sean McDermott likes to have on his team. In his post-game availability, the coach talked about Thompson having physical and mental toughness, an underdog mentality, that the coach loves. His resume certainly lines up with that of the majority of the Bills wide receivers, too, in that most of the group is compromised of wide receivers that most people are not very familiar with. That might be his predicament, currently, but if his first game as a Bill is an indication of what’s to come, Thompson seems eager to take advantage of the opportunity the Bills organization has afforded him and at the very least make a name for himself among the team's fan base. |
Update: the Braves are reportedly also sending Bronson Arroyo to the Dodgers, which works out to saving about $8 million. So, that’s a small benefit for Atlanta, which isn’t discussed below.
—
Update No. 2: the Dodgers are taking on some of Arroyo’s money, but not all of it. So the Braves are saving less than that $8 million. Glad we could get this straightened out.
—
A valuable lesson we all learned yesterday is that a trade isn’t official until it’s officially official. In the case of this trade, it still isn’t totally complete, so, who knows? Something else we’re aware of is that the structure is complicated. As the Braves, Dodgers, and Marlins work through their three-way exchange, this seems like the current picture of the Braves’ side of things:
Get:
Lose:
Because it isn’t official, it could always fall apart. Alternatively, it could always change its form. Beyond that, even if this does go down as understood, there are plenty of moving parts. Real people, having their lives changed in an instant! A draft pick, just after the first round! So what I’m about to do is over-simplify, but what this is really about, from the Braves’ perspective, is swapping Wood and Peraza for Olivera. The rest of it more or less cancels out, given the cost of relievers at the deadline. The Braves, perhaps, weren’t comfortable with the risk of keeping Wood and Peraza around. They’re more comfortable with the risk of Olivera, who they tried hard to sign only a few months back.
At first glance, this seems like an insufficient return. Peraza’s young, and he entered the season as a top-50 prospect. Baseball America’s midseason update put him at No. 26. That was a ranking between Raul Mondesi and David Dahl, a few slots ahead of Jeff Hoffman. Wood, meanwhile, is a big-league-proven starting pitcher, who’s had some excellent stretches, and who’s going to be cheap for a while. Olivera is 30, and he still doesn’t have 100 professional trips to the plate. He recently spent time on the disabled list, and health questions have long lingered around. If you don’t like the Braves’ side, this is the whole argument. They gave up too much control for an older player who has yet to prove anything. Certainly, the Dodgers are pleased.
But the Braves have their reasons for doing this, and it goes beyond just being fans of Olivera. There’s a sense there was danger in hanging on to Peraza. And the same goes for Wood. If the Braves felt like Peraza and Wood would only diminish in value, then it makes sense to move them now. And if they think Olivera’s about ready, then, sure, he’s 30, but he’s not 35 or 36. It’s not like he’s on the verge of retirement.
Peraza is 21 years old. He’s spent the year at Triple-A, and 21-year-olds in Triple-A are either good prospects or emergency call-ups. That’s the starting point. He’s super fast, and that speed’ll be with him for a while. Peraza makes a lot of contact, and he’s made a smooth transition from shortstop to second base. Problems? He’s still short of ten career homers. And he’s drawn 12 unintentional walks all season. Peraza is a ball-in-play sort, not a disciplined sort, and if he has power, he’s just about never shown it. His offensive ceiling, then, is questionable, as high-level competition could exploit his weaknesses.
If you want to give him a lot of the benefit of the doubt, maybe his hit tool matures into something like Jose Altuve’s. Maybe he’ll come up and bunt and slap the ball like Dee Gordon. But then he could also become a Tony Womack, a slap-hitting utility player, and that’s hardly a useful player at all. The Braves don’t love Peraza’s offensive skills, and he hasn’t hit well overall this year. He still has that prospect glow, but it doesn’t last forever, when a player isn’t performing. If you think Peraza’s stock is headed downhill, then, going downhill doesn’t go up. This would then be a fine time to deal.
Wood is a little bit similar, in that, even though he’s more proven, 2015 has raised a few questions. Because of the way that Wood throws the ball, people have forever been expecting him to blow up, and though that hasn’t happened, there’s some velocity drop, here. More significantly, Wood’s strikeouts are down, as his contact rate has soared north. Generally speaking, we suck at knowing which pitchers are headed for surgery, but even just on a performance basis, Wood might be declining. Throw in the health questions and, again, you can see why maybe the Braves wanted to relieve themselves of this risk. If they think Wood is getting worse or headed for an operation, then, what good would he be to them?
Enter Olivera. Yeah, he’s 30. Yeah, he has all of 31 plate appearances in Triple-A. There’s a different sort of risk, here. We still don’t have a great idea of what he’ll be as a major leaguer, and if anything he’s moving away from his physical prime. But, Olivera is a hitter. A hitter with power, unlike Peraza. He’s close to being ready to come up, so he can help in short order, and he fills an organizational need what with the decline of Rio Ruiz. And, from 2016 – 2020, Olivera is signed, for $32.5 million. There’s also a cheap option at the end in case Olivera requires elbow surgery. This is almost a cost-controlled quality hitter. Instead, it’s a cost-controlled potential quality hitter, but if the Braves didn’t believe in him, they wouldn’t have tried so hard to sign him in the first place.
We can take nothing for granted, but if Olivera begins as even just a league-average third baseman, then he stands to be a bargain. Average players cost more than $32.5 million over five years. Moving away from 30 would presumably see Olivera decline, but probably not too sharply. And if Olivera were better than average? Then the value skyrockets. The Braves know that. The risk is that Olivera doesn’t stay healthy, or he just can’t adjust to major-league pitching, so this could end up wasted money, but what if Wood falls apart? What if Peraza doesn’t hit?
The Braves are trading a 24-year-old and a 21-year-old for a 30-year-old, but there’s reason to believe the younger guys are already declining, while the 30-year-old is about ready to help. Follow that argument, and the Braves are being proactive here, moving assets before they lose their value for a bat that they like. This isn’t to say the Braves are unquestionably doing the right thing. Maybe they’re wrong about Wood. Maybe Peraza develops a better hit tool, and he’s a good cheap player for years. Maybe there was more out there to get than Olivera. But then, we already knew the Braves liked Olivera, so you put your faith in their scouting. You do the same thing with regard to the two players going away. Lots of ways to see this going poorly. But the Braves’ reasons are legitimate and justifiable. And now they have something they didn’t have before. |
If people behave well because they fear punishment, is it really accurate to say they are “good people?” I ask this because it comes up a lot for atheists like myself. When people learn I don’t believe in spirits, gods, or afterlives, the first question I tend to get is, “Well, what’s to stop you from (pick your crime)?” People seem to think that the moment a person quits believing in God he turns murderous and should be kept away from children and small animals. It’s a wonder they even feel safe talking to us at that point, if in fact they really do believe what they are insinuating about us.
Opportunists looking to promote the superiority of their tribe over mine predictably jumped at the chance to blame atheism for the murders of three young Muslim students at UNC/Chapel Hill last week, arguing as they always do that without a belief in God nothing is left to stop people from becoming criminals. In order to push this argument they have to conveniently overlook the fact that in the United States the crime rate is highest in the most religious states, and the fact that our prisons are full of people who believe in both God and an afterlife. Most inmates in our prisons seem to have embraced that all-important loophole which says that even murderers can get off without doing time in the afterlife as long as they subscribe to a belief in a set of propositions short enough to fit on the back of a fake twenty dollar bill. Clearly a belief in God isn’t what keeps people from doing bad things.
But what makes people good? What motivates them to show acts of kindness, mercy, and acceptance? How do we even define goodness? These are big questions and in the end I find them far more useful than the mundane question of whether or not gods exist. Yes, I still write about my own deconversion, unpacking the thought processes that I and others like myself have gone through on our way out of the religions of our youth, but that’s not where I intend to stay. If I were to spend all of my days thinking and writing about what I don’t believe in, my existence would be pathetic indeed. Far beyond “mere atheism” I want to know what makes human beings strive to be better people and what motivates them to make a positive contribution to the world in which they live?
Guilt versus Love in Chocolat
The movie Chocolat is one of my favorite movies of all time, and it tackles this topic beautifully. If you haven’t seen it, please find a way to watch it sometime soon. It stars Juliette Binoche and Alfred Molina but also features Johnny Depp, Judy Dench, and Carrie-Ann Moss. The score by Rachel Portman is one of my favorites as well. Whenever you do watch it I’d recommend you have some chocolate nearby because you’re gonna crave it before the movie is over.
Chocolat tells the story of a wandering gypsy named Vianne who one day drifts into a small provincial village situated on a river in the French countryside. The year is 1959 and this quaint little village is still thoroughly steeped in its own insular history as if locked in another time period. Oblivious to the religious tradition of her new surroundings, Vianne audaciously opens a small chocolaterie right in the heart of the village in the midst of the Lenten fast. Just as the rest of the town is vowing to abstain for a time from worldly pleasures like sweets, this bold woman begins selling gourmet chocolate. She is an unmarried mother who doesn’t attend church and the Count de Reynaud, who has taken it upon himself to be the spiritual guardian of the village, wants her gone. She represents everything he seeks to keep out of his community, and he determines to do whatever it takes to make her want to leave.
This power struggle between the sanctimonious Count and the secular chocolatier comes to a head in the marital struggles of Serge and Josephine Muscat. Serge is a controlling husband who drinks too much and beats Josephine, who one day finally leaves her abusive husband and goes to live with Vianne above her chocolate shop. When the Count de Reynaud learns of the abusive relationship he takes on Serge’s rehabilitation as his own personal project. He physically drags him into confession, forces him to sit through catechism classes, and even dresses him up and gives him etiquette lessons. He does everything within his power to coerce Serge into conformity with his expectations of an upstanding husband. If he can reform Serge and restore his marriage, the godless shopkeeper would lose and he would win.
Josephine experiences something entirely different as she comes to live with Vianne. Instead of bombarding Josephine with rules and regulations, Vianne simply befriends her and demonstrates unconditional acceptance of who she is despite all her obvious flaws. She takes her on as an assistant and gives her a creative outlet, teaching her to make delectable treats for the townspeople, slowly transforming her into a woman who knows her own value and dignity. By the end of the movie she stands taller, looks people in the eye and speaks confidently, and eventually she even learns to stand up to her estranged husband, who never does learn to value his wife for who she is.
Without giving away too many details to spoil the movie, I’ll tell you that the Count eventually learns that guilt and shame aren’t enough to make a bad person good. He manages to train Serge to walk upright and say the appropriate words to feign contrition, but his reformation is only skin deep and he soon reverts to his naturally abusive state. Serge’s behavior shames the Count and drives the town’s self-appointed Designated Adult to madness, eventually embarrassing himself in a nervous breakdown.
The Count de Reynaud personified his religion’s approach to reforming human behavior through the use of coercion, social pressure, guilt, shame, and the threat of posthumous punishment. His attempts to shape Serge’s character failed miserably, and in the end it became obvious that even he himself couldn’t live up to the unrealistic ideals to which he had devoted his life. Vianne brought no such expectations into her relationships, instead showing Josephine that she was a complete person worthy of dignity and respect, then enabling her to contribute to her community by giving her a creative outlet through which she could help make her little world a better place.
What Makes People Good?
Before we can answer the question “What makes people good?” we must first determine how goodness should be measured in the first place. What exactly is goodness, anyway? Were the townspeople good, ruled as they were by the moralistic standards of their religious tradition? Is goodness defined by the number of things from which we abstain? Where in this equation should we factor how we treat people, particularly people who are different from us? In the end it’s the wide-eyed young priest who gives voice to one of the main lessons of the movie:
I think we can’t go around measuring our goodness by what we don’t do, by what we deny ourselves, what we resist and who we exclude. I think we’ve got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.
The Count learned this lesson the hard way, first by utterly devoting himself to a different definition of goodness and then by failing miserably to live up to it. Rather than redoubling his efforts yet again toward measuring up to an unrealistic (and unhealthy!) ideal, he learned through his own mistakes that the rules by which he had been living failed to deliver the joy that was supposed to result from a life of religious devotion. His piety only left him feeling empty and alone, unable to connect to other people in any authentic way. Witnessing the love and forgiveness offered by people who didn’t follow his rules, the Count eventually opened his heart to a new way of looking at himself and at other people.
The lesson of Chocolat (and I would argue the lesson of life as well) is that religions aren’t what make people good; people make themselves good by choosing to show compassion and care for others. To be fair, there are plenty of good people inside of each religion and each religion seems eager to claim credit for anything good that its people produce. But religionless people can be just as compassionate and just as accepting—in fact they often can be even more so because they aren’t encumbered by superfluous and arbitrary expectations accumulated from centuries of religious tradition. It’s a lot easier to accept people unconditionally when you aren’t accustomed to having a large pile of conditions placed on you yourself. In other words, good people exist in every religion, but it’s not their religion that makes them good. Often it’s their religions that spoil their good deeds by lacing them with implicit judgment, making every gift a mixed blessing.
Vianne leads the whole town to discover that they can be good to one another without judgment…and that sometimes chocolate is exactly what you need to feel better. |
China contains some of the world’s richest troves of biodiversity, yet the latest major survey of plants and animals reveals a bleak picture that has grown bleaker during the past decade. Nearly 40 percent of all mammal species in China are now endangered, scientists say. For plants, the situation is worse; 70 percent of all nonflowering plant species and 86 percent of flowering species are considered threatened.
An overriding problem is the fierce competition for land and water. China’s goal of quadrupling its economy by 2020 means that industry, growing cities and farmers are jostling for a limited supply of usable land.
Cities or factories often claim farmland for expansion; farmers, in turn, reclaim marginal land that could be habitat. Already, China has lost half of its wetlands, according to one survey.
For the Chinese scientists and conservationists trying to reverse these trends, the challenge begins with trying to convince the government that protecting wildlife is an important priority. For centuries, Chinese leaders emphasized dominance over nature rather than coexistence with it. Animals and plants are still often regarded as commodities valued for use as medicine or food, rather than as essential pieces of a natural order.
“The whole idea of ecology and ecosystems is a new thing in the culture,” said Lu Zhi, a professor of conservation biology at Peking University.
Scientists say China’s status as a leading center of biodiversity makes the threatened state of wildlife a global concern. Many of China’s species are concentrated in the mountainous southwestern region — sometimes popularized in the West as Shangri-La — as well as in Tibet, Hainan Island and along the North Korean border. Endangered indigenous animals include the giant panda, several varieties of pheasants and monkeys, and a range of small mammals including shrews and rodents.
“China is one of a small handful of countries, maybe a dozen, that has remarkably high numbers of species, and a remarkably high number of species that are not found anywhere else,” said Jeffrey A. McNeely, chief scientist for the World Conservation Union.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Nearly every major international conservation group has established a China office to promote different wildlife protection initiatives. The group WildAid has sponsored a public education campaign featuring billboards with the Chinese basketball star Yao Ming. “Endangered species are our friends,” Mr. Yao said at a news conference last year in Beijing.
China has a large system of nature reserves, mostly in the country’s more remote western regions, though financing levels are far below those even in other developing countries. No Chinese protection program is considered more successful than the robust effort to save the panda. Roughly 2,000 pandas now live in panda reserves. Other captive breeding programs have helped pull the Chinese alligator and the Tibetan antelope away from the brink of extinction.
But these successes, which involve animals of symbolic national importance, are modest compared with the number of species that are neglected and edging closer to extinction. Last year, the Yangtze River dolphin, a freshwater mammal known as the baiji, was declared extinct.
“So many species are neglected,” said Dr. Lu, who also heads the China affiliate of Conservation International. “Look at the baiji. The extinction was announced and what has been done? Nothing. People felt pity.”
Then, alluding to the Yangtze giant soft-shell, also known as the Rafetus swinhoei, she added:
“This turtle will be next.”
Surviving History’s Tides
Fifty-one years ago, a traveling circus performed at the new zoo in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province in southern China. For a cash payment, the circus left behind a large female turtle. Zookeepers slipped the turtle into a large pond, where for a half-century it hibernated in winters and poked its pig-like snout above the water’s surface every spring. The walls of the zoo became the equivalent of a time capsule.
Outside, the convulsions of modern Chinese history were scarring an already damaged landscape. Under Mao, national campaigns were waged to kill birds and other animals perceived as pests. Widespread famines in the late 1950s and early 1960s drove desperate people to hunt or gather anything deemed edible, even tree bark.
Since the 1980s, the pressure has come from the rapid push for economic development. In recent years, turtle experts identified the Yangtze giant soft-shell as dangerously close to extinction. Inside the Changsha Zoo, zookeepers had no idea that experts were scouring China for the species. In fact, they knew very little about their female turtle. “We just treated it like a normal animal,” said Yan Xiahui, deputy director of the zoo.
The species was first identified as distinct in the 1870s. A British diplomat in Shanghai sent a specimen to the British Museum, where it was beheaded and pickled in a jar. Some experts debated whether it was part of another species, and for years it received little attention.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
“It proceeded to be ignored by the world as if it didn’t exist for roughly 100 years,” said Dr. Pritchard, the American expert, who has seen the specimen in the British Museum.
With its wide, flat shape and leathery dorsal shell, the giant Yangtze males can weigh more than 220 pounds; females are usually smaller. By the 1990s, a prominent Chinese herpetologist, Zhao Kentang, had realized the significance of the turtle and tried in vain to persuade different zoos to bring the turtles together for breeding.
By 2004, after conducting field surveys in China and Vietnam, herpetologists concluded that six of the turtles were still alive. Three were in Chinese zoos in Beijing, Shanghai and Suzhou; two others lived in a Buddhist temple in Suzhou; and a sixth lived in a famous Vietnamese lake in the center of Hanoi.
Negotiations began toward a breeding agreement. By 2005, the turtle in the Beijing zoo had died. Questions also emerged about whether the Hanoi turtle was actually the same species. A leading Vietnamese expert argued it was not. Monks at the Buddhist temple considered their turtles religious icons and did not want to move them. Last year, a deal was finally reached between the Suzhou and Shanghai zoos.
“Then in October, the one in Shanghai died,” said Xie Yan, the China program director for the Wildlife Conservation Society, which has been instrumental in guiding the discussions. “It was horrible news.”
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
In January, herpetologists gathered in Suzhou for a conference about the turtle. Every zoo in China had been issued an urgent circular asking for any information about their large turtles. Officials at the Changsha Zoo responded. The Wildlife Conservation Society sent two experts to Changsha.
“We were very happy because it was a female and had just laid eggs last year,” said Lu Shunqing, one of the experts, noting that the eggs were unfertilized.
The discovery of the Changsha turtle was critical. In August, one of the turtles in the Buddhist temple died. Experts visited the temple and found no proof that the second turtle existed. That left two undisputed Yangtze giant soft-shells: the female in Changsha; the male in Suzhou. Neither had commingled with the opposite sex in decades, if ever. And, more problematic, neither zoo was willing to let its turtle go.
Restoring Diversity
Biodiversity, a linguistic marriage of biology and diversity, describes the variations of life within a particular setting, or ecosystem. That ecosystem could be a single pond or the entire earth. Implicit is the idea that the ecosystem is sustained by the coexistence and interaction between plants, animals and other life forms.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Few, if any, of the world’s modern economic powers, including the United States, have industrialized without taking a dire toll on plants and animals. In China, the Communist Party’s top-down, authoritarian system has presided over a destruction of nature. Now, with environmental problems threatening the economy, the party is trying to engineer a top-down reconstruction.
Environmental construction, a government term, is now a high priority. Yet the results are not always synonymous with biodiversity. Since 1998, China has banned the domestic timber trade and started a nationwide reforestation program. China is now one of the few countries in the world where forest cover is expanding. Yet many scientists say these new forests are more like plantations than habitat.
Often, the new forests include only one or two different tree species and are far inferior to natural forests as incubators for other species. Unintended results can occur. In Beijing, officials planted millions of “female” poplar trees without realizing that the females produced higher amounts of pollen. Workers have had to dig up thousands of the trees, as floating springtime pollen often seems as thick as snow.
Restoring animal populations is also complicated. Turtles, which are both revered and consumed in China, were decimated in the wild by pollution and hunting. Traders quickly pushed into Southeast Asia, India and even the United States to meet demand.
“In conservation terms, it became a crisis,” said Dr. Pritchard, the American expert. “It was first noticed six or seven years ago. The China market had become packed with turtles not from China.”
In fact, Chinese markets teemed with animals, or animal parts, from around the world. Today, conservationists express particular concern about the illegal trade in tiger parts. China has signed an international treaty banning domestic trade of tiger parts, but tiger conservation groups say the illegal demand in China is a major reason for the decline of tigers around the world.
Meanwhile, conservationists worry that officials may one day reopen the tiger trade to appease Chinese businessmen who had run tiger breeding farms to produce parts for Chinese traditional medicine.
Turtles, meanwhile, have made a comeback with the emergence of breeding farms. Captive breeding also is now a popular government response for certain endangered species. But many conservationists worry that too little emphasis is placed on restoring habitat so that animals can be returned to the wild. More than 10,000 Chinese alligators have been bred, but reintroducing them to the wild has largely failed.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Conservationists say environmental policies need to better take biodiversity into account. Reforestation, for example, was largely an effort to stop soil erosion, which contributed to floods, and to stall desertification, the conversion of the land into a desert. The idea of creating a true forest was not a priority.
Meanwhile, economic development still dominates. China’s richest source of biodiversity is a “hot spot” in southwestern China along the Nu River designated by Unesco as a World Heritage Site. Even so, provincial officials are trying to build a system of dams through the region. Local officials also have tried to redraw the boundaries for the World Heritage Site in order to create room for mining.
Conservationists are trying to speak the language of economics to build political support for protecting habitat. Rice demand is growing rapidly, even as farmland is dwindling. For decades, Chinese scientists have used wild rice species to develop hybrids that increase production. Now, development and farming are encroaching on wild rice habitat areas in coastal southern China.
“If we let it go unchecked,” Dr. Lu, the Peking University professor, wrote in a report about biodiversity, “Chinese wild rice will become extinct in fifteen years.”
Success Far From Certain
Extinction remains a far more immediate possibility for the Yangtze giant soft-shell. Next year, scientists will make a search in southwestern China in hopes of finding another Yangtze giant soft-shell in the wild.
In September, the Changsha and Suzhou zoos finally reached a deal. Neither wanted to move its turtle. But each agreed that scientists could attempt artificial insemination next spring. Each also signed a contract entitling a certain number of offspring for each zoo — potential stud turtles for future captive breeding programs.
Gerald Kuchling, a herpetologist overseeing the procedure, said success was far from guaranteed. Several years ago, a tortoise in Hawaii died after a similar procedure. In May, Dr. Kuchling conducted an ultrasound examination of the ovaries of the female turtle in Changsha. For years, she has laid unfertilized eggs in springtime, though zookeepers say the number has steadily diminished, to about 20.
“The main problem is really to get a viable sperm sample from the old male without harming him in any way,” said Dr. Kuchling, who added that using small electric shocks is one common method for eliciting a sample. Manual massage is another.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
In Changsha, zoo officials moved the turtle into a private pool for better security and monitoring. But experts are concerned that zookeepers are now warming the water inside the pool during winter, even though it spent decades in the colder pond outside. They also are concerned that the pool has no mud to allow the turtle to hibernate.
Under China’s system, the Ministry of Agriculture has oversight of the turtle. So far, the ministry has agreed to provide 200,000 yuan, or about $27,000, though none of the money has arrived. Asked for an interview in October, the ministry declined. But ministry officials later contacted the zoos and persuaded them to sign a new deal.
It was decided that the Changsha turtle will be transported to Suzhou next year. A special breeding pool is supposed to be built. First, scientists will try artificial insemination. If that fails, the two elderly turtles will give it a go the old-fashioned way.
The fate of a species hangs in the balance. |
Sean Suiter, a 43-year-old Baltimore homicide detective, was fatally shot in the head on November 15 with his own service weapon while on duty.
A Baltimore police officer who was killed with his own service weapon was preparing to testify against fellow officers indicted in a drug-running scheme.
Sean Suiter, 43, was fatally shot in the head on November 15, and authorities say there is evidence of a struggle, according to the Baltimore Sun.
At the time of his murder, the homicide detective was scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury about a case that alleged police in his city had conspired with cops in Philadelphia to sell cocaine and heroin.
The drugs they were going to sell were allegedly seized from the streets of Baltimore, Philly.com reported.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis has claimed that there is no link between Suiter's death and the drug-running indictment.
'The BPD and the FBI do not possess any information that this incident is part of any conspiracy,' Davis told the Baltimore Sun.
Suiter worked for the Baltimore force for 18 years; he leaves behind a wife and two children.
Suiter was scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury about a case that alleged police in his city had conspired with cops in Philadelphia to sell cocaine and heroin. Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, pictured, says they aren't related
Suiter worked for the Baltimore force for 18 years; he leaves behind a wife and two children
He was shot around 4pm on November 15, after approaching a suspicious pan in the Harlem Park neighborhood.
Suiter died the next morning from his wounds after doctors worked for hours in an attempt to save him.
Davis said just after his death that Suiter was 'juts doing his job on behalf of the city' when he was shot.
He said authorities are offering a $215,000 award and imploring anyone with information that could lead to an arrest in Suitor's murder to come forward.
The neighborhood where the officer was shot has a number of vacant row houses and has been the scene of numerous shootings over the years. Pictured is an abandoned building at the scene of detective Suiter's muder
The neighborhood where the officer was shot has a number of vacant row houses and has been the scene of numerous shootings over the years.
Wednesday's shooting of the police officer comes amid a particularly violent period in Baltimore.
So far this year, the city of less than 620,000 inhabitants has seen over 300 homicides. |
joywrex Rock Crawler
Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Sonoma County Posts: 516
--------->QUADROCKER Micro: An ATV Mod w/ Controllable Figure
Quadrocker, a controllable figure add-on for the RC crawler.
Concept:
The idea is that controlling a truck is fun, but if you could somehow lean as if you were on a lightweight atv than it would be even more fun! Compared with R/C Helicopters and Airplanes, R/C Crawling uses fewer channels and requires you to think about less at once. That was one of the reasons I like it more than racing rc cars. Now, dont take offense, I know once you start channel mixing with digs and all that it gets more complicated. I like the simplicity and intuitiveness of no dig, but being able to force the weight of the vehicle to change in some way.
Sure it has a higher center of gravity which makes it more difficult. I know, but screw it, its really fun.
Its 2012, Motor on axle crawlers have made ridiculous things climbable. Nonetheless, lots of people are into scale crawlers which includes adding unnecessary weight onto the trucks center. As with the other car types: sportsman, super, mini, etc, This driving would be in a different class that is yet to be defined. I am calling this class Quadrocker. I imagine that it will look a lot less scale, if you could call it that just as competition crawlers have lost much of their truck-like appearance. For v1 I have tried to make it look relatively real so people get the concept. I could see making it very untruck-like or very scale depending on personal preference. Im relatively new to R/C in general. I have built up a Venom Creeper that was an impulse purchase and with a little help from the great people in the RCC forums it can climb just about anything now. Link to my build thread . For my next project I wanted to add a new challenge to the mix. I have been working on this project for a while now. I figured it was time for you guys to see it. This post is very picture heavy (and word heavy) I wanted to also explain my thinking and my process. I do things a little differently because I dont have a big shop and usually design for mass production. Im eager to know if anyone else wants to quadrock a rig! -NoahQuadrocker, a controllable figure add-on for the RC crawler.Concept:The idea is that controlling a truck is fun, but if you could somehow lean as if you were on a lightweight atv than it would be even more fun! Compared with R/C Helicopters and Airplanes, R/C Crawling uses fewer channels and requires you to think about less at once. That was one of the reasons I like it more than racing rc cars. Now, dont take offense, I know once you start channel mixing with digs and all that it gets more complicated. I like the simplicity and intuitiveness of no dig, but being able to force the weight of the vehicle to change in some way.Sure it has a higher center of gravity which makes it more difficult. I know, but screw it, its really fun.Its 2012, Motor on axle crawlers have made ridiculous things climbable. Nonetheless, lots of people are into scale crawlers which includes adding unnecessary weight onto the trucks center. As with the other car types: sportsman, super, mini, etc, This driving would be in a different class that is yet to be defined. I am calling this class Quadrocker. I imagine that it will look a lot less scale, if you could call it that just as competition crawlers have lost much of their truck-like appearance. For v1 I have tried to make it look relatively real so people get the concept. I could see making it very untruck-like or very scale depending on personal preference. |
BUDDING fishing expert and football superstar Patrick Dangerfield has announced his greatest “catch”, a seven-pound son named George.
The star Cat formally announced his and wife Mardi’s first baby on his new fishing podcast, Reel Adventures.
The unusual announcement confirms widespread social media speculation over the past 24 hours that the Dangerfields were celebrating their happy news.
George Patrick was born on Tuesday evening.
Wife Mardi is “very, very healthy”, a delighted Dangerfield says on the podcast.
“We had a wonderful night. He weighs in at 7 pounds and 12 ounces,” he said.
“John boy (Patrick’s Dad) has been uncontrollable.
media_camera Patrick Dangerfield prepping the nursery for their baby. Source: Instagram/mardidangerfield
“I will take you inside the birthing suite. We went in Monday night at about 5.30pm because Mards was going to be induced and then the next morning at about 4.30am Mardi went into the birthing suite and went into labour and about 12 hours later little George was born.
“That all went pretty quickly, maybe not for Mards but for me.
“Mards was lying down; the nurses are telling her to push… all of a sudden the head came out and the baby is born and Michael Shembrey (the obstetrician) was very quick to put the baby onto Mardi, skin to skin and I won’t lie to you and I’ve said all along that the sex doesn’t matter but when I saw that little willy I couldn’t have been happier.
“In all seriousness it was a wonderful, wonderful night.
“Mum’s healthy. Georgie boy is healthy.
“I’ve got the fisherman and it was a great night.”
While the 2016 Brownlow medallist had previously said he wouldn’t leave a game if his wife went into labour, he was notably absent from Cats training on the Gold Coast this week.
On Sunday, Mardi posted a photo to Instagram of their car packed and ready to go with a brand new infant carrier and overnight bags.
“May still have a couple of jobs to do before I’m actually ready ... wouldn’t want to be too prepared but I’d say that’s a capsule in a car,” she posted at the weekend.
The Moggs Creek couple, who share an entertaining social media presence, recently joked about naming their first baby after Dangerfield’s favourite movie in a video for Unscriptd.
“I love Indiana Jones and I want it to be called Indiana, and, my father’s name is John, so imagine if you had a baby’s name that was Indiana John Dangerfield,” he said in the clip.
“It won’t be that,” Mardi retorted. |
Walmart took a stand on a controversial social issue this this week when it declared its intent to stop selling Confederate flag merchandise following the shooting deaths of nine African-Americans at a Charleston church.
In the aftermath of the brutal deaths, a public debate erupted over the display of the flag, which has unfortunately persisted as a symbol of Southern and – let’s be honest, white – pride. When an image of the Charleston perpetrator donning a gun and Confederate flag exploded on social media, the flag became an immediate flashpoint for opening unhealed wounds about racism in America.
While the U.S. Supreme Court affirms Texas’s decision to ban specialty license plates displaying the Confederate flag and South Carolina wrestles with removing the flag from its state Capitol, corporate America is acting – without hesitation – based on its conscience. Once again, Walmart (WMT) entered the fray of public controversy, taking a moral and political stand, without regard for its bottom line.
In many ways, Walmart is the corporate face of America. With this position as the world’s biggest retailer comes the power to influence other corporate actors, setting business trends and consumer standards, and possibly shaping cultural norms.
Recently, the corporate giant has already set a precedent of taking a stance on divisive civil rights issues. It boycotted overly-zealous religious freedom laws in Indiana and its home state of Arkansas, which threatened to legalize private discrimination against the LGBT community. Earlier this year, the company announced it would raise wages for half a million employees. And, now, in response to the violent racist act in Charleston, it has made the courageous decision to discontinue the sale of Confederate flag merchandise in its big-box and online stores. Following Walmart’s lead, eBay, Sears (SHLD) and Amazon (AMZN) all banned the sale of Confederate flags in their stores and online sites.
Will Walmart be the catalyst for gun control reform?
Despite the fact that Walmart is headquartered in Arkansas, one of the nation’s most conservative and gun-toting Southern states, the corporate empire’s act in banning Confederate flag merchandise is symbolic of its sensitivity to a larger, more systemic problem with gun violence.
Now, Walmart has the opportunity to go one step further and speak out on the broader issue. In protest of the perpetuation of gun violence in America and the country’s obsession with the right to pack heat, Walmart could discontinue the sale of firearms in its stores. This singular act would send the powerful message to consumers that America’s favorite retailer considers gun accessibility to be a grave matter of public safety.
We know that the politics of gun control reignites after every gun-related tragedy. But it is doubtful that the loss of innocent lives in schools, movie theaters, malls and now a church will galvanize Congress to revisit gun reform, particularly in an election year. Walmart’s corporate acts could be the impetus toward solving the country’s problem with gun violence.
Second Amendment advocates will condemn the removal of guns from retail shelves. Proponents of the First Amendment will claim that banning the Confederate flag is anti-American. Nonetheless, as a private, non-partisan actor, Walmart is not constrained by the First and Second Amendments or political gridlock. Walmart has the right to exercise its corporate conscience by taking a stance on the most politicized social problems of the day.
When Walmart takes a stance on a divisive issue, the debate moves from the halls of Congress and federal courtrooms to the grocery-lined aisles where middle America shops. The typical demographic of a Walmart shopper is a middle-aged, Caucasian female with an annual household income of roughly $53,000. This average-Jane customer may not relate to the talking heads and commentators on network news; but when Walmart acts to further its own social agenda, Jane will listen.
Walmart’s social consciousness should be applauded
Of course, Walmart must be cognizant of the potential financial fallout, including a consumer boycott, resulting from any decision to pull a product from its shelves. Admittedly, the decision to ban gun sales would likely have a greater financial impact than a ban on the sale of Confederate flag merchandise. While, at first, it may be fiscally harmful to stop gun sales, such a decision would ultimately catapult Walmart to a higher status among many consumers, including shareholders, and thus go a long way toward building its reputation as a corporation that values socially responsible business practices over profits.
And we know from experience that Walmart can impact politics without risking a depreciation of its corporate profits. Skeptics even say Walmart is self-serving, pointing to the dollars-and-cents proof that the company’s history of speaking out on a controversial issue actually enhances its bottom line. Whatever the reason, Walmart should be applauded for infusing social consciousness into its business decisions. Mega-corporations like Walmart have the power to address social issues and shape important public policy. Out of the horrific events in Charleston, corporate America exercised its voice by removing incendiary merchandise from public consumption: today Confederate flags; tomorrow, maybe guns?
Danielle Weatherby is an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Terri Day is a professor of law at Barry University in Florida. |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Former European Commission president Jacques Delors, the father of modern European integration who became a bogeyman for British eurosceptics, said on Thursday that Britain’s EU membership was positive both for the United Kingdom and for the European Union.
Former European Commission President Jacques Delors attends a meeting with EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso (not pictured) at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels February 7, 2012. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
Delors, 90, who clashed frequently with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during his decade at the head of the EU executive from 1985 to 1995, said in a statement to Reuters that he would respect the British voters’ decision in next Thursday’s referendum on whether to remain in the EU.
“I consider the UK’s participation in the European Union to be a positive element both for the British and for the Union,” the French Socialist elder statesman said.
His statement was emailed through the Jacques Delors Institute to dispel what it called inaccurate rumors that he favored a Brexit so that remaining EU members can move ahead with deeper integration.
It came as several opinion polls showed that supporters of Britain leaving the EU had taken a lead in the hard-fought campaign for the June 23 vote, due to fears of immigration from Europe.
In a separate article released on Thursday, Delors joined former EU commissioners Pascal Lamy and Antonio Vitorino, former Italian premier Enrico Letta and the Delors Institute’s director, Yves Bertoncini, in calling for a stronger European collective security effort, whatever the outcome of the British vote.
“Every country in Europe should contribute to strengthening our collective security, and that includes the United Kingdom, which will participate even better as a full member of the EU,” they wrote. Britain and France are the EU’s leading military powers with the most extensive intelligence services.
“Where security and numerous other global challenges are concerned ... (Prime Minister) David Cameron is absolutely right to highlight the fact that we are ‘stronger together’.”
“UP YOURS, DELORS!”
It was not clear what impact, if any, Delors’ endorsement of UK membership would have on the inwardly focused British debate.
Many Britons recall that Thatcher’s angry rejection of his vision of a federal Europe, with the Commission as an effective continental government in Brussels, led to her overthrow by rebels in her Conservative Party in 1990, opening an internal feud that has endured for more than quarter of a century.
The eurosceptic Sun tabloid newspaper famously splashed the headline “Up Yours, Delors!” across its front page, and a young journalist called Boris Johnson, now a leader of the Leave campaign, was Delors’ tormentor in the Brussels press room.
Fewer people are aware of how closely Delors and Thatcher cooperated to promote the integration of the European single market in the 1980s via a treaty reform that greatly extended decision-making by majority vote among member states.
Delors was also the main architect of the euro single currency, which Britain has never joined.
A small “good riddance” camp of supporters of a federal Europe, notably former French prime minister Michel Rocard, have openly expressed a desire to see Britain leave.
But most serving politicians and EU officials see the UK as a valuable, if semi-detached, member of the 28-nation Union and fear a decision to withdraw would harm Europe’s global standing and might lead to a broader unraveling.
Delors, who is in weakening health, has largely kept out of public debate about EU and French national affairs in the last few years but a book based on his archives and conversations with journalist Cecile Amar was published this year in France. |
Pow, Boom, Splash! You will instantly recognize the rich brush strokes of this musical painter. Monkeytown linchpin Moritz Friedrich, aka Siriusmo, is back with a bang and a pencil. Following up 2013's Enthusiast (MONKEY 033CD/LP), his third full-length recording Comic sounds like its title suggests: colorful, rampant, funny, and hilariously foolish. Siriusmo maintains his very own sound and spot within electronic music, drawing from numerous styles and mashing it all through his personal beat-grinder, constantly understating and exaggerating. He's the innovator that has no such intentions at all. Here's what the master himself has to say about his new work: " Comic feels like dilettante kids drawings roughly sketched with a big marker, like abstract layouts as well as finely carved romantic paintings. 14 songs ripped from the pages of a coloring book to be vividly colored by you!" But don't worry, those pages will fill themselves with life as soon as the mellow and trippy patterns of the opening track set in. There are big and broken beats in "Wrong Password", extremely easygoing rave tunes like "Dagoberta", lots of genuine oddities like "Wixn", and the piano work on "Geilomant" even makes you think of some classic hip-hop track. Comparisons are futile, except for one: From the melodic vintage electro of "Dagoberta" to the sonic assault and whirlwind drum programming of "Bleat", there's a strong link to older Squarepusher records. Just replace the former's jazz and jungle roots with Berlin's musical history, and you get an idea of what Siriusmo is made of. Siriusmo may be the laziest genius around, though he's been all but unproductive since Enthusiast : In 2015 he joined forces with Modeselektor and toured Europe under the banner of Siriusmodeselektor, playing festivals from Glastonbury to Sonar. The same year he produced the debut album of Romano, Köpenick's one-of-a-kind rap phenomenon and close friend of Moritz. He remixed Moderat, collaborated with synth pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre, and contributed to Mr. Oizo's latest album (BEC 5156714, 2016), who's also appearing on Comic . So does Romano on standout track "La Bouche", delivering some tasty German phrases. Having been occupied recently with Roman's second album, his fans are very lucky that Moritz found the time to pin down a new Siriusmo album as well. He may not be a man of many words, but possesses a bold and singular musical vision. Also features Dana And Romano and Jan Driver. |
Greg Miller of the Washington Post reports on the White House debate about CIA director David Petraeus' request for a homicidal escalation of the CIA drone war in Yemen.
The CIA is seeking authority to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen by launching strikes against terrorism suspects even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed, U.S. officials said. Securing permission to use these “signature strikes” would allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior, such as imagery showing militants gathering at known al-Qaeda compounds or unloading explosives.
The brutality of "signature strikes" is not new for the CIA leadership. As the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has reliably reported, "signature strikes" have regularly targeted funeral ceremonies in Pakistan. The amorality of the U.S. actions is chilling. An alleged militant is killed by a U.S. drone. Then when his family and friends try to come to mourn him, the U.S. attacks the gathering from the sky, on the grounds that attending an al-Qaida funeral is evidence of hostile intentions toward the United States. In one such attack reported by the New York Times in June 2009, 60 people were killed. Local press accounts of the incident, cited by BIJ, put the death toll at 83, 45 of whom were non-combatants. It is said that 10 were children.
Advertisement:
The Post story indicates that the efficacy and wisdom of such tactics is now being debated in the White House. Obama has defended the drone war on the grounds of its specificity.
"Drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties," he told a questioner at an online forum. ‘This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists trying to go in and harm Americans."
It seems Petraeus and his allies in the current inter-agency debate do not want to be constrained by a list. They calculate if the U.S. slaughters a particular crowd of people at an al-Qaida funeral, they are sure to kill men plotting to attack the United States. The logic, if not the morality, is persuasive: If you kill the certainly innocent, you will also get some of the presumably guilty.
This is also the logic of terrorism, which is one reason why the defenders of "signature strikes" prefer that their names not be published in the Washington Post.
U.S. officials said the agency killed more senior al-Qaeda operatives there [Pakistan] with signature strikes than with those in which it had identified and located someone on its kill list.
Why these "U.S. officials," who may include Petraeus, approved of the illegal leaking of this classified information to the Post, is inevitably hazy in a story dependent on anonymous sources. It appears Petraeus trying to overcome reluctance of the Obama White House to expand the use of signature attacks. It may be that White House officials are trying to shed public light on the CIA practices the better to resist their use in Yemen.
A senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations, declined to talk about what he described as U.S. “tactics” in Yemen, but he said that “there is still a very firm emphasis on being surgical and targeting only those who have a direct interest in attacking the United States.”
Surgical strikes, otherwise known as "profile strikes," are directed at a specific person, known or suspected of planning attacks. These too have killed non-combatants but their morality seems more defensible. Signature strikes are intentionally less discriminating and more lethal. That, it seems, is precisely why the CIA and Petraeus want to introduce them to the battlefield of Yemen.
Advertisement:
Some U.S. military commanders recognize the folly, if not criminality, of such a strategy. Dennis Blair, four star admiral and former director of National Intelligence, called for scaling back the drone war last year:
... as the drone campaign wears on, hatred of America is increasing in Pakistan. American officials may praise the precision of the drone attacks. But in Pakistan, news media accounts of heavy civilian casualties are widely believed. Our reliance on high-tech strikes that pose no risk to our soldiers is bitterly resented in a country that cannot duplicate such feats of warfare without cost to its own troops.
But the "bitter resentment" of the family and friends of innocent people killed from afar does not overly concern the CIA. This is the sort of argument that Petraeus must overcome if the Agency is to expand the terror tactics of the drone war to another battlefield. |
Download the MP3 audio version of this story here, or sign up for Slate’s free daily podcast on iTunes.
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty.
You know that charming little cafe on New York’s Lower East Side that just closed after a mere six months in business—where coffee was served on silver trays with a glass of water and a little chocolate cookie? The one that, as you calmly and correctly observed, was doomed from its inception because it was too precious and too offbeat? The one you still kind of fell for, the way one falls for a tubercular maiden? Yeah, that one was mine.
The scary part is that you think you can do better.
I never realized how ubiquitous the dream of opening a small coffeehouse was until I fell under its spell myself. Friends’ eyes misted over when my wife and I would excitedly recite our concept (“Vienna roast from Vienna! It’s lighter and sweeter than bitter Italian espresso—no need to drown it in milk!”). It seemed that just about every boho-professional couple had indulged in this fantasy at some point or another.
The dream of running a small cafe has nothing to do with the excitement of entrepreneurship or the joys of being one’s own boss—none of us would ever consider opening a Laundromat or a stationery store, and even the most delusional can see that an independent bookshop is a bad idea these days. The small cafe connects to the fantasy of throwing a perpetual dinner party, and it cuts deeper—all the way to Barbie tea sets—than any other capitalist urge. To a couple in the throes of the cafe dream, money is almost an afterthought. Which is good, because they’re going to lose a lot of it.
The failure of a small cafe is not a question of competence. It is a sad given. The logistics of a food establishment that seats between 20 and 25 people (which roughly corresponds to the definition of “cozy”) are such that the place will stay afloat—barely—as long as its owners spend all of their time on the job. There is a golden rule, long cherished by restaurateurs, for determining whether a business is viable. Rent should take up no more than 25 percent of your revenue, another 25 percent should go toward payroll, and 35 percent should go toward the product. The remaining 15 percent is what you take home. There’s an even more elegant version of that rule: Make your rent in four days to be profitable, a week to break even. If you haven’t hit the latter mark in a month, close.
A place that seats 25 will have to employ at least two people for every shift: someone to work the front and someone for the kitchen (assuming you find a guy who will both uncomplainingly wash dishes and reliably whip up pretty crepes; if you’ve found that guy, you’re already in better shape than most NYC restaurateurs. You’re also, most likely, already in trouble with immigration services). Budgeting $15 for the payroll for every hour your charming cafe is open (let’s say 10 hours a day) relieves you of $4,500 a month. That gives you another $4,500 a month for rent and $6,300 to stock up on product. It also means that to come up with the total needed $18K of revenue per month, you will need to sell that product at an average of a 300 percent markup.
Pastries, for instance, are a monetary black hole unless you bake them yourself. We started out by engaging a pedigreed gentleman baker with Le Bernardin on his résumé. Hercule, as I’ll call him, embodied every French stereotype in existence: He was jovial, enthusiastic, rude, snooty, manic-depressive, brilliant, and utterly unreliable. His croissants were buttery, flaky, not too big, and $1.25 wholesale. We sold them for $2 and threw away roughly 50 percent—in other words, we were making a negative quarter on each croissant. After a couple of months of this, we downgraded to a more Americanized version of the croissant (vast and pillowy). The new croissants ran 90 cents each and made us feel vaguely dirty. We sold them for the same $2. Ironically, their elephantine size meant that every time someone ordered a croissant with cheese, we had to load it up with twice as much Gruyère.
Coffee was a different story—thanks to the trail blazed by Starbucks, the world of coffee retail is now a rogue’s playground of jaw-dropping markups. An espresso that required about 18 cents worth of beans (and we used very good beans) was sold for $2.50 with nary an eyebrow raised on either side of the counter. A dab of milk froth or a splash of hot water transformed the drink into a macchiato or an Americano, respectively, and raised the price to $3. The house brew too cold to be sold for $1 a cup was chilled further and reborn at $2.50 a cup as iced coffee, a drink whose appeal I do not even pretend to grasp.
But how much of it could we sell? Discarding food as a self-canceling expense at best, the coffee needed to account for all of our profit. We needed to sell roughly $500 of it a day. This kind of money is only achievable through solid foot traffic, but, of course, our cafe was too cozy and charming to pop in for a cup to go. The average coffee-to-stay customer nursed his mocha (i.e., his $5 ticket) for upward of 30 minutes. Don’t get me started on people with laptops.
There was, of course, one way to make the cafe viable: It was written into the Golden Rule itself. My wife Lily and I could work there, full-time, save on the payroll, and gerrymander the rest of the budget to allow for lower sales. Guess what, dear dreamers? The psychological gap between working in a cafe because it’s fun and romantic and doing the exact same thing because you have to is enormous. Within weeks, Lily and I—previously ensconced in an enviably stress-free marriage—were at each other’s throats. I hesitate to say which was worse: working the same shift or alternating. Each option presented its own small tortures. Two highly educated professionals with artistic aspirations have just put themselves—or, as we saw it, each other—on $8-per-hour jobs slinging coffee. After four more months, we grew suspicious of each other’s motives, obsessively kept track of each other’s contributions to the cause (“You worked three days last week!”), and generally waltzed on the edge of divorce. The marriage appears to have been saved by a well-timed bankruptcy.
Looking back, we (incredibly) should have heeded the advice of bad-boy chef Anthony Bourdain, who wrote our epitaph in Kitchen Confidential: “The most dangerous species of owner … is the one who gets into the business for love.” |
The Trump administration on Friday withdrew Obama-era guidance on how colleges and universities should respond to sexual violence, giving schools flexibility to use a higher standard of evidence in judging cases and formally shifting the federal stance on what has become an explosive campus issue.
The action crystallized a pledge Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made on Sept. 7 to replace what she called a "failed system" of civil rights enforcement related to campus sexual assault. In her view, the government under President Barack Obama did not strike the right balance in protecting the rights of victims and the accused.
[DeVos vows to shift enforcement on campus sexual assault]
Under Obama, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights had declared in 2011 that schools should use a standard known as "preponderance of the evidence" when judging sexual violence cases arising under the anti-discrimination law known as Title IX.
Common in civil law, the preponderance standard calls for enough evidence to determine that something is more likely than not to be true. That is lower than the "clear and convincing evidence" standard that had been used at some schools.
Victim advocates viewed the 2011 letter as a milestone in efforts to get schools to address the long-standing problem of campus sexual assault, punish offenders and prevent violence. It also dovetailed with a high-profile campaign by the Obama White House to combat sexual violence.
The Office for Civil Rights is now declaring that schools may use either standard while the government begins a formal process to develop rules on the issue. How long that will take is not clear. An Education Department official said the administration does not want to rush.
Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents, said schools are likely to take a cautious approach while they await definitive rules. "Schools will respond conservatively to this," he said. "Most of them will leave in place what doesn't need to be changed."
But Hartle added a caveat: "All institutions are going to need to look at their processes to make sure they're not biased against the accused."
The department's interim guidance requires schools to address sexual misconduct that is "severe, persistent or pervasive," and to conduct investigations in a fair, impartial and timely manner. Schools will be allowed to have informal resolution of cases through mediation, if appropriate and if all parties agree. Obama's team did not favor mediation, declaring it inappropriate for dealing with sexual assault allegations.
"This interim guidance will help schools as they work to combat sexual misconduct and will treat all students fairly," DeVos said in a statement. "Schools must continue to confront these horrific crimes and behaviors head-on. There will be no more sweeping them under the rug. But the process also must be fair and impartial, giving everyone more confidence in its outcomes."
Catherine E. Lhamon, who was assistant education secretary for civil rights under Obama and now chairs the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, denounced the action.
"The Trump administration's new guidance is dangerously silent on critical parts of Title IX," she said in a statement. "This backward step invites colleges to once again sweep sexual violence under the rug. Students deserve better, the law demands better, our college and university community must continue to commit to better, and we as a country must demand more from the U.S. Department of Education."
Friday's action formally withdrew the Civil Rights Office's "Dear Colleague" letter of April 4, 2011, and a follow-up statement of "Questions and Answers" issued on April 29, 2014.
Laura L. Dunn, an attorney with SurvJustice, a Washington-based legal and policy advocacy group for survivors, said the department's actions will allow colleges to give an unfair edge to the accused in sex discrimination cases. "This is simply unlawful, to flip a civil right on its head," Dunn said in a statement. She said the department had acted beyond its authority.
Robert Shibley, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in Philadelphia, a group that opposed the Obama policy, praised the development. "It's a great day for fundamental fairness on campus," Shibley said. He called it a "necessary but not sufficient step," acknowledging that colleges retain control over their internal misconduct rules and proceedings.
It is by no means certain whether, or how much, colleges will change their protocols.
Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California, told reporters Wednesday she does not expect the 10-campus UC system to drop the preponderance standard.
[‘Substantial cost’: UC foots major security bill for free speech]
"UC's pledge to protect our students and employees from sexual violence and sexual harassment remains unchanged," Napolitano, who was homeland security secretary under Obama, said in a statement Friday.
The interim guidance could affect federal civil rights investigations at some colleges and universities. As of this month, the department reported that more than 250 schools faced inquiries related to their handling of sexual violence complaints. Those investigations are ongoing, officials said, but certain cases could be reevaluated if they are directly related to the 2011 guidance that has now been rescinded. |
GUATEMALA CITY – The LA Galaxy will be led by associate head coach Dave Sarachan on Wednesday when they close out CONCACAF Champions League group stage Wednesday against Comunicaciones FC.
With the Galaxy having already locked up the top seed in Group D, the team had the luxury of sending Sarachan to Central America while Arena prepares the first team for Sunday’s all-important league clash with Sporting Kansas City.
“I stayed back for the trip in Trinidad and this is an opportunity where we felt it would make more sense for me to be here and for Bruce to stay back with the first group,” Sarachan told LAGalaxy.com. “We just decided to mix it up for this trip. Given all the scenarios at the end of the season, and balancing the importance of both competitions, we made this decision.”
Sarachan last served as Galaxy head coach in 2010 after Bruce Arena picked up an illness during a CONCACAF Champions League match. |
Massive slide shuts down U.S. 2 east of Wenatchee State estimates 9-mile closure will last at least several days
The slide that has U.S. Highway 2 closed for at least a few days is roughly 7,000 cubic yards in volume -- that's about 700 dump truck loads of material. The slide that has U.S. Highway 2 closed for at least a few days is roughly 7,000 cubic yards in volume -- that's about 700 dump truck loads of material. Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Massive slide shuts down U.S. 2 east of Wenatchee 1 / 3 Back to Gallery
A massive rock and mud slide that began Sunday afternoon has triggered the closure of a 9-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 2 near Waterville, about 18 miles east of Wenatchee.
The closure is likely to last at least a few days, challenging drivers in an area with few easy options for detours, said Jeff Adamson, spokesman for the Washington State Department of Transportation.
Crews from WSDOT spent most of Monday assessing the slide and making sure no vehicles or people were trapped under the massive pile of rock that covered the highway just east of the interchange with U.S. Highway 97. They found nothing in the pile but rock and mud, Adamson said.
The size of the slide -- roughly 7,000 cubic yards or the equivalent of about 700 dump truck loads of material -- makes it a challenge for WSDOT crews that are already needed for avalanche and slide work elsewhere this time of year, so the department will likely hire an outside contractor to help clear the road, Adamson said.
"We pretty well need help if we're going to get this thing open pretty soon," he said.
A recent deluge of wet weather likely caused the slide, and a team from WSDOT's Olympia office will make sure the hillside is stable before any workers or equipment are put in the slide zone, he added.
Detours for drivers are not easy, with the best options to either head north to Brewster (about an hour drive) to pick up state Route 17 and work their way back to Waterville, or a similarly long detour south to Quincy and then state Route 28, Adamson said.
WSDOT will issue an update Tuesday morning, with the hope of getting the slide cleared in two or three days.
Daniel DeMay covers Seattle culture, business and transportation for seattlepi.com. He can be reached at 206-448-8362 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @Daniel_DeMay. |
In the 14th paragraph of the “Introductory” chapter of On Liberty, John Stuart Mill has this to say about the temptation to run other people’s lives:
Though this doctrine [of suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves] is anything but new, and, to some persons, may have the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands more directly opposed to the general tendency of existing opinion and practice. Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to its lights) to compel people to conform to its notions of personal, as of social excellence. The ancient commonwealths thought themselves entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers countenanced, the regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the ground that the State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline of every one of its citizens; a mode of thinking which may have been admissible in small republics surrounded by powerful enemies, in constant peril of being subverted by foreign attack or internal commotion, and to which even a short interval of relaxed energy and self-command might so easily be fatal, that they could not afford to wait for the salutary permanent effects of freedom. In the modern world, the greater size of political communities, and above all, the separation between spiritual and temporal authority (which placed the direction of men’s consciences in other hands than those which controlled their worldly affairs), prevented so great an interference by law in the details of private life; but the engines of moral repression have been wielded more strenuously against divergence from the reigning opinion in self-regarding, than even in social matters; religion, the most powerful of the elements which have entered into the formation of moral feeling, having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a hierarchy, seeking control over every department of human conduct, or by the spirit of Puritanism. And some of those modern reformers who have placed themselves in strongest opposition to the religions of the past, have been noway behind either churches or sects in their assertion of the right of spiritual domination: M. Comte, in particular, whose social system, as unfolded in his Systeme de Politique Positive, aims at establishing (though by moral more than by legal appliances) a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers.
There are few of us who don’t feel the urge to run other people’s lives. Let me wrestle with a case where I feel this: the desire to intervene to reduce people’s consumption of sugary soft drinks in order to help restrain the rise of obesity–even to the extent of heavily taxing them. I actually think there are arguments on both sides for this. And since John Stuart Mill is a Utilitarian rather than a doctrinaire Libertarian, I think he would be willing to consider the arguments.
One of the most troubling arguments for taxing sugary soft drinks is that obesity puts a burden on the government budget because the government pays for a big fraction of people’s medical care. This is saying that since the government is intervening in one area, and people’s choices interact badly with that intervention, that the government should intervene in another way. That leads to a chain of argument that could justify more and more government intervention, until the sum of it all would look like a bad deal.
An interesting argument would be pointing to the research showing that people eat better and exercise more when the people around them are doing so. That means that there is an externality from good behavior, assuming that some people want to eat well and exercise more but are having troubling doing so because not all of them wants to eat well and exercise well–a part that would be less costly to defeat if others were eating well and exercising well. In a way, that argument questions whether there is a sharp boundary between one person and the next.
One of the best arguments for intervening to improve people’s health-related behaviors is to draw a boundary between different time slices of an individual, as I discussed in “Drug Legalization and Time Slices of People as Ethical Units.” If someone’s later self is treated as a separate individual, then harming that later self by eating badly and eschewing exercise could be akin to a crime.
One way of trying to get at this issue is by listening to people talk about the regrets that have about things they didn’t do when they were younger. But it is tricky. Some of the young may not care much about the welfare of their older selves; but it is also true that some of the old may not care much about the welfare of their earlier, younger selves. They may be wishing their younger self had saved more or eaten better, even at the expense of having an unpleasantly ascetic life. So regrets must be taken with a grain of salt, but listening to both regrets and what the young want to do despite the cost to their older selves can help bring a more balanced perspective.
I mentioned briefly above the possibility that people face an internal struggle to do the right thing. One way of modeling this is to imagine different selves battling it out within a person at the same time. From this point of view, taxing sugary soft drinks might be seen as taking sides in this civil war–with a certain amount of collateral damage on others who do not have an internal struggle. If this justification is not backed up by one of the others discussed in this post, it requires a non-obvious reason to favor one side of a person over the other side, as well as a full accounting of the collateral damage.
An important argument is to argue that people don’t understand, are confused and not thinking straight when they make the decision to drink sugary soft drinks. Educating people is actually quite expensive, while a tax on sugary soft drinks is mostly a transfer (admittedly a likely regressive tax taking money from the ignorant and some other groups and giving it to the government). This argument works best when (a) it has been demonstrated that an educational intervention based on the truth, undertaken on an experimental sample, causes people to shy away from sugary soft drinks and (b) the tax is tailored to affect primarily the subset in this category who would shy away from sugary soft drinks if only they knew the truth. That is, it is important to find signs of a genuine strong preference for sugary soft drinks that would make someone choose to drink them even knowing all of the consequences.
John Stuart Mill is surprisingly sympathetic to the argument for being paternalistic toward the ignorant. On that, see “John Stuart Mill on Benevolent Dictators.” But a minimal condition for making a legitimate intervention based on the ignorance argument is that someone should be allowed to opt out–in this case choosing to replace the sugary soft drink tax with a lump-sum tax equal to the soft-drink tax at the average level of consumption, say–upon passing a rigorous quiz demonstrating full knowledge of the consequences of sugary soft drinks.
One of the most powerful arguments against running other people’s lives is that it tends toward attempting to do things the one best way. But even if the one best way is identified correctly at a given point in time, standardizing everyone’s behavior will result in less experimentation. That is, the static benefit of getting everyone to conform to best practice has a dynamic cost of collectively learning less. (Of course, if everyone conforms to the same bad practice, relatively little would be learned from that as well–the problem arises when uniform best practice in a static sense replaces diversity.) This can be a very serious cost.
For comparison, the restriction of useful experimentation in systemic health care policy is one of my greatest fears about what Obamacare might do at some future time. (See for example Evan Soltas on Medical Reform Federalism–in Canada.) Those who want to keep sugary soft drinks free from taxes should try to spell out possible ways in which the consumption of sugary soft drinks might lead to the discovery of important new welfare-enhancing products or practices that are not currently seen clearly.
I won’t try to resolve this internal debate about whether or not to have a substantial tax on sugary soft drinks here; the main point I want to make is that anyone thinking of a paternalistic intervention should go through both an internal and hopefully external debate at least at this level of thoroughness. |
(Reuters) - ExxonMobil Corp (XOM.N) said on Thursday it would buy InterOil Corp IOC.N for more than $2.5 billion in stock, adding a gas field to expand exports from Papua New Guinea and better positioning it to meet Asian demand for liquified natural gas.
The logo of Down Jones Industrial Average stock market index listed company Exxon Mobil is seen in Encinitas, California April 4, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Oil majors are targeting Papua New Guinea for growth as the quality of its gas, low costs and proximity to Asia’s big LNG consumers make it one of the most attractive places to develop projects following a collapse in oil and gas prices.
“I think (the deal) shows that Exxon views LNG as a very strong growth business. I believe that LNG demand over time will grow faster than oil,” said Brian Youngberg, oil analyst with Edward Jones in Saint Louis.
Exxon sealed the deal for InterOil after Australia’s Oil Search Ltd (OSH.AX) said earlier on Thursday that it would not pay more than the $2.2 billion it offered in May, a proposal that was backed by French giant Total SA (TOTF.PA).
InterOil owns a 36.5 percent stake in the Elk-Antelope gas field, which is operated by Total. The acquisition will give Exxon interests in six licenses in Papua New Guinea covering about four million acres.
Oil Search said it and Total agreed that letting Exxon take over would help speed up development of the Elk-Antelope field.
Exxon said it would pay InterOil shareholders $45 per share in stock and that it would also make an additional cash payment based on the size of the Elk-Antelope field.
That payment is worth $7.07 per share for each trillion cubic feet equivalent (tcfe) of certified gross resource from the field above 6.2 tcfe and up to a maximum of 10 tcfe.
Exxon said it would evaluate processing of gas from the Elk-Antelope field by expanding its LNG export plant in Papua New Guinea. Oil Search also owns a stake in the LNG plant.
The plant is a 6.9 million ton per annum integrated project operated by Exxon. The gas is sourced from seven fields and Elk-Antelope gas could be used to feed an expansion.
“It will be interesting to watch how Exxon pursues the development of InterOil’s gas resources. Will it be by expanding the existing LNG plant already operating in the country, or building a brand-new project?,” said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst with Raymond James.
Credit Suisse (Australia) Ltd, Morgan Stanley and UBS are InterOil’s financial advisers, while Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Goodmans provided legal advice.
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP and Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP are Exxon’s legal advisers. |
Just found this way to set per user rules, probably someone already discovered, but seems there's no post regarding to this, hopefully it can help someone.
1. Follow the "IKEv2 with EAP-MSCHAPv2" https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/IKEv2_with_EAP-MSCHAPv2 from pfsense, to create a working IKEv2/IPsec VPN server first.
2. Install Freeradius2 on pfsense.
3. Once tested and working, some changes need to be made, so that the IKEv2/IPsec VPN will use radius to authenticate clients instead of local database. (Google some pfsense freeradius configuration guide)
Assume IKEv2/IPsec is working with freeradius.
Configure per user rules.
Create user1 and user2, user1 will have access to internal LAN and internet, user2 will only have internet access, not internal LAN access.
In real world case, user1 can be the pfsense owner/administrator, user2 can be friends who you want to give VPN.
1. Create user1 and user2 in Services -> FreeRADIUS -> Users.
user1
Put Username: user1, Password: password, IP Address: 10.1.2.1, Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0/0 192.168.0.1 1
0.0.0.0/0 "Gateway address here (Address of pfsens box's, not external gateway)" 1
Save
user2
Put Username: user2, Password: password, IP Address: 10.1.3.1, Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0/0 192.168.0.1 1
0.0.0.0/0 "Gateway address here (Address of pfsens box's, not external gateway)" 1
Save
Now, when user1 login, virtual IP address 10.1.2.1 will be assigned. When user2 login, virtual IP address 10.1.3.1 will be assigned.
2. Give internet access to two users, System -> Routing Static Routes
Add two different new static route for VPN client user1 and user2 to use, so that both client can have internet access from pfsense box.
Static Route1
Destination network: 10.1.2.0/24
Gateway: WAN_PPPOE - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (Your pfsense gateway, the one that you used to get internet access)
Save
Static Route2
Destination network: 10.1.3.0/24
Gateway: WAN_PPPOE - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (Your pfsense gateway, the one that you used to get internet access)
Save
3. Create firewall rules, Firewall -> IPsec
Create DNS rule, Action: Pass, Interface: IPsec, Address Family: IPv4, Protocol: TCP/UDP, Source: Any, Destination: This firewall (self), Destination Port Range: From 53 to 53.
Save
Create block rule, so that user2 won't be able to access our LAN, Action: Reject, Interface: IPsec, Address Family: IPv4, Protocol: Any, Source: Network 10.1.3.0/24, Destination: LAN net.
Save
Create rule for allowing other traffic (internet etc.), Action: Pass, Interface: IPsec, Address Family: IPv4, Protocol: Any, Source: Any, Destination: Any
Save
Now user1 will have full access, LAN and internet, user2 will have internet access only, no LAN access.
To create more accounts for friends, just use same steps form step 1, assign them IP range from 10.1.3.2 to 10.1.3.254 will be fine.
Notes:
If you find this post useful please comment or click on Thank you button or do both :)
If you think it can be improved please share your comment.
Future work:
If you know how to configure freeradius to assign IP address dynamically via DHCP etc. to specific users please share your comment.
Thanks |
On Friday morning at Phoenix International Raceway, in response to a meeting NASCAR called between drivers Joey Logano and Kyle Busch, NASCAR executive vice president Steve O’Donnell issued the following edict, “We’re very clear that we’re not going to allow a car to be used as a weapon.”
It took less than 36 hours for another driver – Austin Dillon – to test that line.
In Saturday’s Xfinity race, Cole Custer tried to make a hole where there wasn’t one on the track, and in the process collected Dillon – a contender for the race win – in a wreck.
After Dillon drove away, he slowed his damaged race car on the track waiting for Custer – who received far less damage – to come back around the track and then proceeded to slam into Custer’s car to express his displeasure.
At the time, NASCAR “parked” Dillon, directing his car to proceed immediately to the garage, but that “penalty” came with virtually no consequences.
Dillon’s car was likely beyond repair anyway, and if it was fixed, the only thing of consequence Dillon, a Cup driver, was running for in the Xfinity race was the victory – which became impossible after the initial incident.
Tough words followed by no action
Given O’Donnell’s words on Friday, it was assumed by many that this week’s penalty report would include something more for Dillon.
Instead on Wednesday, there were severe penalties handed out for the teams of Brad Keselowski (for a failing postrace rear wheel steer) and Kevin Harvick (for an unapproved track bar assembly).
But for the guy who “used his car as a weapon”?
Nothing. Silence.
Once again, we get words with no meaning.
If Dillon’s car was not used as a weapon, what was it used for in the retaliation incident?
Was he just trying to adjust the paint job on Custer’s No. 00? Add another dent to match one from the earlier incident? Some sort of new cool method of on-track celebration?
Yes, Dillon was parked after the incident, but it was a punishment with no real effect.
I don’t know what was said to Dillon by NASCAR officials that day or any other day – although I’m certain they’ve had plenty of conversations – but the public isn’t privy to those words.
Meaning what you say
Fans and the media only get to see the public reaction – and that’s the only thing we have with which to judge whether the words/decrees/edicts NASCAR officials offer have any real, practical effect.
And once again, it appears NASCAR doesn’t mean what it says.
I understand the desire to treat each incident as separate and unconnected by the prejudice and passions that may come unintentionally from other similar incidents.
But in choosing that path, NASCAR also opens the door to complaints of favoritism – doling punishments based on who is involved rather than what they did.
That door has been wide-open for far too long. It’s past time to shut it and place it under lock and key for good. |
Goon Thugs and Gullible Conservatives — Paul Craig Roberts
Goon Thugs and Gullible Conservatives
where are the class action suits?
Paul Craig Roberts
Reports, such as this one http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/louise-milan/ , are routine occurrences that happen many times each day. Gratuitous police violence in America is totally out of control. Every day police murder 1.4 Americans, and beat, taser, body slam, and break into the homes of many others. Ferguson made it into the news, but Americans suffer police violence every day.
In response to the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, apologists for police brutality concocted every possible excuse imaginable in order to justify Brown’s killing. Yet, we know for a fact that unprovoked police violence is routine and apparently unavoidable. The willingness of “law and order conservatives” to give the police the benefit of the doubt in the face of all evidence to the contrary is inexcusable.
In the story reported in the above link, a 68-year old woman and her adopted daughter were attacked in their home by a goon thug SWAT team that destroyed their unlocked front door, threw stun grenades into the home blowing out the windows, ordered the women to the floor with rifles pointed at their heads, handcuffed them and paraded them out of the house in front of neighbors.
What was it all about? More stupid incompetence and outrageous behavior by our goon thugs.
The women’s wireless internet signal was not protected by a password, and a neighbor used it to post a silly message that read as a threat to the Evansville police. The police followed the IP address to the women’s home and terrorized them.
Before the police were militarized, detectives would have arrived at the house with a search warrant to inspect cell phones and computers for evidence of the threatening message. None would have been found, and the detectives would have realized that someone nearby was operating on the women’s wireless signal. The search would have been expanded and the matter resolved without violence.
The violence inflicted on the women and their home was totally unnecessary and totally unjustified. Luckily, the women did not have a pet dog or it would have been shot by the goon thugs. The trauma gratuitously inflicted on the two women is experienced by Americans many times each day. Our taxes are used not to protect us but to traumatize us and to inflict property damage on us. The Federal Reserve reports that 52% of American households cannot raise $400 in cash, which is about the cost of replacing a shattered door and door frame.
Other than the endless wars cooked up in Washington by the neoconservative warmongers, the police are the greatest threat that Americans face. The police do not protect anyone. They get their jollies murdering, beating, and tasering American citizens. We would be much safer without the police.
The SWAT team assault on the women’s home demonstrates that police lack sufficient judgment and humanity to be trusted with weapons and authority of any kind. The police behave in brutally mindless ways for which no justification exists. Moreover, they seldom tell the truth about their brutal encounters with the public. Nevertheless, the “law and order” conservatives can always be counted on to believe whatever tale the goon thugs tell and, indeed, to add to the exculpatory tale themselves.
It has long been known that power attracts bullies and psychopaths and that the less
accountable power is the more unrestrained its use will be. Given this fact, it is impossible to comprehend the stupidity of government that gave the go ahead to the militarization of the police. The police are taught that their lives are so important–exceptional lives–that no risk whatsoever must be taken with them, even when confronting elderly women and children.
The consequence of this training is to elevate the role of violence in police encounters. The police are trained to ensure that the citizen bears all the risks of a police confrontation even in instances in which citizens are incapable of harming the police.
In my opinion, it was a felony to train police to abuse their authority and the public. We need to find out who is responsible and to bring class action suits seeking restitution against the criminals who trained the police to become a deadly threat to the public. |
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a new single-payer bill on Wednesday to the delight of universal health care activists across the country. The big story was that Sanders’ legislation had the co-sponsorship of 16 Democratic colleagues, including virtually all who are considered presidential contenders.
It was a true milestone, demonstrating how far the debate on health care has moved inside the Democratic Party. A comparable bill Sanders introduced in 2013 got no support at all in the Senate.
But now that the bill is out, the hard part begins. Revolutionizing a system that encompasses over one-sixth of the United States economy will require grinding, unglamorous work, not least due to the resistance such an overhaul will encounter from those people who benefit from the status quo ― or who are merely afraid of losing what they already have.
When I sat down with Sanders on Tuesday, I wanted to know why now is the right moment to press for single payer, how he plans to accomplish the task and whether single payer is the only end goal or merely a blueprint for achieving universal coverage. With that in mind, I began by asking him why he did not propose a universal health care system with more than one insurer. Countries such as the Netherlands and Switzerland achieve universal coverage through a highly regulated system of private insurers that perhaps offers a better model for transitioning from the Affordable Care Act.
Below is a transcript of our conversation, with light edits.
HuffPost: Why not the Dutch system? Why not the Swiss system?
Oh Jesus Christ! All right, well, you can invent the Dutch system. [laughs]
We have a dysfunctional health care system now. Despite 28 million Americans having no health insurance, despite even more being underinsured, despite paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, our health care outcomes are not particularly good. Our life expectancy is lower than many other countries and our child mortality, our infant mortality rate is even higher.
Our job right now is to rally the American people to understand that we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care. And I think the Canadian system serves as a good model. We are like Canada in many respects. We are larger than Canada, we are more diverse ― but people are familiar with Canada.
They have a system that has been in place for 30 years. It has its problems. But what it has managed to do is provide health care to every man, woman and child as a right, and do it for less than half per person. So we think that’s a pretty good place to start.
Is there something about the simplicity of it, too?
Well, of course, and that’s true of any system.
What we are looking at now are several questions. Number one ― and this debate needs to take place ― should health care be a right of all people, or is it a privilege? I think most Americans think it is a right and that every American should have health care, period.
Number two, if you reach that conclusion, the next question you ask is, “OK, how do you provide health care to all people in a cost effective way?” The truth is, there are a number of ways to do it. You could provide health care to all people in the current dysfunctional system. It would cost a fortune.
It seems to me that the most cost-effective way to go forward is to expand what we already have in this country, which is a successful and popular program called Medicare, and say that it should not be people aged 65 years of age and older who are eligible for that program, but all people.
So what this legislation is about is to say that we will provide Medicare for all in a four-year period. In the first year we will lower [the] eligibility age to 55, bringing over 40 million Americans into the program. We will guarantee health care to all children under 18 and we’re gonna improve Medicare for older people, by the way. We’re going to expand that program to dental care, to hearing aids and to vision issues, as well, which is not covered by Medicare. So we’re going to improve Medicare, expand it in the first year to people 55, and to all kids. And then the next year it goes down to 45, the next year it goes down to 35 and in the 4th year it covers everybody.
We think this is the simplest, most straightforward way to guarantee health care to all people. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
We think this is the simplest, most straightforward way to guarantee health care to all people.
To answer your question, one of the issues that does not get talked about that much, and that is exactly the issue that you raised, and that is the complexity of the current system. The reason that Social Security is a popular program ― is not only for what it does, providing retirement security to older people ― or Medicare is a popular program, is its simplicity.
You walked into a Canadian clinic, people just walk in. They don’t have to fill out a million forms. They don’t have to negotiate, decide which insurance company they want. They have freedom of choice with regard to doctor, with regard to hospital. We can save ― one of the problems we have in America, we have hundreds of different plans that have to be administered, all right?
So you may have a $5,000 deductible. You get Blue Cross Blue Shield, he has United, and the medical people have got to administer all these programs at huge cost.
Single payer means one program for all Americans and you lower the cost substantially. Also, you begin and have negotiations with the drug companies to substantially lower the cost of prescription drugs in America. You put money into primary care and disease prevention and all those things, you lower the cost of health care expenses in America significantly.
So I looked at the transition period and I understand that Sen. [Kirsten] Gillibrand, that was one of the things that she cared about ―
We all care about it ― look, we negotiated this ― our goal from day one is to develop a strong, effective program. I would not have done this if it wasn’t the case and I think we have that. Number two, I am one United States senator and I can choose anything I want and be one co-sponsor, but I gotta work ― and I should work ― I mean this is an effort, we have worked for the last four or five months with 19 different offices in the United States Senate, and we did our best to negotiate with each office and address their concerns. So Gillibrand had a concern, Elizabeth [Warren] had a concern, this one had a concern, that one had a concern ― everybody has a concern. That’s fine. That’s the way it should be. And we think what we have is a product that we should feel pretty good about.
Is there anything that surprised you about that process? Or about now, how it’s going gangbusters?
Yes. I think what we are seeing is something very, very interesting ― and that is, you’re seeing it in polling, you’re seeing it in town meetings, you’re seeing the American people waking up and demanding that we end this dysfunctional system and we join the rest of the industrialized world.
And what people here on Capitol Hill are sensing when they go out into their communities is that this is not an idea, in a sense, that’s being pushed from Washington, or from me. It’s being pushed by the American people who are saying, “We are tired of spending so damn much.”
I don’t know your circumstances, but you’ve got a family of four that’s spending $15-20,000 a year on health insurance and the projection is those numbers are gonna go way up. It is unsustainable. It is insane. We should not be spending twice as much per person as every other country.
So I think there is just a growing consensus that the ACA did some very good things. It provided insurance to 20 more million people. It dealt with obscenities like pre-existing conditions, et cetera, but it did not go far enough and the Republican solution of throwing 23 million people off insurance is obviously insane and the American people said “no” to that. So if we have a situation where the ACA did some good things, but did not go far enough, in the sense that many problems remain in terms of the number of uninsured and high cost of prescription drugs and high cost of deductibles and high co-payments, and the Republican alternative was totally insane, where do we go from here? Well, this is the logical conclusion.
That’s what people are thinking and that sentiment is filtering into Washington. And that’s why we have ― what have we got now?
Aide: 15. [The following day, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) became the 16th co-sponsor.]
Sanders: It’s still early. We may pick up a few more before the day is over.
[Sen. Joe] Manchin was saying they should have hearings on it.
And there you had [Sen.] Max Baucus. Are you familiar with that?
Yeah, yeah.
Here’s Max, the architect of the Affordable Care Act! And I had to take ― I’m on that committee, I’m on the HELP Committee ― and I had to take physicians, single-payer physicians, into his office, who said, well, why won’t you at least hold hearings on single payer? “Ah, I can’t do that.”
But Max has changed his point of view as well. That’s good.
Yuri Gripas / Reuters Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) unveils the "Medicare for All Act of 2017" alongside colleagues and activists on Sep. 13, 2017.
If we were to play this out a little bit, 2020 comes ― a dream scenario, Dem president, Dem Congress. I’ll play it up even a more ― liberal Supreme Court. I don’t know how that would happen.
One option is, this happens right away. I don’t play down that possibility ―
Not right away, you mean after ―
After all that, in that new scenario with majority power.
Another option is, you’ve got moderate holdouts. It creates room for things that are kind of in the bridge area. What if we end up, 10 years from now, with something that more resembles ― again, forgive me, but ― a Dutch-type system or regulated nonprofits? Do we stop there?
I don’t want to speculate what’s gonna happen in 10 years. I can barely figure out what’s gonna happen tomorrow or the next two hours.
This is all I can say: What our job now is to do, and by the way, what’s important for you to understand is we have 15 co-sponsors, but we also have dozens ― equally important ― dozens and dozens of grassroots organizations who are in support of this legislation. Just today we got the Machinists Union. And I’m confident we’re gonna have other unions. We’ve got MoveOn.org, DFA. So you’re gonna have unions, you’re gonna have grassroots organizations and ultimately, to answer your political question, this is not gonna be won, this legislation is not gonna be won just here in the halls of Congress. It is going to be won in communities all over this country, when people begin to stand up and tell their elected officials, “Sorry, the status quo is not working and we want all Americans to have health care in a cost-effective way.”
So what we are doing is, we understand that the opposition to this legislation will be incredible. It will come from the insurance companies, the drug companies. It will come from Wall Street. It will come from the corporate media. We fully anticipate that and they have unlimited sums of money.
I was out in California campaigning for Proposition 61. You know what that is? That was the effort to lower the cost of prescription drugs in California. Do you recall that?
Yeah, yeah, I do remember that, actually.
The pharmaceutical industry spent $130 million to defeat one proposition in one state ― $130 million in California alone.
What do you think they’re prepared to spend on a national campaign?
Well, they’ve got patent monopolies. Their margins are pretty good.
They will spend unlimited sums of money. We know that.
So what we understand is this legislation does not get passed unless there is in fact a political revolution in this country, unless millions of people get involved, stand up and fight back.
And we are beginning to see this.
You know, it’s funny. This afternoon, I met with some Latino leaders. A young woman, I’m guessing 25, she said, “Bernie, I’m a member of the school board in Tempe, Arizona.” She says: “You got me involved in politics. I ran for the school board and I won.”
We are seeing that all over the country ― people getting involved. So we are going into this campaign, this effort, understanding this is not old-fashioned politics where I gotta lean on somebody ― but we gotta do that, too ― but ultimately this is a fight that is going to go into every community in America. And we will win it, when grassroots America stands up and is prepared to fight back, and I think that is happening every day.
One piece of this that would seem at least potentially politically challenging is that you still have 49 percent of the country that gets their health care from their employer. Many people are not happy with it, but a fair number of people are and they’re worried ―
Of course ―
They would be worried about losing what they’ve got.
What we have to do tomorrow, are you going to be at the event tomorrow?
I’m planning on it, yeah.
Good. You’re gonna hear from a guy who owns a business in Pennsylvania ― his name is Mr. Masters ― it’s a $200 million a year business. And what he would say is, he is tired of spending so much time and energy worrying about health care when he manufactures windows ― or whatever he manufactures ―
Aide: It’s picture frames ―
Sanders: Picture frames. That’s what he wants to do ― the picture frame business. And you’re going to hear from businesses all over this country who are saying, “We want to do our business and not spend an enormous” ― which they do. If you’re a small- or medium-sized business, the amount of time that these folks spend, negotiating, deciding which company they want to go to, which plan they want to go, negotiating with the company, it takes an enormous amount of time and energy. They want to do their business. And nationally, we’re at a competitive disadvantage to other countries where all workers have health care as a right.
This legislation is not gonna be won just here in the halls of Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
The point is there will be a lot of distortions about what we’re trying to do. The difference for the average person is that instead of having a card that says Blue Cross Blue Shield, or United Healthcare, there’ll be a card that says “Medicare for All,” or whatever the card will look like. And you’ll be able to go to any doctor you want, you’ll be able to go to the same doctors you’re going to now ― in fact, you’ll have more freedom of choice, because right now as you know, you are limited ― what’s the word that I always forget?
Aide: To the in-network ―
Sanders: Right, to your network of doctors. So if you want to go to a doctor not in your network, you can’t go. Under this plan, you will be able to go wherever you want.
So, in the business department, is it fair to say, it’s a pro-capitalist plan from a democratic socialist senator?
That’s a silly statement ―
In a cute way ―
No, no ― don’t, this is not a cute issue. We’re not playing games here. We’re trying to provide health care to all people. If your question is, is this the British program? No, it’s not. This is a program, like the Canadian program, which allows for a government insurance company, which simplifies the entire system, saves hundreds of billions of dollars, and provides health care for all people.
I didn’t mean in it in a ―
Let’s not play games. This is a serious issue and we’re trying to transform the United States and provide health care to all people. This will be obviously the most profound change in health care delivery in the history of the country. That’s pretty good.
The point that I would reiterate is that we are delighted to have 15 co-sponsors. It is more than we thought that we would have, to be honest with you. And I think that is an understanding on the part of members of the United States Senate that the world is changing and that more and more Americans wanna move in this direction and they’re responding, correctly so, to that movement.
And the question that we now face as a nation is, are we going to finally take on the greed of the insurance companies and the drug companies and Wall Street, and to do what is not radical and that is to provide health care to every person in this country as a right, which every major country does in whatever way?
You alluded to this, but, in a way ― when I look back to what happened during Obamacare and the way that the right-wing and corporate media was able to distort what was going on there ...
Yes.
… it feels like there is a different paradigm, even in the minds of people in more conservative areas in the country. Is that because of the reach of Obamacare? What do you attribute that to?
Well, this is what I think ― and it’s a good question. What I think is that people have caught on to what the Republican ideology is about.
As I have said and as everybody knows, Obamacare has its problems: Too many people are uninsured, the deductibles, copayments, premiums are too high and the costs are going up. That’s a serious problem.
But the American people caught a glimpse, a strong glimpse of what the Republican ideology is about, when they said: “OK, Obamacare has problems. We’re gonna solve those problems by throwing 32 million people off of the health insurance they have.” And the American people said, overwhelmingly, “No, that’s not what you’re going to do.” In fact, that proposal was the least popular major piece of legislation introduced in the modern history of this country.
And so I think the American people are catching on to where the Republicans are coming from. They see the limitations of the Affordable Care Act, and they’re looking at the alternatives. And this is a rational alternative.
In a way, did having that threat emerge, and then be killed, did that help clarify things? |
The most spectacular episode in “Game of Thrones” almost never happened.
We’re talking about Blackwater, the ninth episode of Season 2. It features a huge battle between the forces of King Joffrey and his would-be replacement, Stannis Baratheon, in the bay of King’s Landing.
That single hour of television ended up costing $8 million. Which is about $2 million more than the already stupendous amount spent on your average “Game of Thrones” episode.
The show’s writers, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, had to plead with HBO for the extra money. Without it, those spellbinding battle scenes would not have been possible.
“We almost had no battle at all,” Benioff told Entertainment Weekly. “For budgetary reasons, we came very, very close to having all the action take place off-screen, the way plays have handled battle scenes for a few thousand years.”
“To our minds, the entire season builds to this clash, and if we didn’t see any of it, we were undercutting the story and shortchanging the audience.”
Weiss and Benioff faced a similar problem in Season 1. They had to avoid showing a huge battle at the end of the season because there simply wasn’t enough money.
“This whole story of Blackwater goes back to the first season because we were supposed to have that battle with Tyrion and we ended up not able to shoot it,” Benioff said. “And so we had him go down to friendly fire early.”
The pair didn’t want that to happen again. They decided the Blackwater episode was important enough to warrant facing the bosses at HBO.
“We went down on bended knee. ‘Just this once. Please.’ We were genuinely nervous about it for the whole time until we finally wrapped it,” Benioff said.
“The impressive thing about the conversation where we went in asking for more money, a considerable sum, in order to shoot the Blackwater battle — we didn’t get everything we wanted — but (they didn’t ask), ‘Will this attract more viewers? Is this something that’s going to pump ratings?’
“It’s all about why this story needs this big battle. ‘You guys were able to do the first season successfully without major, big-scale battles, why does this one need to have one?’ And so it was really a long conversation about how the second season all builds towards Blackwater.”
Money wasn’t the only hurdle, of course. Blackwater was filmed in pretty rough conditions.
“I think pretty much a month straight of night shoots, which is just tough for anybody unless you’re a vampire,” Benioff said.
“There was an incredible amount of mud. It’s tough for the crew, but then when you actually see it on screen and see how good it looks, you see the way the weather affects people. You see the wind blowing their hair and the rain coming down. None of that’s faked.”
The end result was undeniably spectacular. But was it worth an extra $2 million? Come to think of it, is “Game of Thrones” worth $6 million per episode?
This article originally appeared on News.com.au. |
1961 Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet Series II by Carrozzeria Pininfarina Reading time: about 2 minutes. Cars
Classic Cars
Design
Ferrari
Luxury
Vintage
The Ferrari 250 is a series of sports cars built by Ferrari from 1959 until late 1964, the 250s were exceedingly important for Ferrari and were by far the best selling models produced by the Italian marque up until that point.
The car you see here is the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet Series II designed by Carrozzeria Pininfarina, only 212 were made and this particular model is the only one to have left the factory with the covered headlamps and a hard top.
Click here to Like Silodrome on Facebook and never miss another story.
Most of Ferrari’s 250s had one of two common wheelbases, the short wheelbase at 2400mm and the longer wheelbase at 2600mm, as a general rule the convertibles all used the SWB but some exceptions to this are known to exist. The common engine for almost all of the 250s is the venerable Colombo Tipo 125 V12, a powerplant with a capacity of 2953cc (180 cubic inches) named for the capacity of a single cylinder (250cc) in the tradition of many Ferraris of the era.
The Colombo Tipo V12 was an impressive engine for the time, it weighed far less than its primary rivals and produced a relatively high horsepower output of 296hp at the rear wheels. Modified versions of the V12 were used in a huge array of races during the era with a long streak of success – helping to further cement the V12 into the DNA of Enzo’s cars.
In 2008 this Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet was fully restored by Rossocorsa, a Ferrari specialist in Milan, Italy. It was a concours-level rebuild and it’s since been Ferrari Classiche certified, an important achievement that guarantees that the car is in impeccable, original condition.
With an estimated value of $1,600,000 to $2,000,000 USD this isn’t a Ferrari for the bargain hunter, though as an investment you’ll be hard-pressed to find better, these ’50s and ’60s era Ferraris have been shooting up in value recently.
Click here to visit the official lot listing from RM Auctions.
Photo Credits: Michael Furman ©2013 Courtesy of RM Auctions |
Democratic legislators, progressive advocacy groups, and the established media are singing in harmony: President Donald Trump’s list of pro-American immigration reform priorities are an illegitimate “poison pill” created by White House adviser Steven Miller who is eager to sabotage a bipartisan, popular and noble welcome for a modest number of child “dreamers.”
The tone was set by top Democratic leaders, who issued a statement placing the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of Americans, and rejecting the legitimacy of Trump’s call for Congress to implement his election-winning immigration platform:
The administration can’t be serious about compromise or helping the Dreamers if they begin with a list that is anathema to the Dreamers, to the immigrant community and to the vast majority of Americans. The list includes the wall, which was explicitly ruled out of the negotiations. If the president was serious about protecting the Dreamers, his staff has not made a good faith effort to do so.
The reference to “his staff” is aimed at Miller, whose populist, American-first, advice helped steer Trump to victory in the GOP primaries in early 2016.
The New York Times adopted the same illegals-before-American perspective and the same ‘dreamer’ term for young illegals, saying:
WASHINGTON — The White House on Sunday demanded that lawmakers harden the border against thousands of children fleeing violence in Central America before President Trump will agree to any deal with Democrats that allows the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers to stay in the United States legally.
The New York Times also targeted Miller, saying:
Taken together, the proposals amount to a wish list for immigration hard-liners inside the White House, including Stephen Miller, the president’s top policy adviser, who has long advocated extremely aggressive efforts to prevent illegal entry into the country and crack down on undocumented immigrants already here … But conservatives in Mr. Trump’s administration, many of whom were advocates of his hard-line immigration rhetoric during the 2016 campaign, are clearly maneuvering to ensure that any deal on the Dreamers also results in passage of the tough immigration enforcement measures and border security enhancements that they have been seeking in Congress for decades.
Politico’s headline, “Trump lists immigration demands that could derail ‘Dreamers’ deal” was followed by the text saying:
President Donald Trump laid out his immigration principles for Capitol Hill on Sunday — a list of hardline policies that could seriously complicate the prospects of striking a deal with Democrats over the future of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants.
Contrary to the Democrats’ tune, Trump’s immigration policies are popular, mainstream and a long way from hardline, according to multiple polls taking before and after his shocking election victory in November 2016.
The pro-amnesty Washington Post used a Politico-style headline — “Trump administration releases hard-line immigration principles, threatening deal on ‘dreamers'” — above a similar article, which began:
The Trump administration released a list of hard-line immigration principles late Sunday that threaten to derail a deal in Congress to allow hundreds of thousands of younger undocumented immigrants to remain in the country legally.
The articles mostly ignored and low-balled the number of illegals who might be given amnesty under the Democrats’ Dream Act plan, as merely “hundreds of thousands.” In fact, the act would offer citizenship to at least three million illegals, and eventually their parents and foreign beneficiaries of chain migration.
The Post buried the administration’s core demand in the last two paragraphs, saying:
“We would expect Congress to include all the reforms in any package that addresses the status of the DACA recipients,” said one White House aide on the conference call who was not authorized to speak on the record. “Other views had their fair day in the democratic process.” Noting that the Republicans swept the White House and both chambers of Congress in November, the aide added: “The American public voted for the reforms included in this package.”
TV networks followed the same tune:
Washington (CNN) The White House on Sunday night released an aggressive list of priorities for any deal to protect young undocumented immigrants in limbo — a list that could make a deal almost impossible to reach if it is strictly followed … In the days leading up to the release, there was frustration that demands by top White House policy adviser Stephen Miller during the process could derail congressional efforts to find a legislative solution, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. The source said Miller injected himself into talks between lawmakers and made the issue more difficult by coming to the table with unreasonable demands on behalf of the White House.
As usual, the media outlets ignored the economic impact of illegal and legal immigration, despite multiple economic studies showing that the government-arranged boost in the labor supply reduces the price of Americans’ labor, and shifts a huge amount of the nation’s annual income from employees to employers.
NBC sang along:
The Trump administration Sunday sent Congress a list of tough immigration reforms it would require to be included in any legislation that would allow immigrants brought into the United States illegally as children, known as Dreamers, to remain. The proposals include funding for a southern border wall and are likely to be rebuked by Democrats … One source familiar with the deliberations described the policies last week as a “wish list” of Trump’s senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner and former Senate staffer for Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
The pro-amnesty advocacy group, America’s Voice, claimed:
Tonight, President Trump signed off on a long list of poison pill measures that threatens to kill the chances of enacting the Dream Act this year. In doing so, Trump seems to be following the lead of White House advisor Stephen Miller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, both of whom are ardent opponents of anything that would result in legal status for Dreamers … Trump and the Republican Party are headed towards an ugly outcome. They will go down in history as the architects of one of the cruelest moves in American history: exposing 800,000 American young people to deportation from the country they love to countries they barely remember … Our nationhood rests on the integration of pluralism, freedom and self-government. And it is because the vast majority of Americans still hold these values dear that we are optimistic that we will overcome whatever obstacles we encounter on our way to becoming the nation we are meant to be. In the end, we are confident that America will recognize Dreamers as the Americans they already are. The question is whether Trump and the GOP are going to do this the hard way or the easy way.
The ACLU emphasized Miller’s role:
The White House ‘principles’ amount to nothing more than Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller’s Dreamer deportation outline. Miller’s wishlist of anti-immigrant policies is designed to scuttle progress for Dreamers and is afoul with unconstitutional ‘reforms.’ Members of Congress of both parties who want to resolve the status of undocumented immigrant youth should recognize that these policies are a non-starter and get back to work on behalf of the vast majority of Americans who want to get something constructive done instead.
The focus on Miller shifts the debate away from the public’s support for Trump’s 2016 campaign, and it also gives a helping hand to the business-first, cheap-lobby faction which dominates Trump’s economic team. That faction also plays a leading in big-city Democratic politics, including in Schumer’s hometown of New York.
Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market.
But business groups have used their political power to tilt the labor market in their favor, via the federal policy of importing 1 million consumers and workers each year. The government also hands out almost 3 million short-term work permits to foreign workers. These permits include roughly 330,000 one-year OPT permits for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges, roughly 200,000 three-year H-1B visas for foreign white-collar professionals, and 400,000 two-year permits to DACA illegals. Universities employ roughly 100,000 foreign guest workers.
That Washington-imposed economic policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.
The cheap-labor policy has also reduced investment and job creation in many interior states because the coastal cities have a surplus of imported labor. For example, almost 27 percent of zip codes in Missouri had fewer jobs or businesses in 2015 than in 2000, according to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group. In Kansas, almost 29 percent of zip codes had fewer jobs and businesses in 2015 compared to 2000, which was a two-decade period of massive cheap-labor immigration.
Americans tell pollsters that they strongly oppose amnesties and cheap-labor immigration, even as most Americans also want to favor legal immigrants, and many sympathize with illegals.
Because of the successful cheap-labor strategy, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and a growing percentage of the nation’s annual income is shifting to investors and away from employees. The business-funded Hamilton Project suggests that the shift is transferring $1 trillion per year from 160 million employees to the nation’s investors. |
Google’s Pixel Stand charges any Qi-compatible phone at a rate of 5 watts, but its special features work only when it's charging a Google Pixel 3. If you have any other smartphone, our top picks charge about as fast and cost a fraction of the price. When docked on the Pixel Stand, the Pixel 3 can perform extra functions such as serving as an ambient-light alarm, displaying useful information from Google Assistant, or integrating with Google Home devices such as the Nest Doorbell. In response to a report by Ars Technica, Google also clarified that the Pixel Stand has “proprietary wireless charging technology” that allows it to charge Pixel 3 phones at a rate of 10 watts. (Other pads, including those from Belkin, will also be able to license this proprietary technology.) These seem like neat features for Pixel 3 owners, but for most people the Pixel Stand isn't a better charger despite the high price.
Logitech’s Powered for iPhone charging stand costs several times more than the chargers we recommend yet lacks the ability to charge that much faster. Designed in collaboration with Apple, it offers 7.5-watt charging for iPhones and 5-watt charging for Samsung models with similar dimensions. It’s roughly the same dimensions as our top-pick stand from Samsung, but the permanently attached cable gives you less flexibility in swapping it out if something goes wrong.
Belkin’s Boost Up Wireless Charging Stand 10W and Boost Up Bold Wireless Charging Pad 10W offer disappointing performance, especially at their premium prices. Despite specifically promising faster charging, both were significantly slower than lower-priced chargers: The stand averages about four hours to charge an iPhone 8, and the pad takes about 20 minutes more than that. That’s more than an hour slower than our picks. The iPhone 8 Plus and Galaxy S8 results weren’t quite as slow, but still not as fast as other, cheaper chargers we’ve tested. To make matters worse, the pad emitted a high-pitched coil whine during our tests. Belkin told us that our test results did not reflect the data from its own testing, and that “[Belkin’s] charging pads are performing slightly better vs. the latest competition.” But even if the performance were better, we don’t think the chargers would be worth their high prices.
Mophie’s Charge Stream Mini is the smallest Qi charger we’ve tested and it performed pretty well, but still slower than lower-priced competitors (the iPhone 8 took about 10 minutes more to reach a full charge compared with our Samsung picks). We don’t think it’s a great value at its price, but as part of the Charge Stream Travel Kit, bundled in a nice nylon carrying case with a wall adapter, car charger, and Micro-USB cable, it has some appeal for travel.
Twelve South’s Powerpic is the most cleverly designed Qi charger we’ve come across. The charging surface is actually hidden inside an attractive picture frame, allowing you to display a 5-by-7-inch photo when you’re not charging. It allows the technology to blend into your home better than accessories with the standard “techy” look. It’s expensive though, especially considering it doesn’t come with a wall adapter, and it’s not particularly fast; our tests showed results in line with a 5-watt charger, despite the 10-watt listing.
Nomad’s Base Station Apple Watch Edition is the best Qi charger for someone who uses an Apple Watch and an iPhone. It’s the closest thing to Apple’s announced-but-never-shipped AirPower charger that you can actually buy. The Base Station is a simply designed charging pad with leather elements and dark aluminum that give it a modern look. It charged our iPhone XR a bit faster than most chargers we tested—from 0 to about 40 percent in an hour—and includes an upright Apple Watch charger. But, as a premium accessory, it is rather expensive, and it’s out of stock for the foreseeable future. We’ll update this guide when it’s available again.
Ravpower’s RP-PC063 and iClever’s Wireless Charger are all totally fine options that charged at respectable rates. None of them come with wall adapters though, and we don’t think they look or function better than our picks. Ravpower’s RP-PC068 and RP-PC069 do come with AC adapters, but again, even though they performed well, nothing else about them makes them stand out from our picks.
iOttie’s iON Wireless Plus Fast Charging Pad is one of the better-looking Qi chargers we’ve tested, but it’s not functionally better than our picks when it comes to wireless charging. iPhone 8 charge times were, on average, 20 minutes slower, and the iPhone 8 Plus was just a few minutes faster. When not charging, we heard a quiet, intermittent beep coming from the unit that may annoy those with acute hearing. We do like that there’s a 2.4-amp USB-A port on the back, which helps justify the higher price. Consider this one if you love the design and don’t need the fastest speeds.
Case-Mate’s Power Pad allows you to charge your phone in a flat or angled position, thanks to an included plastic stand. Its charging speeds were about in line with those of our picks—a little slower for the iPhone 8, a little faster for the iPhone 8 Plus. But at about double what our favorite Qi chargers cost, the price is just too much for what this model offers. We don’t think the Power Pad is the right choice for most people.
Nomad’s Wireless USB Hub is three times as expensive as our main pick, but it’s more than just a Qi charger. It also has four USB ports for charging: Two 1-amp USB-A ports, one 2.1-amp USB-A port, and a 3-amp USB-C port. Each port, and the wireless charging pad, has a corresponding LED that changes from amber to white when each device is fully charged (or, in our testing, close to it), and there’s a thoughtful ambient-light sensor that dims those LEDs at night so they don’t disrupt light sleepers. These extras could make this one worth its more premium price, but the top has no grip, allowing a phone, especially one without a case, to slide far too easily. In our testing, the phone actually slid off-center and stopped charging at least twice from minor bumps to our desk. Nomad told us it’s looking into a material change for future versions of the Hub to mitigate this problem. When that’s released, and when Nomad secures WPC certification, we’ll reevaluate.
Satechi’s Aluminum Wireless Charger looks nice but isn’t as grippy on top as better chargers. It also doesn’t come with a wall adapter, meaning you need to provide your own. It took about 25 minutes longer, on average, to charge the iPhone 8 than the fastest chargers we tested.
The top surface of Incipio’s Ghost Qi 3-Coil Wireless Charging Base is far too smooth, which allows a phone—especially one without a case—to slide around more than it should. This model was also far slower to charge the iPhone 8 in our tests, averaging just over 4 hours for a full charge.
Tylt’s Orb is a truncated sphere, which looks nice, but its surface doesn’t have enough grip: A bare iPhone 8 slid right off within a minute or two in our testing, an immediate dealbreaker.
Ventev’s Wireless Charger stand is physically larger than most models we tested. It uses a repositionable charging surface, but because the contact area is smaller than on most chargers we’ve tested, you have to physically move it around if you’re switching between different sizes of phones. We don’t think most people will run into this issue during normal use, but it’s a strike against a model that already costs more than our picks yet doesn’t offer any specific benefits.
Mophie’s Wireless Charging Base is one of two models Apple is recommending for use with iPhones. We like the grippiness of the rubber ring around the top, which ensures that the phone doesn’t slide around. But it currently costs two to three times what our pick does, and even though it supports 7.5-watt charging for phones running iOS 11.2, its charge speeds were on a par with those of the rest of the chargers we tested. It was only about 21 minutes faster than our top pick to fully charge the iPhone 8 Plus, and it was 27 minutes slower to fully charge the iPhone 8. Mophie told us, “Based on all our testing, [these] results seem to be in line with ours for 8 Plus, but differ for the 8 as we see an increase in charging speed over a 5W charging pad.” Even in a best-case scenario, saving 20 minutes or so off a full charge isn’t worth the higher price.
Mophie’s Charge Stream Pad+ is almost identical to the Wireless Charging Base. The two big differences are a switch from a proprietary wall adapter to Micro-USB, making the cable easier and cheaper to replace, and a bump to 10-watt charging output. In our tests, however, the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and Samsung Galaxy S8 didn’t charge any faster than they did with the 7.5-watt version; each averaged around 185 to 196 minutes, or just over three hours. Much like with Mophie’s original Qi charger, there’s no reason to pay the heavy premium for this one.
Belkin’s Boost Up Wireless Charging Pad is the other Apple-recommended 7.5-watt charger, and we saw similar results to those with the Mophie model. It was a bit slower to charge the iPhone 8, and only a little faster to charge the iPhone 8 Plus. Belkin declined to comment when we asked the company about these results.
Our original runner-up pick for this guide, Spigen’s Essential F301W Wireless Charger (Ultra Slim) was on a par with Samsung’s flat pad in charging our Galaxy S8, but faster when we used it to charge our iPhone 8. It doesn’t come with a wall adapter, though, and it went out of stock shortly after this guide originally published.
Incipio’s Ghost Qi 15W Wireless Charging Base is expensive, and in our tests we heard a clicking noise throughout charging. When we tested it with an iPhone, the phone’s screen kept flickering on and off, indicating that the charging connection was unstable. And the surface wasn’t as grippy as on other pads we tested; our iPhone slid around like it was on an air hockey table. We plan to test a second unit, but even if the clicking is gone, we don’t expect to recommend this one based on its price and slippery surface.
Samsung’s Fast Charge Qi Wireless Charging Pad EP-PN920 looks more or less identical to our pick. In our testing, it fully charged our iPhone 8 and Galaxy S8 about 15 minutes faster than our top pick, on average, but right now it costs twice as much. We don’t think the extra cost is worth those few saved minutes, especially when you’re charging overnight or at a desk during the day.
Choetech’s T511 Qi Wireless Charger Pad is very affordable and has recently earned WPC certification. Unfortunately the low price is reflected in the build quality. The T511 feels cheap, with not enough mass for its size. It doesn’t come with an AC adapter, only a Micro-USB cable. And there’s not nearly enough grip on top, so it would be easy for your phone to move out of position and fail to charge.
IKEA’s Nordmärke is a 5 W charger with a 10 W USB-A port for charging a second device at the same time. In our tests, it charged quickly (faster than our pick), but the hardware is problematic. Neither its feet nor its surface is grippy, meaning it can slip around on whatever surface you place it on, and in our vibration test, the phone wiggled out of charging position after eight phone calls. The Nordmärke’s footprint is also larger than that of many of the chargers we tested, and it has a large, proprietary wall adapter. On top of all that, IKEA’s shipping fees are steep, and getting to a local store is not always convenient.
We decided not to test popular models from Anker, Kmashi, or RAVPower because they were not WPC certified. |
CLEVELAND, Ohio - John Kasich's attempts to be the adult in the room - rooted in his prescription for a balanced federal budget - have so far fallen flat in his bid for president.
Now, with worries of terrorism back at the forefront in the wake of Friday's attacks in Paris, Ohio's Republican governor sees a new opening for his message.
As news of the attacks spread Friday, Kasich was in New Hampshire, the important first primary state key to his White House aspirations. At a town hall-style forum in Laconia, he led attendees in prayer. His campaign sent reporters video excerpts from the event.
"Dear Lord," Kasich began, head bowed, "we keep the families in Paris in our prayers, the children who've been frightened to learn of the death of their mom or their dad or their brother or their sister.
"We know this evil can be all around us, but we know in the end it's the strength that you provide, the hope ultimately that you provide, that can help these folks deal with this terrible tragedy and recover. And we'll stand with them, Lord, here across the ocean and the United States. We'll do our best to hold them in our arms, to be with them in this time of terrible grief and terrible tragedy."
The Islamic State, or ISIS, had yet to claim responsibility for the attacks, which killed more than 100. But Kasich targeted the group in his remarks.
He acknowledged that Americans were "war-weary," then added: "Leaders have to lead. You've got to lead, and you've got to be realistic about what the plans are. We definitely need to have a coalition of nations that share our interests to begin to take the fight and destroy ISIS."
On Saturday, soon after ISIS reportedly claimed responsibility, Kasich returned with a lengthy statement. Beyond the platitudes you expect from candidates in times of terror, Kasich pitched specific ideas and took a shot at President Barack Obama.
"As president, I would immediately summon an emergency meeting at the highest level to begin working with our European, Turkish, and Sunni Arab allies to contain and ultimately defeat ISIS in its homeland," the governor said.
"Time is of the essence. We cannot afford to await the outcome of the presidential election in a year's time before being able to act. I urge the president to get on this now - in a much more assertive and consequent manner than we have seen from his administration to date."
An accompanying email from the Kasich campaign emphasized that Kasich last month called for safe havens and no-fly zones in Syria in the effort to combat ISIS there.
Later, at a forum for GOP candidates in Florida, Kasich skipped his usual stump speech. He criticized the Obama administration for not showing leadership and called on NATO to invoke Article 5, last used after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Article 5, Kasich noted, "basically says an attack on an ally is an attack on us and an attack on all of the Western world. We as Americans must assert leadership and we need to stand shoulder to shoulder with France and the French people. This is a moment to bring us together."
Playing politics so soon after an act of terror is risky. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was criticized in 2012 for slamming Obama in the immediate aftermath of attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya.
This is not an apples-to-apples comparison to Friday's attacks on France. And Kasich is one of 15 GOP candidates looking for a way to stand out in a crowded race.
Two political novices - Dr. Ben Carson and real estate mogul Donald Trump - are leading most national and early-state polls. Marco Rubio, a first-term senator from Florida, has emerged as the GOP establishment's brightest prospect.
Kasich has been waiting for a moment when voters might turn away from the "flash and dash" - his words - and give a longer look to someone with experience.
Earlier in his White House campaign, Kasich, a former congressman, emphasized the 18 years he spent on the House Armed Services Committee. Even in such a large field, that makes him one of the most seasoned when it comes to foreign policy.
Kasich had shifted his messaging in recent weeks to focus on his experience heading another congressional panel: the House Budget Committee. He hoped his hand in negotiating the country's last balanced budget would appeal to fiscal conservatives and make him a star at two recent debates focused on economic issues.
This strategy hasn't worked. Kasich had to fight for screen time at both forums. He came off as irascible and whiny - hardly the adult in the room he was trying to be.
A race dominated by talk of ISIS and terrorist threats would put pressure on Carson and Trump to rely less on sound bites and performance and more on ideas.
Kasich knows this. That's why he's moving so quickly to lead the discussion. |
• Fifa meltdown continues as De Gregorio ‘relinquishes his office’ • Election of new president will take place between December and February
Walter De Gregorio has left his post as Fifa’s head of communications days after making a joke on television about the world governing body, despite having defended it and been its most prominent public face throughout the recent crisis which led the president, Sepp Blatter, to announce his resignation although he currently remains at the helm.
Appearing on Swiss TV on Monday De Gregorio said: “The Fifa president, secretary general and communications director are in a car. Who’s driving? The police.”
A statement from Fifa said De Gregorio had decided to step down with immediate effect. It marks the latest twist in the crisis engulfing Fifa, which began two and a half weeks ago when the FBI and Swiss authorities arrested numerous officials following a dawn raid in Zurich amid allegations of endemic corruption.
Fifa confirmed on Thursday that the extraordinary executive committee meeting to decide the date for the presidential election will take place on 20 July in Zurich, with a statement saying the extraordinary elective congress will be held between December and February.
De Gregorio was present at Blatter’s resignation speech before a sparse media contingent. The Swiss has been one of Blatter’s most senior aides since joining Fifa in September 2011, and strongly defended it after the arrests.
Only hours after US and Swiss officials raided the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich – amid the news that several senior Fifa officials faced extradition to the US on federal corruption charges – De Gregorio attempted to quell the growing storm at a press conference by describing the incident as good for Fifa.
He said: “This for Fifa is good. It is not good in terms of image or reputation but in terms of cleaning up, this is good. It is not a nice day but it is also a good day. The process goes on and we are looking forward.”
However, De Gregorio’s joke on Swiss TV appears to have proved pivotal for the former journalist, with Fifa releasing a statement on Thursday which said: “Walter De Gregorio has decided to relinquish his office with immediate effect as director of communications and public affairs. Mr De Gregorio joined Fifa on 14 September 2011 and will serve Fifa on a consultancy basis until the end of this year. His deputy Nicolas Maingot will resume the role ad interim.”
The Fifa general secretary, Jérôme Valcke – who has come under pressure for his involvement regarding a $10m payment made by Fifa in relation to the 2010 South Africa World Cup – said: “Walter has worked incredibly hard for the past four years and we are immensely grateful for all he has done. I am glad we will be able to continue to draw on his expertise until the end of the year.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Walter De Gregorio’s joke on Swiss TV
The FBI said last week it was extending its investigation into corruption at Fifa into the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, to be held in Russia and Qatar. The head of the organising committee for Russia 2018, Alexei Sorokin, stated that neither the US nor Swiss investigators had contacted Russia and criticised the “hysteria” surrounding Fifa’s current plight.
“We just need to ponder in whose interest it is to draw up the bridge between us and our partners in Fifa,” Sorokin said. “Strangely this comes when a sizeable Fifa delegation is in Samara, where we’re trying to prepare the World Cup together. It’s not necessary to put yourselves into some sort of hysteria or trance about all this. The organisation has the capability to self-regulate and possibly fix incorrect decisions made in the past. The participation of law enforcement organs isn’t necessary.”
On Thursday the European parliament called on Blatter to stand down with immediate effect, urging its member states to cooperate fully with the ongoing investigations into corruption.
Only two hours after De Gregorio’s departure was announced, an extract from the Fifa Weekly magazine was publicised in which Blatter wrote: “Fifa is going through difficult times. This makes me all the more proud that our organisation runs smoothly in a crisis.” It is thought he was referring to the Women’s and Under-20 World Cups when describing the smooth running of Fifa. |
Last year, Chaka Cumberbatch was sick of the usual debates about Black History Month. “February is historically a really trying time to be black on the Internet,” she told the Daily Dot.
So Cumberbatch decided she was going to change the conversation during February. But how?
Known to Facebook users as Princess Mentality Cosplay and blerd (Black nerd) cosplayer princessology on Twitter, Cumberbatch decided she would do what she did best: celebrate cosplay in the Black community.
What began last year as a small celebration under the #28daysofblackcosplay hashtag has expanded this year into a geek culture-wide movement—with an extra day for leap year to boot.
“I’m very passionate about working to make this visible and successful for us all,” Cumberbatch said. So far her efforts have resulted in an explosion of cosplay across the Internet.
“29DaysOfBlackCosplay is us creating, cultivating and celebrating ourselves, our passion and our fandom,” Cumberbatch said.
“This got started last year when I wanted to do something positive within the black cosplay community during Black History Month.”
I thought I’d cut the usual but-why-don’t-we-have-a-white-history-month type of shenanigans off at the pass by putting together something to steer the conversation in a more uplifting direction. I got all of my friends together and asked if they wanted to work on a month long celebratory campaign with me. Everyone was on board, so I started putting together a schedule, feature questions, organizing photos, etc—and #28DaysOfBlackCosplay was born. I’m loving the fact that we’ve got #29DaysOfBlackCosplay this time around!
Chaka Cumberbatch
After the success of last year’s hashtag, Cumberbatch told the Daily Dot she was bombarded with requests to run the project again this year. And she had a good reason for saying yes.
“I felt the campaign was particularly important this year, as the cosplay community has recently seen several extremely troubling examples of cosplayers who see nothing inherently wrong with playing around in blackface for the sake of a costume,” Cumberbatch explained.
“It’s a slap in the face to a group of people whose passion and craftsmanship routinely goes unnoticed due to the color of their skin and an incredibly rigid definition of ‘character accuracy.’ To put it frankly, it’s total bullshit.”
“Now, more than ever, we wanted to celebrate being actually black, and all that comes with that,” Cumberbatch said. “It happens in February to compliment Black History Month—we love celebrating who we are in the present, while at the same time paying homage to those who paved the way for us in the past.”
Above all, Cumberbatch stressed the importance of the hashtag in demonstrating the agency and independence of black geeks and the black community.
“We recognize that we are in control of creating our own history. We are routinely told that if we want representation, we have to make it for ourselves. If we want to see black characters, we need to create them ourselves.”
Chaka Cumberbatch
“I love the black cosplay community so much,” Cumberbatch said. “I am practically bathing in black excellence every single day, and I am in no way prepared for this month to end.”
Photo via Chaka Cumberbatch |
He walked into Saint Barnabas Hospital asking to be treated for a rash — but more than eight hours later, Jon Verrier was found dead in his chair in the crowded ER waiting room, hospital officials concede.
The 30-year-old amateur artist may have been dead for hours, according to a mortified employee who was there in the Bronx emergency room Monday morning when the corpse was finally discovered.
“He was found stiff, blue and cold,” the employee said, speaking to ABC News on condition of anonymity. “He died because [there’s] not enough staff to take care of the number of patients we see each day. We need more staff at Saint Barnabas.”
Officials at the 461-bed facility said Verrier checked into the ER at 10 p.m. Sunday and was found dead at 6:40 the next morning.
Upon his arrival, he was registered, triaged and told to wait to see a doctor, said Saint Barnabas spokesman Steve Clark, adding that Verrier was told to wait inside the ER itself but for some reason returned to the waiting room and took a seat.
Between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., his name was called “two or three times” and he did not answer, Clark said.
At 2 a.m., a security guard made a pass through the waiting room to roust the many homeless people who try to sleep there.
“Nothing was awry — he was moving, he was alive” during that 2 a.m. check, Clark said.
Surveillance video from elsewhere in the hospital recorded Verrier alive and “moving” at 3:45 a.m., Clark said.
“Then after 6, when security did another pass, he was dead,” the hospital spokesman said.
“His name was called several times on several occasions, and he did not respond,” Clark added, stressing that an in-house review found “all guidelines were met.”
But clearly, nobody was really “checking” on Verrier as he died unattended and untreated in plain sight of hospital staff, the anonymous worker counters.
“He was not checked on,” the employee said. “Based on the number of people in the waiting room, it is impossible to check on each person physically.”
Patients who check into Saint Barnabas’ ER are usually in for a long haul — the average ER wait times at the hospital are twice the New York state and national averages, The Post has learned.
It takes patients at The Bronx hospital a glacial average of 306 minutes to be treated and released — compared to the average 155-minute wait statewide and the average 137-minute wait nationally, according to the Medicare statistics.
At Saint Barnabas, the more seriously injured are also in for long waits. It takes an average of 112 minutes to get pain medication for a broken bone, for instance, compared to the state average of 63 minutes and the national average of 59 minutes.
Patients confirm those galling stats. “We got here at 1 o’clock and they didn’t take him in till the next day, 7 a.m.,” Alfred Murias, 34, recounted Saturday of a recent visit for a seizure suffered by his father.
Amazingly, hospital officials insisted that other long ER waits are irrelevant in this case and suggest the dying man may have played a role in his own demise by not answering to his name.
Family members told ABC that Verrier, who has struggled with drug addiction but had been clean for months, was a victim of hospital negligence. |
Residents spent $1.14 million in “democracy vouchers” on races for City Council and city attorney as Seattle launched its first-in-the-country program, which allows voters to contribute to political candidates using taxpayer money.
Seattle residents spent $1.14 million in “democracy vouchers” as the city launched its first-in-the-country program this year, according to newly released data.
That’s much less than the $3 million a year in property taxes the city began collecting in 2016 to pay for the vouchers program, which allows voters to contribute to qualifying political candidates using public money. The last day to donate vouchers was Nov. 30.
Residents likely would have spent much more taxpayer money had the vouchers been allowed in the mayoral race. But the vouchers program this time included only races for Seattle City Council and city attorney, because of a clause in the 2015 ballot measure that authorized the program.
The voter-approved measure excluded mayoral candidates from the program until 2021 “to allow accumulation of program funds.” The measure’s authors said they wanted to ensure the city wouldn’t run out of money during the program’s first election cycle.
Would the program have indeed run out of money? And would the vouchers have changed the outcome of the mayoral race, which Jenny Durkan won? It’s impossible to know.
What’s certain is that the group of people who donated vouchers was younger and more diverse than the group of people who gave cash to the mayoral candidates.
Rather than boost the city’s general fund, any unspent money will remain in the program to help pay for vouchers in future races.
The council’s seven district seats will be up for election in 2019, and the vouchers program will expand to mayoral candidates in 2021.
The program, which provides each registered Seattle voter with four $25 vouchers, costs the owner of a $500,000 home about $11.50 a year.
Teresa Mosqueda and Jon Grant, candidates for Position 8, garnered the most support in vouchers. They each raised $300,000, hitting a cap imposed by the program. Mosqueda won their race.
A primary candidate for Position 8, Hisam Goueli, raised $27,550 in vouchers.
In the council’s Position 9 race, incumbent M. Lorena González raised $213,175 in vouchers and defeated challenger Pat Murakami, who raised $152,675.
Incumbent City Attorney Pete Holmes raised $147,125 in vouchers. He repelled rival Scott Lindsay, who didn’t take part in the program.
In the end, a total of 18,875 Seattle residents contributed 72,189 vouchers, driving a massive increase in overall political giving.
In 2013, only 8,200 residents gave money to candidates for mayor, city attorney and council, according to a report by Win/Win and Every Voice. This time, more than 25,000 residents donated vouchers and money, the report says. |
The day after MPs agreed to move out of Parliament while much needed repairs are carried out, it has been revealed that the temporary venue being lined cannot be used for purposes not sanctioned by sharia law.
The Palace of Westminster is in a considerable state of disrepair, and requires a £4 billion overhaul to preserve it for future use. The parliamentary committee tasked with find a new home for the Commons has identified Richmond House, home to the Department of Health, as the favoured option.
Richmond House, however, was quietly transferred to finance one of the government’s new Islamic bond schemes two years ago. Accordingly, a condition of its lease is that it cannot be used for purposes not sanctioned by Sharia.
If the move went ahead Parliament’s many bars would become history and it is unlikely that pork would be served to any of the MPs or guests, for as long as six years.
“It’s true. If MPs want to use Richmond House they’d better give up any hopes it will include a bar,” a Whitehall official told The Times.
In November 2013 the World Islamic Economic Forum was hosted in London, where Prime Minister David Cameron announced: “I want London to stand alongside Dubai and Kuala Lumpur as one of the great capitals of Islamic finance anywhere in the world.”
Secretary to the Treasury Sajid Javid MP said that, “almost every international Islamic contract will touch London – or a London-based firm – in some way.”
In July 2014 the chancellor announced that the Treasury was launching the first Islamic bond in a western financial centre. The £200 million bonds, known as sukuk, are now more than ten times oversubscribed as central banks and sovereign wealth funds in Gulf states vie to buys up British assets.
Richmond House is next door to the Red Lion Pub – a recently refurbished Westminster watering hole that used to be a favourite of Members of Parliament, though is usually now filled with young, Conservative Party staffers. |
When I make charts and graphs, I generally make it a practice to scale the vertical axis of a chart from zero (0) to the upper bound of the range. Compressing a chart’s vertical axis can be grossly misleading. For example, the usual chart the climatistas display of ambient atmospheric carbon dioxide levels looks like this:
Oooh—that looks scary! Look how fast CO2 is rising! We’re galloping toward the all-important doubling of CO2, after which the world will come to an end.
Here’s the chart I typically use when displaying the same data, but with the vertical axis starting at zero, and indications of the bounds of pre-industrial CO2 and where the level of a doubling will be:
Now that doesn’t look as scary, does it? No wonder the climatistas compress the vertical axis to make it look scarier.
Likewise, the typical chart of the global average temperature is usually displayed this way:
Whoa! We’re all gonna fry!
But what if you display the same data with the axis starting not just from zero, but from the lower bound of the actual experienced temperature range of the earth? I had never thought of this until an acquaintance sent it along today:
A little hard to get worked up about this, isn’t it? In fact you can barely spot the warming. No wonder you need a college education to believe in the alarmist version of climate change. No wonder the data (click here for original NASA data if you want to replicate it yourself) is never displayed this way in any of the official climate reports.
If this chart were published on the front page of newspapers the climate change crusaders would be out of business instantly. |
The reviews are in for July 7th’s Spider-Man: Homecoming and if early buzz is any indication, Spidey’s first solo movie is going to be a massive hit. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise as nobody knows the character better than the ones who created him. With Sony reaping the box office benefits from the release, you can thank Disney and Marvel by picking up some Spider-Man collectibles and get pumped for the film.
The Spider-Man: Homecoming CheckList features action figures and collectibles from brands such as Hot Toys, NECA, Funko and more, which means that there’s literally something for everyone and a treasure trove for Marvel and Spidey fans alike. So check out all of AFD’s coverage of Peter Parker’s homecoming by clicking on the links below and picking up your favorite statues, figures and toys based on the film.
Spider-Man: Homecoming Collectible Figures by NECA – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming Funko POP!s – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming Life-Sized Foam Figure Replica by NECA – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming Action Figures and Collectible Toys by Hasbro – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming 1/6th Scale Spider-Man Homemade Suit Version by Hot Toys – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming Action Figures by Marvel Legends – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming Dorbz Vinyl Figures by Funko – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming MAFEX Action Figure by Medicom – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming S.H. Figuarts Action Figure with Wall Accessory – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming Iron Man Mark XLVII Power Pose Figure by Hot Toys – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming Minimates by Diamond Select Toys – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming 1/6 Scale Figure by Hot Toys – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming Cosbaby Bobble-Head Figures by Hot Toys – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming POP! Unmasked Spider-Man Vinyl Bobble-Head Figure – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming 1/4 Scale Action Figure by NECA – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming – Iron Man Mark XLVII 1/6 Scale Figure by Hot Toys – READ MORE
Spider-Man: Homecoming Busts by Diamond Select Toys – READ MORE |
News & Updates
Update 3-12-2018
As has been announced on previous occasions, Olympic Arms is working through the process of transitioning into new ownership. This process with a corporation that has more than 42 years history, industry innovations that have led to dozens of patents and mounds of intellectual property - takes quite some time to sift through and guide into new ownership. With each step, new legal and procedural hurdles are discovered that must be jumped, and the process still continues.
We apologize that this process has taken much longer than anticipated, and we appreciate your kind words of encouragement and patience as we move forward.
In the meantime, Olympic Arms remains open for business to both Dealer and Retail customers. While some product lines have been suspended and other areas of production refocused, we have no intention to cease production and have every intention to continue in operation until the conclusion of this transition. We are confident that there will be an Olympic Arms moving forward. Continue to buy with confidence, and we will continue to be here to provide the quality customer service you have come to know and expect.
Our retail storefront is still open for local walk-in business as well, with hours of operation from 7:30 – 4:00 every weekday unless otherwise noted. Olympic Arms can be reached by phone from 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM Pacific Time, Monday through Friday. Feel free to contact us via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with any questions or comments.
Be sure to bookmark our CLOSEOUT page for the lastes deals and discounts!
Don't forget to follow and like us on social media as well, with accounts on both Facebook and Twitter. |
UPDATED March 7, 2014 : The Idaho House passed a bill allowing concealed guns to be carried on state college campuses on Thursday. The legislation was supported by a 50-19 vote and now heads to Gov. Butch Otter for his signature.
Public colleges and universities in Idaho can no longer make their own rules when it comes to guns on campus.
The Idaho Senate voted Tuesday to grant college students the right to possess firearms on school grounds. It passed with a vote of 25-10 and guarantees one's Second Amendment right over the existing gun regulations of public universities.
The bill exempts dormitories and indoor venues seating more than 1,000 people and requires possession of Idaho’s new enhanced concealed weapons permit to carry a gun on campus. The permit is given to individuals 21 and over, and to those who have completed an eight-hour training course.
The legislation is expected to pass in the House and be signed into law by Gov. Butch Otter, who has already expressed support.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Curt McKenzie (R-Nampa), defended the legislation: |
The plan was to head to Seattle, walk the docks and catch on with a crab-fishing vessel. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan.
By the time Brad Imes and his brother arrived in Seattle, it was the end of the crabbing season. There were no jobs to be found. So Imes left his name in case there were future opportunities and headed back to Sacramento to begin training for what he figured would be his next job: professional fighter.
“My buddy had fought in Japan, and I was taking to him about it, and he said I should get into fighting,” Imes told MMAjunkie. “I said, ‘That’s crazy,’ and he said, ‘No man, the Japanese love big white guys, so you’ll make a lot of money.’ He was 0-3, so he wasn’t a real accomplished fighter, but he had some good paydays over in Japan, so I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.’”
Imes, a former college football player at Mizzou, immediately took to MMA, training out of a high school gym with Sacramento BJJ. The 6-7, 265-pound Imes then found a home in the WEC, earning three wins in three fights.
‘TUF,’ then troubled times
After that third win, Scott Adams, one of the founders of the WEC, suggested Imes try out for the second season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” Imes was incredulous.
“I told him, ‘You have to be out of your mind. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing,’” Imes said. “But he said, ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re a huge guy, you’re a great marketing tool, and they’re going to pick you. Just do it and as soon as you get on the show talk about how you don’t have any experience.’”
Despite his initial reluctance, Imes took Adams’ advice and auditioned for the reality show. Six weeks later he was offered a spot on “TUF 2.” He also got the call to work on one of those crabbing boats.
Imes, opting to take the fighting route, had great success on “TUF,” winning two fights. Those victories earned him a spot in the heavyweight-tournament final, where he lost to eventual UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans.
Imes (13-7) fought a total of three times with the UFC, losing each of those bouts. He found success outside the UFC, going 8-0 on smaller cards between 2006 and 2007, which included back-to-back wins via rare gogoplata.
But things turned bad for Imes early in 2008, and the way he remembers it, they went bad in a hurry.
“It started in January 2008,” he said. “I lost to Anthony Ruiz in a fight that he didn’t do anything to me, but I was unmotivated to even be there. I just figured I could go out there and do what I do and just walk through him and be done.”
Even though he won his next fight, a decision over James Jack, Imes remained unmotivated. Worse than that, his once iron chin was failing, and as a result, he had to adjust his aggressive style when he faced Roy Nelson on an IFL card.
The change didn’t help the 31-year-old Imes. Nelson stopped him in the first round.
After that defeat, the first knockout loss of Imes’ career, he knew that his career was over, but like many fighters, he hung on for a few more paydays. Imes lost two of those fights by knockout – one in 28 seconds, the other in 36 seconds.
Retirement decision
The damage Imes took during his career, both in MMA and football, left him struggling with his memory. He had resorted to carrying lists with him so he could remember things he needed to do. It was at that point, his now his wife, Michele, urged him to see a doctor.
“They told me that I had to stop fighting, that if I continued it was going to kill me or that I was going to be a vegetable,” Imes said.
Those words didn’t come as much of a surprise. Imes knew the end was coming even before visiting the doctor, and looking toward the future, he had applied to be a firefighter. His first day on the Jefferson City, Mo., force was March 2, 2009. His last fight came on Sept. 12, 2009.
These days, Imes acknowledges that shortly after he left fighting, he was concerned about the possible longterm damage he may have suffered as a fighter. Over time, those concerns have lessened.
“I’ve done a lot of research and talked to doctors, and I’ve started taking natural supplements and things that reduce swelling on the brain and that improve concentration, and it really has made an enormous difference,” he said.
These days Imes works as a project manager, a job he knows he wouldn’t have been able to perform had he took the position immediately after leaving MMA.
“I have to concentrate on organization and keep track of different things on different jobs, and when I first got out of fighting, there was no way that I could have done this job,” Imes said. “It would have been like herding cats.”
It’s been more than six years since Imes left the fight game, but he still occasionally thinks about his career as a fighter, and when he does, it’s with the mindset of a highly competitive individual.
“All I remember are the losses, which is unfortunate,” he said. “I don’t really remember the fights I won; I only think about the fights I lost. That’s probably natural.”
When he thinks back on things other than the fights, his memories are brighter. That’s when he recalls the opportunities that fighting provided him, like appearing in the 2007 movie “Missionary Man” and traveling the world.
“It was a great time,” he said. “I had my highs and my lows, but I wouldn’t change it.”
Many athletes look back at their professional careers as the highest point of their lives and believe they are defined by that alone. That’s not a world Imes lives in.
“For all the fun and all the wild and crazy things that I did, being a husband and a father? Those are my real accomplishments,” he said.
For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site. |
Do Mormons Really Believe They Can Get Their Own Planet?
[1] Mormon News Room, "Mormonism 101: FAQ"
Do Latter-day Saints believe that they will “get their own planet”?
No. This idea is not taught in Latter-day Saint scripture, nor is it a doctrine of the Church.
[2] Lorenzo Snow; “The Grand Destiny of Man,” Deseret Evening News, July 20, 1901, 22
"As man is God once was; as God is man may be"
This quote is reiterated in the 2012 manual:
See Also
[Heber C. Kimball] When we escape from this earth, (do) we suppose we are going to heaven? Do you suppose you are going to the earth that Adam came from? that Eloheim came from? where Jehovah the Lord came from? No. When you have learned to become obedient to the Father that dwells upon this earth, to the Father and God of this earth, and obedient to the messengers He sends---when you have done all that, remember you are not going to leave this earth. You will never leave it until you become qualified, and capable, and capacitated to become a father of an earth yourselves . 160 years ago today - Nov 14, 1852
Those who receive exaltation in the celestial kingdom through faith in through faith in Jesus Christ will receive special blessings. The Lord has promised, “All things are theirs” ( D&C 76:59 ). These are some of the blessings given to exalted people:
1. They will live eternally in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (see D&C 76:62 ). 2. They will become gods (see D&C 132:20–23 ). 3. They will be united eternally with their righteous family members and will be able to have eternal increase. 4. They will receive a fulness of joy. 5. They shall increase in knowledge, wisdom, and power, going from grace to grace, until the fulness of the perfect day shall burst upon them ” ( Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 2:36; italics in original). They will have everything that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have—all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge (see D&C 132:19–20 ). President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: “The Father has promised through the Son that all that he has shall be given to those who are obedient to His commandments.” (comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 2:36; italics in original).
Panel TextQ: Do Mormons really believe they can get their own planet?A: No! They believe they'll get their own universe."As man is God once was; as God is man may be"References |
As the island prepares for the first blizzard of spring, residents of St. John’s are expecting it to be a bigger headache than usual. Reports the City has laid off dozens of snowclearing staff have residents worried about how an already inadequate approach to snowclearing is going to pan out when it’s rendered even more inadequate than it already is.
Meanwhile, the City of Mount Pearl, in the zing of the year, has calmly reassured its residents that “a full complement” of snowclearing staff will be on hand to deal with the excitement.
Well played, Mount Pearl. Well played.
The capital city’s perpetually stunned approach to snowclearing is frustrating enough (heated sidewalks, anyone? I’m serious – European countries use them), but it’s also indicative of a broader and more problematic approach to the intertwined issues of providing public services and providing decent work.
Not just snowclearing
A couple of years ago I wrote about a wildcat strike that took place at Long Harbour by workers in the professional trades who were sick and tired of being promised work, only to be laid off after a couple weeks when demand died down. They weren’t the only ones; there’s been labour unrest aplenty at the large industrial sites. The approach of the province’s construction and trades employers is consistently one that expects workers to be available when they’re needed, but then to toddle off and somehow make do on their own when they’re not. It’s a culture of labour-on-demand, of hiring halls and day labourers, where employers expect to be able to find workers when they need them, but then also to be able to cut corners and costs by giving them the boot whenever they want.
This sort of approach to labour and employment doesn’t benefit anybody in this province except the companies (and their rich bosses, most of whom don’t even live here). And despite their claims, this approach certainly does nothing to strengthen or grow the economy. One of the reasons for the infamous ‘labour shortage’ is that local workers are simply fed up with the arrogant and self-centred attitude of employers in this province and are more inclined to fly off to other provinces where at least they can be assured of consistent, regular work.
It’s also one of the reasons why inequality is growing at a disturbing rate in this province. Those stalwarts who decide to stay here are barely able to make ends meet, struggling from job to job unable to pay mortgages (or the dramatically rising costs of rental housing), raise families, pursue additional skills and training or even put food on the table (the growth in food bank usage exposes the lie that things are getting better for the average person in this province).
What is to be done?
We need to move away from this backward and immature approach to employment and the labour market. It’s a haphazard approach that’s grounded in all the antiquated ideas of Victorian-era capitalism, and we all know where that got them (read some Dickens if you don’t).
The solution is that government needs to play a much bigger role in ensuring we move away from this attitude of ‘labour-on-demand’ (which is equally rooted in our pre-Confederation, merchant-takes-all mentality, and the insecurities and exploitations which that led to), and that we cultivate a labour market grounded in the principle of full-time, permanent, decent work. Government can do this by strengthening regulatory mechanisms like the Labour Relations Act to strengthen the ability of unions to resist efforts by employers to pursue profit-making measures that line the pockets of the corporate bosses while undermining the provincial economy, local communities and local workers.
Government needs to play a much bigger role in ensuring we move away from this attitude of ‘labour-on-demand’…
But that’s why it’s so troubling that a municipal government – the City of St. John’s – is not taking the lead. Any time an employer has to lay workers off, it ought to be with a sense of shame. Layoffs are an indication of a bad employer: an employer who’s failed at the job of being an employer. Sure, we don’t need snowclearing year round (although some years you’d wonder). But jumping the gun and laying off snowclearing staff in late March makes just about as much sense as NL Hydro’s asinine gamble that we wouldn’t have bad weather in January and could make due with a compromised and inadequate energy grid.
People operating public services must stop taking gambles in the name of saving money. When cutting costs means cutting corners, it’s not acceptable.
Beyond that, if the city – and other employers – acknowledged their responsibility not just to provide the most basic level of service, but to offer secure, decent and meaningful employment to our province’s workers, then we wouldn’t have ridiculous situations like this in the first place. Snowclearing staff could be given other duties in the summertime; additional skills and training would make them even more valuable employees (they could do maintenance on the heated sidewalks, for instance). Professional trades workers on the mega projects could be given additional training and skills upgrades – which at present they have to pursue on their own time and dollar, for the most part – when demand on worksites drops down.
If employers stopped trying to cut corners at every possible juncture, we could actually build a provincial workforce that was the best trained, best skilled and most proud of what they do in the entire country.
Instead, we wind up with a collective resentment at the people in charge who appear to have few qualifications beyond a profound ability to make dumb decisions. A situation which benefits none of us, in the end.
As we watch the snow bomb unfold this week, let’s give some thought to what we can do to turn around our province’s culture of precarious labour-on-demand, and to bring about a government and workplace culture that is grounded in the principle of decent, full-time, permanent, meaningful work. It was not too long ago that this used to be the driving principle of the labour market. With a bit of effort, it can be once more.
We’ve got an election coming up pretty soon. That might be a good place to start.
______________________________________________________________________________ |
Deanna Durante was in court during the "Black Madam" trial. Find out who the she says was among her celebrity clients. (Published Friday, Feb. 27, 2015)
A Gothic hip-hop artist charged with killing a London break dancer with an illegal buttocks injection claims one celebrity who sought her out became "a walking billboard" for her body-sculpting work.
Padge-Victoria Windslowe claimed on the stand Friday that Philly model Amber Rose started receiving her injections before she became famous.
She says Kanye West dropped her off for one procedure when the two were dating.
Windslowe also stated under oath that Rose brought her many clients and that she was supposed to inject Nicki Minaj but the appointment was canceled after Claudia Aderotimi's death. The London college student and model died being injected with low-grade silicone at an airport hotel in Philadelphia.
Representatives for Rose did not immediately respond to emails by The Associated Press and calls by NBC10 requesting comment.
Under cross-examination Windslowe has tried to explain the dizzying array of names, addresses, businesses and identities she has amassed in the 20 years she admits doing underground cosmetic surgery on the side.
She says her "Black Madam" title comes from many lucrative years running an escort service. Windslowe says: "I was the best."
Windslowe is charged with third-degree murder in the 2011 death of Aderotimi.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC 10 Philadelphia |
It takes ten to 12 people to create a fake bill, says one counterfeiter, but the profits are huge in Lima – where investigators know of four sophisticated operations
Joel Quispe sells his art for pennies on the dollar. Each masterpiece is roughly three feet long and two feet wide. Every print requires various types of ink and is meticulously designed and beautifully drawn. It is estimated that he has sold millions of dollars worth of his creations over the past five years – all while locked in a Peruvian prison while his family on the outside runs the show.
Quispe is a perfectionist who uses bonded paper, watermarks and gloriously intricate typography. He has proven a master at mass marketing, producing thousands of copies. He is also a criminal mastermind who distributes sheet after sheet of his specialty: fake US $100 bills.
Quispe is a master counterfeiter.
According to police investigators, Quispe is the de facto leader of one of the four (perhaps more) sophisticated counterfeiting operations operating out of Lima, Peru, which the US secret service has declared the world’s leading producer of counterfeit dollars.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Extreme attention to the finest details makes the Peruvian counterfeits among the best in the world. Photograph: Jonathan Franklin for the Guardian
“Since 2009, in our investigations with the secret service, we have seized about $75m in fake bills,” said Walter Escalante, head of the Peruvian national police’s anti-fraud division. “We don’t know what percentage entered the US illegally and has gone inside the financial system. We think that our $75m is the better part of what has entered the US.”
Criminals suggested that Escalante was unreasonably optimistic and the actual production of counterfeit dollars was far higher. In a clandestine meeting with the Guardian in a seedy hotel room in Lima, a veteran counterfeiter with over 20 years in the business detailed how his gang alone was producing an average of $3m to $5m in fake $100 bills every week.
“To make these bills, you need 10 to 12 people,” said Geraldo Chavez (not his real name), the counterfeiter. “One runs the machine, there is a designer, you have someone in charge of the supplies – the paper, the inks – you need someone to cut the bills, someone outside watching. The packer. At a minimum eight people, but usually eight to 12 people for the production to come out right.”
Asked how long it takes to fill an order for $5m, Chavez replied: “About a week. You make the design, then organize the paper and then start printing – pa! pa! pa!” He circled his hands in rotation, as he simulated the factory with six offset printing machines simultaneously pumping out money. “You have to work late in the night; the machines really make a lot of noise. That’s why they are up in the hills, in prefabricated houses, away from people.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers are paid to thread security strips by hand into each bill. By soaking the bill, then inserting a needle, the counterfeiters add a final touch to make the fake bills appear authentic. Photograph: Jonathan Franklin for the Guardian
Chavez said the typical customer bought between $10,000 and$15,000, for which the buyer paid 20% of face value if they were a repeat customer or 25% if they were a newbie. “Once, we printed an order for $5m in fake bills for some Mexicans,” said Chavez.
Chavez pulled out a stack of freshly minted $100 bills. “These come from the north of Lima, where the factory is. Then they are brought to the center of Lima to enter the black market,” he added as he rubbed the bill with admiration. “They have a texture that is as close as you can get to a real bill. The finishing touches are of the highest quality. These are made to be sent abroad.”
Chavez went on to demonstrate the “finishing touches” by which a counterfeit bill is able to pass smoothly into circulation. The final steps were meant to improve the raised lettering, he said as he opened a small plastic bag of what looked like cocaine, but was in fact a type of flour. He mixed the flour with glue and water and stirred the mixture as if he were preparing instant coffee, careful to get an even consistency. He then used his finger to lightly paint certain parts of the bill with the glue mixture. The bills were then left to dry and will ultimately carry a rippled effect on key spots, similar to the texture of a real bill.
“The printer has to be skilled,” said Don Brewer, who spent 26 years with the US secret service and became head of the agency’s anti-counterfeiting division. “They need to be artistic and meticulous. Because offset begins by photographing the money, the negative is the key. But the negative fails to hold all the detail of the original, so it has to be touched up by hand. In many counterfeit plants we raided, we would find large negative blowups that were used to add detail.”
In the US and much of Europe, the sale, distribution, and use of offset printers are watched closely by anti-counterfeiting units. In Peru, however, the offset industry is a free-for-all. Entire neighborhoods are famous for being places to buy fake passports, bogus driver’s licenses, invented university degrees, false job contracts, forged housing deeds and practically anything else under the sun.
In Peru, awareness of fake currency is so high that retail shops regularly provide cashiers with hole punchers. When a fake bill is received, the cashier quickly pops out a few holes before curtly returning the bill to an oft-surprised client. Warning signs at the entrance to many pharmacies in Lima are plastered with fake bills punched full of holes and a sign explaining that any counterfeit bill received will be perforated on the spot.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Counterfeiters use sophisticated scanning, printing and design software to print millions of dollars in fake currency. Photograph: Jonathan Franklin for the Guardian
The profits from this business are huge – roughly $600,000 a week for his gang alone, said Chavez. “The raw materials are very cheap. I will give you an example. A $100 bill that I sell for $20? My costs are between $3 and $5. So what’s my profit? $15. Here [in Peru], you get the supplies you need at a low cost. This glue? It costs me 50 cents. The flour, even less. All this?” he said, pointing to the material on the desk in front of him. “Not even a dollar. The paper you buy in bulk and that costs 40-50 sols [$10-$15 a stack].”
Competition is fierce, too. “If you have the best quality, people come to you,” said Chavez. “If it is second-rate? Doesn’t have the raised lettering? If the paper’s not right? If it doesn’t have the texture? They aren’t going to buy it. Nothing’s going down.”
“They try to make the minimum investment possible,” said Escalante, the Peruvian police commander. “It’s not in their best interest to use expensive materials. And you have to remember, these bills are going to the United States, and in the US the people have confidence in their bills. They don’t check as much.”
Peruvian counterfeiters are so creative that even worthless currencies are brought back to life. Thanks to the world’s highest inflation rate, the Venezuelan 10 Bolivar note has seen its value plummet over the past five years from roughly $5 to two cents. For Peruvian counterfeiters the Venezuelan currency is worth more than the money printed on it. They use the 10 Bolivar note as raw material to produce counterfeit bills.
First, the Peruvian gangs bleach off the portraits of both Guaicaipuro (a revered indigenous leader) and the harpy eagle and then print Benjamin Franklin’s stiff grimace onto the face of a newly minted $100 bill. “When people check those bills, the paper is right, it has many of the properties of a real bill,” explains Reimundo Urcia Bernabe, a 20-year veteran of the Peruvian police who, putting the bill under his microscope, can often detect the faint outlines of the now-erased Venezuelan currency.
“The Venezuelan bills have a lilac-colored security strip, while the US [security strip] is red and blue,” explains the retired police officer. “Because the paper is real, it passes many of the [forgery detection] tests, but if you look close, you can still read the word “diez” (ten) which has been reprinted with the words ‘one hundred’.”
According to the counterfeiters, every month millions of these fake dollars are smuggled out of Peru and into the US by cash couriers known as “burriers”. Flying out of Jorge Chávez international airport, the “burriers” secret the money inside hollowed out books, the soles of sneakers and inside picture frames. In one attempt, the smugglers filled a suitcase with Furbies, the children’s toys, each stuffed full of fake $100 bills.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Reimundo Urcia, a retired Peruvian police officer who trains civilians and police on how to detect counterfeit bills. Photograph: Jonathan Franklin for the Guardian
“Most of the bills end up in the United States – they go through Mexico,” explained Chavez. “There are Peruvian-Mexicans who are in charge of passing the money over the border. You don’t [smuggle] by airplane [directly] into the United States because their airport control uses the latest technologies … These bills get into the US over the frontier by the coyotes. This is a mafia – they get the bills into Texas and California.”
In an attempt to break up the counterfeit gangs and reduce the flood of fake cash, the US secret service set up a regional office in Lima three years ago to work closely with Peruvian police. But infiltrating the gangs is difficult. The counterfeiters live and work in marginal neighborhoods where outsiders are instantly noticed and often unwelcome. For the Peruvian police, rampant corruption in the judiciary and among their peers makes the battle against counterfeiters a weary fight.
Hoping to disrupt the counterfeiters, the US Treasury has launched a seemingly endless string of redesigns to US currency, adding features both public and private to make the bills ever harder to copy. Given the leap in printing technologies, however, innovations are volleyed back and forth as the US government serves up a new round of holograms, floating ink and security strips, while the forgers fire back by reverse engineering those same features. It’s not a match likely to end anytime soon. “Every time a new design would come out, we would have an informal pool on how soon it would be counterfeited,” said retired agent Brewer.
Despite the flood of Peruvian-made fake bills entering into circulation, Brewer says the Peruvian bills never make it beyond the “retail” street level of commerce. Hi-tech magnetic ink allows counting machines at banks to instantly sort the authentic cash from the fake bills. “There is no counterfeit bill that I know of that will pass the scrutiny of the equipment used by banks worldwide. So in my opinion, it is not a threat to our banking system in that way. But the dollar stands for the integrity of the US and people everywhere depend on that.”
While police officials struggle to maintain an organized opposition to the flood of fake dollars, the counterfeiters continue to innovate. By coloring the bills with run-of-the-mill yellow highlighters, the criminals simulate “security fibers” that glow under ultraviolet counterfeit detection systems. Using tiny pushpins, the counterfeiters riddle their freshly minted bills with tiny holes giving the impression of raised lettering . “They are very good artists,” said Urcia.
Like many emerging artists, however, counterfeiters often have a huge ego and an unquenchable desire for recognition, according to police investigators.
“I used to carry on about how good their product was and what a genius they were, and they would throw caution right out the window and ignore any suspicion,” said Brewer. “Counterfeiters are proud of their work, and I can’t tell you how useful that is when doing undercover work.”
Additional reporting by Dan Collyns |
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” ~Maya Angelou
We’ve all done it, right? Somehow, somewhere, something bad happened to us and since that moment we’ve continued to tell ourselves the story about what might and could go wrong in our future.
For me, the biggest negative pattern I’ve had to release stems from my parents’ divorce. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a positive person. When I was a kid I was happy-go-lucky, nothing much bothered me, and life was pretty awesome.
Also, being an only child I was always close with my parents. The thought that they wouldn’t be together was something that never entered my mind.
Then they split up when I was 18 and things began to change. I made different choices and I also began to believe that all romantic relationships were doomed.
A few years later, just after I had split up with my long-term partner, I was in LA spending a lovely afternoon watching US daytime TV. Nothing much was on, but every channel I flicked to seemed to mention the word “marriage” or “divorce.”
I also happened to be reading Wayne Dyer’s Your Sacred Self at the time, and suddenly it all made sense:
I had been telling myself stories like “Marriages never last forever” and “All relationships are doomed,” and in essence I was creating my reality.
I finally realized that my beliefs about relationships had been causing me to attract those exact experiences.
I was giving these negative stories power and acting on them. I was skeptical that I would be able to have a successful and happy relationship, which caused me to see everything that could go wrong. I ultimately initiated our break-up because I believed that it was inevitable.
The very experiences we fear keep repeating themselves if we continue to focus on them and give them power. We’ve got to become aware and first change ourselves if we want our reality to change.
Now that I’m a few years on from that, I have replaced my negative relationship beliefs with new, positive thought patterns.
Now, I believe my current relationship is a lifetime partnership and as a result, I act in a way that manifests that type of relationship without worry and doubt. I take responsibility for my part of the relationship, and because I have positive thinking patterns I bring my best self to the table. This allows me and my partner to have confidence and faith as we plan our lives together.
Our experiences reflect our beliefs, so it benefits us to make them positive.
Here are a few questions to help you get to the root of your negative beliefs so you can make changes in your life:
1. What are the negative stories you’ve been telling yourself?
Is there an area in your life where you seem to struggle? Which experiences trigger negative thoughts?
It’s time to narrow in on the beliefs that are keeping you from living the life that you want.
2. Where do those negative beliefs come from?
What happened in your past? Did someone in a position of authority make a negative comment about you that you’ve held on to?
Just know that you can’t change what has happened or what someone said to you or about you. But you do have the power to decide not to allow those experiences to control your life in this moment.
3. Why are you holding on to those negative beliefs?
Which needs are you fulfilling by holding on to these beliefs? For example, are you getting attention by playing the victim?
By not letting go of negative beliefs, we keep ourselves trapped in a vicious cycle, repeating the same pattern over and over again. Life will continue to give us lessons until we learn, grow, and move past it.
We need to make a change within ourselves to move forward and break through to a new reality.
4. What does your future look like if you let go of these beliefs?
Close your eyes and imagine your future if you didn’t have these thoughts. Notice all the amazing things that you close yourself off from just by holding on to your negative beliefs.
What can you do in this moment to move toward that future?
Holding on to past experiences and old beliefs gives you an excuse to continue to repeat the same behavior. It justifies negative thought patterns and keeps you in that loop.
It’s time to break the pattern and realize you have the power to shape your reality!
Photo by Hanna Irblinger fotografie
About Rachel Jessica Huxtable Rachel is an author and spirited mentor to women around the world wanting to live in happiness, love and success. She is also an inspired speaker and actress. Her intention is to help women around the world find their spark and claim their best life! Connect with Rachel at her website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. |
14 AUG 3301
Imperial Inquisition and Emperor's Grace to Hold Meeting
Mavia Kain, the High Inquisitor and leader of the Imperial Inquisition, is scheduled to pay a visit to Admiral Varrwen Mako Brennus, leader of Emperor`s Grace. The meeting will be held in the Emperor's Grace stronghold of Rishair at Lindblad Port. Both leaders will discuss a number of Imperial issues, including the assassination of Emperor Duval and the present military operations in the Pegasi sector.
Rumours about the groups’ cooperation have been circulating since the start of the united Imperial offensive in the Pegasi sector. Both factions are presently engaged in a peacekeeping operation against the Kumo Crew, which began when Archon Delaine illegally invaded Imperial space and took Imperial citizens into slavery. Emperor`s Grace and Imperial Inquisition pilots are fighting together against this notorious crime lord, as both groups see him as a threat to galactic peace.
Sources close to Admiral Brennus revealed that the factions share the same traditional Imperial values. A senior official noted that: "We both care about the Empire, the Imperial way of life, and Imperial citizens. We are natural allies. The Empire is going through tough times - we need to support each other."
Commander Raf von Thorn |
Shares
There are some weeks when I know what my topic will be—what it must be. These are weeks in which the universe gives the very appearance of handing to me my topic for the week on the proverbial silver platter with a giant hand descending from the clouds, pointing at it, and saying, “Blog about this, you idiot!” Usually, it’s because a study is released or something happens or a quack writes something that cries out for rebuttal. Whatever it is, it’s big and it’s unavoidable (for me, at least).
This is one of those weeks.
The reason it’s one of those weeks is because just last Friday, as I was driving to work, I heard a news story on NPR about a study that had just been released in the Journal of Pediatrics. The story, as it was reported, noted that the study being discussed looked specifically at a certain antivaccine trope and found for yet the umpteenth time that vaccines are not correlated with an increased risk of autism. Normally the news that a study had once again failed to find a link between vaccines and autism would be as surprising as a study finding that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, or finding that water boils at 100° C at sea level. At this point, the evidence is so utterly overwhelming that there is not a whiff of a hint of a whisper of a correlation between vaccines and autism that it has become irritating that antivaccine activists keep pressuring scientists to do the same study over and over again, coming up with the same results over and over again, and then seeing antivaccinationists fail to believe those same results over and over again. Apparently, antivaccine activists think that if the same sorts of studies are done enough times, there will be a positive result implicating vaccines as a risk factor for or contributing cause to autism. By sheer random chance alone, this might happen someday, given the definition of statistical significance, but so far there has not been a single large, well-designed epidemiological study by reputable researchers that has found a link.
The final nail in the coffin of “too many too soon”?
Its utterly expected result notwithstanding, what makes the study reported on by NPR interesting is that it looked specifically at a common antivaccine trope that started popping up a lot five or six years ago. To my knowledge, although it had been percolating for a couple of years before that, this trope had its big debut when Jenny McCarthy led an antivaccine “protest” march on Washington, DC in June 2008, coupled with the delightfully Orwellian slogan, “Green our vaccines!” Quite honestly, I had to hand it to the antivaccinationists. “Too many too soon” and “Green our vaccines” were great slogans. They were pithy, simple, and communicated the message that vaccines were toxic and that they shouldn’t be given to young children. From a scientific standpoint they were horribly wrong, but from a propaganda standpoint they were brilliant, not the least of which because “too many too soon” was much more difficult to falsify than other antivaccine tropes, such as the roundly falsified claims that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal causes or contributes to autism, that vaccines are loaded with “toxins,” and the idea popularized by the now disgraced Andrew Wakefield that the MMR triple vaccine could result in “autistic enterocolitis” and autism itself. This study looks right at the “too many too soon” hypothesis and finds zero evidence to suggest that there is anything to it. As I said, this could be completely predicted beforehand, but antivaccinationists keep forcing scientists to do the same study over and over and over again in different ways. They’re still not convinced, but we can always hope to convince the fence sitters.
The study itself was carried out by Frank DeStefano, Cristofer S. Price, and Eric S. Weintraub, from the CDC and Abt Associates, and the complete study, Increasing Exposure to Antibody-Stimulating Proteins and Polysaccharides in Vaccines Is Not Associated with Risk of Autism is available to all online, which is a lovely thing. It also used publicly available data from a previous study published in 2010 that looked for associations between mercury exposure in thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. I discussed this study in detail when it originally came out and therefore won’t discuss it further (at least not much) here.
The previous study (Price et al) and this study (DeStefano et al) were both based on the same case control study. A case control study is a type of retrospective study in which subjects with a certain condition (cases) are matched as closely as possible with subjects without the condition under study (controls), and the two groups compared to look for factors that correlate with the condition in the cases. That’s how an earlier study from 2007 that failed to find a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines (Thompson et al) and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes was performed, and that’s how Price et al and DeStefano et al were also performed. Being retrospective, such a study can never be quite as rigorous as a randomized controlled trial or a prospective cohort study. However, given that thimerosal has already been removed from all infant vaccines other than the flu vaccine (and there is a thimerosal-free alternative) and, more importantly, that it would be unethical to conduct a randomized double blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, this sort of trial is the best evidence that we will be able to come up with.
I think it’s worth briefly recapping the design of this study, so that you don’t have to spend too much time clicking on previous links:
Basically, the two groups that ended up being studied consisted of 256 children with ASD and 752 matched controls. The authors justify the study thusly:
The initial concerns that vaccines may cause autism were related to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines. In 2004, a comprehensive review by the Institute of Medicine concluded that the evidence favors rejection of possible causal associations between each of these vaccine types and autism. Nonetheless, concerns about a possible link between vaccines and autism persist, with the latest concern centering on the number of vaccines administered to infants and young children. A recent survey found that parents’ top vaccine-related concerns included administration of too many vaccines during the first 2 years of life, administration of too many vaccines in a single doctor visit, and a possible link between vaccines and learning disabilities, such as autism. All of the foregoing concerns were reported by 30%-36% of all survey respondents, and were reported by 55%-90% of parents who indicated that their children would receive some, but not all, of the vaccines on the recommended schedule. Another recent survey found that more than 10% of parents of young children refuse or delay vaccinations, with most believing that delaying vaccine doses is safer than providing them in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended vaccination schedule.
So basically this research was driven not so much by a scientific question as by a social imperative. Scientists have long known that there is no compelling rigorous evidence suggesting that vaccines cause autism or that “too many too soon” can result in or predispose to autism. Sadly, it can’t be repeated too many times (as I’m repeating here) that antivaccinationists force scientists to keep reinventing the wheel in order to try to reassure the parents whose doubts are stoked by the misinformation and pseudoscience promoted by antivaccinationists.
Before I get to the results in detail (you already know the results in general), I’ll also reiterate a point I made when discussing Price et al that this study had the strength that derives from the fact that the case and control populations were collected from three managed care organizations (MCOs) that participate in the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a collaborative effort between the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office and nine MCOs that was established in 1990 to monitor immunization safety and address gaps in scientific knowledge about rare and serious events that can occur after immunization. The VSD uses a large linked database using administrative data sources at each MCO from which data are gathered on vaccination(vaccine type, date of vaccination, concurrent vaccinations), medical outcomes (outpatient visits, inpatient visits, urgent care visits), birth data, and census data. Consequently, because of the detailed records maintained by these MCOs, investigators using VSD data are able to develop a detailed and accurate estimate of vaccine exposure from the computerized databases maintained by the MCOs as well as the medical records of the cases, controls, all supplemented by standardized interviews with the parents. In addition, outcomes have been measured in clinical settings using standardized assessment tools. In Price et al, the most up-to-date standardized assessment tools used to diagnose ASDs were used to identify cases, and the same is true in DeStefano et al. In addition, in order to make sure that the controls did not include children with undiagnosed ASD, which would tend to decrease any apparent differences between the groups, the lifetime form of the Social Communication Questionnaire was administered to controls as part of the interview with each mother for children who had indications of any neurodevelopmental difficulties. Several children were excluded from the control group in this manner. Finally, the detailed medical records and databases maintained by the MCOs allowed for the detailed determination of and control for many potential confounders.
Another major strength of DeStefano et al is how the investigators chose to compare vaccine exposures; basically, they estimated total antigen exposure rather than just counting the number of vaccines. They also looked at total antigen exposures from vaccines administered at single visits as well as the cumulative antigen exposure:
We evaluated antigen exposure for 3 age ranges according to 2 measures: cumulative exposure to antigens within the specified age range and the maximum number of antigens received in a single day within the specified age range. Data were collected on a large number of covariates, including child and family characteristics, maternal exposures during pregnancy, childbirth conditions, early childhood health conditions, and maternal healthcare-seeking behavior (ie, Kotelchuck prenatal care index, cholesterol, and Pap smear screenings).
For those who aren’t familiar with immunology, an antigen is a substance that evokes the production of one or more antibodies. In the case of vaccines, an antigen could be a protein or polysaccharide. In the case of killed vaccines (in which extracts isolated from killed viruses or bacteria are used to provoke the antibody response), there can be dozens, or hundreds, of antigens. An example is the whole cell pertussis vaccine, which is not used anymore. More modern vaccines tend not to be killed organism vaccines anymore, but rather vaccines made of recombinant proteins, protein fragments, or polysaccharides. Such vaccines contain many fewer antigens, but they are the specific antigens that produce an effective immune response against the organism. The vaccines examined in the study ranged from a single antigen per dose (hepatitis B) to 3,004 antigens per dose (DTP-Hib).
Using a strategy similar to the earlier Price et al study, DeStefano et al examined antigen exposure and compared the number of vaccine antigens to which the controls and the cases were exposed. What do you think they found? Yes, I know. I already told you what they found from the beginning: Nada, zip, nothing. No correlation between antigen exposure from vaccines and the risk of developing autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD)—or even ASD with regression. The results are summarized in Table II from the paper, which shows that there is no correlation between cumulative vaccine antigen exposures and autism outcomes:
Nor was there a correlation between maximal antigen exposure at one session of being vaccinated and autism outcomes:
This is as negative a study as I have ever seen. There is not even a whiff of a hint of a whisper of an association between the number of antigens to which the cases and the controls were exposed and the subsequent risk of autism. Not only do the confidence intervals for the adjusted odds ratios all overlap 1.0, but they’re very tight. It doesn’t get more negative than this in an epidemiological study, leading the authors to conclude:
We found no evidence indicating an association between exposure to antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides contained in vaccines during the first 2 years of life and the risk of acquiring ASD, AD, or ASD with regression. We also detected no associations when exposures were evaluated as cumulative exposure from birth to 3 months, from birth to 7 months, or from birth to 2 years, or as maximum exposure on a single day during those 3 time periods. These results indicate that parental concerns that their children are receiving too many vaccines in the first 2 years of life or too many vaccines at a single doctor visit are not supported in terms of an increased risk of autism.
They also note:
Considerations of biological mechanisms should be taken into account when evaluating a possible association between autism and immunologic stimulation from vaccines early in life. The infant’s immune system is capable of responding to a large number of immunologic stimuli. Beginning at birth, an infant is exposed to hundreds of viruses and other antigens, and it has been estimated that an infant theoretically could respond to thousands of vaccines at once.15 The possibility that immunologic stimulation from vaccines during the first 1-2 years of life could be related to the development of ASD is not well supported by the known neurobiology of ASD, which tends to be genetically determined with origins in prenatal development,19-22 although possible effects in early infancy cannot be ruled out completely. It can be argued that ASD with regression, in which children usually lose developmental skills during the second year of life, could be related to exposures in infancy, including vaccines; however, we found no association between exposure to antigens from vaccines during infancy and the development of ASD with regression.
In other words, from the standpoint of prior plausibility, there is no compelling reason to suspect that vaccines could cause autism because such a mechanism is not consistent with what we know about the neurobiology of autism. Consistent with this lack of plausibility, the authors failed to find any correlations between exposure to antigens from vaccines and the risk of autism. They sliced and diced the data in a variety of ways looking for correlations and didn’t find any, and their data are in agreement with a study by Smith et al (discussed by my “good bud” Orac here) that failed to find a difference in non-autism neurodevelopmental outcomes between children who received all their recommended vaccines on time and those who were late, or, as I like to view it, “too many too soon” versus “too few too late.”
Yes, there were limitations to DeStefano et al in that it was retrospective. In addition, as the authors discussed, not all antigens are equal in evoking an immune response. Some have more epitopes (areas on the antigen molecule that can trigger an immune response) than others, and the study didn’t weight the antigens for the intensity of the immune response that they evoke. Even so, the antigenic load has fallen dramatically, and this study is based on the vaccine schedule of the 1990s. Indeed, the authors note that the antigen load due to the vaccine schedule has fallen from several thousand in the late 1990s to an estimated 315 in 2012. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of antigens infants and children encounter every day, as Emily Willingham notes. Matt Carey and Christine Vara also agree.
The antivaccinationists attack
Not surprisingly, even though this study was released on Good Friday, with a holiday weekend fast approaching, antivaccinationists were sufficiently displeased that they managed to launch a series of broadsides against the study. It’s instructive to look at the bad science and logical fallacies that populate such “criticisms.” For instance, Dr. “Bob” Sears, who is, despite his efforts to appear otherwise, as antivaccine as they come, went to Facebook to rant against the study. His complaints reveal such ignorance about statistical methods and basic epidemiology that it’s worth a quick look:
I pretty much only have one major criticism of this study. You would probably find the exact same results no matter what group of kids you studied. Pretty much all children in any given span of years receive the exact same number of shot antigens. (By the way, an antigen is simply a protein or sugar germ-related ingredient in a vaccine – some vaccines only have a few, some have many.) Virtually all kids WITH autism have had the same shots as kids WITHOUT autism. So, why would it even be useful to study this? You’ll get the same results every time, whether you study 1000 kids or 100,000 kids. They all get the same shots on the same schedule. They would have gotten the same results if they’d studies asthma, cancer, or any other chronic problem. All this study proved is that all the kids in that HMO got about the same vaccines over that 5 year time period. This doesn’t give us any useful data on how vaccines would have or would not have influenced the rate of autism.
Clearly, Dr. Bob doesn’t understand the very concept of a case-control study. Rather amusingly, he says that “virtually all the kids with autism have had the same shots as kids without autism” without realizing that that very conclusion in a case control study would be pretty powerful evidence that vaccine exposure is not a risk factor for autism! In actuality, though, he’s misstating the conclusion of DeStefano et al, anyway. The real conclusion was that the number of antigens from vaccines a child sees (which is a surrogate for vaccine load) has no correlation with that child’s risk of autism, ASD, or ASD with regression.
But if you really want hilarity, take a look at what he proposes as an alternative:
Now, if I were to do a study (and have several million bucks to fund it), here’s how I would look at the question of whether or not an increased number of vaccines relates to an increased risk of autism: I would take a bunch of kids who had all the vaccines on the regular schedule and look at the rate of autism in that group. We know that it’s about 1 in 50 kids. Then I’d take a whole bunch of kids who were only partially vaccinated and look at the rate of autism. I would subdivide the partially vaccinated group into subgroups based on the total number of vaccines given during infancy. I would perhaps have a group that delayed vaccines. And hey, while we’re at it, let’s really go crazy and find a few totally unvaccinated kids just for fun. On the other hand, no. Let’s not. It would be totally unethical to subject a group of totally unvaccinated children to any type of medical research. Ok, back to my study. These data would then give us a true look at autism rates compared to number of vaccines given and the age at which they were given. Now THAT would be an interesting study. Unfortunately, it’s just too logical. It’s much better to study things in a confusing and illogical manner so you can get some results that the press can really sink their teeth into.
As I said, Dr. Bob’s ignorance is quite striking, because that’s rather what was done in Price et al for autism and Thompson et al for other neurodevelopmental outcomes. One notes that Dr. Bob also doesn’t tell us how he would compare these populations. What sort of study would he do? A case control? Oh, wait, he doesn’t like case control studies, finding them “confusing and illogical.” (No kidding. It’s very clear that he’s confused.) Maybe he would like a cohort study? Actually, that’s what he seems to be suggesting. After all, case control studies starts with the outcome (presence or absence of disease or condition) and then work back to exposure, while cohort studies start with exposure and work towards outcomes. Each study type has its advantages and disadvantages, but I get no sense that Dr. Bob has any clue about when it is best to use one versus the other. One notes, for instance, that Sir Richard Doll used the case control study method to be among the earliest investigators to confirm a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, while A. B. Hill used a cohort design. Both produced the same results, just from a different approach. Basically, it’s sour grapes. Dr. Bob just didn’t like the outcome of of DeStefano et al. His criticism of the study demonstrates that he has no understanding of the issues behind case control studies, and his suggestion of an apparent cohort study doesn’t address his rejection of DeStefano et al, specifically the question of why he thinks the results of DeStefano et al are so flawed that a huge new multimillion dollar cohort study is necessary to address the question of whether vaccines increase the risk of autism.
Instead, he retreats to conspiracy mongering and antivaccine fear mongering:
So, is anyone really surprised to see the Journal of Pediatrics study? What were you expecting? CDC researchers to publish as study that actually showed an increased risk of autism related to vaccines? The CDC would NEVER simply publish such a study. I doubt anyone would. Anyone at the CDC who published such a study would be fired faster than they could sell their Pharma stock.
Yawn. The pharma shill gambit. How original.
Of course, the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism is very unhappy as well, but seems unable to muster any complaints much more coherent than those of Dan Olmsted, who basically mindlessly parrots Dr. Bob Sears’ objections, and Anne Dachel, who could muster nothing more than a call for the usual “vaxed versus unvaxed” study and reinforcing my conclusion that antivaccinationists don’t understand even the basics of clinical trial design, epidemiology, or ethics.
Perhaps the most amusing misunderstanding of basic epidemiology and the nature of a case control study comes from homeopath Heidi Stevenson of Gaia Health, who tries to argue…well, I’ll let you see for yourself:
As initially pointed out, this study was done on the assumption that there is no connection between autism and vaccinations. Therefore, there was no reason to do such a study. Why would you do a study on whether there’s an association between autism and vaccinations before you believe that there’s been a study demonstrating such a connection? If this were legitimate science, then there’d be no reason to do it.
Uh, no. This study was done to see if there was a connection between vaccine and autism detectable as a difference in vaccine antigen exposure between cases and controls. Stevenson digs herself in even deeper in terms of showing how little she understands what a case control study is when she writes:
This study, even if well done, would be meaningless simply because it jumps the gun. It makes no sense to do a study on the relative degree of a potential toxin’s effect on autism when no study has yet been done to determine that there is one. Since no such study has been done that officially implicates vaccines as the cause of autism, as explained earlier, what’s the point in doing a study focused on the relative degree of harm? This is pure duplicity on the part of the CDC.
One notes that Sir Richard Doll’s case control study was done before his and A.B. Hill’s cohort study. Does Stevenson doubt that smoking is an enormous risk factor for lung cancer? No, case control and cohort studies are different methodologies that each have advantages and disadvantages compared to the other. However, if a case control study as well done as DeStefano et al is so completely negative, there is no scientific justification for proceeding to do a cohort study. Yet that’s exactly what Dr. Sears and a homeopath are demanding because they think that a different study methodology will show them what this methodology didn’t. No doubt if someone did a cohort study of the type they want and it was negative, they’d proceed to demand a case control study.
Stevenson also tries to nitpick aspects of the study. For instance, she complains that more controls were eliminated than cases. The reasons for this were explained in both Price et al (in more detail) and in DeStefano et al, namely that they were deemed ineligible because they didn’t meet the protocol requirements. Indeed, in my previous post on Price et al, I reproduced the flowsheet that showed exactly how cases were ascertained and how subjects who fell under various exclusion criteria were eliminated. This study uses the same subjects, so the same flowsheet applies. One wonders whether Stevenson bothered to look up Price et al. Whether she did or not, Stevenson appears not to understand the concept of a case control study and how the cases and controls have to be matched as closely as possible for everything other than the condition that differentiates them.
Then, Stevenson lays down this doozy:
They looked at the number of antigens given to each child, both overall for their first two years and the number given on single days. This presumes that the number of antigens, rather than the number of vaccinations is the issue. It completely ignores adjuvants and other vaccine ingredients, including known toxins such as formaldehyde, mercury, and sorbitol 80, among others.
So which is it? “Too many too soon” or “the toxins“? I can’t tell. I guess it’s whatever argument happens to be convenient that day for the antivaccinationist making it.
The “evolution” of the antivaccinationist
Over the last decade or so, the reasons antivaccinationists advance for their fear and loathing of vaccines as an alleged cause of autism have “evolved” in response to what can be considered the “selective pressure” of scientific studies. It’s not surprising that that evolution has involved a tendency to migrate to hypotheses (I’m being really generous using that word here, I admit) whose main trait is to become more difficult to falsify. For instance, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the two predominant ideas were that MMR causes autism (this idea was most common in the U.K., thanks to Andrew Wakefield) or that the mercury in the thimerosal preservative in childhood vaccines caused autism (the favored notion in the U.S.). These were straightforward “hypotheses” that could be falsified using epidemiological studies of relatively simple design. And they were falsified roundly.
Then came the “toxins” gambit, which postulated that vaccines were full of vile substances ranging from antifreeze to formaldehyde to aborted fetal tissue. This one was more difficult conceptually in that there are a number of chemicals in vaccines, but they are all present at doses that are harmless. However, saying that was a harder sell, and the idea behind the “toxins” gambit was to force scientists to have to test each chemical, each adjuvant, each ingredient individually, a difficult enough task given the number of chemicals, and then in various combinations, an impossible task. That the task was impossible was the very point, of course. No matter how many trials scientists did, antivaccinationists could always say, “What about this adjuvant or this combination of adjuvants?”
Which brings us to “too many too soon.” It appeared to be a “hypothesis” that was impossible to falsify, but DeStefano et al came about as close as it’s ethically possible to falsifying the hypothesis. No wonder that all that antivaccinationists are left with are calls for “vaxed versus unvaxed” studies and pharma shill ranting. |
By Jennifer Stisa Granick and Christopher Jon Sprigman
It seems that every day brings a new revelation about the scope of the NSA’s heretofore secret warrantless mass surveillance programs. And as we learn more, the picture becomes increasingly alarming. Last week we discovered that the NSA shares information with a division of the Drug Enforcement Administration called the Special Operations Division (SOD). The DEA uses the information in drug investigations. But it also gives NSA data out to other agencies – in particular, the Internal Revenue Service, which, as you might imagine, is always looking for information on tax cheats.
The Obama Administration repeatedly has assured us that the NSA does not collect the private information of ordinary Americans. Those statements simply are not true. We now know that the agency regularly intercepts and inspects Americans’ phone calls, emails, and other communications, and it shares this information with other federal agencies that use it to investigate drug trafficking and tax evasion. Worse, DEA and IRS agents are told to lie to judges and defense attorneys about their use of NSA data, and about the very existence of the SOD, and to make up stories about how these investigations started so that no one will know information is coming from the NSA’s top secret surveillance programs.
“Now, wait a minute,” you might be saying. “How does a foreign intelligence agency which supposedly is looking for terrorists and only targets non-U.S. persons get ahold of information useful in IRS investigations of American tax cheats?” To answer that question, let’s review this week’s revelations.
Back in 2005, several media outlets reported that NSA has direct access to the stream of communications data, carried over fiber optic cables that connect central telephone switching facilities in the U.S. with one another and with networks in foreign countries. Reports suggested that the NSA had installed equipment referred to as “splitter cabinets” at main phone company offices, where they make a copy of all data traveling on the fiber optic cable and route it into a secret room where computers scan through the information – searching for names and terms that are themselves secret -- as it goes by. For years, the federal government refused to comment on these reports. But on August 8, an unnamed senior administration official confirmed this practice to the New York Times.
We also learned that the NSA can grab information off these fiber optic cables in near real time using a tool called XKeyscore (XKS). Searching the firehose of Internet and telephone data as it flows takes an immense amount of computing power. The XKS system dumps a portion of the communications information NSA snatches into a truly immense local storage "cache." This cache can keep network information for a few days, depending on the amount of traffic. This gives the NSA’s computers time to search through what otherwise would be an unmanageable torrent of emails, phone calls, chats, social network posts, and other communications. And importantly, XKS searches do not involve just communications “metadata”. The XKS system searches the contents of our Internet and telephone communications. Which is directly at odds with repeated Administration statements suggesting that NSA mass surveillance was limited to metadata.
To seize and search through all of this information without a warrant, the agency must comply with just a few legal limitations. Under the FISA Amendments Act, the NSA is not allowed to intentionally collect purely domestic information. That is, the NSA can search communications it believes begin or terminate in another country, either based on the facility where the information is collected (for example, an undersea cable) or other signifier, like an IP address that suggests origination abroad. Of course, these determinations are subject to error, particularly when the surveilled facility is in the U.S. and carries a substantial amount of purely domestic traffic.
To reduce the amount of purely domestic traffic that ends up on the desks of NSA analysts, the agency relies on post-seizure “minimization” procedures. For several reasons, however, these procedures are fundamentally inadequate to protect communications privacy. First, the minimization procedures are themselves secret. Moreover, by law, purely domestic communications that the NSA inadvertently collects need be deleted only if they “could not be” foreign intelligence information – a provision that requires the NSA to delete very little. Some minimization procedures have been leaked to the public, and these show that the government may “retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity.” Even otherwise privileged communications between individuals and their lawyers are not deleted. The agency merely stores those in a separate database so they are not sent to a law enforcement agency for use in a criminal case.
Once the NSA identifies the subset of international or “one-end” foreign communications (i.e., those where a foreigner is either a sender or recipient), analysts are supposed to search only for “foreign intelligence” information. But since “foreign intelligence” includes anything relevant to the conduct of U.S. foreign affairs, this limitation alone imposes no real restraint on NSA’s warrantless spying. Certainly, the NSA isn’t limited to counterterrorism operations.
In undertaking their searches, NSA analysts use either “strong” or “soft” selectors. “Soft” selectors are a broad kind of search that pulls up messages based on content or even the language in which a message is written. When the NSA uses soft selectors, it can search the vast amounts of information it collects to retrieve all Internet users’ discussions of particular topics or in particular languages. The potentially very broad scope of searches using soft selectors is quite frightening, as ordinary Americans’ communications are likely to show up in search results.
“Strong” selectors pull up information associated with a particular known individual. The Obama Administration has repeatedly assured us that these strong selectors may only target non-U.S. persons. But screenshots of the user interface for submitting selector queries tell a different story. Published by the Guardian, they show that NSA analysts are presented with dropdown lists of preapproved factors the NSA accepts as sufficient proof that a person is a foreigner, including being "in direct contact with (a) target overseas" or the use of storage media (like a server located abroad) seized outside the U.S. So any U.S. person who talks to a foreigner that the NSA has identified as a target, or who stores data on a server outside the U.S. (as someone might well do if emailing from a foreign hotel room) may be presumed to be a foreigner. And that’s not even the worst of it. Leaked NSA documents also suggest that the agency will presume that a person is a foreigner whenever there is no information suggesting otherwise. That sort of willful blindness gives the NSA a lot of leeway to target Americans.
Worse, we now know that the NSA’s assertion that it does not “target” U.S. persons is either a lie, or is about to become one. Leaked NSA documents show that in 2011, the NSA changed its “minimization” rules to allow its operatives to search for individual Americans' communications using their name or other identifying information. Such a change would turn “minimization” into a blanket authority to warrantlessly spy on Americans – in defiance of specific legal restrictions prohibiting this sort of domestic spying. Senator Ron Wyden has said that the law provides the NSA with a loophole potentially allowing "warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans", and raised the issue when he met with President Obama on August 1. This is the first time we’ve had evidence that the NSA has -- or will have -- the authority to warrantlessly search its databases with the specific intent of digging up information on specific U.S. individuals.
We can sum up very simply – at this moment, the NSA enjoys virtually unrestricted power to spy on Americans, without a warrant or any particular suspicion that any person spied upon has done anything wrong. Our phone, email and potentially other records are fair game for bulk collection. The contents of our communications with people overseas are also fair game, so long as there is an approved foreign intelligence purpose for the collection. The NSA does not believe that any stored emails are protected by the Fourth Amendment, so it can collect them from providers with little restraint. As far as we know, the only category of information the NSA currently believes is off limits to mass surveillance are the contents of phone calls it knows in advance are solely between Americans.
This is an astonishing development in the U.S., a nation that, until recently, carefully restricted the power of its domestic spying agencies by forcing them to submit narrow requests for spying authority to a court, which would issue a warrant if the government showed probable cause to believe that the surveillance target was engaged in some sort of wrongdoing. At this point, it’s clear those limits are gone. The United States is now a mass surveillance state.
In last week’s press conference, President Obama reassured the nation that “America isn’t interested in spying on ordinary people.” In other words, do not worry, because the information will only be used for narrow counterterrorism or broader foreign intelligence purposes. But the latest revelations show that these assurances too are a lie. Under current U.S. surveillance law, the NSA may share with domestic law enforcement information obtained both through authorized surveillance, and information unlawfully but unintentionally collected, if it contains evidence of a crime. This rule was worrisome when the NSA was only conducting targeted surveillance of foreign powers. It is terrifying now that the NSA scans virtually all American cross-border communications. And this is especially true in light of the recent reports showing that any number of other three-letter agencies are howling for access to NSA data for use in investigations of Americans’ drug use, tax evasion, and even copyright infringement. Usually, these agencies would need at least warrants based on probable cause that an individual was committing a crime before they could obtain the contents of our communications, and would need to certify to a public court that email or phone records are relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation before it could collect such traffic data. But if they get their hands on NSA data, all these bothersome civil liberties protections simply vanish.
Which brings us to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). As we noted previously, the DEA has a secret division called the Special Operations Division or SOD. The SOD receives intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records from its partner agencies, of which the NSA is just one, to distribute to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. The SOD gets information from the NSA and shares it with, among other agencies, the IRS.
And this is where things get truly ugly. When agents receive SOD information and rely on it to trigger investigations, they are directed to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD." IRS agents receiving SOD data, which presumably can include information from the NSA, have been similarly instructed. They are instructed, in other words, to create a fake investigative file, and to lie. To lie, in particular, to defense lawyers and to judges, about the source of the evidence used in criminal prosecutions.
By hiding the fact that information comes from NSA surveillance, the government both masks the extent to which NSA’s domestic spying is used to trigger investigations of Americans, and prevents legal challenges to highly questionable surveillance practices like bulk phone record collection, warrantless access to American communications with friends and family overseas, and retention and use of illegally obtained domestic calls and emails.
This is outrageous conduct. It is the sort of thing you expect from the Chinese government, or one of the now-vanished governments of the Warsaw Pact. And there is no stronger proof of the dangers of the NSA’s domestic spying effort than the fact that the government has consistently lied about it and attempted to cover it up. Think for just a moment about the stories J. Edgar Hoover could have plausibly concocted about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or any other civil rights activist with this kind of detailed information. The Obama Administration has gone after leakers, and the journalists at outlets like the Associated Press or the New York Times who use them as sources, with unprecedented force. Think about what the current Attorney General, Eric Holder, could do to bring down these reporters who cover – sometimes in ways the Obama Administration doesn’t like -- the conduct of American foreign policy. At this point, it’s plain to see that the Obama Administration has no intention of honestly fixing this mess. So it’s time now for Congress to act. A good first step would be to appoint a Special Prosecutor with wide power to subpoena Administration officials, and to bring criminal indictments where appropriate. Congress should then begin the process of reforming surveillance law to make absolutely clear that the NSA has no power to conduct warrantless mass surveillance of Americans.
First they came for the terrorists and the foreigners, and no one did anything. Then they came for the drug dealers. Then the tax cheats. Then the journalists. And that’s just what we know about. How much worse does it have to get before we say enough is enough? |
Exploring the banks of the Neva River, which empties into the Gulf of Finland, Tsar Peter the Great was more passionate about Russia having access to the sea than good land to build a city upon.
This area in the river’s delta was sparsely populated and swamped, with lots of islands and channels. The first city building – the Peter and Paul Fortress – was laid by Peter I on the Zayachy island. During the construction, the quantity of islands decreased three times; lots of channels were filled up.
Nowadays St. Petersburg is still partially situated on islands; their total area is about 80 km ², which is 6% of the whole city area. More than 700,000 people live on the islands.
150 years ago there were more than 100 islands in Saint Petersburg. Today it is not easy to claim the exact number. Commonly, about 33 islands and Kronstadt Archipelago in the Gulf of Finland are mentioned. Others say there are 42. Most of the islands are located in the west and northwest part of the city. Vasilyevsky Island is the most significant and together with Dekabristov island, it makes up the entire Vasileostrovsky administrative district of St. Petersburg.
There are other big islands in the city too: Kotlin (hosts Kronstadt), Bezymianny, Petrogradsky and Aptekarsky. Infrastructure of these islands is highly developed. Gutuevsky Island is occupied by the St. Petersburg Seaport.
Krestovsky, Elagin and Kamenny Islands in St.Petersburg are almost entirely kept for the leisure of tourists and citizens, which is quite uncommon for other Russian cities. Krestovsky is a popular place for outdoor activities and extreme sports. Elagin island is for culture lovers and those who prefer relaxing walks. Petrovsky is a “sporty” one: there you can find the city’s main Petrovsky Stadium, Yubileyny Sports Palace, water sports and the like. The Summer Garden (Letny Sad) is an island as well!
A lot of St. Petersburg islands face the Baltic sea on the west. So walking in a park, you can suddenly find yourself at an island beach, on a pier or boarding a river taxi.
Sometimes tourists forget they might get stuck on an island for the whole night because of drawbridges. The drawbridge schedule is changing every year. It’s a good idea to print it out and have it with you every time you are out for a walk, to avoid being trapped on an island at 2 a.m.
The islands, abundance of water, access to the sea and strong western wind have created a unique portrait of St.Petersburg: a cold, sometimes dreary, but still very romantic city.
An unhealthy wet climate and difficult natural conditions have long been part of local legends and have provided the basis for literary and musical works.
Like no other Russian city, St Petersburg gave to the world geniuses of music, painting and literature. Authors often chose the city as a scene for their novels and glorified it in poems. Everything new in art emerges here on the banks of the cold Neva River, while treasures of the past are safely kept in the city’s museums.
Some statistics:
Inland waters occupy about 10% of the city
Number of rivers and streams – 40, their total length – 217.5 km
Number of bridges – more than 580, including drawbridges – 20 (7 across the Neva)
Length of the Neva within the city – 32 km
Number of floods in 300 years – 288; maximum water level in the city – 4.2 m
Translation by Ekaterina Klenkina
Edited by Erin Swanson |
Advertisement
The F.lux Windows app has just been given a rather significant update for Windows 7 and Windows 8 with some very cool new features. You can now F.lux your house with a schedule for Philips Hue, enter Movie Mode when you’re using your PC as a home theatre or disable it until morning if you’re planning on working all night.
Every evening at 6.30pm, my screen starts to get less brighter and more Sepia-brownish-softer-colour. No, my monitor is not on the blink. Rather, that is my F.lux installation kicking in, a rather not-so-subtle hint to tell me to get off the computer for the evening and have a life.
We have previously written about maintaining your circadian rhythm using F.lux Use F.lux To Sleep Better After Late-Night Computer Activities Use F.lux To Sleep Better After Late-Night Computer Activities If you look carefully, most of LCD monitors have a button to automatically change the attributes of the screen to adjust for the types of media which is being viewed. Read More , the Linux version of F.lux f.lux Now Comes With A Simple GUI [Linux] f.lux Now Comes With A Simple GUI [Linux] Read More , and how F.lux can prevent computer-related eye strain 4 Ways To Prevent Computer-Related Eye Strain Without Losing Productivity 4 Ways To Prevent Computer-Related Eye Strain Without Losing Productivity Do you spend many hours in front of a computer screen? If you do, you’re probably familiar with the inescapable eye strain that comes with it. Headaches, burning eyes, itchiness and just being tired, are... Read More . But if you’re a busy person who has no time to click on any more links, this is how it works. You have what’s called a sleep cycle, and as you head towards bed-time, ideally you should not be looking at a bright screen because the brightness hits your eyes and causes the sleep cycle to be messed up, which in turn means you can’t sleep very well. If this sounds too simplistic, read the circadian rhythm article above, which is written by a qualified doctor.
If you are someone who spends many hours a day at the computer, especially in the evening, then the F.lux app is for you. Many users swear it has improved their sleep tremendously.
Unfortunately this new version is only for Windows at the moment, so Mac and smartphone users will have to hang on a bit longer. Click the source link below to take a look at all of the new stuff you can expect to get from F.lux.
Do you use F.lux? How has it helped your sleeping patterns?
Source: Fl.ux Blog |
(CNN) -- Nearly two centuries ago Wednesday, Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed an obscure redistricting law that helped his party stay in office and, more importantly, codified one of the most enduring legacies in U.S. politics: gerrymandering.
The U.S. House of Represenatives, home to many beneficiaries of gerrymandering.
Now a part of an American lexicon often heard in Washington's K Street bars and among "inside-the-beltway" crowds, the term is seen as a combination of the governor's name and the word "salamander," because of the salamander-like shape one electoral district took on after the redistricting.
Elected governor in 1810, Gerry signed the redistricting bill two years later, enabling greater and perhaps disproportionate Republican representation in the Massachusetts legislature.
The controversial move has become a favorite across the country among incumbent parties, which pack opposition voters into districts already lost in an effort to minimize the opposition's influence over the state's broader electorate.
But some political analysts cry foul.
"In the end, democracy comes out the big loser," former federal prosecutor Edward Lazarus wrote in a 2004 column for CNN.
"The effect of such partisan gerrymandering is to block new entrants into high political office and to make the result of almost every congressional election a foregone conclusion. This, in turn, effectively disenfranchises all those voters who don't support the preordained winner," he wrote.
In 2006, the Supreme Court threw out part of a Texas congressional map, but found the overall redistricting plan orchestrated by House Republicans acceptable.
The redistricting helped Republicans in Texas defeat four Democratic congressmen in the 2004 elections.
The court ruled that the redistricting plan, promoted by then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, unfairly weakened the voting strength of Latinos in two congressional districts.
"A state may not trade off the rights of some members of a racial group against the rights of other members of that group," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy. "The question is therefore not whether line-drawing in the challenged area as a whole dilutes minority voting strength, but whether line-drawing dilutes the voting strength of the Latinos in [Texas'] District 23."
The court ordered that District 23 be redrawn.
States are constitutionally required to redraw congressional districts every 10 years in line with population shifts documented by the U.S. Census Bureau, a part of the Department of Commerce.
This year, controversy re-emerged when President Barack Obama announced a decision to cross party lines and nominate U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire, to run the Commerce Department.
The move sparked criticism from leaders of minority groups concerned that the Census Bureau under Gregg, who voted to abolish the Commerce Department in 1995, might lack the resources needed to accurately count minorities.
The White House promised to work directly with bureau's director to assuage those concerns, but that response drew further criticism from House Republicans concerned about greater executive influence in the Census Bureau.
In a letter to the president, House Republicans Patrick McHenry and Darrell Issa described the White House as "circumventing the secretary of commerce" and called it "both outrageous and unprecedented," suggesting the Obama administration could affect U.S. census results and congressional districting due out in 2010.
The move, they say, could insulate Democratic congressional power.
The White House said it recognizes the importance of an accurate census count "free from politicization" and added it "has not proposed removing the census from the Department of Commerce."
"From the first days of the transition, the census has been a priority for the president, and a process he wanted to re-evaluate," it said in an earlier statement.
The method through which the Census Bureau collects data has long been a topic of partisan bickering.
Republicans have generally favored the "door-to-door" approach, which actually is done primarily by self-enumeration through the U.S. mail.
Democrats commonly prefer a statistical sampling method meant to fill in "population gaps" they say occur because some members of minority groups and homeless populations are missed by the door-to-door approach.
A 1999 Supreme Court ruling said statistical sampling could not be applied to the redistribution of congressional seats, but it did not put gerrymandering of the political landscape entirely off limits.
So, almost 200 years after Elbridge Gerry helped coin the term, gerrymandering remains a key part of American politics.
CNN's Bill Mears and Keating Holland contributed to this report.
All About U.S. Census Bureau • U.S. House of Representatives • Barack Obama • Judd Gregg |
FRISCO, Texas – When Jackson left FC Dallas to join Cruzeiro on loan at the end of 2011, he was an unhappy, quiet and homesick player with just one goal and no assists in his final 13 games of the season.
Questions were raised as to whether the Brazilian would ever be back with FC Dallas, but with an injury crisis gutting his roster and no other options at hand, Schellas Hyndman was forced to recall the enigmatic attacker in late April.
He's certainly glad he did.
“I hope you see what I see in Jackson,” Hyndman said after Saturday’s win over Real Salt Lake. “He’s a much more mature player, a much more focused player and a much happier player.”
MLS Fantasy: FC Dallas' Jackson takes top honor, but Chivas USA continue to impress
Jackson returned from Brazil with his newlywed wife and a new attitude. It took the 25-year-old a month to get his fitness up to speed, but since the middle of the 2012 season, Jackson has quietly become one of the best attackers in the league.
The Brazilian is one of just four players in MLS (along with Landon Donovan, Federico Higuaín and Thierry Henry) with at least five goals and seven assists in their last 15 appearances. He accentuated his hot start to 2013 with a goal and the game-winning assist in Saturday’s 2-0 win over RSL.
“You start to see the Jackson that we always remember in those good moments in the past, only those good moments didn’t occur all the time,” said Hyndman. “I think what you’re starting to see is those good moments are occurring more often and that a lot of it has to do with his maturity. Also, the club has done a fantastic job with him making him feel comfortable, making his wife feel comfortable.
"He just seems to walk with a smile on his face again.”
MLS Match Recap: FC Dallas 2, Real Salt Lake 0
Jackson’s effort on Saturday was certainly his best of the season thus far, running doggedly from endline to endline, pressuring every pass, before collapsing to the pitch at the final whistle with a goal and an assist to his name. Reminiscent of his sprinting throughout the match, the Brazilian quickly left the locker room before media could speak to him on Saturday.
But his effort is bringing out the best in his teammates.
“I think what happens is that the team is committed and they’ve been working hard with the commitment to put all the effort out through the whole 90 minutes of the game,” said David Ferreira. |
Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, who was in charge of voter expansion data, was murdered in August of this year. Even though no suspects have been determined yet, reports are coming forward that there may be surveillance video , as well as private video of what took place.
Jack Burkman, host of the radio show Behind the Curtain with Jack Burkman, appeared on Newsmax TV and said there was surveillance video which apparently shows legs of at least two possible suspects. He added that in canvasing the neighborhood, it appears that someone may also have private video evidence of the murder.
“There were video cameras,” said Burkman. “They capture very little. Some of the surveillance footage has legs. We know it’s two people. We strongly suspect it’s two people instead of one.”
Burkman then revealed breaking news.
“We have just learned there may be additional private video through our efforts in canvasing the neighborhood in the last week,” he told Newsmax TV. “We’ve been handing out flyers. We’ve been going door to door. We’ve had the local DC stations. We’ve got everybody.”
When asked if the video was from a private residence, Burkman didn’t know exactly.
“We don’t know yet where it came from,” he said. “It’s just all I know right now is that it’s from a private person. I think it’s commercial video, but we’ll know more about that in the next few day.”
So far, the video has not been turned over to police, but is apparently still in the hands of the owners of the video.
The parents of Seth Rich have been actively involved in canvasing the neighborhood and they were the ones who came up with the video, but as of the interview, police had not obtained the footage.
A reward in the amount of $345,000 is available to anyone who can bring forth information that would lead to the arrest of those who murdered Seth Rich.
Following his murder, a Democrat “Crisis communications” public relations agent was hired to shut down “conspiracy theories” about the murdered DNC staffer. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange suggested that he was murdered due to the high stakes that were involved in this year’s presidential election and implied that Rich was the informant that provided this summer’s DNC document dump.
Rich was one of many close to the Democrat Party and Hillary Clinton who lost his life during this election season. Five people tied to both died in a matter of six weeks under suspicious circumstances. In addition to Rich, the other names were as follows:
The list of dead people around the Clintons is quite long and you have to admit that these deaths happening so close together should give you pause as to the official story that is coming out about each one, knowing Mrs. Clinton’s record for lying, deceit and endangering the lives of Americans.
This is all the more reason for catching the people that murdered Seth Rich. America needs to know if this was merely a robbery gone bad or whether they were paid assassins . |
WASHINGTON, DC—Following Justin Trudeau’s thinly veiled condemnation of Donald Trump’s new muslim ban on social media, the U.S. President has hit back, tweeting at Trudeau to “stop wasting so much time on Facebook”.
“I mean don’t you have a country to run or something?” Trump asked, labelling the Canadian Prime Minister a “social media whore”.
“He’s constantly online, 24/7. He’s obsessed,” Trump continued, suggesting the PM should seek psychiatric help for his addiction.
The 45th American President claims Trudeau’s “embarrassing” attempts to “get likes” is all the more pathetic given he has so few followers compared to Trump:
“As of 3am last night, Trudeau only had 3,735,257 followers on Facebook compared to my 19,359,401. Sad.”
Trump used the last of his 23 tweets on the issue, to remind the PM of his responsibility to represent the Canadian people with integrity. “Honestly it’s such a deeply unprofessional method of communication for a head of state to use,” he tweeted.
So are you Team Trump or Team Trudeau? Join the debate on Facebook and Twitter… |
SAN FRANCISCO -- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 includes a lot of new features that have IT pros pouring through documentation and sending recaps to their higher-ups, but Red Hat's goal is to make RHEL boring.
"It's the opposite of OpenStack, where new releases come to market every six months," said Brian Stevens, CTO of Red Hat Inc., open-source OS developer. "Only hypercritical changes merit new version numbers. Otherwise, you'd drive IT guys crazy updating their deployments."
While companies such as Microsoft have promised faster operating system (OS) updates, Red Hat has slowed the release cycle for its flagship OS distribution and to lower operational costs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) development targets a consumable OS and simplicity.
"Users costs aren't just the OS cost," Stevens said. "It's all the costs of configuration, management and provisioning that far outweigh technology replacements."
RHEL 7 contains its excitement The RHEL 7 release includes kernel enhancements to natively map with the hardware, such as non-uniform memory architecture mapping and support for up to 5120 logical CPUs and 64TB of physical memory. Other enhancements simplify upgrades from earlier versions of RHEL, and help format the OS for the workload, whether a database server, Web server or other use. "I'm skipping 6.5 and upgrading straight from RHEL 6.4 to 7," said Stephen Eaton, a Linux systems administrator for DealerTrack Technologies, Inc., an automotive industry software provider. "It has the features I was looking for." One such feature is kPatch, which allows administrators to patch the kernel without rebooting servers. Eaton's environment is 24/7, so scheduling downtime is a big deal. He also likes the security and systems management and the ease of use improvements to SELinux. RHEL has also grown more compatible with Windows OS, as evidenced by Active Directory interoperability in RHEL 7 and more approachable management tools. The question used to be Linux or Windows on servers; now Linux and Windows OSes coexist in the data center, according to the company. "We will be able to sync Windows domain controllers with RHEL 7 for easier identity management," said Eaton, whose shop uses Windows and Linux on a mix of virtualized and physical servers.
Project Atomic to create RHEL variant Red Hat debuted a new community project to develop technologies for creating lightweight Linux Container hosts. Project Atomic will allow creation of a new variant of RHEL -- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host -- as part of RHEL 7. RHEL 7 also abstracts and isolates applications by deploying them in containers with RHEL Atomic Host. It has strong integration with Docker, which allows applications to be packaged in isolated containers. RHEL 7 containers keep applications from fighting over resources, which version of Java to use or other factors. The application takes as much of the OS as it needs to be able to move around and perform equally on bare metal, virtualized servers and private and public cloud infrastructures. North and southbound APIs let the OS interact with the host infrastructure and the application, while providing security and management services. Data centers can virtualize the OS and run the applications in containers atop the virtualization layer to improve standardization in a typical mixed data center, Stevens explained. Attendees at the Red Hat Summit here this week need some time to digest this Linux container methodology. At the RHEL roadmap session, the majority of attendees said they either see Linux containers at least one year from meaningful adoption in their infrastructure, or couldn't envision a use case. "Containers have been around for some time," said Sander van Vugt, Linux consultant and trainer, who writes for SearchDataCenter. At first sight, containers as the major new thing in RHEL 7 was surprising, he said. "Considering that in RHEL 7 containers are combined with Docker, systemd and cgroups, it ... is a big step forward for easy deployment of applications," on cloud or straight RHEL systems, he said.
Red Hat will update RHEL Atomic Host alongside Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat OpenStack for application consistency across all hosting infrastructures. Project Atomic will feed RHEL Atomic Host. RHEL 7 release candidate version goes live this week with a final release sometime thereafter. The pricing structure will be similar to previous versions, but pricing was not provided. |
Milkis Profile Blog Joined January 2010 4969 Posts Last Edited: 2011-09-23 02:14:29 #1
Polt had left Prime on the 14th
During the group ceremonies, Polt has revealed that he would be joining a team. Since then he has received many offers, TSL being one of them. He had decided that he would like to join TSL after talking with Coach Lee.
He commented that "since I had joined a team after much deliberation, I will prepare myself and practice diligently in order to bring in a good record." TSL announced this morning that Polt, previously on Prime, has joined TSL.Polt had left Prime on the 14th citing that there was a difference in opinion between him and the team regarding the direction of the team. . He had said that he is on leave from the University until the end of this year.During the group ceremonies, Polt has revealed that he would be joining a team. Since then he has received many offers, TSL being one of them. He had decided that he would like to join TSL after talking with Coach Lee.He commented that "since I had joined a team after much deliberation, I will prepare myself and practice diligently in order to bring in a good record." |
Check out this incredible video to hear about Charlo Greene talk about quitting her job on live TV, the marijuana industry, and cannabis accommodations!
Thanks so much to @IamCharloGreene, CEO of Alaska Cannabis Club and totally badass cannabis activist for the great information and commitment to the cause! Also to Ricado Baca, The Denver Post’s Marijuana Editor and editor at The Cannabist for the factual and realistic points on the cannabis industry in Denver (10:00 and onwards).
Alex Halperin, freelance reporter in Denver (12:00) also adds some numbers to give a real feel as to way cannabis accommodations are so much more than a simple cottage economy. Thanks to Ricky Camilleri for hosting!
Twitter was buzzing today after Huff Post Live posted the video, here are some highlights: |
One of these guys apparently had an excellent game on Saturday
(photo: Yahoo! Sports)
Chris Neil is amazing! He’s driving everyone nuts! Who cares that his team is down 3-0 – let’s talk about him!
Saturday night was a backwards triumph for the evil Canuck narrative. Instead of telling us why they were systematically disassembling the Senators, the brilliant collection of commentators at Hockey Night in Canada instead chose to spin a tale of aggravation and aggression. Chris Neil running around is exciting. Clinical precision is not.
The Canucks are unloved because so little of what they do is conventional. Appreciating a team is easier when they are conventional.
They have no enforcer; this irks the rock ’em sock ’em crowd. The Canucks push the limit on appropriate behaviour; this irks the stand-up-for-yourself crowd. The Canucks play a possession game which demands patience and a relentless drive; this irks the run-and-gun, shoot-from-any-angle crowd.
This makes them different, and if there’s one thing we are taught in school is that many of us fear difference.
The poppy which grows in its own way is hated by the other poppies. They may not be right to feel that way, but those shorter, more uniform poppies have been taught all their lives that it’s best to stick to the plan. Everyone can understand the plan that way. People who move away from the plan just make it harder for all of us.
Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts to a nation of uniform poppies (or at least so it imagines). These poppies want to hear the same questions asked night-in, night-out: ‘How are you going to stop the guy?’ ‘How much hustle do you need to put in there?’ ‘What’s been working out there tonight?’ Or so we are told. These are familiar questions but they are understood and the answers are easy to understand.
Now, take a moment to imagine a world where the player is asked different questions. Imagine they are asked to explain the system being used to defeat the opponent’s powerplay. Or the real purpose of attempting a slap shot pass from one end of the ice, aimed at the far corner. Or why defencemen are starting more than half their shifts in the offensive zone. Clearly the answers would be horribly complicated. Right? Right??
Apparently the truth behind the glory is dull.
Hockey’s true precision, we are told, isn’t of any appeal to the masses. Romantic stories, on the other hand, are. We don’t want to truly understand the strategies employed by coaches to defeat an opponent, or the realities of some players’ deficiencies; no, we want to know about how a guy who skates really hard but only has 3 goals is the real glory boy. And what happens when he’s on the ice against the star players? Does his play match his rhetoric? Do his ‘roughing up the stars’ tactics actually make any material difference? No, that’s not interesting.
Nor is it worth talking about a player who has worked himself into a truly impressive hockey player. You’d think that in this narrative, where we focus on the hustlers, on the guys who have to do the extra work just to keep up, that a story of hardscrabble minor-leaguer who fought the odds and made it to the top might be compelling. No, instead you focus on his flaws. He talks about refs. He’s a pest. He gets more honourable players off his game. The fact he was undrafted and has since fought, tooth-and-nail, for every position he’s ever earned isn’t important. Nor is the other fact, which is this is not a case of a player who was missed, who has never, ever stopped working to improve his game and now stands as a testament to the glory of hard work and honest effort.
I hate to be the one to break it to ya, HNIC fellas, but we are *all* flawed human beings. Some of us just happen to be on TV.
No, the narrative says that everything you do must be above board. (At least to start. As long as you are honourable to start with, you can do whatever you want later on. Don’t get it backwards, kids.)
Chris Neil has his moments. He has a role on many teams. But when his team is losing badly, he shouldn’t be the story. The story should be about what’s not happening for his team. Hockey Night in Canada is not supposed to be a collection of coaching videos; it’s just not supposed to be garbage either. Their broadcast on Saturday night was bizarrely focused and a let down to its viewers.
Chris Neil had 7 hits in the first period. His team went down 2-0. After the first period, Chris Neil was credited with no more hits. His team still lost.
Fans deserve better. Analysis isn’t hard, if you prepare ahead of time. Even narratives that ask viewers to think a little can be interesting. All teams use complicated strategies to win games and telling that story needn’t be boring. Putting players in the context of the broader structure of the game isn’t boring either.
But it does require work.
By the broadcaster. |
San Diego Arts Organizations Plan To Rally Against Proposed Funding Cuts GUEST: Alan Ziter, co-chair, San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition
Transcript for audioclip 34816
Protest Details What: Rise Up For The Arts rally to protest arts funding cuts in the proposed fiscal 2018 San Diego budget When: Monday, May 8 from 7:30-9 a.m. Where: Civic Center Plaza, 202 C Street in San Diego
San Diego arts organizations are planning to remind the city and its leaders why arts funding is important.
Arts groups including the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, the San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition and the San Diego Museum Council are participating in a rally beginning at 7:30 a.m. Monday to protest arts funding cuts in the Mayor's proposed budget for fiscal 2018. The group will attend a City Council budget hearing which starts at 9 a.m.
Organizers said San Diego City Council members Lorie Zapf, Chris Ward and David Alvarez will also participate in the rally.
The proposed budget reduces arts funding by $4.7 million, almost a third of what the city currently spends.
Alan Ziter is the co-chair of the San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition, an organization that advocates for stable funding of the arts by the city. On Friday's Midday Edition, Ziter discusses how the cuts could impact local arts organizations.
To view PDF documents, Download Acrobat Reader. |
At the Consumer Electronics Show, QNX, which is owned by BlackBerry and is the underlying OS in many vehicle infotainment systems today, is showing off a newly appointed Mercedes CLA45 concept car that brings a massive BlackBerry PlayBook to the center dash. A large display that stretches from the edge of the steering wheel on the driver side to the center dash on the passenger side brings additional functionality and usability to the car.
Most notably, like the BlackBerry PlayBook and other new BlackBerry 10 smartphones, the new QNX engine will allow drivers to run Android apps on the center dash. Users can run apps designed for up to Android Jelly Bean, according to the company’s press release. QNX is the underlying architecture that the BlackBerry Tablet OS and the BlackBerry 10 OS were built upon.
Automakers want to tap into the talents of the mobile app community, and the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment helps them do just that, with built-in support for Android, OpenGL ES, and HTML5. In the concept car, for example, you’ll find an Android Jellybean version of iHeartRadio, Clear Channel’s digital radio service, running in a secure application container. The QNX CAR Platform takes this same sandboxed approach to running HTML5 apps — perfect for protecting both the HMI and the overall system from unpredictable web content:
Additionally, the company says that natural speech recognition from Nuance will also be supported as well as multiple navigation and mapping systems, including those from Nokia HERE, Elektrobit, Kotei Navi & Data, and Aisin AW.
QNX’s move to support Android app in the car comes just as rival Google has announced its ambitions to bring Android to the vehicle. Google announced at the show that it would would with partners through the Open Automotive Alliance to bring Android to the dash, which would bring the mobile OS to infotainment system and beyond just smartphones and tablets. Partners for the OAA include Audi and NVIDIA.
And similar to Google’s partnership with NVIDIA, QNX chose chip-maker Qualcomm to partner for the car. QNX announced that it would use the graphics capabilities of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 602 to power the vehicle. |
With election season heating up, a new poll has found that a majority of Americans support legalizing cannabis: 54 percent of registered voters favor legalization nationwide, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published Monday.
The attitudes split sharply along party lines: 65 percent of Democrats support legalization, while only 36 percent of Republicans do. Among independents — a coveted group, especially in the lead-up to a national election — 61 percent backed the idea. Men and women also differed in their responses; 60 percent of men said they support legalization, while women were almost equally divided. And while a majority of voters under 65 think cannabis should be legal, 57 percent of older voters oppose it.
Nearly every group, however, agreed on one thing: America’s veterans should have access to medical cannabis. At least 79 percent of every party, gender, age, or racial group agreed that Veterans Affairs doctors should be able to prescribe cannabis in pill form to veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“That is the full-throated recommendation of Americans across the demographic spectrum, including voters in military households,” Tim Malloy, the poll’s assistant director, said in a statement.
“The response from voters should take political considerations out of the debate and allow doctors to do what’s best for veterans.”
Recent changes have allowed VA doctors to discuss cannabis treatment with veterans in states where medical use is legal, but more than half of states still bar possession or use for any purpose.
Attitudes on cannabis have changed rapidly in the U.S. during the past decade. In 2013, less than a year after Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize adult use, a Gallup poll found that 58 percent of all Americans favored legalization — 10 points higher than a survey a year earlier and the first instance of majority support. (That number has since held steady; the Gallup’s most recent numbers still show 58 percent in favor of legalization.)
But while a majority of voters may favor legalization in concept, it’s harder to agree on the finer points. A number of voter initiatives have failed in recent years, and even efforts to legalize on the state level have split cannabis advocates into competing factions.
The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 1,561 voters nationwide on landline and mobile phones. It has a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points. Participants were asked whether they thought “marijuana should be made legal in the United States,” with no other qualifications. Further results are available online. |
The deal runs through the 2018-19 season and has an average annual value of $650,000.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have re-signed defenseman Chad Ruhwedel to a two-year contract, it was announced today by executive vice president and general manager Jim Rutherford.
Ruhwedel, 27, enjoyed his best season at the NHL level this past year, skating in a career-high 34 regular-season contests, collecting 10 points (2G-8A) and a plus-9. He also skated in six playoff games with Pittsburgh on the way to helping the Pens earn a second-straight Stanley Cup victory. His NHL playoff debut came in Game 6 of the Second Round against Washington, and he was in the lineup when Pittsburgh earned a Game 7 road victory against the Capitals at the Verizon Center.
A native of San Diego, California, Ruhwedel made his Pittsburgh debut on Dec. 20 against the New York Rangers, and scored his first NHL goal three nights later versus Cory Schneider and the New Jersey Devils. On March 8 at Winnipeg, Ruhwedel had the best game of his NHL career, picking up three assists.
The 5-foot-11, 191-pound defenseman spent half of his first season in the Pittsburgh organization with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League, tallying 16 points (4G-12A) in 28 contests.
Ruhwedel broke into the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres organization as an undrafted free agent following a three-year collegiate career at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Ruhwedel has appeared in a combined 67 career NHL regular-season games with Pittsburgh and Buffalo, netting 12 points (2G-10A).
Last year, Ruhwedel joined the Pittsburgh organization as an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2016. |
Centurion - President Jacob Zuma's son Duduzane Zuma will be the first person to be hauled before AfriForum's private prosecuting unit, the union announced on Tuesday.
Former NPA prosecutor, Nel who joined the lobby group this year confirmed that papers have been filed to pursue a culpable homicide case against Duduzane.
Nel said the victim Phumzile Dube was killed in February 2014, after Zuma’s Porsche collided with the taxi in which she was travelling.
An inquest found that Duduzane was negligent but the NPA declined to prosecute.
The family had received only R5000 from the taxi association, and no other compensation.
"There has been no support and no financial compensation for the family whatsoever," Nel said
Nel said they wanted to make sure everyone is equal before the law. He said he is very proud of the family to allow justice to be served.
"For us it's equally before the law, there is no selective prosecutions."
Kallie Kriel from AfriForum said:''Nobody is above the law and not even if your surname is Zuma, or if your father is the president of the country.''
The National Prosecuting Agency (NPA) decided on 18 August 2015 not to prosecute Zuma, despite the fact that Magistrate Lalitha Chetty had found during a formal judicial inquest into the death, that there was prima facie evidence that Dube's death had been caused by Zuma's negligent actions.
Nel had submitted an application to the NPA on behalf of the Dube family to obtain a nolle prosequi certificate, a formal notice confirming that the a matter would not be pursued by the authority.
He said as soon as AfriForum received the certificate, the process to prosecute Zuma would begin.
"There exist no valid grounds for the NPA to decline to prosecute Zuma, and the Dube's family deserves that justice is served and that the case is not treated differently as a result of who the perpetrator is," Nel said.
KEEP UPDATED on the latest news by subscribing to our FREE newsletter.
- FOLLOW News24 on Twitter |
It was the autobiography that gave hope to hundreds of thousands and warmed the hearts of Christians.
Chronicling how a convicted criminal and martial arts fighter found redemption through God, Taming the Tiger had more than 1.5m copies distributed around the world while its author, Tony Anthony, become a sought-after speaker in schools and churches.
In the book, which carries the strapline "From the Depths of Hell to the Heights of Glory", Anthony explains how he was taken to China by his grandfather, a kung fu grand master, and trained to become a martial arts champion. He then moved to Cyprus, where he became a bodyguard to businessmen, gangsters and diplomats. "In the line of duty as a bodyguard, I killed people," Anthony would tell church audiences. "I have broken more arms and legs than I care to remember." Later he recounted how he found God while in prison in Nicosia after being convicted of theft.
The book was a phenomenon. It was translated into 25 languages and won the Christian Booksellers' Convention Award in 2005.
But now, following a sustained internet campaign by a group of Christians who doubted Anthony's claims almost from the start, it appears that little of the book is true.
Anthony, who founded his own organisation, Avanti Ministries, was the star speaker during the Evangelical Alliance-backed Global Day of Prayer in 2010, attended by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
After an independent investigation, a panel appointed by the alliance has concluded that Anthony had, at best, a sketchy relationship with the truth. In a statement on its website the alliance acknowledges that "large sections of the book Taming the Tiger, and associated materials, which claim to tell the true story of Tony Anthony's life, do not do so".
It continues: "Both the Evangelical Alliance and Avanti Ministries take serious note of the findings of the report and, as a result, Avanti has concluded that it is not appropriate to continue to support Taming the Tiger." The alliance launched its investigation after a director of Avanti, Mike Hancock, resigned. An online blog, Crosswire, explained how Hancock had become sceptical after demanding proof of Anthony's claims.
"I understood that I had a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure that his story could be thoroughly verified," Hancock told the blog. "I was unable to persuade my fellow directors of the need to do this. I therefore resigned from Avanti and pursued the search for truth with other like-minded Christians," he said.
Anthony claimed to be a three times world kung fu champion and tried to deflect suspicions that he had embellished his past by claiming that the competitions were so specialised they were not known to outsiders. But it emerged that some of the material was copied from a martial arts website. One passage was lifted from a book about Bruce Lee.
The Evangelical Alliance acknowledges: "The complaint focused on the truthfulness of the story told in Tony's bestselling book Taming the Tiger. It was alleged that Tony had never lived in China as a child, had never been involved in kung fu as a world champion and had never worked in close protection. Having considered the extensive evidence presented to us, much of which is now in the public domain, we were convinced that this information could not be ignored."
Critics of Anthony, who raised suspicions that many of his claims were untrue as far back as 2005, are now asking why it took the alliance until last year to launch an investigation.
In his book Anthony explains how in 2000 he thought he had hit a "small deer or fox" after his car hit Elizabeth Bracewell, 39, the sister of the former England footballer, Paul Bracewell. She died as a result of her injuries.
During his trial after the death, Anthony, from Southend-on-Sea, was described by the judge as a "devious and manipulative man" who had "deliberately embroidered his story" to throw police off the scent. He was given a 15-month sentence after admitting perverting the course of justice.
The Evangelical Alliance has been keen to show forgiveness towards Anthony. It explains: "The alliance and Avanti Ministries are deeply saddened by the findings of the panel. However, they recognise the good work that Avanti and Tony Anthony have done over the years around the world and the impact this will have on the charity and specifically Tony and his family."
Attempts to reach Anthony through Avanti's email address were unsuccessful. Avanti's website states: "After much prayer, Avanti have decided the time has come to close its ministries."
In a statement, Anthony's publisher, Authentic Media, said that it was withdrawing Taming the Tiger, a follow-up book, Cry of the Tiger, and a related DVD.
It said: "Tony strongly defends his story – though he acknowledges that the recent information that he has received about his early life requires him to update and clarify his story."
• This article was amended on 2 August 2013. The original suggested that Tony Anthony was "championed" by the Evangelical Alliance. The Alliance has issued this statement: "Tony Anthony has never been employed by the Evangelical Alliance, represented us, or spoken on our behalf. Revelations that have come to light about the authenticity of Tony Anthony's book have been reported by us because of the many concerns raised by evangelical Christians, not because we represent Tony Anthony. We recommended an independent investigation which was subsequently carried out." |
These New Yorkers are raking in the green.
More than 1,500 city residents are getting federal farm subsidies, 374 on the Upper East Side alone.
The recipients include some “farmers” who already have their own well-cultivated money trees, among them Mark F. Rockefeller.
“That should really make people wonder what on earth has happened to the farm program,” said Craig Cox, senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources at the Environmental Working Group, which maintains a national database of farm-subsidy recipients.
“Payments are going to people in Manhattan who simply have invested in farmland and are about as far away from farmers as one could imagine.”
Rockefeller, a fourth-generation member of the family and the younger son of late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, has gotten $342,634 in taxpayer handouts from 2001 through 2011 for thousands of acres of unused farmland he owns in Bonneville County, Idaho. The payments are made so that he does not farm, to allow the land to return to its natural state.
Nearby, Rockeller, a partner in investment firm Rockefeller Consulting/Insight Capitalists and a former director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, owns an upscale fly-fishing resort where a three-day stay starts at $3,835.
Rockefeller did not respond to a request for comment.
His subsidy is for conservation purposes. Other subsidies come in the form of disaster payments, which allow farmers to recoup losses from drought, frost, hurricanes or tornadoes, or commodity payments, to regulate the prices for crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat.
Other rich and famous New Yorkers receiving farm subsidies include cosmetics heir Leonard Lauder and corporate-takeover king Henry Kravis. But both men got their subsidies indirectly through investments they made — Lauder in Horizon Dairy, which makes organic milk, and Kravis in an 8,120-acre working ranch southwest of Chico, Calif., that produces almonds, dried plums, walnuts and rice.
Among New York City’s other top recipients are the managing director at Wells Fargo, W. Phillip Walsh; Dina Shapiro Fried on the Upper East Side, whose husband owns a development company, and Ricardo L. Rengifo, a Queens neurologist.
Walsh received $344,493, mostly in conservation subsidies, from 2002 through 2011 for 425 acres of farmland in Winnebago County, Ill., where he is from.
Fried is one of four Shapiros who together own a farm in upstate Slate Hill through an LLC. They received a total of $826,406 in commodity and conservation subsidies from 1999 through 2010.
Rengifo got $591,315 in subsidies from 1995 through 2011 for a 1,400-acre farm in Alabama for which he received direct subsidies for wheat and conservation.
Walsh could not be reached. Fried and Rengifo did not return phone messages.
Sen. Thomas Coburn (R-Okla.) issued a report a year ago, “Subsidies of the Rich and Famous,” that found $316 million in farm subsidies going to millionaires across the country.
“The government’s social safety net, which has long existed to catch those who are down and help them get back up, is now being used as a hammock by some millionaires, some who are paying less taxes than average middle class families,” he wrote.
Congress has tried to rein in payments to the wealthy and in October 2011 the Senate voted to end direct payments to anyone with an income of more than $1 million, but the House never approved the measure.
Buried in last week’s deal to avoid hurtling over the fiscal cliff was an extension of the Farm Bill that will give Congress time to debate its food and farm policies, but for now continues the subsidies for gentlemen “farmers.” |
Understanding Stocks
A stock is a security that gives buyers partial ownership of a company, distributed in the form of a share. If the company does well and stocks go up, buyers can sell their shares of stock for a profit. On the flip side, if the company does poorly, stock prices will go down and buyers will lose money on their investment.
The two main types of stock are common stock and preferred stock. Common stock is what most people are referring to when they discuss stocks; if you purchase common stock, you own a portion of the company and receive dividends on the company’s profits. The main difference between preferred stock and common stock is that preferred stockholders usually receive a guaranteed, fixed dividend, whereas common stockholders receive dividends based on the company’s profits.
To learn more about stocks and other forms of investments, browse GOBankingRates’ articles that feature expert advice to help make your decisions easier. |
Comic:
This is what you do to your PokeBabies, you monsters! D:< *throws out another Beldum* Muh buddie, Reg (some may know him as one of two KakuCraft RPG server admins) ended up starting the idea of this one for me. Just chattin', we were, when he suddenly interjected "Oh! One of my eggs hatched!... GENTLE NATURE!? GETOUUUT!" Good ol' Reg and his baby-genocide. I hope no one's too thrown off by the new color-style. Others, and especially Tenoreo, kept commenting on how much they liked the last comic's style, so I went to work on making a brush that would better emulate a crayon. Honestly, I enjoy it. The comics are usually on the more light-hearted side so I feel it kinda fits. At the very least, it looks more like Yoshi's Island's intro/Yoshi's Story, so yaayyy?
Video Games:
I found Puppeteer on sale on the PS store for like, $19 bucks and I was like “How bad does this game have to be to go on such a good sale so quickly?”. But WOOPS, it’s amazing. It’s filled with such a whimsy I haven’t felt since James and the Giant Peach. And what’s more, Lily can be my P2 and she’s actually not bad at it. Too bad I don’t have my desktop with the capture card, or else I’d have recorded us. Ahh, but such is life until I throw down $200 to have it shipped here.
The gaming channel updateth: Majora’s Mask has been getting updates, and I uploaded part 1 of 2 of my Rogue Legacy LP.
Rogue Legacy Ep. 1 of 2
Life:
Still loving this place. Y’know, for as much as everyone assured me it would rain, it hasn’t rained much lately. But today it did! And it was awesome. I like, freaking love rain. Hahaha, we’re talking about the weather…
Closing Comments:
Time for more Puppeteer!!
SEE YOU THEN~ |
Jamie Murray will join up with Martina Hingis as the pair look to target the Wimbledon's mixed doubles title
Jamie Murray has turned to doubles queen Martina Hingis in an attempt to win a second Wimbledon crown in the mixed doubles.
Murray, a two-time Grand Slam winner in the men's doubles, was triumphant in the mixed doubles with Jelena Jankovic back in 2007 but has now teamed up with 36-year-old Hingis.
The Swiss is no stranger to success herself, having won 12 grand slam doubles titles, including three at Wimbledon.
The pair have been made top seeds at Wimbledon and receive a bye into the second round, with Murray currently number five in the men's doubles rankings and Hingis third in the women's.
Martina Hingis has enjoyed great success in grand slam doubles
In teaming up with Murray, Hingis ends a hugely successful pairing with Indian Leander Paes which brought four grand slam titles, including the 2015 Wimbledon crown.
The duo, though, were defeated in their most recent outing together when they suffered a first-round loss at the French Open.
For those on the move, we will have Wimbledon covered via our website skysports.com/tennis and then click through to our dedicated section skysports.com/tennis/wimbledon. On the move? Head to our app for mobile devices and iPad, or follow our Twitter account @SkySportsTennis to join in the conversation. Who will win the All England Club titles this summer? Have your say...
Sky customers can now upgrade to Sky Sports for an unmissable summer of sport. Upgrade now! |
When IGN pressed for a status update on the rumoured Half-Life and Portal movies, JJ Abrams responded, "Not yet, but they're in development, and we've got writers, and we're working on both those stories. But nothing that would be an exciting update." Au contraire, Mr Abrams; confirmation of their existence is more exciting than you think.
If the concept of a Half-Life or Portal movie is all news to you, I'm not surprised—there was a brief flurry of activity on the subject in 2013, when Abrams and Gaben got together at the DICE summit to talk about cross-platform storytelling. Newell suggested that "either a Portal movie or a Half-Life movie" could work, while Abrams said he'd like to make a game with Valve.
Even further back, in 2010 Newell lamented the quality of pitches he'd received from a litany of Hollywood production companies for a movie based on the Half-Life franchise.
"Their stories were just so bad. I mean, brutally, the worst. Not understanding what made the game a good game, or what made the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of."
Evidently he found common ground with Abrams, because it seems the collaboration has the green light. |
Fall Music Preview
On this edition of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen talks with Monitor Mix Blogger Carrie Brownstein, producer Robin Hilton, and Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson about some the albums they're most looking forward to coming out this fall. Hear sneak previews of new music from The Flaming Lips, choral versions of classic Kinks songs by Ray Davies, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova of The Swell Season, a collaboration between The Black Keys and some of the biggest names in hip-hop, The Gossip, and more.
Download this show in the All Songs Considered podcast.
Sign up for the All Songs Considered newsletter and we'll tell you when new music features are available on the site.
Register with the NPR.org community to join in our discussions.
Contact us with your questions and comments. |
Some Toronto-area grocery stores got wine on their shelves last week. This initiative came after beer and cider popped up in supermarkets last year, signalling how the LCBO was expanding beyond its bricks-and-mortar stores.
Earlier this year, it launched its e-commerce site, but the initiative has failed to attract much interest from customers.
According to the Toronto Star, the LCBO gets only 80 online orders per day. To put that in perspective, "online sales to date represent about 10 per cent of what the liquor agency loses annually to theft," writes the Star.
On orders of $50 or more, you can choose to get your booze delivered for an $12 in about three days. Or, if you don't mind waiting one to four weeks, you can pick up your package in-store and avoid the delivery fee.
The LCBO's trying to improve up its online ordering system and catalogue and is looking to implement a same-day delivery service. It's also hoping the holiday season helps beef up online sales. |
Gaming for therapy and cognitive development?! It turns out there is a myriad of benefits gained from hobby! Feel the zen!
In this video I talk in response to an article by Geek and Sundry which looks at using Dungeons and Dragons as a therapeutic intervention for children with learning difficulties and expand that to discuss how it can be applied to all us us.
This includes the social aspect of meeting people, the behavioral activation properties of having things to look forward to as well as having achievements such as painting some of your led pile or winning a big game. Not only that but also the mindfulness involved as we paint.
For all the hobbyists who have ever suffered from mental health issues such as depression or anxiety or those that want to keep their mental well being in check, stick with it! In my real life job, I am a psychologist and I thoroughly believe that gaming is good for our mental health. Therapy does not necessarily mean going to see a psychologist to be analyzed and given drugs, etc..
It can simply be doing those activities that foster social skills such as teamwork, self esteem, and assertiveness. Guess what? All that can be found through playing!
Role playing makes it easy to assume a new role and gain perspective, exposing us to certain scenarios that are less threatening than real life. Gaming/Painting are achievements that we literally bring to the table and share with our friends. This gives us a sense of our community, and these relationships are a key aspect to our healing.
Spikey Bits Latest |
Training till you drop? Well with some ATP 30 minutes before your workout it may take a couple of minutes / workout sessions more to "drop" ;-)
In previous studies even 5,000mg of ATP were "in and out" in 2x30 min and the 1250mg dosage (top) did not leave any significant impression, the only sign. effect was an increase in uric acid (not shown; Coolen. 2011)
"On the basis of these findings, we seriously question the claimed efficacy of oral ATP at dosages even lower than that used in the present study" (Coolen. 2011),
"[T]he biological pool where ATP is measured will determine the results of bioavailability analysis. If sampled in venous portal blood, oral ATP is indeed bioavailable" (Wilson. 2013)
Contrary to strategic overreaching, which can be highly productive, there is nothing beneficial about overtraining. Unfortunately, it is pretty difficult to objectively determine where one ends and the other begins. Learn more about useful, less useful and totally useless markers I suggest you surf over to this previous SuppVersity article. "The protocol was divided into three phases. Phase one consisted of a three times per week non-linear periodized RT program for weeks 1–8, modified from Kraemer et al. (2009). Phase two consisted of a two-week overreaching cycle during weeks 9–10. Finally, phase three consisted of participants tapering for weeks 11 and 12. Muscle mass and body composition were measured at baseline and at the end of weeks 4, 8, and 12. Muscle strength, vertical jump power, Wingate peak power (PP), creatine kinase (CK), C-reactive protein (CRP), free and total testosterone, and perceived recovery were measured at baseline and after weeks 4, 8, 9, 10 and 12." (Wilson. 2013)
Figure 1: Changes in body composition and total strength after 4, 8 and 12 weeks (Wilson. 2013)
"We can speculate that under normal conditions of training, when glycogen levels are likely adequate those participants supplementing with ATP were able to maintain higher intensities, which would result in higher rates of protein breakdown. However, when exposed to greater training frequencies, glycogen levels are likely to be depleted, thus preventing higher intensities from being performed." (Wilson. 2013)
If your training log tells you that you neither gained weight nor strength in the past two months, you'd just waste your money if you bought an ATP supplement before you fixed your broken workout and nutrition regimens. If you have no clue how to do that, I suggest you start with the Step-By-Step Guide to Your Own Workout Routine and set up a new routine that's in line with your social life, training status and current goals (open with IE or FF). Bottom line: Irrespective of my initial (healthy ;-) skepticism, I must admit that the results Wilson et al. present in their most recent paper are not just impressive, they are also credible. With an excellent safety profile (none of the blood parameters Wilson et al. tested showed any abnormalities) and a mechanism of action that should offer synergies with the current staple supplements many of you are using, the provision of 400mg ATP ~30min before a workout (remember: In this case timing will probably matter) could actually produce visible changes to the figure and figures you see in the mirror and your training log, respectively.
If you are not pushing yourself hard enough, are chronically Irrespective of my initial (healthy ;-) skepticism, I must admit that the results Wilson et al. present in their most recent paper are not just impressive, they are also credible. With an excellent safety profile (none of the blood parameters Wilson et al. tested showed any abnormalities) and a mechanism of action that should offer synergies with the current staple supplements many of you are using, the provision of 400mg ATP ~30min before a workout (remember: In this case timing will probably matter) could actually produce visible changes to the figure and figures you see in the mirror and your training log, respectively.If you are not pushing yourself hard enough, are chronically overtraining , don't have your diet in check, don't get enough sleep and have thus not made any gains in the past months, however, you better save your money and return to the drawing board to come up with a better training and nutrition plan, first.
Arts IC, Coolen EJ, Bours MJ, Huyghebaert N, Stuart MA, Bast A, Dagnelie PC. Adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) supplements are not orally bioavailable: a randomized, placebo-controlled cross-over trial in healthy humans. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2012 Apr 17;9(1):16.
Coolen EJ, Arts IC, Bekers O, Vervaet C, Bast A, Dagnelie PC. Oral bioavailability of ATP after prolonged administration. Br J Nutr. 2011 Feb;105(3):357-66.
Kraemer WJ, Hatfield DL, Volek JS, Fragala MS, Vingren JL, Anderson JM, Spiering BA, Thomas GA, Ho JY, Quann EE, Izquierdo M, Hakkinen K, Maresh CM: Effects of amino acids supplement on physiological adaptations to resistance training. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2009, 41(5):1111–1121
Wilson JM, Joy JM, Lowery RP, Roberts MD, Lockwood CM, Manninen AH, Fuller JC, De Souza EO, Baier SM, Wilson SMC, Rathmacher JA. Effects of oral adenosine-5[prime]-triphosphate supplementation on athletic performance, skeletal muscle hypertrophy and recovery in resistance-trained men. Nutrition & Metabolism 2013, 10:57.
If you drive a Porsche that runs on super you would not put crude oil in the tank, would you? Well, why do you eat carbohydrates and fats then, when ATP, i.e. adenosine triphosphate, is the "fundamental energy unit" in our bodies? Why don't we guzzle ATP all day to run with the speed of light and lift with the force of an elephant? When? Well before, during and after a workout - sounds right, hah?Ok, ok, we are not "meant" to do so, I know... but even if you managed to keep the "paleo logic" out of the equation for once, there would be another stumbling block. Oral ATP is - supposedly - not bioavailable, at least that's what many people think.In fact, Arts et al. even used the words in the subheading of this paragraph as the title to the paper in which they describe the results of their 2012 randomized, placebo-controlled cross-over study that involved eight healthy volunteers who received 5,000mg of oral ATP per day (Art. 2012). In order to make sure that they did not simply use an inappropriate delivery route Art et al. even used three different delivery routes: Two types of pH-sensitive, enteric-coated pellets (targeted at release in the proximal or distal small intestine), and a naso-duodenal tube. Increases in ATP were not measured with any of the preparations, though.Being aware of both this and a previous study on the effects of chronic oral ATP administration (5,000mg/day) by researchers from the same research group that concludedI was pretty surprised, when I hit upon a recent study in thethat says: Oral ATP supplementation works! ATP does - at least this is what the study suggests - "enhance muscular adaptations" and "prevent decrements in performance following overreaching".That certainly sounds like something ATP could do - if it actually made it to the muscle cells. So is it possible that the previous studies were flawed? Are we missing something? I guess so. Firstly, the results of any ATP measurements will depend on the ATP pool you chose to analyze or as Wilson et al. rightly point our:Now exactly this, i.e. an analysis of the venous portal blood was what Coolen et al. didn't do. It is still interesting that there was a minor systemic increase with the highest dose of ATP in the Coolen, though. After all this tells us something about the absorption kinetics and thus the ideal time to ingest ATP supplements, which should accordingly be ~30min before a workout. And indeed, 30min is exactly the timespan between the ingestion of 400mg of ATP (in the form of ATP disodium) and the first set of the resistance training sessions in the Wilson study.Apropos, resistance training, the 24 subjects (3 dropouts during the study, so that N=21) were resistance trained men with a mean age of 23.4 ± 0.7 years and an average one-repetition maximum of 1.71 ± 0.04, 1.34 ± 0.03 and 2.05 ± 0.04 times their own bodyweight for squat, bench presses and deadlifts, respectively. Obviously none of them was taking steroids, other performance enhancing supplements, smoking pot ... you know the rest of the list ;-)I know that (at least some of) you are not really interested in these details, at least not before they have not had the following questions answered: "Ho much more muscle?", "How how much less fat?" and not just as popular "How much stronger?". I guessshould answer all these questions, doesn't it?Now, of the changes Wilson et al. observed the slightly more pronounced increases in fat loss was clearly statistically non-significant. The rest of the parameters, on the other hand, showed statistically significant inter-group differences. Among these, I personally consider effect the ameliorative effects of the ATP supplementation had on the the strength decrements that occurred in the placebo group aver the overreaching most significant. Why? Well, only with the provision of ATP did the overreaching period lead to the strength (and thus performance) gains trainers and trainees expect.Similarly beneficial effects were also observed for the protein breakdown. Despite being slightly increase in the regular training phase, the latter was significantly reduced by the ATP supplements, when the subjects were overreaching.Against that background it should be obvious that the provision of ATP during phases of intense pre-season / pre-competition training could in fact boost the training outcome to new heights by bolstering the strength (and mass) increases during the taper after a typical pre-season overreaching phase. |
Gum base is the non-nutritive, non-digestible, water-insoluble masticatory delivery system used to carry sweeteners, flavors, and any other substances in chewing gum and bubble gum. It provides all the basic textural and masticatory properties of gum.
The actual composition of gum base is usually a trade secret. The FDA allows 46 different chemicals under the umbrella of "gum base."[1][2] The chemicals are posted on their website. These chemicals are grouped into the following categories.
Natural coagulated or concentrated latices of vegetable origin : These include many of the resins such as chicle that were traditionally chewed as gum. It also includes natural waxes like beeswax and latex (natural rubber).
: These include many of the resins such as chicle that were traditionally chewed as gum. It also includes natural waxes like beeswax and latex (natural rubber). Synthetic coagulated or concentrated latices : These include petroleum-derived polymers such as paraffin and petroleum waxes. It also includes polymers such as butadiene-styrene, vinyl acetate, and polyethylene which were more recently designed and are utilized to maximize elasticity and incorporate other components of the gum base as well as flavors and sweeteners in their chemical matrix. [3]
: These include petroleum-derived polymers such as paraffin and petroleum waxes. It also includes polymers such as butadiene-styrene, vinyl acetate, and polyethylene which were more recently designed and are utilized to maximize elasticity and incorporate other components of the gum base as well as flavors and sweeteners in their chemical matrix. Plasticizing materials (softeners) : These materials generally help to emulsify various chemical components that do not always bind to each other. They are generally medium-sized molecules and are frequently esters of tree resins and rosins.
: These materials generally help to emulsify various chemical components that do not always bind to each other. They are generally medium-sized molecules and are frequently esters of tree resins and rosins. Terpene resins : This specific subcategory is not fundamentally different from materials in the first two categories except it is a specific substance that can be produced both naturally and artificially.
: This specific subcategory is not fundamentally different from materials in the first two categories except it is a specific substance that can be produced both naturally and artificially. Antioxidants: The most common antioxidant in gum, BHT, functions by scavenging free radicals (which spoil food) and sequestering them behind its sterically hindering tert-butyl groups.[4]
Gum bases for chewing gum are different from those for bubble gum. A bubble gum base is formulated with the ability to blow bubbles; it contains higher levels of elastomers or higher molecular weight polymers for this purpose. Gum bases for non-acid flavored gum use calcium carbonate as a filler, while gum bases for acid flavored gum use talc as a filler, since acids can react with calcium carbonate to produce Carbon Dioxide gas, which is undesirable.
Bubble gum usually contains 15-20% gum base, while chewing gum contains 20-25% gum base and sugar-free chewing gum contains 25-30% gum base.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company are studying the possibility of making gum base with biodegradable zein (corn protein).[5]
Large chewing gum manufacturers generally produce their own gum base in-house while small chewing gum producers usually buy gum base from third-party suppliers.
Composition and manufacture [ edit ]
Another way to categorize the various components of gum bases is by their utility in the base.
Old gum bases were based on either natural elastomers such as latexes, vegetable gums like chicle, spruce gum, and mastic gum, or alternatively on waxes, e.g. paraffin wax and beeswax, but today synthetic rubbers are preferred.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Formulation and Production of Chewing and Bubble Gum, edited by Doug Fritz, pp 93–118, Olivias's Publications Ltd, London, UK, 2006, [DEAD LINK] |
Today at the Camp Nou, FC Barcelona and Deezer, one of the world’s leading music official platforms, announced a new strategic partnership which sees the music streaming site become the Club’s Official Music Partner.
As a result of this global partnership, Deezer will be offering its users The Sound of Barça, the Club’s official music channel, containing official playlists both of FC Barcelona and of different Barça footballers and other athletes.
Deezer, as FC Barcelona’s Official Music Partner, will provide over 100 songs for music and football fans that represent the best of the Club, including top hits and Catalan songs, as well as the tracks that help players get in their pre-match Flow. Users will also have access to Deezer Flow, a personalized soundtrack, based on an unique algorithm and in-house editor, to create a stream that mixes personalized recommendations.
Deezer subscribers will be able to enter competitions to win FC Barcelona themed prizes, while Barça fans and members will get the chance to win a Premium account for the site, which offers access to an unlimited music library.
About Deezer
Deezer connects over 10 million active users around the world to over 43 million tracks. Available in more than 180 countries worldwide, Deezer gives instant access to the most diverse global music streaming catalogue on any device (smartphone, tablet, PC, laptop, home sound system, connected car or smart TV). It is available as a free download for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows devices or on the web at www.deezer.com
Statement by FC Barcelona Chief Revenue Officer, Francesco Calvo:
“From today, and via Deezer, FC Barcelona has a new channel to reach its followers all around the world through music. They will all be able to enjoy The Sound of Barça, the Club’s official music channel, and will able to enjoy a selection of representative songs of FC Barcelona as well as those of their favourite sportspeople. The partnership with this worldwide music streaming platform consolidates the Club’s project to globalise and innovate”.
Statement by Deezer Chief Marketing Officer, Golan Shaked:
“We are delighted to be partnering with one of the world’s leading football teams, FC Barcelona, as the club’s official music streaming service. Not only will the partnership allow us to give football and music fans a more personal way of accessing exclusive content, but it will bring both sets of fans much closer to one of the world’s most popular sports - football. Be it creating personal soundtracks through Deezer’s signature feature Flow, or creating and sharing player playlists, we are very much looking forward to what the future holds”.
Find out more: http://www.deezer-blog.com/fc-barcelona-join-forces-with-deezer/ |
Every month, the NHS in England publishes anonymised data about the drugs prescribed by GPs. But the raw data files are large and unwieldy, with more than 700 million rows. We're making it easier for GPs, managers and everyone to explore - supporting safer, more efficient prescribing.
Got a tricky query for the data? We can often provide custom extracts, we know the data well, and we’re keen to collaborate with academics and clinicians. Get in touch to find out more.
How to cite: If you use our data or graphs, please cite as OpenPrescribing.net, EBM DataLab, University of Oxford, 2019 so that others can find us and use our tools.
Explore the data
Look at your CCG We've identified standard prescribing measures, and created dashboards for every Clinical Commissioning Group in the country. Find a CCG » Look at your GP practice We've identified standard prescribing measures, and created dashboards for every GP practice in the country. Find a practice »
Run your own analyses If you have a burning question about the prescribing data, use our flexible query form to get the data you need, quickly and easily. Start analysing » Spot national trends See how national prescribing trends have changed since 2010, for any drug or BNF section that interests you. Find a drug »
Find out more
Ben Goldacre explains what the site does and why we built it.
Read more about the site and see our FAQs. In particular, note our guidelines for using this data. |
Oil futures finished modestly lower on Monday after a volatile trading session marked by traders’ reactions to Saudi Arabia’s pledge to work with global oil producers in an effort to stabilize prices.
January West Texas Intermediate crude CLF6, +0.00% shed 15 cents, or 0.4%, to settle at $41.75 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude UK:LCOF6 however, settled up 17 cents, or 0.4%, to $44.83 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange.
WTI futures had traded as high as $42.75 a barrel after the Saudi Press Agency reiterated that the country was ready to work with oil producing and exporting nations toward stable prices. The rebound lost steam, however, as analysts noted the remarks were in line with previous Saudi statements.
“We are constantly bouncing from the area of $40 and if the Saudis do not deliver what they have said…we could see the oil price dropping below the $35 level,” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade. “To trade on these headlines is always a very dangerous strategy as volatility picks up substantially.”
Saudi Arabia’s comments come ahead of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ scheduled Dec. 4 meeting in Vienna.
Oil prices also saw volatile trading during Thanksgiving week last year, said Tyler Richey, co-editor of The 7:00’s Report.
About a year ago, OPEC announced it would not be adjusting production targets in response to falling oil prices and that its primary objective had shifted from influencing prices to defending market share, said Richey. That caused a huge spike in volatility at the time, “and ultimately triggered one of the biggest oil selloffs in history,” he said.
“There is no indication that OPEC will do anything this week, but we are alert to the fact that they may try to take another ‘jab’ at the U.S. and wreak some havoc in the energy markets while the Nymex is closed for the holiday [Thursday],” said Richey.
Oil also saw some pressure from a stronger U.S. dollar and persistent worries about the global surplus of crude. The ICE U.S. dollar index DXY, -0.37% climbed Monday on growing expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December.
Dollar-priced metals, from copper US:HGZ5 to gold US:GCZ5 ended lower Monday.
Still, other energy futures prices managed to hold on to gains, with Nymex December gasoline US:RBZ5 adding 2.3 cents, or 1.8%, to $1.313 a gallon and December heating oil US:HOZ5 tacking on less than half a cent to $1.374 a gallon.
December natural gas US:NGZ15 rose 6.5 cents, or 3%, to $2.21 per million British thermal units, rebounding after Friday’s 5.8% decline.
Providing critical information for the U.S. trading day. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Need to Know newsletter. Sign up here. |
Business is facing a new challenge in securing data in the wake of revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden, says Norbert Pohlmann, chairman of IT security organisation TeleTrust.
“We now know that the US National Security Agency has made the whole security system weak by building in weaknesses that criminals can use,” he told the ISSE 2013 security conference in Brussels.
Pohlmann said that, in light of Snowden's revelations, businesses need to find new ways to secure backdoors in hardware and software, and protect data.
The forced collaboration with online email and other services also means that businesses will have to reassess how appropriate these services are for business purposes.
Even the grim economics of the cyber threat world have been laid bare, showing that big IT suppliers are unable to compete with intelligence agencies in paying for the top threat capabilities.
“Intelligence agencies are able to pay more than suppliers for this information, which they use for their own purposes and do not share with business to help improve their defences,” said Pohlmann.
This raises the question about whether the ends justify the means, he said.
The challenge facing every organisation now, said Pohlmann, is working out which suppliers, evaluations and certifications can be trusted, and what constitutes evidence for trust.
In the post Snowden era, he said, business is faced with the challenge of deciding what to do, knowing that most of today's security technology is unable to stop the determined attacker.
“In evaluating the IT security situation, we can see a change for the worse since Snowden,” he said.
The focus now, said Pohlmann, should be on finding ways of stopping the misuse of IT vulnerabilities and detecting backdoors and other weaknesses in products and services.
Read more on Prism |
Several states and organisations have slammed the Union government’s decision to ban the sale of cattle for slaughter through animal markets, with the Kerala government saying it would look into the legal aspects of the issue. Claiming that the move was part of an attempt to implement RSS agenda, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan said, “Crores of people in the country are slaughtering animals for food. Those who consume meat do not belong to any particular religion. Narendra Modi has interfered with people’s right to eat. If cattle is banned today, in future there could be a ban on eating fish.”
Advertising
“Instead of restraining the Sangh Parivar from assaulting those who transport cattle, the Centre has banned slaughter of cattle. This makes it clear who holds the reins of power at the Centre,” he said, adding that it would lead to job losses, particularly among Dalits. Agriculture Minister V S Sunil Kumar said the state would not accept the order. “We will take steps after looking into the legal aspects of the issue,” he said.
Justifying the Centre’s decision, BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan said it had only restricted the sale for slaughter of animals that were used for agricultural purposes. He blamed the media for “distorting” the notification. While cattle merchants in the state voiced apprehension that their business would be affected, the SFI announced a beef festival in 210 centres across Kerala.
Kerala has around 50 weekly cattle markets, where local traders and farmers procure animals. Apart from 5.5 lakh dairy farmers in the state, another 5 lakh people are indirectly involved in cattle trade, slaughterhouses and allied areas. In Goa, 40 per cent of the cattle meat that reaches the tourist market comes from Goa Meat Complex, the state-run abattoir. The remaining 60 per cent is sourced from cold storage. Anwar Bepari of Qureshi Meat Traders Association and others were unsure of the source and supply chain following the issuance of new rules. “We have written to the animal husbandry department for directions,” said Dr Uday Pednekar, Managing Director of Goa Meat Complex.
Agriculture Minister Vijay Sardesai said he would read the notification before commenting. Tamil Nadu Leader of Opposition and DMK leader M K Stalin tweeted, “Repeal the Beef Ban Law immediately that infringes on the right of every citizen to make their food choices. #beefban.” In West Bengal, a senior minister said the new rules were rooted in “divisive politics”. “This was a democracy where people can eat what they want. West Bengal has a large Muslim population that eats beef, we will not stop that,” he said.
West Bengal Beef Dealers Association president Mohammad Ali said, “Modiji’s diktat does not hold in Bengal. We have licences for cow slaughter and beef supply. Unless the state issues a circular, we will not stop operations.” The move has Punjab’s dairy farmers and tannery workers worried. Progressive Dairy Farmers Association president Daljit Singh said, “The rules will ruin small, marginal and landless farmers, who cannot do the documentation.. Middlemen will eat into their business.” The Jalandhar-based hide trade also slammed the decision.
In Maharashtra, the decision did not go down well with Swabhimani Paksha MP Raju Shetti, an NDA ally. “Unproductive animals are millstones around farmer’s necks. We will tie such animals outside the houses of BJP leaders,” he said. AIMIM MLA from Aurangabad Imtiaz Jaleel warned of similar protests. Other states such as Gujarat welcomed the move. Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana said they would implement the directives even though they already had similar rules in place. However, Sabir Qureshi, secretary of Jaipur Meat Merchants Association, said, “There shouldn’t be so many rules. The process should be easier.”
Advertising
(Inputs from Arun Janardhanan, Anju Agnihotri Chaba, Partha Sarathi Biswas, Sreenivas Janyala, Hamza Khan) |
The world governing body has identified and approached at least one prospective member in recent weeks for the temporary panel that could replace FFA chairman Steven Lowy and his board.
The person is Australian, going some way to allaying fears FIFA could put overseas administrators in charge with no knowledge of the sport's domestic intricacies and issues.
FIFA would not comment when asked to confirm if it had begun speaking to potential normalisation committee members.
"As a general rule we do not comment on such matters," a FIFA spokesperson told AAP.
However, appointing locals instead of bringing in outsiders would be consistent with FIFA's prior behaviour.
The sport's world governing body usually looks to former lawyers, politicians or business people from that country - often with a background in the administration of football, the Olympics or other sports - when installing normalisation committees.
Cameroon, Argentina and Guinea have all seen such interventions from FIFA in the past 18 months.
In any event, a normalisation committee would be an interim measure, tasked with overseeing reform to FFA's congress and running the sport's daily affairs before holding fresh elections in which none of its members could stand in.
With two months until the FIFA-imposed deadline on November 30, it is becoming an increasingly real proposition.
Talks are continuing among the three stakeholders - the A-League clubs, state federations and Professional Footballers Australia - to find consensus on how an expanded congress should be structured.
But the A-League clubs hold the whip hand and can simply stall to achieve their desired outcome of regime change at FFA.
The latest proposal from the nine state federations, for a 9-4-1-1 split of votes, has been rejected by the clubs and PFA because it would mean the states still have the power to elect FFA board members on their own. |
This is the mail archive of the [email protected] mailing list for the GCC project.
GCC 8.0.0 Status Report (2017-11-20)
From: Richard Biener <rguenther at suse dot de>
To: gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org
Cc: gcc-patches at gcc dot gnu dot org
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2017 12:15:24 +0100 (CET)
Subject: GCC 8.0.0 Status Report (2017-11-20)
Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
Reply-to: gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org
Status ====== GCC 8 is now in Stage 3 which means open for general bugfixing. As usual we're now in a short period where posted but not yet reviewed feature patches can be accepted. As time goes by even those will be no longer appropriate. As usual in this time not all regressions have been prioritized, usual rules apply -- regressions new in GCC 8 will end up as P1 unless they do not affect primary or secondary targets or languages. Regressions that we shipped with in GCC 7.2 can only be at most P2. Regressions that only affect non-primary/secondary targets or languages will be demoted to P4/5. Quality Data ============ Priority # Change from last report -------- --- ----------------------- P1 14 P2 161 - 2 P3 163 + 29 P4 134 - 1 P5 27 -------- --- ----------------------- Total P1-P3 338 + 27 Total 499 + 26 Previous Report =============== https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2017-11/msg00021.html |
Toronto's city planning department is taking over and broadening the environmental assessment for the Scarborough subway extension after "difficult and quite contentious discussions" with the TTC, leaving the transit agency to focus on construction.
The shakeup in how transit is planned and built in the city will be the model for future projects, according to Toronto Transit Commission chief executive Andy Byford.
Chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat characterized the new approach as the difference between simply "laying down infrastructure" and using transit to create "great thriving prosperous places."
Story continues below advertisement
The shift comes after concern on the part of some city staff that the TTC was moving ahead too quickly amid the uncertainty – with two of the five major mayoral candidates vowing to revert to the original plan for light rail – that continues to surround the Scarborough transit plan.
This latest twist in Scarborough, which should not affect the work's overall timelines, also offers a rare glimpse into the project. Progress, which is still at a very preliminary stage, had been delayed by the dust-up over division of responsibilities. Now that that issue has been settled, a request for proposals for initial engineering work is expected to go out this week.
The decision to give city planning the lead on the EA – which will include determining the route and where and how many stations there will be – came after sharp differences of opinion between that department and the TTC over how best to proceed with the project.
"They were difficult and quite contentious discussions," said Mr. Byford, who acknowledged that not everyone on his team was pleased to see city planning assume the new role.
"I have to see the bigger picture. And it seems to me that the city does have a point in saying you can't just look at projects as purely transit projects, you've got to look at what the wider implications for the city are. I'll be honest with you, there's also a bit of me that says we've got quite enough on our plate – and that is the understatement of the year."
The city planning-led EA will look beyond the role of transit as a mechanism purely for moving people.
"Part of the lens that city planning is going to bring to this exercise is really that city-building lens, that place-making lens," Ms. Keesmaat said.
Story continues below advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
"This change will ensure that we're integrating our considerations for new lines into a network-based approach and also integrating the transit alignment policies with our city-building policies around densification and transformation of urban environment."
Rapid transit, particularly in Scarborough, has shaped up as a key election issue in this fall's mayoral election. Light-rail supporters say that form of transit is cheaper, faster to build and serves more people. Subway boosters insist underground transit is best and prefer to frame the debate as one that has been settled.
Some high-ranking transit officials will admit privately that the subway extension is far from a sure thing, with one saying it would likely be the next city council that decides on the project's future. Another pegged its chances at "60-40 or 75-25."
The long-debated project continues to face hurdles, among them that the original legal agreement for an LRT in Scarborough remains in force. In a recent e-mail, Metrolinx spokeswoman Anne Marie Aikins said that changing that agreement is an ongoing process. Among the difficulties are negotiations over how to divvy up sunk costs.
Another issue is securing the money needed to pay for the controversial project.
Then finance minister Jim Flaherty promised $660-million from the Building Canada Fund last fall, subject to the normal approvals process. Earlier this spring, Mayor Rob Ford revealed that the city had not yet completed its business case or application for the funds, a process that is still under way.
Story continues below advertisement
Subway supporters also will have to win a series of big-dollar funding votes at council as the project proceeds over the next few years. If the next mayor is a supporter of the project, that mandate will help carry those votes. But a lot of work remains before the proverbial shovels can go in the ground.
"This will be debated for a long time," subway proponent Councillor Glenn de Baeremaker, who represents a ward through which the subway would run, predicted in a recent interview.
"Will there be a guerrilla war waged [at council] for the next four years? Yes, unfortunately there will, and we'll waste a lot of time and energy and effort focused on attacking each other and sabotaging each other's plan, instead of working together in co-operation and building something really truly spectacular. But in the end, something truly spectacular will be built in Scarborough." |
Rachael D'Amore, CTV Toronto
A Toronto man assaulted in Quebec City is speaking out following what he believes was a hate-motivated attack.
Supninder Khehra and his friend were visiting Quebec City over the Easter long weekend when a group of men began yelling at them from a parked car. Khehra is Sikh and wears a turban. He told CTV Toronto that the men taunted him for wearing his turban.
“Mostly it was in French, but they were using certain words in English as well,” Khehra said. “But when they were pointing [to my head] they were referencing my turban.”
Khehra and his friend, who were trying to flag a cab at the time, continued walking away. That’s when the men approached Khehra in their car.
The men jumped out of the vehicle and began to attack Khehra. They punched him and threw him to the ground, causing his turban to fall off.
Khehra’s friend videotaped the entire incident.
Remarkably, just as the men were driving away, a police car passed by and intervened.
Khehra told CTV Toronto he sustained injuries to his face, hands and back. He said that the attack has caused him emotional trauma, but that he doesn’t fear the men who attacked him.
“There are certain bad elements, like [the attackers], but I am still proud to live in Canada,” Khehra said.
He is currently recovering back home in Toronto.
Quebec City police arrested two men in connection with the attack. One man has since been released. The other man faces charges of assaulting a citizen and threatening a police officer. Police said the investigation is ongoing and there may be additional charges laid. |
User Info: BirdTatums BirdTatums 7 years ago #1 I am experiencing a very strange glitch with my character. About 100 hrs in now and started getting this the past few days. When I'm in 3rd person my character has blue beams of light coming out of my eyes. They are like blue spikes. Very annoying. Any 3rd person animation shows this. I can't even wear nightingale armor anymore. Almost tears through my entire head. Is this something anyone has experienced?
User Info: RUNNERSHIGH RUNNERSHIGH 7 years ago #2
If not, then sorry, Can't say Look at the sunset. Light a blunt. Reset. Hmm I know there is a bug that sometimes makes Ice spikes stick in your body for a long long time. Maybe it's that?If not, then sorry, Can't say
User Info: BirdTatums BirdTatums (Topic Creator) 7 years ago #3 Bump
User Info: BirdTatums BirdTatums (Topic Creator) 7 years ago #4 Bump |
(Washington, D.C.) – President Donald J. Trump’s National Security Advisor Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster and Director of the National Economic Council (NEC) Gary Cohn today announced that Everett Eissenstat will join the White House senior staff.
“Everett is the perfect choice to advance the President’s efforts to ensure the security and prosperity of the American people through the integration of the economic, trade, and diplomatic portfolios,” said Lieutenant General McMaster.
Eissenstat will serve as Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the NEC. He will be the President’s representative and lead United States negotiator, known as the Sherpa, for international summits that address economic affairs, including G7, G20, and APEC.
“Everett has spent more than two decades working on the complex trade issues facing our country,” Cohn said. “He brings a deep understanding of the international economic landscape and will play a critical role in advancing policies that promote job creation and grow our economy.”
Eissenstat previously served as Chief International Trade Counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for the Americas, and as the legislative director to Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ). Eissenstat received a J.D. cum laude from the University of Oklahoma, an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas, and a B.S. in Political Science and Spanish from Oklahoma State University. |
PREV NEXT Order Prints
Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand on Tuesday renewed her push for legislation that aims to clear the military records of upwards of 100,000 U.S. veterans who were dismissed from the services just because they are gay.
Gillibrand’s bill would make it easier for those vets to reverse their earlier dishonorable discharges, thereby allowing them to access services open to all other veterans.
“The Restore Honor to Service Members Act will help streamline the process for veterans to clear their records of discriminatory discharges,” said Gillibrand, D-N.Y. “Veterans who honorably serve our nation should not be fighting for their honor and their benefits. Our veterans deserve to receive the recognition and benefits they earned for the sacrifice they made for our country.”
Gillibrand’s legislation would clear the way for gay veterans to receive educational benefits under the GI Bill as well as health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The bill, cosponsored by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., would also help veterans who received an honorable discharge but who were still dismissed because they were gay.
Since their discharges indicate their sexual orientation, even those veterans may face discrimination, Gillibrand said.
Asked about the prospects for the legislation in the current Republican Congress, Gillibrand noted that the repeal of the “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” legislation, which forced gay service members to hide their sexual identity, was repealed by a Republican House.
She said she had already had promising conversations with Republican colleagues about the bill, which she will try to attach to the next defense authorization bill to provide funding to the military for the coming fiscal year.
Schumer is among 38 Senate cosponsors of the bill. A companion House bill has more than 100 cosponsors, including Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., and four Republicans. |
A reader writes on McCain's POW refrain:
This morning you noted that McCain’s constant POW self-references have assumed clinical proportions; I don’t know if he’s clinical, but he’s certainly cynical. Real heroes don’t go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about their own heroism particularly in order to satisfy personal ambition like this:
"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I'd had the ambition for a long time." John McCain, "Worth the Fighting For”, 2002.
The heroes I knew in my youth the guys who came back from WWII and Korea never said a word about it. Our family friend Ernie, who had been a German POW for three years after being shot down; the only way I ever learned about that is that someone else told me not Ernie. My dad 100 missions over North Africa, Italy, France and Germany, three confirmed kills and the Distinguished Flying Cross - never a word about the war; no, I take that back: on his deathbed, when we were alone, he struggled up out of his delirium for a moment and looked at me and said “War is the stupidest thing human beings do.” Almost the last thing he ever said.
We’ve all spent years psychoanalyzing Bush and his oedipal drama, his need to out-do his old man what about McCain and his 4-star admiral father and 4-star admiral grandfather: think there might be any oedipal ambition there? Do we need four more years of this? |
Hopefully not expecting a surrender
Every week, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich talks with contributor Eric Benson about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: what Obamacare’s success means for the president and the GOP, what the GM recall scandal says about American industry, and Republican presidential hopefuls court the dark lord of Vegas.
Six months ago, the Obamacare insurance exchanges began their official rollout with a government shutdown and a protracted website failure. Yesterday, the president announced that the Affordable Care Act’s open-enrollment period had exceeded its goals, with at least 7.1 million Americans signing up. Obamacare has been the single most divisive issue in American politics since it was signed into law in March 2010. Is that period coming to an end? And has the president won?
It will not stop being a political issue until the end of the midterms, of course, because the Republicans have no other issue to run on this year — and Obamacare-bashing, like Obama-bashing in general, revs up its base. And the GOP will do well in the midterms, too — not because of the Affordable Care Act, per se, but because the Republican base (white, male, old) turns up in off-year elections and much of the Democratic base (the new America that is inexorably supplanting the GOP base) hibernates until presidential election years. After the midterms, Obamacare will be vastly diminished as a political issue except on the hard right, which, after all, still doesn’t like that government “health-care takeover” called Medicare either. (The new Paul Ryan budget released this week, among its other indignities, calls for replacing Medicare with a voucher system that would destroy it.) Even now the ACA isn’t wildly unpopular — the country is split 49/48 in its favor according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll — and it will gain in popularity as it takes root among those Americans who needed it and now have it. In that important sense — as policy, not politics — the president may well have won, though we won’t know for sure for several years.
Meanwhile, it’s fascinating to see how those on the right are trying to deal with defeat by yet again trying to dispute hard statistics — claiming that the 7.1 million enrollment number is a fraud. (Actually, the real number is higher, maybe as high as 10 million in some estimates, because some who signed up for Obamacare did so directly through insurers, not through the often-troubled government exchanges.) Fox News even ran a graphic that used an outdated figure for enrollments, and visually portrayed the sign-up rate (in a bar chart) as about one-third of what it actually was. This is the same kind of magical thinking that made conservative pundits attack Nate Silver during the 2012 election and talk themselves into believing that Romney was going to win. We can only hope that Karl Rove will have another breakdown on television when he faces the reality that Obamacare has won over a significant segment of the electorate just as surely as Obama took Ohio on Election Night.
General Motors was one of the ringing success stories of post-crash American business, rebounding from the brink of collapse to become — with significant government assistance — a lean, profitable, and forward-looking company that capped it all off by hiring the industry’s first female CEO. Now GM is in the midst of a growing scandal as evidence mounts that it ignored a dangerous, and sometimes deadly, ignition-switch defect on its cars for over a decade. What does this mean for the auto industry and American manufacturing in general? And what should Congress do about it?
It’s hard to imagine how this story could be worse. GM knew it had a defect that was making its products unsafe and killing people. There was clearly an internal cover-up. And at least some of this happened while taxpayers were bailing out the company, and GM’s bankruptcy status was providing it with legal protection from liability. I agree with the position that if corporations are people — as both the Supreme Court and the auto-industry scion Mitt Romney claim — then corporations should go to jail. Congress can’t do much in this case except hold this week’s hearings and dramatize the scale of the problem. Criminal investigations are needed along with the civil lawsuits and financial reparations already afoot. And Mary Barra has to stop this I-know-nothing routine. Her official video apology — “terrible things happened” — is a nausea-inducing example of egregious corporate “messaging.” She sounded like an airline executive on a fasten-your-seat-belt video, though in this case it was too late for the 13 dead Cobalt drivers to fasten their seat belts because, yes, terrible things did happen at GM, even if Barra says she’s clueless as to exactly what they were.
The fallout of this story extends beyond the auto industry and American manufacturing. It is consistent with what we’ve learned about other sectors since the crash of 2008: GM sold Cobalts as heedlessly as financial institutions sold toxic paper on Wall Street. And it did so while the government looked the other way or actively enabled the chicanery. It might be worth noting that the number of vehicles so far recalled by GM (6.3 million this year; 758,000 in 2013) almost matches the number of Obamacare enrollments announced by the president. In the grand ideological debate about whether business or government does better by the citizenry, it’s clear in this match-up that a government that sloppily and at times even haplessly brought insurance to some seven million Americans still did better by the public than a signature American corporation that sloppily brought to market some seven million cars that may have been death machines.
Last week, Republican presidential hopefuls Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Scott Walker, and Chris Christie courted the conservative mega-donor and international casino magnate Sheldon Adelson in Las Vegas. Adelson’s money was one of the big stories of the 2012 election, although, of course, it didn’t push either his preferred candidate, Newt Gingrich, or his fallback option, Mitt Romney, over the top. Does Adelson’s support really matter? And could his billions resurrect even a scandal-tarred Chris Christie?
Let me ask my own question. Was this “beauty contest” of potential presidents — held in the dark heart of Vegas, sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition, and presided over by a gambling magnate who’s made much of his billions in Macau — worse for the Jews or the Republicans? That these Republican candidates think Adelson is an icon of American Jewry — and pander to his hard-line views about Israel in a sea of craps tables, slots, and prostitution — is insulting to Jews and gentiles alike. Sure, Adelson has a ton of dough to drop on whomever he decides to back in the Citizens United era, but I dare say the message of where that money comes from will not sit well with a lot of voters of all races, creeds, and religions.
It didn’t help Christie that he screwed up even in this friendly setting, using the perfectly kosher term “occupied territories” in his love song to Israel and then cravenly apologizing to Adelson for offending his sensibilities. But each day furthers my conviction that Christie is done anyway: His use of $1 million-plus of taxpayers’ money for an in-house “investigation” exonerating him in Bridgegate had the opposite of its intended effect. It looks like a cover-up and has become an instant national joke. And the financial powers that be in the GOP Establishment know this. The real story in the Republican Party right now remains as it has been: the Establishment versus the radical base. The base is coalescing around a presidential front runner, Rand Paul, who, as the Washington Post reported last week, is now organizing in all 50 states. The Establishment (and no doubt Adelson) wants a white knight to knock Paul out — but they don’t have one. Giuliani, Romney, and Christie have all failed to reassert Establishment rule in the post-Bush GOP. So now (as the Post also reported) the Party’s top funders are in a desperate effort to enlist the Hamlet-like Jeb Bush for the task. By 2016, Bush will have been out of public office for nearly a decade. His political views are nebulous at best, and the fact that his fluency in Spanish will win back Hispanic voters to the anti-immigrant party is a pipe dream. But even if Bush says yes, he’s largely disliked by his own party’s base — let alone the downer the Bush name is for the public at large. It looks like 2016 is going to be another bloody chapter in the GOP’s ongoing civil war. |
Have you ever wanted to be more assertive and get what you want, but are worried that you’ll end up becoming a jerk? Here’s a simple guide to tell the difference: if you’re only controlling your own actions, you’re being assertive. If you’re trying to control someone else, you’re becoming aggressive.
That’s how professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of British Columbia Randy J. Peterson puts it. The line between being assertive and being aggressive can be a blurry one, but usually the distinction falls on whether you want to control other people, or simply want to exert some level of control over your own life. The latter being perfectly natural for everyone:
When we behave assertively, we are able to acknowledge our own thoughts and wishes honestly, without the expectation that others will automatically give in to us. We express respect for the feelings and opinions of others without necessarily adopting their opinions or doing what they expect or demand. This does not mean that we become inconsiderate to the wishes of others. We listen to their wishes and expectations, then we decide whether or not to go along with them. We might choose to do so even if we would prefer to do something else. But it is our choice. Whenever we go along with others it is our decision to do so anyway. But we can often feel helpless because we forget that we are under our own control.
Advertisement
The alternative to controlling your own actions is being passive. Passive people will often let others make decisions for them, or accept it when someone undermines everything you do. It’s easy to get fed up with being passive and go too far into becoming aggressive (or passive-aggressive, which is really just being aggressive in a sneaky way that avoids the consequences of outright aggression). However, if you can identify where controlling yourself ends and controlling someone else begins, you can do a decent job of staying firmly in the safe assertive area.
This Is How To Be More Assertive: 3 Powerful Secrets From Research | Barking Up the Wrong Tree
Photo by Acid Pix. |
Relationship established
2008
Overview
The City of Urbana is proud to partner with Zomba, Malawi through the Sister Cities International program. This not-for-profit organization oversees the U.S. Sister Cities program, which traces its roots to 1956 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a People-to-People citizen diplomacy initiative.
Originally a part of the National League of Cities, Sister Cities International (SCI) became a separate, non-profit corporation in 1967 due to the tremendous popularity of the U.S. program. The program offers grants, publications, coordinators to assist in developing the sister city relationship, conferences, awards, and other support programs that strengthen and enhance international relationships for hundreds of cities throughout the world.
View the power point in the files below for current program information.
Vision
For the people of the two communities to enjoy lasting friendship and prosperity in peace, freedom and dignity.
Goals
To mutually improve the economic, social and cultural well being of the two communities through the following activities: increasing our understanding of each other’s communities and ways of life, exchanging experience and best practice in local government, and supporting cultural and educational exchanges for mutual growth and understanding.
Chair of the Zomba Sister City Committee
Dennis Roberts, Council Member, Ward 5
Review of the Sister City Relationship between Urbana and Zomba, Malawi
In 2008 the Urbana City Council voted to approve a formal Sister City partnership with Zomba, Malawi, and the Urbana Sister Cities Committee was established. Three months later Sister Cities International announced the establishment of a grant program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The new African Urban Poverty Alleviation Program (AUPAP) invited American cities with Sister City partnerships in Africa to apply for a two year project aimed improving water, health, and sanitation conditions in their African Sister City.
Councilman Dennis Robert, gathering letters of support from the Mayor and several community groups and municipal partners, and the Malindi family and Joyce Banda, Member of Parliament from the Domasi/Zomba area, applied for the City of Urbana
On March 1, 2010, Urbana was chosen by Sister Cities International to be one of the 17 cities selected to participate in the AUPAP. This $115,000 grant offered Urbana a wonderful opportunity to build a stronger Sister City partnership in Africa while making a very tangible contribution to the better health and welfare of our friends in Zomba, Malawi. Read more
Over the next two years (2011-2012) members of the Urbana Sister Cities Committee and the Zomba Local Community Committee worked on two significant projects: the construction of new, badly needed pit toilets in three primary schools in the peri-urban areas of Zomba, and the construction of an Ablution Block, with toilet stalls and showers, laundry tubs and a clothers drying yard for the men and women living in temporary quarters in the Guardian Village adjacent to the Zomba Central Hospital. These "guardians," often from remote areas, must attend to their sick relatives staying in the hospital and provide them with clean clothing, bedding, cook meals, and provide all other assistance on a daily basis.
Coordinating this project as Project Manager for Urbana was Scotty Dossett, retired from the Illinois Water Survey, and for Zomba LCC, Mr. Dickson Vuwa Phiri, Director of Chancellors College Library.
This grant project was successfully completed in December, 2012.
News |
A long-term BBC’s executive has quit his job over his alleged role in the financial mismanagement of a charity he was running with.
Alan Yentob, a creative director, was in the midst of controversy after his Kids Company charity collapsed in August. He is accused of influencing BBC coverage of the charity’s debacle.
Yentob is said to have phoned the BBC Two’s Newsnight in July, as the program prepared to broadcast a report into the charity’s government funding. He has denied any wrongdoing and previously said that he did not abuse his position at the BBC.
“The BBC is going through particularly challenging times and I have come to believe that the speculation about Kids Company and the media coverage revolving around my role is proving a serious distraction”, Yentob said on Thursday while revealing his resignation. |
Highlights
WFP’s operation inside Syria is only covered through November. The shortfall for the next six months is USD 222 million, or 47 percent of June-November requirements
In response to population displacement from and within Ar-Raqqa, governorate, WFP has provided food assistance for 172,000 people since mid-March.
WFP delivered food assistance for 3.7 million people in all 14 governorates in Syria, achieving 93 percent of the plan to reach 4 million people.
Operational Updates
In May, WFP delivered food assistance for 3.7 million people in all 14 Syrian governorates. Of this, 24 percent of the food assistance was delivered through the crossborder operations from Jordan and Turkey, cross-line inter-agency convoys and air operations.
WFP participated in two cross-line inter-agency convoys, providing food assistance for almost 80,000 people in four besieged and hard-to-reach locations. These include Atan and Nasriyah in north-east Rural Damascus, reached by WFP for the first time since the beginning of the crisis, and the besieged town of Duma in Eastern Ghouta, last reached by WFP in October 2016.
In May, WFP’s air operations to the besieged parts of Deir Ezzor city and the hard-to-reach governorate of AlHasakeh in north eastern Syria continued to provide lifesaving food assistance to the affected populations. In Deir Ezzor, the airdrop operation enabled WFP to provide food assistance for over 51,000 people, while in Al-Hasakeh, WFP provided food for about 19,000 people through the airlift operation.
As fighting in Ar-Raqqa governorate escalated, WFP continued to respond to population displacement. Since mid-March, WFP has provided life-saving food assistance for over 172,000 people in northern Ar-Raqqa governorate, northern Deir Ezzor and Al-Hasakeh governorates using stocks airlifted from Damascus to Qamishly. WFP also provided nutrition supplies for the prevention of malnutrition in about 700 children in Ein Issa in northern Ar-Raqqa.
In central Syria, the evacuation of some 20,000 from AlWa’er in Homs city to northern Syria concluded on 21 May, following a deal between the Syrian government and armed opposition groups. WFP provided urgent food assistance for 12,500 people during the evacuation process through the provision of ready-to-eat rations.
In southern Syria, heavy fighting between government forces, armed opposition groups and ISIL in Dar’a continued to fuel population displacement, particularly in early May. Fighting was reported in Dar’a al-Balad, the southern part of Dar’a city, and the farms surrounding the city, forcing the displacement of over 3,000 people to safer areas in Um Al Mayathen, Nasib, Sayda, Jizeh and Sahwa in eastern rural Dar’a. WFP provided ready-to-eat rations to all newly displaced people in the affected areas. |
Another would-be jihad murderer wins more votes for Le Pen. Enough to pull France off national suicide watch? We shall see.
“Passengers flee in panic as knife-wielding man is tackled by police at Paris’ Gare du Nord Eurostar terminal just days after terror attack rocked France,” by Paddy Dinham, Dave Burke and Nick Fagge, Mailonline, April 22, 2017:
Panicked passengers fled in terror as a knifeman was arrested at Paris’ Gare du Nord station just a day before the French presidential vote.
The drama happened on a day of unrest in the French capital, during which police released tear gas after being pelted with flares and other makeshift weapons in a pre-election riot.
Footage of the station arrest shows armed police surround the man, who was restrained on the ground.
Panicked passengers abandoned their luggage as they fled, and boarding of Eurostar services was briefly suspended this afternoon. Police sources say the arrested man is a 20-year-old from Mali.
Tensions are high across France following Thursday night’s ISIS-inspired assassination of police officer Xavier Jugele by fanatic Karim Cheurfi at the Champs Elysee.
Today masked protesters hurled bottles and stones at legions of officers who flooded central Paris following the killing. A 200-strong mob hijacked a peaceful rally organised by left-wing unions and communists.
Voters will go to the polls tomorrow in the first round of the country’s presidential election.
Describing the incident at Gare de Nord, a French police official said that a man carrying a knife walked into the station and was flagged to officers, who arrested him immediately before anyone could be harmed.
French TV network BFMTV reports that the man did not resist arrest, and a police source said he claimed he was carrying the knife because he was afraid for his life. He was not previously known to police.
Another police source added that the arrest caused a ‘panic movement’ with a number of travellers abandoning their luggage in the middle of the station.
One police source said that some people saw the man, a 20-year-old Malian, ‘inside the station, knife in hand’ and pointed him out to police, who detained him…. |
A strange new trend gripped Brussels on Thursday. Call it Macron-mania.
For his debut appearance in Brussels as French president, Emmanuel Macron unleashed a sort of feverish excitement not seen since Britain voted to leave the European Union or the darkest days of the Greek debt crisis.
Journalists tussled over a microphone to ask him questions. Statesman lobbied hard for a sit-down meeting, however short.
But this time the dominant emotion in Brussels was not fear or anxiety at some looming EU collapse. It was hope, at least for old Europe.
"Today the emphasis was on optimism," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, adding that the summit had focused on "critical developments" for the EU instead of crisis management.
On the up
Compared to countless EU summits plagued by Greece's debt crisis, a migrant influx, Brexit and a populist surge that nearly brought the house down, the change in tone was striking.
For the first time in years, members of the EU establishment could rejoice. The leader of a major member state, fresh from winning a convincing majority in parliament, was in town broadcasting plans to revive the union and strengthen its foundations in partnership with Germany.
"I think Macron is a very clever man, at ease with other heads of state, heads of institutions," said European Parliament President Antonio Tajani. "I think I've found a major counterpart on the most important matters — immigration, the fight against terrorism, industrial and trade policy."
He added, for good measure: "I think he can play an important role in Europe."
As Macron himself pointed out at a packed press conference that — because the summit had gone so uncharacteristically smoothly — had started early, his devotion to the EU was neither new, nor unknown to French voters. "I campaigned on this idea," he said, referring to his pro-EU agenda.
Now that he was president, Macron said he wanted to use his first EU Council summit to "define or redefine a Europe that protects". This, he said, meant reforming the bloc to make populations feel more secure against terrorism, climate change, unfair wage competition and trade "dumping" from beyond EU borders.
As proof of his commitment, he pointed to plans to create an EU defense fund and a "permanent cooperation structure" for military joint procurement — ideas for which he repeatedly thanked European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in a rare nod from a national leader.
Asked whether he thought France or the European Union was more difficult to reform, Macron dodged. "There will be anger," he said. "But I see that the French voted twice for this agenda of change. I think that Europe is also ready for this."
It seemed that not even Brexit, the other theme of the day, could puncture Macron's optimism. "It's a good signal to open exchanges on that subject [citizens' rights]", he said.
An EU diplomat gave Macron's first steps a thumbs up: “Macron is definitely showing up at a good time, as the only thing that matters in Brussels is will and determination."
Trade trepidation
Behind the excitement, however, was trepidation among states worried that Macron's vision will not work for them.
If Macron gets his way on trade, and the EU imposes tougher anti-dumping rules, won't Sweden, the Netherlands and other free-trading nations stand to lose economically?
The president was ready with an answer. "I met with the Dutch prime minister, and he came to agreement with me on this idea of protection ... because he also had to face populism in his country," said Macron. "I am not for protectionism; I am for reasonable openness."
Among central and Eastern European states, his plans for a "two-speed Europe" were also causing jitters, as leaders worry about becoming second-class members.
Here again, Macron was ready with an anecdote: In a one-on-one meeting, Bulgaria's president admitted to him that even his country had a problem with wage competition from foreigners illegally entering the country, Macron said.
The message: If they're not on board the Macron train yet, they will be.
However, skepticism on his ability to bridge all divides still shone through on the summit's sidelines.
"Does he want to show off to the media with his lack of goodwill toward central European countries, or does he want to speak frankly," Beata Szydło Poland's prime minister told local media. "I think it's good to discuss facts, and not rely on some stereotypical insights."
Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, lashed out at Macron for saying in an interview that some countries were treating the EU as a "supermarket". "Criticizing the central European countries is not the best way to express friendship."
— Matthew Karnitschnig and Joanna Plucinska contributed reporting. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The Brazilian firm that breeds wasps that are released over crops to control pest insects
It is not a job for someone who is scared of creepy crawlies.
The team of laboratory workers are busy collecting the eggs laid by thousands of bugs in large plastic containers.
They have to shake and brush away the insects, which scurry quickly to and fro over their hands.
The employees can then remove strips of fabric from the containers, and scrape off the attached eggs.
This is the itchy scene at a hi-tech Brazilian company called Bug Agentes Biologicos, or Bug for short.
Image caption Bug is able to breed insects in big numbers
The company is at the forefront of the growing global biological pest control industry - it produces bugs that kill other creepy crawlies, thereby removing the need for chemical pesticides.
Fuelled by growing demand from Brazil's vast agricultural sector, Bug has developed a way to mass produce a tiny wasp called trichogramma that eats caterpillars and other pest insects.
Brazilian farmers then use drones to spray the wasps over their fields.
Bug was set up in Sao Paulo state back in 2000 by Brazilian scientists Diogo Rodrigues Carvalho and Heraldo Negri de Oliveira.
Image caption Heraldo Negri de Oliveira (left) and Diogo Rodrigues Carvalho wanted to help reduce the use of chemical pesticides
They wanted to help Brazilian farmers reduce their use of pesticides on crops - but never thought they would be good at running a business.
Mr Carvalho says: "Farmers used to just use chemicals to combat pests, and a lot of these chemicals were used in excess. This is bad for the environment and the people who work in the fields.
"Biological control using insects to control pests cuts pesticide use and brings more equilibrium to the countryside."
Yet despite the two friends' big ambitions, the firm didn't make any profits in its first eight years. It was only kept in business thanks to research and development funding from the Brazilian government, and private investors.
Image copyright GeoCom Image caption The wasps are spread over crops using drones
The big breakthrough came in 2008 when it started to breed thousands of wasps in each batch, which turned the start-up into a business that has grown by an average 30% each year ever since.
Mr Negri de Oliveira says that back in the firm's early days they couldn't simply call someone for advice, or order in the equipment they needed, because what they were doing was so new.
"Setting up a biological pest control company 17 years ago was not an easy thing to do," he says.
"Whey you set up a pizza shop, you go to a supplier, and you buy everything you need to make pizzas.
Image copyright Bug Image caption Bug is an expert at breeding the trichogramma wasp
"When you start a biological pest control company there is nothing on the market that helps you set it up. Everything we have here today is either something we adapted from another industry, or developed ourselves."
Despite the company's slow start, Bug's ambition from day one was to try to produce bio-pests on a grand scale.
Mr Negri de Oliveira says: "When we set up our business, people would say 'you will work with greenhouses or family-sized properties?'.
"And we would say 'no, we will work in great [big] fields'. And we are going head-to-head with agrochemical producers.
"Our company's greatest achievement was to find a way to use this solution in big, open fields."
This is the seventh story in a series called Connected Commerce, which every week highlights companies around the world that are successfully exporting, and trading beyond their home market.
Bug's expertise has caught the attention of agricultural companies around the world, and at times its exports have accounted for 15% of its annual revenues.
However, selling overseas has not been entirely straightforward.
Firstly it has never been able to export its wasps, due to fears over invasive species. Instead it has exported the other part of its specialism - the insect eggs that the tiny wasps first attack by laying their own eggs inside.
Image caption Working for Bug can be a dusty business
Bug has the technology and skills to produce vast quantities of these eggs, which are then sterilised ahead of export so that they can't hatch.
From 2004 to 2012 Bug exported these eggs to laboratories around the world, so that other bio-pest researchers and companies could more easily breed their own wasps.
Bug says it did not have to seek its overseas customers. Instead, they were attracted by positive word-of-mouth and coverage at international conferences.
Image caption The company now has 65 employees
By 2012 it had exported the insect eggs to 16 countries, including the US, Canada, Spain, Italy, Germany and Israel.
But that year Bug had to suddenly stop its export trade when strikes by Brazilian customs officers meant that export shipments of the highly perishable eggs could not be flown out of the country on time, and so had to be destroyed.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Bug and similar companies are reducing agriculture's reliance on chemical pesticides
As strikes continued over subsequent years, it is only now that Bug and its 65 employees are starting to export again, with 2kg or $10,000 (£7,500) worth of eggs going to Canada before the end of 2017.
Dave Chandler, a microbiologist and entomologist, at the UK's University of Warwick, says that Bug will continue to benefit from the increasing global demand for biological pest control.
This is borne out by a 2016 report which said that the bio-pest sector is due to grow to $5bn a year by 2020, up from $3bn last year.
Image caption The global bio-pest marketplace is expected to expand strongly
Mr Chandler says: "So farmers and growers need alternatives to chemical pesticides, because of the evolution of resistance to chemicals, and governments are demanding more environmental forms of crop protection.
"So there is money to be made from it, both for large companies, and also for small suppliers as well."
Mr Negri de Oliveira adds that using biological control to combat pests is "here to stay, there is no going back". |
SYDNEY, Australia — Jewish leaders in Australia’s biggest city have reacted with dismay after a court rejected their application to build a new synagogue on the grounds that it could become a terrorist target.
The temple was destined for a piece of land just a short walk from Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach but nearby residents complained that its presence might draw a terror attack. Inspectors from Waverly Council, which was tasked with the initial approval process, agreed. They pointed to the synagogue’s own design, which included setback buildings and blast walls, as evidence that an attack could be anticipated.
Waverley Council had previously refused the development application for reasons including that the site was “unsuitable for a synagogue because of the potential risk to users and other members of the general public.”
They also said the design would have an “unacceptable impact” on the street and neighborhood.
The Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe (FREE) group lodged the application. FREE spokesman Rabbi Yehoram Ulman told News Local that the application’s refusal by the NSW Land and Environment Court, based on the above security risk assessment, came as a shock to the Jewish community.
“The decision is unprecedented. Its implications are enormous,” he said in a statement. “It basically implies that no Jewish organization should be allowed to exist in residential areas.
“It stands to stifle Jewish existence and activity in Sydney and indeed, by creating a precedent, the whole of Australia, and by extension rewarding terrorism.”
Waverly Council issued a public statement of its own and said FREE was entitled to lodge another application to develop the site at any time in the future. |
By Linda A. Thompson
European lawmakers are grappling for answers to a question that until recently seemed like the stuff of science fiction: If robots take our jobs, who will pay taxes?
In an age of unprecedented technological change occurring at a faster rate than the Industrial Revolution, concerns over the growing robotization and automation of work have prompted fears about mass unemployment and plummeting tax revenue in the near future, pitting companies and robotics manufacturers against lawmakers and worker advocates.
The issue is taking on new urgency ahead of a Feb. 16 vote before the EU Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee on whether to create a robotics agency to deliberate on tax and liability issues.
Companies from Google to Boeing, from Siemens to Foxconn Technology Group, have jumped on the automation bandwagon in the last few decades (Chart 1). At the forefront of the robotization drive, which has been dubbed the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” are countries like Germany, the U.S., South Korea and the U.K. (Chart 2), and such manufacturing industries as automotive parts suppliers and the electrical and electronics industry.
For companies, the math is simple—use of robotics reduces their labor costs and increases productivity as robots have become cheaper and easier to program. According to a 2013 article in the MIT Technology Review, warehouses equipped with robots manufactured by Amazon Robotics, for instance, can process four times the amount of orders as unautomated warehouses.
A Muddy Question
Robots—then still large, unwieldy and expensive—first entered the marketplace in Europe, Japan and the U.S. in the 1960s. Boston Consulting Group estimates approximately 1.4 million industrial robots are today in use around the globe, a number that is projected to increase to 1.9 million in 2017. Robotics manufacturers, unsurprisingly, are riding a sales boom, with many of them reporting two-digit percentage increases in revenue (chart of Denmark’s largest robot manufacturer, Universal Robots, revenue between 2013 and 2015). The robotics industry today represents a $15 billion sector, which is expected to increase to $67 billion by 2025, also according to Boston Consulting Group figures.
How many jobs will be lost in this inexorable drive toward automation is a question that no one can quite seem to agree on.
A 2016 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates the job loss to be low, with 9 percent of jobs automatable on average across 21 OECD countries. A 2013 report by Oxford University’s Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne meanwhile estimated 54 percent of jobs in the EU to be at risk of disappearing under the influence of computerization in the next two decades, while a follow-up 2016 report pronounced 47 percent of US employment to be at high risk of imminent automation, “perhaps over the next decade or two.”
Fair Taxation
The answer to this numbers question matters because the fear of massive job losses is one of the central arguments used by those in favor of a robot tax.
“Who will buy products and services realized through use of robotics if those taken out of a job by them have no income?” said Barb Jacobson, a board member of Universal Basic Income Europe, a lobby group promoting basic income in Europe.
Noting in a Jan. 31 e-mail that the basic research resulting in new technology patents is often funded with public money, she said: “It is only fair that those who profit from the use of patents pay some of that back, and that the revenues from a ’robot tax’ be shared by all in the form of a basic income.”
But rather than focusing on diminishing employment prospects, some say, we should be examining the relationship between unemployment and automation.
“I think we need to have proper evidence that robots have a negative effect on employment and right now we’re not really seeing anything in the data to suggest that,” said Gregory Claeys, a research fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, in a Feb. 3 telephone interview.
‘Problem Doesn’t Exist.’
This view was echoed by Patrick Schwarzkopf, director of the Brussels-based EUnited Robotics trade association, who pointed to data (Chart 3) from the International Federation of Robotics indicating high employment rates for countries with high robotization levels.
“Empirically, the evidence doesn’t really show that high robotization means lower employment. That’s the counterintuitive thing about it,” he told Bloomberg BNA in a Feb. 1 telephone interview. “Introducing a robot tax is basically a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Both robotics manufacturers and economists moreover tend to point out that automation also creates jobs. A 2015 Deloitte report for instance concluded that technology potentially played a part in the disappearance of 800,000 lower-skilled jobs between 2001 and 2015, but also contributed to the creation of almost 3.5 million higher-skilled jobs.
Jobs, Tax at Risk
Extensive studies by consultancy firms such as Deloitte, McKinsey&Company and Accenture indicate that jobs in highly structured and predictable environments such as manufacturing, transportation and logistics, as well as in office and administrative support are most at risk of automation. In other words, the wide net of jobs most at risk of disappearing includes assemblers of electrical products and bank clerks, typists and personal assistants, retail cashiers and couriers, tax preparers and data entry specialists.
No matter their scope, sizeable job losses due to the automation of work are likely to result in not just an idle workforce, but also plummeting tax revenues for governments since companies, employing fewer people, would result in fewer social security and income tax take, causing erosion of governmental tax bases.
A European Parliament report released in May 2016 was the first serious effort on the part of European lawmakers to address these mounting concerns, discussing such robotics-related issues as liability, compliance with ethical standards and the viability of European Union countries’ social security systems if the current taxation basis isn’t revised.
A resolution based on the report, submitted by the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee and scheduled to be voted Feb. 16, calls for the creation of a European Agency for robotics and artificial intelligence, and urges the European Commission to monitor “new employment models and the viability of the current tax and social system for robotics.”
A “yes” vote would require the commission to present a legislative proposal in response, or state its reasons if it refuses to do so.
The May 2016 report was penned by European parliamentarian and member of the Group of Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Mady Delvaux.
She said it was important to both analyze all the possible scenarios and launch a debate on new employment models and the sustainability of European countries’ tax and social systems in light of robotics developments.
“Taxing the work of robots is definitely not necessary at this stage and probably not even in the near future. But it is crucial to reflect on it and I want Europe to be prepared in case we are facing job displacement by robotics in the future,” she said in a Feb. 9 statement e-mailed to Bloomberg BNA.
Micro Payments
Benoit Hamon, a Socialist Party candidate running for the French presidential elections, would beg to differ. Citing figures that projected a loss of 3 million jobs due to automation in France by 2025, he recently called for the introduction of a robot tax to fund a 750-euro ($799) basic income. His office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Such a robot tax would kill many birds with one stone, said Paul Miller, chief executive officer and founder of the London-based consultancy Digital Workplace Group. “If the tax take is only from corporate tax paid based on profits, then this is subject to all the myriad smart avoidance and minimization methods we see today,” he said in a Feb. 1 e-mail. “Taxing software means that as well as corporation tax, there is a new version of ’tax at source’ and micro payments are received in real time by the tax authorities.”
Tax and BEPS
Practitioners say lawmakers like Hamon raise pertinent questions about the need for a rebalancing of the tax system as robots increasingly begin to execute tasks that, until recently, were performed by humans. But, they warn, a levy that taxes companies’ use of robotics will be difficult to design and tricky to implement because it would require a practical and workable definition of “robots” and a clear-cut method of assigning profits to a particular robot or automation program.
Carlo Gagliardi, a U.K.-based partner at PwC Strategy, and John K. Steveni, U.K. tax communications leader and tax digital leader at PwC, said the chief challenge would be to establish a definition for the types of robots that ought to be taxed “which can survive contact with the real world.”
“Where does the value sit in a robot? Is it in the hardware or the software learning algorithms? This is a part of the BEPS issue on where businesses should pay tax,” they said in a Feb. 2 e-mail, referring to the OECD’s sweeping action plan to combat base erosion and profit shifting.
Others warned that the difficulty of designing a workable definition for robotics and determining where they create value would increase uncertainty for the companies leading the automation charge.
“My everyday experience of dealing with corporate clients is that the biggest problem of taxes for them isn’t actually the amount of it; it’s not knowing how much they might have to pay,” said Robert Leggett, a partner at Ensors Chartered Accountants, in a Jan. 31 telephone interview.
A robot tax would further compound these uncertainties because the amount in profits a robot generates for a taxpayer and the corresponding number of human workers displaced won’t always be “obvious”, he said.
“So you’re going to almost have to come up with some much more arbitrary way of deciding what that tax is, and I’d be very worried that if that’s not absolutely clear, you get into certainty for the business that doesn’t actually know how much tax it’s going to have to pay,” he said.
Harm Economic Growth
Practitioners, industry groups and economists have warned that a robot tax would also reduce the incentive for companies to innovate and potentially prompt them to relocate to other jurisdictions that don’t levy taxes on automation technologies.
“Taxing robots would increase the cost of automation in some industries,” Carl Benedikt Frey, who leads research on robotics at the University of Oxford, told Bloomberg BNA. “Although it might incentivize companies to rely on cheap labor instead in certain cases, such a tax would be harmful to economic growth.”
The road ahead might look uncertain, Gagliardi and Steveni added, but European countries should only consider running with Hamon’s idea if they can come up with a tax definition of a robot that isn’t so broad as to include all machines, or so narrow as to require constant revisions as technology evolves.
“The tax system will need to adapt and the current tax share between labor and capital may well need to change, but at the detailed policy level trying to define and tax robots does not look like a practical answer.”
To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Linda A. Thompson in Brussels at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Penny Sukhraj at [email protected]
Copyright © 2017 The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
Nineteen months after he committed suicide, a judicial commission has reported that "no one killed Rohith Vemula". He killed himself, unable to come to terms with frustrations in his personal life, it has ruled, and nobody — neither any Union minister nor officials at the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) — played any role in pushing the young research scholar to take the extreme step.
What's more, Vemula has been officially stripped of his 'Dalit' identity as well. The Justice Roopanwal report devotes four pages to demolish the claim that he was a Dalit, by going into great detail about how Radhika Vemula, Rohith's mother, who is a Backward Class by birth and by marriage, acquired a Dalit caste certificate.
This punctures the rhetoric of the opposition parties, which had gone to town branding BJP as an anti-Dalit party which pushed a young Dalit research scholar to death.
The report is, of course, great news for the Right-wing ABVP, whose skirmish with the Ambedkar Students' Association in August 2015 over a prayer meeting for Yakub Memon, everybody presumed, set off a chain of events that culminated in Vemula's suicide. But now, it transpires, none of what happened at HCU, including his expulsion from the hostel, had any role in Vemula's death. If one is to go by the Roopanwal report, it was loneliness and frustration led Vemula to kill himself.
However, I wish Justice Roopanwal had spoken to psychologists and psychiatrists to ascertain whether a major upheaval in the last few months played a part in pushing a weak mind towards suicide. The commission jumps to the conclusion that the
punishment meted out by the university was pending in court, so it could not be the reason for Vemula's suicide. Instead, for reasons best known to Justice Roopanwal, he concludes that Vemula was "an unappreciated man" since childhood, and points out that he did not blame anyone for his decision in his suicide note.
It is surprising how the judge brushes aside the rather stinging note written by Vemula to the vice-chancellor on 18 December, 2016, in which he suggested that a nice rope be supplied to the rooms of all Dalit students. In a letter dripping with anguish and sarcasm, he also asked for 10 mg of sodium azide to be served to all Dalit students at the time of admission. He asked "your highness" (referring to the VC) to make preparations for euthanasia for students like him. "And I wish you and the campus rest in peace forever," he wrote in a letter that carried the subject line 'Solution for Dalit Problem'.
If this is not the cry of a man thinking only of death, not once, not twice but three times, what else is it? Justice Roopanwal also argues Vemula committed suicide one month after writing this note, and therefore it does not count. Since when did killing oneself become as robotic as pushing an elevator button. Letter written, press zero, and down you go.
The second thing apparent is that irrespective of the reality of his caste, Rohith was brought up by his single mother as a Dalit and that shaped his outlook. It must however be pointed out that he got admission on merit, not on SC quota, to HCU.
Vemula to my mind was a victim of the system, of the circumstances that pushed him to his death. In search of an identity for himself, he had become part of the Ambedkar Students Association, that pursued an aggressive posture against the powers-that-be at the University. "It is a Brahminical agraharam," an ASA member had said to me during the agitation last year, the contempt for the upper castes, apparent. It is this poison that was being injected into a young mind which is why after his death, the entire non-Dalit teaching faculty at HCU was tarred as 'Killers of Rohith'.
Not that there isn't any merit in the allegation. The Vinod Pavarala committee report that investigated the circumstances that led to the suicide by Senthil Kumar, a Dalit PhD scholar in 2008, pointed out that there were instances of teachers shifting goalposts to trouble the Dalit students. For instance, the pass mark would be changed at the last minute to ensure Dalit students fail. It has been a huge challenge for Dalit research scholars to find guides.
What is needed is for the system to rectify these anomalies, and also the casteist divide that exists between students and the ghettoisation it leads to. Giving everyone a clean chit would serve the immediate purpose of ending the debate over Vemula's death but how many suicides would be blamed on the frustrations of childhood?
One would assume that student bodies in universities play a proactive role in moulding young minds, to formulate their ideas about the politics of the country, and use healthy debates as a tool to resolve disputes. But what bodies like ASA and ABVP did was to make hate the dominant emotion and sucked the likes of Rohith Vemula into their clashes. He was trapped, like an Abhimanyu, knowing no escape route. He wanted to write like Carl Sagan, all he did was to pour his emotions into a suicide note.
For example, if ABVP backed the decision to stop consumption of beef at the annual university festival 'Sukoon', the Dalit students hit back by saying, "We do not want to do research on your Ram, Sita and Ganesh."
If the university decided to observe 'Vivekananda Jayanti', students including Rohith Vemula objected to it, calling Vivekananda an "apologist of the caste system, a misogynist, a fake intellectual and an overrated, half-witted person who has no scientific references to his rants".
Rohith Vemula was without doubt a bright student. Unfortunately, he surrounded himself with people who encouraged him to see the world as dark, the glass as empty, and wearing victimhood as a badge of honour.
I see his decision to use the ASA banner as a noose as a telling point. The platform he thought would elevate him in life, finally became the vehicle to his death.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button. |
Researchers at the University of Amsterdam provide first-time evidence for a neurobiological cause of intergroup conflict. They show that oxytocin, a neuropeptide produced in the brain that functions as hormone and neurotransmitter, leads humans to self-sacrifice to benefit their own group and to show aggression against threatening out-groups. This finding qualifies the wide-spread belief that oxytocin promotes general trust and benevolence.
Results were published in the journal Science.
An important qualification of this research is that oxytocin, commonly referred to as the "bonding hormone," functions as a cause of defensive aggression -- aggression oriented towards neutralizing a threatening out-group. When the competing out-group was not considered a threat, oxytocin only triggered altruism towards one's own group. This finding provides a neurobiological explanation for the fact that conflicts between groups escalates when other groups are seen as threatening. When such threat is low, for example because there are (physical) barriers between the group territories, conflict escalation is less likely.
The evolution of altruism in intergroup conflict
The research team at the University of Amsterdam, directed by Dr. Carsten de Dreu, wondered why oxytocin would promote altruistic behavior. Whereas classic economic theory has difficulty accounting for altruism, an evolutionary perspective suggests that altruism functions to strengthen one's own group, from which the individual benefits in the long run. Because aggression towards competing out-groups helps one's own group to become relatively stronger, aggression is an indirect form of altruistic, loyal behavior towards one's own group.
Charles Darwin already observed that groups whose members are altruistic towards the own group have a greater likelihood to prosper, to survive, and spread. The researchers reasoned that if this is true, neurobiological mechanisms should have evolved that sustain altruism towards the own group, and aggression towards competing other groups. The discovery that oxytocin promotes altruism towards the own group, and aggression towards threatening out-groups, supports this evolutionary perspective. |
Robert Gehl reports that a new Harvard study confirms what we already knew: there is rampant anti-Trump bias in the media.
It’s so bad, in fact, that at most major outlets, more than 90 percent of all the coverage is negative.
At CNN the coverage was 93 percent negative, at NBC it was 93 percent, and at CBS it was 91 percent.
The only thing close to “balanced” news was over at Fox News, and there, the coverage was still 52 percent negative.
The study – called “News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days” – was done by Harvard’s Kennedy School Shroenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. To determine the percentages, the school obtained data from a group called Media Tenor, which codes media according to topic, source, and tone. They analyzed the top shows, like CNN’s Situation Room, CBS Evening News, Fox’s Special Report, and NBC Nightly News. It did not analyze the talk show coverage. They also covered newspapers.
The three major print media, the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, were slightly more balanced than their broadcast counterparts, The Daily Caller reports.
The Journal was the most balanced, but still had 70 percent negative coverage.
The topic that received the most balanced coverage was the economy at 54 percent negative. Terrorism received 70 percent negative coverage.
Another major part of Harvard’s study compared Trump’s coverage to that of the three previous presidents, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.
Trump received 80 percent negative coverage, whereas Obama, Bush, and Clinton received 41 percent, 57 percent, and 60 percent, respectively.
“The media needs different narrative frames – not just an antagonistic one,” Nicco Mele, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “But it is important to realize this is not just about Trump. The media’s overwhelmingly negative coverage of Trump speaks to a bias for negative coverage.”
This negative bias toward Donald Trump actually affected Hillary Clinton as well, Mele explained:
The media needs different voices. The only person the media quotes in its coverage of Trump is Trump. He is quoted 64 percent of the time. Democrats get only 6 percent of the quotes; other Republicans just 4 percent. What’s truly atypical about Trump’s coverage is that it’s sharply negative despite the fact that he’s the source of nearly two-thirds of the sound bites surrounding his coverage.
Facebook has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers' newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share to your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you. |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.