text
stringlengths 316
100k
|
|---|
FCC extends Net Neutrality public comment period to August 30
On Friday, the FCC announced it would extend the public comment period on its proposal to roll back a 2015 order protecting net neutrality for an additional two weeks. This phase of the process is supposed to allow for “replies” to arguments raised by other commenters.
With close to 20 million comments in the public record so far, any additional time is useful. It’s worth noting, however, that many advocates have called for the FCC to release the consumer complaints received since the 2015 Open Internet Order went into effect and all documents related to the ombudsperson’s interactions with internet users. The comment extension, while welcome, does not address the fact the FCC has yet to make public more than 40,000 net neutrality complaints that could provide direct and relevant evidence in response to numerous questions that the FCC poses in this proceeding.
The extra time means more opportunities for the library community to engage. Even if you have already submitted comments, you can do so again “on reply” Here are a few easy strategies:
Submit a comment amplifying the library and higher education principles for an open internet.
You can cite to specific examples or arguments in the initial comments submitted by ALA and allies earlier in the proceeding.
Thousands of librarians and library staff from across the country have filed comments on their own or via the ALA’s action alert. Members of the library community called on the FCC to keep the current net neutrality rules and shared their worries that the internet with “slow lanes” would hurt libraries and the communities they serve. The comments below offer a few examples and may help with your comments: The New Jersey Library Association submits: “Abandoning net neutrality in favor of an unregulated environment where some content is prioritized over other content removes opportunities for entrepreneurs, students and citizens to learn, grow and participate in their government. It will further enhance the digital divide and severely inhibit the ability of our nation’s libraries to serve those on both sides of that divide.” “If net neutrality is to be abolished, then our critical online services could be restricted to ‘slow lanes’ unless we pay a premium,” wrote John, a public library employee in Georgia. “These include our job and career gateway, language learning software, grant finding, medical information, ebooks, and test preparation guides, such as for the GED and ASVAB. Ending net neutrality would hurt the people who need equal access the most. These people use our career gateway to find jobs, our grant finder to support their businesses and nonprofits, and use our test aids to earn their GED or get into the military. If we were forced to pay a premium to access these resources, it will limit our ability to fund our other programs and services.” Catherine, a reference librarian at a major university in Oregon writes, “I [have] learned that imaginative online searching is an invaluable research tool for personal, professional, and scholarly interests. Yes, going online can be fun, but the internet must not be considered a plaything. Access must not be restricted or limited by corporate packaging.” Hampton, a chief executive officer of a public library system in Maryland, wrote about all the functions and services of the modern library dependent on reliable, unfettered internet access: “In our library, we offer downloadable eBooks, eMagazines, and eAudiobooks as well as numerous databases providing courses through Lynda.com, language learning through Rosetta Stone, 365-days-a-year tutoring for kindergarten through adult with BrainFuse, and many more resources online. We have public computers with internet access as well as free WiFi in our fifteen libraries extending Internet access to thousands of customers who bring their tablets and smartphones to the library. We work with customers to help them in the health care marketplace, with applications for Social Security and jobs, and every conceivable use of the internet. Obviously, being relegated to lower priority internet access would leave our customers in a very difficult position.” Others wrote with concerns about the need for access to information for democracy to thrive, like Carrie, an information professional from Michigan: “The internet is not merely a tool for media consumption, but is also a means of free expression, a resource for education, and most importantly, an implement of democracy. I will not mince words: Allowing corporations to manipulate the flow of information on the internet is not the way forward. An end to net neutrality would hurt businesses large and small, inhibit the free flow of speech online, and allow telecommunications corporations to unjustly interfere with market forces.”
Stay tuned via the District Dispatch and American Libraries blog posts. |
New York (CNN) -- A heat wave of historic proportions could strike some Northeastern states as forecasters warn of prolonged triple-digit temperatures that could trigger "a dangerous situation," the National Weather Service advised Monday.
The Weather Service has issued an excessive heat advisory for several Northeastern cities to take effect Monday afternoon as humidity levels gradually increase, producing heat index values to persist and surpass 100 degrees.
Excessive heat advisories have been issued for the Philadelphia metropolitan area until Wednesday evening, and in New York City, a heat advisory is in effect from to 2 p.m. Monday until 6 p.m. Tuesday as high humidity levels and high temperatures linger for two consecutive days, the Weather Service reported.
The increase in humidity, matched by weather patterns, may force the Weather Service to issue additional heat advisories for central New Jersey, northeastern Maryland and central and southern Delaware.
The Weather Service advised people affected by the heat to "drink plenty of fluids," stay out of the sun and in air-conditioned rooms, and to check up on relatives and neighbors.
iReport: Share your favorite hot weather activities and cool-down tricks
New York City residents are advised to call 311 to find cooling centers and obtain "beat the heat" safety instructions, the Weather Service reported.
A heat wave is considered to be a stretch of more than 90-degree temperatures.
Tuesday is expected to be the hottest day of the stretch, with highs ranging from 100 to 102 degrees and heat index values up to 106, the Weather Service warned.
Toronto simmers at sunrise
According to the Weather Service, in the 40-year period from 1936 through 1975, nearly 20,000 people were killed in the United States by the effects of heat and solar radiation. And in the heat wave of 1980, more than 1,250 people died, the Weather Service said. |
SMILE FOR POSTERITY Retired dentist Jack Mallory was amazed when a legendary but little known joke from his W.W. II days recently gained momentum in the national press. Advertisement
When a fresh-faced Navy dentist named Jack Mallory walked down the corridors of Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison one day in 1946, shortly after the end of World War II, he knew he was about to have an experience he would remember for the rest of his life. After all, he was about to meet the very man who had started the war in the Pacific, in which hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians had died, by ordering the bombing of Pearl Harbor five years before.
Mallory’s assignment: to make a set of dentures for General Hideki Tojo, then being held in the prison awaiting trial for war crimes—the notorious Tojo, whose very name stood for everything that was evil about the imperialistic Japanese military machine that had wrought so much destruction.
What Mallory didn’t know then, couldn’t have known, was that 50 years after his encounter with Tojo, long after he’d retired from his Chico dental practice, the story of the false teeth he made would surface publicly, and that it would start a worldwide commotion and bring the 78-year-old veteran his proverbial 15 minutes of fame.
Today Mallory lives in pastoral comfort in rural Butte Valley with his wife, Thelma. She joins him today as he talks about his wartime experiences, as does his visiting sister Joy Halstead, who served as a nurse during World War II. The way Mallory describes his experiences in Tokyo, with details that are vivid and specific, it’s as if they happened yesterday.
He had graduated in 1945 from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in San Francisco and spent his first year in the service on a naval base before volunteering to go overseas in August 1946.
He didn’t want to go. He and Thelma had recently married, and like any newlywed he wanted to stay close to home. But he figured he didn’t have much of a choice. There was a shortage of dentists oversees, and, “If I hadn’t gone in I would have been drafted,” he says. Volunteering, rather than being drafted unexpectedly, made it easier for him to say goodbye.
Because the Navy had a surplus of dentists, it “lent” about 800 of them to the Army. Four naval officers, including Mallory, were assigned to the 361st Station Hospital in Tokyo. His job entailed making dentures and bridges for hospital staff and inmates in nearby Sugamo Prison.
Mallory was 22 years old at the time. He admits that, for “a young punk,” he was given tremendous responsibility.
One month after his arrival, Jack Mallory was given an assignment that had everyone at the prison talking.
At the time he had a roommate named George Foster, also a dentist. One night, Foster was called out to the prison to examine the decaying teeth of General Hideki Tojo.
Foster knew exactly who sat before him in the dentist chair. As the war was being fought, American newspapers and magazines often caricatured Tojo, portraying him wearing large, horn-rimmed glasses and having squinty eyes and buck teeth.
For Americans, Mallory says, Tojo “solidified who the enemy was.”
He had become prime minister of Japan in 1941 and, seeking to extend Japanese economic and military control throughout the Far East and thinking that America would not be able to fight a war on two fronts, he made the decision to attack the United States, ordering the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Tojo remained prime minister through much of the war, leading the war effort until 1944, when he resigned his position.
After the war Tojo was arrested for war crimes, but not before trying to kill himself. “He meant to commit suicide when he shot himself, but he recovered [from his injuries],” Mallory says.
It was Mallory’s friend George Foster who first advised him on the condition of Tojo’s teeth. All of the upper teeth had been decayed and extracted, and only seven of the lower teeth remained, he said. Foster, however, needed Mallory’s help with making the dentures.
After years of thinking of Tojo as the Japanese equivalent of Adolph Hitler, Mallory was surprised by what he found. Tojo, he says, was a “grandfatherly looking older man,” not some horrible specter.
“I knew I was going to meet an evil man. It was a shock to see him,” Mallory continues. “He was very humble and just a meek, little guy.”
After consulting with Mallory about the need for full dentures, Tojo declined, Mallory says. As the Japanese interpreter accompanying him in the prison dentist’s office explained it, Tojo knew he would not need his teeth in six months. He fully expected to be executed for war crimes. As a result, it was agreed that Mallory would create only an upper denture.
That’s when things got really strange.
Once word got out that the young naval officer was in charge of the task, hospital staffers began urging him to pull a prank on the general.
The military procedure for dental appliances was to engrave the name, rank, and serial number of the individual on the dentures themselves, Mallory explains. His colleagues pressured him instead to put the phrase “Remember Pearl Harbor” on the dentures.
TEETH MARKS Dr. George Foster, left, examines General Tojo. The man at right is unidentified.
After thinking it over, Mallory decided to go through with the prank, but to do it in a way that was less obvious and thereby safer—by using Morse code to write the message. He carefully drilled the dots and dashes into the dentures, engraving them with an unforgettable slogan forever ingrained in the American people’s minds. Only his roommate, Foster, knew what he had done, however.
“You could see it clearly when it was dried, but 99 percent of the time you couldn’t tell,” Mallory said.
Tojo was given the dentures and wore them, unaware of the inscription he was being forced to chew on each day he spent in prison.
In February 1947, Mallory divulged his secret to two new dental recruits when he led them out to the prison and asked Tojo if he could examine the dentures. The recruits were amazed at Mallory’s handiwork. After the examination, one mentioned the story in a letter to his parents in Texas, and the tale leaked to a local radio station.
From there it snowballed when it was picked up by the news services and printed in newspapers worldwide.
It was not long before the story got back to Mallory’s superior, Major William Hill, in Tokyo. “I knew I was in trouble,” Mallory says.
Mallory attempted to redeem himself by rushing upstairs to Hill’s office and confessing about Tojo’s dentures. Hill was lighthearted about the joke but knew the prank was going to have consequences.
As Mallory remembers it, Hill said, “That’s funny as hell, but we could get our asses kicked for doing it.”
Before they could fix the situation, however, the Armed Forces’ Tokyo radio station, WVTR, got hold of the juicy tale and included it in a broadcast. When Hill heard that, he called Mallory and asked if the inscription possibly could be ground out of Tojo’s dentures—as soon as possible.
It was a snowy Feb. 14 night, Mallory says, when he and Foster drove in a Jeep out to the prison, leaving a cheerful Valentine’s Day party early to follow through on Hill’s orders.
“George knew the guard from the prison whose shift started at 11 p.m.,” Mallory says. The two dentists had the guard wake Tojo to get his denture and then quickly went to work behind closed curtains to grind away any trace of the Morse code message. They then gave back the denture. Tojo no doubt wondered why they’d needed it, but as far as Mallory knows he never found out what the original denture had said.
Mallory and Foster thought they had covered their tracks thoroughly—until the next day, when the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, published the story and the colonel in charge of Sugamo Prison read about the prank.
Mallory says he denied it to the colonel and claimed there was no truth to the “Remember Pearl Harbor” report.
The story died down after that. In the final week of Mallory’s stay in Japan he attended the war crime trials and watched Tojo as he sat, just 30 feet away, in the center of a lineup of defeated Japanese generals. As Tojo’s eyes wandered around the courtroom, Mallory noted the moment they fell on him sitting in the reporters’ box.
“He looked at me with a quizzical look, as if to say, ‘That man doesn’t appear here every day,'” Mallory says.
Tojo’s wrinkled face broke into a smile as he pointed to his teeth and bowed toward him in thanks.
Tojo was convicted of committing war crimes in 1948 and hanged on Dec. 22. He’d been right about not needing his false teeth for long.
In June 1947 Mallory returned to the United States, and he and Thelma settled down in Paradise, where he practiced dentistry for several years before relocating to Chico in 1955. He retired in the late 1980s to their home in Butte Valley. By then, his World War II prank seemed like ancient history.
His story was rekindled in 1995, however, when his youngest son, Paul, urged him to write a memoir recounting his days in Tokyo. The younger Mallory typed up his father’s tale and sent it to the Enterprise-Record newspaper, thinking it might get published because of the 50th anniversary commemorating the end of World War II.
To the Mallorys’ surprise, the memoir not only got the attention of the local paper, but also received coverage from the Associated Press, Time and Life magazines.
Mallory couldn’t believe all the attention he was getting for his denture story. He says for a week newscasters were showing up at his front door asking for interviews.
Seven years later, his mementos from his days spent working in Sugamo Prison consist of molds of Tojo’s teeth and black-and-white photographs of him and Foster together and Tojo on trial.
Mallory says his only regret was not getting a picture taken with the Japanese general. His best photos were on display at the Philadelphia Art Alliance at an exhibit entitled, “Encounters: Daily Life at Sugamo Prison, Tokyo, 1945-1952,” from May 2002 to mid-August.
As Mallory finishes telling his story, he’s reminded of a war song popular at the time, entitled, "Let’s Remember Pearl Harbor." He begins singing the song softly, in unison with his wife and sister. All three remember every word. |
I’ve long been fascinated by the 1998 study [1] that showed that there are right and wrong ways to praise children. In the study, kids were given a puzzle to solve. Then they were told to choose between two other puzzles, one equal in difficulty to the first and one that was more difficult.When kids were told “You did it! You must be really smart,” after solving the first puzzle, they were more likely to choose the puzzle of equal difficulty, but when they were told “You did it! You must have worked very hard,” they chose the more difficult puzzle. The moral of the story is that calling kids smart makes them want to appear smart, and they’ll aim lower as a result to ensure success[2].
What I wasn’t aware of at the time was how quickly this finding was employed to serve the feminist agenda.
“The Trouble with Bright Girls” was published in Psychology Today (and yes, I realize I’m setting myself up for disappointment already by reading that shitty publication) in January of 2011. The author, Dr. Heidi Halvorson, discusses a study performed by Dr. Carol Dweck. The study examined how fifth-grade students responded to difficult material. Dr. Dweck found that girls, particularly girls with higher IQ, gave up more quickly than boys with higher IQ.
Dr. Halvorson suggests this disparity arises because smart girls tend to be praised for being smart, whereas boys tend not to be praised at all. Smart girls end up believing that their success derives from their state of being (“being smart”), whereas smart boys believe it derives from their actions (“working hard”). In the long run, she concludes, this holds adult women back in the workforce as they will be less eager to take on difficult tasks with greater chance of failure.
Let’s consider a few quotations from the article:
At the 5th grade level, girls routinely outperform boys in every subject, including math and science. So there were no differences between these boys and girls [in the study] in ability, nor in past history of success.
Emphasis mine to highlight the contradiction in these two sentences (which, incidentally, ought to be one sentence). She just identified a major difference between boys and girls, that girls consistently outperform boys, then immediately claims there are no differences between these boys and girls in terms of ability or past history of success.
Huh?
What exactly does “outperform” mean if it’s not based on either ability or success? The only way this can possibly make sense in someone’s head is if they believe that equal ability and equal success between boys and girls should lead to a disproportionate outcome that favors girls. Conveniently, such an orientation also explains why she’d find boys outperforming girls in this one very limited area so concerning, while boys constantly coming in second to girls in all other areas is of no concern.
Girls, who develop self-control earlier and are better able to follow instructions, are often praised for their “goodness.” When we do well in school, we are told that we are “so smart,” “so clever, ” or ” such a good student.”
And in the next paragraph:
Boys, on the other hand, are a handful. Just trying to get boys to sit still and pay attention is a real challenge for any parent or teacher. As a result, boys are given a lot more feedback that emphasizes effort (e.g., “If you would just pay attention you could learn this,” “If you would just try a little harder you could get it right.”)
Take a look at these sample phrases. Directed at girls, we have:
“You’re good.”
“You’re so smart.”
“You’re so clever.”
“You’re such a good student.”
Directed at boys, we have:
“If you would just pay attention, you could learn this.”
“If you would just try a little harder, you could get it right.”
The difference is not that we praise boys in a constructive way and girls in a destructive way. It’s that we don’t fucking praise boys at all.
But now that we’ve discovered an unanticipated advantage to all the criticism we launch at our boys, we simply must harness this power for the benefit of our girls. Heaven forbid boys, who again are behind girls in literally every subject, receive a single advantage. Intolerable!
Boys are in fact behind girls from preschool through high school, not just in fifth grade. They currently make up only 40% of college students. In the under-30 workforce, women outnumber and out-earn men. And here we have an article that acknowledges both the disadvantage boys face in school performance and the fact that they are deemed unworthy of praise by their nurturers- teachers, parents, and other caregivers and educators.
Yet somehow this article ends up being about helping girls.
I’d really like to go on. I’d like to rant about how the “advantage” conferred on boys is the same “advantage” conferred on the bacteria that live in geothermal vents: the environment that kills 99% makes the 1% who survive pretty fucking strong. I’d like to rant about how feminists constantly overgeneralize. Against whom are these women who “suffer” as adults from excessive praise as children being compared? Against the men in male-dominated professions, according to the first paragraph of the article.
Really. Male-dominated professions like coal mining, perhaps? Garbage collection? Ice road trucking? Deep sea fishing? Something tells me no. They’re not even being compared to the hordes of code monkeys I see in SOMA every day; they’re being compared to the fucking 1% of the 1%. “Where’s our Steve Jobs? Where’s our Bill Gates? Sexxxxxiiiissssmmmm!!!!!”
We constantly communicate to our boys in myriad subtle and direct ways that they are useless to us unless they do something, while we constantly reaffirm to girls that they are valuable to us merely by being. Yes, that often means men end up doing more useful shit. Occasionally they even get credit for it. But when they don’t do enough useful shit (or do shit society deems unuseful), they have zero self-worth to fall back on.
If you want girls to be as motivated as boys to solve puzzles and tackle big problems when they grow up, fine. It’s not a bad idea. I can even tell you how you might be able to tell when you’ve succeeded: when women start committing suicide at the same rate as men.
Ouch.
Thank you for visiting Title IX For All. If you like our work, feel free to sign up for our newsletter below:
For a more in-depth look at the litigation movement for due process and equal access to education:
Enter Legal Database
Notes:
Share this: Email
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Print
Reddit
Tumblr
WhatsApp
Skype
[1] Mueller CM and Dweck CS. 1998. Praise for intelligence can undermine children’s motivation and performance. Journal for Personality and Social Psychology 75(1): 33-52 [2] Note that “success” here really means “praise,” not solving the puzzle, which is its own can of worms in terms of what we teach our children to value. |
Download from IST Site Download from IST Site Download from IST Site
Software titles listed in the table below are available to the NJIT community in accordance with the license agreement for each package. To find out more information about the software click on the software title listed in the table below. To download or access software go to "Access from" column and click on the available option.
Software provided through this site is either:
Licensed by NJIT and provided at no cost to you.
Available for purchase at a discount under a contract with the vendor.
Provided at no cost by the vendor to all academics.
Freely available software that is commonly used.
Software Available for Download: A TO Z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
Investigators at the #MrsDoubtfire House. SFPD says someone tried to set it on fire. #mapit pic.twitter.com/m5F0e5oFbM — Lilian Kim (@liliankim7) January 6, 2015
Burn marks are visible on the garage door. #MrsDoubtfire. pic.twitter.com/1XRBkpi8Ae — Lilian Kim (@liliankim7) January 6, 2015
SFPD believes the homeowner's former client is responsible for trying to set the #MrsDoubtfire house on fire. pic.twitter.com/WGI9xl48V2 — Lilian Kim (@liliankim7) January 6, 2015
Monday night there was a suspicious fire in San Francisco at the iconic Mrs. Doubtfire House.ABC7 News was first on the scene and spoke to San Francisco police who said the house was indeed the target of an arson attack. There are visible burn marks on the garage door and on the front door as well.Police say the arsonist used gasoline to start the fire. It happened around 8 p.m.The owner of the house, which was featured in the 1993 movie "Mrs. Doubtfire" spoke to investigators outside.He is a doctor who police say has had on ongoing issue with a former client. They suspect that client is responsible for the attack on the home Monday evening.SFPD says the homeowner put out the fire after smelling smoke.It was only five months ago when hundreds of people converged on the property at Steiner and Broadway to drop off flowers after news of Robin Williams' death was made public.For days, mourning fans came to the house to grieve and pay tribute to the actor who played Mrs. Doubtfire.ABC7 News spoke to a tourist from Indianapolis who drove by the house Monday night to check it out. He was surprised to see all the police cars."I think it's sad that kind of a monument like that's involved in something like that because people do come, people come to see it. Kids come to see it. That's why we're here," tourist George Gieger said.Last we heard, police have not made an arrest. They say it's an issue of getting the suspect's name and tracking him down. ABC7 News reporter Lilian Kim was the first TV reporter on the scene. Here are some of her tweets:You can follow ABC7 News reporter Lilian Kim on Twitter here: @LilianKim7 |
django-waitinglist allows us to quickly take an idea for a site, stand up a landing page, and gauge interest, and most recently, start getting a good sense of early customer segmentation.
There are three apps in one in this package:
waitinglist
surveys
cohorts
At the core, this app is pretty simple. It records email addresses of people that want to either be notified when the site launches, or get in line to be invited to a private beta.
The notion of cohorts was added fairly recently relative to the long lifespan of this project. This feature enables admins to group people on the waiting list to send private signup codes via email in batches.
The most recent feature addition to this Django app are surveys. You can create simple surveys in the Django admin and then when you make the survey active, people signing up will be presented a form to answer questions you have constructed. This can prove invaluable in getting an early sense of the types of people initially drawn to your site through the messaging on your landing page.
History
This core bit of code is some of the oldest we have and still use today. It pre-dates both Pinax and Eldarion as it was something that James Tauber had written back in 2007 for the Habitualist prototype. It then became a core part of Pinax and lived in pinax.apps.waitinglist for many years. Last year, it was pulled out as an independent package to be used as a reusable Django app beyond Pinax.
Getting Started
This type of app makes the most sense to use early on, most likely, before you even have code for a site, but at least while it's still in closed signup. We use it almost exclusively as the first thing that gets added to a new site created with the Account Starter Project.
We turn off open sign up:
# settings.py ACCOUNT_OPEN_SIGNUP = False
Then we install django-waitinglist by adding:
django-waitinglist==1.0b10 # latest release at time of this post
to requirements.txt and to settings.py we add:
INSTALLED_APPS += [ "waitinglist" ] WAITINGLIST_SURVEY_INVITE_FROM_EMAIL = "[email protected]"
We then do what we are doing in the site to create the tables (syncdb, South migrations, or nashvegas migrations).
waitinglist
We dress up a home page with a brief pitch about what we are building, add a logo, and then add a simple form for email addresses with the following tags:
{% waitinglist_entry_form as form %} {% include "waitinglist/_list_signup.html" %}
We can monitor the admin to get see the signups fairly easily.
surveys
Then, once deployed we go into the admin and add some questions that we want to ask the signups, which we make optional, and generally free form text. Our goals with this are to identify early customer segments that are attracted to our pitch. This helps a ton in customer discovery/development and we get a really good sense very early on what types of people our value proposition is attracting.
cohorts
When we are ready to invite users to the site to run a private beta, we will naturally pick users from the signup, but even more importantly we like to group users into cohorts instead of inviting them all at one time or randomly.
This allows us to do cohort analysis as during this phase of site development things can and will change rapidly based on usage and feedback from each successive cohort as well as our own intution and roadmap of features that were not present at certain stages.
Using the cohorts tool, you can create and build cohorts of whatever sizes you want and invite the cohort in blocks. Each cohort is simply a labeled list of entries in the waitinglist.
When users get an invitation, they receive an email with a special link that allows them to signup even though signup is closed. These are features that depend on django-user-accounts that we use on virtually every site we build and comes preconfigured in the Account Starter Project. |
Britain has the most centralised tax-setting arrangements of any major democracy. In England, all revenues except council tax are the responsibility of the Exchequer. Until Scotland and Wales are given new tax powers, their governments will still be almost entirely...
Britain has the most centralised tax-setting arrangements of any major democracy. In England, all revenues except council tax are the responsibility of the Exchequer. Until Scotland and Wales are given new tax powers, their governments will still be almost entirely funded by a block grant from the Treasury. There is a fundamental belief at the centre of British democracy that the chancellor should set all taxes and that central government should allocate resources to every sub-national institution. Indeed, the degree of centralisation suggests that Britain’s national politicians have little confidence that our democracy can work effectively other than when in the hands of grandees in Westminster and Whitehall.
Even council tax is capped and frozen within both England and, under a slightly different regime, Scotland. We are in a position where the budgets of all councils are set by Whitehall. Furthermore, because the government has decided to achieve its deficit reduction policy by cutting the expenditure of a sub-set of public services, there can be no room to lessen control: council spending will have to be cut substantially further by 2019 if George Osborne’s zero deficit target is to be achieved.
In fairness to the chancellor, the policy of central control over sub-national government long pre-dates his arrival at No 11. It has evolved over seven decades since the nationalisations of the immediate post-war period. As the welfare state grew, more and more of the resources to pay for it were derived from buoyant and progressive sources such as income tax. Despite efforts to widen the local tax base, notably the Layfield Committee’s proposals in 1976, successive governments left the system of local property taxation largely unchanged. In 1990, Mrs Thatcher’s government nationalised business rates as part of its disastrous poll tax reform. Thereafter, councils had access only to the remaining domestic property tax. It is that which has been capped and, indeed, its base has not been revalued since 1991.
Countries as diverse as Sweden, the United States, Germany, Canada, Spain and Switzerland run democratic systems which allow a dispersal of fiscal power. These nations operate successfully with taxation set at national and local levels, whether they are within ‘federal’ or ‘unitary’ arrangements. In some countries, there are three levels of tax-setting government. Germany’s multi-level constitutional arrangements were put in place after 1945 and were explicitly designed to create a system of government with multiple centres of power. France achieved substantial devolution during the 1980s, while Spain has moved from being highly-centralised to a far more devolved country during the last 40 years. Britain is an outlier by any standards.
The Scots, armed with no more than ballot boxes, have forced the Treasury into an ignominious retreat over their ‘total control’ policy. Once Edinburgh has been given power to determine not only stamp duty but also a proportion of income tax, while also retaining a share of VAT, Scotland will have fiscal power similar to states and regions in many federal countries. Wales will follow. This will leave England as a residual, hyper-centralised nation within the quasi-federal UK. Having said this, within Scotland and Wales, their own systems of local government are themselves relatively centralised.
How has Britain ended up with such an odd system of government and so little sub-national fiscal power? Some elements of national control can be traced back to the Fabians. Sidney and Beatrice Webb were strong proponents of centrally-imposed standards and the equalisation of resources. The refusal of George Lansbury to hand over Poplar’s rates to the London County Council remains a pivotal political act, in the sense that it encouraged the introduction of grants which have had the effect of transferring resources from rich to poor areas. Even today, as a consequence of needs-equalisation grants paid to councils over many decades, spending on schools and social care tends to be highest in deprived areas.
But the decision to have inter-authority equalisation grants, which are now common in many countries, did not inevitably have to lead to centralisation of all tax-setting powers. The growth of parts of the welfare state within local government may have required centrally-funded grant support, but it did not necessarily demand the demise of local tax autonomy. What appears to have happened is that, decade after decade, Westminster and Whitehall have used a series of opportunities to justify more and more central encroachment on local power.
The Attlee government removed health and some utilities provision from local authority control in the late 1940s. Subsequently, the expanding scale of compulsory schooling, social services, housing and other ‘welfare’ provision required additional central grant funding. Such growth in subventions inevitably led to a ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’ attitude at the centre. De-industrialisation in the 1960s and 1970s meant the government found itself under pressure to assist declining areas with new, specific, grants. Over time, these urban interventions came more and more to be streams of ‘challenge’ funding: councils only received the money if they spent it in ways of which Whitehall approved.
Then there was the 1980s. The rise of radical Labour councils which pushed up local taxation in opposition to the Thatcher government’s policies triggered the introduction of rate-capping. In the ensuing war-of-all-against-all, there was a move from ‘selective’ to ‘universal’ capping. The Greater London Council and metropolitan county councils were abolished, removing a city-regional tier of government. The introduction of poll tax in 1990 led to the central determination of business rates. Capital spending was also subjected to a belt-and-braces control regime.
Education, much of which local government had originally developed, became politicised. As far back as 1976, James Callaghan started the process of pushing for a national system of schools in England. In a speech at Ruskin College he argued there was a “strong case for the so-called ‘core curriculum’ of basic knowledge…[and]…to maintain a proper national standard of performance…[and an]… inspectorate in relation to national standards”. The Thatcher and Major governments then moved to school-based governance which, over time, has led to today’s policy of removing local government responsibility for schools wherever possible. Further education colleges were removed from councils during the 1990s.
So, not only was there a gradual transfer of provision away from elected local government, its tax base was capped and eroded. While other major democracies, for example France and Spain, decentralised powers, Britain did the opposite. In Spain, reform started to take place following the death of Franco in 1975, while in France the Mitterrand government decentralised power during the 1980s. In Britain, the Treasury, over time, came to operate a public spending control system in which local authority activity counted pound for pound towards a national figure of ‘total managed expenditure’. The 2010 decision, discussed above, to shrink the UK’s budget deficit by expenditure reductions made disproportionately by local government, has created an additional justification for 100 per cent control of council budgets.
Against this unique policy background, the UK government now faces twin challenges. First, the requirement to deliver devolved fiscal power to Scotland and Wales has created pressure to ‘do something’ for England. Second, the commitment to reduce public expenditure to 36 per cent of GDP while ring-fencing health, pensions, schools’ and international development spending will create alarming consequences for the ‘unprotected’ services, including local government. Looking ahead, might the government find itself under pressure to devolve spending to local areas in an attempt to cope with these twin challenges?
George Osborne has been working with the ten Greater Manchester authorities on a city-regional devolution package which would give them additional powers over skills, transport, housing, planning and economic development. It is likely that the NHS will be devolved to Greater Manchester. Such reforms are, potentially, the building-blocks for wider devolution of public expenditure both to Manchester and other city regions. Legislation has been introduced to give the government powers to transfer responsibilities to groups of councils, be they in cities or counties. It is hard to know how radical this reform will turn out to be, but the growing pressures on public spending suggest there may be no option for the government but to consider a more radical package of devolution to city or county regions.
Ministers have not yet proved willing to consider fiscal devolution for England. Treasury orthodoxy holds that any form of tax differentiation will lead to competition and therefore be inefficient. However, other social democratic countries survive well with different tax levels and powers from place to place, but in Britain this is seen (particularly on the left) as risking postcode lotteries and uneven provision. There is, therefore, a strange alliance between Treasury officials and social democrats to sustain a centralised system of taxation and spending allocation.
Of course, Scotland will soon be able to set its own income tax rates, with similar powers potentially available for Wales. These radical changes will occur, we must assume, with grave misgivings among the chancellor’s advisers. However, there is nothing they can do about it because Scotland has used its democratic leverage to get what it wants from the UK government.
The longer-term question of whether sub-national areas of England will be given their own, wider, tax powers depends on the future of the union. Candidates in the 2016 London mayoral contest will doubtless demand greater tax powers for the capital. Greater Manchester’s leadership is also arguing for fiscal devolution. Once the Scots and the Welsh have been given their new freedoms, English councils and MPs are inevitably going to demand something more than an arcane form of England-only voting rights affecting a minority of parliamentary bills.
There is a major challenge for the Labour party in all of this. The Blair government offered the north east a minimal and under-powered form of regional government in 2004. This was rejected. There is no appetite for regional government within most of England, though the north east has latterly developed its own combined authority model of governance. City-region and county areas appear likely to be the basis of future reform in England. George Osborne has dominated national policy-making in relation to city-regions, leaving the Labour frontbench with nothing to say.
Labour leaders and mayors in cities such as Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham and Nottingham are closer to Osborne’s mildly devolutionary view of the world than Labour’s cautious centralism. Traditionally, the centre-left has taken a Fabian view about the need for equalisation, national standards and regulation. While it would not be necessary to abandon all inter-area transfers or, indeed, to remove nationally-imposed service standards, policies to devolve powers or taxation have hitherto proved hard for Labour shadow ministers to accept.
As the Labour leadership reforms itself for another five years in opposition, it will have to decide if it wants to support its own city leaders in transferring power away from Whitehall or, alternatively, attempt to slow down even the modest pace of Osborne’s city-regional devolution. The failure of hyper-centralisation to produce balanced GDP per head in different nations and regions of the UK suggests that it is time to give devolution a chance. Labour could, tentatively, attempt to be radical. |
When I brainstormed ways to help my blog and my fellow geeks, the idea of getting together with our friends at Photo Arcade and contacted local, Ariozna cosplayers to do free photoshoots, free promotion, and new content for our blog! It worked surprisingly well! However, I had no idea that I’d meet someone as awesome as Sara Cosplay! She was one of the first to respond, was incredibly professional and just a fantastic person in general!
Enough talking from me! Let’s get to the interview!
The Geek Lyfe: Although I am a fan of yours, there may be a few Geek Lyfers who have not seen your work before, would you be alright introducing yourself?
Sara Cosplay: Well I’m a cosplayer from Arizona. I love sewing and am actually self taught for the most part. I’m a geek and am proud of it. It’s a huge part of who I am so I fully embrace that. I love encouraging others to embrace that part of themselves as well.
TGL: I’ve followed you for sometime yet never learned the origin story! Could you tell us how you got into cosplay and what led you to where you are now?
SC: My very first convention was actually all the way back in 2007 and I begged my dad to take me and my friend to Anime Expo. I was so excited that I threw together a makeshift Catgirl costume and went and had such a blast! I went back the next year with a store bought costume as Kagome from InuYasha. I’ve only recently gotten into going to conventions again, I made my very first costume made entirely by myself to wear to Phoenix Comicon 2014. I went as Elsa from Frozen and it took me about 5 months to complete. But I grew up watching so much anime and going to those cons, experiencing that atmosphere, just made me know that this was where I belonged.
TGL: What has been your favorite moment so far Cosplaying?
SC: My favorite moment would definitely have to be during Phoenix Comicon 2015 when I was wearing my Elsa costume. I saw some of my other cosplay friends dressed as other Disney princesses and went up to chat for a bit. All of the sudden, we got swarmed by photographers wanting pictures. Then a little girl runs up to me with the biggest smile ever and eyes wide with
excitement. I kneel down and she holds my hand and we all take a picture together. Then later on that night my news feed blows up with notifications to check out this picture. I open it up and it was that picture I took with the little girl. The caption was saying that meeting Elsa made the little girls entire con and they wanted to make sure that I saw the picture to say thank you. At that instant, all the long hours and sleepless nights made the costume worth every minute. If I can make at least one person smile, then the entire process was worth it.
TGL: What is the most frustrating part?
SC: The most frustrating part would definitely be the long hours that go into my costumes. I am such a perfectionist so if something doesn’t turn out exactly how I envisioned, then I redo it completely. It makes for some long nights but in the end I think it’s completely worth it.
TGL: Is there one situation in your cosplay career that you can always look back on and laugh? If so, what’s the story?
SC: So on my Dryad Soraka costume, the shoes are resin hooves attached to heels that have had the heels ripped off. Makes for a great effect, but absolutely killer on the feet. So sometimes I need to give the pads of my feet a bit of a rest, so I drop down and stand on my heels and it looks like I break my ankles when I do that. I’ve freaked out so many people by doing that haha.
TGL: When you aren’t doing making costumes and attending conventions, what do you do in your spare time?
SC: I don’t have too many hobbies, but I do love puzzles, reading, playing League of Legends or World of Warcraft, hanging out with friends, watching Netflix, or just planning new costumes.
TGL: What geek medium(Video Games, Comic Books, Novels, Movies etc.) made the biggest impact on your life and why?
SC: My dad introduced me to computer games at a young age and that always stuck with me. To this day, I still love to play Age of Mythology, even though I’m really not that good haha. But reading Manga and watching Anime also really helped me embrace my nerdy side. But nerdy movies are definitely up there as well, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is still one of my favorites.
TGL: You are a super villain and are moments away from completing your master plan, however heroes are on the way to stop you. What three people do you have by your side to assist?(Real people(Macho Man Randy Savage is always a good choice!) or comic book/novel/film/video game characters can be good or bad. Ex: Luke Sky Walker)
SC: I’d probably go with Batgirl, the Doctor, and Sailor Mercury.
TGL: Do you have any projects in the near future we should be excited to see?
SC: Be on the lookout for a few more Sailor Mercury designs, some more League of Legends, and a design of Batgirl.
TGL: What advice do you have for any aspiring cosplayers out there?
SC: Don’t listen to the masses when it comes to what you want to make for yourself. Make costumes that make you happy. In the end, you’re the only one that you have to please. If you’re happy with something, screw the rest. Also, don’t worry if you’re not the best at sewing, or making props, or making armor, or anything like that. I know for a fact, I can’t really make armor or props to save my life. But I do try my hardest and am happy with the results when I see my work slowly improving over time. But in the end, just have fun with it.
A huge thank you to Sara Cosplay for taking the time to hang out with us, do the photoshoot, and answer a few of our questions! She is without a doubt one of the coolest people I have ever met and completely support her and her cosplay career! You should definitely check her out! Click Here For Sara Cosplay Awesome! Soraka photo by Con Freaks And Geeks! |
February 1, 2017 is a long way away, but football recruiting has become a multi-year marathon and UCLA took its first big step in that race on Friday by reeling in its first commitment for the Class of 2017: 4-star linebacker Rahyme Johnson (Los Angeles, CA/Salesian).
#UCLA picked up a commitment from Los Angeles (Calif) Salesian '17 ATH Rahyme Johnson http://t.co/wErh6YCwY5 — Greg Biggins (@GregBiggins) July 24, 2015
Johnson, ranked No. 189 in the '17 Scout 300, is a versatile player who could end up at WR/TE or OLB in college but projects best on defense — Greg Biggins (@GregBiggins) July 24, 2015
Although it is very early in Johnson’s recruiting process, he already had offers from Washington and Washington State with many more likely to come once he inevitably increased his production on the field during the upcoming football season, but Johnson decided where UCLA was going to be his best option no matter what other school offered. As he told Bruin Sports Report publisher Edward Lewis, “I called [UCLA linebackers] coach Scott [White] … and I told him that I was committing and this is what I want to be. This is where I want to be and this is what I want to do.”
As a sophomore at Salesian, Johnson played wide receiver and safety. However, considering that he is already 6-feet-4-inches tall and weighs 210 pounds before he has even played a down as a high school junior, Johnson projects to grow into a devastatingly athletic outside linebacker and that is indeed the position that Coach White and the Bruins have recruited him to play at the next level.
https://twitter.com/CoachWhiteEra/status/624639360671969280
While Johnson’s commitment is a great one to have in and of itself, it carries even more weight in light of the fact that his high school teammate is elite 2017 cornerback and UCLA offeree Deommodore Lenoir. Bringing in the other part of the dynamic 2017 Salesian duo in addition to Johnson would go a long way towards laying the foundation for a highly-rated 2017 UCLA recruiting class.
Welcome to Westwood, Rahyme! |
Workers should defend teacher tenure!
By Phyllis Scherrerr and SEP candidate for vice president
24 August 2012
Three million teachers and over 49.8 million students from prekindergarten through grade 12 will return to public schools across the country for the 2012-2013 school year. They do so under conditions where the destruction of public education is a top bipartisan priority spearheaded by the Obama administration.
State after state has fallen in line with the reactionary declaration of war against teachers, students and their families known as “Race to the Top.” One of its components is an attack on teacher tenure.
Recently, almost half of New York’s eligible teachers were denied tenure in the latest attempt to force the current economic crisis onto the backs of the working class. In this instance, it is under the guise of teacher “accountability.”
The truth is that younger teachers, those without tenure, cost less in strictly monetary terms than more experienced teachers. In addition, the high turnover and burn-out rate of the young teachers, from working long hours in an attempt to appease the administrators, contributes to the self-fulfilling prophecy of the Obama administration that the problems in public education are due to “bad teachers.”
In 2007, prior to the bank bailout of 2008, 97 percent of eligible teachers who worked at least three years earned tenure. By 2010, when Mayor Bloomberg announced that he planned on “ending tenure as we know it,” 89 percent of New York City teachers were receiving tenure at the end of their three-year probations.
Last year only 58 percent of teachers gained tenure after three years, and 39 percent had their probations extended for another year. This year only 55 percent of the eligible teachers in New York who worked at least three years earned tenure from the city’s Education Department.
States such as Arizona passed laws as long ago as 2009 that prohibit tenure and seniority rights from being considered when teachers are laid off and recalled.
The dismantling of education has been impossible without the complete collaboration of the teachers unions. The AFT and the NEA are leading the campaign to reelect Obama under the false premise that the reelection of a Democrat will somehow protect public education against the far right. Last year the NEA added an involuntary $10 to the dues payments of each of its 3.2 million members to fund the Obama election campaign. That’s a cool easy $32 million handed over to Obama’s campaign.
The role of the unions has been to aid the Democrats and Republicans in implementing the attacks on seniority, while ensuring that their own finances are protected.
It is noteworthy that the calls for “accountability” are limited to public school teachers. A 2009 study from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes found that 37 percent of charter schools performed worse on student test measures than their traditional counterparts. These “failing” schools have not been closed down. They are much too profitable.
Tenure is a basic achievement won in struggles by the working class so that teachers could not be fired at the whim of a principal or administrator.
What has been the consequence of its undermining? Experienced teachers—who know that smaller classes, adequate supplies, and adequate preparation time all contribute to a better education for children—are driven out. Experienced teachers are more equipped to deal with the conditions of untold misery caused by social conditions of poverty and destitution.
Today there are millions of children in the United States living under this stress and alienation, which lead to both physical and cognitive hindrances to learning.
I am among the three million teachers who return to work this year mindful of the most recent research concerning the effects of poverty on learning, and proper social and emotional development. We also see the need to marshal the world’s scientific and pedagogical resources for the development of healthy, happy human beings.
This means a fight against the future that capitalism has in store for all working people. According to a report issued recently by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 28.3 percent of all workers are receiving poverty-level wages today, and that figure is projected to be virtually unchanged, at 28 percent, in the year 2020. Based on employer surveys of where jobs will be created in the next eight years, the EPI found that 25 percent would not require even a high school education, although barely 8 percent of the current work force falls into that category.
The ridiculous Orwellian doublespeak about making education better by getting rid of teachers and closing schools is an insult to the intelligence. What about holding accountable those really responsible for the crisis of education, and of the US and world economy as a whole?
After all, in the city of Wall Street, most of its 75,000 public school teachers must be aware of the irony that an enormous transfer of wealth took place in 2008, also spearheaded by the Obama administration, from the public treasury to provide TARP funds for speculators that ruthlessly gambled on the housing market. How, do tell, is their “accountability” and pay for “performance” coming along?
These institutions that were “too big to fail” were handed trillions, and are apparently also “too big to be held accountable” as is evidenced by the recent decision to not prosecute the open illegality of Goldman Sachs.
What is required is the abolition of the system of parasitism and looting that has come to pass for official politics in America and throughout the world.
The claim that money is not the problem is a cruel hoax. It is not poor teachers, negligent parents or students who don’t want to learn that created the problems in public education. These are the result of the institutions being starved for resources, and the vast majority of the population being placed on a starvation diet of poverty, impossible living conditions, lack of medical care, and basic necessities like heat in the winter. This can only be resolved through a thorough redistribution of the wealth of society.
My running mate Jerry White and I are running in the election because the right to free, quality education requires a political struggle by the working class against the capitalist system and its two big business parties. Ensuring the resources that are needed to defend public education, expand it and provide the best education that money can buy for every child requires a break with the Democratic Party and the building of a mass political party of the working class. |
Woodland creatures scurry frantically across the sizzling undergrowth as flames engulf their modest forest homes. A defeated buck lies on the charred ground, struggling to make use of his limp legs.
While many would associate this scene with the dramatic wildfire in Walt Disney’s Bambi, Americans on the West Coast would immediately think of the “Rim Fire” currently blazing dangerously close to California’s Yosemite National Park.
Four people have been injured in this wildfire, now recognized as the sixth largest in California’s history. Around 5,000 firefighters have been recruited to battle the blaze, and the estimated cost of fighting the wildfire has reached $54 million.
According to Southern California Public Radio, the Rim Fire has destroyed 111 structures, including 11 homes, and poses a threat to ancient giant sequoias, the world’s largest trees.
The Associated Press noted that the blaze now spans an area larger than San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose combined and was 40 percent contained as of the evening of Aug. 31.
Climate Central attributes the fire to a severe lack of precipitation in the area for the past year. California received a record-low 4.58 inches of precipitation between January and June of 2013, nearly 10 inches below the annual average according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
To make conditions worse, a heat wave in July contributed to even drier soils, setting the stage for the devastating blaze. This rise in temperature is not abnormal: parts of the West have been warming faster than the rest of the nation since the 1970s, a trend tied to climate change as well as natural climate variability.
“Increasing temperatures promote rainfall evaporation, which leads to more frequent instances of extreme fire conditions,” said Anthony Westerling, a climate scientist at the University of California at Merced, in an interview with Climate Central.
According to Professor of Geology Dave Dobson, prescribed burning is an effective strategy to help cope with such conditions.
“When used properly, prescribed or controlled burns can help renew and manage forests while reducing the risk of uncontrolled fires,” Dobson said.
Strategies for future fire prevention will be prevalent in the wake of the destructive Rim Fire. |
As we celebrate the beginning of the New Year, we also mark Public Domain Day (a holiday I’ve been regularly celebrating on this blog.) This is the day when a year’s worth of copyrights expire in many countries around the world, and the works they cover become free for anyone to use and adapt for any purpose.
In many counties, this is a bittersweet time for fans of the public domain. For instance, this site notes the many authors whose works enter the public domain today in Europe, now that they’ve been dead for at least 70 years. But for many European countries, this just represents reclaimed ground that had been previously lost. Europe retroactively extended and revived copyrights from life+50 to life+70 years in 1993, so it’s still three more years before Europe’s public domain is back to what it was then. Many other countries, including the United States, Australia, Russia, and Mexico, are in the midst of public domain freezes. For instance, due to a 1998 copyright extension, no copyrights of published works will expire here in the US due to age for another 9 years, at least.
In the past, many people have had only a vague idea of what’s in the public domain and what isn’t. But thanks to mass book digitization projects, the dividing line is becoming clearer. Millions of books published before 1923 (the year of the oldest US copyrights) are now digitized, and can be found with a simple Google search and read in full online. At the same time, millions more digitized books from 1923 and later can also be found with searches, but are not freely readable online.
Many of those works not freely readable online have languished in obscurity for a long time. Some of them can be shown to be in the public domain after research, and groups like Hathi Trust are starting to clear and rescue many such works. Some of them are still under copyright, but long out of print, and may have unknown or unreachable rightsholders. The current debate over Google Books has raised the profile of these works, so much so that the New York Times cited “orphan books”, a term used to describe such unclearable works, as one of the buzzwords of 2009.
The dividing line between the public domain and the world of copyright could well have been different. In 1953, for instance, US copyrights ran for a maximum of 56 years, and the last of that year’s copyrights would have expired today, were it not for extensions. Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a page showing what could have been entering the public domain today— everything up to the close of the Korean War. In contrast, if the current 95-year US terms had been in effect all of last century, the copyrights of 1914 would have only expired today. Only now would we be able to start freely digitizing the first set of books from the start of World War I.
With the dividing line better known nowadays, do we have hope of protecting the public domain against more expansions of copyright? Many countries still stick to the life+50 years term of the Berne Convention, including Canada and New Zealand. In those countries, works from authors who died in 1959 enter the public domain for the first time. There’s pressure on some of these countries to increase their terms, so far resisted. Efforts to extend copyrights on sound recordings continues in Europe, and recently succeeded in Argentina. And secret ACTA treaty negotiations are also aimed at increasing the power of copyright holders over Internet and computer users.
But resistance to these expansions of copyright is on the rise, and public awareness of copyright extensions and their deleterious effects is quite a bit higher now than when Europe and the US extended their copyrights in the 1990s. And with concerns expressed by a number of parties over a possible Google monopoly on orphan books, one can envision building up a critical mass of interest in freeing more of these books for all to use.
So today I celebrate the incremental expansion of the public domain, and hope to help increase it further. To that end, I have a few gifts of my own. As in previous years, I’m freeing all the copyrights I control for publications (including public online postings) that are more than 14 years old today, so any such works published in 1995 and before are now dedicated to the public domain. Unfortunately, I don’t control the copyright of the 1995 paper that is my most widely cited work, but at least there’s an early version openly accessible online.
I can also announce the completion of a full set of digitized active copyright renewal records for drama and works prepared for oral delivery, available from this page. This should make it easier for people to verify the public domain status of plays, sermons, lectures, radio programs, and similar works from the mid-20th century that to date have not been clearable using online resources. We’ve also put online many copyright renewal records for images, and hope to have a complete set of active records not too far into 2010. Among other things, this will help enable the full digitization of book illustrations, newspaper photographs, and other important parts of the historical record that might be otherwise omitted or skipped by some mass digitization projects.
Happy Public Domain Day! May we have much to enjoy this day, and on many more Public Domain Days to come.
(Edited later in the day January 1 to fix an inaccurately worded sentence.) |
Health Minister Jim Wells apologises for comments linking gay marriage and abuse BelfastTelegraph.co.uk DUP Health Minister Jim Wells has apologised for comments made in Downpatrick in which he allegedly said that children raised by gay parents were "far more likely" to be abused or neglected. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/health-minister-jim-wells-apologises-for-comments-linking-gay-marriage-and-abuse-31167388.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/video-news/article30941587.ece/adc0a/AUTOCROP/h342/Video:%20Healthcare%20expert%20urges%20for%20review%20of%20Northern%20Ireland's%20health%20service%20(Generated%20thumbnail)
Email
DUP Health Minister Jim Wells has apologised for comments made in Downpatrick in which he allegedly said that children raised by gay parents were "far more likely" to be abused or neglected.
Speaking at South Down election hustings hosted by the Down Recorder on Thursday Mr Wells reportedly said: "The facts show that certainly you don't bring a child up in a homosexual relationship ... that child is far more likely to be abused or neglected ... in a non-stable marriage."
On Thursday night there were calls for Mr Wells to retract the remarks. The DUP minister initially issued a statement to say that he had been misrepresented, was not attacking the gay community and stood by his position on gay marriage.
In that statement Mr Wells said: "During a debate in South Down this evening I refused to agree with an audience member that marriage should be redefined. I oppose the redefinition of marriage. Indeed the Assembly has voted three times on this matter and every time a cross party selection of MLAs have supported the current definition of marriage.
"At the hustings event, I said that marriage was a stable environment to raise children. I am saddened that some people were trying to misrepresent my comments. Where there are non-stable relationships involving children, whether heterosexual or homosexual, the children suffer. I make no distinction between anyone who neglects a child on the basis of their sexual orientation."
Calls for apology
SDLP MLA Colum Eastwood said he was "appalled" by the comments. He called on Mr Wells to withdraw them and issue an apology.
Mr Eastwood said: "Not satisfied with his already robust opposition to equality for those who define as LGBT, Mr Wells has gone far beyond the limits of acceptable behaviour. To suggest that children raised by gay parents are more likely to be abused is a baseless slur on an entire community.
"The Minister must immediately withdraw these comments and issue a full apology to those who he has seriously wronged tonight. His track record on equality for the LGBT community is there for all to see. From describing gay pride as ‘repugnant’ to spending thousands of pounds of public money on defending the ban on gay men donating blood, he has allowed his own bias to infect his decision making and taint his judgment.
"We have thousands of children in care, many of whom have suffered abuse. Many LGBT couples want to provide a loving and supportive environment for raising children. By making such serious and unfounded allegations Minister Wells will have dissuaded many from adopting. He should be ashamed of himself and must immediately resile from the remarks."
Has already been passed onto new outlets in full, this is a 30s clip of most relevance #sdhustings pic.twitter.com/UrTr2YEb6k — Clare Calvert (@ClareC9) April 23, 2015
Wells issues apology
On Friday morning Mr Wells issued a further statement to say that he accepted "one line of what I said caused offence and deep concern amongst members of the audience and beyond" and apologised.
He said: “The last few weeks have been extremely difficult for me personally. I had just come from a hospital visit and my focus was not on the debate. Indeed, during the event I received several messages from the hospital.
"I have listened to a recording of the relevant part of the debate. I accept that one line of what I said caused offence and deep concern amongst members of the audience and beyond.
"I regret having wrongly made that remark about abuse and I’m sorry those words were uttered. The comment did not reflect my view nor that of my party.
"Within seconds of realising this error, I asked the Chairman to let me back in and twice corrected my remarks before the debate moved on. This clarification has been confirmed by the journalists present at the event. Partial clips, spin and selective reporting regrettably miss this.
"The neglect or abuse of children is awful and happens in unstable relationships whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. I make no distinction between anyone who neglects or abuses a child regardless of their sexual orientation. I trust people will accept my explanation and my apology.”
Update: DUP minister Jim Wells quits as gay abuse comments cause huge online backlash
Politicians slam remarks
Sinn Fein’s Chris Hazzard, who was on the hustings panel, tweeted after the event: "Still in shock at health minister’s insane attack on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transexual community tonight - he should withdraw remarks immediately."
The Ulster Unionist Party said the comments were "absolutely appalling... and totally wrong".
"They were outrageous comments from Jim Wells that would attempt to link same sex partnerships with increased incidences of child abuse and neglect," a party statement said.
UUP leader Mike Nesbitt told the BBC's Nolan Show: "Jim Wells needs to do more in deed and in action to prove that the real Jim Wells is reflected in this morning's statement rather than in yesterday's comment.
"If the real Jim Wells is reflected in yesterday's comment I do not have any time for Jim Wells to be the minister for health."
Alliance North Down MLA, Stephen Farry, said on Thursday night: "As Health Minister, he has responsibilities around social care and also for implementing changes to adoption law, including abiding by recent court judgements.
"Jim Wells' statement that was issued by the DUP press office [on Thursday night], makes no attempt to apologise for these hurtful remarks, showing once again the DUP's refusal to acknowledge when they are in the wrong.
"There is absolutely no link between the incidence of abuse and neglect and the sexual orientation of parents. Nor indeed, if there is any difference between two parent and single parent households.
"Alliance will be looking to raise this matter with Assembly officials and ask them to investigate whether he has broken any Assembly rules.
"His credibility in office has been seriously undermined by these remarks."
Other candidates standing in the South Down constituency are: the Conservative Party's Felicity Buchan, UUP's Harold McKee, UKIP's Henry Reilly, SDLP's Margaret Ritchie and the Alliance Party's Martyn Todd.
Ford: Wells remarks not isolated view within DUP
Stormont's justice minister David Ford said Jim Wells' comments "expose a deep vein of homophobia and disrespect for the LGBT community which runs throughout the DUP".
The Alliance MLA said: "Any right-thinking person would be disgusted by these vile, inaccurate and hurtful comments. But sadly, it was not an isolated incident within the DUP. There have been numerous occasions where elected representatives have attempted to deny gay rights and advocated discrimination against those in the LGBT community, whether trying to blame them for Hurricane Katrina or stating homosexuality is viler than child abuse.
"Therefore Mr Wells’ comments are not detached but clearly part of a wider pattern of behaviour. One only has to look at his predecessor as Health Minister, who fought a crusade against gay men donating blood, not based on evidence but personal prejudice, as well as the party’s proposal for a conscience clause to remove equality for LGBT people.
"If this had been a Minister from a party in any other part of the UK, even from the so-called more extreme wings, they would have already resigned. Yet Peter Robinson has defended Mr Wells. That raises serious questions.
"However, one minister’s resignation will mean nothing if he is replaced by someone with the same values. The DUP need to take a long look at their policies and attitudes, and question them deeply.
"I would also encourage the UUP to ask themselves if they can continue to ask their supporters to vote for the DUP as part of their pact, and ask Mike Nesbitt if he will still vote for that same party."
DUP leader Peter Robinson says he stands by the Health Minister and people should 'give him a break'
DUP leader and Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson said the party stood by Mr Wells. Mr Robinson said Mr Wells "accepted the remarks were offensive and that is why he has apologised".
"Anybody that looks at the comments will recognise that on a better day Jim would not have made such a comment. Everybody knows the pressure he has been under over the last number of months with his wife being ill in hospital and trying to keep going a very significant department in the Executive.
"He has immediately, as soon as he made the comments, he knew what he said was the wrong thing and he shouldn’t have said it. He got the attention of the chairman during the debate to try and rectify it without being pushed by anybody.
"He has put out a very sincere and fulsome apology and I think people should give him a break because of the special circumstances. He very rightly says it is neither his view nor is it the Democratic Unionist Party’s view.
"I reiterate that again today. That is not our view nor will it ever be our view."
The DUP has previously come under fire for its comments and policies in relation to LGBT issues.
In 2008 Mr Robinson said he endorsed his wife’s controversial views that gays are an 'abomination'. The First Minister told the BBC Northern Ireland Hearts and Minds programme: “It wasn’t Iris Robinson who determined that homosexuality was an abomination, it was the Almighty.
"This is the Scriptures and it is a strange world indeed where somebody on the one hand talks about equality, but won’t allow Christians to have the equality, the right to speak, the right to express their views."
Earlier that year the First Minister's wife Iris stated in Parliament that homosexuality is “viler” than child sex abuse.
Mrs Robinson then stated: “There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children.”
In 2007 Ian Paisley jnr told Hot Press magazine: "I am pretty repulsed by gay and lesbianism. I think it is wrong.
"I think that those people harm themselves and - without caring about it - harm society. That doesn't mean to say that I hate them. I mean, I hate what they do."
This week the Prime Minister David Cameron has said he "will never validate" the DUP's stance on lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) issues.
The Tory leader said he “profoundly disagreed” with the party's policy on LGBT issues. The Prime Minister was being grilled by 10 potential young voters in BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat’s Live Lounge leader debate.
Mary Hassan, from Londonderry, told Mr Cameron that the DUP had done "significant and long-term damage” to the LGBT community in Northern Ireland."
Ms Hassan said: "They’ve consistently blocked motions for marriage equality and uphold a gay blood ban and currently are putting forward the conscience clause bill.
"Now, I’d like to know – is staying in office more important that the LGBT community in Northern Ireland?"
Mr Cameron responded: “I totally disagree with the DUP about this [LGBT] issue and nothing I ever do will go against the values I have about believing in equality and equal rights for gay and lesbian people and I’ve put that, as it were, on the line by supporting equal marriage.
“So I’m never going to change my views about that.”
The full interview can with David Cameron be heard to on BBC iPlayer.
Further reading
DUP minister Jim Wells quits as gay abuse comments cause huge online backlash
PSNI probes Jim Wells' gay abuse comments
David Cameron: I will never validate the DUP's stance on gay rights and LGBT issues
Pressure grows on Jim Wells to quit after remarks linking gays to child abuse
Crass comments damage reputation of Health Minister Jim Wells
Health Minister Jim Wells: Wife Grace is back from the brink
Gay adoption: It is 'natural order' for a man and a woman to have a child, says Northern Ireland Health Minister Edwin Poots
Call for clarity after DUP man's 'make homosexuality illegal' comments
First Minister Peter Robinson backs wife's view that gays are an 'abomination'
Iris Robinson: gays more vile than child abusers
Belfast Telegraph Digital |
The Obama Administration Wednesday came out against H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which is strongly backed by cable operators and phone companies.
In a statement of policy on the bill, which has been scheduled for House floor consideration Thursday (April 26), the Executive Office of the President (EOP) said that it would recommend the president veto the bill if it got to his desk in the present form.
The administration says that the bill provides too much liability protection for ISPs for sharing cyber threat info with the government -- telecom companies have argued such liability protection is crucial to info sharing -- and does too little to protect personally identifiable information (PII). The White House also wants the Department of Homeland Security to oversee minimum cybersecurity performance standards -- which is part of Democrat-backed cybersecurity legislation. Cable operators and phone companies favor the CISPA approach of self-reg over government standards.
The EOP statement makes clear the White House wants government enforcement of industry cybersecurity. "Voluntary measures alone are insufficient responses to the growing danger of cyber threats," it said.
"H.R. 3523 would inappropriately shield companies from any suits where a company's actions are based on cyberthreat information identified, obtained, or shared under this bill, regardless of whether that action otherwise violated Federal criminal law or results in damage or loss of life," said EOP. "This broad liability protection not only removes a strong incentive to improving cybersecurity, it also potentially undermines our Nation's economic, national security, and public safety interests."
The bill would allow broad sharing of information with governmental entities without establishing requirements for both industry and the government to minimize and protect personally identifiable information," added EOP. "The bill also lacks sufficient limitations on the sharing of personally identifiable information between private entities and does not contain adequate oversight or accountability measures necessary to ensure that the data is used only for appropriate purposes."
The bill's sponsors have reportedly amended it to address some of the concerns of privacy groups, but apparently not enough to satisfy the White House. |
In an Oxford Union debate entitled Freedom of Speech and the Right to Offend, Peter Hitchens (brother of the late Christopher Hitchens) had this to say:
“…what the offensive person has actually said is seldom very important. It is what the offended person believes him to have said that counts, and this is the process into which we are rapidly entering as a society. We are moving towards a strange dictatorship of rage, where any approved group or any approved person’s fury is sufficient to trigger cause for the denial of platforms, for the ostracism of one kind of another of that person – in effect, for the silencing of those people, and the suppression of their opinions. This is a sinister development.”
In South Africa, the described ‘dictatorship of rage’ may well become the law of the land in the near future, backed by the full force of the State – unless, for example, our courts strike it down. I am referring, of course, to the proposed Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill.
What the Bill says, and what it means for us
Johan van der Merwe has already touched on the legal aspects of the Bill, but I think it’s worth going over some important points here.
Section 4(1)(a) of the Bill states the following:
Any person who intentionally, by means of any communication whatsoever, communicates to one or more persons in a manner that –
(i) advocates hatred towards any other person or group of persons; or
(ii) is threatening, abusive or insulting towards any other person or group of persons,
and which demonstrates a clear intention, having regard to all the circumstances, to –
(aa) incite others to harm any person or group of persons, whether or not such
person or group of persons is harmed; or
(bb) stir up violence against, or bring into contempt or ridicule, any person or group of persons,
based on race, gender, sex, which includes intersex, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, religion, belief, culture, language, birth, disability, HIV status, nationality, gender identity, albinism or occupation or trade, is guilty of the offence of hate speech. [Emphasis added]
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the text is that insult and ‘ridicule’ have been woven in between serious and genuine crimes – such as acts of violence and intimidation – thereby granting these things equal significance.
The Bill goes on to say in section 4(1)(c):
Any person who intentionally, in any manner whatsoever, displays any material or makes available any material which is capable of being communicated and which constitutes hate speech as contemplated in paragraph (a), which is accessible by or directed at a specific person who can be considered to be a victim of hate speech, is guilty of an offence. [Emphasis added]
If the Bill is enacted, this would mean that instead of being laughable, a person’s declaration of “I’m offended!” in response to anything you have said might be cause for major concern. The primary reason for this concern is the prescription of sentences in section 6(3): someone found guilty of ‘hate speech’ can be fined, imprisoned for up to 3 years, or both, in the case of a first offence. Subsequent convictions can earn the ‘heinous’ perpetrator additional fines, and up to 10 years in prison.
Consider the example of an actuary and an accountant having lunch – the accountant tells a joke: “actuaries are those who didn’t have the personality to become accountants.”
“I’m offended!” responds the actuary, who promptly presses charges. On the grounds of ridicule on the basis of occupation or trade, the accountant spends 3 years in jail for their thought crime hate speech.
Consider another example of the memes that have been doing the rounds on social media that deliberately mock the idea of there being more than two genders. The creator of the meme would be guilty of ‘hate speech’. Everyone who shared the meme, being party to this ‘crime’, is guilty as well – just read section 4(2).
An anaemic excuse that has been used elsewhere is likely to be used to defend the Bill:
Of course the government won’t use the law for such silly things!
in response to which it is completely reasonable to say: even if today’s government does not use it as such, who can say that future governments won’t? The legal framework allows for precisely that sort of action.
Moreover, even if such ‘small’ matters are not brought before our courts, there is always the possibility of the present government exploiting the provisions of the Bill to achieve political ends – in light of South Africa’s current political landscape, this cannot be ruled out.
The state of free speech in South Africa
Disregarding the proposed Bill for the moment, free speech has long been a fickle right in South Africa: fickle, because the Constitution does not really guarantee it.
Section 36 of the Constitution allows for the limitation of the rights in the Bill of Rights to be restricted, if such limitation is “reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom, taking into account all relevant factors…” Not only are terms like ‘dignity’, ‘equality’ and ‘freedom’ nebulous, seldom properly defined, and taken to mean different things by different people (including judges), but the ‘relevant factors’ constitute a Pandora’s box in their own right (one which is not clearly limited by the text of the Constitution).
To put it plainly – as my colleague Martin van Staden has said – anyone with a good lawyer can have your rights taken away.
If that is the current legal status of free speech, then the hate speech Bill would only further entrench the ability of the State to forcibly shut people up.
What is the role of the State in human interaction?
In his article, Johan van der Merwe states that the “goal of the legislature is honourable, and even morally sound.” That is perhaps too generous a reading of the Bill and the intentions behind it. Contrary to what he suggests, the Bill is not an otherwise good piece of legislation that unfortunately happens to overstep the boundaries a bit; it is a legal and a moral aberration.
South Africa’s history is eminently one of State control over individuals’ social (and economic) interactions. This is certainly true of Apartheid, which was a system of State co-ordinated social engineering on a grand scale. This is also true of many laws and regulations that exist today.
SEE ALSO: 7 Reasons Why Apartheid Was Not ‘Capitalist’ by Martin van Staden
One of the premises underlying the hate speech Bill is that there is a legitimate role for government in influencing or controlling how people interact, and regulating their conduct beyond what is appropriate. In South Africa, this premise goes largely unchallenged; in fact, it is often wholeheartedly embraced.
Would it be nice if, generally, people got along well? Undoubtedly. Should the State get involved? Certainly not.
The appropriate role of the State is to ensure that people and their property are protected. This means that physical violence and threats of violence (which often include intimidation) must be dealt with by the police and the courts.
This also means that besides threats of violence, just about everything else is on the table as far as permissible speech goes.
In returning to the Bill, then, the best remedy would be to scratch the whole thing off.
As concerning as the Bill is, perhaps more worrying is the broader culture of labelling people’s views as intolerable ‘-isms’ and ‘phobias’, simply because people find those views to be disagreeable. It is from this sort of social climate from which a ‘dictatorship of rage’ emerges. Thus, to return once more to the wisdom of Peter Hitchens,
“When you start believing that the opinions of other people are a pathology, then you are in the beginning stage that leads to the secret police and the gulags.” |
Captain Michael Palumbo, who inspired ‘firefighter law,’ loses battle with cancer
BEACHWOOD, Ohio - Beachwood Fire Captain Michael Palumbo, who was the inspiration behind Ohio’s Michael Louis Palumbo Jr. Act, passed away Wednesday after battle with occupational brain cancer.
Palumbo spent the majority of his career with the Beachwood Fire Department. He was a member of the honor guard, a SWAT medic and part of the HazMat team. Before joining Beachwood, he worked at his hometown's fire department in Willowick.
The Michael Louis Palumbo, Jr. Act became law in January. The law allows firefighters who qualify that are "disabled" by cancer the opportunity to file a claim with the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, essentially classifying cancer as an occupational disease for firefighters.
He leaves behind his wife of 23 years and 5 children between the ages of 8-21. Services for Captain Palumbo have not been finalized yet. |
Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.), left, talks to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
Tom Marino is a four-term Republican member of the House who represents a district in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been hard-hit by the opioid crisis. Yet Marino also has been a friend on Capitol Hill of the giant drug companies that distribute the pain pills that have wreaked so much devastation around the nation.
Marino was the chief advocate of the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, which requires the government to meet a higher bar before taking certain enforcement actions.
The Drug Enforcement Administration fought against the bill for years, but finally relented last year after a leadership change at the agency. Marino is now President Trump’s nominee to become the nation’s next drug czar.
The new law makes it virtually impossible for the DEA to freeze suspicious narcotic shipments from the companies, according to internal agency and Justice Department documents and an independent assessment by the DEA’s chief administrative law judge in a soon-to-be-published law review article. That powerful tool had allowed the agency to immediately prevent drugs from reaching the street.
[Read the investigation: How the drug industry triumphed over the DEA]
The law was the crowning achievement of a multifaceted campaign by the drug industry to weaken aggressive DEA enforcement efforts against drug distribution companies that were supplying corrupt doctors and pharmacists who peddled narcotics to the black market. The industry worked behind the scenes with lobbyists and key members of Congress, pouring more than a million dollars into their election campaigns.
Political action committees representing the industry contributed at least $1.5 million to the 23 lawmakers who sponsored or co-sponsored four versions of the bill, including nearly $100,000 to Marino. Overall, the drug industry spent $106 million lobbying Congress on the bill and other legislation between 2014 and 2016, according to lobbying reports.
Marino declined repeated requests for comment. Marino’s staff called the U.S. Capitol Police when The Washington Post and “60 Minutes” tried to interview the congressman at his office on Sept. 12. In the past, the congressman has said the DEA was too aggressive and needed to work more collaboratively with drug companies.
Deeply involved in the effort to counter the DEA’s tough enforcement campaign was the agency’s former associate chief counsel, D. Linden Barber. While at the DEA, he helped design and carry out the early stages of that campaign, which targeted drug companies that were failing to report suspicious orders of narcotics that made their way into the hands of users and dealers.
When Barber went to work for the drug industry in 2011, he brought an intimate knowledge of the DEA’s strategy and how it could be attacked to protect the companies. He was one of dozens of DEA officials recruited by the drug industry during the past decade.
Barber played a key role in crafting an early version of the legislation that would eventually curtail the DEA’s power, according to an internal email written by a Justice Department official to a colleague. “He wrote the Marino bill,” the official wrote in 2014.
Barber declined repeated requests for an interview to discuss his role in formulating the legislation.
Marino was a former county and federal prosecutor with deep ties to a hometown district that was reeling from the opioid epidemic.
As Rep. Tom Marino’s Pennsylvania district was reeling from the opioid crisis, he sponsored a bill that, current and former Drug Enforcement Administration officials say, undermined the DEA's efforts to stop the flow of pain pills. (Alice Li/The Washington Post)
On Feb. 18, 2014, Marino introduced the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, which raised the DEA’s standard for suspending drug shipments by requiring that the agency establish “a significant and present risk of death or serious bodily harm that is more likely than not to occur.”
Nearly two months later, with the bill stalled, Marino confronted the nation’s top law enforcement officer, then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. Marino told Holder the DEA was treating the companies like “illicit narcotics cartels.”
“This mind-set — it’s extremely dangerous to legitimate business,” Marino said.
He told Holder that he wanted the Justice Department to meet with industry executives. When Marino wrote to Holder three weeks later urging him to set up the meeting, the congressman added a handwritten note: “It would be great to work together on this. — Tom.”
In a Sept. 18, 2014, congressional hearing, Marino tore into then-DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart. By then, the legislation had passed the House and had stalled in the Senate.
“It is my understanding that Joe Rannazzisi, a senior DEA official, has publicly accused we sponsors of the bill of, quote, ‘supporting criminals,’ unquote,” Marino said. “This offends me immensely.”
[Have questions for the reporters or Rannazzisi? Join them on Facebook Live at 11 a.m. Monday. Submit questions now at wapo.st/backstory.]
Marino told Leonhart that Congress was sending the DEA a message: “You should take a serious look at your regulatory culture and seek collaboration with legitimate companies that want to do the right thing.”
Marino and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) demanded that the Justice Department’s inspector general investigate the remarks by Rannazzisi, who ran the DEA’s diversion control office. They said he had tried to “intimidate” members of Congress. An investigation was launched. Rannazzisi was replaced in August 2015 and retired that October.
“That led to his undoing,” said Matthew Murphy, a DEA official who worked with Rannazzisi in the diversion office. Rannazzisi had “very, very strong views” on what was happening on the street, Murphy said. “He wasn’t going to change his opinion because of some heat.”
Marino told The Post last year the conflict boils down to one person — Rannazzisi.
“We had a situation where it was just out of control because of [Rannazzisi],” Marino told The Post last year. “. . . His only mission was to get big fines. He didn’t want to [do] anything but put another notch in his belt.”
In April 2015, the House took up Marino’s bill. On the floor of Congress, Marino said:
“This bill will bring much-needed clarity to critical provisions of the Controlled Substances Act. In doing so, we will ensure that the DEA’s authorities are not abused and threatened by future legal challenges; foster greater collaboration, communication and transparency between the DEA and the supply chain; create more opportunities to identify bad actors at the end of the supply chain; and, most importantly, be certain that prescriptions are accessible to patients in need.”
The House passed the bill by unanimous consent.
But it didn’t make it through both houses of Congress until 2016, when Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah.), negotiated final language with the DEA and Justice Department.
President Obama signed the bill on April 19. The White House issued a one-page news release announcing its enactment.
Marino also issued a release taking credit for the legislation.
“With this law, our drug enforcement agencies will have the necessary tools to address the issue of prescription drug abuse across the country. I applaud the hard work of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in Congress and President Obama for realizing the importance of this legislation.”
With a few words, the new law changed four decades of DEA practice. Previously, the DEA could freeze drug shipments that posed an “imminent danger” to the community, giving the agency broad authority. Now, the DEA must demonstrate that a company’s actions represent “a substantial likelihood of an immediate threat,” a much higher bar.
“There’s no way that we could meet that burden, the determination that those drugs are going to be an immediate threat, because immediate, by definition, means right now,” Rannazzisi said.
Chief DEA Administrative Law Judge John J. Mulrooney II agreed.
In his article planned for the winter issue of the Marquette Law Review, Mulrooney wrote: “If it had been the intent of Congress to completely eliminate the DEA’s ability to ever impose an immediate suspension on distributors or manufacturers, it would be difficult to conceive of a more effective vehicle for achieving that goal.”
READ MORE:
The full investigation into the drug industry’s triumph over the DEA
Analysis: This shows everything people hate about Washington |
This is Back of the Envelope, FiveThirtyEight’s home for shorter, quicker posts.
The L.A. Clippers’ snakebit injury history continued Tuesday night, when all-everything point guard Chris Paul tore a ligament in his left thumb, forcing CP3 to miss six to eight weeks of action. On top of a knee injury that has sidelined forward Blake Griffin since mid-December, Paul’s injury is yet another in a long line of impediments that has kept the Clippers from fully capitalizing on their Big Three of Paul, Griffin and DeAndre Jordan over the years.
Since that trio joined forces in the 2011-12 season, the Clippers have been deadly when all three of their stars share the court, and they’ve even been quite good with two of three in the game. But they quickly become an ordinary team with one or none of the Big Three on the floor — aside from when Paul is out there alone (in which case they have their best efficiency, because CP3 is a point god).
To demonstrate this, I used data from NBAWowy.com to make a little hand-drawn Venn diagram showing L.A.’s point differential per 100 possessions with each combination of L.A.’s stars on — and off — the court since the beginning of the 2011-12 season:
(Source: nbawowy.com)
Predictably, the Clippers’ other stars don’t function as well without Paul. Griffin — who isn’t yet cleared to return from his own injury — has scored 1.8 fewer points per 40 minutes with a true shooting percentage 2.9 points lower in Paul’s absence over his career, while Jordan’s numbers in the same categories dip by 0.1 and 2.3, respectively, without CP3. For now, Jordan is on his own, and the Clippers — who were outscoring opponents by 19.6 more points per 100 possessions this season with Paul on the court than off — are in big trouble.
Check out our latest NBA predictions. |
Intriguing new details reported by The Dallas Morning News show that Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate and liberal hero Wendy Davis has consistently twisted the truth about her own life story.
Davis, a state senator, became famous nationwide after she blocked a bill seeking to place limitations on abortion with an 11-hour filibuster featuring her tale of perseverance and against-all-odds grit.
According to the Davis legend – as exemplified by Davis in her campaign video “A Texas Story” – the state senator was married, had a child, and divorced all by the time she was 19.
She lived in a trailer and worked to raise her daughter and make her way through college, eventually landing in the hallowed halls of Harvard. From there, Davis – born Wendy Russell – became an attorney, a Fort Worth city councilwoman, and a state senator known for confronting the “old-boys network” of Texas state politics.
But Davis had a bit more help than she lets on in filibusters and stump speeches, and some of the details of her life as a young single mother are murky.
Davis admitted to being less than precise about the details of her life story in an interview with The Dallas Morning News.
“My language should be tighter,” she told the Morning News’ Wayne Slater, while acknowledging that the timeline and details of her life story have had errors. “I’m learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail.”
If the details of the Dallas Morning News report are accurate, Davis’s errors range from timeline inconsistencies to contextual omissions.
Davis actually divorced her first husband, Frank Underwood, at the age of 21, not 19, according to The Dallas Morning News. She also only lived in a trailer for a few months before moving in with her mother and then into an apartment of her own.
At some point, Davis began attending community college. After that, while Davis was working as a waitress at a theater owned by her father, she met and began dating Jeff Davis, a lawyer and former Fort Worth city councilman 13 years her senior.
It was the benefits arising from that marriage that Davis has glossed over during her autobiographical tellings.
Wendy Davis’s studies at Texas Christian University were initially financed through funds from a scholarship and Pell grants, according to The Dallas Morning News. But Jeff Davis paid for the final two years of her education at the school.
The couple married and Wendy Davis was accepted into Harvard Law School. To pay for his wife’s education, Jeff Davis dipped into his 401(k) and took out a loan, the Morning News reported.
Jeff Davis told The Dallas Morning News that his wife, by then a Fort Worth city councilwoman, filed for divorce the day after he made the final payment on her Harvard school loans.
“It was ironic,” he told The Dallas Morning News. “I made the last payment, and it was the next day she left.”
The Morning News article also paints a less than flattering portrait of Davis’s role as wife and mother, something of large concern in the conservative state. Upon divorcing Jeff Davis, Wendy Davis relinquished custody of the couple’s daughter, while agreeing to pay $1,200 a month in child support, The Morning News reported.
And when Jeff Davis filed for divorce, he cited adultery on Wendy Davis’s part, as well as irreconcilable differences, according to The Dallas Morning News article. However, the final court ruling made no mention of infidelity.
Davis’s quick rise to the national stage was sparked by the filibuster last June. Progressives rallied behind Davis, especially after Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst attempted to shut down the filibuster by arguing that Davis had moved off topic. That sparked chants of “Let Her Speak” from Davis supporters.
The filibuster and Davis’s personal story have attracted a surprising amount of donations. Davis outraised Republican frontrunner, attorney general Greg Abbott, during the last half of 2013. She raised $12.2 million in that time, compared to Abbot’s $11.5 million.
Follow Chuck on Twitter |
Its summer time, which means time off from school and tons of fun; including the beach!
Naiel is showing off her new swim suit before they head for the waves, but Kib is too shy and is trying too hard to play the tough guy act to openly admit he thinks she looks good.
Poor Kib... oh well, time to hit the waves!
Kib and Naiel are normally represented as sentient feral-type beings and both belong to the closed species, the Draskhala! Still, these two are too fun to not get art of in anthro forms as well.
This is a piece I commissioned from the awesome Kosika over at Deviant art! She started her vacation after finishing this, so I don't have a link to her upload of it just yet.
If you like this art style, be sure to check out Kosika's DA page, here: http://katherineosika.deviantart.com/
She is frequently opening commission slots, but if you don't snag em all, I sure will go for another! xD |
Tens Of Thousands More Women And Minorities Are Taking Computer Science
Enlarge this image LA Johnson/NPR LA Johnson/NPR
U.S. high schools got a high-tech update this past school year. Not by federal fiat or by state law, but largely at the hand of independent nonprofits, including one founded by twin brothers less than five years ago.
The College Board last fall introduced a new course and exam called AP Computer Science Principles. Eight years in the planning, it was the largest such course launch in history. While the existing AP Computer Science course focuses on the Java programming language, the new course is billed as a creative exploration of real-world problems. It's designed to appeal to people who might have assumed that computers were not for them.
And in that sense, it's working.
According to figures just released, from 2016 to 2017 the number of underrepresented minorities who took an AP Computer Science exam nearly tripled, from 8,283 to 22,199. The number of girls shot up from 12,642 to 29,708.
While significant, this increase was not enough for those two groups to reach parity. Only 1 in 5 of those taking AP CS last year were underrepresented minorities and about 1 in 4 were women.
The course opened doors on a school level as well. Maureen Reyes, the executive director of the AP program at the College Board, says that 100 new schools last year offered the new class as their first AP course ever.
How CS Principles was born
"The entire reason the new exam and course were created was to broaden participation in computer science," says Hadi Partovi, a tech entrepreneur and investor. That's also the mission of Code.org, the nonprofit Partovi started with his brother Ali. The organization first made a name for itself with Hour of Code, a voluntary effort to introduce a single coding lesson that the organization says has now reached 100 million K-12 students around the world.
Code.org, along with its Silicon Valley backers, is taking a leadership role in the rollout of AP CSP. It is one of eight authorized course providers; more than half of all schools teaching the course are using their curriculum. They've created a slick online production featuring interactive exercises and special guest stars. For example, Vint Cerf, one of the "Fathers of the Internet," recorded a video explaining how it works.
The College Board, Code.org and other authorized providers are also training teachers to facilitate the course. Hundreds of them, not necessarily from STEM disciplines. "We are by far the largest player in creating new computer science teachers," Partovi claims.
Code.org trained 500 teachers last year, and plans to train another 900 this year, with a blend of in-person intensive workshops and online support. The group concentrates its programs in low-income areas. In all, says Reyes, the College Board prepared about 1,300 teachers last year, and its partners another 1,300, all to teach this one course.
Whenever a particular subject starts to be taught much more widely, there is a worry that it's going to be watered down. That's not the case with AP CSP, says Reyes.
The course, developed with the help of the National Science Foundation, is patterned after introductory computer science classes at top colleges, she notes. In fact, in addition to Code.org, other authorized course materials come from the Beauty and Joy of Computing, a course taught at the University of California, Berkeley; and CS50, a Harvard course that is among the most popular for freshmen.
"The new course is much more about making things, rather than answering multiple-choice questions," says Partovi. AP CSP requires students to submit a portfolio of original work. The only other regular AP course that does that is Studio Art.
Students learn about the structure of the Internet, data analysis and representation and making apps. AP CSP doesn't require a particular language. Instead, you can use a visual, drag-and-drop programming "environment" such as Scratch, which was originally designed for elementary school kids.
Just imagine for a minute that there was an initiative to teach some other subject — say, Chinese — at the Advanced Placement level to tens of thousands more students next year, using teachers who don't speak Chinese themselves and copies of Rosetta Stone language software. Partovi says it works with CS because "Our curriculum is designed to be a little more self-teaching. The teachers' job is to facilitate."
Now imagine that that initiative was led by, say, Chinese companies like Alibaba. Or that the fossil fuel industry led a successful push for an AP Petrochemistry course (the way they fund science curricula in states like Oklahoma.)
Industry support has "been a huge factor in the success of CSP," says Reyes, and that's a good thing. "We're looking at a pretty innovative time where industry is stepping in to help education offer computer science to students."
In the end, the promise of any AP course is that students will find what they learn to be worthwhile in the future — and that they will burnish college applications, of course.
Harvey Mudd College, a small private college in California that focuses on both engineering and liberal arts, is one of hundreds of colleges that have agreed to recognize AP CSP.
Harvey Mudd freshmen who have taken either AP CS course can choose to track into the more advanced version of the required freshman CS course. The college's president, Maria Klawe, is on the advisory board of Code.Org.
"I love the new AP CS Principles course," she says. "It's very similar to the course we put together for every student at Harvey Mudd in the first semester. The whole idea was to let students see that what they're going to learn matters in life." |
This page is a stub . You can help Path of Exile Wiki by .
Overview
When successfully completing a master's mission the player gets rewarded with a certain amount of points. Both the Reputation and Favour counters are increased by this amount.
While Reputation represents experience points which are needed to level up the master, Favour is used as a form of currency to buy decorations from the respective master.
Different amounts of points are awarded depending on the level of the area in which the master started the mission. (For example, a Haku daily mission where Haku is in a level 70 area and the area where the mission is performed is level 71 counts as level 70 for base experience.)
Experience Progression
Area level Base Experience Area level Base Experience Area level Base Experience Area level Base Experience 1 202 26 843 51 2981 76 9702 2 215 27 889 52 3129 77 10159 3 229 28 937 53 3284 78 10637 4 243 29 988 54 3446 79 11136 5 259 30 1040 55 3616 80 11658 6 275 31 1096 56 3794 81 12204 7 292 32 1154 57 3980 82 12774 8 309 33 1215 58 4175 83 13370 9 328 34 1279 59 4379 84 13992 10 348 35 1346 60 4592 85 14643 11 369 36 1416 61 4815 86 15323 12 391 37 1490 62 5049 87 16034 13 414 38 1567 63 5293 88 16776 14 438 39 1648 64 5548 89 17552 15 463 40 1733 65 5816 90 18362 16 490 41 1822 66 6095 91 19209 17 518 42 1915 67 6388 92 20094 18 547 43 2013 68 6694 93 21018 19 578 44 2115 69 7014 94 21983 20 611 45 2222 70 7348 95 22991 21 645 46 2335 71 7698 96 24044 22 681 47 2452 72 8064 97 25144 23 719 48 2575 73 8446 98 26293 24 758 49 2704 74 8846 99 27493 25 800 50 2840 75 9265 100 28746
Daily Missions
Your Daily Missions give 250% of the listed amounts of Reputation and Favour of a normal mission. Daily Missions from other people give 100% of the listed amounts of Reputation and Favour.
Area level for daily missions is randomly selected based on the master's reputation level.
Area level for Zana's daily missions :
Level 1 = 1-?
Level 2 = ?-?
Level 3 = ?-?
Level 4 = ?-49
Level 5 = 50-72
Level 6 = 73
Level 7 = 74-75
Level 8 = 76+
Area level for all other master's daily missions :
Level 1 = 1-19
Level 2 = 20-29
Level 3 = 30-39
Level 4 = 40-49
Level 5 = 50-59
Level 6 = 60-67
Level 7 = 68-75
Level 8 = 76+
Version History
Version Changes 1.3.0 We have increased the rewards of higher level missions and have moved some features to lower Master levels.[1]
References |
The Informer’s 2014 NBA Playoff Preview Part IV: Predicting A Breakout Star
by
PART I PART II PART III
Welcome back to The Informer’s 2014 NBA Playoff Preview. Today in our journey to 10,000 words The Informer is going to look at three NBA players who are poised to breakout in this year’s playoffs.
Now in order to be a candidate for “breakout star” the guy has to be relatively unknown or new to the playoffs, preferably in his first or second season and most of all he has to have the ability to alter the course of a playoff series.
Following this criteria, The Informer thinks these three guys are the perfect choices to breakout in this year’s playoffs.
3. Jonas Valanciunas
No, The Informer is not predicting the Jonas Brothers are going to be “Burnin’ Up” with a breakout playoff performance. I assure you all that Jonas Valanciunas is actually a full-time NBA basketball player, not a former teen heartthrob.
In fact, Valanciunas is the Toronto Raptors promising second year center, a former #5 overall pick, and a guy who averaged 11 points and 8.8 rebounds this past season. Now on the surface those numbers don’t really translate to becoming a breakout star, but if you dig a little deeper you will see why The Informer is expecting big things from the young Lithuanian.
Over the course of the last month Jonas has been averaging 17-12 while playing 30 minutes a night for the surging Raptors. This is important because The Informer can list on one hand the number of players who averaged at least 17-12 this season; Dwight Howard, Kevin Love, DeMarcus Cousins and LaMarcus Aldridge.
If you are scoring at home the list contains three all-stars and a guy named “Boogie”. That is pretty solid company to be in.
Of course, The Informer realizes a month worth of 17-12’s is a small sample size, but the thing we all have to remember is in the NBA once a big man gets his feet wet and understands how to play the game the numbers usually show up.
So if Jonas had one or two 17-12 games, a person could call it an anomaly. But the fact that he has consistently done this over a stretch of time tells me the numbers are for real and so is Jonas Valanciunas.
The Informer is predicting that before it is said and done, Valanciunas will have the Brooklyn Nets thinking twice about their decision to duck the Chicago Bulls in favor of the Raptors.
2. Harrison Barnes
This one is kind of cheating since Harrison Barnes was one of the breakout stars from the 2013 NBA Playoffs. The thing is, Barnes has been so sporadic with his play during the regular season (only averaging 26 minutes nine points and four rebounds) that many people have forgotten just how good he was last postseason (when he averaged 38 minutes 16 points and six rebounds).
Since Barnes is now considered by some to be just another guy, The Informer is thinking the second year former North Carolina Tar Heel is going to break “back-out” in this year’s playoffs and cement his role as Robert Horry 2.0.
You know, a guy who treats the regular season like a summer pickup game, but once the bright lights of the playoffs are turned on they step their game up to an all-star level.
In other words, The Informer is thinking Harrison Barnes has some serious “Horry-Blood” in him which he is going to showcase against the Los Angeles Clippers.
1. Damian Lillard
Last year Stephen Curry and Mike Conley Jr. showed us that nobody can control the outcome of a playoff series like a great point guard. Curry did this by leading the Warriors to an upset over the Denver Nuggets before giving a scare to Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs. Meanwhile Conley led the Memphis Grizzlies to the Western Conference Finals for the first time in team history.
Since Conley and Curry gave the blue print for being a breakout playoff star last year, it only stands to reason The Informer would have at least one point guard on his breakout list this year.
And since Tony Parker, Curry, Chris Paul, Conley Jr. and Russell Westbrook are all too well known to be considered for the position of breakout star, that leaves The Informer with three options: Kemba Walker, Damian Lillard or John Wall.
Honestly, The Informer would like to jump on the Kemba Walker bandwagon, unfortunately it is going to be kind of hard to break out if you only play five games and lose four of them (Sorry Charlotte Bobcat fans, but the Miami Heat are winning in five).
As for Wall, The Informer actually thinks the Chicago Bulls-Washington Wizards series could be a good one, but it is probably going to be a low scoring slug-fest which means Wall’s numbers could suffer.
Therefore, The Informer is jumping on the Damian Lillard bandwagon for two reasons.
1. There is a very good possibility the Portland Trailblazers will beat the Houston Rockets. Now in order for this to happen, Lillard is going to have to be the man. Again, there is a very good possibility of this happening.
2. Lillard is coming off a season where he averaged 20 points 5.6 assist and 4 rebounds while shooting 40 percent from the three point line. Those are borderline All-Star numbers and if he can add a few more points and assist all of the sudden you are looking at a 25-7 guy. In other words, you would be looking at James Harden.
Call The Informer crazy, but if Damian Lillard turns into a right handed beardless James Harden and leads the Blazers to an upset victory over the Rockets he will no doubt be the biggest breakout star of the 2014 NBA Playoffs.
Advertisements |
It's a story she will likely be telling her child for years to come - a pregnant woman in Lunsapur village, located in Gujarat, India, was forced to deliver her baby in an ambulance after the vehicle was blocked by about a dozen lions.
The incident occurred about 3 km from the woman's village on Wednesday (June 28), the Times of India reported.
The ambulance had been en route to the hospital with the woman, who was in labour, when it encountered the pride blocking the road. The paramedics decided to wait for the lions to leave, but as time passed, the woman began to bleed and the animals would not budge.
The decision was then made to deliver the baby in the ambulance itself.
Amreli District head of the 108 Ambulance service, Chetan Gadhia, told the Times of India: "The staff contacted our physician over (the) phone and gave details of (the woman's) vitals. Based on this, the physician gave (approval) for delivery. The delivery took about 25 minutes, and the entire time the lions were moving around the ambulance."
After the delivery, the baby was placed in the vehicle's baby warmer and the driver tried to drive forward.
Eventually, the lions got off the road and the mother and her child were taken to the Jafrabad government hospital.
According to Mr Gadhia, lions are a frequent sight in interior villages in the area. He said that his staff were trained to deal with situations like the one on Wednesday, and that this was not the first time paramedics had encountered lions while on call.
He added: "In some situation our staff has to walk for kilometres as there is no road for the ambulance." |
The Department of Homeland Security recently reported that terrorists are using Facebook to "target, recruit and radicalize members of the general public," reports Fox News. It looks like the FBI is doing much the same thing.
Antonio Martinez, 21, is a recent convert to Islam who broadcast his love of his new religion in a Facebook status update. From the AFP:
"[O]n September 29, 2010, Martinez publicly posted on his Facebook account a statement calling for violence to stop the oppression of Muslims, and that on Oct. 1, 2010, he publicly posted a message stating that he hates any person who opposes Allah and his prophet," a Justice Department statement said.
FBI agents reached out to Martinez, who goes by Muhammad Hussain, via Facebook and offered to help him carry out an attack. They supplied him with a fake bomb, and then arrested him Wednesday when he tried to detonate it outside of a military recruitment office in Baltimore.
Martinez has just 16 friends on the Facebook profile page fingered by AOL News as his. In his About Me section, he wrote, "IM just a yung brotha from the wrong side of the tracks who embraced Islam. Asalaamualaykum to the muslim ummah I love yall but im worried, were are we gonna be ten years from now idk only Allah does and HE knows best."
Well, Martinez may now know where he'll be in 10 years. According to the AFP, he "faces life in prison for attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against US federal property." |
Overview
It is the job of a support to mitigate your own teams mistakes and to punish enemies for their own. Introducing a support who takes a break from the more traditional healing role in order to more carefully sculpt the battlefield.
Feedback is a decent harassment tool and can be quite deadly against squishy mages - it is your primary offensive ability.
Obfuscate is a defensive ability which can be talented into several roles throughout the game including scouting, damage amplification and healing depending on the needs of the team. You can use it on yourself with 100% uptime if you want to stay cloaked, but it is better to save it for a team mate who might need the damage reduction and the escape.
Unstable Phasing is your crowd control. Unlike similar spells from other games (thinking decrepify from dota) units under the effects of unstable phasing can still attack. This minor change will allow you to use it defensively against auto attack heavy heroes (the butcher, illidan, kerrigan) while still being able to use it offensively combined with your own nukes and the followup nukes of your team.Â
Both of your ults have their place:
Mind Control allows you to have a much stronger lane presence, flipping entire pushes on their heads.Â
Maelstrom is a decent teamfight alternative to mind control. It's ease of use (instant cast time) should allow you to hit it more often than trickier, longer lasting stuns (mosh pit, devouring maw). It is most easily compared to divine storm, but has a shorter radius to make up for the ranged presence.Â
Early
Probably best used roaming between lanes or staying near a squish hero for extra protection from ganks.
Use obfuscate to curl around enemy positions and feedback to harass. Disengage often to allow your shield to recharge and perhaps switch lanes to find a better target. Use unstable phasing to secure kills with your feedback and to punish out of position heroes.Â
Midgame
Late
Set up good team fights for your team - call a target, phase it and allow your team to wail on it with spell damage. Maelstrom 3 frontline heroes and jump on the back line with an obfuscated assassin.ÂDepending on your build at this point, you might be able to feed back for over 200% of a heroe's mana pool using Energy Backlash, Gathering Power and Strike from the shadows, combined with your unstable phasing and feedback, allowing you to fullfill a similar role to nova by picking single squishy heroes out before a fight starts.If you went utility you can use Sight's Betrayal to scout which merc camps the enemy team are going for and coordinate ganks accordingly.Finally, you could go protective shield and psionic infusion in order to shore up your teams defenses and keep them strong in skirmishes, similar to a malfurion.ÂIf you took possession, don't forget to ult a creep wave before heading to an objective, the extra push will make sure the enemy pays for ignoring you.If you choose rewind you are capable of scary damage on your feedback. The combination of shield transfer and shield battery allow you to create a durable backline for your team and transfer your unnecessary shields up to the front where they are needed.ÂAlternately, aggressively position the battery and force enemies to make a choice between killing it or focusing your team mates.If you have two charges of posession, the enemy illidan will be your best asset for 8 seconds straight, turning teamfights around.ÂMaelstrom with Psionic Vortex is a potent nuke and stun if you land it coming out of Strike from the Shadows. It is especially good for counter initiation as you can trap an entire team out of position (albeit for a shorter duration than a mosh pit or other similar skill) |
The casino pushed by city officials as a “game changer” for Baltimore registered its lowest level of revenues last month since it opened 2½ years ago.
The reason: the lavish new casino that debuted in December in Prince George’s County.
Horseshoe Casino Baltimore saw its revenues tumble by more than $8 million in January as gamblers flocked to the MGM National Harbor casino-hotel outside of Washington.
The Russell Street casino earned just $20.2 million in January, according to figures released yesterday by the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency.
This compares to $28.5 million in November 2016, the last full month before the MGM facility opened. That amounts to a 29% month-to-month drop. Compared to January a year ago, Horseshoe revenues fell by 14.5%, according to the gaming agency.
The Maryland Live casino in Anne Arundel County has also lost customers and revenue to MGM National Harbor, recording a 13% slide in revenues last month compared to November 2016.
Dubbed the first “world-class” casino in Maryland, the $1.4 billion facility has attracted huge crowds since it opened in early December and recorded $49 million in slot machine and gaming table revenues last month.
Blow to South Baltimore
Unless Horseshoe’s customer base quickly revives, the loss of business to National Harbor will have a negative impact on city residents, who were promised local community funds, reduced property taxes and more aid to schools as a result of the city-sponsored facility.
The most immediate effect will be on community impact grants, which are used to finance police protection and roadway improvements around the casino as well as amenities for South Baltimore communities.
Last November, impact funds coming out of casino revenues amounted to $928,830.81, according to the gaming agency. Last month, they were $676,727.17 (even though there were 31 days of operation in January compared to 30 days in November).
The lower revenue, if not reversed, will require adjustments to the funds now used by the mayor’s office to finance a police “mini-district” around the casino.
Since the casino opened in 2014, the city has used about $4 million in impact funds for increased policing. The proposed police budget in the coming fiscal year is $1.85 million, including some neighborhood patrols.
In its current and proposed budget covering the next 18 months, the city has allotted $575,000 for community park improvements (including $150,000 to stabilize Federal Hill), $600,000 for “complete streets” upgrades in South Baltimore, $250,000 for Middle Branch shoreline cleaning, and $155,000 for street light upgrades and CitiWatch cameras.
Any sharp decrease in casino revenues will force a reduction in those expenditures.
Property Taxes and Jobs
Also promised to voters was a lower property tax rate. During her 2011 election campaign, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said that ground lease revenues from the casino would bankroll property tax reductions for Baltimore homeowners.
Calling it her “Fiscal Responsible Plan,” she pledged to dedicate 90% of the casino’s lease payments to property tax relief.
The promised relief never happened as casino revenues lagged from the start behind the highly inflated projections by city officials.
The continuation of a low revenue stream could also impact casino jobs and investor return.
A Wall Street analyst previously told The Brew that Horseshoe needs revenues of at least $20 million a month to pay off its long-term debt, including the ground-rent lease payments to the city.
A sustained drop-off of customers could lead to financial strains and layoffs among the 2,400 people originally hired by the casino, half of whom were Baltimore residents.
When opened in 2014, the casino was majority owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment. Faced with severe losses from years of over-expansion, the Las Vegas-based company spun off Horseshoe and other casinos to Caesars Growth Partners, LLC.
In January 2015, the parent company filed for bankruptcy. The company recently emerged from court protection after its two major investors, TPG Capital and Apollo Global Management, took a $950 million “haircut” and junior creditors accepted 66 cents on the dollar. Caesars remains the day-to-day operator of Horseshoe.
According to financial filings with the state, Caesars Growth Partners owns 51% of the casino and Rock Gaming, a Midwest casino company owned by Quicken Loans CEO Dan Gilbert, owns 37%.
There are three local investor groups who collectively own 12%:
• Stron-MD LLC, controlled by Belinda Stronach, daughter of Frank Stronach, whose company owns the Pimlico and Laurel race tracks.
• CVPR Gaming Holdings LLC, which includes members of Caves Valley Partners, developers of Stadium Square in Sharp-Leadenhall and the planned renovators/managers of the city-owned Cross Street Market. Additional investors include the prominent developer Theo Rodgers.
• PRT Two, whose principals are listed as Eddie C. Brown, Maria Beckett, James Scott Jr. and Cecil Flamer. Brown and Flamer are principals in Brown Capital Management.
The casino has not issued any public statement about the fall-off of revenue. |
The World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan is working with the Punjab Wildlife Department to restore the decimated population of the Oriental white-backed vulture, also known as the white-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis), in Pakistan. Here, one of the birds leaves the egg in its nest to get a meal of donkey meat at the restoration facility in the Changa Manga forest at Kasur, 45 miles from Lahore. Photo courtesy WWF-Pakistan/Syed Muhammad Abubakar
Oriental white-backed vultures (Gyps bengalensis) are skittish around humans and won't eat if people are nearby. They are known to vomit on people who come close to them.Photo courtesy WWF-Pakistan/Syed Muhammad Abubakar
A committee of Oriental white-backed vultures (Gyps bengalensis) await their next meal at a population restoration center in Pakistan's Changa Manga Forest. The vultures receive frozen donkey, goat or rabbit meat once a day. Photo courtesy WWF-Pakistan/Syed Muhammad Abubakar
Endangered Oriental white-backed vultures, also known as white-humped vultures, keep a watchful eye on human onlookers from their perches in trees near Kasur in Pakistan's Changa Manga Forest. The vulture population restoration project is run by the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan in partnership with the Punjab Wildlife and Parks Department, the Environment Agency, Abu Dhabi and the Hawk Conservancy Trust (United Kingdom). Photo courtesy WWF-Pakistan/Syed Muhammad Abubakar
KASUR, Pakistan, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- With several species of vultures on the verge of extinction in Pakistan, largely because of veterinary drugs used on cattle, an environmental group is investing in a captive breeding program it hopes will contribute to the recovery of the iconic birds.
Deep in the Changa Manga forest, 45 miles from Lahore, World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan is working with the Punjab Wildlife Department to restore the population of the Oriental white-backed vulture, also known as the white-rumped vulture. The scavengers have long been a crucial part of the ecosystem in Pakistan and across South Asia, helping to prevent disease and contamination of groundwater by feeding on animal carcasses.
"We are fighting a losing battle but we can minimize the impact," Hasan Ali, a WWF-Pakistan conservation coordinator, said, speaking through a translator.
On a recent visit to the program, there was a festive feel in the air as workers serenaded the caged vultures before feeding the bald black-and-white birds with the trademark curved beaks chunks of donkey and goat meat. The goal of the program is to help build up the numbers of birds, which have wingspans up to 8 feet, until the environment is safe to release them.
Populations of the white-backed vulture (Gyps bengalensis) and the long-billed vulture (Gyps indicus) have dropped by more than 90 percent and are considered critically endangered across South Asia, mostly because of the use of veterinary drugs such as diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, that have contaminated the cattle carcasses the birds feed on, the International Union for Conservation of Nature says. The drugs cause the vultures to suffer renal failure and death.
Uzma Saeed, another WWF-Pakistan conservation coordinator, concedes there is still much work left to bring these birds back from the brink of extinction.
Part of the problem, Saeed said, is that the veterinary drugs are still being used despite a long-running ban in place across South Asia aimed at helping the vultures recover. A new class of pain killers for livestock has been introduced, including ketoprofen and aceclofenac, which pose similar threats to the vultures.
Muhammad Shafqat, director of the Punjab Wildlife Department, said authorities have levied fines and shut down pharmaceutical companies caught producing diclofenac, and are attempting to raise awareness about the importance of the birds.
"We have specified five zones for vultures breeding in Punjab besides launching awareness programs," he said.
However, it is not drugs alone that cause the vulture numbers to plummet. Another important factor may be the reduction of carcasses because of improved veterinary and livestock husbandry services and better carcass disposal in urban and semi-urban areas. The presence of two Gyps species in the remote Nagar Parkar area seems to support that argument, as veterinary and livestock husbandry services there are less sophisticated.
The birds' breeding sites are also threatened by the loss of Dalbergia Sissoo trees, often home to vulture nests. An increasing number have been cut down by villagers for firewood, while others have fallen victim to termite attacks and dieback disease.
Muhammad Akram, dean of Wildlife and Fisheries at the University of Animal Sciences in Lahore, also blamed the lack of awareness among general public, unplanned urbanization, deforestation, lack of government attention and aggressive human behavior as factors behind the vultures' decline.
"Even scientists with doctorates in Pakistan do not know what functions vultures perform for the environment," Akram said through a translator.
Ijaz Khan, a farmer from Burki village, is typical of most Pakistanis. Rather than recognizing the important role played by the birds, Khan said he was glad to see them disappear.
"Stray dogs are enough in the city to eat the dead animals. I am happy vultures have disappeared from our beautiful land," Khan said.
None of this has dampened the desire of Saeed and other environmentalists to save the vulture. Along with the captive breeding program, WWF-Pakistan is also trying to educate the public about the birds and pressuring the government to do more to enforce the ban on the harmful veterinary drugs.
"We will do what we can to save vultures from the cruel clutches of human beings," Saeed said. "We will leave no stone unturned for this purpose come what may." |
There are many translations and modern-day explanations for stories told in the Bible. Among them are tales of giants that lived among the "normal" sized humans. The King James version of Genesis 6:4 states:
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare [children] to them, the same [became] mighty men which [were] of old, men of renown.
We've all grown up hearing stories about a variety of tall beings:
Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack of American folklore.
The biblical account of David and the giant Goliath.
The gods and goddesses of Greek mythology known as the Titans.
The one-eyed giant Cyclops of Greek and Roman tales.
Jack, who climbed a beanstalk and encountered a giant.
And, of course, ever since his national debut in 1928, we've been exposed to nearly daily images of a very tall, reportedly friendly green giant who rules over a huge valley of vegetables.
Legends abound of giant humans. The New York Public Library lists a 1922 book in its archives, "A Book Of Giants: Tales of Very Tall Men of Myth, Legend, History, and Science," by Henry Wysham Lanier.
On tonight's premiere of History's "Search for the Lost Giants," stonemason brothers Jim and Bill Vieira begin an extensive search and quest for the truth.
But are any of these tall tales of giant beings really true? Is there any accumulated evidence, especially in the form of preserved bones that would surely indicate an ancient tribe or, even, civilization of giants lived on Earth?
Watch Jim Vieira's 2013 TEDx Presentation
Even Abraham Lincoln made a reference to giants. In 1848, then-Congressman Lincoln traveled to Niagara Falls and was so impressed by the imagery of the natural wonder that he wrote down some notes, including the following:
"When Columbus first sought this continent -- when Christ suffered on the cross -- when Moses led Israel through the Red Sea -- nay, even when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker -- then as now, Niagara was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now." Was Lincoln referring to giant humans or extinct animals, i.e. dinosaurs?
And, by giant, we're talking in the range of between 7 feet and 10 feet tall -- truly over-the-top megastar basketball player height.
In the early 1800s, large bones in stone graves were found in Tennessee with an average size of the skeletons at 7 feet tall.
In 1833, soldiers reportedly found a 12-foot-tall male skeleton in California.
An almost 10-foot-tall skeleton was allegedly excavated in Indiana in 1879.
In 1912, 18 giant skeletons were reported in Wisconsin burial mounds.
And, in 2011, Pravda.ru -- the Russian political newspaper -- published an account of a team of anthropologists who found a burial site in Central Africa, including 40 graves that contained 200 bodies of 7-foot-tall individuals. According to Pravda, the researchers believed these beings "were members of an alien landing, possibly destroyed by some terrestrial virus to which they had no immunity."
"We found one important account from the 1895 'Town History of Deerfield, Massachusetts' -- written by noted historian George Sheldon, of an 8-foot skeleton with double rows of teeth that was unearthed ... and the skull was as big as a peck basket," Jim Vieira, 48, told The Huffington Post.
"We then read through thousands of pages of town and county histories in New England and found many more [similar accounts]," of discoveries of several rows of teeth. "It might be a genetic connection to the past. I've seen accounts that describe proportional individuals 10, 11, 12 feet tall. There are multiple accounts of multiple skulls found with double rows of teeth."
Part of the problem in gathering any kind of giant bone or skull-related evidence are the reports where the bones reportedly crumbled to dust.
"We have an incredible amount of stories from credible people," said Bill Vieira, 49. "It's not just somebody who thinks they spotted something -- it's people who measured something."
The Vieira brothers make several references to Smithsonian Ethnology Reports from the 1800s which describe accounts of alleged giants with multiple rows of teeth. But with no actual physical evidence offered to the public about such claims, it fosters an inevitable accusation of a giant conspiracy -- not unlike those found in subjects like UFOs and Bigfoot.
Among the many accounts of giants through history, numerous stories claim that these unusual creatures had double rows of teeth as recreated in the following History Channel series images:
Jim Vieira suggests there will eventually be an actual giant payoff to all of their research.
"There's so much interesting information. There are petroglyphs showing beings with six fingers and toes, giant axes, native legends and it's coming from so many different angles. Throughout history, the chronicles of the ages talked about encounters with giants. It's an ongoing search, and we investigate wild places where the accounts came from." |
Jones was originally scheduled to receive an injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at 7 p.m. but the punishment was delayed for several hours while the U.S. Supreme Court considered late appeals from Jones' attorneys. They asked the justices to block the execution for either of two reasons: because Jones was challenging Georgia's lethal injection secrecy law or because he said his sentence was disproportionate to his crime.
During the delay, Jones waited in a holding cell near the execution chamber as the scheduled time passed, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution.
About 11 p.m. Tuesday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas denied the requests for a stay, the newspaper reported. That meant Jones’ execution would go forward.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, the only entity in Georgia authorized to commute a death sentence, on Monday declined to grant Jones clemency. On Tuesday, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected an appeal that claimed Jones' death sentence was disproportionate to the crime.
Also Tuesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to give a full-court hearing to a challenge to the constitutionality of the state's execution secrecy law. The law classifies as a confidential state secret the identity of any person or entity involved in an execution, including the drug producer.
According to evidence at his trial, Jones and another man, Van Roosevelt Solomon, were arrested at the Cobb County store by a policeman who had driven a stranded motorist there to use a pay phone about 1:45 a.m. on June 17, 1979. The officer knew the store usually closed at midnight and was suspicious when he saw a car out front with the driver's door open and lights still on in the store.
Through the front window, he saw Jones stick his head out of the storeroom door at the back of the store and look around before closing the door, prosecutors have said. The officer entered the store and drew his weapon after hearing four shots.
He yelled, "Police, come on out," and approached the storeroom when no one responded. He found Jones and Solomon just inside the storeroom door and took them into custody, prosecutors have said. Tackett's body was found inside the storeroom.
Tests showed each man had recently fired a gun or handled a recently fired gun. The cash drawer had been removed and was found wrapped in a plastic bag.
Jones was convicted in October 1979 and sentenced to death. A federal judge in 1989 ordered a new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room. Jones was resentenced to death in 1997.
Solomon, who was also convicted and sentenced to death, was executed in Georgia's electric chair in February 1985.
Al Jazeera and The Associated Press |
Brighton have launched an investigation after excrement was found on the floor of the Crystal Palace dressing room before Monday's Championship play-off second leg at the Amex Stadium.
The incident, an apparent attempt to unsettle the visitors when they arrived at the ground, prompted a furious email to staff from the Brighton manager, Gus Poyet, whose side lost the game 2-0.
Poyet, linked with moves to Fulham and Everton, was suspended by Brighton on Thursday over an unrelated alleged breach of contract, as was his assistant, Mauricio Taricco, and the first-team coach, Charlie Oatway. It is not suggested that any of the trio were involved in the dressing-room incident.
In an angry email to employees, reprinted in the Sun, Poyet wrote: "For some reason that is still not clear to me, someone during the day had access to the away dressing room and done [sic] something terrible, trying to upset everyone related to Palace. To say it in clear English, someone had a 'poo' all outside the toilets, over and around the toilets…
"I am angry that someone within this club could endanger our good reputation and stoop so low. Did they imagine that this would affect the Crystal Palace players? Well, possibly it did. It may just have fired them up more.
"Well, someone made a very bad decision and I think it is time to stand up and take responsibility. Not just the culprit but those employees who are supposed to make our stadium safe and secure."
The Palace manager, Ian Holloway, writing in the Croydon Advertiser after their victory, made no direct reference to the incident, but did say: "I don't particularly like Brighton now after some of the comments that were aimed at me and the players when we got to the ground, and they deliberately sent the team coach the wrong way too. A couple of other things happened but I'm delighted we managed to put them in our favour."
Poyet's email also criticised the club's marketing ploy to create more noise inside the stadium by handing cardboard clappers to the home fans.
He added: "It was an extremely silly idea and the result was an annoying noise. I am not for one minute blaming the result of the game on this, but it added only negative vibes to the proceedings."
To compound a miserable week for Poyet, he also came under fire from the former Spain midfielder Vicente, who was released by Brighton after the match.
Vicente told The Argus: "He is the worst person I've come across in football. For me he is a selfish person, very egocentric. I say that because it's how I feel. I won't talk badly about my team-mates, because they have been fantastic with me. What I think is unacceptable is that the manager makes fun of his players. I've seen things here that I have never seen in my career." |
How a one-minute cuddle turned into a fight for life for a small baby
OSCE conducts monitoring on Karabakh-Azerbaijan border, it passes in accordance with agreed schedule
Head of delegation: “Armenian miracle” was noted at OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
Armenian PM honors memory of Sumgait victims
Pashinyan: Strong ties of friendship and partnership with Iran are part of our foreign policy
Doctors remove LEECH from throat of man who coughed up blood for two months
Pakistan says they shot down two Indian fighter jets
Pashinyan-Rouhani meeting starts in Tehran (PHOTO)
Pashinyan on US sanctions: Armenia also worried about recent developments around Iran
Armenian PM: Purpose of my visit is to promote Armenia-Iran relations
New US ambassador to Armenia is in Yerevan (PHOTOS)
Pashinyan: We highly appreciate warm and caring attitude of Iranian authorities
A car crash saved my life: Student only found out he had a BRAIN TUMOUR after treatment for major road accident
Armenia PM arrives in Iran (PHOTOS)
Armenia deputy PM, US chargé d’affaires discuss further development of bilateral cooperation
Erdoğan hopes US will change approach to Turkey’s S-400 purchase from Russia
Newspaper: Armenia PM angry at his campaign team
World's smallest baby boy, born in Tokyo weighing 268 grams, healthy and sent home from hospital
Man found dead in Yerevan car service spot pit (PHOTOS)
Bookmakers’ view on Real vs. Barça clash
Ani exhibition in Ankara continues to interest Turkey press
Adviser to Artsakh president: Baku is preparing for a different solution
Long work hours, weekend working and depressive symptoms in men and women: findings from a UK population-based study
State Department slams Cuba's referendum
Jared Kushner meets with Erdogan
The man with an 'unrelenting' 22-hour erection caused by an illegal TANNING INJECTION: 41-year-old needed hospital treatment after his own efforts to combat his priapism failed
State Department: Europe convinced to Huawei threat
Mexico remains committed to non-interference in Venezuela affairs
'Should I be worried?' Man with one testicle tells a surprised doctor that he's never really questioned it - and has to call his MOTHER to ask if he was born that way
Iranian president rejects Zarif’s resignation
IMF ready to support Armenia
Turkey FM says S 400 purchase is a done deal
Young bone marrow transplantation preserves learning and memory in old mice
Armenia is fourth on number of migrants leaving for Russia
NEWS.am breaking news in a video: 26.02.2019
Zarif comments on resignation
Two Armenia nationals arrested in Istanbul as murder suspects (PHOTO)
Association of Intake of Whole Grains and Dietary Fiber With Risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in US Adults
Rally under “We’ll not surrender an inch of land” motto held in Yerevan (PHOTO)
Eastern Partnership Index: Armenia is second in terms of convergence with EU
Trump arrives in Hanoi for a meeting with Kim Jong Un
Former mayor of Armenian town detained
Dollar continues “climb” in Armenia
Armen Sarkissian: Armenian-Portuguese relations have wonderful future
Artsakh police: Samvel Babayan is on electoral register in Armenia
Bright Armenia parliament faction MPs, EU delegation members discuss situation after change of power in country
Armenia parliament delegation visits Moscow Memorial of Unknown Soldier
France national mugged in Yerevan, suspects are Georgia citizens
Kardashians show off in the sexiest dresses
Armenia to buy weaponry with new $100mn loan from Russia
Exclusive. How Armenian designer Marianna Harutunian managed to make a headpiece for Madonna's Oscars look in just 12 hours (photos)
uPay Virtual Wallet Already a Financial Organisation
New Conservative Party to be established in Artsakh
Armenia-EU bilateral relations are developing very constructively, Świtalski says
Armenian Defense Minister visits border (PHOTO)
Burkina Faso ambassador presents credentials to Armenia President
EU ambassador to Armenia: Impossible to specify time frame for starting visa liberalization talks
Henrikh Mkhitaryan in Premier league team of the week
Armenian PM to leave for Iran
Armenia’s last election was best in independent republic’s history, EU envoy says
Defense Minister: Armenia to purchase offensive weapons
Funniest memes from the 2019 Oscars
Switalski: If transitional justice works in Balkans, it doesn’t mean it will work in Armenia
Switalski: EU ready to contribute to rehabilitation of Karabakh conflict region when peace comes
Armenia PM to Kuwait Emir: Our countries have great potential for development of cooperation
Switalski: Fight against corruption should be comprehensive
Attention-seeker lied that daughter was ill and subjected her to unnecessary medical procedures
MOD on US position on Armenia sending mission to Syria: Everything will be settled
FM: Pakistan Army ready to respond to India actions
Armenia State Oversight Service uninformed about its officials being detained by National Security
Trump nominates Michael Satterfield as US ambassador to Turkey
Fatal traffic accident in Yerevan
OSCE to conduct monitoring on Artsakh-Azerbaijan border
Newspaper: Options for returning Karabakh to negotiating table to be discussed in Armenia
Woman’s nose rebuilt using forehead after spot turned out to be cancer
Large fire breaks out in Armenia area leading to Georgia border
Analitik.am: Armenia National Security detains State Oversight Service officials
Samy Naceri to star in movie about Armenia
Arsenal ex-player retires from professional football
House of Armenia ex-MP, retired General Manvel Grigoryan’s son robbed
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif resigns
EU, LAS agree to strengthen cooperation
Assessment of Bidirectional Relationships Between Physical Activity and Depression Among Adults
Macron welcomes US decision to leave part of US military in Syria
UN Secretary-General urges Russia, US to keep INF Treaty
Armenia FM presents details on Pashinyan-Aliyev meeting to his Artsakh counterpart
Yerevan municipality reveals 73 cases of illegal business activities
China opposes external forces’ interference in Venezuela internal affairs
Assad meets Iran supreme leader in Tehran
US imposes new sanctions on Venezuela
Charity worker, 28, who saw her skin 'fall off' after ditching eczema steroid creams says the side effects have killed her sex life
Macron intends to visit Iraq in the coming months
Ararat Mirzoyan meets Valentina Matviyenko in Moscow (PHOTO)
Parents demand answers after mysterious birth defect leaves more than 20 French babies without arms
UK regulator cannot begin research on Facebook impact on Brexit
Egypt’s President urges European states not to teach Arab world
Armenia PM discusses cooperation with IMF Executive Board Director
Germany intends to extend arms’ exports ban to Riyadh amid France, UK pressure
NEWS.am breaking news in a video: 25.02.2019
Iran-Armenia trade exceeded $364 million last year |
Jean-Éric Vergne is in his third Formula One season and this is seemingly going to be his last. Despite his proven track record, he has been overlooked by Red Bull Racing as somebody who can drive for their team, even with the announcement that four-time champion Sebastian Vettel is seemingly off to Ferrari. Vergne has shown steady progress throughout his Formula One career and I think it would be very sad to see the popular Frenchman be made to leave the sport.
2011 Formula Renault 3.5 runner-up Vergne joined Daniel Ricciardo at Toro Rosso. Ricciardo had half a season with backmarkers HRT whilst Vergne had just three FP1 sessions under his belt. It was a pretty solid if unspectacular season for Toro Rosso, picking up a position that was no higher than eighth in races. Vergne, not Ricciardo was the only one to achieve this – four times in his rookie campaign. Vergne ended the season as the higher-placed driver, with 16 points to Ricciardo’s 10. What was noted was Ricciardo’s exceptional speed on a Saturday, something which he has shown at Red Bull this season; however Vergne was the one who delivered on the Sunday, when the points mattered. For 2013, both drivers were retained, which was somewhat expected as no Red Bull Junior seemed ready at the time. Ricciardo picked up his best result to date, a seventh place at China early in the season, but Vergne went better than that at the Canadian Grand Prix. After qualifying well in the rain, Vergne had a very strong race to finish sixth. At the race previous, the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix, he managed eighth whilst Ricciardo crashed. So on paper, when Mark Webber announced his retirement prior to the British Grand Prix, Vergne should have been given the nod, right? No, it was in fact Ricciardo who was to make the jump. Vergne’s season dropped from that point and he failed to score again, whilst Ricciardo consistently picked up points and beat Vergne 20-13. So during their time as team mates, Ricciardo only scored one more point than Vergne, and we don’t need to mention how well Ricciardo has done this year to know just how good Vergne is then, surely?
Vergne was partnered, somewhat surprisingly by Daniil Kvyat for 2014. The very young Russian received a lot of praise for adapting to the cars very quickly, but everybody had that issue because of the significant change in regulations. Vergne showed notable improvement on a Saturday in the early stages of the year, and has made a fair few Q3 appearances, something which he didn’t do whilst partnered with Ricciardo. Vergne again has shown excellent speed on a Sunday too, having equalled his best result at the Singapore Grand Prix, but it was all too late. It was announced that Max Verstappen, aged just 17 years old was to replace Vergne alongside Kvyat at Toro Rosso which left Vergne without a drive. The reason: “I’m too old” according to Vergne, 24. With the news that Vettel is leaving Red Bull for 2015, that left a seat vacant at the current champions. Instead of going for the driver who has clearly performed better this year, Red Bull has elected to put the 20-year-old who is currently losing the team mate battle 19-8 in terms of points. It seems very unlikely that Red Bull will u-turn the decision to axe Vergne, especially with Carlos Sainz Jr. en route to the Formula Renault 3.5 series title, leaving Toro Rosso with two rookies for 2015.
With a serious lack of top seats available at the moment, Vergne’s only options appear to be the struggling Lotus and Sauber teams, or one of the backmarkers. Should Vergne choose to go to any of those teams, he would need serious funding, and I very highly doubt that Red Bull would be willing to offer that. Also, Lotus already have a top driver in Romain Grosjean, who I am sure they are trying to hold onto. Force India could well be an option should one of their drivers move on, but I don’t see why the consistent Hulkenberg or the improving Perez would move without good reason. It looks as if Vergne could well be off to the World Endurance Championship, quite possibly with the brand new Nissan team, along with fellow Red Bull rejects Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley who drive for Toyota and Porsche respectively. If not that, he could replace his countryman Simon Pagenaud at the SPM team in IndyCar, who has joined Penske. Either way, a driver of Vergne’s calibre has been overlooked twice now when it comes to a Red Bull Racing seat, and is out of the job entirely for 2015 and that’s quite sad to see at the end of the day. You never know, he might be overlooked by the WEC and IndyCar teams too.
Motorsport, it’s a harsh world sometimes.
Thank you for reading. Please take a moment to follow me on Twitter – @Craig_O_F1. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport and @LWOSworld– and “liking” our Facebook page.
Interested in writing for LWOS? We are looking for enthusiastic, talented writers to join our motorsports writing team. Visit our “Write for Us” page for very easy details in how you can get started today!
For the latest sports injury news, check out our friends at sports injury alert.
Have you tuned into Last Word On Sports Radio? LWOS is pleased to bring you 24/7 sports radio to your PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. What are you waiting for? GO!
Main image: |
A glut of movies, no sure things and plenty of questions as the season's former champion hopes not to repeat the flops of 2014.
A version of this story first appeared in the May 1 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara isn't kidding when he says he wants to be the king of content. This summer, Warners will open nine movies nationwide, plus the documentary Batkid, the most in recent history for a studio. Pan was also scheduled to open this summer, but Warners, in a surprise move, announced April 20 it is relocating the big-budget fantasy to Oct. 9, the second summer in a row the studio has abruptly yanked a big July movie a few months before release (Jupiter Ascending moved to February).
The studio's 2014 summer tally was seven, and the industry norm is four to six. The gutsy move puts pressure on Warners' marketing machinery and could squeeze its ability to land screens. For years, Warners dominated the warm months between the Harry Potter and Dark Knight series. But in 2014, sans a big franchise and with such disappointments as Edge of Tomorrow and Blended, it generated only $1.43 billion worldwide from titles released between May 1 and Labor Day, trailing most other studios. Now, again lacking a proven tentpole, Warners is flooding the market, hoping to claim a respectable portion of what most forecast as a record-breaking summer, with domestic box office poised to hit $5 billion for the first time. "What might look like a lot of singles and doubles might be a lot of doubles, triples and homers," says Warners domestic distribution chief Dan Fellman. "It will be tough work, but I think it will pay off. As Kevin says, if we aren't going to handle these movies, someone else will."
Of the studios' two big-budget tentpoles, George Miller's $150 million Mad Max: Fury Road (May 15) was considered the surer bet over Joe Wright's Pan, which was set to open July 24 and likewise cost $150 million to produce. Many in Hollywood were surprised when Warners recently moved up the release of New Line's Vacation reboot from October to July 31, only a week after Pan, prompting chatter of self-cannibalization. Then came word that Pan was moving. For its part, Warners said the decision gives both the film and the filmmakers "extra breathing room." Added Dan Fellman, the studio's domestic distribution chief, "we wanted to give Pan the space to extend its theatrical run, so taking it out of the cluttered summer season made the most sense."
Other summer risks are the Reese Witherspoon-Sofia Vergara comedy Hot Pursuit (May 8) and the family film Max (June 26), both from MGM. Magic Mike XXL (July 1) hopes to match the original's $167.2 million worldwide gross, Dwayne Johnson's San Andreas (May 29) will test the earthquake genre, and a film version of HBO's Entourage (June 3) could face stiff competition from Fox's Melissa McCarthy action comedy Spy, which opens two days later. Still, a big season could float all boats. "This is a good summer to have a lot of skin in the game because there will be a lot of people in theaters seeing your marketing materials," says Rentrak analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "But it's a very crowded game."
***
How the Other Studios Stack Up
Disney (4 releases)
Summer '14: $1.81 billion
Disney will be the summer's biggest player, led by Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1), which boasts the season's highest budget at $250 million. George Clooney's $190 million Tomorrowland (May 22) is benefiting from good buzz, and Pixar returns to theaters for the first time since 2013 with Inside Out (June 19). Ant-Man (July 17), starring Paul Rudd, is the riskiest title on Disney's slate, but then again, many had little hope for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy ($774.2 million worldwide) last summer.
20th Century Fox (5 releases)
Summer '14: $2.71 billion
Fox's surest bet is Paper Towns (July 24), the young-adult film adaptation of John Green's novel, opening a year after The Fault in Our Stars grossed more than $300 million on a $12 million budget. Melissa McCarthy's Spy (June 5) drew rave reviews at SXSW in March, prompting Warner Bros. to relocate Entourage to June 3. The biggest risk for Fox is Josh Trank's Fantastic Four reboot (Aug. 7), which cost $122 million after rebates. The studio has high hopes for the hero team-up but never has been able to get the franchise right.
Paramount (2 releases)
Summer '14: $1.82 billion
Paramount again is releasing the fewest films of any major studio. At press time, the studio had only two titles on its summer slate: Terminator: Genisys (July 1) and Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (July 31). David Ellison's Skydance took the lead on the $170 million Terminator reboot, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Emilia Clarke. The movie is a gamble but is the only action pic unfurling in the July 4 corridor. Tom Cruise's Rogue Nation hopes to best the $694.7 million grossed by 2011's Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol.
Sony (4 releases)
Summer '14: $1.37 billion
When the studio was hacked, the world learned that then-co-chair Amy Pascal was none too pleased with Cameron Crowe's Aloha (May 29), starring Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone. That dramedy will be followed by Adam Sandler's $110 million-budgeted Pixels (July 24), which targets families but opens opposite Pan and only a week after Ant-Man. Tom Rothman's tenure as Pascal's successor gets its first test with Meryl Streep's Ricki and the Flash (Aug. 7); he made the film at TriStar before replacing Pascal.
Universal (6 releases)
Summer '14: $1.97 billion
The home of Fifty Shades of Grey and Furious 7 no doubt is headed for more glory. After Disney, Universal has the most promising slate. The $150 million Jurassic World (June 12), starring Chris Pratt, is the most anticipated summer pic behind Age of Ultron, and Pitch Perfect 2 (May 15) and Ted 2 (June 26) are sequels to hits, not to mention spinoff Minions (July 10). Judd Apatow's Trainwreck (July 17) is an untested property but, like Spy, was a hit at SXSW. Universal finishes the season with Straight Outta Compton (Aug. 14). |
This article is over 1 year old
Centrelink ‘have the power of destroying your life’, says one recipient in submission to Senate inquiry on automated debt recovery system
Welfare recipients caught up in Centrelink’s automated debt recovery system have spoken of feeling powerless, afraid, stressed and overwhelmed.
The Senate inquiry into Centrelink’s debt recovery system, commonly referred to as “robo-debt”, has now received 66 submissions.
The majority are from community groups, welfare rights organisations and individual welfare recipients who continue to hold serious concerns about the way Centrelink is pursuing debts from the most vulnerable sections of Australian society.
The truth about Centrelink's telephone wait times Read more
The inquiry is considering a range of complaints about the system, which has prompted criticism of inaccuracy and unfairness since it began in mid-2016.
The system has recovered $24m in overpayments so far, although it has raised, or identified, $300m that Centrelink wants to claw back.
It sent about 217,000 initial letters demanding explanations for discrepancies in reported income between July and December, 36,305 of which did not result in a debt.
In one submission, a welfare recipient who was issued what appears to be a debt of more than $2,000 speaks of feeling powerless and afraid.
“You feel powerless to challenge Centrelink, you just put your head down and go along with every time-wasting resume writing course they put you in, so that you can still have a roof over your head,” the submission said.
“They have the power of destroying your life, actually and literally. Receiving an automated debt notice from Centrelink reinforces the punitive culture of the department, and shows their attitude that people who need income support are guilty until they prove their own innocence.”
The debt notice arrived two days before Christmas, according to the submission, and the welfare recipient was unable to contact their employer to track down old payslips to disprove the debt.
The welfare recipient knew the debt was wrong, but was struggling to find a way to prove it to the department.
“I knew the alleged debt had to be wrong, but I had no information about how they worked it out and arrived at that decision, so I had no way of checking it,” the submission said.
“I tried to contact my main employer for the time in question, to get payslips, but they are a small employment agency and were closed for the school holidays.
“I had a depressing, stressful Christmas and was scared to spend any money. I did not buy presents for my extended family and spent a good part of our Christmas meal together discussing my Centrelink case.”
The debt has since been reduced, and is still undergoing manual review.
In another submission, a welfare recipient spoke of being “pressured and stressed” after Centrelink began chasing alleged overpayments.
Fiona the Unemployed Bettong v. Centrelink's Tudgesquad | First Dog on the Moon Read more
“It was time-consuming to request the information from my employers and it was very stressful to relive a very hard time of my life; however the collection of data was easier than reporting it to human services,” the submission said.
“The data matching in my case was incorrect and resulted in a fraudulent claim being laid against me. Under the current scheme, had I not provided my own evidence, I would have received a debt notice.”
A third submission spoke of the difficulty in reaching Centrelink staff over the Christmas period. The recipient said they had a debt reduced to zero, only for it to later be increase back to $1,300, and then removed again.
The submitter cited a commonly reported problem with the Centrelink system: its tendency to average out an annual income over 26 fortnights, and then deem a welfare recipient ineligible for benefits at any point during the year.
“Centerlink had just divided my total earnings by 26 and decided I reported incorrectly,” the submission said.
“If they had checked when I change my estimated income for the family tax benefit, this would have been clear, instead it was up to me to chase my employer for pay slips that were up to five years old.”
The Department of Human Services also made a submission to the Senate inquiry.
It said little had changed in the way it matched income data with the tax office. The department said it only averaged out annual income when a welfare recipient failed to provide details.
The department outlined a series of improvements made to the system since complaints were received late last year.
It also said it had conducted a pilot of the system, which had helped it refine its processes before a broader rollout.
The department rejected assertions that less staff were now working in compliance than before, and said almost 1,000 had been trained ahead of the new system’s rollout.
The department has referred some former recipients to external debt collection agencies. There have been complaints about the practices of those debt collection agencies.
The department said the debt collection agencies were subject to consumer law.
Shadow human services minister, Linda Burney, who has led Labor’s opposition to the system, said the submissions show a human side to the problems with robo debt.
“There is a human side to Mr Tudge’s robo-debt disaster – the submissions to the Senate inquiry make it all to clear that this system is hurting the community,” she said.
“The inquiry has more work to do exposing the truth but it is already clear from these submissions that this system is far from ‘working well’.”
Greens senator Rachel Siewert said the submissions evidenced the level of distress felt by those caught in the debt recovery system. She said individuals clearly felt afraid of coming forward.
“A lot of the submissions are either confidential or have their name withheld, which I think demonstrates that people feel intimidated about speaking out,” Siewert said.
“I am glad that people are still submitting so we can hear personal experiences to help understand the impact of this process. Evidence given at the hearings will deepen that understanding.” |
Editorial: Your Thoughts on L.A. Times “Roadshare” Series?
The L.A. Times has been running a series of opinion articles under the tag #RoadshareLA. The pieces are “an online exploration of the seemingly sudden arrival of cyclists as not just a cultural but a political force in California.” Yesterday #RoadshareLA concluded with a pair of videos showing what scares bicyclists and what concerns drivers. You can tell the videos apart because the bicycling one has foreboding music, while the driving one sounds more happy – exactly the opposite of my own experience.
As a cyclist, I welcome the L.A. Times coverage of bicycling. As the saying goes, all press is good press. These pieces let the L.A. Times readership know that cyclists exist. I remember in my early years with the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition (1998-2003) it was difficult to get the Times to devote any space to bicycling issues. The #RoadshareLA articles and videos do serve to further a healthy and needed debate. Streetsblog has shared these articles via our headlines. If you’re a cyclist, you’ve probably seen them in your social media feeds. Anecdotally, from my own cyclist-heavy Facebook feed, it seems like many L.A. cyclists have a positive impression of the series.
I find a few of the #RoadshareLA pieces pretty off-putting – including this article telling us that “Wilshire Boulevard… is not for bicyclists.” Some of them don’t feel newsworthy, including this one about the guy who moved to L.A., rode a few times, then stopped bicycling. Wow. Hold the presses. Some are inane – this one boils down to more-or-less “I read somewhere that driving burns calories.” On the other side of the coin, the series has also featured L.A. livability leadership, including Jen Klausner, Ted Rogers, and Streetsblog’s own Damien Newton.
Looking at whole picture, though, I think it’s good that the Times speaks with multiple voices, reflecting a diversity of opinions.
Now that it’s over (and, hopefully that doesn’t mean that the Times will forget the word bicycle for the next few years), Streetsblog wants to hear your comments on #RoadshareLA. What do you think? What was good? What irked you? What was missing?
Here are a few more of my criticisms on the series:
Windshield perspective – So much of the wording just assumes a driver’s perspective. There are lots of examples, including this article’s title The 2nd Street tunnel’s frustrating bike lanes. Frustrating? I don’t know any cyclists that found these bike lanes frustrating.
Skeptical voice: Take this sentence from this editorial: “The [complete streets] law was designed [to reduce emissions, to improve safety, to enhance the quality of life] and in part, some argue , to reduce obesity.” (bold added) “Some argue” that fostering bicycling and walking reduces obesity? Please. Is there really a debate on this? There’s plenty of research, easy to find.
, to reduce obesity.” (bold added) “Some argue” that fostering bicycling and walking reduces obesity? Please. Is there really a debate on this? There’s plenty of research, easy to find. Lack of diversity: throughout the series, and, especially watching the videos, it seems like every L.A. cyclist is a hip, Caucasian urban professional. Where are the Latinos, the elderly, the working class cyclists?
Focus on differences: I guess it’s less newsworthy if there’s not enough conflict, but the series seems to hold that drivers and cyclists are so so different from each other. Somehow scofflaw cyclists are out wantonly breaking laws, and that angelic drivers aren’t, except for little oopsy “accidents.” For example, three minutes into this video, a driver (who is looking around and speaking into an electronic device) criticizes cyclists for wearing headphones. Damien put it well in this interview: all road users bend and break the rules. Everyone does it. Many drivers speed, use cell phones. Many cyclists run stop signs. Many pedestrians cross streets outside of crosswalks. This equivalence of intention doesn’t mean it’s all ok (I think drivers need to take responsibility for having a lot more metal around them that has a lot more potential for destruction), but I think that, overall, the way we all behave has a lot more in common than what this series portrays.
For my last two cents, I’d like to quote the Times’ Christopher Hawthorne, who editorializes in the paper’s culture pages. In a January 25, 2014 piece titled CicLAvia closes a few streets to cars but can open the city’s mind, Hawthorne wrote:
The truth is that traffic isn’t going to get better. Period. We should stop promising that it will. Congestion isn’t something to reflexively fear, in any case, even in Los Angeles. It is a sign of economic health and a vital urbanism. In fact, every city Angelenos tend to idolize as a haven for pedestrians and users of mass transit and as a model of vibrant street life — whether it’s New York, Shanghai or London — is also “strangled by traffic.”
and
But to define people solely by mode of transportation — to say that they belong to one and only one of these various camps — is to risk missing what might be CicLAvia’s most valuable contribution. Drivers, when they are not behind the wheel, are also pedestrians. Most cyclists also drive cars. The vast majority of pedestrians know what it’s like, as drivers, to feel the soul-crushing frustration of horrible traffic. CicLAvia’s real importance has been to make clear that the divisions that we spend so much time debating — between cyclist and driver, driver and pedestrian, pedestrian and cyclist — are surprisingly malleable.
How about you dear readers? What did you like or dislike about the Times #RoadshareLA? |
2014 Mark Glenn
https://theuglytruth.wordpress.com
The most dangerous thing about Benjamin Netanyahu–and no one should make the mistake of thinking he’s anything otherwise–is that he appears ‘normal’ by human standards. He speaks with a ‘human’ voice, seems to have all the required ‘human’ hardware & behaviorisms and in general is able to pass muster in his daily interactions with others. Best guess is that he has skin rather than scales, eyelids rather than slits, and doesn’t slither on his belly from point A to point B…
The truth however is that all of this ‘humanism’–for lack of a better word–attributed to/associated with Netanyahu is just an illusion of sorts, and the world–for the sake of its own collective life and limb–would be best served by turning a blind eye and deaf ear towards black magic such as this.
Despite a few outward superficialities, there is nothing ‘human’ about ‘Bibi’, nor about those who hold membership in his exclusive streetgang.
Like the ravenous wolf dressed as the harmless old lady in the childrens’ story, his true nature is something else entirely…Otherworldly and subterranean…A living, breathing nightmare, oceans-deep with rich, horrific detail or some dark, foreboding chapter out of either Poe or Stephen King. A wild animal in an expensive suit, ‘King Bibi’ is the stuff of Apocalyptic warnings from centuries past, where prophets went mad forecasting a future time featuring monsters in human form prowling about the world and remaking it into something more to their liking–soaked in blood, scorched with fire and teaming with every type of human suffering imaginable…The type that causes Satan to beam with hopeful pride while simultaneously giving God worry lines and chest pains, he’s the ‘human’ equivalent of the rabid canine that the local sheriff is periodically called out to shoot for the sake of a terrified townspeople. Better suited for either a zoo or a laboratory, specimens like Netanyahu are those whose deeds eventually become so record-breakingly evil in their size and scale that they become permanently burned into the collective memory of man like some mental scar that is passed down generation after generation. He’s the ‘businessman’ whose private deal with the devil takes place each morning while staring into the mirror and a ‘true believer’ in the most dangerous sense of the word, similar to the cyborg featured in The Terminator films who doesn’t need to be pushed or prodded when it comes to inflicting violence against innocent people, given that the program loaded onto his mental/spiritual harddrive is write-protected and impervious to any outside tampering.
This–his ability to blend in with his human surroundings and thus escape detection–is singularly the most important component making him the danger to the civilized world that he is. A beast walking on 2 legs, it is his chameleonesque ability to replicate the outward appearance of humanness that has provided him with the keys to the kingdom and membership to a club where he does not belong, a tragedy due more to the cooperative blindness of his soon-to-be victims rather than to any curse from heaven or quirk of fate.
But besides the truly terrible nature of his nature making him the clear and present danger that he is, it is all the extra baggage he carries with him that portends the worst. While it’s true that humanity has never suffered a shortage of anti-social individuals with ‘bad attitudes’, nevertheless given their lack of resources and inferior positioning on the economic and political chessboard means that the misery they’re able to inflict on large numbers of people is for the most part mitigated.
Obviously not so with Netanyahu. Head of the largest crime family in human history, with life-or-death power over not just millions, but indeed billions of people due to the stranglehold he and his cousins maintain over economics, media and politics, he keeps a terrified world in line with the threat of lighting off some (or all) of the 400 nukes that he and his loyal disciples have smuggled into every world capital over the course of the last several decades. Leaders from every country–from the U.S. to the U.K. to the U.A.E.–doubtless have had it explained to them in infallibly-explicit language that as far as he and his demands are concerned, every request–be it money, political protection or increased war for Israel’s benefit–is an offer that no one can refuse, for the simple reason that when Bibi hears the word ‘no’, bad things happen. Economies crash. Bombs blow up at marathon events. Planes fly into skyscrapers or computer systems that manage and maintain critical infrastructure functions such as powergrid, clean water, or those measures designed to prevent meltdowns at nuclear powerplants go haywire.
But again, more dangerous than Netanyahu’s inherently violent, vicious, and volcanic nature (paired with his ability to make good on the Judaic voodoo he threatens from time to time) is the manner by which he is misunderstood by most of his would-be victims. Rather than being feared for the deadly, highly-venomous viper that he is, instead he is mocked, jeered, ridiculed, made the butt of jokes and in general taken no more seriously than one of the highly-neurotic characters featured on the television series Seinfeld. In an obviously clear, unequivocal warning to the ‘civilized’ world concerning what kind of unpleasant fate awaits mankind if his demands are not met, he personally orders and oversees–in broad daylight–the butchering of more than 2,000 human beings in Gaza, and yet few hear or understand the language being used…Standing before the United Nations and on full display before 14 billion eyes and ears the world over he wields cartoon drawings conveying his personal promise to incinerate every square inch of God’s green earth unless 75 million Iranians are mass-murdered in a real-life/real-time/real-deal re-enactment of the Judaic blood-festival Purim, and rather than this threat being recognized for what it is, instead it is treated like stand-up comedy appearing on an episode of Saturday Night Live. With obvious sneering and condescension, pundits and commentators around the world snicker at the entire spectacle, not realizing that as they do so, a 200 megaton gun is being pointed at their heads and that in the end–barring some act of God–Nutty Netty will be the one having the last laugh the moment he lights the fuse and walks away.
What can be said about all of this, other than ‘it is what it is…’ Rarely has any tidal wave of evil–in this case, psychopaths hijacking ships of state and deliberately steering them over the cliff and into the darkest abyss–beset mankind throughout history where there weren’t clear warning signs that trouble was coming. Mother Nature may indeed be unpredictable when it comes to her oftentimes temperamental mood swings, but as far as the dark side of human nature goes, more often than not the tic-tic-ticking sound of a human time bomb about to go off is hard to avoid hearing.
Nevertheless, as history–and especially present day events–has all-too-tragically shown, people can be convinced (seduced) into believing that the tic-tic-ticking sound they clearly hear is but a figment of their imagination, thus giving otherworldly/subterranean creatures such as Netanyahu the passive cooperation they need in conjuring forth their particular brand of murder and mayhem. Few and far between are those willing to trust what their common sense tells them and recognize the danger for what it is vs. those multitudes who ignore the thunderous noise of the onrushing waters until it is upon them and there is no escaping it.
The difference now of course is that the waters in question are deeper, faster and more lethal. Never before in human history has so much violent, Apocalyptic power resided in the hands of so few people who were free to do so much damage with so little effort.
And–just like his dangerous nature that should not be underestimated–neither should people underestimate the length and breadth to which Netanyahu plans to take all of this at days’ end, an awareness that can only begin with knowing that the one thing which he does best and loves the most is war.
Just as the profile of some infamous crime lord is incomplete without including background scenery such as money laundering, prostitution, drugs, bribery, murder, etc, likewise an accurate accounting of Benjamin Netanyahu remains informationally anemic without mentioning his abnormal appetite for state-sponsored mass-murder, otherwise known as war. Simply stated, take this aspect out of any discussion featuring Netanyahu and there is little to nothing left to discuss.
For ‘Bibi’–the latest incarnation in a long line of King David wannabes–war is his beating heart, (if he has one) his lifeblood (if he has any) and the electrical current that powers his mental functions, if indeed any exist. Envisioning himself the great, great grandson of biblical warrior kings such as Moses, Joshua et al, who ‘made their bones’ (at least as recounted within the pages of Jewish ‘holy’ texts such as Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, etc) by fulfilling the commands of Yahweh to ‘slaughter them all and utterly destroy them’ and to ‘save nothing alive that breathes’ and all the rest of the biblical madness which Israel uses in justifying the Gentile-cide that she perpetrates in the region, war on behalf of the Jewish state is as sacred to Netanyahu as Holy Communion is to Catholics or Salat is to Muslims. Whereas within the ‘civilized’ world, war is considered a pestilence and is viewed only through the lenses of dread, regret, reluctance, reservation, etc, for Netanyahu war is playtime, and the various killing fields over which he has personally presided–from Gaza to Syria to Iraq and beyond–are indeed his playgrounds and sandboxes. While the sights and sounds of deliberately inflicted human suffering and carnage cause civilized others to recoil in horror, for Bibi & co they are a source of spiritual electrification, similar in many respects to the rush of excitement felt by prospectors once gold has been found. Like the High Priest featured in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto who rouses the fervor of his flock to a state of religious hyper-mania by cutting out the living, beating hearts of innocent human victims, so too do Netanyahu and his fellow acolytes achieve the same type of psychological climax in knowing that the god of Israel–as depicted within the various ‘holy’ books of Judaism–is appeased and satiated with the rivers of blood shed in his honor.
Therefore, when he talks about Iran being destroyed, what he means is I-R-A-N B-E-I-N-G D-E-S-T-R-O-Y-E-D, brick by brick, bone by bone…Likewise Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, town after town, city after city, country after country and–if necessary–continent after continent, wherever the religiously-mandated ritual of Gentile-cide may be practiced, as if all of it were some type of installment plan attached to a debt that–according to the accounting firm of Israel, Israel, & Israel–can never be paid off.
The fact that Netanyahu is a ‘purest’ when it comes to the business of Armageddon–and no one should make the mistake of thinking he is anything otherwise–is clearly evident in the various snarlings and growlings attributed to him over the years but which have been mischaracterized by the Gentile world as meaningless political meanderings with no deeper implications attached. Indeed, just as with the infamous ‘bomb-gonna-go-boom’ cartoonery he utilized at the UN General Assembly in 2012 conveying the threat of Judaically-induced holocaust against Gentiledom if his demands regarding war with Iran and others are not met, likewise have there been numerous other instances where Mr. 666 talks with the mouth of a man but speaks the language of the beast.
And if ever there were an instance where the world should have perked up its ears and honed in on that tic-tic-ticking sound of a human timebomb about to blow, it was in June of 2012, a mere few months prior to his well-known incident at the UN, where Netanyahu, like some crime boss giving orders to his assembled caporegimes, addressed a gathering of pro-Zionist operatives in the U.S. via telecom and discussed the manner by which ‘militant Islam’ would be defeated by the end of the 21st century.
Not by the end of the year or end of the decade, but end of the century.
For those who don’t get the math here, what this means is that a war that began when the 21st century was a mere newborn baby still in diapers, a war that’s already destroyed the lives of millions of people, decimated the global economy, stopped human progress dead in its tracks and set 1.5 billion Christians and 1.5 billion Muslims (collectively making up nearly 1/2 of the world’s population) at each others’ throats is–according to Netanyahu’s timetable–‘jes gettin’ warmed up,’ with another 88 years to go.
And let no one be fooled by his use of the term ‘militant’ as a qualifying adjective in describing Islam. Like his bomb cartoon brandished at the UN, this was typical gangsterese on his part, i.e. saying one thing but meaning another…Rabbinical sleight-of-hand and a spell of sorts meant to hypnotize the collective Gentile mind and prevent it from understanding what kind of devastating Judaic black magic he and his fellow wizards have cooked up in their caldron of Zionist intrigue.
His use of the term ‘militant’–meant to materialize in the Gentile mind imagery of ISIS, ISIL, Al Qaeda, etc–in actuality is an all-encompassing term meaning any and all followers of Islam. To Netanyahu & co, the ‘militant’ Muslim is the Palestinian boy who throws rocks at IDF terrorists who just shot his mother and baby sister in cold blood…It is the young Iraqi woman who–despite seeing her country obliterated after 20 years of Israeli-engineered war, nevertheless–insists upon maintaining her chastity and wearing her hijab…It is nations such as Iran, Syria, Libya (before its destruction) and others who insist upon remaining sovereign, stable countries, as opposed to those such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia et al who have surrendered their necks over to the vampire and in the process have become mere handpuppets to global Zionist designs.
In short, to Netanyahu (and to those who share his vision of the future) ‘militant’ Islam is any organized barrier–spiritual, political, economic, social or moral–to the same deadly Z-bola contagion that has decimated the nations of the ‘Christian’ West. Just as all social order within the once-vibrant Christian civilizations has been transformed into an extended real-life/real-time/real-deal re-enactment of The Walking Dead as a direct result of the town well being poisoned with the toxic, fecal-laden moral sludge flowing out of the synagogue, so too is this the only form of Islam that Netanyahu & co find ‘acceptable’. As carriers of a deadly spiritual virus that cannot exist in a sterile, anti-biotic environment, Netanyahu & co understand that Judaism and Islam occupying the same space on this late, great planet earth is simply not possible. Whereas Christianity–given its fatal attachment to the same Torah that serves as the beating heart and lifeblood of the entire Judaic structure–provides organized Zionist interests a ‘back door’ through which hackers may surreptitiously enter and hijack the religion based upon the teachings and personhood of Jesus Christ for their own criminal purposes, Islam however contains no such liabilities. In Islam, there is no depiction and celebration of founding fathers such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, et al being thieves, liars, murderers, usurers, war criminals, etc, in the same manner by which they are represented in Judeo-Christianity and which forms the basis upon which the entire Zionist narrative rests.
Therefore, given that no such depictions exist within Islam that can be used in penetrating, subjugating, degenerating, mutating, debaucherizing and bastardizing it so as to bring it ‘into the fold’ as a cooperative family member alongside Judeo-Christianity, the only way it can be dealt with is through war.
The devoted followers of Judaism–understanding that it is an all-or-nothing paradigm that has no place in its lexicon for ideas such as ‘live and let live’–understand therefore that Islam cannot be permitted to continue as a pure and incorrupt ideology, but must instead either be made sick and weak through a century of war so as to mitigate its influence in world affairs or else be eradicated from the planet in its entirety.
And this, the Apocalyptic, far-reaching implications of Netanyahu’s 100 year war against ‘militant’ Islam, is the devil in the details that few–especially in the West–seem to grasp. The peoples of the once-Christian West, basking in their unrivaled power–economic, political, military, etc–fail to see that–contrary to what their bought-and-paid-for religious leaders tell them–it is not ‘God’ who has blessed their civilization with such largesse, but rather the most dangerous crime family ever to exist in human history. A century ago, just prior to this, the ‘Jewish Century’ (as described by writer Yuri Slezkine) the time period scheduled to serve as the 100 year gladiatorial game between Christianity and Islam, organized Zionist interests began the process of seizing control of the various power centers of the West, after which time steroids cooked up within the temples, lodges, and synagogues were injected into the bloodstream of Western Civilization so as to create this present monster-in-human-form that had but one purpose–to prowl about the world and remake it into something more to the liking of Judaism’s eternal aims–soaked in sacrificial blood, scorched with sacrificial fire and teaming with every type of sacrificial human suffering imaginable.
Equally tragic is the fact that the West–in acting as the dutiful, loyal un-hired hand for the synagogue in rampaging through the Islamic world and eradicating the one remaining block of resistance to the same system of institutionalized evil which prophets of old went mad foretelling, at the same time what these worshipers of the beast fail to understand is that this 100-year campaign against Islam actually has 2 intended victims, the 2nd one being Christianity itself. By setting the 2 peoples–who collectively make up nearly half the world’s population–at each others’ throats, what organized Jewish interests hope to achieve is the killing of two birds with one stone. 100 years of ceaseless, bankrupting war can only result in the complete economic and political meltdown of the aggressor civilization that can then only result in its own ruination. As a civilization ostensibly built around the teachings and personhood of Jesus Christ, it will cease to exist as such, leaving only Judaism as the dominant and domineering influence in world affairs, and as such, the synagogue and its ruling class, the Sanhedrin, will have finally achieved what did not materialize 2,000 years ago with a mafia-hit against a Galilean carpenter that backfired.
To many, a scenario as Apocalyptic as this, brought into being by a mere string of words requiring no more than 5 seconds in speaking and coming out of the mouth of a mere man seems implausible. Accustomed to associating big things only with big beginnings, many are–to their own detriment–incapable of joining together images such as raging infernos and tiny sparks.
Such skeptics would do well however to remind themselves that similar conflagrations throughout history–before war became the instant, on-demand product that it is now–began in similar ways, including one that destroyed the lives of tens of millions of people that began with one bullet fired by an assassin named Gavrilo Princep in 1914.
Indeed, in many dramatic and traumatic events throughout history, it is the details–including (or especially) those coming out of the mouths of nightmarish creatures such as Netanyahu–that often matter, the small things that seem to escape the notice of the average ear and the average mind, but which in essence are the corners, closets, and crevices that serve as hiding places for the devil. |
Food Tank, in partnership with The George Washington University, is hosting the 1st Annual Food Tank Summit in Washington D.C. on January 21-22, 2015.
This two-day event will feature more than 75 different speakers from the food and agriculture field. Researchers, farmers, chefs, policy makers, government officials, and students will come together for panels on topics including food waste, urban agriculture, family farmers, farm workers, and more.
Food Tank recently had the opportunity to speak with Mia Dell, Chief Lobbyist at United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), who will be speaking at the summit.
Food Tank (FT): What will your message be at the Food Tank Summit?
Mia Dell (MD): I want to stress the importance of coalition work. UFCW partnered with a wide range of advocates to change a proposed rule that would have sped up the processing line in poultry plants to the detriment of the workers and the consumers. UFCW worked with consumer advocates, food safety experts, and animal rights activists to change the rule.
FT: How are you contributing to building a better food system?
MD: My role is to be the voice of the workers at the table. UFCW members work in food slaughter, processing, and retail. They are largely invisible to consumers. It is my job to make sure their interests are represented in Congress and the administration.
FT: What are the biggest obstacles or challenges you face in achieving your organization's goals?
MD: Ever since Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” consumers have been concerned about the quality of the food they eat. They are not concerned, however, with the safety and compensation of the people who work in the food processing food chain. The biggest obstacle I face is making these workers visible to consumers.
FT: Who is your food hero and why?
MD: Margo Wootan at the Center for Science in the Public Interest is my food hero and mentor. She is the reason we have nutrition labeling on menus and menu boards at fast food and casual dining restaurant chains. She took this idea that was controversial and quite niche, and through sheer force of will was able to move it from ivory tower ideal to national law. If we had ten more of her we could change the food environment for the better.
FT: In 140 characters or fewer, what is the most important thing we can all do to help change the food system?
MD: Stop fighting amongst ourselves for scraps of funding.
The event is SOLD OUT, but interested participants can sign up for the live-stream HERE. Or JOIN US for dinner and a reception to celebrate Food Tank's two-year anniversary on January 21st at 5:30pm EST. This event will also sell out fast, REGISTER NOW. |
Experts have little expectation that an accord, if it can be achieved next week by the negotiating countries — Iran, the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — will be the comprehensive and detailed agreement the West has long sought.
And some of the United States’ negotiating partners have already begun to send signals that the immediate goal is a partial understanding that would codify fresh progress while extending the negotiating deadline yet again.
“I’m not optimistic that we can get everything done by Monday,” said Philip Hammond, Britain’s foreign minister, during a trip to Latvia on Wednesday. “But I think if we make some significant movement we may be able to find a way of extending the deadline to allow us to get to the final deal.”
At a news conference after his meeting with Mr. Fabius, Mr. Kerry insisted that his goal for the current round of talks remained resolving the key elements of a comprehensive accord.
“We are not talking about an extension,” Mr. Kerry said. “We are driving towards what we believe is the outline of an agreement that we think we can have.” |
Back in the day when the British had a penchant for conquering the world, they ran into a little problem on the subcontinent; cobras. Turns out there were a hell of a lot of the buggers wandering around India and it also turned out that they were rather venomous which didn’t sit well with the colonials. Ingenious as the British were, they decided to offer the citizens a bounty – you hand in dead cobras that would otherwise have bitten some poor imperialist and you get some cash. Problem solved.
Unfortunately, the enterprising locals saw things differently and interpreted the “cash for cobras” scheme as a damn good reason to start breeding serpents and raking in the dollars. Having now seen the flaw in their original logical, the poms quickly scrapped the scheme meaning no more snake bounty. Naturally the only thing for the locals to do with their now worthless cobras was to set them free so that they may seek out a nice cosy British settlement somewhere.
This became known as the Cobra Effect or in other words, a solution to a problem that actually makes the whole thing a lot worse. Here’s a modern day implementation of the Cobra Effect as it relates to the ability to paste your password into a login field:
Let’s just allow the nuances of that one to sink in for a moment…
I imagine Steve was picturing armies of elite hackers working through password dictionaries with the old CTRL-C / CTRL-V and the ICO then sweeping in and taking British Gas’ proudly mounted security certificate down from the wall in the foyer. That’s about the best I can come up with, but let’s not single out British Gas here, this is a far broader issue than just them.
For your security, we have disabled pasting of passwords
As far as amusing infosec tweets go, British Gas did a fine job but there are plenty of others who also reject the ability to paste into the password field as well, albeit with less humour:
But what does this actually look like? I mean a website can’t disable the fact that your operating system and browser have some form of equivalent of CTRL-V, so what happens when you paste? Here's Go GE Capital before logging in:
Now here they are after entering the username and pasting the password:
Right…
Go GE Capital just kills whatever is pasted, it disappears in the blink of an eye. No warning, no “For your safety…” message, just goneski.
PayPal take a slightly different approach on their change password page:
Ok, you get a message which is nice, but zero info on why you shouldn’t be pasting in your password. I’ll come back to this example later on though because there are other things going on here which help explain their rationale.
Before we go on though, let’s take a quick look at the mechanics behind the anti-paste mechanism so we can better understand what goes into saving us from ourselves.
The mechanics of an anti-password-paster
Right, let’s drill into this and see what’s going on behind the scenes. We’ll pick someone different this time, let’s try the Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia just for a change of flavour. As you can see below, I’ve typed in a username and pasted a password:
Yeah, about that password… Anyway, the question remains, what voodoo is breaking this most fundamental of behaviours? For Al Rajhi, it’s very simple:
< input type ="password" name ="j_password" class ="DataPasive" maxlength ="14" size ="23" onkeypress ="return logonWithEnter(event) " autocomplete ="off" onpaste ="return false">
That’s it – the onpaste event is returning false. Sound unfamiliar? I mean the onpaste event? Yes, it’s a thing, here’s a JSFiddler so you can play with it yourself. But there’s also this regarding the event:
Non-standard event defined by Microsoft for use in Internet Explorer.
C’mon guys, we’ve been down the non-standard implementations in browsers before and it always ends in tears. Thing is though, not only does it work in IE but it works in Chrome too. And Safari. And Firefox. And even if it didn’t, there are always bright JavaScript ideas to “hack” the ability of CTRL-V out of browsers.
The point is that there are many ways of skinning this cat and it can be very easy. However, it’s a conscious decision – the developer has to say “You know, I really don’t think people need a paste facility, I’m gonna kill it”. But of course we really should touch on why people want to paste into password fields to begin with so let’s cover that off now.
Why on earth would you want to paste a password anyway?!
The argument of whether you should use a password or a passphrase or just let the cat wander over the keyboard and see what happens has been well and truly had and in the end it always comes back to this: The only secure password is the one you can’t remember. If you haven’t already reached this enlightened state then free yourself from the shackles of human memory-based passwords and grab 1Password or KeePass or LastPass.
The premise of all of these is that you delegate “remembering” your password to the password manager and instead the only real memory required (at least of the human variety) is to remember the single master password that gains you access to all the other ones. Again, the debates on the pros and cons of this have been had so go back to the aforementioned blog post and read the comments if you want to jump on that bandwagon.
Once a password manager has the credentials stored, clearly at some point in time you want to get them back into a login form and actually use them to gain access to the website in question. Password managers like 1Password can make this profoundly simple in that they have the ability to auto-fill the login form of the website in question. For example, I was able to successfully use it to attempt to login to the Al Rajhi bank:
As you can clearly see from the red error message, the login credentials were incorrect (I’m guessing “johnsmith” may not be that common of a name amongst their customers). But as you can also clearly see from the request headers, both the username “johnsmith” and the password “joshsmith” were successfully sent. In other words, whilst that non-standard onpaste implementation may be blocking the old CTRL-V, 1Password’s ability to auto-fill the form is not hindered.
However, clever tricks like auto-fill don’t always work. Sometimes the name of the form field changes either due to the site being revised or because of a perceived value of rotating and obfuscating the ID of the field. Sometimes you want to use the same credentials on multiple domains of the same service and auto-fill only works against the domain the pattern was recorded on. Sometimes you’re in iOS and you really just want to use Safari so you copy from the 1Password app and paste into the browser.
There are many, many valid reasons why people would want to paste passwords in order to increase their security profile yet the perception of those blocking this practice is that it actually decreases security. Why? Interesting you should ask…
Because we’ve been bad, please create a weak password
I was admittedly mystified by this practice so I asked around and got a whole range of answers along the lines of “because some developers are just stupid”. Hard to argue with that although in fairness, this is often something dictated to them (although perhaps they should be doing a better job of articulating the counter-reasons). I thought I’d ask 1Password given these guys spend a bunch of time thinking about how to securely get creds into websites. They pretty much concurred with everyone else:
Security theatre madness. Sounds about right.
But there’s one angle to this that helps explain the madness and it goes back to that earlier PayPal screen grab. This was of the change password page, not the login page. You can easily paste into the login page and in fact you can even paste into the original password field on the change password page, just not the new password field or the other field that confirms it.
But it’s not just PayPal, apparently it’s the same with the Oyster Card site in the UK:
You can easily paste into the password field of the login page for the Oyster card, but apparently you can’t on the change password page. The reason lies in the earlier message I showed from PayPal, in particular this part of the password criteria:
Use 8-20 characters
Ah, so because you’ve gone and put an arbitrary limit on the length of my password and taken away my ability to create a nice a 50 character random string, you’ve had to kill the paste function because otherwise I’d go around thinking I’ve got a 50 char password but it was actually truncated to 20 due to the maxlength attribute of the password field. Nice one guys, good work there, bet you’re saving a bundle of ingress data costs by cutting out those extra bytes!
This, of course, is madness. Once passwords are stored, the hash of a 50 character password is an identical length to that of a 20 character once which incidentally, is also identical to that of a 100 character one. (Of course also keep in mind that there’s a lot more to password storage than just hashing) All of you creating these low arbitrary limits are actually hashing our passwords, right? Guys?
I’ve written about why we’re forced into choosing bad passwords in the past and there’s never really a good reason, just various shades of bad reasons. That these bad reasons must then extend to disabling customers’ ability to use a password manager to at least randomise the characters within the allowable limit only compounds the problem.
Here’s an idea – if you really want to force people into creating short passwords because [insert baseless reason here], how about just watching for when the password field suddenly has the maximum number of allowable characters in it without the corresponding number of onkeypress events and then saying “Excuse me, you’ve pasted a password we can’t accept, could you please weaken it somewhat?”
But, but, but… malware could steal your login, yeah, that’s it, malware!
There is a counter-argument to pasting passwords and it goes like this: if your computer is infected by malware, the nasties inside it may be able to access your clipboard and steal the password you copied onto it. Sound crazy? Trusteer doesn’t think so:
Of course the irony of this position is that makes the assumption that a compromised machine may be at risk of its clipboard being accessed but not its keystrokes. Why pull the password from memory for the small portion of people that elect to use a password manager when you can just grab the keystrokes with malware? Crikey, the operating system itself doesn’t even need to be compromised to do that, you just grab a cheapie keylogger off the web and plug it into someone’s USB keyboard. Job done.
In summary, just don’t
Of course it all comes back to this balance in security where there are no absolutes and things are often a trade-off between cost, convenience and actually making the web a safer place. But in the case of passwords, one of the best damn things anyone can do is get themselves a password manager and stop typing in that same crappy combination of kids birthday and dog’s name they’re using all over the place.
In the examples above, we’ve got a handful of websites forcing customers into creating arbitrarily short passwords then disabling the ability to use password managers to the full extent possible and to make it even worse, they’re using a non-standard browser behaviour to do it!
Hey, I’ve got an idea – maybe I should offer a bounty where if anyone comes to me and demonstrates that they have a crappy password on a site but is then able to kill it off and create a secure one, I give them some cash. What could go wrong?! |
Since Kim Jong-un succeeded his father, Kim Jong-il, in 2011, the 31-year-old has been trying to make his mark as Supreme Leader of North Korea. However, a recent interview with a North Korean defector from Kim Jong-il's inner circle indicates that Kim Jong-un is nothing more than a symbolic head, and that the real power belongs to a mysterious organization called the Organization and Guidance Department (OGD). Even weirder? Its director was none other than Jang Sung-taek, the uncle whom Kim Jong-un executed in December. The execution has, apparently, cut all familial ties between the organization and the country's supreme leader.
In the interview, North Korean defector Jang Jin-sung explains that the OGD is like "an old boys' network" made up of Kim Jong-il's university friends. Kim Jong-il rose up the ranks with the men who run the organization, and these very men, most of which the world has never seen, are still running the show.
"When Kim Jung-il died and Kim Jong-un succeeded him, people saw the transfer of power from father to son," Jang Jin-sung told CNN. "What they did not see also was what happened to the apparatus of the totalitarian system that supported the rule of Kim Jung-il."
That apparatus is essentially the OGD, a body of the government that Kim Jong-un may not have close ties with the way his father did. And now that his uncle is out of the picture, there is nothing that ties him to the institution. Jang Jin-sung assesses that the current situation means that Kim Jong-un has no real power as Supreme Leader of North Korea.
"Kim Jung Il had the OGD as his old boys' network," Jang said. "Kim Jong-un may have friends in his Swiss school, but he has no one inside North Korea."
So who are the OGD and what do they do? |
(Picture: George Lawlor/metro.co.uk)
George Lawlor, a Warwick University student and a senior reporter at the Tab, posted an article about an invitation he was sent to some ‘consent lessons’ about sexual behaviour.
In the article, titled ‘Why I don’t need consent lessons’, George said: ‘I feel as if I’m taking the “wrong” side here, but someone has to say it – I don’t have to be taught to not be a rapist. That much comes naturally to me, as I am sure it does to the overwhelming majority of people you and I know.
‘Brand me a bigot, a misogynist, a rape apologist, I don’t care. I stand by that.’
He claimed that he was completely against the lessons and felt they were a waste of time. This, of course, sparked outrage, with someone calling it ‘one of the most ignorant, misinformed, short-sighted and downright incorrect articles I’ve ever read.’
Advertisement
Advertisement
And social media followed suit:
The irony is that this is exactly the sort of twit who needs to go on a consent course. http://t.co/LrHTVE3lny via @TheTabWarwick — Jane Casey (@JaneCaseyAuthor) October 14, 2015
Speechless at how someone can undermine such important education that fills a crucial hole in our curriculum, awful: http://t.co/LUAkasB9dL — Ione Wells (@ionewells) October 14, 2015
@laurafleur I want a shower after reading that, what an angry little creepbag — harrietreuterhapgood (@hapgoodness) October 14, 2015
George has since deleted his Twitter account but Metro.co.uk spoke to him.
He talked about why he was being a target for criticism:
‘I feel like I don’t need to go and people I know don’t need to go,’ he says.
‘But people will say that’s because I live a privileged white middle class lifestyle.
‘They may be right, they may be wrong. But I feel as though their efforts are wasted. It may be beneficial for some people and stop instances of abuse, but it just seems like wasted efforts.’
Which, we assume, will stop the criticism.
But, why, after being invited to attend, would he feel the need to write the article?
(Picture: George Lawlor/metro.co.uk)
‘I found the invitation to the lessons insulting,’ he says.
‘I don’t consider myself to be somebody who doesn’t know what consent is. Maybe I just have too much faith in my peers.
‘I don’t think consent requires teaching. I don’t think they need to be taught not to be a rapist.’
Advertisement
Advertisement
He thinks that people like him, from a ‘privileged white middle class lifestyle’, are ‘not what [rapists look] like’.
He even held up a sign for a photograph.
University freshers’ weeks are a ‘killing field’ for sexual violence, Dianne Witfield, chief officer at Coventry rape and sexual abuse centre, told the Guardian in 2014.
With this being said, we asked him why he felt the lessons were not suitable for students.
George said: ‘I don’t want to be dogmatic about it.
(Picture: George Lawlor/metro.co.uk)
‘One reason may be because I’ve never been groped by somebody. Perhaps i’m shielded and naive.’
But a lot of drinking happens in Freshers’ Week.
‘Maybe, under the influence of alcohol, it raises the question of who can kiss whom on a night out.
‘Both parties have to be drunk [or] both parties have to be sober.’
But what about if a woman could be drunker than a man (or the other way around)?
Although it may have started as consenting, it is impossible to give further consent if you’re so drunk you pass out.
‘How will a drunk person remember consent lessons?,’ George says.
George continued to complain about the length of the course itself. ‘It’s short. It’s only going on for a week. I don’t think something as short and quick is going to change anything. You have to be taught it growing up. And I’m going to imagine most people were.’
But he does concede that there are issues to be dealt with:
Advertisement
MORE: Babysitter who sexually abused boy, 11, claims she fell in love after his dad set them up
‘There definitely is a problem with sexual harassment and rape, there’s no denying that,’ he says.
‘Something needs to be done but I don’t think this is the best way.’
And these consent lessons, he says, would only be preaching to the converted:
(Picture: George Lawler/metro.co.uk)
‘I imagine it’ll be an echo chamber, he says.
‘If you’re likely to mistreat somebody in a situation like that you’re not going to go to a consent session.
‘I envisage these consent sessions to be people telling each other what they already know.’
MORE: Babysitter who sexually abused boy, 11, claims she fell in love after his dad set them up
When asked how he felt a victim of sexual attack would respond, George said: ‘I’m not going to presume to know what a rape victim would say because they’ve been through something so traumatic that I can’t properly comprehend.’
‘I’m sure the people running the lessons are nice people and they do genuinely care. If they saw a rape victim they would empathise with them and try to help them but in a bigger scale, it isn’t going to help.’
(Picture: George Lawlor/metro.co.uk)
Advertisement Advertisement |
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
PROSPECT, Va. (WTVR) - Sheriff's deputies are investigating a deadly shooting and home invasion in the Prospect area of Prince Edward, according to Prince Edward County Sheriff's Office.
Deputies responded to a call in the 5000 block of Prince Edward Highway regarding a home invasion.
The caller reported that three people with weapons entered his house and exchanged gun shots.
Officials say two of the suspects were shot and pronounced dead at the scene, while the third suspect fled on foot.
Deputies describe the third suspect as a black male wearing dark clothing. No identification has been released.
K-9 units were used to track the suspect a quarter of a mile west of the crime scene. Authorities believe he got into a vehicle on Route 460.
The two deceased bodies are being transported to the medical examiner's office here in Richmond to determine the cause of death and identification.
This is a developing story. |
Indian Police Still Searching For Principal In Poisoning Case
Enlarge this image toggle caption Narinder Nanu /AFP/Getty Images Narinder Nanu /AFP/Getty Images
By Thursday afternoon, the number of children poisoned by their school lunch at a rural school in Bihar, India had risen to 23.
As we reported, doctors suspect the food the children were given was laced with a toxic insecticide.
Today, we get word that the principal at the school, who was tasked with overseeing the school meals program, has absconded and police were searching for her.
CNN reports:
"Bihar state Education Minister P.K. Shahi said the children were poisoned by an insecticide that was in the food. "Shahi said he heard reports that the school's cook had questioned the quality of the oil she was supposed to use, but was overruled by the school's headmistress. "'The information which has come to me indeed suggests that the headmistress was told by the cook that medium of cooking was not proper, and she suspected the quality of the oil,' Shahi said. 'But the headmistress rebuked her, and chastised the children, and forced them to continue the meal.' "It's unclear how the children were 'forced' to continue eating."
The Times of India reports that authorities have opened an investigation.
The Hindu reports that beyond the obvious problem of controlling the quality of foods at schools, the families of the victims complained about improper medical facilities. The paper reports:
"Little Kajal convulsed twice and fell silent. With an aching stomach, she made the long journey from the local primary health care centre to the government hospital in Chapra, Saran district. Her brother Rajesh Sah who rushed her for treatment saw his sister die before his eyes. He then informed the doctor about it. "'At the Chapra Sadar hospital, the doctor said there was no needle and not enough oxygen for everyone. I saw my sister convulse twice. She did not move later. I thought she was dead and called the doctor. He asked me for my mobile phone and using its light, he checked her eyes and declared her dead. In Chapra, the facilities were even worse than the PHC,' Mr. Rajesh told The Hindu."
IBN has two other important headlines on the case: Children of the state, today, refused to eat their lunch and the Ministry of Human Resource Development says it warned the Bihar government about the quality of their meals back in April.
IBN reports: |
Dawg Pound Daily has held a steady place as FanSided’s home for Cleveland Browns coverage dating back to when the site was first launched in December 2007. This team’s roster has seen plenty of changes in that time frame and so too has the roster of writers here on site. There’s a lot of history on both sides, both with this franchise and our efforts to write about it.
Despite the changes, there has always been one constant with regards to our goals here: to give you folks, our readers, the very best Browns discussion that we possibly can.
Consider yourself a passionate fan? Read us or other sites with regularity and ever wonder if you should write about the team too? Maybe you’re just stumbling across us for the first time and you like what you see. We are looking to add to our staff here on site and this could be your chance to step off the bench and join the team.
Expectations
We like to let our staff write about the aspects of the team that they are most passionate about. Like dissecting a defensive scheme? Want to weigh in on a new signing or the roster construction? Have an opinion on a free agent the franchise should go after? Maybe you just want to chip in on game reactions, look back at the team’s draft successes, or any number of other potential story ideas that could relate to this team.
Writers are asked to contribute a minimum of 1-2 posts per week. We’ll always welcome more frequent contributions, but we won’t require it.
We know that for the most part this is primarily a hobby and something you do for the love of it. That’s why we do it too. Most of us have families, full-time careers, and/or school to balance into our lives as well. This is an opportunity to join a staff of writers here who are simply passionate about the Browns and want to continue to reach the rest of this great fan base.
Want to join us?
Applying is very easy. Head on over and complete an application. It’ll give you a chance to share some insight into your background (prior online writing experience is not necessary but always encouraged) and let us know why you’d be a fit on site, so give your best. We’ll be in touch from there. |
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump's choice for national security adviser, walks through the lobby at Trump Tower on Nov. 29. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The son of the top national security adviser to President-elect Donald Trump was removed from the new administration’s transition team on Tuesday after backing a bogus conspiracy theory that inspired a shooting incident in Washington, according to people familiar with the matter.
Michael G. Flynn and his father, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn — Trump’s designated national security adviser — have both used their social media accounts to promote fabricated claims, including allegations that aides to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton were involved in a child prostitution ring.
But the younger Flynn had renewed his support for the baseless allegation even after a North Carolina man armed with an assault rifle arrived at a pizzeria in Northwest Washington on Sunday to investigate the fictitious crime. The shooter, police said, fired at least two rounds at the restaurant before he was arrested. No one was hurt.
“Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it’ll remain a story,” Flynn posted on Twitter just hours after the shooting, referring to a conspiracy theory circulated by right-wing groups that alleged — falsely — that the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant served as a front for child abuse by Democratic operatives.
The tweet was the latest instance in which Flynn, 33, who has served as his father’s chief of staff and scheduler, has propagated phony news stories and incendiary views.
President-elect Donald Trump named retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn his national security adviser on Nov. 18, but Flynn has a history of making incendiary and Islamophobic statements that have drawn criticism from his military peers. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
His dismissal appeared to mark the first time that the Trump transition team had held one of its insiders to account for such activity. The younger Flynn had a transition team email address but is believed to have had a limited role, serving mainly as an aide to his father. The son appeared to have shut down his Facebook account, where he had also posted incendiary images and material.
The older Flynn had also lent credence to phony claims that hacked Clinton emails contained code words for child exploitation. A veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the elder Flynn has never disavowed that claim and is poised to be among the most influential advisers in Trump’s White House.
Neither Flynn responded to requests for comment. On Tuesday evening, the younger Flynn’s Trump transition email address appeared to have been deactivated.
Philip Rucker contributed to this report.
Read more:
Designated national security adviser and his son are among those pushing Clinton conspiracy theory |
BEIJING (AP) — China is set to overtake Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in a resurgence that is changing everything from the global balance of military and financial power to how cars are designed.
By some measures it has already moved to second place after the U.S. in total economic output — a milestone that would underline a pre-eminence not seen since the 18th century, when the Middle Kingdom last served as Asia’s military, technological and cultural power.
China is already the biggest exporter, auto buyer and steel producer, and its worldwide influence is growing. The fortunes of companies from Detroit automakers to Brazilian iron miners depend on spending by China’s consumers and corporations. And rising wealth brings political presence: Chinese pressure helped to win developing countries a bigger voice in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
“Japan was the powerhouse driving the rest of Asia,” said Rob Subbaraman, chief Asia economist for Nomura Securities. “Now the tide is turning and China is becoming a powerful influence on the rest of Asia, including Japan.”
China’s rise has produced glaring contradictions. The wealth gap between an elite who profited most from three decades of reform and its poor majority is so extreme that China has dozens of billionaires while average income for the rest of its 1.3 billion people is among the world’s lowest. Beijing has launched two manned space missions and is talking about exporting high-speed trains to California and Europe while families in remote areas live in cave houses cut into hillsides.
Japan’s people still are among the world’s richest, with a per capita income of $37,800 last year, compared with China’s $3,600. So are Americans at $42,240, their economy still by far the biggest. But Japan is trapped in a two-decade-old economic slump, the U.S. is wrestling with a financial crisis, and China’s sheer economic size and the lure of its vast consumer market adds to its clout abroad.
Its explosive growth has driven conflicting shifts in Asia and beyond, triggering a scramble for commercial opportunity but fueling unease that the wealth is helping to finance a military buildup to press the communist government’s claims in the region.
“I think everyone in the region is trying to benefit from Chinese economic dynamism but at the same time is trying to make sure China does not become a regional hegemon,” said Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian newspaper.
Exactly when China passes Japan formally will be unclear until after this year ends. It depends on shifting exchange rates and data reported in different forms by the two governments.
Chinese GDP in 2009 was $4.98 trillion and Japan’s was $5.07 trillion. In 2010, Chinese GDP was $1.335 trillion for the April-June quarter — a period for which Tokyo has yet to report. China is growing at 10 percent a year, while Japan’s expansion this year is forecast at no more than 3 percent.
“On that basis, the crossover probably happened last quarter,” said Julian Jessop, chief international economist for Capital Economics in London, in an e-mail.
Beijing appears to take it for granted that it already has overtaken Japan.
“China already is the world’s second-biggest economic body,” said a deputy central bank governor, Yi Gang, in a policy discussion posted July 30 on the foreign exchange agency’s website.
Australia has been one of the biggest beneficiaries as China’s voracious appetite for iron ore, coal and other commodities drove a mining boom that kept its economy growing through the global crisis.
That booming trade prompted Australia to reconsider its stance toward China, previously seen as a communist aggressor. In 2008, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a Mandarin-speaker who was a diplomat in Beijing, called for closer political, economic and academic engagement with the Chinese government.
But Rudd also displayed Australia’s independence from Beijing by talking about human rights, Tibet and China’s Muslim minorities — issues Chinese leaders want other countries to keep quiet about. And Australia affirmed its longtime security alliance with Washington — a counterweight to China’s growing might. Rudd’s successor, Julia Gillard, has given no sign of a major change of direction.
In the long historical view, China’s 21st century rise is a return to the status it held for most of the past 2,000 years as “Zhong Hua,” or the Central Brightness, East Asia’s economic and military giant and a beacon of technology and elite culture to societies from Vietnam to Korea to Japan.
China’s was the biggest economy, with its workshops and textile mills accounting for up to one-third of global manufacturing. But it went into steep decline in the 19th century as its rulers resisted mimicking Japan’s embrace of Western technology. By the 1930s, China produced just a few percent of global factory output.
After a civil war, communist takeover and political upheaval, free-enterprise reforms pioneered by leader Deng Xiaoping opened the door for hundreds of millions of Chinese to work their way out of poverty.
Since those reforms began in 1979, China has grown into the world’s low-cost factory, its biggest exporter and producer of half its steel. It wants to evolve beyond cheap manufacturing and is trying to build up technology industries but has had little success so far.
Last year, the World Bank ranked China 124th among economies in per capita income, behind Latin America and some African nations, while Japan was No. 32. The United States was 17th.
Yet already, China’s consumers are so avidly courted by global companies that products from autos to home appliances destined for sale worldwide are designed with their tastes in mind. This year, French luxury goods maker Hermes Group unveiled a brand, Shang Xia, to be designed specifically for Chinese customers.
Unlike Japan, which renounced aggressive force after its World War II defeat, Beijing sees itself as Asia’s rightful military leader. It has openly possessed nuclear weapons since the 1960s and is spending heavily to build up the Communist Party’s military arm, the 2.5 million-soldier People’s Liberation Army.
Beijing’s military outlays are the world’s second-highest and have tripled since 2000 to an estimated $100 billion last year, though well behind Washington’s $617 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
China’s demand for oil, iron ore and other raw materials is pumping money into developing economies as far-flung as Angola and Kazakhstan that supply them. Chinese companies are making inroads into Africa in search of resources and markets.
“Now, Africa has an alternative development model,” said Derek Scissors, a Heritage Foundation scholar in Washington. Instead of Western investment with environmental or other strings attached, Scissors said, “they now see the Chinese as an alternative: ‘We don’t want to deal with you. We’ll get some Chinese state-owned company to put $1.5 billion into this mining project.’ “
Chinese pressure helped to trigger the biggest changes in decades in the U.S.- and European-dominated World Bank and IMF, which agreed to give China, Turkey, Mexico and other developing countries a bigger say in picking leaders and deciding policy.
The boom has helped communist leaders pay to cultivate “soft power” — educational and media activity to win hearts and minds abroad.
Of course, even after slipping to third place, Japan is still rich and comfortable — the Switzerland of Asia.
The society that created hybrid cars and the Walkman has 99 percent literacy and the world’s longest life expectancy at 83 years. Tokyo is the capital of fine dining, with more Michelin-starred restaurants than Paris.
Toyota has overtaken General Motors as the biggest global automaker at a time when China companies have yet to establish their own brand names.
Now, with Japan in the rear view mirror, can China catch up with the United States?
Yes, say many analysts.
China could match the U.S. in total output as early as 2020, said a World Bank forecast in June. But still, it said per capita income would be one-fourth the U.S. level, comparable to Malaysia or Latin America.
Achieving even that will require China’s unelected, secretive leaders to radically change their state-dominated economy.
They need to promote technology and education, fight rampant corruption that is stoking public anger and resist temptation to favor government-owned companies at the expense of a dynamic private sector that creates jobs and wealth.
Success is far from guaranteed, warn the World Bank and others.
They say China, Mexico and other developing countries easily can stall at middle-income levels if they fail to develop an educated, creative work force and legal systems to support innovation or if they allow entrenched companies to stifle competition.
“Are they going to pass the U.S. in total GDP? Yes, very likely,” said Scissors. “Are they going to move into upper-middle-income status? That’s a much tougher thing.”
___
Associated Press writer Tomoko A. Hosaka in Tokyo contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. |
Samantha Joseph led lovestruck Shakilus Townsend into an ambush in a quiet cul-de-sac where he was beaten with baseball bats and stabbed six times.
The teenager bled to death after the ''relentless and merciless attack'' by a masked and hooded gang in Thornton Heath, south London, in July last year.
Joseph, who was 15 at the time, laughed as they caught up with him, walking away as they began their brutal assault.
Her older boyfriend, Danny McLean, plunged a knife into Shakilus's chest, raking it across his liver before twisting the blade.
Joseph, 17, from Brockley, south London, was ordered to be detained for a minimum of 10 years.
As he lay bleeding to death, Shakilus, from Deptford, south east London, called out for his mother and cried: "I don't want to die."
Judge Richard Hawkins told the gang: "You left him to die a lonely death, crying for his mother."
Joseph, and McLean, 18, from Thornton Heath, were found guilty of murder alongside five other youths in July.
They were all given life terms as Shakilus's mother wept at the back of the court.
Nicola Dyer, 34, said in a statement read to the court by a lawyer: "The reality that these young people with no souls had such a disregard for life that they deliberately conspired to use manipulation to cause nothing short of destruction is absolutely soul-destroying for me.
"They should never again be allowed to destroy another family. I may forgive them one day, but not today."
McLean was ordered to serve a minimum 15 years' detention. Andre Thompson, 17, from Norwood, south east London, was given a minimum 14-year term.
Former public schoolboy and London Irish rugby player Andre Johnson-Haynes, 18, from Croydon, south London, brothers Tyrell Ellis, 19, and Don-Carlos Ellis, 18, of Thornton Heath, together with Michael Akinfenwa, 18, from Norwood, were given minimum sentences of 12 years. |
Last week, the Philadelphia 76ers announced a deal to buy majority stakes in two e-sports franchises — Team Dignitas, a longtime fixture on the professional gaming scene, and Apex, a relative newcomer. The teams will be merged under the Dignitas banner. This came shortly after the news that a group including Golden State Warriors co-owner Peter Guber, Washington Wizards majority owner Ted Leonsis, and Magic Johnson bought the e-sports franchise Team Liquid. E-sports just leveled up.
People have been predicting pro gaming as the wave of the future for 20 years or so. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s the idea was that audiences would one day watch Doom or Unreal Tournament competitions on television. Streaming video changed the equation; it allowed e-sports to develop organically, and deliver content directly to their fans. The mountain has come to Muhammad.
E-sports is a catchall term, blunt and unwieldy. It covers any video game that people compete in for the entertainment of others. First-person shooters like Halo and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, virtual card games like Hearthstone, and multiplayer online battle arena games (MOBAs) like the wildly popular League of Legends and Dota all fall under the banner of e-sports.
I’ve been playing video games for my entire life. Lately, my semiregular fix of digital escapism has taken the form of rising e-sports game Overwatch. (Dear Blizzard: Please make solo-cueing in competitive less shitty.) I watch Overwatch pros on Twitch with semiregularity, and I watched European squad Misfits defeat U.S.-based Envyus in the Overwatch Open grand finals on TBS last weekend. I’m not a hard-core e-sports fan, but I dip in for what I’m interested in. Even so, writing about e-sports partnerships fills my gamer brain with static clouds of cognitive dissonance.
Traditional “ball and stick” sports are easily separated, conceptually, from the vast and deeply rooted economic partnerships that help fund them. You can watch the Los Angeles Rams be awful on a Sunday afternoon without having to think too deeply about the NFL’s brand partnership with the Microsoft Surface.
Not so with e-sports. It is impossible to talk about e-sports without sounding like you’re sexting with Darren Rovell. What began in the 1980s and ’90s as a handful of independent tournaments for gaming aficionados exists now as naked — and necessary! — advertising. E-sports are an essential strategy for building an audience and maintaining interest in a particular video game. This, perhaps, is why e-sports appear impenetrable to old-school sports fans and the uninitiated.
If you think it’s hard keeping up with television, try video games. More than 30 titles will be released this October, and that number doesn’t include indie games and mobile offerings. Finding a game amid the haystacks of titles on the marketplace Steam, for example, is essentially a nonstarter without the guidance of one of the platform’s curated lists. Games compete for your attention share with other games, social media apps, web content, streaming video, television, and movies, as well as live sporting events.
All of this is to say, the reason that various figures from the traditional sports and entertainment spheres are investing heavily in e-sports is [extremely Rovell voice]: That’s where the millennials are. As many as 112 million people will watch an e-sports event this year. More people watched League of Legends than the 2016 NBA Finals. Seventy-five percent of the e-sports audience is between the ages of 18 and 34, tech savvy, and deeply engaged with the sport, according to Deloitte Global. Revenues, though, are still small relative to the massive audiences. Market research firm Newzoo estimates that e-sports will pull in just under $500 million in 2016; in 2015, the NHL had revenues of $4 billion. No wonder that investors are so hot on e-sports; there’s gold in them thar hills.
A “Big Four” sports franchise taking over an e-sports team is a first, but it’s not exactly an unprecedented development. Former NBA player Rick Fox was early to the game, pun unintended. He bought Gravity Gaming — now known as Echo Fox — in 2015. In March 2016, Shaquille O’Neal, Alex Rodriguez, and Jimmy Rollins became investors in NRG eSports, a team owned by Sacramento Kings minority owners Andy Miller and Mark Mastrov. In September, Jonas Jerebko bought the rights to the Renegades. And, while not an owner or investor, Jeremy Lin is the brand ambassador and face of Team VGJ.
One way to think of the Sixers’ deal for Team Dignitas and Apex, then, is as one business co-opting a competitor before it matures into a real threat. This is to the mutual benefit of both parties, of course. I spoke with former Bioware CEO and Electronic Arts VP Greg Richardson, whom the Sixers have hired to manage their new acquisition, and he essentially agreed with that analysis.
As for Philadelphia’s goals for Team Dignitas, Richardson said: “We want to be the world’s best team. And to do that, we have to attract the world’s best players. We’re going to bring the Sixers training facilities, all the sports sciences, the nutrition, the sleep, to get these players playing at a peak level, and to keep them as happy human beings. It’s gonna be more than just, Hey, here’s an opportunity to play with other great players and win championships. It’s also, We’re going to take care of you, we’re going to build your personal brand.” Which sounds like the e-sports version of Suge Knight at the Source Awards.
I also spoke with Leonsis, and he talked about the value he adds to Team Liquid, as someone with several NBA and NHL lockouts in his rearview mirror.
“How do you deal with players and one day a union that emerges to represent the players? I’ve been on the executive committee of the NHL, I’ve worked on the CBA negotiations, and that I think will become important one day,” Leonsis said.
Both Richardson and Leonsis stressed the integrity, and long histories, of their respective acquisitions. Team Dignitas was founded in 2003; Team Liquid in 2000. On the scale of e-sports, these are epochs. “Mike O’Dell — ODEE — as we call him,” Richardson said. “He’s been running Dignitas for 13 years now. Which when you think about it in ES life, it makes them the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs of e-sports, one of these venerable, passionate fan bases, with great tradition.”
They may have its storied institutions, but e-sports are still the Wild West. This is gaming, after all, along with all the toxic behavior that comes with it. Just last May, during the Twitch livestream for the DreamHack tournament, professional Hearthstone player Terrence Miller — who plays as TerrenceM for the e-sports team Gale Force, and is black — was the subject of an avalanche of racist posts in the livestream chat panel. Miller was surprised; not that it happened, but how bad it was. “I was getting texts from my parents saying ‘Oh, we saw you on your interview, really good job,’” Miller told Polygon. “I was just hoping they saw it in full screen and didn’t see the chat.”
In addition to the all-too-common racism and misogyny, e-sports have been gripped by numerous cheating scandals, match-fixing allegations, and issues stemming from the quasilegal gambling using weapon skins as currency. Right now it’s up to the individual teams to police their members, but when it comes to bad behavior on the part of fans, it’s difficult to do anything about it. Taming e-sports without dampening the tremendous energy of the community will be a challenge. And it’s not clear that e-sports, without outside investment from traditional media and entertainment entities, would be up to it.
“It’s endemic,” Leonsis said of the toxicity. “Anonymity drives a lot of people’s courage. And in the gaming industry, that community needs to do a better job of policing itself without coming off like it’s establishment.”
Richardson agrees. “There’s a quarter billion people who will watch an e-sport match this year,” he told me. “But in terms of creating the kind of marketplace that fans can rely on, where they know there’s not cheating or illegal gambling going on, the roster moves and the interactions between teams are all above board, and creating the kind of entertainment value and rule set that can stand the test of time … all of those things are things we feel we can be helpful to. Our aspiration is to make it even more mainstream than it is today and to go deeper in terms of engaging those quarter billion people that are interested in e-sports.”
In some respects, the e-sports gold rush resembles the online-poker and daily-fantasy booms, and the growth of MMA. The tech-based growing pains of DFS, in particular, mirror the challenges that e-sports face in stamping out cheating and match fixing. E-sports, though, are something different. While traditional entertainment powers are searching for an answer to the fractured status quo of the peak content era, and cable behemoths are wetting size-big-boy pants over millennials canceling their subscriptions, investors increasingly see e-sports as something like a landing strip hacked into the jungle.
“The biggest risk is taking no risk,” Peter Guber said recently to ESPN. “The bottom line is these are not the cord cutters we are dealing with. They are the cord neverers. And the opportunity this presents for us in the enterprise business and the sports entertainment business is to use this space to interact with these people. So maybe there’s some anxiety about the Wild-West nature of it, but then there’s some comfort in knowing you have experience in owning venues and teams in various leagues, that we have the knowledge of best practices and that language still works in this world.”
The Sixers are the first North American major sports team to buy into e-sports, but there will surely be others. The mix of energy, demographics, and baked-in product placement is intoxicating for people who make a business out of making businesses. E-sports are nowhere near done leveling up. |
Contiguous transcontinental countries. Non-contiguous transcontinental countries. Countries whose transcontinental status depends on either the legal status of their Countries whose transcontinental status depends on either the legal status of their claims or the definition of continental boundaries used. A map of transcontinental countries, and countries that control territory in more than one continent.
This is a list of countries located on more than one continent, known as transcontinental states or intercontinental states. While there are many countries with non-contiguous overseas territories fitting this definition, only a limited number of countries have territory straddling an overland continental boundary, most commonly the line that separates Europe and Asia.
The boundary between Europe and Asia is purely conventional, and several conventions remained in use well into the 20th century. However, the now-prevalent convention, used for the purposes of this list, follows the Caucasus northern chain, the Ural River and the Ural Mountains. It has been in use by some cartographers since about 1850.[1] This convention results in several countries finding themselves almost entirely in "Asia", with a few small enclaves or districts technically in "Europe". Notwithstanding these anomalies, this list of transcontinental or intercontinental states respects the convention that Europe and Asia are full continents rather than subcontinents or component landmasses of the larger Eurasian continent.[original research?]
Listed further below, separately, are countries with distant non-contiguous parts (overseas territories) on separate continents. |
As the final hours of a memorable 2012 regular season played out in living color, Denver Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey sat back, relaxed and enjoyed a hi-def glimpse into his past.
Scroll to continue with content Ad
Bailey, whose Broncos had earlier claimed the AFC's No. 1 playoff seed with a 38-3 cold-cocking of the calamitous Kansas City Chiefs, spent Sunday night watching the Washington Redskins secure the league's 12th and final postseason slot with a 28-18, NFC East-clinching victory over the Dallas Cowboys.
Bailey, fresh off his 12th Pro Bowl selection and still seeking a Super Bowl ring at age 34, had all sorts of nostalgic pangs as he stared at the television set. The 'Skins, the team that picked him in the first round of the 1999 NFL draft, were gunning for their first division title since his rookie season. And Washington's current coach, ex-Broncos boss Mike Shanahan, was the man who brought the future Hall of Famer to Denver in March of 2004, trading star halfback Clinton Portis for Bailey and a second-round draft pick.
NBC's cameras even showed Portis, who last played in 2010 and formally retired last August, taking in the game with the aid of retro-chic sunglasses from a FedEx Field luxury suite, having been summoned to witness 'Skins rookie running back Alfred Morris break his franchise record for single-season rushing yards.
"It was cool to watch," Bailey said an hour after the Redskins' seventh consecutive victory. "I was feeling some emotions because, I mean, I played there. My old head coach is there. I like Shanahan. I want to see him do well. And I'm a fan of football. It was fun checking out [Robert Griffin III]."
Story continues
Thanks to the Broncos' 11th consecutive triumph, Bailey will get to do some additional football-watching next weekend, as Denver is one of four teams to have earned a first-round bye. And thanks to the spirited performance of the Indianapolis Colts — or, depending upon your point of view, the Houston Texans' lack of mettle — Bailey and his teammates will host the AFC championship game at Invesco Field at Mile High should they win their divisional-round clash on Saturday, Jan. 12.
[Related: Texans lose swagger, grip on AFC's top seed]
And here, on a compelling day that featured the defiant dominance of Adrian Peterson, is where Bailey's story circles back upon itself once more.
First, consider that when Shanahan made the blockbuster deal for Bailey — the NFL's first high-profile, player-to-player exchange since the Oakland Raiders had traded Ken Stabler to the Houston Oilers for Dan Pastorini in 1980 — it was viewed as a direct response to the Broncos' lopsided defeat to the Colts in the 2003 playoffs.
The Indy quarterback who terrorized Denver's secondary that day, of course, was Peyton Manning. That would be the same Peyton Manning who, in his first year with the Broncos after a tumultuous, neck-surgery-triggered breakup with the franchise with which he'd long been identified, provoked the dramatic comeback that helped Denver go from struggling sub-.500 team to Super Bowl favorites.
Let's flash back to October, when the Broncos were 2-3 and trailing 24-0 on the road at halftime to the San Diego Chargers, who led the AFC West at the time. Manning, as Denver wideout Demaryius Thomas recalled later that month, "walked around the [locker] room and talked to us, one by one, very calm and very sure about what we needed to do. He said, 'We're cool. We can come back. Just chill and play your game.' "
If chillin' can be equated to roaring back for a 35-24 victory, then closing out the season as the hottest team in football, then yeah, the Broncos are chillin' like Bob Dylan.
And Manning, who has joined Minnesota Vikings running back Peterson in a two-man race for Most Valuable Player, Comeback Player of the Year and Most Likely To Make LeBron James Ask For An Autograph, will get to work any and all of his January playoff magic amid the mile-high chill of the Rockies.
For that, the legendary quarterback owes a debt of gratitude to —wait, for it — the Indianapolis Colts, who did the Broncos a solid by playing hard when they didn't have to. Though already guaranteed to hold the No. 5 playoff seed, regardless of the outcome of Sunday's game against the Texans at Lucas Oil Stadium, the Colts went all out in rookie coach Chuck Pagano's return from treatment for leukemia and defeated the Texans, 28-16.
[More: Chuck Pagano's perseverance through leukemia inspires Colts]
As a result, Houston fell from a presumptive No. 1 seed all the way to No. 3 — and a first-round meeting Saturday with the Cincinnati Bengals, who on Sunday gutted out a 23-17 victory over the Baltimore Ravens — the team which will host the Colts in the AFC's other first-round game.
This means that a potential dream matchup between the Broncos and No. 2 seeded New England Patriots — or, as it will justifiably be billed, Manning vs. (Tom) Brady — would take place in the AFC championship game, and in a stadium that would evoke memories of Bailey's epic, 100-yard interception return of a Brady pass in the Broncos' divisional-playoff victory over the Pats in 2006.
"Now I would love that!!" Brady said Sunday night via email, speaking for millions of football fans.
Is your head spinning yet? Bailey's isn't, partly because his mind has been dutifully programmed to focus on the here and now, rather than looking ahead or at the larger landscape. He attributes that to the steady leadership of coach John Fox, a.k.a. The Tsunami, and to the businesslike demeanor of the Broncos' exacting, 36-year-old quarterback.
"[Sunday] was business as usual, and that's one thing I like about Peyton: He kind of stays the same every week," Bailey said. "He gets guys hyped up when he has to — and there've been several times when they've needed it — but it really is just about the task at hand.
"The way everything was shaking out, we didn't really pay much attention to that. I think finishing strong was the main thing, and we didn't really get caught up in what else was going on. Whether [the Colts] did us a favor or not, we were going to focus on ourselves."
For those interested in the big picture, here are some of the important things we learned on the final Sunday of 2012:
• Peterson isn't just a fantastic and ridiculously productive player. He's also valuable in the purest sense of the word. With the Green Bay Packers needing a victory to avoid being leapfrogged by the San Francisco 49ers for the No. 2 seed — and with Aaron Rodgers putting on one of those space-age displays that makes it obvious the Packers are a legitimate threat to win their second championship in three seasons — Peterson simply carried his team to victory. His 27-yard run in the final minute set up Blair Walsh's game-winning, 29-yard field goal that gave the Vikes a 37-34 triumph as time expired and put Minnesota, coming off a 3-13 season in 2011, into the postseason at the Chicago Bears' expense. "AD" finished with 199 yards in the game and 2,097 for the year, eight shy of Eric Dickerson's 28-year-old, single-season record. "As the quarterback, you're supposed to turn and carry out a fake after you hand off the ball," said Christian Ponder, the Vikings' much-maligned second-year signal-caller, who had the best game of his career on Sunday. "But Adrian's so amazing that sometimes it's hard not to look back and watch, just to see what he's gonna do."
[Related: Christian Ponders outduels Aaron Rodgers to help put Vikings in playoffs]
• Watching helplessly while rooting for your biggest rival to facilitate your path into the playoffs is not a terribly pleasant experience. After the Bears closed out a 26-24 victory over the Detroit Lions to put themselves within a Vikings defeat of the postseason, I spoke to Chicago defensive tackle Henry Melton, who was attempting to get in touch with his inner Cheesehead. "It's not the best feeling," he said, laughing. "But we kind of put ourselves in this situation by losing some games, so hey, we've got to deal with it." Now, the Bears will spend the offseason dealing with the knowledge that they squandered a 7-1 start.
• There will be a new champion come February. The New York Giants — despite their 42-7 blowout of the Philadelphia Eagles — were eliminated from playoff contention once the Bears defeated the Lions. There also will be a new coach in Philadelphia, as Andy Reid was reportedly fired after 14 seasons, likely putting him in play for one or more of the other openings expected to occur in the coming days. Some people call it "Black Monday." I refer to it as "Headset Twister."
• None of next weekend's first-round matchups should be taken for granted. The Bengals, who lost to the Texans in a first-round game a year ago, have a much better defense this time around, and Houston looks utterly discombobulated. "They could beat Houston with their defense," said one head coach familiar with both teams. Similarly, the team that once inhabited Baltimore (the Colts) is far hotter than the team that will host Sunday's game in Charm City, though in fairness the Ravens clearly coasted on Sunday in Cincinnati, pulling quarterback Joe Flacco and running back Ray Rice after two series. The third meeting in five weeks between the Packers and Vikings will take place Saturday night at Lambeau Field, where Green Bay defeated Minnesota, 23-14, on Dec. 2. And the Seattle Seahawks, who pulled out a 20-13 victory over the St. Louis Rams for their fifth consecutive victory, will be favored on the road against the Redskins, despite the fact that Washington's current winning streak exceeds the Seahawks' by two.
• Finally, while the Broncos seem to be ideally situated, nobody in today's unpredictable NFL can feel like his team is sitting pretty. In the NFC, the top-seeded Atlanta Falcons elected to play to win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a meaningless game — and still suffered a 22-17 home defeat, which will do nothing to quell all those Regular-Season Warriors fears.
For now, eight of the 12 teams still alive are preparing for battle, while the other four chill and wait to see how the first weekend shakes out. Though some players, including veteran Packers cornerback Charles Woodson, have said that they prefer not to have a bye, reasoning that such a break messes with a team's rhythm and momentum, Bailey has no such objections.
"It feels great," he said. "We get a week to rest, and there are a lot of guys who need it. We can get some guys back who are injured, and it just helps our team. I think it'll make us more focused, because we can prepare for the teams we might end up playing."
[Winners/losers: Bad habits cost Packers a first-round bye]
And after watching the Redskins' victory over the Cowboys — and taking that detour down Memory Lane — Bailey is even more excited about the prospect of playing in (and hosting) his first AFC championship game since the Broncos' January '06 defeat to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who'd upset (yep) the Colts the week before.
This time, Manning — the man whose mastery provoked Bailey's arrival in Denver in the first place — would be playing for the home team. That sounds just fine to the most decorated cornerback of his era, who certainly doesn't mind that his and Manning's careers are perceived as intertwined.
"Well, people did say that a lot when I got here — that [the trade] was because of Peyton," Bailey said. "I just think it was a team that needed a good corner and went out and took a chance. It was a risky move. They gave up a great player to get me. It turned out to be a good situation for me."
And thanks to Manning's old friends in Indy, the Broncos' current situation couldn't be any better.
TAKE FIVE
1. For the record, while the infamous "Fail Mary" didn't derail any team's championship hopes — the Packers overcame that replacement-ref fiasco to win the NFC North, and the Seahawks would have been seeded fifth even without that dubious victory — it did leave one stain: Had Green Bay emerged victorious that September night at CenturyLink Field, the Pack would have earned the second seed (and a first-round bye), and the 49ers would have slipped to No. 3 and hosted the Vikings.
2. For those of you who read my column about the dearth of minority offensive play-callers Friday and indignantly responded along the lines of, "Why are you bringing up race and why don't you write about how there aren't any white cornerbacks?" here are a few things to consider: 1) This is a very real issue in NFL coaching circles, not one I created to advance a social agenda. 2) A similar underrepresentation exists in the high-level front office ranks, so keep an eye on all the GM firings and hirings in the days and weeks to come. 3) If you think this column was "militant," you should have read what I used to write in the days when star coordinators like Marvin Lewis were getting snubbed for head-coaching jobs, and even after things got less dreary.
3. If I told you that an NFL team was capable of surrendering 28 consecutive points in less than five minutes without its opponent taking a single offensive snap, how many of you would have yelled "Jaguars!" before I completed the sentence? Even before watching his team achieve that unthinkable feat in Sunday's 38-20 defeat to the Titans to complete a 2-14 season, Jacksonville owner Shad Khan had already decided to fire the general manager he inherited, Gene Smith, on Monday. His new general manager will then determine the fate of coach Mike Mularkey, who's hoping the last impression isn't the best impression. Then again, Mularkey didn't make much of a first impression. And the middle impression wasn't thrilling, either.
4. The Saints got some great news Friday when exiled coach Sean Payton agreed to a five-year contract extension, but their lost 2012 season ended as horrifically as it began. New Orleans (7-9) suffered a 44-38 defeat to the Carolina Panthers (7-9) at the Superdome, and its defense allowed 530 yards to run its horrendous season total to 7,042, eclipsing the "record" set by 1981 Baltimore Colts, which allowed 6,793. "Yeah, what a way to be part of history, huh?" said veteran linebacker Scott Shanle, one of several defenders who may not return to the team in 2013. "What a miserable, up-and-down season."
5. That the Cowboys' season was essentially ended by a roughing-the-passer call on defensive end Jason Hatcher was regrettable, especially because he seemed to be making an honest effort to deflect Griffin's pass while being blocked low and likely didn't intend to make contact with the quarterback's head. But hey, that's the way the rule is applied these days, and it happens. That the Cowboys' season was dealt its KO blow three plays later on Alfred Morris' touchdown run without the benefit of an official, on-field replay review was just silly. Yes, it looked like Morris crossed the goal line with the ball before fumbling, but there was enough confusion on the field — and the initial replay angles were murky enough, in my view — to at least warrant the upstairs replay official calling down to the referee for another look, rather than quickly determining that the call would stand. At that point, with two teams' postseason fates on the line, why not spend an extra 30 or 60 seconds making absolutely sure the call was right? In that context, I think we can all handle waiting a minute, if only for appearances. Especially when they routinely make us sit there for several minutes for officials while they determine the proper spot of a second-down catch near midfield in the second quarter of a game in early October. For what it's worth, I felt the same way after the penultimate play of Super Bowl XLIII: With so much on the line, why not indulge us and take another look?
TWO THINGS I CAN'T COMPREHEND
1. That a monkey can be trained to ride a dog in front of tens of thousands of people and that the sight of such a spectacle makes everyone so damned ecstatic.
2. How much I hate the illegal-throwing-of-challenge-flag penalty. Yes, I broached this back in November, when Falcons coach Mike Smith threw the red flag on a turnover that would have been automatically reviewed, costing Atlanta 15 yards (steep, but understandable) and preventing the review from taking place at all (ridiculous). Four days later in a widely viewed Thanksgiving Day fiasco, a similar transgression by Lions coach Jim Schwartz allowed the Texans' Justin Forsett to score a bogus, 81-yard touchdown in a game Detroit would lose in overtime. The rule is dumb, and inordinately punitive, and its uneven application on Sunday evening nearly affected the NFC playoff field.
After the Packers' James Jones caught a short pass from Aaron Rodgers late in the third quarter, the wideout lost the ball as he lunged for the goal line, and Minnesota recovered in the end zone. Packers coach Mike McCarthy hurled the challenge flag — oops — and receiver Jordy Nelson raced from the sidelines to grab and conceal it, hoping the officials wouldn't notice. It didn't work; McCarthy was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct. However, referee Mike Carey ruled that because a replay review had already been initiated, it would be allowed to commence, and only the 15-yard penalty portion of the punishment would apply. I admire Carey for doing what cagey NBA officials like Jake O'Donnell used to do all the time back in the day — find a way to manipulate the rules to mete out justice, technicalities be damned. Carey, I believe, finessed the situation so that the review would take place but McCarthy would still pay a price for having thrown the flag. And, sure enough, the call was overturned, and it was ruled that Jones had crossed the goal line. After Mason Crosby's extra point pulled the Pack to within 27-24, the 15 yards were applied before the kickoff, and Crosby had to tee it up from his own 20. In this case, that seemed about right … unless you are Schwartz, or a member of the Lions, or a Lions fan, in which case you wanted to scream a two-syllable word that rhymes with "Full-spit!"
Given that the Bears' fate was also impacted by the Packers-Vikings clash, what we had was an uneven application of a dumb rule that had the entire NFC North in a tizzy. Tremendous. If the competition committee doesn't vote to recommend changing this rule at next February's NFL scouting combine, I am going to accost each and every one of its members outside the meeting. (Actually, I'll be speed-typing somewhere so that I can ditch my computer and have a big night on the town — and end up at Steak 'n Shake. (I will be very disappointed, however.)
OVER-THE-TOP, EPHEDRINE-LACED DIATRIBE BEFORE THE DAWN
Before the season began, I was high on the Houston Texans. How high? Put it this way: If they were a certain recreational drug recently legalized in Washington and Colorado, I would have been Snoop Dogg — er, Snoop Lion. Coming off the first playoff appearance in franchise history, and armed with still-developing young studs like Arian Foster, J.J. Watt, Connor Barwin and Kareem Jackson, the Texans looked like Super Bowl material. I picked them to win the AFC, and when they captured 11 of their first 12 games in 2012, including a Sunday night beatdown of the Bears (who were 7-1 coming in), that seemed like a pretty solid prediction. Even after a miserable final month that included an embarrassing, 42-14 Monday night defeat to the Patriots in Foxborough, Mass., Houston was in position to lock down the conference's No. 1 seed Sunday by defeating a Colts team that was already locked into the No. 5 seed. And when the Texans took a 16-14 lead with 5:22 left in the third quarter, it seemed as though they were finally asserting their superiority. What happened next was a Low Five of embarrassing proportions: 1) Houston surrendered a 101-yard kickoff return on which Deji Karim fielded the ball in the end zone and burst up the middle untouched; 2) Quarterback Matt Schaub took an unconscionable third-down sack that forced Shayne Graham to attempt a 52-yard field goal, which he missed; 3) With Indy facing third-and-23 from its own 30, the Texans allowed Andrew Luck to burn them on a seam route to T.Y. Hilton, who caught the ball at the Houston 35 with three defenders in the vicinity and raced in for the TD; 4) On first-and-10 from the Indy 30, Schaub threw an errant sideline pass toward Andre Johnson, and it fell incomplete. Had the pass been accurate, it likely would have been picked for a touchdown. Ugly. 5) On the next play Schaub forced an end-zone pass to Johnson that was easily intercepted by Vontae Davis, and that was that.
Typically, with a significant game on the line in late December, the best team in the conference doesn't do any of those things. The fact that the Texans did all of them leads me to believe that, to flip the old Denny Green trademark phrase, they aren't who I thought they were. Instead, they look like a team that will be lucky to match last year's postseason performance, which was accomplished with then-rookie T.J. Yates playing quarterback in place of the injured Schaub, of winning a single playoff game before bowing out. For even if the Texans beat the Bengals, their next opponent will be the Patriots. In Foxborough, a.k.a. Foxbrrrrrrrrrrrrrough. Yes, it's quite cold in the Texans' world right now, and understandably so. And, with apologies to a certain rapper-turned-reggae singer, I am pretty far from high on them.
TEXT/DIRECT MESSAGE/EMAIL/VOICEMAIL OF THE WEEK
"[Expletive] happens"
– Text Sunday afternoon from Giants defensive lineman Justin Tuck, after the Bears' victory over the Lions ended New York's playoff hopes.
"I am getting good at that!"
– Text Sunday from Browns Pro Bowl tackle Joe Thomas, on rebuilding.
Other popular content on the Yahoo! network:
• Which No. 1 seed has better shot of winning Super Bowl?
• Slideshow: Athletes to watch out for in 2013
• Y! Finance: Worst product flops of 2012 |
An alarming new report indicates that climate change will cause massive disruptions in the ocean's ecology.
A new study from Adelaide University is ringing the alarm over the ocean’s delicate food chain, arguing that climate change could disrupt it more than we realize.
As the level of acid in our oceans continues to rise and warming causes a loss indiversity of key species, fragile ecosystems around the world could start to collapse, according to a Daily Telegraph report.
Associate Professor Ivan Nagelkerken of the university said that warmer water will also cause metabolic rates in animals to jump, causing them to fight more aggressively for a food supply that is dwindling. This will cause many species to become extinct, on all parts of the food chain, weeding out animals and resulting a simplification of ecosystems.
This would devastate areas that rely on fishing, and fundamentally alter the ecology of our planet.
To come to their conclusions, the research team examined 600 studies on coral reefs, kelp forests, oceans, and tropical waters. Their findings, which were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, warned that acidification and warming is a massive threat to species diversity.
Most organisms wouldn’t be able to simply adjust to a warmer environment or higher levels of acid, except for microorganisms, which would probably increase in diversity. Unfortunately, more plankton won’t result in more zooplankton and fish, and that’s bad news for bigger fish who will have nothing to eat.
There will be a “mismatch” in the amount of food available and the greater demand for food by hungry carnivores, Nagelkerken said according to the report.
This will have an impact on fisheries industries for humans, so not only will nature take a hit, but we will too. Fisheries are based around these bigger fish, and there will be less food to go around for it to eat. And it’s not just fish either: the scientists expect that oysters, mussels, and corals will also struggle due to global warming, which further harms reef fish. |
People die every day, even on vacation, even on a cruise. Sadly, this happens more often than one might think. According to the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office, which is where any deaths on cruise ships that stop at Fort Lauderdale's Port Everglades must be reported, some 91 people have died on cruise ships that arrived in Fort Lauderdale between 2014 and 2017.
While no cruise line would give Cruise Critic an exact number of deaths per year, one cruise line insider who asked to remain anonymous said, up to three people die per week on cruises worldwide, particularly on lines that typically carry older passengers.
The vast majority of deaths on cruise ships are natural, with most the result of heart attacks. But even when death is not entirely unexpected, such as when someone with advanced-staged cancer chooses to cruise, it's shocking to family and friends, whether they're on the cruise ship or on land.
But what happens when a passenger passes away while at sea or in a foreign port? What happens to the person's body? And what do that passenger's family or friends have to do? Here, we take a closer look.
How Do Cruise Lines Help Family and Friends?
It is impossible for a person to be prepared for a loved one's death but the cruise lines are, and they're quick to step in to help.
"Our crew is proactive," says a spokesperson for Carnival Cruise Line. The line has procedures in place for dealing with these situations, including employees specifically trained to provide emotional and logistical support to grieving loved ones.
Irrespective of cruise line, when a passenger dies on a cruise ship, someone from the company's Guest Care Team is immediately assigned to help the deceased's family and friends.
"Care Team members are trained to deal with grieving people, but they are not grief counselors," the Carnival spokesperson said. "They are trained to help deal with the details of repatriating a body and contact[ing] a funeral home." In addition to helping friends and families work with local authorities, make travel arrangements and deal with insurance, Care Team members will provide free Internet and phone use onboard. They'll drive the deceased person's travel companions to a hotel if they choose to disembark the ship and even stay with them until they can return home. They also do post-cruise follow-up.
How Do You Get Your Loved One Home?
The biggest concern many loved ones face is how to bring the body home from the ship for burial. Whether the body must be immediately repatriated from a foreign port or can stay onboard depends on a number of factors, including where the ship is at the time, which ports it's visiting and what the Flag State of the ship is (i.e., where the ship is registered).
According to the Cruise Lines International Association, the latter two can have requirements that necessitate the off-loading of anyone who's died, or preclude the line from being able to offload a body. Additionally, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requires that any ship that calls or homeports at a U.S port must immediately report any deaths onboard.
Bodies can be stored in shipboard morgues as needed, though not for much longer than a week. Each oceangoing cruise ship is required to carry body bags and maintain a morgue. Separate from food storage areas, most morgues are small, with room for three to six bodies.
On standard Caribbean sailings, remains are often kept in the cruise ship morgue until the vessel returns to the United States, where a death certificate can be issued by the local medical examiner's office. However, as stated above, port authorities in any of the ports visited by the cruise have the right to require an examination of anyone who's died, as well as the off-loading of the body.
But when the ship is far from its homeport or doesn't have a homeport, the body must be repatriated from somewhere.
It's not always easy. When someone dies on a South Pacific sailing, his body will most likely remain in the ship's morgue until the ship returns to a more major port, as few, if any, of the islands on such an itinerary are equipped to handle repatriation. Likewise, authorities in many small African and Asian ports with third-world infrastructures will often refuse to allow human remains off the ship. However, alternatives can be found, if necessary, such as when a ship won't be visiting a larger port anytime soon.
For example, after a Paul Gauguin passenger died on a small island in the South Pacific, the body was first brought back to the ship but then transported to a local hospital in Raiatea where it was stored until it could be sent to Papeete, Tahiti. From there, the family of the deceased was able to coordinate with the cruise line's port agent to send the body back to the United States.
Generally speaking, the first large port city the ship calls at is where the body will be offloaded, taken to a medical examiner's office and repatriated. But each country has its own rules and regulations about accepting bodies, declaring cause of death and repatriating remains.
That's where consular offices come in handy. U.S. consulates, for instance, will help the family of the deceased in making arrangements with local authorities for preparation and disposition of the remains. They'll even serve as provisional conservator of the person's estate if no one else is able to do it.
Who Pays for Repatriation?
Neither the consulate nor the cruise line pays for anything related to bringing a loved one home; they only help the family make arrangements. And repatriation, with all its necessary paperwork and hassle, is not inexpensive.
Make sure your trip insurance plan includes repatriation as that will cover the bulk of these expenses. Depending on the insurance company, you may also get help sorting through all the paperwork and requirements.
So, while no one wants to talk about the possibility of death during a cruise, if you or someone you're sailing with is ill or in the later years of life, purchasing a travel insurance policy is highly recommended by cruise industry insiders. |
Prime position: The Sirius buildling in The Rocks. Credit:Steve Lunam Ms Goward said the sale had "nothing to do with" Barangaroo and that maintenance on the Millers Point properties cost four times the average for public housing in NSW. "In the last two years alone, nearly $7 million has been spent maintaining this small number of properties," she said. "That money could have been better spent on building more social housing, or investing in the maintenance of public housing properties across the state." Asked whether the government planned to sell other high-value public housing, Ms Goward said, "This is the only one we have looked at in this detail. We want to get this sale right".
She said the government recognised some residents had lived at Millers Point for decades and specialist teams would help relocate them. The sell-off project will be led by former public service commissioner Lynelle Briggs and is expected to take two years. Some Millers Point housing was sold under the previous government five years ago. Ms Goward said each property averaged a sale price of $1.3 million then and said, "I'm hopeful that in a better market we might achieve higher prices than that." Department of Family and Community Services Secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter said the homes to be sold were in a "very, very expensive area of Sydney".
"There is massive demand for residential housing in this area; it is going to free up a very large amount of money for reinvestment in social housing," he said. The sales will be handled by Government Property NSW. Mr Coutts-Trotter said it would be a "competitive process" and properties would not be sold below reserve. 'Outrage' The member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, and lord mayor Clover Moore, held a joint press conference at Millers Point to express their "outrage" at the decision.
"As we speak, there are people going from door-to-door, in Millers Point, telling people that they're going to have to leave their homes," Cr Moore said. Cr Moore said the decision was a sign the state government wanted to make money from the area, describing the move as "Barangaroo-driven". "Sirius apartment block was built in the 1980s, and it is no more needed to be sold for high-income housing than any of the other apartment blocks in metropolitan Sydney where people in public housing homes live," she said. "All public housing tenants in inner city properties are now put on notice that if the value of your home goes up, the government is going to put you out of your home." Mr Greenwich said the government had "broken their promise" to consult the community and release a social impact statement prior to any decision being made.
"Millers Point is one of the oldest and strongest communities in Sydney, and we can't underestimate the health and mental costs, and impact on residents of today's cruel announcement," he said. Public housing advocates have criticised the lack of accountability around the sell-off of "irreplaceable" public housing long occupied by a community in Sydney's historic heart. Chris Martin from the Tenants' Union of NSW said the use of proceeds from previous sales in the area had not been accounted for. "On its record to date, no one can be assured that all proceeds of a sell-off will be 'reinvested' in social housing," Dr Martin said. Shelter NSW's executive officer Mary Perkins said the government's announcement contained little detail about how the money would be used to address the long waiting lists for housing.
"We've had a long-time issue with the transparency around the promises that have been made about the sale of stock. They say 'we'll sell this to gain this', but there's never been any evidence produced about the gains," she said. Loading "At the end of the day, we've got a really big concern about the geographic divide happening in the city, between these areas [that] are for rich people and these areas [that] are for poor people." - with Leesha McKenny |
20 months of Cesc is just what Jack Wilshere needs
With another accomplished, and at times quite brilliant, performance under his belt against Shakhtar Donetsk, another international call-up in the offing and Arsene Wenger praising his maturity as being “light years ahead of his age”, things are coming nicely to the boil for Jack Wilshere.
After the furore that surrounded his tackle on Nikola Žigić at the weekend, the 18 year-old attracted positive attention with an excellent display alongside Cesc Fabregas in the centre of Arsenal’s midfield in Tuesday night’s UEFA Champions League clash at the Emirates Stadium. Wilshere’s first career sending-off overshadowed what was a rounded display by the youngster against Birmingham City at the weekend, so it was imperative the 18 year-old let the less controversial aspects of his game do the talking against the Ukrainians.
Wilshere, known more for his technical ability and comfort on the ball, has come into criticism about the uglier side of his game, with many questioning his robust tackling. But after the disappointment of Saturday’s fixture, Wilshere looked unaffected against Shakhtar Donetsk, finishing off a wonderful passing move and slotting in perfectly alongside Arsenal captain and World Cup winner, Cesc Fabregas.
In this central midfield pairing, Arsene Wenger clearly thinks he has found a winning formula, stating that he was “convinced it work[ed] well”, but with the rumours linking Fabregas with a move to his childhood club Barcelona not abating, is Wilshere being groomed to fill a Fabregas-shaped hole at Arsenal?
The answer to this question is most probably yes, but the more pertinent question must be, is he ready? On an individual level I would say yes, but with some reservations, however with regards to Arsenal as a club, I would say no. Wilshere, although not the same player as Fabregas, undoubtedly has the talent to run Arsenal’s midfield, and despite being young in years, his mature approach after the Žigić challenge shows that sometimes maturity does not necessarily equate to age. Having said that, were Fabregas to leave, Wilshere’s inexperience would soon be exposed and the only way to eradicate this is for the 18 year-old to get more games under his belt; something which is happening every week.
However, even with Wilshere, Arsenal would greatly miss Fabregas, not least because a January departure would reveal a midfield rather thin on the ground, especially with the long-term lay-off of Aaron Ramsey and the inconsistent form of other young players, such as Abou Diaby and Denilson.
With the talent and maturity Wilshere possesses, if Arsenal can get another season out of Fabregas with the 18 year-old England midfielder under his wing, the north London giants may yet move seamlessly into life without the joy of Cesc.
If you liked this you can read more of my blogs or follow me on Twitter
*
Fancy playing your mates every week in a Premium Fantasy Football game? |
Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
HARD-WORKING George Scollen branded Tory minister Maria Miller a factory killer as he battled to save his job.
Yesterday, his heartbroken workmates at a doomed Remploy factory said Miller and her colleagues’ policies had killed George.
Just three weeks ago, the disabled dad of two was presented with an award to mark his 40 years of service at the plant in Springburn, Glasgow.
Yesterday – the day his workplace shut its doors for good – George, 58, was found dead at home.
Friends at the factory held a minute’s silence in his honour.
The Springburn factory, which made NHS wheelchairs, was one of 36 Remploy sites across the UK axed by the Con-Dem Coalition.
The Remploy factories provided work for disabled people and the closures have been labelled a betrayal of those who will struggle to find alternative jobs.
George, a model employee who rarely missed a day’s work, was also a regular on picket lines after the closure decision. He was pictured with a placard branding former Disabled Minister Miller a factory killer.
Gerry McGiff, 52, who had worked with George for 36 years, said last night: “George’s death is a direct result of the factory being closed down.
(Image: Daily Record)
“The Government have to learn from this.
“This is what could happen to a lot of people with disabilities like George if their jobs are scrapped.
“The whole factory is gutted about his death. But it could have been avoided if we hadn’t been betrayed by the Tories.
“It’s just been too much for him getting paid off. He had quite a bit of disability, so would have found it near impossible to get another job.
“The Government are to blame for George’s death. This was his lifeline. At the end of the day, the Government shutting down places where disabled people work is a disgrace.”
George, who had polio as a child and walked with a caliper on one leg, worked at Remploy as a brazing welder, joining together parts of the wheelchairs.
He was also a team leader for the brazing section and passed on his skills training other members of staff.
He had split from his wife some time ago and was found dead at a guest house in Firhill, Glasgow.
Police said the circumstances were not suspicious.
George, who did DJ gigs when he was younger, had four sisters and two brothers.
One of them, Catherine, 50, said last night: “His work was his life and he thoroughly enjoyed it.
“He was a very hard worker all his life. He was a great brother. He will be missed a lot.”
Another colleague, Dougie Irvine, 58, said: “George was a true gentleman. We knew everyone would be affected by the factory closing but this came as an absolute shock.
(Image: Alasdair MacLeod)
“This is what happens when they shut down places disabled people rely on for their working and social lives.
“It was a truly sad day today, with the factory being closed for the last time, but even worse after we heard about George.”
Springburn Labour MP Willie Bain, who raised the plight of disabled workers losing their jobs at
Westminster yesterday, described the news as “tragic”.
He said disabled unemployment was now at a record high.
SNP MSP Bob Doris said he was shocked. He added: “I can only imagine how Mr Scollen would have felt after devoting 40 years to the company. ”
Labour MSP Patricia Ferguson said: “I again urge the Scottish Government to redouble their efforts to provide the support the workers will need.”
The Remploy closures were announced by Miller last July, when she told MPs the £320million budget for disabled employment services could be spent more effectively.
She was rewarded by David Cameron by being promoted to the Cabinet as Culture Secretary.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said last night: “We are saddened to hear about the death of an employee from the Springburn Remploy factory. All our sympathies are with his family and friends.”
Remploy said in a statement: “We are distressed and shocked by the news that one of our long-serving employees at Springburn was tragically found dead at home this morning.
“George was receiving support from Remploy and Jobcentre Plus to help him find another job.
“We are supporting his work colleagues, who have been offered one to one meetings with their manager and specialist HR support.”
Additional reporting by Sally Hind, Torcuil Crichton and David Clegg |
KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson took issue Wednesday with the idea that the putter he and others have used to win major championships should be outlawed.
Golf's governing bodies are studying a revision to the rules that would not ban belly or long putters, but would make it much more difficult to use them because of language that would not allow anchoring the clubs to the body.
Webb Simpson said there is no statistical evidence that shows how long putters give players an advantage. AP Photo/Steve Helber
"Do I think they should be banned? No, and here's why," Simpson said at the Ocean Course, where the PGA Championship begins Thursday. "You take a wooden driver compared to a 460 cc titanium (the kind used today), and to me that's a lot bigger difference than a 35-inch putt to a 45-inch putter.
"Last year, the strokes-gained putting (a statistical category), nobody in the top 20 used a belly putter or a long putter. If anybody says it's an advantage, I think you've got to look at the stats and the facts."
Both the United States Golf Association and R&A -- the game's rules-making bodies -- have said they will come to some conclusion on the matter by the end of the year.
Peter Dawson, the R&A's CEO, said at last month's Open Championship that "we're seeing now people who can putt perfectly well in the conventional way thinking that an anchored stroke gives them an advantage. I think that's the fundamental change that we've witnessed in the last couple of years."
Three of the past four major champions -- Keegan Bradley at last year's PGA, Simpson at the U.S. Open and Ernie Els at the Open Championship -- used a belly putter to win. Adam Scott, the runner-up at the Open Championship, uses a long putter. With both putters, the hands typically are wedged into the stomach or the chest.
But no player in the current top 10 of the PGA Tour's strokes-gained putting category and just three in the top 20 use a long or belly putter. The strokes-gained stat measures players against the number of putts a PGA Tour player is expected to make from every distance.
"To me, to change something that big and cost manufacturers millions of dollars, you've got to have some pretty good facts," Simpson said. "I think just because some of us are winning majors or winning tournaments with the belly putter, I don't think that's a good reason to say, 'Hey, we're going to take them away.'"
Simpson is playing for the first time since the Greenbrier Classic because of the birth of his second child with wife Dowd on July 28. |
Nationals senator pushes for mobility scooter crackdown after wife hurt in collision
Updated
A Nationals senator has proposed fining mobility scooter users after his wife was seriously injured in a collision on a country town footpath.
Senator John "Wacka" Williams said his partner Nancy Capel, owner of The Bingara Advocate newspaper, was stepping out of her office in regional New South Wales earlier this month when she was hit by a scooter.
Her injuries were serious and she has now undergone surgery for a total hip replacement.
"[She] took literally one step out of the office and the gopher hit her," Senator Williams told ABC radio after the accident.
"One of the staff looked out and all she saw was Nancy literally airborne and she landed on her left hip and just smashed her left hip to pieces.
"What if she had landed on her head? I could be preparing a funeral today."
The senator has called for tougher regulation of scooter drivers in the wake of the crash, but stressed he did not want to see them banned, given the important role they played in helping people with mobility issues getting around.
Mobility scooters limited to 'walking pace' in UK
The New South Wales Government's Centre for Road Safety said motorised wheelchairs or "mobility aids" did not have to be registered or require third party insurance.
Drivers do not need a licence either, but the centre said gophers must not have the capacity to go above 10 kilometres per hour.
Those operating the scooters are also expected to obey pedestrian road rules.
"I think we need to see some regulation to keep them away from the point of entry into the shops and the offices where people are walking in and walking out," Senator Williams said.
He pointed to the more stringent speed limits in the United Kingdom, where mobility scooters are limited to "walking pace" or about six kilometres per hour on footpaths.
He has spoken to the local council about extra measures that could be put in place to avoid future collisions.
"Perhaps a couple of thin lines down towards the kerb away from the doors where they can travel along on that," Senator Williams suggested.
"And if they don't travel in that area perhaps an on-the-spot fine of $20, which would be a huge amount of money to a pensioner."
Topics: older-people, health, federal-government, australia, nsw
First posted |
In many parliaments and other similar assemblies, seating is typically arranged in banks or rows, with each political party or caucus grouped together. The spokespeople for each group will often sit at the front of their group, and are then known as being on the frontbench (or front bench) and are described as frontbenchers. Those sitting behind them are known as backbenchers. Independent and minority parties sit to the side or on benches between the two sides, and are referred to as crossbenchers.
United Kingdom [ edit ]
In the British House of Commons, the Government frontbench is traditionally called the Treasury bench (HM Treasury is the oldest government department). The government frontbench is on the right hand side as seen by the Chairman (typically the Speaker of the House of Commons or the Lord Speaker), and is occupied by Government ministers. The opposition frontbench is occupied by shadow ministers, of which the most senior form the Shadow Cabinet.
Canada [ edit ]
While backbenchers are referred to in the House of Commons of Canada (and the provincial legislatures), the front seats on the government side are reserved for cabinet ministers. Front row members are not referred to as frontbenchers, but as cabinet ministers. Some "frontbenchers" actually sit in the centre of the second row, so as to be seen directly behind the party leader during Question Period (and thus, in the television frame).
The same arrangement exists for each provincial legislature and territorial legislature of Yukon. In the case of Nunavut and Northwest Territories where Consensus government with non-partisan makeup where ministers sits amongst regular members.
Ireland [ edit ]
A front bench in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas of the Republic of Ireland, refers to any organised group of party members who holds any degree of speaking power (derived from the party) on specific issues. The Teachtaí Dála (TDs) who are members of the Government of Ireland constitute the government front bench, while the members of parties in declared opposition to the government constitute the opposition front bench.
See also [ edit ] |
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Sigmund Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
They live among us, the moderates, if what they have can be called life. You’ve probably seen them, strolling on the streets and driving in their cars and looking every bit like the human beings they aren’t; maybe you happen to be one yourself. There are (but why?) people who will go out in the evening and drink exactly one half of a bottle of wine; people who think the new Simpsons episodes are still pretty funny; people who can look at the sheer swirling insanity that surrounds us, the artificial famines and the drowning refugees and the suffocating alienation, and declare themselves to be moderate in relation to it. Things aren’t perfect, but a few tweaks here and there should set things straight: raise the top income tax bracket (but not by too much), legalise marijuana (but not any of the interesting drugs), overthrow the Assad government in Syria, casual Fridays at the office and police action against internet trolls; forge a world that’s basically the same but a little bit nicer. For those of us suffering from compulsive self-destruction, chronic back pain, vague and unexplained sexual guilt, amphetamine withdrawal, and a quiet but persistent voice in the back of our heads that regales us with a nightly lullaby about every shitty thing we’ve ever done – in other words, for those of us with a normal and healthy response to life under late capitalism – the moderates take on demoniac proportions. There’s nothing quite so revolting as another person’s happiness. In the United States prescription drugs are routinely advertised on TV: the pictures show attractive middle-aged white people taking picnics, riding bicycles, not being dead, etc., while a cheery voice quickly runs through all the drug’s potentially lethal side-effects. It would take the forbearance of a coma patient not to wish every single one of them – from dizziness and erectile dysfunction through to thrombocytopaenia, atrial fibrillation, and instant death – on these blithely fictional ghouls. The foundations of social and biological life are collapsing around them, and they ride their bikes through a verdant meadow drenched in sunlight, just so grateful to finally be rid of their osteoarthritis. It’s a fiction, but one the moderates yearn for, a transcendent ego-ideal. They’re not just myopic or unimaginative, they’re utterly insane. So why on earth would anyone want to give these maniacs weapons? What carnage could they wreak if they were armed not just with condescending smiles, but heavy machine guns?
We might be about to find out. The Obama regime has asked for $500 million to arm and train ‘moderate’ forces in Syria to fight both the cartoon supervillain Bashar al-Assad and the unstoppable demon army of the Islamic State (formerly ISIS). These moderates don’t really exist as conventionally imagined (genocidal civil war is not usually a hospitable environment for nice guitar-strumming liberalism), but even by itself this a monstrous idea. The everyday awfulness of moderation becomes something far stranger and uglier when imposed on Islam; armed moderation might sound like an oxymoron, but in fact it’s a very real and very horrifying possibility. Muslims in the West are still allowed to follow Islam, just about, but not too much. It’s not bloodshed or misogyny that need to be moderated, but the religion itself: Islam and dangerous threatening foreign violence lie along a single axis; any public display of belief equals extremism equals homo sacer. The demand for a moderate Islam is for a watered-down Islam; you should treat your absolute faith in the transcendent oneness of God in the manner of someone warily inspecting a supermarket curry. Outside the West, it’s a different story. A Saudi cleric can advocate the continued ban on all Christian worship, the continued relegation of women to a status somewhere above household furniture and somewhere below household pets, and other such non-Islamic idiocy – but as long as he doesn’t oppose Western ambitions elsewhere in the Islamic world, he’s a moderate. Abroad, moderate Islam means acquiescence to imperialism. The gestalt ideal of the moderate Muslim, then, is this: a monstrous figure, clothes drenched in the blood of innocents, inflicter of hideous tortures and gruesome executions, someone casting terror across the blasted landscape seemingly for no particular reason, but in a manner that doesn’t disturb the mechanisms of profit.
Being moderate means destroying all possible futures and replacing them with a listlessly cheerful nihilism. The philosophy of moderation has always been one of bloodshed. Aristotle, who in his Eudemian Ethics celebrated the virtue of Mildness and argued that the moral good always lies between two extremes, was a tutor to Alexander the Great, who slaughtered hundreds of thousands so that modesty might conquer the world. Bloodthirsty prudery has always dispatched its victims because their misery or their enjoyment was too excessive. In our age, the armed moderates of Syria are just the beginning. One of the groups under the FSA umbrella likely to receive some of the $50m jackpot is Jabhat al-Nusra, the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. They’ll need it. Having the dual support of the Western intelligence apparatus and the stuffy old pedants that succeeded bin Laden doesn’t really do them any favours; they’re like a jihadi group officially sanctioned by your dad. The fighters joining Jabhat al-Nusra instead of the Islamic State are the gangly nerds of international terrorism: people who ride scooters, drink Pepsi, eat cashew butter, and spent their teenage years listening to prog instead of punk – impeccable moderates. They’ve also been filmed eating human hearts. Like all forms of mass discipline, this tactic of violent moderation is unlikely to stay in the imperial periphery. It didn’t take long for Victorian imperialists to start conceiving of their metropolitan working-class populations with the same eugenic horror in which they held the repressed colonial multitudes; it won’t be long before the moderates among us take up arms, and if we don’t stop them, their reign will be brutal. |
Turkish police detain 28 in anti-al-Qaeda op, raid on İHH office
KİLİS
The press coordinator of the İHH, Serkan Nergis, has shared this photo on Twitter.
Turkish police have detained 28 people in an operation into al-Qaeda held simultaneously in six provinces on Jan. 14, followed by the dismissal of a senior police officer in Kilis following raids on a local Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH) branch.The simultaneous operations were conducted in six provinces including Istanbul, Van, Kilis, Adana, Gaziantep and Kayseri.One person was detained in Kilis during the rain on İHH while a total of five people were detained in southern provinces of Adana and Gaziantep yesterday.Police have detained 18 people in the southeastern province of Van and another suspect was detained in the central Anatolian province of Kayseri as part of operations into al-Qaeda.Three people have been detained by anti-terror police in Bağcılar, Fatih and Küçükçekmece districts in the Istanbul leg of the operation. The suspects were sent to Van, according to the reports.Anti-terror police coming from the eastern province of Van searched the main office of the İHH and its depot and one person from the relief organization was detained, Doğan news agency reported.Only a few hours after the raids, two anti-terror police unit chiefs who were among the teams who planned and carried out the operation have been dismissed.Both Kilis province anti-terror department chief Devlet Çıngı and Van province anti-terror department chief Serdar Bayraktutan were relocated by a sudden decision from the respective Governor’s Office with which they are affiliated.The Interior Ministry had previously responded raids conducted as part of graft investigation by orchestrating a massive purge within the police department.The İHH released an official press statement Jan. 14 concerning the raid, with General Secretary Yaşar Kutluay saying the operation was aimed at preventing the İHH from sending humanitarian aid to Syria.“They are trying to show the İHH as if it is related to terror organizations,” Kutluay said, claiming that the operation was an “attack” on the NGO, which is said to be the biggest organization in Turkey sending aid to Syria.One of the İHH’s lawyers, Uğur Yıldırım, said the Justice Ministry ordered two prosecutors to launch an investigation into the police officers who conducted the search.However, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ has refuted the claim, saying the ministry has no authority or duty to send prosecutors to any place.Yıldırım added that the raid was a part of an operation first launched in 2012 within the terms of the anti-terror law, targeting only one man who had been working at İHH for nine months.A search warrant was issued for that individual and the court had been given the Kilis İHH office as his home address, Yıldırım claimed, adding that the man actually had a home address where he lived with his family.All computers at the office were seized by police, Yıldırım added.İHH Syria coordinator Serkan Öktem, however, said the police returned the computers it seized from the branch after examining them in the police department.The press coordinator of the NGO, Serkan Nergis, also commented on the raid via his Twitter account, saying that police forces had been conducting a search that was against the law.“Police units started to search the office after taking our personnel out without waiting for our lawyers to arrive,” Nergis said.The İHH, an NGO which bases its humanitarian relief action on Islamic principles, was the operator of the Mavi Marmara and one of the main organizers of the Gaza Flotilla in May 2010. |
If your company offered you a pay raise in exchange for tattooing its logo on your body, would you do it?
Fotosearch / Getty Images
Talk about company loyalty.
A New York-based real estate firm Rapid Realty has offered its 800 employees a 15% pay raise if they tattoo the company’s logo onto their bodies, and the offer is snowballing, according to CBS New York. So far, nearly 40 employees accepted the challenge, AOL Jobs reported.
(MORE: The Rise of Tattoo Remorse: Heavy Cost to Erase What’s Often an Impulse Decision)
There were apparently no size or location restrictions for the logo tattoos. For instance, Brooke Koropatnick told CBS New York that she got hers behind the ear.
Employees who agreed to get inked said getting a substantially larger paycheck was motivation enough to get a tattoo. In a video, Brooklyn-based broker Adam Altman said the ink would be a reminder to work harder. “I don’t see myself going anywhere, and if I have it on my arm, it’ll force me to keep going and working hard [sic],” Altman said.
Owner Anthony Lolli told CBS New York that he got the idea from an employee who had done it.
“He calls me up, he says ‘Hey Anthony, I’m getting the logo on me.’ I show up at the shop and I’m like ‘this is cool, how can I repay you?’ ” Lolli said.
(WATCH: David Beckham Shows Off Chinese Tattoo)
Lolli said the employees who have gotten inked “get a lot of respect from the other agents with the amount of commitment that they have,” AOL Jobs reported. The company owner pays for the tattoos, which can cost up to $300. Lolli told CBS New York that he hasn’t gotten inked yet, but plans to eventually.
Perhaps getting permanently branded with a company logo gives a whole new meaning to the term “walking billboard.”
MORE: Early Winner of Super Bowl XLVII? Colin Kaepernick’s Tattoo Artist |
Fox Reality Channel Launched May 24, 2005 ; 13 years ago ( ) Closed June 30, 2010 ; 8 years ago ( 2010-06-30 ) Owned by Fox Entertainment Group
(News Corporation) Slogan Reality Games (1997 -2002) have been (2002-2010) Replaced by Nat Geo Wild
Fox Reality Channel was an all-reality television channel available on cable and satellite television in the United States from 2005 to 2010, being discontinued on different dates for different providers. It was launched on May 24, 2005 and was owned by the Fox Entertainment Group. It featured many shows that were originally on the Fox network (or produced by Fox). Fox Reality Channel also featured reality shows syndicated from other networks (such as ABC, CBS, NBC, The CW and MyNetworkTV), as well as many international shows from the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
Shutdown and replacement [ edit ]
In October 2009, it was announced that Fox Reality Channel would be discontinued on most providers on March 29, 2010 and re-branded as an American version of Nat Geo Wild.[1][2][3][4]
On that date, the channel's old website was taken down and redirected to its archived programming on Hulu.com, as well as Nat Geo Wild's new site. Nat Geo Wild was launched on Dish Network on April 19, 2010.[5] DirecTV removed Fox Reality and added Nat Geo Wild on June 30, 2010.
Programming [ edit ]
Original programming [ edit ]
Acquired programming sample [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
Fox Reality Channel Reality Awards
MyNetworkTV - sister network with a once mostly-reality format. |
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested that some of the opposition to Islamophobia legislation was an example of sexism.
Speaking Friday to a Women in the World conference in Toronto, Trudeau took aim at the official opposition Conservatives and accused them of not recognizing gender equality.
A private member’s motion was passed in March by female Member of Parliament Iqra Khalid, that identified a “public climate of hate and fear” in Canada and demanded that Islamophobia be treated as a hate crime and be subject to prosecution under the Canadian criminal code.
“Women who have made it, who have succeeded, who have gotten elected are now two years into it and wondering ‘Is this really what I signed up for?’ because of the nastiness, because of the negativity,” Trudeau said, according to the Canadian Press.
He said the Toronto-area Liberal MP “ended up experiencing death threats and a level of online violence and commentary and viral videos against her that were quite terrifying.”
Khalid went through a “very difficult time” and considered resigning as an MP, Trudeau said. Critics of her motion said it would be a threat to free speech in Canada.
Trudeau also suggested that the Conservatives are also exhibiting more “pushback” than are U.S. negotiators to the prime minister’s insistence that gender equality and climate change issues be enshrined in a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement.
“The pushback we’re getting is actually not from south of the border, the pushback we’re getting is from Canadian Conservatives who said ‘Oh no this is about economics, it’s about jobs. … It’s not about rhetorical flourishes of being good on environment or being good on gender,'” Trudeau said.
Trudeau suggested the Conservatives are a “supposedly responsible political party…that still doesn’t get that gender equality is a fundamental economic issue” and said “we still have a lot of work to do in Canada.”
Follow David on Twitter |
MOBILE, Alabama — The Republican National Committee (RNC) is now again backing Judge Roy Moore, the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate in Alabama. The RNC’s decision to now publicly support Moore again comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s wholehearted endorsement of Moore on Monday morning.
“We stand with the president,” a senior RNC official told Breitbart News.
The RNC notified the RNC members from Alabama on Monday afternoon that the national party would resume financial support to back the state party in its efforts to elect Moore to the U.S. Senate. At this time, since this development is fresh, it remains unclear exactly what that means, but sources close to RNC leadership told Breitbart News that it would become apparent in the coming days.
Throughout this process, since the Washington Post published frivolous evidence-free allegations against Moore, the RNC’s position has closely mirrored the White House position on Moore. At first, the RNC held out criticism or withdrawal of support while the president was overseas in Asia on a multi-day, multi-country trip. Then, the RNC withdrew support — something the White House said it supported — while Trump himself had not yet weighed in. A week plus into the narrative, however, Trump himself noted that radical leftist Democrat Doug Jones is too extreme for Alabama to serve in the Senate and that Moore “totally denies” the allegations against him. At that point, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said the voters of Alabama would decide.
“[T]he allegations were obviously very concerning to the degree that we pulled our resources,” McDaniel said in an interview with radio host John Catsimatidis in late November:
Roy Moore cannot be replaced on the ballot. He is the candidate. The Alabama party has stood by that. So now, the Alabama voters are going to have to be the judge and jury on this. They’re going to have to look at the women that have come forward with these very concerning allegations and then what [Moore] is putting forward and they’re going to have to make a decision as to whether or not they want him to represent their state in the United States Senate.
But, now, as Breitbart News can exclusively reveal, the RNC has begun pouring resources back into Alabama as President Trump has lined up behind Judge Moore for the home stretch. Earlier on Monday, President Trump tweeted an endorsement of Moore.
Democrats refusal to give even one vote for massive Tax Cuts is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama. We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immigration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, V.A., Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2017
Putting Pelosi/Schumer Liberal Puppet Jones into office in Alabama would hurt our great Republican Agenda of low on taxes, tough on crime, strong on military and borders…& so much more. Look at your 401-k’s since Election. Highest Stock Market EVER! Jobs are roaring back! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2017
Then, after the tweet, the president called the judge to express his full support. “Go get ‘em Roy!” Trump reportedly told Moore.
While the RNC — which is President Trump’s political arm — is clearly backing Moore now, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is still withholding support. The NRSC is controlled by the vehemently anti-Trump and anti-Moore Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell has pushed for Moore’s ouster after spending more than $30 million in a failed effort to beat him in the GOP primary and runoff. That effort to oust Moore from the race failed too, as McConnell loses more and more influence over the GOP by the second. It remains to be seen if the NRSC will join President Trump in supporting the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate in Alabama in the final week of the election. Voters head to the polls a week from Tuesday on Dec. 12. |
ONEIDA, N.Y. -- The Oneida man accused of shooting and killing a Kirkland horse at random in December has now been arrested and charged in another crime for the fourth time this year, according to New York State Police.
Police say 42-year-old Robert Wesbter's most recent run-in with the law began on Sunday when he allegedly walked up to an alter during morning services at St. Mary's of the Lake Parish on State Route 13 in Verona Beach and began yelling before throwing a kneeler at the wall of the church, police said.
For that, he is charged with misdemeanor disrupting a religious service.
He is accused of continuing the bad behavior into Monday morning when he allegedly walked into the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities Facility on State Route 31 declaring he was with the FBI and "was looking for a woman for an investigation."
The police were called to the scene after Webster allegedly refused to leave even though he was asked several times. He eventually fled the scene, but not before a manager could write down his license plate number and relay the information to 9-1-1.
His car was spotted on State Route 365 by a state trooper a short time later who was then led on a chase by Webster who refused to stop, according to New York State Police.
The chase came to an end when Webster was taken into custody after he surrendered himself at Troop D Headquarters in Oneida.
He was charged with first-degree criminal impersonation, third-degree unlawful fleeing a police officer, third-degree criminal trespass along with 22 vehicle and traffic violations for speeding and reckless driving.
Webster first made the news in December when he allegedly shot a Kirkland horse to death "at random." He was charged in January with second-degree criminal mischief, aggravated cruelty to animals and reckless endangerment for the crime.
A month later, while still in the Oneida County Jail, he was charged with arson for allegedly setting fire to his father's Verona Beach house in November 2015.
He found himself in hot water for a third time March 6 when he was charged with third-degree burglary and second-degree criminal mischief for allegedly breaking into the Ottaviano Medical Building in Oneida in August 2015.
He is now being held at the Oneida County Jail on $25,000 cash or $50,000 bond for the March 7 incident. |
Via Dr. Benny Peiser at The Global Warming Policy Foundation:
New Sea-Level Study Divides Climate Researchers
For the first time, researchers have reconstructed the rise in sea level over the last 2000 years. Their conclusion: Never before have sea levels risen as fast since the beginning of industrialisation. But critics fault the study with resting on shaky foundations. They see a major problem of the new study in the fact that it is ultimately based only on the finding from the coast of North Carolina. That could be too limited for a statement regarding global developments. “This study is therefore not suitable at all to make predictions,” says Jens Schröter from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. –Marcus Becker, Spiegel Online 21 June 2011
Who knows what the sun will do? I think it would be fair to say that in the past predicting solar behaviour has been little more than educated guesswork. I am reminded of a bold statement made in 2004 by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the United States. It said that the next solar cycle would be 30 – 50% stronger than the previous one “…according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model.” The sun does seem to be entering a period of low activity – the first of the space age. It’s a fascinating time for solar science, and a challenge for science journalism. –-David Whitehouse, The Observatory, 20 June 2011
As the great global warming scare continues to fade away, the real problem is that our politicians have so much collective ego invested in this delusion that, even when hell freezes over, they will still find it impossible to admit they got it wrong. –-Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 19 June 2011
Why can’t climate scientists just bring themselves to admit that we haven’t even yet begun fully to understand the cause of climatic change? –Ross Clark, Daily Express, 18 June 2011
Advertisements
Share this: Print
Email
Twitter
Facebook
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Reddit |
Originally published by GR in May 2014
In the dozen plus years since 9/11, the US government has rapidly moved from democracy to fascism. When government acts on behalf of a corporate oligarchy as declared by the Princeton-Northwestern study last month, state fascism is the result. And First Amendment rights in America have been obliterated in this morphing process.
Obama has declared war on whistleblowers, those individuals who recognize corporate or governmental wrongdoing and are ethical and courageous enough to tell the truth in order to try and stop it. Nobel Peace Prize nominee Chelsea Manning as Private Bradley Manning witnessed US military occupiers committing heinous war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and went public with it on Wikileaks and last year was sentenced to 37 years in prison. Last June Edward Snowden revealed the massive violation and invasion of our privacy rights perpetrated by invisible NSA occupiers in our homes and he was promptly charged with violating the espionage act and forced as a fugitive to live his life in exiled peril.
News journalists daring to accurately show the Obama administration in an unfavorable light are customarily harassed and threatened with litigation. In reality those who are standing up to evil are public heroes yet the government is bent on destroying their lives. The bold young journalist Michael Hastings who wrote unflattering Rolling Stone articles on powerful Generals McChrystal and Petraeus and was gathering evidence of wrongdoing by the FBI, CIA and NSA was more than likely assassinated by remote hacking of his crashed vehicle last June. Clearly just in this last year alone, the US government’s war against truth has been stepped up in sinister reckless abandon.
Under this growing tyranny and oppression comes the loss of American liberty and freedom. Citizens’ right to peacefully assemble and make their views known in public protest have been under systematic and insidious attack by those in power in both Canada and the United States. The Occupy Wall Street movement protesting the mounting inequality and injustice between the 1% haves and the 99% have not’s who were further burdened with bailing out the unscrupulous and corrupt corporate criminals of Wall Street was brutally squashed with police clubs and tear gas. The orders in cities across the nation to brutally suppress the movement from spreading and growing any larger were clearly orchestrated and issued from Washington DC. Obama and corporate America had had enough of the mounting civil unrest and so the militarized police state moved into violent, unlawful action beating, abusing and arresting thousands of peaceful activists attempting to legally express both their rights as well as their increasing disgust with corporatized America.
As if government betrayal, hostility and harassment were not enough travesty of justice, Obama went for overkill ordering his justice department to aggressively pursue hundreds of federal lawsuits filed against protesters for assault and resisting arrest while in actuality they were merely reacting to the police aggressors brutally attacking them.
Of the 2,644 people arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City, Cecily McMillan may be the only demonstrator tried in a court of law and found guilty of felony assault two weeks ago for elbowing a police officer on March 17, 2012. From Rikers Island Prison where she has since been awaiting her sentence, she stated last week, “My lawyer has told me to expect two years.” Today Judge Ronald Zweibel that told the courtroom that “she must take responsibility for her conduct,” announcing that the 25-year old graduate student is sentenced to three months prison time, plus community service and five years probation. Cecily had maintained throughout her ordeal that the policeman grabbed her breast from behind and in a knee jerk reflex, she inadvertently elbowed the officer in the eye.
Though McMillan could have been sentenced to seven years imprisonment, the judge was barraged by media pressure that included a recent visit and show of support from two members of popular Russian girls rock band Pussy Riot that gained worldwide attention serving several months in prison for protesting against Putin’s Russia. An online petition was circulated and submitted as well. But perhaps the letter written by nine of twelve jurors asking that the judge not send Cecily to prison was taken most into consideration.
After the nine jurors found Cecily McMillan guilty of assaulting a police officer over two years ago based primarily on their viewing a grainy youtube video, they felt so remorseful over their verdict and McMillan’s potentially going to prison for seven year that they wrote the judge strongly recommending that Ms. McMillan be placed only on probation. Actual evidence proving Cecily had suffered injury due to police assaulting her was never even permitted inside the courtroom.
The injustice in this case was hardly some isolated fluke. Many firmly believe it is simply a grossly unjust, over-the-top policy and strategy implemented by the Obama regime to set a high profile example demonstrating to the rest of America what happens to citizens brave and principled enough to risk assembling in peaceful protest to assert their no longer recognized rights in police state America. This apparent reality is what our nation has degenerated into under Obama in the face of his and Bush’s systematic assault on all of all US constitutional liberties.
The exact same aggressive federal tactics are recently being utilized for the first time to criminalize protests by environmentalists, charging demonstrators with acts of domestic terrorism. Five months ago in Oklahoma City two college students placed a banner objecting to the local company Devon Energy’s participation in the Keystone XL pipeline project inside its Devon Towers building. In an attempt to raise awareness of the severe detrimental effects to human health that fracking causes on the environment, the two protestors were jailed and charged with a terrorism hoax, an apparent state law felony subject to ten years imprisonment.
Activists Stefan Warner and Moriah Stephenson had used black glitter on their unfurled banner and apparently some of it was falling from their banner draped from the second floor. Falling glitter then became the basis by which the dispatched police accused them of unleashing a toxin used in their “biochemical assault.” Twisted irony would have the polluter-for-profit oil company that has no qualms about poisoning the environment and killing humans conveniently using trumped up, grossly exaggerated false charges that two harmless young protestors acting in the public’s best interest would be using toxins to potentially poison the oil company polluters.
The arrested protesters’ attorney, Doug Parr, who has been practicing law since the 1970’s, stated that he saw this kind of reactionary oppression coming. In his words:
“Based upon the historical work I’ve been involved in, I know that when popular movements that confront the power structure start gaining traction, the government ups the tactics they employ in order to disrupt and take down those movements…” not unlike the Occupy Wall Street movement earlier.
The two activists were working in conjunction with two other protesters also arrested at the site who are members of the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance organization. Its website states:
“These industries poison countless communities, often deceive and coerce folks into signing contracts, and when that doesn’t work, they use eminent domain to steal the land. Texas and Oklahoma have long been considered sacrifice zones for the oil and gas industry, and people have for the most part learned to roll over and accept the sicknesses and health issues that come with the temporary and unsustainable boost in employment.”
Last year the environmental group Bold Nebraska obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act indicating that the huge and powerful tar sands giant TransCanada methodically trained the FBI, numerous US police forces and prosecutors on how to effectively charge environmentalist protesters with terrorism.
Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center and legal coordinator for the environmental group the Tar Sands Blockade, explained:
“These documents expose the truth that the government is giving the nod to unlawful corporate spying. By slinging false allegations against peaceful activists in this presentation, TransCanada puts them at risk of unwarranted prosecution.”
This overwhelming evidence proves collusion between the privately owned foreign Canadian corporation and US law enforcement, pushing their agenda to ruin innocent American lives merely standing up against malevolent forces bent on destroying the planet by peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights. Once again the real criminals acting as corporatized fascists are systematically demonizing civic-minded individuals and groups acting for the greater good of humanity by declaring war on their dissent and peaceful protest.
Clearly the real environmental terrorists are the North American coal, oil and gas polluters that have been systematically poisoning and killing off life on earth for over a century. But when the governments and corporations merge to become one and the same entity as they clearly have in both Canada and America, it is the agents operating on behalf of corporate governments who are the fascist criminals turning on their own decent law abiding citizens in order to eliminate them and all opposition and resistance to their global theft and destruction.
Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former Army officer. His written manuscript based on his military experience examines leadership and national security issues and can be consulted at http://www.redredsea.net/westpointhagopian/. After the military, Joachim earned a masters degree in psychology and became a licensed therapist working in the mental health field for more than a quarter century. He now focuses on writing. |
The UN General Assembly has unanimously called on a curb of supernormal surveillance of communications. The resolution drafted by Brazil and Germany was in response to revelations over the eavesdropping conducted by the US on a global scale.
All 193 UN member states agreed “to respect and protect the right to privacy, including in the context of digital communication.”
The document maintains that internationally recognized human rights should be applied to a person online, specifically singling out the right of privacy.
The resolution suggests making sure national legislation complies with international human rights law to prevent possible breaches.
“While concerns about public security may justify the gathering and protection of certain sensitive information, States must ensure full compliance with their obligations under international human rights law,” the resolution states.
The resolution calls for internationally recognized rights to privacy, extension of internet freedom and urges to put an end to global electronic espionage.
The document stresses that interception of communications and collection of personal data by state surveillance should be more transparent and accountable.
For that reason countries should “review their procedures, practices and legislation regarding the surveillance of communications, their interception and collection of personal data, including mass surveillance, interception and collection, with a view to upholding the right to privacy of all their obligations under international human rights law.”
Unlike resolutions of the 15 member UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly resolution is not legally binding, but it still represents the international opinion on the issue and is important politically.
"With the internet age quickly becoming a golden age for surveillance, this resolution is a critical first step that puts mass surveillance squarely on the international agenda" Cynthia Wong, senior internet researcher at Human Rights Watch, told AP.
"Given the scale of snooping that technology now enables, all states should modernize privacy protection or we risk undermining the internet's potential as a tool for advancing human rights," she said.
Brazil and Germany proposed the resolution after they learnt that the United States was intercepting the communications of both Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
After the scandal emerged, Chancellor Merkel phoned US President Barack Obama to demand personal apologies and explanations.
President Rousseff in turn not only cancelled her visit to the US, but also prevented an important Brazil-American military contract from being signed.
Brazil rejected a contract for Boeing’s F/A-18 fighter jets in favor of the Swedish Saab’s JAS 39 Gripens. The unexpected rejection of the US bid comes amid the global scandal over the NSA’s involvement in economic espionage activities.
The documents regarding America’s NSA intelligence agency eavesdropping activities leaked by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that millions of calls, emails and other communications worldwide were intercepted by the NSA assisted by the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing group, consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and the US.
The ‘Five Eyes’ member countries have also supported the UN resolution after successfully diluting the original text, AP reported, downplaying the role of “massive surveillance” in human rights violations. Instead, the resolution mentions “the negative impact" of such surveillance “on the exercise and enjoyment of human rights”. |
If you have ever listened to Dave Ramsey on TV or the radio, then you have probably heard him refer to a Zero Based Budget.
A zero based budget is a very straight forward budget which works on the premise of assigning each dollar of income a task – or to put it another way, at the end of the month, there shouldn’t be any money left over in the budget. That doesn’t mean spend it all, it just means assign each dollar a job. For example, excess funds can go toward savings, paying down debt, investing, etc.
How to Make a Zero Based Budget
A note on steady vs. irregular income. If you receive a regular and steady income as an employee, creating a zero-based budget should be a relatively easy task. It’s much more difficult if your income comes from irregular sources, such as self employment or commissions. If you receive both a regular paycheck and irregular income, you may want to work on a zero based budget for your regular income only, and use a different method to manage your irregular income.
Step One: Make a list of your monthly income
Using a spreadsheet or a piece of paper, list all sources of monthly income. Income may come from paychecks, self employed salaries, child support or alimony, etc. See how to make a cash flow plan for more information.
Step Two: Make a list of your expenses for the month
For this step, don’t concern yourself with any bills that are paid semi-annually, annually or anything other than monthly unless the payment is due THIS month. Just list all of your accounts and amount due for anything you have to pay this month. Your monthly expense list might include:
rent or mortgage
phone(s)
car payments
cable television
internet
insurance payments
utilities (electric, water, gas, etc)
credit cards
loans
child care
donations
groceries
entertainment / dining out
Step Three: Make a list of your non-monthly expenses
Here is where you’ll record anything that is paid on a schedule other than monthly. Divide the amount of each account on this list by the number of months between now and the day your bill is due. If you’re making your budget in June, and your life insurance is $120 and due in September, you’ll need to budget $30 each month to have enough money available when it’s due. Once you pay a bill that is paid non-monthly, you’ll divide the total amount of the bill by 12 months (if it’s paid once a year) to determine how much you need to budget each month so that you’ll have enough to pay it when it comes due again.
Some typical non-monthly accounts might include:
How do you track irregular expenses? An easy way to track your targeted savings is to use a sinking fund or personal accrual account to save up for your semi-regular or irregular expenses. See How to Open a Sub Account at Capital One 360 for more information about how to easily set up a sinking fund at Capital One 360.
Step Four: Make a list of savings goals and debt reduction goals
On this list, include anything that is not a required payment or savings contribution, but something you really want to do (and can afford to do). This might include:
emergency fund savings
education savings
vacation savings
extra payments to pay off credit cards/loans faster
retirement savings
Step Five: Subtract expenses from income and modify until your budget “zeros out”
The goal of the zero-based budget is to create a spending plan where your total income minus all of your monthly expenses will equal zero. If you do this the first time and end up with a negative number, you need to decrease expenses. Start by decreasing items that are not essential – like entertainment. If it’s still negative, look at your savings goals and debt reduction goals and see if you need to decrease any of these payments temporarily.
If you subtract expenses from income and get a positive number, you’ll need to increase your “expenses”. Instead of buying something new on credit to give yourself another payment however, you’ll want to increase your savings goals or debt reduction goals until you get a zero.
Need help with your zero based budget? Try You Need a Budget
If you are struggling with making a zero based budget work by using paper and pencil, then try using You Need a Budget (YNAB). YNAB is a software program specifically designed for building a zero based budget that works. The program is easy to use will get you moving in the right direction in no time!
One word of advice: It takes a little practice to get your zero based budget working smoothly. Expect it to take a couple months to fine tune it. But once you get it running smoothly, you’ll be happy knowing where your money is going each month! |
I built this little guy today.
It works pretty good considering it was built in less than 6 hrs, and being poorly tuned. I tossed it together with junk I had around. Nothing was calculated or measured. Arcs are about 5-6" so far
The secondary diameter is smaller than a quarter. I just wrapped ~33awg magnet wire around a piece of PVC pipe until I felt satisfied with its height. The solid copper primary sits upon some ceramic insulators salvaged from an old runway strobe. The box is some 3M marketing shwag. The transformer is a 10kv that I found in a box of junk from an auction long ago. Not sure on the current, probably about 10-20ma. The tank cap is a Sprague 4nf doorknob. An acrylic box from Ikea, with 2 carriage bolts makes up the sparkgap. I'm running it though a variac, and found the cap begins to fail around 80v input, so it needs a better cap. Topload for now is a tennis ball wrapped in aluminum foil. Not much else to it.
Here's a vid: |
Rookie wide receiver Michael Campanaro is the first member of the Ravens' draft class to agree to terms.
The River Hill graduate and seventh-round draft pick from Wake Forest is signing a four-year, $2.287 million contract that includes a $67,500 signing bonus, according to a source. The deal includes base salaries of $420,000, $510,000, $600,000 and $690,000.
The deal has a maximum value of $2.402 million.
The Ravens traded a 2015 sixth-round draft pick to the Cleveland Browns to acquire a seventh-round pick to select Campanaro.
At the NFL scouting combine, Campanaro ran the 40-yard dash in 4.46 seconds, registered a 39-inch vertical leap, a 10-2 broad jump, a 6.77 three-cone drill and bench pressed 225 pounds 20 times.
Campanaro caught a school-record 229 passes for the Demon Deacons and finished with 2,506 career yards and 14 touchdowns.
As a junior, Campanaro had 79 catches for 763 yards and 14 touchdowns. As a senior, he caught 67 passes before breaking his collarbone.
[email protected]
twitter.com/RavensInsider |
Organized religion has shaped virtually every aspect of human behavior for thousands of years. Some historians have even argued that religion was integral to human survival. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that savvy marketers have figured out that they can use some of the same basic principles to connect with their customers – and that brands have taken on such importance to consumers.
And yet the narrowly formulated, self-serving, and consumption-focused beliefs and values, rituals, and communities provided by brands usually have little to offer beyond the boundaries of their products and services. Thoughtful marketers should have an understanding of how this is shaking out – how some brands are adopting the characteristics of organized religion – so they can think critically about whether this is something they want to do.
Scholars have found that every organized religion offers three key benefits to its followers, a) a set of core beliefs and values, b) symbols, myths, and rituals, and c) relationships with members of a like-minded community. Here are a few of the ways in which brands have begun using these elements to create “congregants,” not just customers:
Core beliefs and values. The essence of any religion lies in a set of beliefs and moral values. Just consider how fully many of us embrace precepts such as “Impossible is nothing,” “Challenge everything,” or “Make the most of now.” Each of these slogans sounds inherently good, worth adopting and even building our lives around. Yet their origin is not some divine revelation or millennia-old discourse, but the minds of clever copywriters. Also common to every religion is belief in a divine, benevolent, supreme being. And today, figures like Jeff Bezos and the late Steve Jobs have been described as our “saviors” in how they’re portrayed. For instance, when Mr. Bezos purchased the Washington Post in August 2013, many media experts called him “journalism’s savior.” And the international edition of Fortune magazine recently depicted Bezos as the Hindu god Vishnu on its cover. Stories about the magnetic, larger-than-life founders of Amazon and Apple provide a rich mythology that draws consumers to these brands.
Symbols, myths, and rituals. Rituals are repeated behaviors that follow a script and possess symbolic meaning. Over centuries, people have practiced religious rituals to mark rites of passage such as birth, marriage, and death, to mark certain times of each year like the end of the harvest season, to please divine powers, and to ward off misfortunes. Rituals impose order and structure to our lives, and assure us about our place in the scheme of things. While we continue to follow many rituals established by religion ― wedding vows or the Thanksgiving meal, for instance―we have also adopted many rituals associated with brands. Activities like a particular way of eating an Oreo cookie (twist, lick, then dunk), participating in the “VW wave” (waving to another Volkswagen Beetle driver to say hello and signal solidarity), or using special, made-up words like “Venti” or “Frappuccino” at a Starbucks store every morning provide some of the same benefits as religious rituals do. Consumer psychologists have shown that creating new rituals for customers is a great way to heighten their enjoyment and to build strong brands.
Relationship with a community. Through the ages, religious life and social life went hand in hand. People belonged to the same religious congregation their entire lives, and relied on fellow members for companionship, financial assistance, and social support. The found their friends, well-wishers, and spouse, and socialized their children there. Today, brand communities, fan clubs, and social networks provide many of these same benefits. Many motorcycle enthusiasts spend their weekends and vacations with their Harley Owners Group at rides and rallies. In user forums and chatrooms of companies like Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and Texas Instruments, tech enthusiasts devote hours upon hours helping others solve their problems without pay. Brands like Jeep, the Russian camera maker Lomo, and Samuel Adams organize “Brandfests” to bring together customers for enjoyable and educational experiences. In such venues provided and managed by brands, people socialize, form friendships, and even romantic relationships.
On one hand, it’s easy to see why these powerful tactics would appeal to marketers. On the other, as consumers, worshipping an iPhone or a Tesla cannot teach us to be happy or content with our lives. Nor can a Harley Owners Group necessarily provide us with the genuine friendship and intimacy that a caring spouse, life-long friend, or neighbor can. So as shoppers, we may be best served by enjoying the benefits that brands provide, yet acknowledging there are limits. And as marketers, we might want to ask ourselves if the value of what we’re selling lives up to our power to sell it. |
1 of 1 2 of 1
Sometimes, you stumble across an intriguing article where you least expect to find it.
This weekend as I was perusing a Vancouver Sun special section on energy, I spotted the byline of Jim Prentice. He's the senior executive vice-president and vice-chairman of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Prentice also happens to be the former Conservative environment minister who announced his resignation from the Stephen Harper government in 2010 because he wanted to spend more time with his family. Coincidentally (or not), this came shortly after he visited Haida Gwaii with environmentalist David Suzuki.
Prentice was a Progressive Conservative before his party was taken over by the more right-wing Canadian Alliance. Its roots were in the old Reform Party of Canada.
Harper, a former policy director of the Reformers, likely went a bit berserk at the sight of his environment minister hobnobbing on The Nature of Things with Suzuki.
Now in his role with the bank, Prentice writes that the objective of developing and exporting Canada's hydrocarbon deposits is a "defining moment” for the country. He used the same language in a speech last month to the Business Council of B.C.
In the article, Prentice never mentions the proposed Enbridge or Kinder Morgan pipelines by name. However, he acknowledges that “the constitutional and legal issues surrounding west coast energy corridors, terminals and shipping are extraordinarily complex”.
One section of Prentice's piece is worth repeating verbatim:
To begin, however, the constitutional obligation to consult with first nations is not a corporate obligation. It is the federal government's responsibility. Second, the obligation to define an ocean management regime for terminals and shipping on the west coast is not a corporate responsibility. It is the federal government's responsibility. Finally, these issues cannot be resolved by regulatory fiat—they require negotiation. The real risk is not regulatory rejection but regulatory approval, undermined by subsequent legal challenges and the absence of 'social licence' to operate.
There are billions of dollars at stake for Corporate Canada in the efforts to export raw bitumen through Kitimat and the Port of Vancouver and ship this product via supertankers to Asia.
In the article, Prentice is, in fact, appealing to the Harper government to modify its approach of not seriously negotiating with First Nations.
Prentice also questions the wisdom of ramming the approval of pipelines through the regulatory process by shortening timelines. He appears to believe that this creates a greater risk of pipeline projects being thwarted by legal challenges.
Keep in mind that CIBC has a huge vested interest. First Nations youths have already warned CIBC not to finance Enbridge's Northern Gateway Project.
"CIBC should catch up with Royal Bank and TD Bank, which have already committed to recognize our right to consent," Jasmine Thomas, a 24-year-old member of the Yinka Dene Alliance, said in a news release last year. In other words, CIBC is in the sights of First Nations activists to a greater degree than other banks.
If Prentice's views on the Harper government's duty to negotiate are widely shared within the head offices of other Canadian banks and energy companies—not to mention the Conservative caucus—then the prime minister might not be as secure in his job as most people believe he is.
Prentice is well-regarded within Conservative and corporate circles. He's received lavish press over the years from the country's biggest newspapers. I wouldn't be surprised if Prentice eventually plays a role if there's a palace revolt within Conservative ranks—primarily because Harper's bellicose take-no-prisoners approach may not be achieving all of Bay Street's objectives in the tar sands.
Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight. |
by Erik Altieri, NORML Executive Director
That’s at least according to a paper published today by University of Colorado Denver Professor Daniel Rees and Montana State University Assistant Professor D. Mark Anderson. The study looked at traffic fatalities nationwide for the years 1990-2009 to see if there was any correlation between highway fatalities and liberalized medical marijuana laws. They found that, in states that legalized the medicinal use of marijuana, both traffic fatalities and alcohol consumption declined.
Study shows medical marijuana laws reduce traffic deaths
Leads to lower consumption of alcohol
DENVER (Nov. 29, 2011) – A groundbreaking new study shows that laws legalizing medical marijuana have resulted in a nearly nine percent drop in traffic deaths and a five percent reduction in beer sales.
“Our research suggests that the legalization of medical marijuana reduces traffic fatalities through reducing alcohol consumption by young adults,” said Daniel Rees, professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver who co-authored the study with D. Mark Anderson, assistant professor of economics at Montana State University.
The researchers collected data from a variety of sources including the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System.
The study is the first to examine the relationship between the legalization of medical marijuana and traffic deaths.
“We were astounded by how little is known about the effects of legalizing medical marijuana,” Rees said. “We looked into traffic fatalities because there is good data, and the data allow us to test whether alcohol was a factor.”
Anderson noted that traffic deaths are significant from a policy standpoint.
“Traffic fatalities are an important outcome from a policy perspective because they represent the leading cause of death among Americans ages five to 34,” he said.
The economists analyzed traffic fatalities nationwide, including the 13 states that legalized medical marijuana between 1990 and 2009. In those states, they found evidence that alcohol consumption by 20- through 29-year-olds went down, resulting in fewer deaths on the road.
The economists noted that simulator studies conducted by previous researchers suggest that drivers under the influence of alcohol tend to underestimate how badly their skills are impaired. They drive faster and take more risks. In contrast, these studies show that drivers under the influence of marijuana tend to avoid risks. However, Rees and Anderson cautioned that legalization of medical marijuana may result in fewer traffic deaths because it’s typically used in private, while alcohol is often consumed at bars and restaurants.
“I think this is a very timely study given all the medical marijuana laws being passed or under consideration,” Anderson said. “These policies have not been research-based thus far and our research shows some of the social effects of these laws. Our results suggest a direct link between marijuana and alcohol consumption.”
The study also examined marijuana use in three states that legalized medical marijuana in the mid-2000s, Montana, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Marijuana use by adults increased after legalization in Montana and Rhode Island, but not in Vermont. There was no evidence that marijuana use by minors increased.
…
“Although we make no policy recommendations, it certainly appears as though medical marijuana laws are making our highways safer,” Rees said. |
About
"Arabs Without God" is the first book to look at atheism in the contemporary Middle East. It examines why a growing number of Arabs are abandoning religion, and the persecution they can face as a result. The book discusses Arab atheism in the broader context of restrictions on religious freedom, such as laws against apostasy and blasphemy, which can result in the punishment of believers and non-believers alike.
The importance of establishing freedom of belief as a basic principle in the Middle East cannot be underestimated, especially in the light of organisations like ISIS and the spread of sectarian politics more generally. In connection with that, Arabs Without God is a useful tool for activists in the region: it contains a lot of ideas and information that campaigners for religious freedom can make use of.
The purpose of this project is to fund a translation of "Arabs Without God" into Arabic, and to make the Arabic version available on the internet for downloading and circulating free of charge.
Publishing the translation in this way means that almost any Arabic speaker who wishes to read the book will be able to access it. Commercial distribution of books in the Arab countries is often difficult, particularly with a book of this kind dealing with a sensitive topic which is still taboo in much of the region. Publishing on the internet will thus largely overcome the problem of censorship and other restrictions.
More information about the English edition of the book can be found here:
http://www.al-bab.com/arabswithoutgod/
There is also an extract from the book here:
http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2014/september/arabs-without-god-extract.htm |
Over the past few million years, the Earth's climate has oscillated between cold glacial and warm interglacial states. The nature of these climate swings — and the idea of the interactions between solar radiation and the land–sea–air–ice system that govern them — seems incontrovertible. However, it was only a few decades ago that scientists such as Thomas Crowley began working to bring our understanding of these climate fluctuations to the fore. Tom Crowley, it might be said, wrote the book on the subject (Paleoclimatology Oxford Univ. Press, 1991). With this book, for which I served as a minor co-author, he aimed to introduce geologists and geographers to climate modelling, and conversely show climate modellers the types and properties of the data available. The book fulfilled its mission.
Tom received his PhD at Brown University, USA, in marine geology under the direction of John Imbrie in 1976. Afterwards, he taught oceanography to sailors on US Navy ships for a few years, and then joined the University of Missouri–St Louis where he taught introductory geology. His seminal book was founded on a series of lectures on palaeoclimatology delivered at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the summer of 1981. As his career took a leap, he summarized his lectures into a review article published in 1983 in the journal Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics. The article explored how changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and atmospheric and oceanic circulation were required to explain past climate changes. His scholarship led to his appointment at the US National Science Foundation to help develop a programme to fund palaeoclimate research.
After working for NASA and the private sector, Tom Crowley joined the Department of Oceanography at Texas A&M University as a research scientist and soon after as a full professor (1996–2001). It was during this time that he married a fellow climate scientist, Gabi Hegerl, with whom he had two sons, Michael (13) and John (11).
In the following years, he made a broad and very significant contribution to our understanding of the history of Earth's climate, both in the USA and ultimately at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, from which he retired a few years ago. His retirement did not, however, mark the end of his research: he finished his last paper shortly before his death.
In total, Tom Crowley published more than 100 refereed papers on climate research. He was a man of great integrity, reluctant to publish work he considered marginal. He worked hard and was very dedicated to science. His greatest gift was to see patterns persistent across several different — and often obscure — sources of information. He had a unique combination of creativity and vast but deep knowledge of both the empirical and theoretical bases of climate change. His interests ranged from the deep geological past to the current issues regarding anthropogenic causes of global warming.
Image: GABRIELLE HEGERL
He was deeply troubled that society was unable to moderate its desire for near-term growth and acquisition as opposed to preventing or even preparing for serious environmental consequences. In his retirement he frequently wrote criticisms to newspapers for their lack of accuracy or their inconsistency in reporting on matters of climate and environment. He did not write these letters to gain attention for himself; he simply felt it was his responsibility to share his knowledge and express his opinions.
Tom was also a spiritual person — after long periods of hard work, he often took off for a few weeks to be by himself at some remote spot. During his time in the USA, he especially liked to visit the Big Bend Park in West Texas (pictured).
We had been close friends and collaborators for more than thirty years. It was an interesting and complementary partnership venturing into palaeoclimatology together — Tom a marine geologist, learning to be an atmospheric scientist, and myself a theoretical physicist learning to be a climate modeller. Nevertheless, our partnership worked. Our research interests diverged somewhat in later years, but our friendship continued.
Tom Crowley enjoyed good literature, history, movies and sports. During the years we were located near each other, we frequently had lunch, gossiping about friends and colleagues and arguing about science, sports, politics and religion — sometimes to exhaustion, but we always returned the next day to start over. He was a great colleague and friend. I will miss him dearly.
Author information Affiliations Gerald R. North is in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-3150, USA Gerald R. North Authors Search for Gerald R. North in: Nature Research journals •
PubMed •
Google Scholar Corresponding author Correspondence to Gerald R. North.
Rights and permissions To obtain permission to re-use content from this article visit RightsLink. |
What began as a seemingly nonpartisan proposal to name an honorary unpaid Science Laureate of the United States in the same vein as the US Poet Laureate has fallen on the rocks of partisan rancor in Washington.
The Senate version of the bill was sponsored by Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Roger Wicker (R-MS), and by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) in the House. It had been sailing through Congress with bipartisan support. Wired Magazine speculated about potential nominees in the vein of Richard Feynman or Carl Sagan, such as Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Jill Tarter, Mike Brown, or Sylvia Earle.
And then, the American Conservative Union discovered the plan when it hit the schedule for a floor vote, the magazine Science reported Thursday.
After Larry Hart, Director of the ACU, sent a letter to Congress saying in part that the president would be able to appoint scientists “who will share his view that science should serve political ends, on such issues as climate change and regulation of greenhouse gases,” House leadership pulled the bill from the schedule, returning it to Committee on Science, Space, and Technology where it will likely be killed in the Republican-controlled House.
The text of the bill requires “the President to appoint a Science Laureate on the basis of: (1) merit, particularly the ability of such individual to foster and enhance public awareness and interest in science and to provide ongoing significant scientific contributions; and (2) recommendations received by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) based on those factors.” The laureate would serve a term of one or two years and would be encouraged to continue his or her scientific work, directing the NAS to facilitate those duties. |
CHICAGO -- Evaluating Derrick Rose's first week of the 2015-16 season is a tricky process. As usual with the former MVP, there always seems to be a gray area in how his numbers are digested.
First and foremost, the Chicago Bulls are 3-1 after a 92-87 win over the Orlando Magic on Sunday night. The wins are what Rose has always said he cares most about. He doesn't seem concerned with the fact that for just the third time in his career he has scored single-digit points in back-to-back games, according to ESPN Stats & Information research -- registering eight in a loss to Detroit on Friday night and six on Sunday against the Magic. After missing almost all of training camp because of a fractured left orbital bone suffered on the first day of practice, Rose is just happy to be back on the floor and working his way into shape.
"I'm good," Rose said. "All the games I've been playing in, I could care less how I'm playing, it's all about conditioning. Pushing the ball -- I'm trying to get people in positions to be successful. Getting the ball to my teammates where either they're going to shoot or they're going to feed the post or do something good for our offense. And for me it's all about playing. I missed training camp [after getting injured] the first day. I didn't play in preseason but the last game, so all this is new to me, it's foreign."
While Rose didn't score the way he would have liked, going just 2-for-8 from the field, he did manage seven rebounds and eight assists. He found ways to contribute in other areas, one of the main reasons why new Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg seemed pleased with Rose's performance.
"He played very well," Hoiberg said. "He didn't settle for any jump shots, I thought he was in attack mode and did a good job of finding guys where guys were getting to the corner, drift when he was driving baseline opposite corner. ... So I thought he really did a good job getting in there and finding guys. His eye must be getting better."
The eye is key to any study of Rose's game since Rose still acknowledges he is having problems with double vision. He isn't sure when the vision problems will stop, he just knows he's not feeling like his old self yet.
Derrick Rose has scored in single digits in back-to-back games. Still, he says, "I'm good. All the games I've been playing in, I could care less how I'm playing, it's all about conditioning." Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images
"Every single play I'm trying to read it off the strength of not being able to see," Rose said. "So how they're playing me when I'm driving to the hole. I look at a lot of film after I get done playing, just off the strength of I'm only working with one eye where I can't see like that. So I'm just happy with the pace that I'm running with. Every game is a positive for me because I missed so long, and as long as we win I could care less about anything else."
Yes, the Bulls are winning. And yes there are injury concerns still lingering. But through four games the other part of this equation is that Rose's numbers aren't looking as clear as usual in different areas. While Rose is trying to get to the rim more -- he came into the game averaging 10 drives a game, compared to just seven a season ago -- he is also averaging just three free-throw attempts a game, which would be a career low. He's also averaging 15.3 field goal attempts a game, which would be the lowest total since his rookie season.
But therein lies another portion of the argument. Rose is taking fewer shots because he is clearly trying to distribute more. One week isn't going to make a season, but it's clear from his play, and his words, that Rose is enjoying the freedom of Hoiberg's new system.
"It seems like he's forcing me into how I naturally play," Rose said. "Where I'm running downhill, I'm getting into the paint. I'm able to push the ball, one-man fast break if I want to, but it's all about my conditioning, being able to push the ball that he wants me to and I want to, get to that next gear where it's kind of like FIBA Basketball where I'm always pushing, I've got my guys running with me so I'm just trying to get in shape."
His teammates agree. They are just glad the 27 year-old is back on the floor and they understand his timing is coming.
"It will take a little bit of time," Bulls swingman Jimmy Butler said. "But I think everybody knows Derrick's game. He's going to look to find the open guy. When he gets in there he's going to look to score. On the defensive end he's going to be a pest -- hell, he had some rebounds tonight. I was talking to him on the bench, my man was in there rebounding. It's just a learning curve for everybody. It's a different style of offense, and as he gets comfortable, as we get comfortable, we're going to be a force."
That is what the Bulls are banking on, and that is why they continue to be so protective regarding Rose's recent numbers. They are convinced his time will come -- but the bigger difference is that they know, on this roster, he isn't going to have the pressure to deliver every single night as he has had in years past. The biggest key for Rose remains the same as it has always been -- he has to find a way to stay healthy. But as he continues to shake off the rust in his game and find a new feel with life underneath a protective mask, Rose is focused on the future much more so than anyone or anything from his past. When the topic of the differences between Tom Thibodeau's system and Hoiberg's came up, Rose wanted no part of the comparisons. He has always respected Thibodeau, but like many within the organization, he is ready to move on.
"Thibs is the past, man," Rose said. "I don't even want to talk Thibs no more. [With] Fred, it's been great. We're learning each other. I'm learning the offense a little bit more. Every day it seems like I'm getting better, more familiar with the offense and with the defense and I love the way the team is talking. We're communicating a little bit better, so I guess it's a great thing." |
The only reason this is at the bottom of the list is not because of flavor (this is one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth) but the effort it takes to make Alton's idea to stop the oven from smoking while cooking wings is to steam them first, and then dry them in the fridge before you cook them. Which works, by the way, but it's a bit of a hassle. Plus, when you make wings you have to learn a bit of anatomy and be able to separate and cut the joints when you prepare them. But holy-cow, the glaze is packed with flavor. It tastes exactly like the sauce at those Chinese restaurants! But it's also at the bottom of the list because it's counter-part, the buffalo-style wings, disappointed me flavor-wise. They just couldn't compare to the orange-glaze! |
The combination of human and computer intelligence might be just what we need to solve the "wicked" problems of the world, such as climate change and geopolitical conflict, say researchers from the Human Computation Institute (HCI) and Cornell University.
In an article published in the journal Science, the authors present a new vision of human computation (the science of crowd-powered systems), which pushes beyond traditional limits, and takes on hard problems that until recently have remained out of reach.
Humans surpass machines at many things, ranging from simple pattern recognition to creative abstraction. With the help of computers, these cognitive abilities can be effectively combined into multidimensional collaborative networks that achieve what traditional problem-solving cannot.
Most of today's human computation systems rely on sending bite-sized 'micro-tasks' to many individuals and then stitching together the results. For example, 165,000 volunteers in EyeWire have analyzed thousands of images online to help build the world's most complete map of human retinal neurons.
This microtasking approach alone cannot address the tough challenges we face today, say the authors. A radically new approach is needed to solve "wicked problems" - those that involve many interacting systems that are constantly changing, and whose solutions have unforeseen consequences (e.g., corruption resulting from financial aid given in response to a natural disaster).
New human computation technologies can help. Recent techniques provide real-time access to crowd-based inputs, where individual contributions can be processed by a computer and sent to the next person for improvement or analysis of a different kind. This enables the construction of more flexible collaborative environments that can better address the most challenging issues.
This idea is already taking shape in several human computation projects, including YardMap.org, which was launched by the Cornell in 2012 to map global conservation efforts one parcel at a time.
"By sharing and observing practices in a map-based social network, people can begin to relate their individual efforts to the global conservation potential of living and working landscapes," says Janis Dickinson, Professor and Director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
YardMap allows participants to interact and build on each other's work - something that crowdsourcing alone cannot achieve. The project serves as an important model for how such bottom-up, socially networked systems can bring about scalable changes how we manage residential landscapes.
HCI has recently set out to use crowd-power to accelerate Cornell-based Alzheimer's disease research. WeCureAlz.com combines two successful microtasking systems into an interactive analytic pipeline that builds blood flow models of mouse brains. The stardust@home system, which was used to search for comet dust in one million images of aerogel, is being adapted to identify stalled blood vessels, which will then be pinpointed in the brain by a modified version of the EyeWire system.
"By enabling members of the general public to play some simple online game, we expect to reduce the time to treatment discovery from decades to just a few years", says HCI director and lead author, Dr. Pietro Michelucci. "This gives an opportunity for anyone, including the tech-savvy generation of caregivers and early stage AD patients, to take the matter into their own hands."
### |
A Concord, Mass., man is accused of stripping naked and standing on top of a record player on a concrete median after he allegedly caused a three-car accident Saturday on Interstate 78.
Erik D. Jenkinson, 28, was driving under the influence of a controlled substance at 4:05 p.m. Saturday on Interstate 78 in Upper Macungie Township, police said.
Jenkinson lost control of his car as he passed a Mitsubishi Endeavor on his right driven by Harold W. Banks Jr. 52, of Methuen, Mass.
Jenkinson crashed into the concrete barrier several times, police said. His Toyota Corolla then went back across the left lane and into the right lane where it hit a Freightliner driven by Joseph E. Cantarero-Rivera, 40, of Bayshore, N.Y. Jenkinson's car careened back across the left lane and finally crashed into the concrete barrier.
Jenkinson then hopped out of his car, stripped off his clothes and stood naked on top of a record player on the center median, before running east on the highway, police said.
Jenkinson was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest and will be charged with driving under the influence of a controlled substance, resisting arrest, open lewdness, accidents involving damage to attended vehicles or property and other summary offenses, police said.
Debris from the Corolla hit Bank's Mitsubishi during the crash. Banks and Cantarero-Rivera were not hurt and were able to pull their vehicles off to the side of the highway. |
A Texas woman who lived in the United States for 30 years recently applied to become a naturalized citizen, but she hit a snag when she indicated she was a conscientious objector.
According to Raw Story, naturalized citizens must swear an oath to bear arms in defense of the nation, but a person can be exempt if they claim their right not to fight on grounds of freedom of thought, conscience or religion.
When 65-year-old Margaret Doughty made that claim, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Houston told her she has until Friday to give them a letter proving she is “a member in good standing” of a church that opposes the right to bear arms. The letter must be on “official church stationery.”
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
But Doughty, who is originally from the United Kingdom, does not belong to a church. She was told without the letter she would be denied naturalization at her June 21 hearing.
Two atheist groups came to Doughty’s aid. The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Appignani Humanist Legal Center sent letters to the Houston office indicating that legal action would be taken if Doughty is not acknowledged as a conscientious objector simply because she does not belong to a church.
On her application, Doughty explained her stance as a conscientious objector: “The truth is that I would not be willing to bear arms. Since my youth I have had a firm, fixed and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or in the bearing of arms. I deeply and sincerely believe that it is not moral or ethical to take another person’s life, and my lifelong spiritual/religious beliefs impose on me a duty of conscience not to contribute to warfare by taking up arms.”
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
“It is shocking that USCIS officers would not be aware that a nonreligious yet deeply held belief would be sufficient to attain this exemption,” wrote Andrew L. Seidel, a staff attorney for Freedom From Religion Foundation. “This is a longstanding part of our law and every USCIS officer should receive training on this exemption … Either the officers in Houston are inept, or they are deliberately discriminating against nonreligious applicants for naturalization.”
Doughty’s life’s work has been to put an end to illiteracy. She founded a nonprofit call Literary Powerline. In 2000, Queen Elizabeth II recognized her outstanding work.
“Over the past two days not only good friends but people I don’t even know have sent notes of support,” Doughty wrote on Facebook on Sunday. “They are people with a wide range of beliefs, beliefs that I respect — Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Agnostics and others. I think that is part of what has always appealed to me about America — that people of all beliefs can live together accepting and respecting each other and working together for the common good.”
Source: Raw Story, Divided Under God
undefined |
Pizza Request Dataset Release: 1.0 (04/12/2014) _______________________________________________________________________________ Dataset: http://cs.stanford.edu/~althoff/raop-dataset/pizza_request_dataset.tar.gz Paper: http://cs.stanford.edu/~althoff/raop-dataset/altruistic_requests_icwsm.pdf This dataset contains a collection of 5671 textual requests for pizza from the Reddit community "Random Acts of Pizza" together with their outcome (successful/unsuccessful) and meta-data. This dataset is released together with following paper: How to Ask for a Favor: A Case Study on the Success of Altruistic Requests Tim Althoff, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Dan Jurafsky Proceedings of ICWSM, 2014. Please cite this paper and send us a note if you use this resource in your work. (BibTex included at the end of this file.) Contact: ---- FILES ---- - pizza_request_dataset.json: The dataset in json format. - read_dataset.py: A simple python script illustrating how to read in the dataset as well as the attributes available for each single request. - narratives (folder): A folder containing the lexicons used to detect the five narratives described in our paper (desire, family, job, money, student). - altruistic_requests_icwsm.pdf: the article introducing this dataset. - README.txt: This README file. ---- DATA DESCRIPTION AND FORMAT ---- - This dataset includes 5671 requests collected from the Reddit community "Random Acts of Pizza" (http://www.reddit.com/r/Random_Acts_Of_Pizza/) between December 8, 2010 and September 29, 2013 (retrieved on September 30, 2013). All requests ask for the same thing: a free pizza. The outcome of each request --- whether its author received a pizza or not --- is known. Meta-data includes information such as: time of the request, activity of the requester, community-age of the requester, etc. - Each entry in pizza_request_dataset.json corresponds to one request (the first and only request by the requester on RAOP). - For each request, the following fields are included: "giver_username_if_known": Reddit username of giver if known, i.e. the person satisfying the request ("N/A" otherwise). "in_test_set": Boolean indicating whether this request was part of our test set. "number_of_downvotes_of_request_at_retrieval": Number of downvotes at the time the request was collected. "number_of_upvotes_of_request_at_retrieval": Number of upvotes at the time the request was collected. "post_was_edited": Boolean indicating whether this post was edited (from Reddit). "request_id": Identifier of the post on Reddit, e.g. "t3_w5491". "request_number_of_comments_at_retrieval": Number of comments for the request at time of retrieval. "request_text": Full text of the request. "request_text_edit_aware": Edit aware version of "request_text". We use a set of rules to strip edited comments indicating the success of the request such as "EDIT: Thanks /u/foo, the pizza was delicous". "request_title": Title of the request. "requester_account_age_in_days_at_request": Account age of requester in days at time of request. "requester_account_age_in_days_at_retrieval": Account age of requester in days at time of retrieval. "requester_days_since_first_post_on_raop_at_request": Number of days between requesters first post on RAOP and this request (zero if requester has never posted before on RAOP). "requester_days_since_first_post_on_raop_at_retrieval": Number of days between requesters first post on RAOP and time of retrieval. "requester_number_of_comments_at_request": Total number of comments on Reddit by requester at time of request. "requester_number_of_comments_at_retrieval": Total number of comments on Reddit by requester at time of retrieval. "requester_number_of_comments_in_raop_at_request": Total number of comments in RAOP by requester at time of request. "requester_number_of_comments_in_raop_at_retrieval": Total number of comments in RAOP by requester at time of retrieval. "requester_number_of_posts_at_request": Total number of posts on Reddit by requester at time of request. "requester_number_of_posts_at_retrieval": Total number of posts on Reddit by requester at time of retrieval. "requester_number_of_posts_on_raop_at_request": Total number of posts in RAOP by requester at time of request. "requester_number_of_posts_on_raop_at_retrieval": Total number of posts in RAOP by requester at time of retrieval. "requester_number_of_subreddits_at_request": The number of subreddits in which the author had already posted in at the time of request. "requester_received_pizza": Boolean indicating the success of the request, i.e., whether the requester received pizza. "requester_subreddits_at_request": The list of subreddits in which the author had already posted in at the time of request. "requester_upvotes_minus_downvotes_at_request": Difference of total upvotes and total downvotes of requester at time of request. "requester_upvotes_minus_downvotes_at_retrieval": Difference of total upvotes and total downvotes of requester at time of retrieval. "requester_upvotes_plus_downvotes_at_request": Sum of total upvotes and total downvotes of requester at time of request. "requester_upvotes_plus_downvotes_at_retrieval": Sum of total upvotes and total downvotes of requester at time of retrieval. "requester_user_flair": Users on RAOP receive badges (Reddit calls them flairs) which is a small picture next to their username. In our data set the user flair is either None (neither given nor received pizza, N=4282), "shroom" (received pizza, but not given, N=1306), or "PIF" (given after received, N=83). "requester_username": Reddit username of requester. "unix_timestamp_of_request": Unix timestamp of request (supposedly in timezone of user but in most cases equal to the UTC timestamp which is incorrect since most RAOP users are from the USA). "unix_timestamp_of_request_utc": Unit timestamp of request in UTC. BibTex Entry: @inproceedings{althoff2014howtoaskforafavor, title={{How to Ask for a Favor: A Case Study on the Success of Altruistic Requests}}, author={Althoff, Tim and Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Cristian and Jurafsky, Dan}, booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM)}, year={2014} } |
A senior Hamas official has been arrested in Gaza for allegedly disclosing information to Israel on the whereabouts of Muhammad Deif, the elusive commander of the terror group’s military wing, during the war in Gaza last summer.
Israeli intelligence sources believe that Deif was likely killed in an August 19, 2014, airstrike in Gaza City during Operation Protective Edge, a claim that Hamas has repeatedly denied, although Gaza-based officials have confirmed the deaths of Deif’s wife and two of his children in the strike.
A senior official in the terror group who was one of Deif’s close associates, Muhammad Rashid Shitawi, was apprehended by Hamas on Sunday and questioned in connection with the allegations, Channel 2 reported.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up
According to Hamas, Shitawi received a phone call from Deif on August 19, at the height of the war, who asked him to bring his family to Shitawi’s house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza city.
After Shitawi, whom Hamas alleged was an agent of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, acquiesced to Deif’s request, he immediately contacted his handlers and informed them of Deif’s precise location.
That enabled Israel to launch the airstrike that killed Deif’s family members and possibly Deif himself.
Shitwai was also being investigating for a bungled weapons sale to the terror group Islamic Jihad, Hamas said in a statement.
Deif has been wanted by Israel since the early 1990s for allegedly orchestrating terror attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis. Israeli officials believe he was coordinating Hamas’s movements during the summer’s conflict as head of its military wing.
Three other senior members of the military wing’s command hierarchy were killed in an Israeli strike a day after the attack on Deif’s hideout.
Deif survived at least four previous assassination attempts since 2002, after being appointed military commander following the death of his predecessor, Salah Shehade. Prior to last summer’s strike, he was believed to be paralyzed from previous attempts on his life.
In August, Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida vehemently denied that Deif was killed in the strike, noting that Israel was “unable to get to our commander Deif,” who will soon “lead the army that will enter to liberate the holy al-Aqsa mosque” in Jerusalem.
Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in Gaza with the stated intention of curbing Hamas rocket fire on Israeli towns and kibbutzim.
The 50-day conflict between the Jewish state and terrorist groups in Gaza resulted in the deaths of approximately 2,200 Palestinians — Israel contends that half were combatants, while the Palestinians say that most were civilians — and 72 people on the Israeli side, including 64 soldiers.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report. |
My Santa sent me two books. One from my Amazon wishlist, and one from his homeland of Iceland.
The first book, Jar City, is a crime thriller written by an Icelandic author and set in Reykjavìk. I'm intrigued, and excited to read it. Apparently it's part of a series, which I may have to look into. Thank you so much - I love both reading and learning about new places. This was a perfect choice for me.
I have to admit that I had already purchased the other book at the beginning of the year. But much as I love the first gift, this one touched my heart in a way that you couldn't possibly have anticipated. In fact, it took about an hour for the magnitude of the emotion to really hit me.
I don't know how much you looked at my history, but it wouldn't have been hard to find out that my home was destroyed by a tornado in April - I mentioned it in a few posts. Once it was established that everyone we knew and all of our pets were safe, and despite the loss of several nostalgic, irreplaceable items, the loss that hit me hardest was the loss of my library (and I feel justified in calling it a library - six full bookcases of books). There's no way I could replace all of that, not while I'm busy trying to make our new house feel like home for my family. This hasn't been an easy task, and neither the physical damage nor the emotional damage has been easy to repair.
So you could have found out that my beloved books were gone, and that I am fascinated with linguistics. But what you couldn't have known is that The Language Instinct WAS THE VERY BOOK I WAS READING THE NIGHT BEFORE all this happened. I had only gotten a few chapters in.
The idea that I can just pick up where I left off reading... I know it's cheesy, but emotions are funny things, and it kind of makes me feel like everything is coming back together - I'm starting again where I left off. A full circle kind of thing.
Thank you, Santa. From the bottom of my heart. |
This is one you don’t want to miss.
Citizens Against Senseless Violence goes door-to-door and asks supporters of gun control legislation to join the movement by putting signs in front of their homes letting everyone know that they proudly live in a gun free zone.
The group visits a host of key anti-gun proponents including the publishing team at the Journal News, which recently posted a public map of homeowners with registered weapons. They also visit the home of our very own Attorney General Eric Holder who has said we need to “brainwash” people about gun ownership, yet ironically, was the lead law enforcement officer in charge of an operation that transferred (without a background check or registration, no less!) military style assault rifles with high capacity magazines to the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel.
All have called on President Obama and Congress to disarm Americans.
While they’ve been quite vocal about ensuring that Americans give up their guns through reeducation, intimidation and policy, as you’ll see, they are not exactly receptive to the idea of letting everyone else in their neighborhood know how proud they are to be gun-free.
Since these reporters and editors did not consider it a violation of the privacy and safety of others to reveal which homes have guns and which homes don’t, we went to see which of them would be willing to put up a sign publicly declaring their homes to be gun free zones. While we didn’t find any members of the media with the strength of their convictions, we did find quite a few guns and some good explanations for why they might be necessary.
Video by Project Veritas via Activist Post
Their hypocrisy knows no bounds. |
When Mike Huckabee commented on contraception, women, and “their libidos” in April, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was disappointed, but she said the remark “doesn’t stand out as anything unusual from what we hear” on Capitol Hill. She added at the time, “You don’t have a long enough show for me to go into what you hear around here from the members of Congress.”
Not surprisingly, Pelosi isn’t the only woman on Capitol Hill who’s been disturbed by offensive comments from men.
If there was any question as to whether sexual harassment exists among members of Congress, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) confirmed the answer in a new interview with People magazine. According to excerpts from the interview obtained in advance by the New York Post, the congresswoman recalled multiple male colleagues making disparaging comments about her body as she struggled with her weight after having a child.
One unidentified Southern lawmaker reportedly told Gillibrand, “You know, Kirsten, you’re even pretty when you’re fat.” Another told her at the House gym, “Good thing you’re working out, because you wouldn’t want to get porky!”
When she was elevated to the U.S. Senate, Gillibrand says an older colleague squeezed her waist from behind and said, “Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby.”
There is no workplace in the nation in which this would be considered acceptable. And yet, here’s a senator describing her experiences in the building in which federal laws are made.
As inexcusable as these male lawmakers’ conduct is, it’s important for perspectives like Gillibrand’s to be heard. Congress has a reputation for being a hostile work environment for many women – lawmakers and staffers alike – and the more we hear from those who’ve been harassed, the more likely it is conditions will change.
So why would anyone be skeptical of Gillibrand’s claims?
A senior congressional reporter for Politico tweeted on Wednesday evening that he did not believe Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s claims that she had been subjected to sexist remarks and actions from her congressional colleagues. John Bresnahan is a longstanding and respected congressional reporter for Politico. But he responded skeptically after Gillibrand recalled several sexist encounters in a yet-to-be-released interview with People magazine about her forthcoming book. The New York Post reported on portions of the People interview Wednesday.
Bresnahan later apologized , calling his initial skepticism “completely moronic.” |
Global Warming at the Kinetica Art Fair 2010 at the Kinetica Art Fair 2010
An interactive urinal is a device that allow users to play video games or control interactive displays while urinating. Several designs have been produced to date, usually comprising a urinal fitted with a pressure sensor to measure the strength and position of the urine flow and an LCD screen mounted above the urinal to provide animated graphics.[1][2]
Captive Media [ edit ]
Captive Media units installed in The Exhibit Bar in Balham, London.
A British company called Captive Media developed and patented an interactive video game system for installation above urinal bowls in 2011.[3] Their system operates by use of infra-red detection of urine temperature, with the sensors integral to the screen unit which is positioned above the bowl. Amongst others, the system is installed in The Exhibit Bar in Balham, London[4] and Ta Bouche Bar in Cambridge, UK.[5]
Players control the system by directing their stream left or right. Currently the system has two games:
On The Piste – a skiing game, in which the player must knock over penguins to score points.
– a skiing game, in which the player must knock over penguins to score points. Clever Dick – a pub-quiz game, in which players must answer True or False questions.
Players can then access an affiliated website called Captive Games to view their scores on a leader board, and use Twitter to broadcast them. When not in use the screens display entertainment content, including YouTube videos and Internet memes, as well as the venue's own promotional material and third-party advertisements.
Yanko Design [ edit ]
In 2006 the design magazine Yanko Design presented a concept for a urinal containing a pressure-sensitive display screen that is triggered when it is urinated on, producing images and sound. According to the designer, Marcel Neundorfer, it transforms urination into "more than just a necessary nuisance. By projecting the game experience into the public space, viewers are treated to a new way of visualizing the abstract, and the entertainment value is boosted."[1]
PlaceToPee [ edit ]
An interactive urinal named PlaceToPee, formerly named PleeStation (plee means toilet in Dutch), was devised in Belgium by software engineer Werner Dupont and electrical engineer Bar Geraets. The pair came up with the idea during a drinking session in a bar and attracted the interest of sanitary equipment company Guedens Sanitair Verhuur, which provided financial support to develop a single PlaceToPee unit.[6] The PlaceToPee was installed in the 2007 GamePower Expo in Ghent with a racing game that allowed visitors to steer on-screen cars with their urine. The system gave warnings to players about drunk driving if their urine was off-target. It was shut down after the Belgian police deemed it to be indecent.[7] The following year the makers displayed the PlaceToPee at the "Arendonk Zingt & Swingt" festival. It allowed users to answer on-screen questions by urinating in a particular direction. The creators publicly expressed confidence in their product and suggested that it could be used as a sophisticated means of counting votes for the Miss Belgium contest.[8] Women are catered for by providing them with a cardboard cone to direct their urine.[6]
Interactive urinal communicator [ edit ]
The interactive urinal communicator is an advertising device invented by bioengineer Dr. Richard Deutsch for the Islip, New York company Wizmark. The 3.5-inch (8.9 cm) screen is placed in a urinal to promote products or services. Deutsch commented, "Now when nature calls, there is going to be something entertaining to look at and listen to."[9]
Features of the advertising include:
Flashing lights that are activated by physical presence, or actual urination
A lenticular image that changes depending on viewpoint
A 16-second pre-recorded audio message
A temperature-sensitive image
Deutsch commented to Marketing Magazine that "Beginning with early attempts at writing one's name in the snow, there has always been an element of recreation associated with urination for men." Such advertising vehicles are not entirely new: some plain screens have carried advertising for a few years now and poster style ads in washrooms are quite common. The use of interactive urinal screens is being advocated by guerrilla marketers.[10]
Global Warming [ edit ]
In 2009, artist Ricardo Carvalho and programmer Alias Cummings created an interactive urinal entitled Global Warming in which the trail of urine hits on a grid of ultra sensitive piezos housed within the urinal. The strength and direction of the urine is calculated and used to control the navigation of a 3D Earth globe, leaving a trail of thousands of Google Earth place markers on its surface. The spectator's action is reminiscent of spraying, the animal behaviour of identifying and marking territory. Global Warming, besides its obvious environmental connotation, is an ironic take on how primitive territorial instincts, such as the visceral act of spraying, can be exercised through supposedly intelligent and networked devices and at the same time disguised by them.[11]
Sega Toylet [ edit ]
The Japanese company Sega have developed an interactive urinal system called the Toylet.[2] A choice of four mini-games can be selected:
Manneken Pis, a game for the Sega Toylet, in which the player's score depends on how much urine that has been produced (in this case 242 ml). Screenshot from, a game for the Sega Toylet, in which the player's score depends on how much urine that has been produced (in this case 242 ml).
Manneken Pis , named after the eponymous statue of a urinating boy in Brussels, awards the player a score based on how hard and how much they can urinate.
, named after the eponymous statue of a urinating boy in Brussels, awards the player a score based on how hard and how much they can urinate. Graffiti Eraser requires the player to spray urine around to clean graffiti off a virtual wall.
requires the player to spray urine around to clean graffiti off a virtual wall. The Northern Wind, The Sun and Me puts the player in the role of the wind trying to lift a girl's skirt by blowing air at her – the strength of the wind depends on the force of the flow of urine.
puts the player in the role of the wind trying to lift a girl's skirt by blowing air at her – the strength of the wind depends on the force of the flow of urine. Battle! Milk From Nose allows the player to compete against the person who last used the urinal by comparing the strength of their urine streams. The streams are represented on-screen as jets of milk squirting out of the noses of two characters standing in a sumo ring. If the player's urine stream is stronger, his opponent is blasted out of the ring.[2]
The Toylet records players' scores and allows them to be saved onto a USB memory stick. Advertisements are shown between games. The system has been installed in the men's toilets in four stations of the Tokyo Metro, including Akihabara, Soga and Ikebukuro. It was trialed until the end of January 2011.[2] Some units are available at the new Tokyo Sega Joypolis.
Simulated versions of Toylets are playable in the video game Yakuza Kiwami 2. |
DJWilma Profile Blog Joined April 2011 Canada 571 Posts #1
Day [9] and the Koreans
If you ask me who my herO is, my Hero is Day[9]
Cuz when Life gives you Rain, he'll always give you Shine
He's the First Symbol of Happy, when you talk about SC2
And a ReaL Genius at the game, watch his play, you'll know it's True.
So be Ready for no Sleep, and monobattle the Weekend
If you're Lucky, Check the stream, the Creator might invite you my friend.
Would love if others shared similar poems
Much Luv
DJWilma
I found this on my computer while watching MLG today, and figured might as well share. I'm no poet, but I thought it was a fun idea!If you ask me who myis, myisCuz whengives you, he'll always give youHe's theof, when you talk about SC2And aat the game, watch his play, you'll know it'sSo befor no, and monobattle theIf you'rethe stream, themight invite you my friend.Would love if others shared similar poemsMuch LuvDJWilma twitch.tv/omwproductions / youtube.com/omwpromedia / http://omwproductions.com
nebula. Profile Blog Joined November 2011 Sweden 1427 Posts #2 I had a MajOr Flash of two girls named Alicia and Jenny covered in NesTea in my Last Dream. TY I miss you July ~~~ I was in PonyTales #7 wooho!
The_Templar Profile Blog Joined January 2011 THE FUTURE 52439 Posts #3 I put EffOrt into my Life, and when I don't Succeed according to what I Dream, I HuK. Moderator I'm actually a
Iyerbeth Profile Blog Joined October 2010 England 2402 Posts #4
+ Show Spoiler +
So Gosu User
Total control seems missing from this.
The unstoppable stopped,
haunted by waves of crisis.
Granted reprieve by a dot?
A flash fills the sky
By the will of a God
The air is filled with screams as they die
and their factories fail,
falling silent beneath our strike
And the chase round the trail
As we finally exhale
Goswser prevails. Inspired by Goswser vs Bomber game three and this thread, here's an extremely rough draft of a poem. Kinda spoilery. ♥ Liquid`Sheth ♥ Liquid`TLO ♥
caradoc Profile Blog Joined January 2011 Canada 3015 Posts #5 Casting starcraft for fun and for profit,
he's been at it for years and won't stop it,
with nary a whine,
he's known as day[9]
and (don't tell but) I hear he's a muppet. Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea...
sGs.FroZen Profile Blog Joined August 2012 United States 37 Posts #6 I hope my girlfriend likes TLO... Starcraft should never fall. |
Note: This article first appeared in the CFN Newsletter for September – October 2009.
There’s nothing that skeptics enjoy more than a good debunking. Set up a big fat target and let the fun begin: How could anyone believe that nonsense? Or pose an apparently insuperable challenge: prove that you have paranormal powers and we’ll give you a million bucks. Thus far, no takers.
Among those leading the skeptical charge (my apology for omissions) are James Randi, founder of the Randi Educational Foundation; Michael Shermer, head of the Skeptics Society and author of Why People Believe Weird Things; Joe Nickel and others at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, publishers of Skeptical Inquirer; physicist and science-defender Lawrence Krauss; Massimo Pigliucci, host of Rationally Speaking; neurologist Steven Novella who heads the New England Skeptical Society and hosts Neurologica; and of course America’s favorite exploders of supernatural shibboleths and fashionable nonsense, Penn and Teller on their show Bullshit!. None of these guys are to be trifled with if you have the least propensity for wishful thinking. Their critical gaze has shredded every imaginable quackery, from Bigfoot to birthers, spoon-bending to séances, vaccine scare-mongering to visitations from the dead. If there’s no solid empirical evidence for it or if it’s logically suspect, they’re all over it, and then it’s all over for the wishful thinker. This of course fulfills an important function for the culture: keeping it intellectually honest, or at least less dishonest.
Given all this, it’s striking that the skeptical community pays relatively little attention to one of the weirdest beliefs going: that human beings have contra-causal free will.[1]
Although the actual prevalence of this belief is just now being researched, it’s probably safe to say that many folks suppose that our choices transcend natural causal laws in some respect, such that we are miniature first causes, like God. Sitting inside each of us is an unmoved mover, an immaterial soul or mental agent, that gets to pick and choose among courses of action without itself being determined in its choices. But of course there’s no evidence for such a supernatural thing. We are natural, physical beings through and through, and our choices, dependent as they are on the workings of our brains, cannot transcend the laws of cause and effect that hold elsewhere in nature. This doesn’t mean we aren’t rational and moral beings (a good deal of the time anyway), but we aren’t contra-causal. Nor is it logically possible to be self-caused in any ultimate respect, which is pretty much what contra-causal free will requires.
Most scientists and philosophers have long since given up on immaterial agents with contra-causal free will, also called libertarian free will or strong “agent causation.”[2] Some in the philosophical community even describe themselves as free will skeptics. Being academics, they of course disagree on many of the fine points (huge, from their perspective) of what’s called action theory, but none put stock in uncaused causers. But such skepticism has thus far not found a strong public voice in the wider community of skeptics and their leaders mentioned above. Why not, one wonders?
Before speculating about this, I should mention that a few skeptics have trained their sights specifically on libertarian free will, which is most encouraging. The hosts of Reasonable Doubts – Jeremy Beahan, Luke Galen, and David Fletcher – aired a three part series on free will and determinism (episodes 29, 30, 34) which did a good job of showing the logical and empirical difficulties of belief in uncaused causers. (Note: I was interviewed during the second half of the second show, but my contribution mainly echoed what the hosts had already concluded in the first half of the series.) Even better, they discussed the significance of the challenge to free will, of how giving up belief in human causal exceptionalism can affect beliefs about credit, blame, punishment, merit and inequality in ways that help promote a more compassionate and cause-cognizant (and therefore smarter) culture.
So why isn’t contra-causal free will being vigorously targeted by skeptics, given its manifest implausibilities, implausibilities at least equal to alien abduction? An unlikely possibility is that they aren’t aware of the issue. Given the historical prominence of the free will question, plus the increasing pressure science is putting on the idea of our being first causes, most skeptics have likely thought about human freedom. Michael Shermer, for one, discusses free will in his book The Mind of the Market (pp. 235-8) in the context of defending compatibilist versions of it, those compatible with determinism. Free will has also been discussed occasionally on some skeptic blogs (see note 1), so it isn’t invisible to the skeptical community.
Another possibility is that skeptics suppose there’s little to be gained by broaching what’s often called one of the great unsolved questions of philosophy. Why rehash old debates about free will? But the debate about whether we have contra-causal free will is pretty much settled, at least in the academic and scientific communities: we don’t. The puzzle of free will now mainly consists in how we might rethink our notions of self, freedom and responsibility in light of the death of the soul, and what this implies for our responsibility practices, for instance in criminal justice. These are momentous questions that skeptics can help bring to the fore by prying the public loose from their supernatural notions of self and freedom.
A third possibility is that skeptics are well aware of the weirdness of contra-causal free will, but reluctant to publicly challenge a belief so central to Western culture. To do so would open a rather large can of worms: If we’re fully caused to do what we do, what happens to personal responsibility? Are we just puppets of fate? Do killers go free? Do billionaires deserve their riches? These are questions that skeptics might be reluctant to take on, even though challenging a free willer might prove entertaining. Imagine Penn Gillette asking:
You believe what? Let me get this straight, you think you can just choose to lose weight/stop smoking/get rich? You think we have that kind of power? Prove it!
But, having had his fun, he’d then have to reassure everyone that it’s OK not to have free will. To debunk free will responsibly requires that the skeptic articulate good reasons why we don’t need to be exceptions from cause and effect, otherwise people might go away supposing that everything’s permitted or that their choices don’t make a difference. Given the undeserved but widespread dislike of determinism as the nefarious subverter of human dignity (see here), putting people at ease about it is not a trivial undertaking, and might give skeptics pause.
This points up the fact that many of the weird beliefs debunked by skeptics over the years haven’t been particularly central to our self-concept or our culture. It isn’t a problem for most of us that we haven’t been visited by aliens, that the Loch Ness monster doesn’t exist, that Reiki healing is just the placebo effect, and that we don’t have paranormal powers. What’s more of a problem than any particular belief is the gullibility, illogicality, wishful thinking and confirmation bias that permits such nonsense to flourish. As champions of rationality, empiricism and critical thinking, skeptics are, thankfully, fighting the good fight against the temptations of unreason and the supernatural. May their ranks increase.
Should they turn their attention to beliefs in contra-causal freedom, they’ll find the same cognitive failings in play, but as we’ve seen, the stakes are considerably higher. Free will skepticism isn’t to be undertaken lightly, which may explain why few leading skeptics are undertaking it in their magazines, lectures, blogs and podcasts. Still, as the philosophically savvy crew at Reasonable Doubts demonstrates, if you’ve considered what life would be like after free will, and understand its viability and indeed its virtues, then you’ll be in a position to offer the necessary reassurances. We can, it turns out, be responsibly skeptical of the widespread, weird belief at the core of the Western conception of self: that we somehow transcend the causal laws of the natural world that brought us into being.[3]
TWC, September 2009
Notes
[1] A web search turned up some online discussions related to free will by skeptics, including blogs at Skepchick (Free will, Free will as illusion, Does free will exist?, Train delays, horoscopes and free will), Neurologica (Decision Making in the Brain) and Skepticblog (So many choices). Also found were Implications of no free will at the Skeptic.com discussion board (starting with a post on the virtues of realizing we don’t have free will) and Does free will exist?, on a South African skeptic discussion board. But I didn’t find any major articles debunking belief in contra-causal free will.
[2] There is a small but resilient minority, including David Hodgson and Tibor Machan, that won’t give up on strong agent causation, partially because they suppose Western civilization depends on it.
[3] Not having done an exhaustive search of the skeptical literature, there’s undoubtedly more skepticism out there about free will than I’m aware of. So, be skeptical about my assessment in this article. |
EMPLOYEES reported that the Game Stop, 2754 W. Montrose Ave., was robbed at gunpoint at about 9:50 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 22, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The employees reported that three men entered the store and that one of them displayed a handgun and the three took an undisclosed amount of money from the cash register and eight video game consoles and also destroyed the camera system, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that he was robbed at about 9:20 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 22, in an alley in the 4100 block of North Troy Street, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The 29-year-old man reported that two men got out of a car, displayed knives and took his wallet containing $40 and his keys, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that a man attempted to rob him at about 9:40 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 25, in the 4200 block of North Richmond Street, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The 32-year-old man reported that as he was sitting in his car, a man wearing a ski mask got out of a vehicle, displayed a handgun and demanded his belongings, and that when he did not respond, the man fled in a vehicle without taking anything, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that he was robbed at about 9:45 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 25, in the 4500 block of North Mozart Street, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The 35-year-old man reported that as he was sitting in his car, a man wearing a ski mask got out of a vehicle, displayed a handgun and took his cell phone and his wallet containing $150, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that his car was stolen at about 6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 26, in the 4100 block of North Mozart Street, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The 39-year-old man reported that after he parked his 2014 Volkswagen Passat, a man displayed a handgun and a second man took his wallet containing credit and debit cards and $100, his cell phone and his keys and also took his car, according to police.
A WOMAN reported that she was robbed at about 8:40 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 27, in the 3500 block of North Kedvale Avenue, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The 31-year-old woman reported that a man displayed a handgun and took her purse containing $6, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that he was robbed at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 27, in the 3600 block of West Agatite Avenue, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The 37-year-old man reported that a man displayed a handgun and took his wallet containing credit and debit cards, according to police.
A WOMAN was shot at about 3:40 a.m. Monday, Dec. 26, while she was in her car in a parking lot in the 4100 block of North Kedvale Avenue, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The 26-year-old woman reported that her former boyfriend got out of a car and fired two shots at her, with one striking her in the right hand, according to police. The woman was treated at Swedish Covenant Hospital, police said.
A MAN WAS arrested on drug charges at about 6:45 p.m. Monday, Dec. 26, in the 5200 block of North Sawyer Avenue, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
Officers who responded to a report of a person acting suspiciously found a shoeless man outside who was acting erratically, and during a struggle with the man he was electronically shocked twice before he was subdued, according to police. A substance suspected of being PCP in the man’s possession, police said.
The suspect was identified by police as Felipe Robledo, age 25, of the 2700 block of West Summerdale Avenue.
A MAN REPORTED that a man fired a gun at him at about 5:35 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 25, in the 4500 block of North Christiana Avenue, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The 38-year-old man reported that as he was entering his yard, a man fired several shots at him, according to police. A woman reported that bullets struck a window in her home and a window of her car, police said.
A MAN WAS shot at about 3:40 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 27, in the 3400 block of North Milwaukee Avenue, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The 29-year-old man reported that a man asked him for a cigarette lighter and refused to give it back, and that during a struggle the man displayed a handgun which fired, and a bullet grazed his left finger, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that his car was stolen from the garage of his home in the 4000 block of North Harding Avenue at about 3:25 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 21, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The man reported that after the garage alarm went off he discovered that his 2015 Kia Sorento was missing, according to police. Officers recovered the vehicle the following day in the 3700 block of West Belle Plaine Avenue, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that his home in the 3700 block of West Cullom Avenue was burglarized between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 22, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The man reported that when he returned home he discovered that the rear door was open and that two guitars valued at $250 and $50 in cash were missing, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that his home in the 4600 block of North Keystone Avenue was burglarized between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 24, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The man reported that when he returned home he discovered that the side door was open and that gold and silver jewelry valued at $4,000, an iPad and $400 in cash were missing, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that his home in the 5000 block of North Kostner Avenue was burglarized between 4:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 25, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The man reported that when he returned home he discovered that a rear window was open and that jewelry valued at $500 and $500 in cash were missing, according to police.
A WOMAN reported that her home in the 3700 block of West Agatite Avenue was burglarized between 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 24, and 4:15 p.m. the following day, according to 17th (Albany Park) District police.
The woman reported that when she returned home she discovered that the back door had been forced open and that two cameras valued at $1,600 were missing, according to police.
LINCOLNWOOD
A MAN REPORTED that his car was stolen from a parking lot in the 3900 block of West Devon Avenue at about 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 27, according to Lincolnwood police.
The man reported that he left his 2016 Hyundai Genesis running while he entered a restaurant and that when he returned the car was missing, according to police. The man said that he used a cell phone application to turn his car engine off, and officers recovered the car in the 6800 block of North Keeler Avenue, police said.
A WOMAN reported that her car was stolen from the driveway of her home in the 6900 block of North Kedvale Avenue at about 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 27, according to Lincolnwood police.
The woman reported that she discovered that her 2015 BMW 525iA was missing from the driveway, according to police. Officers recovered the car in the 3900 block of West Lunt Avenue, police said.
A WOMAN was arrested after she allegedly shoplifted items from the Kohl’s store in the Lincolnwood Town Center, 3333 W. Touhy Ave., at about 3:05 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 20, according to Lincolnwood police.
An employee reported that the woman cut the tags from two purses valued at $148, concealed the purses in a baby stroller and left the store without paying for the items, according to police. The employee reported that when the woman was detained she discovered several items of baby clothing valued at $365 concealed in the stroller, police said.
The suspect was identified by police as Maria Perez, age 26, of the 3400 block of West Leland Avenue.
A WOMAN was arrested after she allegedly shoplifted items from the Carson Pirie Scott store in the Lincolnwood Town Center, 3333 W. Touhy Ave., at about 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 22, according to Lincolnwood police.
An employee reported that she saw the woman place four pairs of men’s shoes valued at $334, three wallets valued at $120, two pairs of assorted hosiery valued at $82 and jewelry valued at $48 in a shopping bag and leave the store without paying for the items, according to police.
The suspect was identified by police as Durdana Qadri, age 47, of the 8200 block of North Niles Center Road, Skokie. |
Dan Taipua’s Save State series presents five gaming relics that every collector needs in their shrine/garage, from the essential basics to the very rare and frustratingly pointless. In the third installment, Dan lists his favourite hand-helds.
5. Sony PocketStation & Sega VMU
Look at these cute lil’ guys.
Portable systems are usually standalone devices, but these #5 gaming icons were developed as add-ons for the Sony Playstation and Sega Dreamcast respectively. Both operate as memory cards for saving game data, feature built-in digital clocks and sound, and stand at about 8cm high.
The Sega VMU is the more versatile of the two: when plugged into a Dreamcast controller it can act as a miniature second-screen, displaying real-time in game data. Unplugged from the Dreamcast, you can play minigames that give you XP and bonuses to upload to your save games. The mini games float at around the Tamagotchi level all way down to Nokia Snake. If you have two VMU’s you can even plug them end to end and swap data. The PocketStation isn’t as flash, but you can train FFVII Chocobo on it.
I think the basic idea with these is you can play them at school and contribute to something more meaningful in your life.
4. Atari Lynx
The Lynx is an okay gaming system but its really value is historical, marking the exact point Atari got washed-out. Best known for being the first and biggest video game company on earth, Atari was also the first to go bust. Between the Pac-Man era and the Lynx the company struggled for relevance with a bunch of different systems, and the portable market was one of the hardest battlefields they could have picked.
Every advantage the Lynx presented came with a downside: The large and wide screen gave it console-quality graphics but made the device barely portable with a 25cm width, and its speedy CPU gave it more processing power that in turn require more battery power (6x AA batteries at a time). One of the few upshot innovations for the Lynx is its ambidextrous function: you can flip the screen upside down and play with an opposite set of control buttons. The most portable feature of the Atari Lynx are the games, which came on hard chipboards instead of cartridges – though the games themselves were of middling or suspicious quality.
You could get the Lynx in New Zealand but it was a pretty rare sight – so secondhand prices are quite high.
3. Sega Game Gear
Despite the fact that the Game Gear has about the same technical specs of the Lynx, it made a much better showing in New Zealand. Part of this can be attributed to Sega’s marketing dominance in Western countries, which relied on a RAD BAD BOY ATTITUDE TO THE MAX. Sega global advertising was so bent on this angle that it even made it to Australia, culminating in this ginger boy with a single, solid curtain of bang. If that didn’t encourage you to fork over a small fortune, maybe the opportunity to have a mega radical fascist point a gun at your head would. By either means, Sega ensured that every badass 11 year-old in a Mighty Ducks cap and a silk shirt thought theirs was the better console.
The Game Gear shared the most important features of the Lynx: full-colour graphics and a back-lit display so you could play in the dark. Improvements included a reduced size (but still quite bulky), a much larger catalogue of games (about 300, many ported from the Sega Master System) and because this is Sega we’re talking about, a bunch of add-ons including a TV antenna.
There are two main factors keeping the Game Gear from a higher ranking in this list. First is the shockingly short battery life of 5-hours maximum per 6 AA batteries, meaning Energizer would eat up all of your disposable purchasing power. The second is the absence of a strong launch title to hook buyers, and one that would entice people entirely new to gaming; something like, say, Tetris…
2. Brick Game
This is a break in progression, but hear me out:
At any given point in time, the number of Brick Games in New Zealand exceeds the number of AA batteries by a factor of plenty. There might be more of these around than there are iPhones. What I’m trying to say is that Brick Game is very popular and there’s lots about and that. Brick Game consoles will often claim up to 999 playable titles, but there’s really only one: a cut-rate, cut-price, totally acceptable version of Tetris. This is the console’s only feature and only strength, and enough to earn the #2 place on this list.
Every now and then, there are certain games that re-orient the popular consciousness – games that allow people to make sense of what video gaming is and how it will function not only as product, but as a social object. Tetris was a benchmark for this kind of breakthrough because it presented itself as a puzzle instead of a video game. Everyone understands how a jigsaw works: the only additional mechanics are gravity and time. Novices can pick up Tetris and try it, experts can master it – a scalable experience for every audience.
As a console, the Brick Game helped re-orient perceptions about the social function of gaming i.e. an unobtrusive means of killing time. Console gaming meant occupying the family TV, and computer gaming meant confining yourself to indoors, but portable gaming meant filling in dead time: the bus stop, the waiting room, the kitchen of an unpopular relative. The sheer ubiquity of Brick Games, propelled by their low cost and availability from The Warehouse, introduced casual mobile gaming a generation ahead of of smartphones.
Never be shamed by your Brick Game, it belongs at Te Papa IMO.
1. Nintendo Game Boy
Back in the kingdom of proper portable consoles, the Game Boy wears the crown. Launching in 1989, before all of the other consoles listed above, the GB had the perfect formula for success and outsold, outlasted and generally stunted on every competitor.
Technically inferior to the Game Gear and Lynx, the Game Boy featured a square single-colour screen and reduced processing power, but 4 AA batteries would reliably last up to 20+ straight hours of gaming. The body of the Game Boy, designed by hall-of-famer Gunpei Yokoi, was much more compact than its competitors and subverted ergonomic expectations by going for a portrait orientation – placing the screen above the controls and mimicking a natural book-reading posture. The classic Game Boy DMG-001 console (pictured above) was so robust that it went unchanged for seven years until it was revamped as a more compact model, the Game Boy Pocket. The hardware continued to develop up to the Game Boy Micro in 2005, giving the brand a sixteen year history at the top of its field.
In 2012 I sold my original Game Boy to the NZ office of Vice Magazine. I had owned it for 20 years.
All our gaming coverage comes to your eye holes with help from Bigpipe, the grooviest ISP out there, yo.
The Spinoff’s gaming content is powered by Orcon. Get awesome Wi-Fi in every room with Google Wifi on us with our fastest fibre plan. Go to orcon.net.nz to find out more. |
Story highlights A June 2016 meeting has led the Senate judiciary committee to ask for testimony
The panel's chairman wants to talk to Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort
(CNN) Senate judiciary committee Chairman Chuck Grassley threatened Thursday to subpoena both Donald Trump Jr. and Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort if they do not appear before his committee for a scheduled appearance next week.
Trump Jr. and Manafort are scheduled to testify before the Senate judiciary committee on July 26 , the panel announced Wednesday, but neither Manafort nor Trump Jr. have publicly confirmed if they will appear.
"We sent the letter, I don't know whether they've accepted, but we sent the letter and we asked them for a voluntary appearance, and we also, I think we've indicated to them that -- I don't know if we said it in the letter or not -- but we indicated to them, at least publicly I indicated to them that there will be a subpoena if they don't come," the Iowa Republican told CNN.
Grassley added, "We are having a hearing next Wednesday, so obviously we want to hear right away so we can get the subpoena -- I hope they accept the subpoena voluntarily, but if they don't then you have to have a marshal give it and that takes a little more time."
The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, reiterated the subpoena threat as well.
Read More |
A Texas state trooper is under investigation after two jailed Fort Worth women claim he brought in pliers to try to remove piercings from their breasts and later injured one of them with his hands. (Published Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016)
A Texas state trooper is under investigation after two Fort Worth women claim he got pliers to help remove piercings from their breasts and later injured one of them with his hands.
The trooper, identified in the women's arrest records as Michael Tice, has been placed on administrative duty, said Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger.
The women, 18-year-old Tayler Myers and 19-year-old Courtney Palacios, said they were returning to Fort Worth from a concert in Houston on Monday when the trooper stopped them for speeding in Marlin, east of Waco.
The trooper said he found a single pill in the vehicle and arrested them and two male friends for drug possession, the women said.
Myers and Palacios said they were in the back seat of the car and knew nothing about the pill, which they said the trooper claimed to find in the driver's door.
While being booked into the Falls County Jail, the two women said the trooper asked them to remove any piercings.
"And then we told him, 'Well, where do we go to take out our nipple rings?'" Myers said. "And he was like, 'You are going to have to do it right here, in the open.'"
They said they turned away and raised their shirts.
"We ended up getting one of them out," Palacios said. "We each got our right one out. But we were having trouble with the left. It was not coming out at all."
That's when they say the trooper went to his car – and returned with pliers.
He asked them to continue to try to remove the piercings themselves but they were unable.
Then Palacios said the trooper touched her.
"He came up to me and he got really close to it, and he was just staring," Palacios said. "He's like, 'I think it unscrews from the left side.' So then, without gloves or anything – and I could see dirt under his nails, it was extremely disgusting – he gets on there and he tries to twist it and he starts shaking from trying so hard and he ends up pulling it and ripping it and it starts bleeding."
Palacios said the pain was sharp.
"I'm like 'ow, ow, ow, ow, ow,' saying it really loud," she said. "He finally stops and backs away and he just stares at me. He didn't say sorry or anything or acted like it was a big deal."
She said she was bleeding but neither the trooper nor the jailers offered to get her medical help.
"It was extremely uncomfortable and uncalled for and I don't think he should have been anywhere near me," Palacios said.
Palacios said the piercing never did come out and she was finally allowed to keep it in.
Myers said a female jailer used the pliers to try to remove her piercing while the trooper was nearby.
"I feel like it's not right, what he did, at all," said Myers, whose father is a Fort Worth police sergeant and mother is a police dispatcher.
The women have hired Fort Worth attorney Curtis Fortinberry and are considering filing a lawsuit.
"He has violated every policy and procedure known to police work," said Fortinberry, a former Fort Worth officer. "That is just absolutely mind-boggling that he would do this."
Palacios later went to the hospital and expects her wound to heal.
The two women also were cited for having alcohol in the car and Palacios was charged with having a fake identification card.
They said three Texas Rangers interviewed them on Thursday and took photos of Palacios' injury.
Falls County Sheriff Ben Kirk and District Attorney Kathryn Gilliam did not return phone calls seeking comment. |
Hormones' complex role in human sexuality Prairie vole study suggests hormones a key to sexuality
A male and female prairie vole with their babies are pair-bonded for life under the influence of oxytocin, a hormone also important in human sexual relationships like trust and monogamy A male and female prairie vole with their babies are pair-bonded for life under the influence of oxytocin, a hormone also important in human sexual relationships like trust and monogamy Photo: Todd Ahern/Emory University, Courtesy To The Chronicle Photo: Todd Ahern/Emory University, Courtesy To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Hormones' complex role in human sexuality 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love ... but whither when the year is young?
It matters not, for as long as the hormones are in tune, love can bloom at any time, say scientists who study the genetics and neurobiology of animals whose family lives shed new light on human sexuality.
Larry J. Young, a Georgia neurobiologist, studies the genes and hormones of the cute but often pestiferous little beasts called prairie voles, which mate and bond for life.
Those genes and hormones exist in humans, too, and in a uniquely literate essay in today's issue of the journal Nature, Young points to the role they play in animals and humans.
"Poetry it is not. Nor is it particularly romantic. But reducing love to its comprehensive parts helps us understand human sexuality and may lead to drugs that enhance or diminish our love for another," he said.
Young, a professor in the psychiatry department at Auburn University in Atlanta and the Yerkes National Primate Research Center there, has discovered that two closely related peptide hormones called oxytocin and vasopressin play powerful roles in both animal and human sexuality.
"I call oxytocin the motherly hormone," Young said in an interview, "because its release in the body of female voles is involved in uterine contractions, in lactation and in the mother's early bonding with vole babies. It's also the hormone responsible for lifelong pair bonding between males and females.
"Vasopressin is closely related to oxytocin, but it's dependent on testosterone - so it's the macho version of oxytocin."
In the Bay Area, scientists say Young's research of togetherness in prairie voles is proving valuable to understanding many disorders in the human condition.
"Oxytocin is the hormone of monogamy," said neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, who directs the Women's Mood and Hormone Clinic at UCSF which also takes male patients. "If you give men nasal squirts of oxytocin, it increases their trust in others, their ability to be affectionate - it brings out their feminine side, is how I'd put it.
"Years ago a man I was seeing said to me, 'Give me some of that oxytocin - I just want to love someone!' "
Because monogamy and love are examples of powerful human interactions, Brizendine believes the hormones involved could also prove important for people with disorders like autism, Asperger's syndrome and even schizophrenia, because the symptoms mean they can rarely find close relationships.
Young's primary research shows the effects of the hormones on prairie voles, but he also discovered that oxytocin has similar effects on mountain voles, a different species that are not monogamous and do not pair-bond for life. When mountain voles are exposed to doses of oxytocin in the lab, the males will bond with females in a close and sometimes lifetime relationship like their cousins, Young said.
The varied genes that trigger the release of oxytocin and the testosterone-dependent vasopressin in both voles and humans, Young said, have obviously had a long evolutionary history, as it is also found in other, more primitive pair-bonding animals - even though monogamy is extremely rare throughout the animal kingdom.
"In all my work," Young said, "I'm trying to understand how we humans interact with each other - to understand the genetics and biochemistry of the social brain, and how it may go wrong in profound disorders like autism and schizophrenia."
Brizendine called Young's work "deeply important because it clearly correlates the phenomenon of pair-bonding in his voles with monogamous relations in humans."
As for the vasopressin, Brizendine said, one variation in the gene that controls the hormone can make a man "more prone to long-term bonded relationships," while a man with another variation of the gene "will be prone to infidelity."
Dacher Keltner, a psychologist and director of the Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory at UC Berkeley, calls Young's vole research - along with work by Sue Carter at the University of Maryland and Thomas R. Insel at the National Institute of Mental Health - "unbelievably influential in showing us that there's a physical, biological basis to long-term monogamy, love, devotion and feelings of trust with each other."
The new awareness of the role of hormones in human relations is underscored in new books being published this year by both Keltner and Brizendine. "Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life" by Keltner is out next week, and "The Male Brain" by Brizendine will be published in September.
Oxytocin, meanwhile, is sold commercially as a "trust hormone" to be used in nasal sprays. One ad claims it can "produce significant increase in charisma, which creates a highly trustworthy appearance," while another calls its brand "a great female seducer."
But all three scientists - Young, Brizendine and Keltner - agree that it's much too early to be peddling the hormones that way.
"We're only at the beginning of our laboratory studies, and people should be extremely careful," Young said. |
0 SHARES Facebook Twitter
I’ve made no bones about the fact that I love the Ace Attorney franchise. Though I came in late with the second game, Justice For All, I quickly got the first one, then Trials and Tribulations, and then got Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice. Oh, and the Professor Layton crossover and the first Miles Edgeworth solo game. I loved the series so much that I ranked the games in the series (Spirit of Justice is missing, the list was done before that), and, I ranked the prosecutors that helped make the game great.
I truly love Ace Attorney, so when Capcom announced that the next official game in the series would come to the Nintendo Switch, I was pumped, and I’m already anticipating the over-the-top cases that will be had. But, what makes the series truly special is the characters that fill it up. And some of them truly stand out above the rest. So, I’m going to count down my favorite Ace Attorney characters.
Now, before anyone shouts, “OBJECTION!”, I make this note. I’m only including characters from the main six games and the first Miles Edgeworth Investigation game, as those are the only main titles I’ve played. Yes, I played Phoenix Wright vs. Professor Layton, but I would call that a spinoff in the non-pure sense. So, let the judging begin.
Honorable Mention: Shi-Long Lang
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Ace Attorney Investigations, especially since the game would focus on the detective work that’s done outside of a courtroom instead of figuring it out inside of it. What made it really intriguing though was the rivalry between Miles Edgeworth and Shi-Long Lang.
Lang is a wolf in just about every way that matters, and his dogged determination of justice led him to the top ranks of Interpol. Yet, you might be surprised that he’s actually a very caring individual. He has 100 subordinates, and he knows their names, families, birthdays, and family birthdays…that’s impressive.
He also is wise despite his aggressive nature, often reciting philosophy to help people understand his actions.
Oh, and he took a bullet once to ensure that a criminal was brought in alive, then shrugged it off like it was nothing!
So, think he’s not worthy of the list? NOT SO FAST!
10. Godot
*cue dramatic music*
You might be surprised that my “Top Prosecutor” made the bottom of the list here. Well, you have to remember, I put him as the top PROSECUTOR, not the top character. Among the prosecutors, he was the one I always enjoyed going up against, and though he’s at the bottom here, he’s still one of my favorite Ace Attorney characters.
The tale of Godot is a tragedy, he was once a famous defense attorney, one who worked alongside Mia Fey in her first year as an attorney. But, a murder case literally ruined his life. He was poisoned, and should’ve died, but instead went into a coma. When he awoke, his health was wrecked, Mia was dead, and her killer walked free.
So, he plotted revenge, but when the immediate revenge couldn’t happen, he chose a turnabout of revenge, all aimed at Phoenix Wright.
Godot’s hatred of Wright slowly got exposed, and it truly showed the tragedy of the man behind that visor. But, in the end, he was able to accept his wrongdoings, and even toasted Phoenix for his victories, and honoring the spirit of Mia. Speaking of whom…
9. Mia Fey
Mia Fey is arguably one of the most important characters in the Ace Attorney series, which is interesting, because she’s dead for most of it. The reason she’s important though is that it was her belief in clients and their innocence that inspired many people. Including Godot (when he was known by his real name Diego Armando) as well as Phoenix Wright himself.
In fact, Mia defended Phoenix during a murder trial, and her passionate defense inspired him to follow his true dream of becoming an attorney to “save a friend”, and later became part of Mia’s own agency.
Yet, fate would not be kind to her, she died while trying to solve a case…but…she also is part of a family of spirit mediums, so she kept coming back for a while. And I loved every minute of it.
Mia is passionate, especially when it comes to cases, she’ll go to great lengths to find the clues necessary to solve a case the right way. But don’t think for a second she’s soft, she’s gone up against Miles Edgeworth, Winston Payne (whose undefeated streak was broken by her), and even stared down the devil herself and didn’t blink.
Though she didn’t leave the world the way she wanted, Mia can rest easy knowing that her legacy is in the people she left behind.
8. Ema Skye
Snackoo anyone?
Ema’s story is one that proves how this series has evolved since its early days. She was brought in for the DS version of the game via the fifth case “Rise From The Ashes”. By the end, she was sent off to Europe to become a Forensic Investigator.
Fast forward three games to Apollo Justice, and Ema was back, and all grown up. She was now a detective, and would eventually become a Forensic Investigator like she wanted. And I can’t help but love her, cause she’s so great.
Her passion for science is funny every single time, and not to mention, it’s very useful. She’s a key reason why many cases are solved. But…she can be a bit volatile at times. Early in her career she hated not being “allowed” to do forensic science…so she did it anyway. And she didn’t like the prosecutors she was with, even calling Klavier Gavin a “glimmerous fop”.
But what sets Ema apart for me is her loyalty to her job and to her friends. She still respects Phoenix for what he did for her in “Rise From The Ashes”, and during Spirit of Justice, Ema was asked to testify against Trucy Wright, and almost broke down in tears at the thought of it, because she knew she was innocent.
Needless to say, that tugged on my heartstrings. And for that reason and more, she’s on this list.
7. Pearl Fey
Time for some childlike innocence.
And that really applies to Pearl Fey, aka Pearls (why add the extra letter for a nickname?). One of the biggest additions to the series via Justice For All, Pearls is the cousin to Maya Fey. But just because she’s small, doesn’t mean she’s helpless.
Pearls actually has a very gung-ho spirit in some things, not to mention the fact that her tiny body houses an enormous amount of spiritual energy. She’s literally a “one-in-a-million” spirit medium because of all that energy, which has been helpful when people like Mia needed to be summoned in tight spots.
More than that, Pearls is just adorable. She was raised in a very secluded village via Kurain, and as such, doesn’t get the more nuanced phrases and words that city folk like Phoenix Wright has. Also, she has a very limited idea of what love and romance is…to the extent that she felt Phoenix and Maya were meant to be a couple…and heaven help you if you were going to threaten that image in Pearl’s head.
By the time Spirit of Justice came around, Pearls was a teenage, and a bit wiser to the world. I don’t know if we’ll see her again, but it’ll be a joy if we do.
6. Kristoph Gavin/Dahlia Hawthorne
You have heard of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, right? Well, this is Mr. and Mrs. Devil.
The Ace Attorney series needs great prosecutors and defense attornies, but also, they need criminals. The ones that are beyond contempt and that you hate with your very soul. And of the entire series, these two are the worst. Sorry Manfred Von Karma fans, these two got him beat.
Kristoph Gavin was a well-respected defense attorney, and had made his name for being the coolest man in the courtroom. But, when a high-profile case didn’t go his way via a dismissal by his client, he plotted revenge against him and all who were attached to his defense. His plan for revenge lasted 7 years until he was caught by the duo of Apollo Justice and Phoenix Wright, but it was anything but easy.
Then, there’s Dahlia. Remember in the Mia section I said she “stared down the devil herself”? That’s Dahlia. This sweet-looking girl is anything but, she’s a monster, pure and simple, willing to lie, cheat, betray, and con anyone that gets in her path so that she can get what she wants. Nothing in life mattered to her except herself. And only through the combined efforts of Mia Fey and Phoenix Wright was she finally taken down.
So, why do these two characters stand out above all the other villains? Well, they’re just that evil. When Kristoph gets exposed, he literally goes mad, and shows the world his true colors. Even when he’s convicted, he can’t help but laugh. As for Dahlia, the girl is the devil. Her true self was so evil IT BURNED BUTTERFLIES!!!! BURNED THEM! And when we found out that she had been summoned back from the dead, you couldn’t help but wonder if she would never truly die. Making it oh so satisfying when you literally got to watch her burn and get her demented soul back to the depths.
Apollo Justice and Trials and Tribulations were great games on their own, but these characters pushed them over the top.
5. Apollo Justice
It’s a well-known fact, that after Trials and Tribulations, the Ace Attorney series was supposed to end. The creator planned a trilogy, and he fulfilled it. But, Capcom had other ideas, but they knew they had to shake things up, like bring in a new main character. Enter, Apollo Justice.
I know a lot of people don’t like Apollo because he basically “replaced” Phoenix for one game, but come on, the kid has heart, and Chords of Steel! Never forget that!
Now, I’ll admit, his first outing wasn’t the best, but by the time Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice came around, he got to shine on a much brighter stage. And I’m grateful. Apollo is steadfast in his pursuit of justice, he was even the guy who got Kristoph Gavin convicted, twice! Add to that, he’s always wiling to keep going, no matter what pressure is put on him. His signature “I’m Fine!” line may sound cheesy, but the story behind it is meaningful.
Furthermore, when his adopted brother kept trying to force him to stop his defense, he defiantly refused, for just like Mia and Phoenix before him, he will never stop trying to prove the innocence of his client.
On a story note, Apollo has some of the most growth in the entire series, even leaving the Wright Law Offices to help restore the justice system in his homeland. But…something tells me he’ll be back.
4. Athena Cykes
I find it interesting that the “second chapter” in both Ace Attorney trilogies brought forth an epic female for us to love and adore. In the second trilogy, that’s Athena Cykes.
Now, you might look at her and thinks he’s a brightly colored fangirl of sorts, but she’s actually an attorney, and a genius when it comes to psychology. In fact, her ears (I kid you note) are so sensitive to people’s voices that she can hear when they’re lying via the emotional state. Through this, she made a device called Widget, where she can help visualize their emotions and help them get through the trauma they’re feeling in order to see the truth.
What sets Athena apart from the others in my mind though is her backstory. For this is a girl who was born with a condition few could understand, then her mother died, and a person she knew was innoncent went to jail for the crime. She was destroyed in every way. Yet, she picked herself back up, studied law, and fought to get her friend Simon Blackquill freed, and she did.
Athena is a both a ray of sunshine and a ball of energy all wrapped up into one. It’s great to see. And with Apollo now out of the agency, it’s her turn to step up and truly make her case as one of the best attornies in the game.
3. Maya Fey
What’s there to say about Maya Fey? Except that it honestly doesn’t feel like an Ace Attorney game without her.
Maya is the right hand of Phoenix for the first three games, using her spirit medium skills to help out in key situations, as well as offer advice to Phoenix when he’s feeling down. They’re truly best friends, and throughout the series, you feel that Maya is becoming your best friend too.
More than anything else though, Maya is a girl who will never give up. Ever. Now, Athena had a singular tragedy happen to her. Maya has been accused of murder in every single game she’s been in. Including the most recent title Spirit of Justice. She was accused of killing her sister Mia, a client, her own mother, and then an esteemed monk. This girl cannot catch a break!
Yet, her belief in Phoenix and her innocence carried her through all of it. And that’s inspiring. She even taught a priestess a lesson or two in humility. You go Maya!
I mentioned earlier that Ema Skye had one of the most heartbreaking moments in the series, Maya has the other. During Trials and Tribulations, after she had been freed from the evil spirit possessing her (Dahlia Hawthrone), she was asked her profession. She replied she worked at Wright & Co. But when she was asked about her being a spirit medium, she stated, “I want nothing to do with it.” She witnessed first hand twice the curse of the Fey family name, and it scarred her so badly that she wanted to stop.
Thankfully, Phoenix cleared her name all those times, and inspired her to continue on in her spirit medium ways. And now, she’s a full master of the Kurain Channeling Technique, and I couldn’t be prouder.
Oh, and she’s an epic fangirl, long live Silver Samurai!
2. Miles Edgeworth
One of the fan-favorite characters of the entire Ace Attorney series, it’s no surprise that Miles Edgeworth is at this spot on the list. For while some character stories are tragic (and his certainly is), his story is more redemptive than others.
Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth were friends in their youth. But, when Miles father died, his life changed forever. Gone was the desire to be a defense attorney, and in came one of the most ruthless prosecutors the courtroom had ever seen. Trained by the infamous Manfred Von Karma, Edgeworth became a one man “Guilty!” machine. That is, until Phoenix came back into his life.
Through the actions of his friend, Edgeworth began to question everything he knew, and slowly but surely became the righteous prosecutor of justice that fans love. By the time Justice For All arrive, the transformation was complete, and everything that came after was proof of the justice, true justice, Edgeworth sought.
Now serving as the High Prosecutor, Edgeworth is more determined than ever to rid the office of corrupt prosecutors. He had a big hand in ending the “Dark Age Of The Law”, and helped Phoenix get his attorey badge back after he wrongfully lost it.
Fans love Edgeworth so much that he got his own duo of solo games, which fans appropriately loved. And they’ll continue to love Edgeworth every time he shows up.
I know it’s cliche, but come on, was there ever any doubt he should be up here at the top? Save your “Hold It!” for later.
Phoenix Wright is the character we play as most in the series. And even in Apollo Justice, where’s technically a side character, we still see him a lot, and even play one of his past cases. Phoenix is the embodiment of what the law should be. Pure, true, and a desire to see justice done the right way. Through his eyes, and his pointer finger, we are able to get the truth revealed, and make sure that the true criminals get locked up for good, and it’s satisfying every single time.
Now, there is some debate about how clever Phoenix actually is, and how much of his skills actually translate to the courtroom. For proof (by the end of the last game at least) of his genius skills, I point to Apollo Justice and Spirit of Justice. The former had him playing his own version of a “long con” to get justice for what happened to him and the Grammayre line. And it was brilliant. Then, in Spirit of Justice, he was able to use the law numerous times to extend a case he was clearly going to lose. You can’t do that if you’re not crafty.
And while it’s true that we the players are the ones figuring out most of the stuff, Phoenix does figure out many things on his own.
As the series advancement, he became more than just a lawyer, he became a mentor to Apollo and Athena, as well as a father to Trucy, his adopted daughter. His faith in them and their abilities is endless, and we see that in the games.
In the end, though Edgeworth is a great character, this series wouldn’t have worked if Phoenix wasn’t just as great, and 6 main games, a spinoff, an appearance in MVC3, an anime, a manga, and a live-action movie later, there’s no doubt that THE Ace Attorney character is Phoenix Wright.
Ok, it’s time for your cross-examination. Do you agree with my verdict? Or you wish to overturn it? Do let me know. |
Normally, when a major technology company wants to make an announcement there is a press release or something along those lines. Google has instead decided to take to its Chrome Blog with a poem in order to announce that Chromebooks are coming to nine new markets.
The tech giant confirmed that Chromebooks are headed to New Zealand, the Philippines, Norway, Denmark, Mexico, Chile, Belgium, Spain and Italy. Unfortunately, the poem does not reveal any specific dates for when this might happen, but some reports suggest we could see them hit the above countries in the coming months. There is also no word from Google as to which models will be available in each market, but the poem does link to this Google Chrome Blog post mentioning a new line-up of Chromebooks coming from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG and Toshiba.
Within the poem, it appears Google is also saying that “tons of apps and free automatic updates are starting today” in Mexico and Chile, with Spain, Italy and Belgium being added in the coming weeks.
Some have suggested the company still has quite a hurdle to get over convincing consumers that its always connected computing is the way to go, but that expanding its availability could help the cause.
Related Reads Acer and HP announce first AMD-powered Chromebooks |
Bootboys in Coventry, 1969
They called them smoothies, bovver boys, hard mods or simply: bootboys. Working class kids growing up in Great Britain's notoriously socially stratified milieu during the late 60s/early 70s with a disdain for anything reeking of the upper or middle classes, like their progeny in the contemporary bourgeois hippie subculture. They had an affinity for close cropped or mod-length hair, steel-toe boots (huge asset in street fights), straight Levi jeans or Sta-Prest trousers, suspenders (braces) and buttoned-up shirts alongside a penchant for short, simple and loud guitar based tunes with anthem-like choruses, strongly prevalent in the glam rock hits of the day. It is those shouted choruses, like chants on the stadium terraces, cheering on the favorite team playing the beautiful workers' game known as football, that resonate as a primal call to arms. The aristocracy had organized and codified football but it was the lower classes that played it. Bootboys became synonymous with violent encounters between rival football club supporters with many participants being sent to tough as nails juvenile detention facilities called Borstal "schools."
The following is a soundtrack of sorts for the years '69-'74, when these bootboys lived and breathed these tunes. Disclaimer: the term proto-oi! is not a revisionist attempt to claim that this is, sonically speaking, what came to be known as skinhead oi!. Bands like Cock Sparrer/Sham 69/Cockney Rejects and the like are responsible for that. I will postulate that kids who became skinheads in the late 70s and 80s heard these tunes in their pre-teen years and were subconsciously influenced by them as well as seeing older brothers/cousins dressing up in boots and braces along with being surrounded by football culture. The glam rock influence would appear to be the complete antithesis to the bootboy ethos, what with its flamboyant and androgynous fashion sense, but sharp, catchy bootboy glam songs underpinning a basic rock 'n' roll beat proved to be a source of future reference for the no-fuss, pure impact sound of the skinhead oi! brigade in the decades that followed. Put yourself in the mindset of a teenage yob in that time period: Your school grades aren't exactly stellar, and the prospect of Borstal or a dreary factory or mill job awaits you. All you can look forward to is listening to loud tunes, dressing sharp, being one of the boys, rooting for your local team and waiting for the weekend drinking benders, 'cause everyone knows Saturday night's all right for fighting.
Continued below
Crunch - "Let's Do It Again"
The bovver boot crushing the Crunch logo on the front cover of this 45 record from 1974 exemplifies the bootboy glam sound to a T. Handclaps, dirty rock 'n' roll swagger, massive hooks and a chorus that proclaims: “Clap your hands, stomp your feet!”. Imagine the weekend teen dances at a council estate in London’s East End: the kids decked out in Harrington or Crombie jackets, Cardigan/V-neck sweaters, flat-fronted slacks or jeans, buttoned-up shirts, hair cropped with a #2 or #3 grade clip guard (short, but not bald) and, of course, the prerequisite steel-toe boots. All the better for stomping the dance halls or rival mobs and doing it all over again the following weekend, as this riotous tune proclaims.
Jook - "Different Class"
Take some '66 Pete Townsend power chords, lyrics about going down the terraces on a Saturday night with mates looking for a "punch up" as played by a band composed of flares and braces wearing bootboys and mods; then you have a basic component of the skinhead oi! ethos in it's embryonic stage. Jook put out five glam and power pop-tinged singles between '72 and '74 & a posthumous EP in '78, from which this 1974 song is taken. They clearly wrote from direct experience, in the language of their brethren in the Different (working) Class: "Doc Martens and Crombies [overcoats], all tooled up as well. If you come to cheer, you better stay clear, you'll sign your own death knell."
Neat Change in 1968
Neat Change - "I Lied to Auntie May"
Arguably the first skinhead band to release a 45 record in 1968, Neat Change was composed of West London bootboys who were just as likely to be in the audience as on stage. By the time of this release, the quartet had actually altered its sound from the hard soul sound it had been playing in mod clubs for years, with a notable months-long residency at the world famous Marquee club packed with hundreds of skinhead fans. The 45 goes for more of a pop-psychedelic sound. Their menacing, short haired working class look was a sharp counter to London’s freewheeling psychedelic swinging scene, something that was definitely noticed by then-Slade manager Chas Chandler, who came around with the prospect of managing them. But nothing came of it. The only noticeable outcome was Slade’s decision to go the skinhead route based on Chandler’s suggestion by '69. At which point Neat Change had broken up due to bad management and a lack of concrete musical direction.
West Ham - "Forever Blowing Bubbles"
"Forever Blowing Bubbles" was a Tin Pan Alley hit from the early 20th century that became the official anthem for West Ham United, a football club based out of London's East End. One of oi!'s leading lights, the Cockney Rejects, immortalized the song on a 45 from 1980, but legions of bootboys had previously sung it at the top of their lungs on the terraces, especially directed at supporters of their traditional rivals from the Millwall Football Club. The feeling of camaraderie, massive singalong choruses and cheering your squad on against a common enemy are all vital components of oi! music's DNA and subsequent blueprint.
Third World War - "Working Class Man"
The legendary Third World War formed in 1970. The engineer on their self-titled debut LP famously declared: "I want a no-bullshit working class band, I've had enough of this pseudo-peace crap." He got that and more: The attitude prevalent on the album sounded a death knell to the utopian hippie dream with lyrics laying out the day-to-day plight of workers with no time for pretense or idealistic rhetoric. The tunes are straight forward, bluesy-tinged rockers sung by an everyman voice. This would prove to be hugely influential to the subsequent class conscious oi! and punk bands that strove to give a voice to the underpaid, overworked masses teeming with unfulfilled ambitions. Current oi!/street punk band Sydney Ducks recently paid homage to that spirit by covering Third World War’s "A Little Bit Of Urban Rock" in 2013.
Iron Virgin - "Rebels Rule"
Scottish rockers Iron Virgin started out wearing Clockwork Orange garb, then changed to American football player outfits with chastity belts and released this quintessential Bootboy Glam song. A defiant pose calling for kids to rebel (“Get Up, Stand Up!”) set to thunderous drums & galloping riffs, i’s a mystery why this 45 from 1974 never made the top of the charts. Maybe the band’s name was too controversial, especially when aiming this material at glam’s pre-pubescent target audience. Only people from their near circle or in the know were privy to this rebel sound, but American producer Kim Fowley must have been paying attention, as he “reworked” this tune into the Runaway’s “California Paradise” from 1977’s Queens of Noise.
Elton John - "Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting"
If working is the curse of the drinking classes, then (Sir) Elton John and his frequent songwriting collaborator Bernie Taupin, created one of the most devastatingly accurate portraits of disaffected British youth, by way of this unhinged rocker from 1973. It may look strange for someone of Elton’s stature to be associated with this street genre, but Bernie’s background growing up with juvenile hooligans lends credibility to the subject matter. Familiar concerns -- drinking, fighting, dysfunctional family life, anti-authoritarian behavior and living for the weekend -- figure prominently in the lyrics. It's the last two lines that land this song in the bootboy hall of fame: "I'm a juvenile product of the working class, whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass."
Fresh - "Borstal Theme"
I would frequently see Fresh's 1970 Fresh Out of Borstal LP in the bins during my record collecting days, and judging by the gritty black and white cover of three authentic looking bootboys, plus the Borstal tag, I'd figure this is gonna be the hardest skinhead oi! record ever. The music inside didn't pan out that way; it's heavier on the funky horns or percussion driven instrumentals vein, but the back story behind it is top notch. A big time record producer created this concept album based on the trials & tribulations of young British delinquents. Studio musicians provided a soundtrack for the spoken word efforts of three former guests of the Borstal system. The result is a true to life account of life in and out of this now-abolished reform school in what is arguably, the first appearance of actual skinheads on a full length LP.
Sweet - "Rebel Rouser"
Sweet were one of the pre-eminent glam rock bands between ‘71-'74. They put out one UK chart topping single after another, splitting the difference between catchy bubblegum pop and hard rock. Beloved by bootboys at the time, the song's the pro-juvenile, anti-authoritarian lyrics as well as drummer Mick Turner’s (RIP) thunderous, martial opening beat were widely imitated on countless oi! stompers to come. Influential oi! label Vulture Rock Records was originally named the "Steve Priest Fan Club" as a tribute to Sweet’s flamboyant and at times controversial bass player.
Mott the Hoople - "One Of The Boys"
These North UK country lads looked more like factory workers or bricklayers, but they recorded the ultimate glam anthem (and now, classic rock staple): "All The Young Dudes". The B-side to the gender-bending, David Bowie-penned classic is this upfront rocker aimed at teenagers and their ever-present struggle against the adult world. Mott singer Ian Hunter's limited vocal range was an asset that made the band accessible to the average bloke, who not only related to the lyrics but could see themselves singing them, absent any high-mannered, stylized vocal delivery. The slashing chords and lyrics depict a rock star’s confession that after all the trappings of fame, at heart he’s still one of the nameless kids that dreamed of stardom, just waiting to be thrust back among them.
Slade during their skinhead phase in 1969
Slade - "Wild Winds Are Blowing (Live)"
There were two main styles within the glam rock movement of the early 70s: the more art school influenced glitter of David Bowie, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, et al and the loud, straight forward “clap your hands and stomp your feet” swagger of Sweet, Mud, Hector and these unruly rockers, Slade. Starting out heavily R&B and Motown-influenced and tracing their origins to the mid-60’s, by 1969, Slade had briefly adopted a skinhead look on the advice of their manager Chas Chandler. Legend has it that Chandler was inspired by local skinhead outfit Neat Change and football hooligans (not that Slade were slouches in that department, having rough individuals like singer Noddy Holder in the band). Slade’s tough-as-nails image, the unmistakably raucous British vocals, basic no pretense rock 'n' roll sound all proved to be a vital soundtrack for many a bootboy’s formative years.
Marching on Together - "Leeds United"
Another prime example of a super catchy football anthem meant for massive singalongs, this original composition released as a 45 record in 1972, was actually sung by the then-members of Leeds United & their supporters. The lyrics stress loyalty, strength in numbers, pride in the pack & your squad; attributes every aspiring Bootboy worth their weight in steel toe capped Bovver stompers ought to take to heart & emulate.
Freddy Alva has never been to Borstal. Huge thanks to Mr Lee for research info on Bootboy culture.
Follow the Bootboy Glam page on Facebook. For more loud, sharp stompers , download the fabulous Boot Power comps here. |
Subsets and Splits