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President rump has laid out our princi ples or tax reorm: First, make the tax code simple, air and easy to understand. Second, give American workers a pay raise by allowing them to keep more o their hard-earned pay checks. Tird, make America the jobs magnet o the world by levelin g the playing field or American businesses and workers. Finally , bring back trillions o dollars that are currently kept offshore to reinvest in the American economy. Te President’ s our princip les are consisten t with the goals o both congression al tax-writing committees, and are at the core o this ramework or fixing America’s broken tax code. oo many in our country are shut out o the dynamism o the U.S. economy, which has led to the justifiable eeling that the system is rigged against hardw orking American s. With significan t and meaningul tax reorm and relie, we will create a airer system that levels the playing field and extends economic opportunities to American workers, small businesses, and middle-income amilies. Te rum p Administration and Congress will work together to produce tax reorm that w ill put America first.
OVERVIEW |
Back in June, Toronto singer Daniel Caesar dropped two stunning new tracks, "We Find Love" and "Blessed," as a kind of two-for-one single. Today he's gifting us with a grainy visual for the songs, which you can watch above. In the video, Caesar — who's low-key a total heartthrob — finds love, loses it, and finds it again.
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Today, he's also announcing his debut album, Freudian, which will be out August 25 on Golden Child Recordings.
"I've never been as proud about anything I've created in my whole life," Caesar wrote in a note to The FADER, about the forthcoming full-length. "This body of work is about examining my most complex feelings and thoughts more directly. I'm more exposed than ever on this album. It's like I'm in therapy, but it's on display. And I got to make this with my friends. It's just us, no label, so it makes it that much more special." |
At this point, it should come as no surprise when Donald Trump manipulates the truth to his political advantage. However, presenting false racially biased statistics a day after an African-American protester was thrown out of one of his events doesn’t send the best message.
Earlier on Sunday afternoon, Trump did his weird version of a manual retweet of an image depicting a man (in this context, assumed to be black), with a bandana over his face pointing a gun sideways toward a list of wholly fabricated statistics.
The image alleges that 97 percent of African Americans were killed by African Americans, while only 1 percent of murdered African Americans were killed by police. These two statistics are demarcated from the rest in blue and red ink respectively. It also claims 81 percent of whites who are killed are killed by blacks, which is pure race-baiting at its most ignorant. The numbers in this erroneous image are attributed to the “Crime Statistics Bureau - San Francisco,” and reflect 2015 data.
For one thing, a “Crime Statistics Bureau” does not exist. The FBI is responsible for this data and they have yet to release a report on 2015, because, well, 2015 is not over yet.
Secondly, whoever made that image did so with the intent of lying about the percentage of white Americans killed by black Americans. In 2014, that number was 14 percent, not 81 percent.
Additionally, in the graphic, only 16 percent of whites are killed by other whites. In the same FBI report, it clearly states that 82.3 percent of whites are in fact killed by other whites, which is very similar to the number of blacks killed by blacks (89.9 percent).
Finally, when The Daily Beast reverse google image searched the picture, the only yielded results were attributed to YouTube videos in Arabic, which featured a duplicated image of the man in the picture Trump shared.
This explicit truth-bending is only compounded by the fact that a Black Lives Matter protester named Mercutio Southall Jr. was kicked out of a Trump rally in Alabama on Saturday.
“Get him the hell out of here, will you please?” Trump requested at the rally. “Get him out of here. Throw him out!”
Southall at one point was on the ground being kicked and punched by several white men in attendance. When asked about the violent incident this morning on Fox & Friends, Trump said, “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble.”
The Daily Beast has reached out for comment to Southall Jr., who said he was repeatedly called a “nigger” and a “monkey” at the event. Meanwhile in a Facebook message, his father asked me for some time before speaking about yesterday's events.
The Trump campaign has not responded to a question from The Daily Beast about whether Trump himself retweeted the image and where he got the information within it.
The FBI National Press Office told me they would have to wait until staffers were at work tomorrow to assess the validity of the data. |
Williams "couldn't afford" to put together a mule car to run in Pirelli's 2017 tyre test program this year, according to Pat Symonds.
Pirelli asked teams to produce modified cars in order to simulate increased levels of downforce, allowing it to test the 2017 tyres before next year's cars hit the track. Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull will carry out a number of tests from August until November, with all three testing two days after the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.
Williams was one of the teams to originally signal its intent to take part but Symonds - who is the team's chief technical officer - says the costs were too high.
"Not second class, but we don't have the money to do it," Symonds told the official Formula One website when asked if missing out makes it a second class team. "We wanted to join, but then we worked out the costs and it showed that we couldn't afford to do it.
"Pirelli will disseminate the information as best as they can, but it will never be the same as running it on your car. And we certainly don't have a strategic relationship with any other team!"
And Symonds believes the change in tyre regulations next year will be the "most crucial" difference in 2017, but says tyre strategy will continue to play a part in races.
"Not eliminated - that would be a too strong word - but if Pirelli hit the target then I would expect that two-stop races turn into one-stop races and three-stop races turn into two-stop races. We will see wider windows to make the pit stop - so the strategic element will be less, but not eliminated.
"Of all the changes for 2017 the tyres will be the most crucial I believe. All teams aside from the three that do testing will have no knowledge of what the 2017 tyres will look like until they run them in February. Only Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull are testing - the rest, we need to see."
Closing the gap? 2016 constructors points progression
FEATURE: Red Bull Racing: Be My Guest
From the cockpit: Felipe Nasr on the green grass of home
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter |
The manufacturer of the diet candy Ayds is seeking a new name for its product because publicity about the deadly disease AIDS is hurting sales, the chairman said today.
The diet suppressant has been on the market for 47 years and remains a profitable product for the the Dep Corporation, but sales have dropped by as much as 50 percent in recent years because of the name association, Robert Berglass, the chairman, said.
Since January, Ayds has been marketed in Britain as Aydslim. If sales show signs of recovery, the appetite-suppressant candy may be sold in the United States under that name later this year, Mr. Berglass said.
So far, reaction from retailers has been positive, he said, but consumer reaction has not been determined. Consumer reaction could be available within a few months becuase most people go on diets in the spring, he said.
Federal health officials believe about 40,000 Americans have been stricken with AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome. |
EU Looks To Prevent Employers From Viewing An Applicant's Publicly Available Social Media Information
from the well-that's-dumb dept
Ever since social media sites like Facebook and Twitter became household names here in America, we've occasionally had really stupid debates about just what type of access to those accounts employers should get from their employees. Some states have even passed laws that would allow employers to demand social media passwords from employees and applicants, presumably so that company reps can comb through private messages and posts shared only with the employee's or applicant's friends. If all of that seems stupid to you, that's because it totally is!
But it's not remotely as dumb as what the EU has decided to do in regulating corporations such that they are disallowed from viewing public social media information about an applicant unless it directly relates to the job for which they have applied. To be clear, this new regulation is non-binding at the moment, but it will be the basis of data protection laws set to come out in the future. Still, preventing a company from viewing publicly available information doesn't make much sense.
Employers who use Facebook, Twitter and other social media to check on potential job candidates could be breaking European law in future. An EU data protection working party has ruled that employers should require "legal grounds" before snooping. The recommendations are non-binding, but will influence forthcoming changes to data protection laws. The guidelines from the Article 29 working party will inform a radical shake-up of European data protection laws, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which are due to come into force in May 2018. Their recommendations also suggest that any data collected from an internet search of potential candidates must be necessary and relevant to the performance of the job.
When it comes to privacy restrictions on matters of social media, it seems to me that there is an easy demarcation line that ought to suffice here: that which is public and that which is not. Most social media sites come with handy tools to keep some or all portions of an account private, or shareable only amongst connections within the platform. If an applicant wants something kept from the eyes of an employer, they need only hide it behind those privacy options. This regulation, however, would restrict a company from accessing public information, which should plainly be viewed as nonsensical.
The post notes that recruitment sites like CareerBuilder have seen rates of 70% or so employers that check public social media accounts of applicants they consider hiring. That's as surprising as the sun rising each morning. It's barely even considered creepy any longer to google the names of friends, never mind people you're looking to hire. Somehow I don't see any regulation curbing that across a continent.
Filed Under: data protection, eu, interviews, jobs, privacy, public info, social media |
Americans believe that obesity is tied with cancer as the biggest health threat in the nation today. But though scientific research shows that diet and exercise are insufficient solutions, a large majority say fat people should be able to summon the willpower to lose weight on their own.
The findings are from a nationally representative survey of 1,509 adults released on Tuesday by NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent research institution. The study, funded by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, found that concerns about obesity have risen. Just a few years ago, in a more limited survey, cancer was seen as the most serious health threat.
The lead researcher, Jennifer Benz of the survey group at the University of Chicago, said that to her knowledge no other survey has provided so comprehensive a view of Americans’ beliefs about obesity, including how to treat it, whether people are personally responsible for it and whether it is a disease.
Researchers say obesity, which affects one-third of Americans, is caused by interactions between the environment and genetics and has little to do with sloth or gluttony. There are hundreds of genes that can predispose to obesity in an environment where food is cheap and portions are abundant. |
Glendale Water & Power is warning customers of a recent increase in telephone scams aimed at bilking them of thousands of dollars for phony past-due bills.
Customers are contacted by presumed customer service representatives and told their accounts are delinquent and they must pay immediately over the phone or face service shutoff. They are instructed to purchase a Green Pack Money Card — a specific prepaid debit card — from a 7-Eleven or Rite Aid and then call back to pay the bill using the card.
In the past week, three separate customers have paid the scammers between $1,000 and $2,000 each, according to GWP spokeswoman Atineh Haroutunian.
The scheme is run mostly from outside the United States, and organizers use software to make the calls appear on caller ID to be coming from GWP or from local numbers with an 818 area code, the utility said in a statement.
GWP says its representatives will never ask for payment over the phone, and customers who receive these types of calls are encouraged to contact the utility at 818-548-3300 to check the true status of their account and report the attempted fraud.
Customers are also asked to call the Glendale Police Department at 818-548-4911 to report the calls. |
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Wouldn't it be nice if we could just get all the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump garbage out in the open now, pour it in some toxic news dump and sift through it for a week, air out all the shiny pieces, then go back to talking for six months about which policies are better for America?
If your answer is no, that would be boring, you're in luck.
These past two weeks, essentially the first in the general election campaign, Trump has taken us back to the 1990s, the Bill Clinton presidency, especially Clinton's extramarital affairs, even an unsubstantiated rape allegation and the nutty idea that Bill and Hillary had their friend Vince Foster iced. Bill Clinton has sometimes been a distraction when stumping for his wife's presidential campaign, and he arguably does more harm than good.
But Donald Trump has his own Bill Clinton problems, and refighting the political wars from the 1990s won't fix them. To begin with, as Paul Waldman notes, these scandals were endlessly litigated in the 1990s, and Clinton essentially won.
That's in part because many voters saw impeachment as an overreach, even though Clinton had lied (or relied on an obscure definition of "sexual relations") under oath about an affair with an intern during a six-year, $50 million taxpayer-funded investigation into a 1980s failed Arkansas land deal. (Yes, that is the Whitewater affair that Trump's campaign accidentally disclosed it will be dredging up to attack Hillary Clinton.) It's also because his main Republican antagonists in the impeachment trial — House Speakers Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, and (we now know) Dennis Hastert, plus Sen. Henry Hyde — each had their own history of illicit sexual encounters; Gingrich was having an affair while pushing to impeach Clinton.
And that brings us to Donald Trump's first Bill Clinton problem:
1. Trump has no business attacking Clinton's affairs.
Is that because Trump, too, has had extramarital affairs? Sure. Is it because he has called Bill a friend, "a terrific guy," who did "a terrific job" as president? Kind of. But the big problem for Trump is that he has already exonerated Clinton for any peccadilloes in the 1990s.
In an August 1998 interview, for example — the one where Trump called Clinton accuser Paula Jones "a loser" — Chris Matthews asked Trump if he would ever run for president. Trump said no, "can you imagine how controversial that'd be? You think about [Clinton] with the women. How about me with the women? Can you imagine...." Matthews made a cigar joke, and Trump reconsidered: "Well, they might like my women better, too, you know." As late as 2008, Trump called the Lewinsky affair "something that was totally unimportant," and argued in 2001 that Bill Clinton's big mistake is that he didn't take invoke his Fifth Amendment right to stay silent during the questioning about Lewinsky.
Changing your opinion of a friend is very different than suddenly expressing horror at sexual activity you already called "totally unimportant." At The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf points out that there are really only two explanations for Trump's pivot:
Perhaps Donald Trump truly believes that Bill Clinton is a rapist, or at best "one of the worst abusers of women" in U.S. history, as he said. And therefore, Trump invited a man he believes to be a rapist to his wedding, where Trump had his new wife pose beside the ostensible abuser, Trump smiling as the man he believed to be a sexual predator posed with his arm encircling his new bride's waist. Or maybe Trump doesn't actually believe that Bill Clinton is a rapist, or one of the worst abusers of women in history. Rather, he is cynically and falsely publicizing a rape accusation, knowing the accused may well be innocent, because spreading it will help Trump to win power. A frivolous or disingenuous rape accusation would typically make Trump supporters apoplectic.... They regard false rape accusations as serious if not unforgivable transgressions. [The Atlantic]
Neither option looks very good for Trump. And yet he soldiers on, "a walking contradiction," as Chuck Todd said on Wednesday's NBC Today. "He has contradicted every single attack he's made on the Clintons. You can find sound to contradict it. It doesn't touch him."
Trump's rationale, Todd said, is that he was a private citizen, not a politician, when he said nice things about the Clintons, and that being nice to powerful people is good for business. Which brings us to Trump's second Bill Clinton problem:
2. Talking about Clinton makes Trump looking like a lying, misogynist jerk.
When explaining why he is talking differently about Bill Clinton now, Trump is essentially saying that he used to be a private-sector liar, but now that he's a politician, he's a truth-teller. That's counterintuitive, but that's the campaign's story and they're sticking to it. When CNN's Chris Cuomo asked Trump's longtime attorney and political adviser, Michael Cohen, at what point Trump was lying about Bill Clinton, in the 1990s or now, Cohen replied: "He was not lying. He was protecting a friend. There's a difference."
What's that difference? Cuomo asked. Trump "was being a true friend," Cohen said. He elaborated: "He was a private citizen who was friendly with the Clintons, and he was trying to protect a friend, all right. Now, it's a different game. It's 2016." Cuomo pressed on, asking: "Why would I trust you if you say all the things you said then were false?" Trump "was a private individual," Cohen said. When he was bad-mouthing the women accusing Clinton of sexual misconduct, Cohen suggested, Trump "was standing up for a man who he considered to be a friend at the time."
That's essentially the "bros-before-hos" defense, and it's an interesting strategy for raising Trump's dismal favorability numbers with women.
3. Trump wants spouses to be untouchable, except Hillary Clinton's.
Two of Trump's rockiest moments this campaign are when a Ted Cruz super PAC ran an ad showing a scantily clad Melania Trump, and when GQ published a long profile of Trump's wife. In the first instance, Donald Trump retweeted an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz to his legions of Twitter followers. After the GQ article, Trump said to leave his wife out of this. George Stephanopoulos asked the obvious follow-up.
"There was an article in GQ about your wife Melania this week," he told Trump on ABC News earlier this month. "And you said that spouses should be off the table, but you are willing to talk about Bill Clinton. Should he be off the table as well?" Trump eventually got to no. "It depends if he's involved in the campaign," he said. "I think if he's involved in the campaign, he shouldn't be. And I — he probably will be involved. I think he gets involved when she plays the women's card."
Now this is nonsense, on its face. First of all, Melania Trump is involved in Trump's campaign — she appears with him at campaign events, she has been interviewed about the campaign on TV, and she has stumped for her husband. If Bill Clinton's participation in his wife's campaign makes him a target, Trump's exemption of his wife makes no sense. Second of all, Hillary Clinton pointing out the offensive things Trump has really said about women doesn't have anything to do with Bill Clinton.
Trump's response is that Hillary Clinton is an "enabler." Or as he told Stephanopoulos: "Hillary Clinton's husband abused women more than any man that we know of in the history of politics, right. She's married to a man who was the worst abuser of women in the history of politics. She's married to a man who hurt many women." But surely Trump would be outraged if anyone in the Clinton camp called Ivana Trump, his first wife and mother of his children, an "enabler" of Donald Trump's affair with the future second Mrs. Trump, Marla Maples, when he was still married.
If only some spouses are off-limits, then Trump has to come up with a better explanation why his wife is untouchable — not that anyone in the Clinton camp is attacking her — and Bill Clinton is not. Otherwise he's playing his own "woman's card." Which brings us to Trump's final Bill Clinton problem:
4. Trump is trying to get in the Clintons' heads, and its backfiring.
Bill Clinton's extramarital dalliances are "fair game," as Slate's Jim Newell points out, but it's a time-tested electoral dud. Did Trump really think the Clintons didn't expect this? So far, when confronted with Trump's taunts, neither Clinton has taken the bait. In fact, bringing up Bill Clinton and women only highlights Donald Trump's Mad Men-era way of talking about women, and as Newell contends, plausibly, it reminds even many politically moderate women why they don't like Trump's party in the first place — restricting access to contraception, attacking Planned Parenthood, scrapping WIC benefits. Talking about the "women's card," he says, "only reinforces how clueless the party is about the ill will such policymaking priorities created, especially among unmarried women."
Donald Trump fashions himself as a "counter-puncher," by which he means he only hits people who attack him first, and often he tries to hit them harder. He appears to be serious about this, even proud of it; to him, it sounds chivalrous, just like treating your date nicely is a sign that you are pro-woman. It's actually pretty juvenile, the grown-up version of the 5-year-old's lament: "But, she started it!" (It also is a terrible trait for a presidential candidate — would you really want a thin-skinned, egocentric commander-in-chief going nuclear if he perceives a slight from a foreign leader?)
Trump has the political bully's instinct to attack his opponent's perceived strengths — "Trusted" Ted Cruz became Lyin' Ted, smart and wonky Jeb Bush became Low-energy Jeb — and Bill Clinton will be one of Hillary's assets in the general election. Bill is "the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation," said none other than Kenneth Starr — yes, the one from the Whitewater/Lewinsky prosecution — to The New York Times this week. "His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear.... The 'I feel your pain' is absolutely genuine."
So it's not foolhardy to try and "muddy up the image of the fondly remembered former president, Hillary Clinton's most effective proxy," as Slate's Newell puts it. "If you can turn Bill Clinton into a liability, you've greatly increased your chances of defeating Hillary Clinton."
But it also carries risks, especially for Trump. That old saying about throwing stones from glass houses? Donald Trump has a glass tower with his name in big gold letters, and Bill Clinton has good aim. |
Regardless, what is made abundantly clear on Pixelapse's website is that drawing coherent illustrations was not a business need for their company. This must be true more broadly, because Dropbox themselves acquired Pixelapse even though they could not competently draw a box.
Another reason that many disparage visual design is that there is real incentive to distancing oneself from it. Many rightly realize that the quickest way to guarantee not getting respect is if their job title includes the word "creative." Thus there is a compensatory advantage to marginalizing visual design and thus proving one's dedication to doing the 'real work.' Daniel Burka of Google Ventures found "Even among designers of similar seniority, there is marked difference in compensation for UX Design, UI Design, and Visual Design," with salaries tending to descend in that order.
Paul Rand once claimed "A bad design is irrelevant, superficial…basically like all the stuff you see out there today." In the years since, he has not been alone in promoting this sentiment. In the introduction to Humanist Interface, I note that designers at prominent companies like Apple, Amazon, and Facebook argue that design used to be a trivial coat of paint.
Since that writing, Facebook's Director of Product Design, Maria Guidice chided designers who "like to make things pretty, a term I like to refer to as 'aesthetic masturbation.'" Today we are told we can rest assured that visual design is no longer so vacuous and superficial, due to the advent of flat design.
I take a different stance. 'Pure veneer' is not an insult in my book. Quite the opposite, it is the very definition of visual design. Thinking visual design is anything but superficial not only requires a profound level of ignorance, but it indicates an incredibly limited view of what visual communication can accomplish.
These rationalizations by newly turned modern minimalists are incredibly telling. If prominent practitioners are being honest with us in claiming that visual design was plagued by harmful decoration only up until the advent of flat design, then they are admitting that for years, for the history of the GUI, and perhaps even the entire history of design itself, designers have been putting on a sham project in order to dupe corporations.
Worse still, claims of visual design's insignificance tell us that design leaders never took their craft seriously. It truly undermines their credibility that it took the arrival of flat design for them to treat the entire spectrum of roles in product design with respect. Of course, as soon as that happened, they graduated from respecting traditional interface design principles.
This so-called 'maturation' in the vast majority of the design industry is in this way a major indictment of the professional history of these practitioners. If anyone should be condemned, it should not be those accused of the crime of visual design, but those practitioners who treat their job as frivolous.
Perhaps the design world breeds a form of narcissism due to its nature as a winner-take-all economy. That would explain the logic of this race to the bottom in which designers feel compelled to attack their craft before others assume they are 'bullshitters' too. In the words of Dr. Sam Vaknin:
By pre-empting society’s punitive measures and by self-flagellating, the narcissist is actually saying: 'If I am to suffer unjustly, it will be only by my own hand and no one else's.'
It is this masochistic status-striving that I find so ugly in this industry. That he who discredits his own craft is the most pious. That the most respected designer is the one who disowns beauty. This perpetual need to be the first to assign irrelevancy to one's own professional practice is the true impetus behind much of the puritanism of modern minimalist avant gardism. |
Just days after the racism-fueled Charleston massacre, in which young white supremacist Dylann Roof took the lives of nine black churchgoers, a woman in Texarkana, Texas is being called out on social media for trying to incite racist attacks against the black community.
Texarkana resident Ashley M. recently posted photos of herself on Facebook after reportedly being “jumped by 3 African Americans ourside [sic] of the as [sic] Walmart.” In the photos, she appears to be sporting two black eyes and a bloody nose and lip.
The problem? The wounds were obviously poorly-applied makeup. In fact, it pretty much looks like Ashley snuck a piece of charcoal into her purse at the last barbecue she attended and then just rubbed it all over her eyes.
Ashley M./Facebook
Yup, she went there.
The Daily Dot called the Texas-side Walmart (Texarkana shares a border with the Arkansas town of the same name) where the alleged attack took place. We spoke with a security worker who said no incidents had been reported there within the past week.
We also showed the photos to Texarkana Police Department public information officer Mike Jones, who responded with an emailed statement.
“I’ve talked to our detective Sergeant. He has reviewed all of the reports from the weekend and there is no report of this incident,” wrote Jones. “There is also no report in our system from a person with the poster’s name. We are confident is stating that this incident, if it did occur, has not been reported to this department.”
The Texarkana Police Department also posted public statements regarding Ashley’s claims on its Facebook page. The post stated that police officials “believe the post to be fake” and that “the injuries… are highly questionable.” The post has since been taken down.
Ashley’s Facebook post has also gone viral on Twitter, after Twitter user and ownyourblackness.com owner @missjia tweeted a screengrab. The responses were both damning and also kinda hilarious.
@missjia she wasted so much makeup doing this. Smh — … (@__hbritt) June 22, 2015
@missjia So she went with the raccoon eye contouring method….I 👀 ya see Miss. Deranged White Lady — TeamNoChill (@MsRita73) June 22, 2015
@meoskop I did exactly this eye for a drunk clown skit in high school… — Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) June 22, 2015
In response to being mocked on Twitter, Ashley posted another photo of her “beaten” face on her Instagram profile. She has since taken the photo down.
In the caption for the photo, Ashley continued to stick to her story:
“Here is your police report. Sorry I got jumped by three African American young men. I have 2 black eyes and nose still is bleeding, and somehow I am in the wrong. Enough for people to say it was makeup, how embarassing and very rude quite frankly. I don’t want you pitty (sic) attention anything. I’m just warning there are dangerous people in Texarkana be careful. They did this to me for no reason in front of my 3 year old. At Texas side Walmart.”
By 11am Monday morning, both Ashley’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have either been either removed or made private. Nonetheless, her story about being supposedly attacked by three black men has outraged the Internet.
Sadly, Ashley’s attempt to frame black men as dangerous criminals hasn’t been the only one in recent days, following the massacre at the Charleston church.
An image is currently circulating on Facebook of a young black man holding what appears to be two guns with the caption: “Young men get your guns and kill them white ass policemen. Do not think about it just do it. Call them bitchs (sic) out set them up with two in the head.”
Police in Daytona Beach, Florida told WFTV that they had received more than 500 emails about the post by June 11. While officials were quoted as saying the photo “might be fake,” they also said they were conducting an investigation along with the FBI and ATF, and that the man in the picture was holding “two assault rifles.”
Daytona Beach might want to send those officers back to the police academy for more training. Because it’s pretty clear from the gas station-like background and the coiled plastic cables attached to both guns that the guy—who also looks young enough to be a teenager or possibly a college student—is posing for a photo in a store, not trying to start a big, scary race war.
Update 12:21pm CT, June 22: When asked why the Texarkana Police Department had taken down its statement on Ashley’s Facebook post, a representative from the police department responded via email with the following statement:
I was just informed by my social media manager that he was contacted by a friend of the original poster. We were informed that she is emotionally disturbed and that they are attempting to get her the assistance that she needs. We have removed the post to avoid contributing to her difficult struggle.
Update 8:58am CT, June 23: An earlier version of this article speculated that the guns in the above viral Facebook photo were from a video game. But many gun enthusiasts on social media have pointed out that the trigger locks and security cable visible in the photo indicate that the photo depicts real guns, but was likely taken in a store.
Editor’s note: In light of the subject’s potential mental instability, this story has been updated to remove her last name from the text and related images.
H/T @missjia/Twitter | Photo via startupphotos/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III |
Sleep is present and tightly regulated in every vertebrate species in which it has been carefully investigated, but what sleep is for remains a mystery. Sleep is also present in invertebrates, and an extensive analysis in Drosophila melanogaster has shown that sleep in fruit flies shows most of the fundamental features that characterize sleep in mammals. In Drosophila, sleep consists of sustained periods of quiescence associated with an increased arousal threshold. Fly sleep is modulated by several of the same stimulants and hypnotics that affect mammalian sleep. Moreover, like in mammals, fly sleep shows remarkable interindividual variability. The expression of several genes involved in energy metabolism, synaptic plasticity, and the response to cellular stress varies in Drosophila between sleep and wakefulness, and the same occurs in rodents. Brain activity also changes in flies as a function of behavioral state. Furthermore, Drosophila sleep is tightly regulated in a circadian and homeostatic manner, and the homeostatic regulation is largely independent of the circadian regulation. After sleep deprivation, recovery sleep in flies is longer in duration and more consolidated, indicated by an increase in arousal threshold and fewer brief awakenings. Finally, sleep deprivation in flies impairs vigilance and performance. Because of the extensive similarities between flies and mammals, Drosophila is now being used as a promising model system for the genetic dissection of sleep. Over the last few years, mutagenesis screens have isolated several short sleeping mutants, a demonstration that single genes can have a powerful effect on a complex trait like sleep. |
The former boarding house was due to hose 64 asylum seekers. Photo: Stian Strand / NTB scanpix
Early on Tuesday morning, a fire broke out a planned asylum centre in Hol Municipality in Hallingdal that left the building completely destroyed.
Police were notified of the fire at 4.52am on Tuesday.
“The building has suffered great damage but it hasn’t burned completely down. It’s possible the fire brigade will monitor a controlled burn,” police spokesman Ole Kristian Nerby told NTB.
Nerby said it was too early to say anything about the cause of the fire but confirmed that no one was in the building when the fire was discovered.
The building was approved for use as an asylum centre in January. The former boarding house was due to host 64 asylum seekers. |
It’s a common theme among many small apparel brands, and women’s-specific brands in particular: a frustration with the current state of the market. Not happy with choosing from the limited selection of gear that’s available, a passionate individual (or group of individuals) sets out to change the status quo. It was no different in the case of Femme Velo.
“When I started shopping for gear and clothing I was underwhelmed and increasingly disappointed by my lack of options,” Nicole said. “The jerseys I found were an atrocious shade of pink or baby blue, which just wasn’t for me.
“I’m the kind of person that if I see something that can be better I don’t wait around for someone else to fix it — I jump right in and fix it myself. Both my parents were entrepreneurs and so starting a business of my own never seemed far-fetched.
“When I had the dismal experience of trying to find kit I liked and that I could do long rides in without it literally being a pain in my ass, I decided, why not make it better?”
When she was still new to the sport, Nicole found out that while riding alone can be hugely rewarding, it’s the social nature of the sport that binds us to our bikes. It provides the motivation to get out of bed when it’s still cold and dark outside.
Femme Velo initially began as a yearly women’s cycling sportive in 2012, before launching its line of apparel earlier this year.
“I love where we came from in this sport,” Nicole tells us. “Femme Velo isn’t about empowering women, because women don’t need brands to empower them. Women need brands that complement them, that fit into their lifestyle, and most importantly women need choices.
“That’s who we are and what we stand for and if we can get one more woman to walk past a bike shop and wonder at the possibility of what might come if she gets on bike and starts riding, then we’ve done something great with our voice and our brand.” |
The Freedom From Religion Foundation will be running a full-page ad in Sunday's Tulsa (Okla.) World and Wichita (Kan.) Eagle asking the question, "What does the bible really say about abortion?"
The answer is (as the ad puts it): "There is no biblical justification for the assault on women's reproductive rights."
The advertisement features a compelling portrait of birth control crusader Margaret Sanger, and her quote: "No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body." It documents that the bible does not condemn abortion and, in fact, "shows an utter disregard for human life." The ad reminds the reader: "We live under a secular Constitution that wisely separates religion from government, and protects women's reproductive rights."
The ad is funded and was largely written by Brian Bolton, a retired professor and Life Member of FFRF, in memory of FFRF's principal founder Anne Nicol Gaylor (1926-2015), who was propelled into freethought activism by her experiences working to legalize abortion in the late 1960s and early '70s. Gaylor observed that the battle for women's rights "would never end" until the root cause of women's oppression, "religion and its control of our government," is challenged.
The ad refers the reader for more information to Bolton's article, "God is So Not Pro-Life" and FFRF's nontract "What Does the Bible Say About abortion?"
The ad first debuted earlier this spring in the Austin American-Statesman and will appear later this month in the Houston Chronicle.
FFRF warmly thanks Brian Bolton, who lives in Texas, for his generous support and commitment. Bolton additionally sponsors FFRF's annual graduate student essay contest.
For more information on bible sexism and its reach into civil law, also see Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So, by Annie Laurie Gaylor, published by FFRF. |
Moisturize, Moisturize, Moisturize By Worker Bee
Conventional wisdom (our dear, dear friend) tells us that without the constant application of skin creams and face lotions and mineral moisturizers, we’ll become haggard parchment people with wrinkled mugs that’d put an elderly Sharpei to shame. It seems to have worked, too. Most bathroom mirrors conceal impressive caches of creams, lotions, and oils, and many people instinctively and compulsively lather the stuff on any chance they get (similar to our infatuation with Purell, but that’s another post altogether). But, as we’ve often wondered, is confronting a totally natural occurrence – dry skin – with unnatural methods and products really such a good idea?
As you know, we here at Mark’s Daily Apple tend to prefer the natural to the artificial – but that’s only because we’ve found that following nature’s way and listening to biology and evolution often go hand in hand. It’s not a dogmatic ideology of naturalism we espouse here; it is a pragmatic approach to life that tells us the natural way most often is the best way, but that also allows the use of artificial aids, if they are safe and effective. With that in mind, we weren’t all that surprised to read about a recent scientific study that discovered using lotions and skin creams can actually weaken your skin’s resistance to the elements and create a dependency on skin products.
Swedish scientist Izabela Buraczewska found that creams can actually make the skin drier in the long run. Basically, once you start using a cream or lotion to combat dry skin, you have to keep using it or your skin will regress to a point even drier than it was before you started using the cream. She used several different kind of creams and oils to test her results, and she found that even different pH levels didn’t change the effects on the skin. Both mineral and vegetable oil were tried, and both resulted in the skin having less resistance to drying elements. Strangely enough, however, using a complex cream had less of a drying effect. To Buraczewska, this meant that a blanket assignation of blame to all creams and lotions simply isn’t realistic. The problem wasn’t with the idea of artificial skin creams; the problem was that an effective skin cream simply hadn’t been created that could deal with the drying effects.
Tissue samples taken from patients suggest that the application of skin creams affects the activity of certain genes that regulate the production of skin fats, which figure prominently in the skin’s moisture levels. If we can isolate the compounds in the creams that do dry the skin, perhaps new moisturizers can be developed without the bad stuff.
So maybe smearing raw avocado and palm oil on your body isn’t the best Primal moisturizer. Maybe using unnatural oils and creams will eventually be a better way to fight dry skin. There’s a lot of things you can call us, but rigid isn’t one of them. Better living through rigorously tested and nearly perfected chemistry? Sure, we’ll take that every time.
only alice Flickr Photo (CC)
Further Reading:
We Like Drugs – Fair and Balanced
How to Get that Natural Glow
10 Rules of Aging Well
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Image caption John Hemming MP said he would raise the matter in Parliament
An MP is to raise the case of a woman who he says had her baby forcibly removed by Caesarean section, and taken by social services in Essex.
Liberal Democrat John Hemming said the Italian woman had had a panic attack linked to her bipolar disorder and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
She was sedated after authorities obtained a court order.
Essex County Council, which allegedly took the baby into care, said it could not comment on "ongoing" cases.
It is understood the woman was pregnant when she came to the UK to work for Stansted Airport in 2012.
Up for adoption
Mr Hemming, MP for Birmingham Yardley and chairman of the Justice for Families Campaign, said he planned to raise the case in Parliament.
He claims to have seen documents proving Essex social services obtained a court order for a Caesarean section, and for the child to be taken into care.
He said the girl, who is now 15 months old, was still in the care of Essex social services and was being put up for adoption.
Solicitor Brendan Fleming issued a statement in which he said he had been instructed by the woman's lawyers but would not discuss the case.
"We remain committed to fighting for our clients and shall fight tooth and nail to help mother be reunited with her baby," it said.
A council spokesperson said: "Essex County Council does not comment on the circumstances of ongoing individual cases involving vulnerable people and children." |
When Rand Paul dropped out of the presidential race in February 2016, the self-described "libertarianish" senator from Kentucky vowed: "I will continue to fight for criminal justice reform, for privacy, and your Fourth Amendment rights. I will continue to champion due process over indefinite detention." On Thursday, amid the hullaballoo of former FBI director James Comey's dramatic testimony on Capitol Hill, Paul brought a handful of libertarian reporters inside his Senate office to discuss his recent work on these projects.
Front and center is a new piece of legislation, introduced this week, to once and for all ban indefinite detention. With the working title of "The Sixth Amendment Preservation Act," Paul's bill "prevents any future military force authorization from being used to justify indefinite detention without trial," according to a summary prepared by his office. More from that:
Section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act unconstitutionally declares that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force allows our Armed Forces to indefinitely detain citizens, legal residents, and foreign nationals who are alleged to have engaged in hostilities against the United States. This means U.S. citizens apprehended within the boundaries of the U.S. could be held indefinitely without trial. The Sixth Amendment Preservation Act repeals section 1021 making it clear that no military force resolution can legalize indefinite detention without a trial and seeks to restore our constitutional commitment to individual liberty.
Emphasis in original. "You never know who could be in the White House," Paul explained Thursday. "Could someone be there that would actually take away all of our rights and begin arresting us for who we are, what we are, what we think, what we read? And so I consider this to be one of the most important pieces of legislation that we'll put forward."
Also covered in the discussion: the senator's efforts to vote down the recent blockbuster arms sale to Saudi Arabia ("winning a battle like this would send a huge message out there"), the Trump administration's tough-on-crime posture ("I think there's very little of this attorney general, this Department of Justice, doing anything favorable towards criminal justice or towards civil liberties"), criticism of Paul's vote to confirm Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and his reaction to the Comey hearing, which we teased out yesterday.
Produced and edited by Todd Krainin. Cameras by Krainin and Mark McDaniel.
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The internet is a refuge for scorned groups, from furries to mommy bloggers, and atheists have found a home there as well. “Reddit Atheist” has become shorthand for a subculture with its own memes, slang, rivalries, and parodies. While the internet has been a source of comfort for the irreligious, it has also intensified a stereotype about atheists’ self-righteous arrogance.
Despite the dominance of digital atheism, the community hasn’t made the same impact on the mobile web. The online atheism community hasn’t produced many apps of its own. Many of them are mainly collections of Richard Dawkins quotes in horrible fonts; others, like the Atheist Pocket Debater, are explicitly designed to needle Christians. While there are atheist apps, most of them are terrible, or promote arguing.
“I think the faithful have been propagating a narrative of the angry atheist for so long, and I think that there’s some legitimacy to that,” said Peter Boghossian, who teaches at Portland State University and has worked with inmates in Oregon, teaching critical thinking and moral reasoning. Boghossian, with the Richard Dawkins Foundation, created an app called Atheos to help us atheists change our reputation for being condescending doctrinaires. “I wanted to give people a tool, so if they’re approached by somebody, and instead of saying ‘delusional maniac’ and then swearing, they can explore the reasons for their beliefs,” he said.
It’s markedly different from other atheist apps in that it explicitly emphasizes not being rude to religious people. “The larger problem in society is an increasing incivility among different people holding different beliefs. I think it’s really important to have civil, respectful dialogue with people, and we just haven’t been doing that,” he told me. “So that’s a main thrust of the app.”
“None of us want this to be Iraq, right? Sunni and Shia divisions, people shooting each other because of different metaphysical beliefs about the world,” he said.
Though Boghossian used an inappropriately extreme example of religious conflict to compare, it is true that atheists are not well liked in America. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that Americans rated atheism far lower than all major belief systems except Islam. It’s also simply not cool to be atheist. Justin Bieber worships in shredded Japanese denim alongside Kevin Durant at Hillsong. Kanye raps about God dreams. Who do atheists have? Penn Jillette, Arian Foster, and the late Christopher “Women Aren’t Funny but the Iraq War Is for Sure Good” Hitchens. It’s grim. I’m an atheist, and I am sorry to confirm that we are the pedantic neckbeards of American culture, skulking around the Sam Harris section at Barnes & Noble and telling anyone who’ll listen that Thomas Jefferson was actually a deist.
This is not helped by reports that some atheists repurpose religious apps to fight about belief; in 2013, for example, The Washington Post reported that a regular free Bible app had gained an unusual following among nonbelievers. Another atheist has made money off of a Bible app he sells to Spanish believers. One diabolical-sounding atheist said he used a Bible app every night to “engage believers in verse-on-verse debates via Twitter.”
Atheos is meant as a corrective to the apps that encourage dismissive behavior toward believers. It’s a multilevel, multiple-choice quiz game; players select canned retorts to statements like, “You atheists are evil.” There’s a section on how to engage door-to-door Mormon missionaries, and another on disabusing Scientologists of Scientology. “The believer is going to think you’re not taking them seriously if you compare their faith to gay-dar,” one tip intones. Players are advised to refrain from asking Scientologists if they are taking any medications.
If you are looking for the world’s most accurate simulator of an interminable, politely fractitious seminar debate between Epistemology 101 students, you are in tremendous luck. Playing Atheos feels like completing homework for an online course in Atheism Studies. The glossary, which provides short definitions for jargon like “Fragenblitzen,” reinforces the scholarly vibe. The levels are divided into “caves.” It’s free, but after the first level is completed, the rest of the content is accessible only with a $5 purchase. I guess you could say it’s like Westworld, in that it’s a game about the nature of reality. I also guess you could say it’s like Westworld, because it could inspire insufferable dorm-room conversations.
While Atheos has overtures toward civility, its endgame is to make interlocutors doubtful about their most deeply held beliefs, and there’s something inherently confrontational about that. I don’t see how an app that encourages atheists to practice rebuttals and argument-hole-poking will help relationships between believers and nonbelievers. Atheos might be more useful for atheists engaging in conversation with believers if the screen simply flashed the words Maybe switch the topic to prestige TV??? anytime its sensors picked up voices using the terms “God,” “religion,” or “Neil deGrasse Tyson.” Maybe the reason there are no good apps for atheists is you just can’t make one. Atheos certainly tries, but at the crux of all these apps is either engaging in fruitless argument or strategically avoiding discussion of the very thing you downloaded an app for.
“All this back-and-forth sniping serves to do is to make us feel a sense of superiority to the person making the claims and does nothing for them except leave them with a smugness about their assumption that ‘atheists are all mean,’” former atheist blogger Martin Pribble wrote in 2013. “Faith overrides knowledge and truth in any situation, so arguing with a theist is akin to banging your head against a brick wall: You will injure yourself and achieve little.” |
I haven’t posted on here in quite a long while. I feel like life took me by surprise and dragged me for months. But I’m here now, and lately I’ve felt the need to blog. To write in this blog and converse with others. I recently got laid off from my job due to lack of work. There are so many things wrong with the U.S. economy, but this isn’t the blog for that kind of talk.
I’ve fallen into a hole and I seem to not be able to climb out of it. I used to be completely optimistic and cheery. Lately things have changed and I’m quite the opposite. I stopped practicing yoga, meditating, working out, eating the way I should be and I’ve started being lazy and doing things that do not make me happy for fulfilled. It was a downward spiral and I needed to tighten my grip on reality.
I realize that no one is going to change anything for me. It’s entirely up to myself to change the negative thoughts to positive and to go out and practice kindness and happiness everywhere I go. I can’t lay down on my bed anymore and wait for something good to happen. Good things are happening all around and I haven’t opened my eyes to see them. If you want to see good in the world, like really concentrate on the good in people, you will see it. The same goes for the bad in the world. The bad is easier to see because the world is becoming more cynical and selfish.
I’m really motivated about spreading kindness and happiness. I want to show others that there is a reason to be positive even when there are a thousand negative issues going on. That there are kind people out there even if they can’t seem to find them. That just because you’ve hit a major setback in your life, it doesn’t mean it’s the end or even near the end. I want to spread good in the world. |
Apparently, Color War isn’t just for kids anymore.
During a recent visiting day at her three children’s sleepaway camp in Maine, “Odd Mom Out” creator and star Jill Kargman watched as parents brought out the big guns in an all-out-battle for public affection, Upper East Side-style.
“Someone had a red wheelbarrow, pulling all the presents … There were people with Nobu sushi and I said to these moms, ‘How is that fresh?’ and they were like, ‘Oh, we were only wheels up an hour ago and we have ice packs,’” Kargman says of the private-jet-loving parents. “Someone brought a whole thing of [Chinese food from] Mr. Chow because their kids ‘missed ethnic.’”
“I know you’re happy to see your kids and it’s a big three weeks not seeing them, but it seems excessive,” says Kargman, 42, who lives in Manhattan.
Sleepaway camp is a rite of passage for many city tots. And with camps ranging from $8,000 to $13,000 for a full seven-week term, it’s an expensive one. But, for some parents, it’s not enough to send their kids away to lavish rural retreats. They hire professional packers to ensure their children’s trunks are perfectly assembled, send them off on private planes with platters of Zabar’s smoked salmon and even bring the household staff to visiting day to dust bust the cabin while the parents and kids reconnect after a grueling 3 ½ weeks apart.
“Visiting day is a whole beast in itself,” says Jodi Zgodny, co-founder of Love, Laura Gifts, which assembles extravagant baskets for the annual event. “Parents definitely want the gifts wrapped and ready to go.”
Zgodny says parents will shell out $70 for candy-covered lacrosse sticks and more than $100 for cellophane-wrapped, candy-filled packages outfitted in camp-colored ribbons. Then, there are the all-important bunk gifts — small, often custom, presents for the entire group — which can cost upward of $25 per kid (most bunks have around 10 kids).
Sometimes, the bunk gifts get even pricier.
“There might have been a rumor that somebody gave iPod shuffles to every girl in the bunk one year,” a director of an all-girls camp in New York coyly told The Post.
The camp banished the tradition five years ago after gifts became too excessive.
“It wasn’t in line with our values,” says the director, who asked to remain anonymous.
Leslie Venokur, founder of Big City Moms, a parenting Web site, sends her 8-year-old daughter, Sami, to Camp Pontiac in the Berkshires. Venokur says the girls’ beds are covered in gifts and food by the end of visiting day — no matter that all edible contraband is typically thrown out or donated after 24 hours.
“A lot of people go to their country clubs the day before and have them make their sushi platters and bring them up,” says Venokur, who lives on the Upper East Side.
“My daughter’s favorite food is steak. She loves it and I know she doesn’t have it at camp. My husband is crazy, and so he brought up a steak from Wolfgang’s on visiting day.”
For many parents, such as Upper West Sider Allysa Goldman, the excess is a way to show their love for their children.
“I was completely borderline certifiable,” says Goldman of her first year sending her now 19-year-old and 16-year-old sons to Camp Starlight in Pennsylvania (the youngest one is going for his final year this summer).
“We were notorious because we brought up so much stuff the first year and piled it up into the car and we realized we had no way of getting it all into camp,” says Goldman. “So we had to drive into town and buy those huge, huge garbage cans with wheels to put everything in it and drag everything up.”
But plain black bins didn’t cut it for Goldman.
“I went and bought stickers to decorate the garbage cans and put their names on them,” she says, with a laugh.
Some parents even take their domestic staff to visiting day.
“Every year, there are parents who bring their housekeepers to [clean],” says Goldman. “They’re there wiping the floors and spraying the Lysol.”
The third-season premiere of Kargman’s show, airing 10 p.m. July 12 on Bravo, centers around the absurdities of camp visiting day. She says nannies are more rare, but do make a cameo or two each summer. She recalls one set of parents who wouldn’t let their nanny dress down for the occasion.
“They made her wear the white Red Kap outfit,” she says. “I was like, ‘Give her a break, can’t she wear her dungarees? It’s f–king Maine. But she’s in uniform?’”
Goldman says some families will even pay to drive out all the “bunk junk” and food separately.
Flying private to visiting day is the new norm for the elite.
“The [hired help] will set everything up on the grass with a little tent and everything and leave,” says Goldman.
This sort of over-the-top behavior starts well before visiting day.
Parents shell out thousands of dollars for customized camp gear ranging from $100 splatter-painted sleeping bags to $175 Uggs with their children’s name spray-painted on.
And, then, there are the professional packers.
Zgodny’s company offers packing services at $100 an hour with a three-hour minimum.
“[My employees] bring Ziplocs and containers and Sharpies and label everything,” says Zgodny.
“They’ll put dryer sheets between each layer of clothes, so when they come to camp, it smells good. And they’ll put a nice gift on top, too,” she says of the new trend of a “trunk gift.”
Of course, parents save some extravagances for themselves, too.
Flying private to visiting day is the new norm for the elite who want to skirt a hellish 5-hour-plus drive to Maine and other out-of-the-way locales.
For those who don’t have their own jets, there’s Blade, which first launched private plane service to five camps last summer. This summer, they have expanded to 20 top camps in the Upper New York region, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Maine. One-way seats cost $425 to $525, according to Blade general manager Evan Licht, who says they’ve already sold out of certain flights.
Kargman says two parents offered her and her husband a ride home on their jet after last year’s visiting day.
“I was like, ‘Well, we have our car so that doesn’t work.’ And she says, ‘Send your people for it.’
“I’m like, ‘I don’t have people.’” |
ERBIL, Iraq — As Iraqi Kurdistan heads to a controversial independence referendum on Sept. 25, divisions are running deep in the Turkmen community, which, like the Kurds, has claims over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Turkey's official policy terms Kirkuk “a Turkmen city,” and many Turks generally think that all Turkmens are on the same page. But the reality on the ground is different. To start with, the Turkmens in Erbil and Kirkuk differ in their stances on the prospect of Kurdish independence. Some Turkmens insist on the territorial integrity of Iraq, but others argue that cohabitation with the Kurds is easier. The Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), the largest party representing the Turkmens, is opposed to the referendum, while the Turkmen Development Party, founded by a group that split from the ITF, backs the referendum, arguing that Kurdistan is already a de facto state dealing directly with foreign countries.
Turkey’s and Iran’s policies are another factor swaying Turkmen positions. For quite a while, Turkey has been advising the Turkmens to stay on good terms with the Kurds, which is contributing to the divergence of positions. Shiite Turkmens, meanwhile, have turned increasingly to Baghdad since the Islamic State’s (IS) onslaught in 2014.
Based on their reactions to the referendum, two major trends are discernible among the Turkmens. For those who live in Erbil, the Kurdistan project is not much of a problem. They argue they have been able to preserve their language and culture in Kurdistan, while Turkmens in the rest of Iraq have been obliterated. The Turkmens in Kirkuk, meanwhile, are worried that an independent Kurdistan would lead to the fragmentation of Turkmen areas, with the city of Kirkuk probably going to Kurdistan and towns such as Taza Khormato, Tal Afar, Tuz Khormato, Amerli, Qarah Tabbah and Jalawla staying with Iraq. This would mean an end to the dream of a Turkmen homeland, idealized in nationalist quarters.
ITF member Aydin Maruf, one of the five Turkmens in the Kurdistan parliament, paints a tough outlook for a community hit by geographical and sectarian divisions and relying on different powers for protection.
Maruf told Al-Monitor that “Baghdad’s sectarian polices” had pushed the Kurds to seek independence, arguing that the Iraqi Kurdistan Region had progressed both politically and democratically. “Holding a referendum is a right. Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens alike can do that,” he said.
Maruf said the referendum was causing problems mostly in Kirkuk and Mosul. “In the disputed areas, neither Turkmens nor Arabs accept the referendum, and 70% of Turkmens live in the disputed areas,” he said, stressing that the Kurds should have sought dialogue with other ethnic groups, including the Turkmens, before making the move.
He said that according to the Iraqi Constitution, Kirkuk, Tuz Khormato, Taza Khormato and Tal Afar do not belong to the Kurdistan region. “Their status must be resolved within a constitutional framework. That’s why the Iraqi Turkmen Front does not accept holding the referendum in the disputed areas,” he said.
“We have never opposed the rights of the Kurds,” Maruf said. “We are living together. When the Baath regime [stormed the region] in 1991, the bombs rained on all of us. Our destiny is one. If there is a [Kurdish] state, we will be in that state, and if there is a war, we will be in that war as well. I’m talking about Erbil here. The situation is different for those in Kirkuk and Mosul. If Iraq disintegrates, will it be only Kurdistan seceding? The Sunni Arabs might secede as well. Then, what will happen to the Turkmens in Mosul and Tal Afar?”
While some Turkmens charge that the Kurds have been trying to Kurdicize Kirkuk and cannot be trusted, the Kurds argue that Kurdistan is the best guarantee of Turkmen rights. According to prominent Kurdish commentator Massoud Abdulkhaliq, Kirkuk’s Turkmens would be better off as part of Kurdistan. “The Turkmens used to have presence in all provinces and districts of Iraq. Now it is only in Kurdistan, which means they get along better with the Kurds than with the Arabs. No one is harassing them here,” he told Al-Monitor in Erbil. “They insist that Kirkuk remain attached to Baghdad, but if it does, they will be finished in Kirkuk, too, as they were in other regions.”
The ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) rejects accusations that the Turkmens have been subjected to ethnic cleansing and excluded from the administration.
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Mohammed Khurshid, the KDP head in Kirkuk, described a tradition of cultural diversity involving Kurds, Turkmens, Jews and Christians. That is why Kirkuk natives are called “quadrilinguals,” he said.
Khurshid continued, “After 1930, Bedouin Arabs were settled in Hawija to the south of Kirkuk. In 1963, the Arabs of Hawija attacked the Kurds, setting 300 villages ablaze. Hawija has always been a threat to Kirkuk. They attacked Turkmen villages as well. The Arabs of Hawija seized Turkmen lands. The [Arabization] project accelerated after 1974 under Saddam Hussein. In 1988, all Kurdish villages in Kirkuk were burned and destroyed. A total of 758 villages were either destroyed or resettled with Arabs. The people exiled from Kirkuk settled in Dahuk and Erbil.”
Khurshid denied any deliberate Kurdish policy to drive the Turkmens out of Kirkuk. “I don’t say there are no assassinations and explosions, but no Kurdish group has a policy of denial vis-a-vis the Turkmens,” he said. “Before 2003, there was not even one Turkmen school in the city. Thanks to the Kurdish government, the Turkmens have opened several schools. They are even using the Latin alphabet. The Iraqi government does not accept that, but we do.” Khurshid drew a comparison to Erbil, where, he said, Turkmens had a school before 2003. He argued that Kurds had been supportive of the idea that Turkmens hold senior administrative posts.
The status of Kurds who were driven out of rural Kirkuk is an issue. Khurshid said the Iraqi government failed to provide support to revive the old villages. “As a result, the people settled not in the villages but in the cities. The Turkmens are now complaining that the Kurds have settled in urban centers. … The Kurds moved to lands allocated by the government, not to other people’s homes,” he said, adding that Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who served as president of Iraq, built 1,000 homes in the town of Bashir, near Kirkuk, and gave them away to Turkmen returnees.
“In our view, Kirkuk belongs to all of us. It’s a city of all nationalities and religions,” Khurshid said. He referred also to a proposal he had drawn up at the request of Kurdish leaders for a special status for Kirkuk within Kurdistan. The proposal, presented to representatives of other groups on July 30, outlines a power-sharing formula according to which the bloc that comes out first in the elections gets the governor’s post, the second the post of provincial council speaker, the third the deputy governor’s post and the fourth the deputy speaker’s post. Given the demographic structure, the governor’s post would likely go to the Kurds, the speaker’s post to the Arabs, the deputy governor’s post to the Turkmens and the deputy speaker’s post to the Christians, Khurshid said. “Yet,” he added, “the Turkmens demand that the third ticket gets both the deputy governor’s and deputy speaker’s posts. We reject that because the Christians would be cast out.”
Beyond those disagreements, another important factor has changed Turkmen perspectives. Because they see Turkey as a protector and guarantor, Turkmens used to say they did not need to arm themselves. Yet at least 12,000 Turkmens have joined the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) since the force was created in 2014 to fight IS, and now many believe that the PMU would fight for the Turkmens if need be.
The fear of an armed conflict with the PMU is rife among the Kurds. Recalling the 2015 flare-up between the Kurdish peshmerga forces and the PMU in Tuz Khormato, Abdulkhaliq said, “In Mosul, [the PMU] controls 12 of the 16 disputed areas, while the remaining four are in peshmerga hands. The danger of clashes is more serious in Tuz Khormato and to the south of Kirkuk.”
Former KDP lawmaker Aso Karim drew attention to the PMU’s Iranian connections. “[The PMU] is growing and could step into action to retake the disputed areas. Iran is influential here,” he said.
In an interview in Sulaimaniyah, Jalal Jawhar, a senior member of the Movement for Change (Gorran), also voiced concern that actors opposed to Kurdistan could start clashes in the disputed areas.
The referendum may be a natural right of the Kurds, but myriad uncertainties engulf the day after. The Kurds might still be able to avoid disaster scenarios if they follow more inclusive, flexible and prudent policies. |
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Shaquille O'Neal's curious about one aspect of LeBron James' impending return to face angry Cavaliers fans -- the pregame ritual.
"I'm a silly fan,'' O'Neal said. "I'm anxious to see if he's going to do that powder thing.''
James' homecoming on Thursday, his first game in Cleveland since deciding to join the Miami Heat this summer, may be the most anticipated matchup on the NBA schedule this season. Cavaliers fans are expected to mercilessly boo James, whose departure impacted the city's economy and psyche.
During his seven seasons in Cleveland, James developed a routine -- before home and away games -- of filling his hands with a white powdered rosin and tossing it above his head just before tip-off, creating a dust cloud that has become as much his signature as any powerful dunk.
On Tuesday, James seemed unsure if he would do it in front of fans who may no longer appreciate the snow-like spectacle.
"The powder? I probably will,'' James said after practice in Miami on Tuesday. "That's just a ritual for myself, a routine that I've always done, I've done on the road. I don't know. We'll see. I may change. I don't know.''
O'Neal, who has felt the wrath of fans after leaving Orlando and Los Angeles, can't wait to find out.
"We have bets that he doesn't do it,'' said O'Neal, in town with the Boston Celtics to play the Cavaliers.
Dwyane Wade believes his Miami teammate will stick with his pregame powder ceremony.
"I wouldn't expect him to do anything different,'' Wade said. "He's done it for every game he's played. So why change it just for one game? If he doesn't throw it up, I'll throw it up for him. That's what he does. You cannot stop doing what you do. Moreso than anything, that's his ritual. That's what gets him ready for the game.
"No one's going to know until tip-off. And we'll be excited to see.'' |
Bray Wyatt has qualified to feature in the Money In The Bank WWE Title Ladder Match, besting Dean Ambrose in a qualifier match at the June 10th SmackDown tapings. We can also report that John Cena is scheduled to be added to the title match at some point, according to an update at F4wonline. That would make the line up to six big stars fighting for the title on June 29th, Cesaro vs Sheamus vs Orton vs Del Rio vs Cena vs Wyatt. Apparently WWE have already decided on who will be the new champion, and the company are also mulling over a second ladder match for the traditional MITB briefcase title shot. An argument could be made that Money In The Bank 2014 is in fact now stronger from Daniel Bryan's absence. His scheduled match against Kane was hardly a big sell to begin with. Instead we now have six of WWE's biggest stars fighting it out to be the new WWE Champion and a possible second ladder match on the show. Wyatt beat Ambrose in the SmackDown match after Seth Rollins ran in to distract the Shield member. It looks as if we will get Ambrose vs Rollins in a one on one undercard match at the pay per view, with Roman Reigns possibly doing nothing more than acting as enforcer at ringside. Overall the Money In The Bank pay per view is shaping up to be a great show, the addition of Wyatt into the title equation is exciting, we now await the final qualifier which will probably be Cena next week on Raw. |
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June 5, 2014, 3:16 PM GMT / Updated June 5, 2014, 3:58 PM GMT
A senior politician from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party has been quoted saying that sometimes rape is "right," sparking renewed outrage about rampant sexual assault in that country.
"This is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong," Babulal Gaur, home minister of Madhya Pradesh state, was quoted as saying in the Hindustan Times. "Until there's a complaint, nothing can happen."
Gaur is from Prime Minister Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Modi has so far been silent about the May 26 gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in the north of the country. Three men later confessed to the attacks, which ended with the girls being hung from a mango tree.
The 14- and 15-year-old cousins were from a poor family without operating toilets in their home and disappeared after going into fields to relieve themselves. |
One of the most important things determining the quality of a photo is the angle from which it was taken. Even if you have a really interesting subject and you follow the most important composition guidelines, you still need to find that unique and interesting angle to really make your photo shine.
In this article I’m going to share my 9 best tips for finding the perfect angle so that your iPhone photos really stand out and look as great as they possibly can…
1. Move around to improve composition
Whenever you’re trying to pick the best angle for a photo, you should always think about balancing the composition, and the angle that you shoot from makes a huge difference for the horizontal and vertical balance of the photo. Let me show you what I mean with an example.
In this photo my subjects are the tree in the foreground and the mountain in the background. The photo is balanced horizontally as the two subjects are at the opposite sides of the frame. However, it’s not balanced vertically as there is nothing of interest in the top half of the frame, and all visual weight is concentrated at the bottom half of the frame.
Now let’s look at the same scene from a different angle. The next photo was shot from the same location with the iPhone positioned higher and the lens directed more towards the ground.
Here you can see pretty much the opposite – there’s nothing of interest at the bottom half of the frame, and all visual weight is concentrated at the top. It’s tempting to think that the best solution would be aligning both the tree and the mountain centrally, but then all visual weight would be in the middle, and the top and the bottom would then look empty.
However, I was able to balance this image by walking closer to the tree so that the shadow is also included in the composition. Now the tree takes up the top and central parts of the image, the mountain is in the central part, and the shadow fills up the bottom third of the image. I hope this example shows you how easy it can be to adjust composition by just moving around a little.
2. Shoot from the height of your subject
We look at the world from the height of our eyes, and thus it’s only natural to also take photos from the same height. However, in many photography situations – such as taking photos of children, pets or plants – shooting from the height of your eyes will almost always result in bad photos.
When photographing children and animals, you should take photos from their height and thus capture the world from their point of view. If you just shoot from the height of your own eyes, your subjects will literally look like they’ve been tossed on the ground.
3. Get close… and even closer
A great way to make your photos more intimate is to get closer to your subjects – even closer than you would feel comfortable. That way your photos can convey the kind of intimacy that is normally only found in real life.
Did you notice that this photo is shot from the height of the cat?
4. Add perspective to your photos
When possible, try to choose an angle that will show perspective in your photos. There are a few different ways you can do this. If your subject is far away, one simple way to show perspective is to juxtapose it with larger-looking objects in the foreground as seen below.
If the view extends into the distance, you can show perspective by shooting from a higher angle as seen in the next photo. I took this photo from a staircase so that my main subject – the silhouette of a women – is situated against the street extending far into the background.
Another great way to show perspective is to get really low with your iPhone. That creates an exaggerated perspective by making the objects in the foreground look massive, which can be used to emphasize details on the ground level and make the image more immersive.
5. Include interesting reflections
An easy way to greatly improve your photos and make mundane scenes exciting is to include reflections in your photos. While you can find reflections on many different surfaces, water is perhaps the most obvious medium for interesting and unique reflections.
In general, I prefer to include both the actual subjects and their refections in the photo, and I like to make the reflections equally or more prominent than the other parts of the photo. Often the only way you can do this is by placing the lens of your iPhone just a little bit above the water. If the iPhone is even an inch higher, you probably won’t be able to frame the photo as needed.
Another great reason to place the iPhone within an inch above the water is that even the tiniest waves – which you can also create yourself – will look massive and distort the reflection, which of course also adds perspective to the photo. This is something you can only do with a smartphone since in traditional cameras the lens is placed much higher from the bottom of the camera.
6. Include shadows in the composition
Many photos can be greatly enhanced by also including shadows in the composition. This works particularly well if you shoot within the so-called golden hour, which is the hour before sunset (or after sunrise) when the shadows are longer and much more pronounced.
To make sure that the shadows fit in with the rest of the composition, treat them like you would treat any other photography subject. Quite often it means that your photos with shadows should be shot from the top with the ground taking up a large part of the composition.
7. Shoot from the hip
Shooting from hip height is one of the best ways to improve your street photos and other photos of people that are not portraits. By changing the angle like this you can make the photo more dynamic and interesting just because we normally don’t look at other people from that angle.
You could either get down on your knees to maintain full control over the process, or you can just lower your iPhone and literally shoot from the hip to add some randomness to your photos.
8. Tilt your photos for a more dynamic look
Who said you should always keep your iPhone straight and take perfectly horizontal photos? For some reason that’s exactly what we end up doing 99% of the time. However, there are situations when tilting the iPhone a little will result in a far more interesting and unique photos.
This is one of my favorite iPhone photos, and it’s made much more interesting by the subtle but perceptible tilting of the frame. Of course, the subjects couldn’t walk like this in real life, thus making this photo a bit surreal.
9. Always keep experimenting
You should always keep experimenting and looking for a unique and interesting angle for your photos. Don’t just take a photo the way you see the scene, try to change the angle and see how that changes the photo. Don’t just settle for the first version of what could be a great photo.
Maybe you want to get down on your knees, maybe you want to climb the nearby stairs and take the photo from there, or maybe you want to get closer to your subject. Always keep experimenting with unique shooting angles, and you won’t be disappointed with the results.
Emil Pakarklis is the founder of iPhone Photography School, a website that helps people take better photos with the iPhone.
All photos in this article were shot and edited with iPhone 4S. |
Yeast. They already participate in producing some of the most popular pain-killing substances around: beer and wine. Now, scientists have engineered yeast that can also make one of the most powerful analgesics: morphine. Their work is in the journal Nature Chemical Biology. [Kate Thodey, Stephanie Galanie and Christina D. Smolke, A microbial biomanufacturing platform for natural and semisynthetic opioids]
Opiates like morphine and codeine are essential for treating severe pain. But making these meds isn’t easy. All are derived from opium poppies, and tens to hundreds of thousands of tons are needed to meet global needs. The crops can also be affected by climate, disease and even political turmoil in the countries where the plants are grown, which further limits commercial production.
To get around these potential challenges, researchers have turned to yeast, an organism that can be grown easily on industrial scales.
The scientists inserted into yeast cells a handful of genes isolated from the opium poppy. These genes encode the enzymes the plants use to produce opiates. After tweaking the system to adjust the relative amounts of the enzymes, the researchers could feed their yeast a precursor chemical called thebaine, and get pure morphine in return.
The yeast can’t yet make opiates from scratch. But with a bit more effort and a few more enzymes, yeast may produce painkillers that are prescription strength.
—Karen Hopkin
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
[Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.] |
Since the Pac-12 expanded to 12 teams in 2011, the annual showdown between Oregon and Stanford hasn't been as much a North Division game as an annual coronation. Four of the last five times these teams met, the winner would go on to win the Pac-12 championship.
And once they got to the league's title game, they typically dominated their South brethren. The first five Pac-12 championship games have been won by either Oregon or Stanford by an average of three touchdowns. It was a shared dynasty that was the envy of the league's 10 other programs.
Oregon has a 3-6 record and may miss playing in a bowl game for the first time in a dozen years. Chris Williams/Icon Sportswire
Stanford travels to Oregon on Saturday, only this time the duo's monopoly on conference titles was broken up weeks ago. Regardless of the outcome, neither will win the conference. And neither will win the North. Both programs have yielded to the gentlemen from the great state of Washington … or the great Washington State. The Cougars and Huskies swept the Cardinal and Ducks in blowout victories, effectively marking the end of one epoch and trumpeting in the Pac-12's Age of Apples.
The Oregon-Stanford matchup has traditionally influenced playoff and BCS tides. But this year it wouldn't make a ripple in a kiddie pool. The once-ordained have been reduced to ordinary.
Yet while there are no national stakes at play for either team, there is still plenty worth investing in. The Cardinal (6-3, 4-3) -- despite their injuries and stilted offense -- still have a shot at a nine-win season and a mid-tier bowl game.
Oregon (3-6, 1-5) needs to win to keep its slim hopes of making the postseason alive. The Ducks have lost six of their last seven and are in danger of missing a bowl game for the first time since 2004.
This has traditionally been a game of competing philosophies: Oregon with its up-tempo, high-scoring brand of offense against Stanford's stalwart defense. And that still holds true. The Ducks are No. 4 in the league in scoring offense at 38.2 points per game. Stanford has the league's No. 3 scoring defense, yielding just 18.6 points per game.
But there's another contrast this year. Oregon's defense can't stop hemorrhaging points. Stanford's offense can't find any. The Ducks are 11th in the league in scoring defense. Stanford is last in offense.
EDITOR'S PICKS Week 10 Pac-12 Power Rankings
College GameDay travels to Seattle to see the two hottest teams in the Pac-12 face off in Washington and USC.
It's the stoppable force versus the movable object.
Last year was the only time the winner of this game didn't win the league title. Oregon pulled out a tight 38-36 victory at Stanford, eliminating the Cardinal from playoff contention. But Stanford still went on to win the conference and roll through the Rose Bowl.
That's been a theme in this matchup -- one knocking the other out of something significant. In 2012, it was the Cardinal who topped the Ducks in Eugene in overtime, spoiling an undefeated season and paving the way for that barn-burning Notre Dame-Alabama BCS championship. A year later the Cardinal again topped an undefeated Oregon team. And then in 2015, it was the Ducks who bounced the Cardinal from playoff consideration.
Oregon has won the last two, but three of the last four meetings have come down to one possession.
This game also features two of the league's preseason Heisman favorites -- running backs Christian McCaffrey from Stanford and Royce Freeman from Oregon. Both were coming off outstanding, record-breaking seasons in 2015. But injuries have slowed them statistically and negatively impacted their teams.
It's a situation neither of these teams wanted to be in Week 11. This is the game that's always been circled as an exhibition of the Pac-12's best and brightest. Heismans have been won and lost in this game. Opinions have been molded. National landscapes have been altered.
But not this year. Every game is important and every game matters. You won't find a player in either locker room who doesn't care about the outcome. This is just the first time in a long time that the rest of the country won't be watching. Because this time around it's not a coronation. It's just another North Division game. |
(Image: Oli Scarff/Getty)
It may look like a sci-fi movie prop, but it could be a glimpse at the future of prosthetics.
3D printing can render everyday artefacts in clear plastic, so we can see in unprecedented detail how they work – and this exquisite model of a prosthetic arm is a brilliant example. It is one of the highlights at the London Science Museum’s 3D printing exhibition, which features more than 600 printed objects.
Designed by Richard Hague, director of the Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Research Group at the University of Nottingham, UK, and his students the arm shows how the printers can create strong structure, mobile joints and delicate sensors – like spiral-shaped metal touch-detectors – all in one process.
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“It’s a mock-up but it shows circuits that sense temperature, feel objects and control the arm’s movement,” says Hague. “3D printing gives us the freedom to make complex, optimised shapes, and our research aim is focused on printing-in electrical, optical or even biological functions.”
Such techniques are also bringing prosthetics to people who previously could not afford them. For instance, the open-source “robohand” project, pioneered by South African carpenter Richard Van As, aims to print cheap, plastic customised prostheses for people who have lost fingers, or who were born with some digits missing or malformed. Some of his work – with the designs available online – is also on show at the Science Museum.
See more: “What our 3D-printed future looks like“ |
How To Fight Like Saenchai
Watch and Learn Saenchai’s Best Muay Thai Techniques and Tricks
Observing Saenchai’s skills in person is mentally exhausting.
His raw talent is just mind-blowing and it’s nearly impossible to figure out how he fights so perfectly. I was blessed to watch him teach a session at Phoenix MMA (Bournemouth, UK) and managed to film a lot of the techniques and drills he was demonstrating.
Saenchai has been my idol since I started Muay Thai, so it’s my absolute privilege to share his favourite techniques with you. Whilst they are mechanically quite simple, the timing and precision he performs them with is what makes them so effective:
#1. Saenchai’s Kicks
His unique flexibility allows him to bring his chamber up high with amazing speed and control. When he raises his thigh for a round kick, you have NO idea whether you’re about to get booted in the leg or take a shin to the head:
Question Mark Kick
Start by swinging your kick at your opponent’s leg, then at the last minute elevate your chamber and smash your foot into their confused face. The final blow may end up as more of a karate/tkd-esque flick (which finishes at the target) than a traditional Muay Thai round kick (which goes through the target).
Key points – Make sure you pop up hard onto the toes of your standing leg to help achieve a good snap in the kick and to help it reach the head. Saenchai makes it look so easy mainly because he has such loose hip flexors, better get stretching if you want to throw it as smoothly as he does.
Flying Switch Teep
Once you understand the quick footwork required, this highly explosive teep combination will send your opponent flying across the ring whilst making you look like an absolute baller: Throw a front leg teep, then as it lands back on the floor, quickly drag your rear foot up to the front. Now throw your front knee up and jump up off your rear foot. As you’re in mid-air, throw the rear teep. Having blasted your opponent with your rear foot, bring it back behind you so that you land in your normal stance.
Key point – Throw the front knee as high as you can before executing the kick to make yourself look as G as possible.
Fake Round Kick Into Teep
Saenchai uses this classic technique better than anyone: Deceitfully throw a rear round kick chamber out wide to draw a front leg check from your opponent. As they are balanced on one leg, lean back and extend your foot straight down the middle to send them collapsing into a puddle of gullible shame.
Key point – Exaggerate and sell the initial round kick chamber to force a check.
#2. How to Miss/Avoid a Kick
Missing A Kick By staying face on to your opponent after you throw and miss a kick, you’re telling the judges that you have complete control of your movements. Also, if you’re looking at your opponent after a miss, it’s easier to detect any incoming counter attacks (sorry to state the painfully obvious). So, next time you miss a kick and swing around in a full circle whilst raising an anticipatory check in foolish panic as you present your back to your opponent, slap yourself. Saenchai would not be pleased.
P.S. There’s a reason Saenchai struts around like he’s just fucked the entire Playboy Mansion: Muay Thai judges favor ring authority and aggression so his confrontational and arrogant swagger tells the judges he’s commanding the situation.
Key Point – Develop your own ring character (and definitely don’t copy his, or any fighter’s, because people will just laugh at your unoriginality)
The Lean Back
No one pulls this off more stylishly than Saenchai. You’ll see videos of him bending backwards to the point he’s basically entering the matrix, but you don’t actually need to be that flexible to do this move efficiently. The evasiveness of the technique comes from stepping back with your rear foot and leaning back just enough to avoid the kick. Making a more minimal movement will also allow you to counter more efficiently.
Key points – Stepping back enough with the rear foot and not bending back too much.
#3. Elbows Notice how small his movements are when he throws his elbow strikes. When timed properly, elbows do enough damage without the need to dedicate your entire body weight and mortgage behind the shot. You unnecessarily risk losing balance if you over commit. Rear Cross Elbow Watch how he steps out at a 45 degree angle with his lead foot. This allows the elbow to travel in a wider arc and build more momentum which will create a more powerful blow. Most people make the mistake of stepping straight forward when throwing the elbow which limits the strike’s power. Key point – Step out at 45 degrees. Countering Knee With Up-Elbow Watch how he waits for Pakorn to commit to the knee before stepping in with his own elbow counter. This strike is best thrown as a counter against your opponent’s movement. Key point – He doesn’t just blindly throw the strike hoping it will hit. Countering Hook With Up-Elbow Key point – Reach out and meet the punch to prevent your opponent locking on a collar tie. #4. The Clinch Fuck clinching with Saenchai. Ever. Duck under A powerful position to obtain. This essentially turns your opponent into your bitch. Notice how Saenchai blocks Pakorn’s elbow after clearing the arm to avoid being struck by it? Ensure you also pull your opponent at a downward 45 degree angle to break their balance. Key point – block the elbow and take a big step with your rear knee to load up the strike. Cross face As your opponent reaches to collar tie you, duck under their arm and push their face in the opposite direction to lock out their arm and completely fuck with their body’s mechanics. It’s essential to pull this move off quickly to avoid being countered as you do it. Key point – do it fast. Body head knee combo This isn’t related to clinch, but it’s a wicked combination I wanted to share. Key point – Exaggerate the duck down as you throw the overhand to sell it like a body shot, this will help lower your opponent’s guard and increase your chances of putting him to bed. (Thank you to Yokkao for putting this seminar together and allowing me to film. To all the Pakorn fans wondering why I left him out, it’s because he didn’t do any teaching. He’s still a legend in his own right, he just didn’t have any relevance to this article!) Bonus Saenchai Technique Breakdown Video
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Author Profile Sam Razvi Sam is a travelling fighter/journalist from England. He backpacked to Thailand to learn Muay Thai when he was 18 where he ended up having 4 professional fights. He then trained kickboxing in Holland where he learned how much it sucks to not take a leg kick properly. Having also performed stand-up comedy he likes to think he's funny, so please forgive him for any ridiculous jokes (and for the audacity of writing about himself in the 3rd person). Check his travelling fight blog here - http://www.pineapplesamurai.com. Latest entries Author Archives Culture Western Muay Thai vs Thailand Muay Thai
Western Muay Thai vs Thailand Muay Thai Technique How To Fight Like Saenchai
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With Brisbane Festival in full swing, we round up the best places cheap cafes and restaurants in the city – whether you fancy a big bowl of ramen, delicate French pastries or beer and burgers
Mrs Luu's Vietnamese Canteen
This is not your traditional-style Vietnamese restaurant. The family who own Mrs Luu's used to run one of the most popular Vietnamese restaurants in Brisbane, but for this latest venture, they have taken just a handful of favourites and given them a contemporary twist. The "three little piggies'" banh mi (Vietnamese baguette sandwich) is a combination of barbecued pork, Vietnamese-style ham and their own porchetta, piled high with crunchy, fragrant salad ($7). There are six varieties of goi cuon rice paper rolls (two for $6) and daily blackboard specials, such as green papaya salad with king prawns and pork belly, or Mrs Luu's own pho thai nam (rare beef brisket and noodle soup). Cash only, but there is an ATM on the premises.
• 25 Railway Terrace, Milton, +61 (0) 7 3369 5760
Little Greek Taverna
Little Greek Taverna, Brisbane
It's bustling, rowdy and a bit rough-and-ready, and that's all part of the appeal. This family-run restaurant is hard to beat when it comes to hearty, home-style Greek fare. Select from a list of mezedes, which includes homemade dips, classic zucchini fritters with tzatziki and Aunty Thea Ellie's tiropita (crisp, golden pastry filled with a mixture of warm feta and ricotta cheese, $6). Generous servings of souvlaki come with salad for $15, or $5 per skewer. In addition to traditional yiros (kebabs) at $10 a plate, there's a range of grilled seafood, including octopus, prawns, calamari and scallops (all under $20). You can bring your own wine (corkage $2) and they'll throw in the party atmosphere for free.
• 1 Browning St West End, +61 (0) 7 3255 2215, www.littlegreektaverna.com.au
Double Shot Espresso
The guys who run this pint-sized neighbourhood cafe have been in the hospitality game for many years and it shows. Chef Michael manages to turn out an array of perfect cakes, tarts, terrines, sandwiches and innovative breakfast fare from the minuscule kitchen, while Ross manages front-of-house with unflappable cheer, despite how hectic it can be on weekends. You can't beat their banoffee pie. The espresso here is well-made, and as strong as the cafe's name suggests. There simply isn't a dud option on the menu, with everything under $20. Be sure to take cash as there are no card facilities.
• 125 Oxlade Drive New Farm, +61 (0) 7 3358 6556.
Jan Powers Farmers Market, Brisbane City
A salad from Nom Noms
This normally drab corner of the concrete jungle is transformed every Wednesday, bringing a little bit of the Queensland country to the Central Business District. Farmers and producers peddle their delicious wares to a bustling crowd of city workers, students and visitors. For around $10 (£6), you can take your pick from hand-crafted dumplings, German Bratwurst and tasty vegetarian options from the Nom Noms stall. This is also the place for hunting and gathering locally made cheese, hot-smoked salmon, artisan sourdough, macaroons, brownies and ginger beer – all the makings of a perfect riverside picnic in the nearby botanical gardens.
• Reddacliff Place (top of the Queen St Mall), George St, Brisbane, every Wednesday; janpowersfarmersmarkets.com.au.
Swamp Dog
Smoked sardines, toasted sourdough, feta and dried tomatoes from Swampdog
At this edgy little South Brisbane fish and chippery, it's all about sustainable seafood, with an emphasis on locally caught fish. Pull up a stool at the big communal table and help yourself to homemade lemonade, or order a takeaway and head down to nearby South Bank Parklands. Sample Moreton Bay mullet and chips ($10.90) or salt-and-pepper calamari with preserved lemon aioli and chips ($12.90). Our favourites are the mackerel cutlet with zingy pineapple and coriander salsa ($16.90) and the tempura whiting with ginger prawn mousse and fragrant, crunchy Viet-style salad ($14.90).
• 186 Vulture St South Brisbane, +61 (0) 7 3255 3715, swampdog.com.au.
Sourced Grocer
It's the city's hippest market cafe, offering a simple, produce-driven menu, served against an industrial-chic backdrop of gourmet goodies, cut flowers and some of the best fresh produce around. The simple menu is handwritten on the white subway-tiled wall and reads like a who's who of local artisan producers. Food is as wholesome as it is delicious – salads such as the Noosa smokehouse salmon, freekeh tabbouleh, pistachio, grapes and goat's cheese ($12) will keep the taste buds and the scales happy. The bircher muesli and smashed avocado on sourdough are some of the best you'll find.
• 11 Florence St Newstead, +61 (0) 7 3852 6734, sourcedgrocer.com.au
The Bun Mobile
bun mobile
Brisbane's first food truck set the bar high. This is fast food with class, offering simple, freshly steamed Chinese-style buns packed with flavoursome fillings. Buns are $8 each ($10 for the daily special), and there are always vegetarian and gluten-free options. Slow-cooked Wagyu beef with soy-pickled shitake mushrooms is a menu staple, as is the char-grilled teriyaki chicken with carrot and mint 'slaw and Japanese mayo. The twice-cooked pork version with hoisin and sakura-pickled cucumber is worth crossing town for – check the location calendar on their website as these buns get around.
• +61 (0) 401 420 922, thebunmobile.com.au
Taro's Ramen
Taro's Ramen, Brisbane
The ground floor of an office tower in the Central Business District seems an unlikely spot for what is undoubtedly the city's best ramen, but it's worth battling the lunchtime crush for a bowl of their signature Red Tonkatsu Ramen ($15.90). Made from Bangalow pork bones, the rich stock has been bubbling away for two days by the time it's ladled into your bowl with tender, slow-roasted char siu pork, noodles, nori, seasoned egg and shallots. Naturally, noodles are made on the premises. For a tamer option, the shoyu ramen broth is a balanced blend of vegetable, chicken and seafood – or try "golden triple soup" with aged soy for a delectable umami hit ($13.90).
• 363 Adelaide St Brisbane, +61 (0) 7 3832 6358, taros.com.au.
Chouquette
First-time visitors stare agape at the baskets of traditional baguettes, golden croissants and exquisitely delicate cakes on display in this little New Farm establishment. With a host of French-born and –trained pastry chefs in the kitchen and cafe, all rattling off orders to one another in French, this is the most authentic boulangerie-patisserie experience this side of Paris. Best of all, despite the commitment to traditional slow-fermentation bread-baking methods and quality ingredients, you can eat like a French queen here for surprisingly little. Take your pick from any of the picture-perfect pastries – the chocolate torsade and almond croissant are standouts; add a well-made espresso and expect to hand over a meagre $10 for the pleasure.
• 19 Barker St New Farm, +61 (0) 7 3358 6336, chouquette.com.au
Tippler's Tap
Tippler's Tap, Brisbane
This is Brisbane's unofficial craft beer headquarters. A dark, hip little hideaway in Newstead with a staggering array of craft beers and fantastic, Chicago-style bar food. Whether your chosen tipple is a Bacchus Queensland Ale or My Wife's Bitter from Burleigh Brewing Company on the Gold Coast, the bar snacks are a drawcard in themselves. Order a hearty bowl of Grandma Kennedy's chilli with crusty organic sourdough, or share a 1kg serving of Buffalo wings with blue cheese sauce and celery sticks (both $10). Sliders are some of the best around. It's impossible to choose between the classic beef-cheese-onion-mustard combination and the pork belly, caramel star-anise, pickled cucumber and cilantro, so hedge your bets and go with the five for $20 deal.
• 22 Masters St Newstead, tipplerstap.com.au.
Morag writes for extravirgin.net.au. She also hosts a food tour of Queensland on 612 ABC Evenings (Wednesdays 8.15pm). |
Pick virtually any issue facing America today, and you will find a generous collection of Republican lies on the subject. Some are actually well-crafted lies, difficult to disprove, but some are so totally over the edge that a fifth grader could expose them, like this one, so why do they do it?
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., delivered one of her signature hard-hitting speeches at the Values Voter Summit, a conference for socially conservative activists on Sept. 17, 2010. At one point, Bachmann took a shot at the woman who leads her chamber, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Pelosi, Bachmann said, "has been busy sticking the taxpayer with her $100,000 bar tab for alcohol on the military jets that she’s flying." Bachmann was referring to the Air Force jets that Pelosi uses to fly internationally and back to her home in San Francisco. (Her Republican predecessor, Dennis Hastert of Illinois, used them as well, under a program approved under President George W. Bush.) Bachman’s claim drew a rapid counterattack from the Speaker’s office, as aides revived arguments they’d used when the allegation first surfaced months earlier. Among other things, Pelosi’s office noted that the Speaker "does not drink alcohol" and that there "is no alcohol service on the domestic flights the Air Force operates for travel from Washington to San Francisco for the Speaker."… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Politifact>
Of course Batshit Bachmann was busted on her lie, as she has been dozens of times before. So why bother? Two paradigms come into play here.
First, if Republicans told the truth, nobody would vote for them, except for the richest and most hate filled in our culture. |
A medical worker has been suspended from duty after an allegation that she smacked a four-year-old child in front of his mother.
A medical worker has been suspended from duty after an allegation that she smacked a four-year-old child in front of his mother.
The HSE has confirmed that an investigation is under way into the alleged incident and gardai may become involved.
The child's mother claimed the incident happened at Letterkenny General Hospital at the weekend. She has made a statement claiming her child was slapped on the bottom.
In a statement to the Irish Independent, a hospital spokeswoman confirmed the parent had made a formal complaint.
The medical worker has been suspended while the incident is investigated.
"Letterkenny General Hospital is investigating a 'trust in care' incident concerning a child who was attending the hospital, accompanied by its parent," said the spokeswoman.
She said the hospital was guided by two policies when dealing with such incidents.
RESPONSIBILITY
"The 'Children First' policy states that the key principles informing best practice are that the welfare of children is of paramount importance and that all personnel and health professionals, irrespective of the position held within the organisation, have a responsibility towards child protection and welfare," she said.
"The 'Trust in Care' policy aims to ensure that any allegations or complaints against a member of staff are thoroughly investigated.
"This policy states that 'at an appropriate stage in the process, management should take whatever protective measures are necessary to ensure that no patient/client or staff member is exposed to unacceptable risk.
"'These protective measures are not disciplinary measures and may include putting the staff member off duty with pay pending the outcome of the investigation'."
In the statement the hospital also said: "In the interests of fairness and to ensure due process, the nature of any investigation is not discussed with third parties not associated with the alleged incident."
The spokeswoman added: "When the results of the investigation are known, appropriate action is taken – up to and including disciplinary action and, where appropriate, the reporting of the incident to external authorities."
Irish Independent |
Felicia Pearson (born May 18, 1980) is an American actress. She played a character of the same name, Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, on The Wire. She wrote a memoir titled Grace After Midnight detailing her troubled childhood and time spent in prison for second-degree murder.
Early life [ edit ]
Pearson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of two incarcerated drug addicts, and was raised in an East Baltimore foster home. Born a premature crack baby and weighing only three pounds, she was not expected to live.[1] She was so small that she was fed with an eyedropper until she could be fed normally.[1] According to her memoir, Grace After Midnight, she met her biological parents very few times; her mother was a crack addict and her father was an armed robber. She thus decided to go by her foster family's surname. She was a tomboy from a young age.
Pearson worked as a drug dealer. At the age of 14, she was convicted of second degree murder after the shooting of a girl named Okia Toomer, and was sentenced to two eight-year terms, to be served consecutively, at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup, Maryland.[2] She was released after six and a half years.
Pearson said her life turned around at the age of 18 when Arnold Loney, a local drug dealer who looked out for her and sent her money in prison, was shot and killed.[1] He was the one who gave her the nickname Snoop because she reminded him of Charlie Brown's beagle Snoopy in the comic strip Peanuts.[1] While in prison, she earned her GED and was released in 2000.[1] She landed a local job fabricating car bumpers, but was fired after only two weeks when her employer learned she had a prison record.
Career [ edit ]
Acting & Reality Television [ edit ]
Pearson met Michael K. Williams, who played Omar Little on The Wire, in a Baltimore club. He invited her to come to the set one day. He introduced her to the writers and the producers, and after subsequent auditions, she was offered a role in the series.[1] She has appeared in videos of R&B singer Lil' Mo's "Dem Boyz," rapper Rick Ross' "The Boss," "Here I Am," as well as "Cash Flow" by rapper Ace Hood and "Shabba (feat ASAP Rocky)" by A$AP Ferg.[citation needed].
For her performance in The Wire, Stephen King called her "perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series."[3]
In February 2015, Pearson appeared in Da Sweet Blood of Jesus as Lucky Mays.[4]
In December 2015, Pearson appeared in Spike Lee's movie Chi-Raq as Dania.[5]
In 2016, she played the role of Roxy Barnes in "Good Cop Bad Cop", the 2nd episode of the 7th season of the CBS police procedural drama Blue Bloods.[6]
In 2016, Felicia also joined the cast of VH1's Love & Hip Hop: New York, a reality tv series which documents the personal lives, relationships and careers of individuals who have a history in the hip-hop world.
Music [ edit ]
Pearson was featured in the song "It's A Stick Up" with Tony Yayo and Mazaradi Fox. The music video for the song featured clips from The Wire. She has also discussed her plans for forthcoming musical projects in a number of interviews.[7][8] She has the only speaking part in Snoop Dogg’s "So Many Pros," and appears in three "roles" in the video (a live-action montage of fake movie posters).
Philanthropy [ edit ]
Pearson has also volunteered as a prison visitor and worked on anti-violence and literary campaigns for youths, and supported The Stay Strong Foundation.[9][10][11]
Personal life [ edit ]
On March 10, 2011, Pearson was arrested along with 60 others and charged with drug offenses. The arrest was made during a predawn raid at her home in Baltimore following a five-month DEA operation.[12] At the first hearing after her arrest, Judge John Addison Howard denied Pearson bail due to her acting ability: "Well, you can change your appearance, I've seen the episodes of The Wire in which you appear. You look very different than you do here today, and I'm not talking about the jumpsuit, I'm talking about your general appearance."[13] After a month in jail, Pearson was offered bail of $50,000 on April 8, 2011.[14] In August 2011, she pleaded guilty to the charges a day before her trial was to begin.[15] She was sentenced to a suspended seven-year prison term, with credit for time served, and given three years of supervised probation.[16]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ] |
Fitness is not always just about exercises; it is also about your diet and nutrition. It is only when exercises and nutrition go hand in hand can you hope to become healthy and have a good physique. Even though most trainers know about nutrition they do not know their legal rights and if they are allowed to share the information.
While trainers can share knowledge about nutrition in general but what determines if it is legal is the certification of the trainer and if they are competent to give health advice to their clients. Trainers should not cross the line when suggesting nutritional changes for medical conditions; that is the prerogative of the registered dietician and general physicians.
As a trainer, you can inform your clients on the importance of adding phytonutrients into their diet and the importance of reducing dairy and relying more on healthy fats; eating more of lean protein.
You can also share recipes. Basically, you can give them the bricks to build the foundation of their diet. Where you tread tricky ground is when you suggest diet solutions to treat diseases. You cannot suggest any meal plans because that is beyond the scope of a trainer in most countries; in many countries, there are no clear-cut laws on this aspect of fitness. In the US, the law varies based on the state and its guidelines.
Final thoughts
Your client looks towards you to give them some guidelines on what to eat and what to avoid and you are well within your rights to suggest the right foods and show them the food pyramid; remember only when their diet corresponds to the exercises can they hope to benefit. Those clients who are into bodybuilding will already be following a dietician’s advice and might even be testosterone pills with a positive avis sur testogen aiding their cause.
… |
When six senior Italian detectives arrived in Cairo in early February, following the discovery of the brutally battered body of 28-year-old Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni, they faced long odds of solving the mystery of his disappearance and death. Egyptian officials had told reporters that Regeni had probably been hit by a car, but clear signs of torture on his body had raised an alarm in Rome.
The Egyptian authorities guaranteed “full cooperation”, but this was quickly revealed to be a hollow promise. The Italians were allowed to question witnesses – but only for a few minutes, after the Egyptian police had finished their own much longer interrogations, and with the Egyptian police still in the room. The Italians requested the video footage from the metro station where Regeni last used his mobile phone, but the Egyptians allowed several days to elapse, by which time the footage from the day of his disappearance had been taped over. They also refused to share the mobile phone records from the area around Regeni’s home, where he disappeared on 25 January, and the site where his body was found nine days later.
One of the Egyptian chief investigators in charge of the Regeni case, Major General Khaled Shalaby, who told the press that there were no signs of foul play, is a controversial figure. Convicted of kidnapping and torture over a decade ago, he escaped with a suspended sentence.
Who murdered Giulio Regeni? – podcast Read more
The Egyptians may well have hoped that the outside world, with no independent information, would have little choice but to accept their unsatisfying explanation for Regeni’s death. But in the digital age, getting away with murder has become more difficult.
About 10 days after the recovery of Regeni’s body, Italian prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco and a couple of police officers travelled to Regeni’s hometown of Fiumicello, in north-eastern Italy, to attend his funeral. It would be a rare opportunity to question many key witnesses in the case, gathered in one place.
The family had asked guests not to bring cameras, or to carry signs of protest, preferring a simple, sober ceremony. But more than 3,000 mourners attended the service, most of them spilling out of a school gymnasium into the street. The funeral turned the town of less than 5,000 people into a kind of miniature United Nations – a tribute to Regeni’s short but global life.
There were friends from the US, where he had studied during high school; from Latin America, a region he knew well; from the UK, where he had done both university and graduate studies; from Germany and Austria, where he had worked; and from Egypt, where he had lived since November 2015, researching the trade union movement for his Cambridge doctorate. “We put people up in the houses of friends according to which languages they had in common,” said Paola Regeni, Giulio’s mother, who works as a teacher.
Membership Event: The Long Read live at the Hospital Club
Not only did the police have the chance to question witnesses, they received an unexpected bonus. In a gesture of astonishing openness, Giulio Regeni’s grieving friends and relatives handed over their phones and laptops to the Italian police. As members of the Facebook generation, they were used to living transparently, ceding chunks of their privacy as the price for living in a connected world. If it could shed some light on the circumstances of Giulio’s death, they were prepared to share their personal data.
Regeni’s parents also gave the police his computer, which they had taken from his Cairo apartment after he disappeared. This, together with the mass of emails and text messages collected from his friends, has allowed Italian prosecutors to work around the holes in the evidence provided by the Egyptian government, and to reconstruct Regeni’s world.
The prosecutors also obtained another vital piece of evidence: Regeni’s battered corpse, which, after an extremely thorough autopsy in Italy, has told them volumes about the final nine days of his life, from the time of his disappearance to the time his body was dumped in a concrete channel beside the road from Cairo to Alexandria.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Giulio Regeni. Photograph: Facebook
While this evidence will almost certainly not be enough to help Italian investigators identify Regeni’s killers by name, it has allowed them to refute a series of lies from the Egyptian government about Regini’s murder – and keep up pressure on Egypt for hard information about his killing.
Italian prosecutors recently made an important breakthrough: the Egyptian government agreed to hand over mobile phone records from both the area where Regeni was last seen, and the place where his body was found. Perhaps even more important, during a visit to Rome in early September, Egyptian prosecutors admitted for the first time that Regeni had been under police surveillance before his disappearance.
The Egyptian government continues to deny that it had any involvement in Regeni’s death. Over the past eight months, Italian investigators have peeled away layers of false leads, attempted cover-ups, and phony evidence, to build a clearer picture of what happened to Giulio Regeni than at first seemed possible.
“I am going out,” Regeni texted his girlfriend at 7.41pm on 25 January 2016. He was walking from his apartment to the nearby metro, bound for the centre of Cairo. This message is the last trace of him alive.
That Regeni disappeared on 25 January is not coincidental. It is, in fact, a crucial clue to understanding his murder
That Regeni should have disappeared on 25 January is not coincidental. It is, in fact, a crucial clue to understanding his disappearance and murder. It was the fifth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, and the massive demonstrations in Tahrir Square that brought the Arab Spring to Egypt and led to the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak. The date has a totemic significance for the regime of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, for whom it represents a traumatic climbdown – a moment in which the military’s apparently unassailable grip on power seemed to slip. As a result, the army had been forced to accept the trial of Mubarak and the election of Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi, posing a serious threat to its position in Egyptian life. Such a thing could never be allowed to occur again.
When Sisi and the military took control of the government and arrested Morsi in July 2013, Morsi supporters occupied two public squares and staged sit-ins, hoping for a repeat of the peaceful revolution in Tahrir Square. But this time Sisi sent in tanks and soldiers and massacred at least 1,000 people.
Although Sisi came to power himself in the wake of mass demonstrations against Morsi, he seems to live in terror of the crowd. One of his first official acts was to ban any unauthorised assembly of more than 10 people. And each anniversary of the Tahrir Square uprising has brought bloodshed. In 2014, Sisi’s government killed more than 60 protesters around the country at the time of the anniversary. A year later, 25 people were killed, including a woman poet who tried to lay a wreath of flowers in the square.
In the days before his disappearance, computer records show that Regeni had laid low, mostly staying inside his apartment. He probably knew that the Egyptian authorities were working themselves up to a fever pitch in anticipation of the anniversary. Police had reportedly searched 5,000 apartments in Cairo, in an effort to intimidate anyone who might be planning a demonstration. The raids were mostly concentrated in downtown Cairo, and did not include Regeni’s apartment in the Dokki neighbourhood of Giza, a separate city that includes the site of the ancient pyramids.
Although Regeni’s mother had asked him to remain at home, where it was safe, he decided to attend the birthday party of a friend on the evening of 25 January. Downtown Cairo appeared to have returned to normal by nightfall and he and another friend agreed to meet at their usual place, not far from Tahrir Square. And so, Regeni walked into the force field of police activity in central Cairo, at its point of greatest alert.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tahrir Square is almost deserted and heavily policed on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the 25 January uprising. Photograph: Khaled Elfiqi/EPA
On 21 April, Reuters reported that Regeni had been picked up on the night of his disappearance by Egyptian police in downtown Cairo, near the Nasser metro stop. The news agency claimed that he was taken to a local police station for half an hour, then transferred to a Homeland Security compound in the area. The Egyptian government categorically denied the story, insisting that Regeni had never been in police custody. Reuters has stuck by its story, citing six independent but anonymous sources – three in the police and three in the security services. After publishing the report, Reuters’ Cairo bureau chief was threatened with criminal prosecution and left the country. Egyptian police recently detained an Egyptian Reuters reporter for unspecified reasons.
In May of this year, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior accidentally leaked an internal memo proposing a ban on all press coverage of the Regeni case.
It is unclear whether Regeni’s arrest was planned, or the result of a random sweep, but once they had him in custody, Egyptian authorities would have been quick to realise that they already had a file on him. “There is no question that he would have been monitored,” said Marie Duboc, a French scholar who now teaches at the University of Tübingen, in Germany. Like Regeni, she has studied Egyptian labour unions. “Even historical research that would seem harmless to any outsider, is still extremely sensitive in Egypt.”
Duboc lived under surveillance from 2008 to 2010, when she was in Cairo, working on her own PhD. “I would get strange phone calls from the Ministry of Higher Education, asking about my research,” she told me. Later, when she visited Egypt to do follow-up work, she was turned away at the airport and barred from entering the country. Clearly, her name had been placed on a blacklist. (She has subsequently been allowed to return, she said.)
Independent labour unions are a particularly sensitive topic in Egypt under the Sisi government, because unions were seen as a key galvanising force in the 2011 revolution. Traditionally, labour unions were government-run – more a means of controlling workers than representing their interests. The first independent trade union was formed in 2009, but the movement truly took flight after Tahrir Square. A thousand independent labour unions sprouted up after the fall of Mubarak and, within days of the 2011 revolution, the first federation of independent unions was formed. Many democracy advocates in and outside Egypt, including Giulio Regeni and his Cambridge supervisor, the Egyptian political scientist Maha Abdelrahman, regarded the independent trade union movement as a positive development, with the potential to strengthen civil society, democratic participation and workers’ rights – all things that seem threatening to a military regime determined to repress autonomous sources of power.
On 11 December, six weeks before he disappeared, Regeni attended a public meeting of the independent unions. He was impressed by their combative energy and wrote an enthusiastic article about it, together with a friend, which they published (in Italian) under a pseudonym. But something disconcerting happened at the meeting: although Regeni sat to the side and was not on the roster of speakers, a woman in a headscarf came over and photographed him. Regeni was shaken and told several friends about it. It was the first sign that he might be being watched.
Regeni’s particular area of research was a nascent independent union of street vendors, a large group that was difficult to control and a cause of considerable concern to the government. Egypt has an estimated five million street vendors, who sell everything from snacks and drinks to cheap clothes and kitchen utensils. In a country of 80 to 90 million people, as many as a quarter of Egyptian families depend to some degree on the income of a street vendor.
The Sisi government regards these workers with clear suspicion. Street vendors moved rapidly into Tahrir Square during the massive demonstrations of 2011. Most were simply looking to make a little money, selling food and drink to protesters, but their very presence was viewed by the authorities as aiding and abetting the revolution. Since then, the government has sought unsuccessfully to remove street vendors from the centre of Cairo, using fines, prison sentences and violence.
“After repeated failures to clear Cairo’s city centre of street vendors … the Cairo governorate issued a shrewd decree,” wrote Abdelrahman, in an article she published last year. The decree required store owners to report any street vendors working near their shops, or risk losing their own trading licenses. This served a dual purpose of forcing shopkeepers to keep tabs on street vendors for the government and pushing the vendors into the hands of the police.
In order to remain on the street and avoid police harassment, street vendors were themselves expected to let police know of anything or anyone unusual or suspicious. “One of the things that has happened in Egypt in the past few years, which we didn’t fully recognise, is that the street pedlars are frequently used as police informants,” said one Cambridge scholar, who preferred not to be named. Scattered around the city, present on nearly every block and square, the street vendors form a natural surveillance network.
For his doctorate, Regeni was engaged in what is known as “participatory research” – a method that involves spending substantial amounts of time in the field with one’s subjects. While this is standard practice, a young Arabic-speaking foreigner, hanging out for hours in street markets, and asking about unionisation, future organising plans and attitudes toward the government, is likely to have looked extremely suspicious to most Egyptians – who have been told over and over to be on the lookout for foreign agents.
Regeni’s good intentions may also have blinded him to how his actions could have been interpreted. During the autumn of 2015, he had learned of a grant of up to £10,000 issued by a British foundation to fund a development project. He was interested in applying because he could use the money to support his own PhD research and help the people he was studying. He mentioned his idea to a leader of the independent street vendors’ union, Mohamed Abdallah. Abdallah’s level of interest – in the money, rather than the project – worried Regeni. As a result, Regeni dropped the idea. Still, news of a young well-funded foreigner, ready to finance an internal Egyptian movement, may have struck police as exactly the kind of foreign conspiracy they wanted to stamp out.
Those most familiar with Regeni’s work in Egypt dismiss the idea that he could have discovered anything valuable or threatening to the Egyptian government. “Giulio had been out doing field work, talking to street pedlars, maybe six or seven times,” says one of his close friends in Cairo. “He would have known only a fraction of what any of the Egyptian government’s informants would have been able to tell them.” Even the independent union meeting that he attended and wrote about was a well-publicised event, authorised and monitored by the authorities.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A street vendor near Tahrir Square, in 2013. In recent years, the Egyptian police have recruited some of them as informants. Photograph: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images
While the independent unions were certainly regarded by the Sisi regime with extreme suspicion, the government had already gone a long way to rendering them toothless. One of Sisi’s first moves was to make the chief of the federation of independent unions his minister of labour, an appointment intended to co-opt the movement and bring it under government control. Just this summer, in a further threat to their independence, a new measure was introduced, forcing the independents to re-register or risk decertification.
And yet, to a government on constant alert to security threats, there may have been much in the meeting that Regeni attended – and in the article he wrote about it – that the government would have found alarming. One of the proposals was for a “series of regional conferences that lead after a few months to a large national assembly and perhaps a unitary protest (“To Tahrir!” said several of those present.)
Regeni’s article ends with a few sentences that look like fighting words. “In the repressive context of the Sisi government, the fact that there are popular and spontaneous initiatives that break the wall of fear is significant and represent in and of themselves an important push for change.
“To challenge the state of emergency, the government’s appeals to stability and social harmony in the name of the ‘war on terrorism’, means today, even indirectly, to challenge the very basis on which this regime bases its existence and its repression of civil society.”
On 7 January, just a month after the union meeting, Mohamed Abdallah denounced Regeni to the authorities. After Regeni’s death, he told the Arabic-language newspaper Aswat Masriya that he became suspicious of Regeni because his questions “were not about street vendors … and had other intentions … I am not an informant but I believe I am protecting my country.”
The Egyptian government says that as a result of Abdallah’s tip-off, it placed Regeni under investigation, but decided after a few days that his research was of “no interest to national security”.
During the nine days after his disappearance, Regeni’s case became an international cause celebre, inspiring the Twitter hashtag #whereisgiulio? It was also a source of serious concern at the Italian Embassy in Cairo, which was preparing for the visit of a major business delegation, led by the Italian minister of economic development, Federica Guidi. On 3 February, while Guidi was meeting with Sisi and other Egyptian officials, a mini-van driver got a puncture on the road from Cairo to Alexandria. While fixing his flat tyre, he discovered Giulio Regeni’s body.
The Egyptian forensic expert who first examined the corpse initially said that the multiple signs of torture suggested Regeni had suffered a “slow death”. This claim, however, was quickly retracted. The deputy head of criminal investigations in Giza, the city where the body was found, told the Associated Press that initial investigations showed Regeni was killed in a road accident.
Meanwhile, the Regeni case had become a huge story in Italy. In the following days, as pressure mounted, Egyptian officials began floating various theories in the local press: that Regeni was gay and the victim of a crime of passion, that he was involved in a drug deal gone bad, or that he was a foreign spy.
Upon further investigation, these theories fell apart. The digital record in the possession of Italian investigators showed that Regeni had a girlfriend in Ukraine, and there were Skype logs, emails and texts to prove it. His computer, email and bank records showed no trace of contact with any intelligence services. “We had his bank accounts, which showed he had almost no money,” said Alessandra Ballerini, the lawyer for the Regeni family. “This is a boy who wore his father’s old bathing suit and used his mother’s old backpack because he didn’t want to be a financial burden to his family.”
Most important was the rigorous second autopsy carried out in Italy, using Cat scans and tissue analysis. The Egyptian pathologist’s report had said that Regeni was killed by a blow to the head. More detailed analysis in Italy showed that he had been hit repeatedly on the head, but that these blows were not fatal. Blood had coagulated around the points where he had been hit, and other cuts, bruises and abrasions on his body showed different stages of healing. This indicated that Regeni had been tortured more than once – and that days had passed between his initial torture, later sessions, and the moment of his death. He was covered with cuts and burns, and his hands and feet had been broken. Even his teeth were broken. His torturers appear to have carved letters into his flesh, a well-documented practice of the Egyptian police.
The forensic doctors at the University of Rome used a highly accurate technique for determining time of death, which measures potassium levels in the vitreous fluid of the eyes. They established that Regeni died between 10pm on 1 February and 10pm on 2 February. “This is important because it means that he was alive for at least six or seven days and tortured repeatedly during that time,” said one Italian investigator. The cause of death was a broken neck. Regeni’s mother believes that this was the work of professional torturers.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Giulio Regeni’s mother, Paola, believes he was murdered by professional torturers. Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters
The strength of the autopsy evidence forced the Egyptian authorities to abandon the implausible theories of accidental death and begin a new public relations offensive. Sisi suddenly granted an interview to the editor-in-chief of the Rome newspaper La Repubblica, which was published on 16 March and dominated by the Regeni case. As the autopsy evidence implicated the Egyptian police, Sisi seemed to suggest that Regeni’s death was part of an elaborate conspiracy.
“Why was the body found right when the minister of economic development and the Italian delegation were here to strengthen our cooperation?” he asked. Sisi also mentioned the shooting down of a Russian tourist airliner in October 2015. “Russian tourism and Italian tourism [in Egypt] have collapsed to nothing … Fill in the dots of these different episodes and you have a clear picture of an attempt to strike the Egyptian economy and isolate Egypt.”
Just days later, in early March, a witness stepped forward with a new hypothesis. An Egyptian engineer claimed that he had seen Regeni, on the afternoon before his disappearance, having a furious argument with another foreigner near the Italian consulate. The engineer, Mohammed Fawzy, then appeared on a popular Egyptian TV programme to say that he thought that the Italian government knew who killed Regeni, but was hiding the evidence. Echoing Sisi, Fawzy speculated that whoever killed Regeni was trying to sabotage commercial relations between Egypt and Italy.
Relatives of the alleged criminal gang have insisted that its members were killed in cold blood at close range
The engineer’s story collapsed when the Italian prosecutors’ digital archive showed that Regeni had been at home all afternoon on 24 January. He had been on Skype with his girlfriend, chatting as they streamed the same movie and watched it together, 3,500km apart. Mobile phone records also showed that the engineer was not in the neighbourhood of the Italian consulate in Cairo at the time of the alleged quarrel.
And then, suddenly, on 24 March, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior announced a definitive resolution to the case. The ministry announced on its Facebook page that the perpetrators were a gang of four men “specialised in impersonating policemen, kidnapping foreigners and stealing their money”.
As proof, the government displayed a tray of objects that included Regeni’s passport, Italian identity card, a credit card and his ID card from Cambridge University. Not only had the Egyptian police found the culprits, they had already killed them. “In an exchange of fire between police forces and the men,” the ministry explained, “all the gang members were killed.”
However, phone records placed the leader of the gang more than 100km away from Cairo at the time of Regeni’s disappearance. Relatives of the alleged criminal gang have insisted that its members were killed in cold blood at close range, rather than in a shootout. The government’s scenario also made little sense: why would a band of thieves keep Regeni’s identity cards, given that they would provide incriminating evidence that tied them to the crime? Why would they torture a robbery victim for a week without ever asking for ransom money or using his credit card? Egyptian officials have now accepted that it is unlikely the dead men had anything to do with Regeni’s death. In fact, by producing Regeni’s passport and identity cards, the Egyptian police have apparently incriminated themselves.
The string of improbable cover stories was becoming an embarrassment even in Egypt. In a rare public rebuke, Mohammed Abdel-Hadi Allam, the editor-in-chief of al-Ahram, a government-owned newspaper, wrote: “The naive stories about Regeni’s death have hurt Egypt at home and abroad and offered some people grounds to judge what is going on in the country now to be no different from what went on before the 25 January revolution.” He compared the Regeni case to that of Khaled Said, a young Egyptian who had been seized by police in an internet cafe in 2010, and beaten to death. Photographs of Said’s body taken by his brother were posted on Facebook and became an important rallying cry for the protesters who helped bring down Hosni Mubarak.
Despite clear indications of involvement by the nation’s security forces, the Egyptian government is left with what might be called the stupidity defence. As the Egyptian ambassador to Rome put it: “We’re not so naive as to kill a young Italian and throw away his body the day of Minister Guidi’s visit to Cairo.”
“There are two theories,” said Karim Abdelrady, an Egyptian human rights lawyer. “One is that there is a feud between the Egyptian secret services, and one branch dumped the body in order to embarrass the other.” A long, detailed anonymous letter that was sent to the Italian embassy in Bern, Switzerland and published by La Repubblica described complicated machinations within different branches of the Egyptian secret services, and reported that Regeni’s body had been wrapped in an Egyptian army blanket, as if to direct suspicion towards the military police. But Italian investigators say that they have no way to confirm or deny the information in this document.
“The other theory,” explained Abdelrady, “is that the Egyptian police thought they could get away with it by blaming a band of criminals, and that people would not think the Egyptian police would be so stupid as to leave the body where it could be found.”
“This case cannot be understood without understanding the context of generalised paranoia in the country,” said one foreign scholar who has lived in Cairo for many years. “For the last three years, many high-level government officials, including members of the military, have spoken publicly about foreign conspiracies to undermine Egypt. This is bound to seep down to all levels of the police and military.”
The Egyptian government put Giulio Regeni’s possessions on display in an attempt to prove they had found his killers. Photograph: Uncredited/AP
Almost immediately after taking over during the summer of 2013, the Sisi regime seemed anxious to stress that the 2011 revolution was not the result of popular dissatisfaction, but collusion between outside powers and Egyptian subversives.
Since then, the human rights situation in Egypt – which was never good under Mubarak – has continued to deteriorate. There are now an estimated 40,000 political prisoners. Between late January and November 2015, Egypt’s Al Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence documented 281 extrajudicial killings, 119 murders of prisoners in detention, 440 cases of torture in police stations, and 335 forced disappearances. After documenting these cases, the Nadeem Center was forced to shut down, allegedly for violating its charter as a medical organisation.
While in the past, Egypt had tried to avoid trouble with foreigners, it now seemed intent on making public examples of them. “Giulio died like an Egyptian,” says Ballerini, the Regeni family’s lawyer.
The climate of xenophobia and police brutality in Egypt has raised questions for Italian prosecutors as to whether it was appropriate for Cambridge University to allow a young foreign student to go Cairo and undertake field research into such a delicate topic. Regeni’s supervisor, Maha Abdelrahman, is very knowledgeable on this subject: she has been a vocal critic of Egypt’s military governments and has written extensively about the country’s unions and protest movements. In early 2015, she wrote about the tendency of turning ordinary citizens into police informants and the increasing criminalisation of previously harmless activities.
Relations between the Italian investigators and Cambridge University got off to a bad start when Abdelrahman declined to hand over her emails and text messages after the funeral. She also kept the police waiting for three hours, turning up for her interview at the police station at 10pm. Abdelrahman’s reluctance to hand over her personal data is understandable, given her background – she had grown up in Egypt under a military regime, when a person would never have given anything to the police if they could help it. Abdelrahman has chosen not to speak to the press since Regeni’s death, but told colleagues at Cambridge that she cooperated with the Italian police the day of the funeral.
The Italian prosecutors have been keen to find out whose idea it was that Regeni should write his PhD dissertation on independent unions, and the street vendors’ union especially. When detectives asked her whether she had pushed Regeni to pursue his research into that particular topic, or if she had been aware that he might have felt in danger, Abdelrahman felt that she was being treated like a suspect.
The lead prosecutor, Sergio Colaiocco, travelled to England in June, having sent a request to two Cambridge professors for an interview. The university says it received no notification from the Italian government, but learned of the request informally from Cambridge police. The two professors initially agreed to meet with the prosecutor, but then declined to be interviewed. This prompted a brief firestorm, with the Italian deputy foreign minister, Mario Giro, taking to Twitter to shame Cambridge for its lack of cooperation. An Italian professor who teaches at Oxford, Federico Varese, also criticised Cambridge in an interview with La Repubblica: “The university bears some measure of moral responsibility for not protecting [Regeni] and not grasping that the kind of ‘participatory research’ he was doing increased the risk. It seems that their priority is only to protect Cambridge from possible legal responsibility and a request for damages.”
In June, Cambridge’s vice-chancellor and a number of academics signed a letter stating that the university had not received any request for help from the Italian authorities, and that Regeni had no particular reason to be afraid for his safety, since “no foreign student, researcher or academic” had ever been murdered in Egypt. The university subsequently hired an Italian attorney to facilitate relations with the Italian government and has received, and fully complied with, a request for various documents in the Regeni case.
“I think this polemic with Cambridge has been overblown,” said one close friend of Regeni’s in Egypt. He pointed out that Abdelrahman had continued to do the same kind of field research that Regeni was pursuing. “She was not a professor who remained in the library and sent out her students to do field work. The truth about Giulio’s murder is in Egypt, not Cambridge, in the increasing paranoia of the regime.”
In December, 2015, he said, Egyptian police detained a young French scholar who was conducting research on a workers’ movement, keeping her in jail overnight. “These kinds of things had been happening more often – but they go unreported because the scholars don’t say anything, so that they can return to Egypt in the future.”
The Egyptian government’s softer and more cooperative approach in the last few months suggests, however, that it now accepts an urgent need for reputation management. The government and the Regeni family have agreed, in principle, to meet, which the family hopes will push the investigation another few steps closer to the truth.
Regeni’s death is a mystery hiding in plain sight: his seemingly inexplicable, brutal torture and killing reflects the demise of Egyptian democracy, the stripping away of already limited liberties and protections, the brutal crackdown on dissent, the increase in torture and forced disappearances, the tendency to blame the country’s problems on outside conspiracies. In this closed world, Giulio Regeni, with his ability to speak five languages, his mobile phone full of foreign and Egyptian contacts, might look like a spy, and police, in a system with little or no accountability, might make reckless mistakes.
The Egyptian prosecutors seemed unable to understand why their Italian colleagues did not accept the evidence they were given. “The Egyptian authorities seemed shocked that our police kept asking questions after they came up with the ‘gang’ of killers and the tray with Regeni’s documents,” said one Italian investigator. “Their attitude seemed to be: ‘hey, we found the criminals, we have even killed them. This should put an end to it.’” Surely, they thought, concerns of state – the close relations between two nations, billions of dollars of commercial ties – should count more than the life of one person, who had been killed by mistake. They seemed to find it impossible to understand that the Italian government would have to account to public opinion and could not, even if it had wanted to, accept a flimsy, implausible account of Regeni’s death.
“This didn’t happen in a vacuum,” Heba Morayef, an Egyptian human rights advocate, said. “It came after three years of almost constant rising xenophobic propaganda, fed by the security services, encouraging citizens’ arrests of foreigners, and so on … There are so many people in the Egyptian security forces that talk about this foreign conspiracy, that more and more people start to believe it. This is how a deeply paranoid police state operates.”
• Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here. |
In the threadbare upstairs room that passes for an owner's office at the Lakeshore Theater, original LPs from 1960s comedy giants Dick Gregory and Mort Sahl lean against a window.
Chris Ritter, the club's owner, had bought the records in order to have Gregory and Sahl sign them this week, when they were to play his art house comedy club in a converted movie theater on Chicago's North Side.
Instead, along with the broken and plastic-bag-covered urinal in the men's room, they stand as a symbol of what went wrong at the Lakeshore, which hosted some of comedy's most cutting-edge acts and had Robin Williams show up on its stage more than once, but could never live any better than hand to mouth.
Already reeling from a big loss on a Sandra Bernhard show in February, and faced with more five-figure losses in the weeklong stand by Sahl and Gregory that wasn't selling well, Ritter pulled the plug on the Lakeshore on April Fools' Day.
"Stupid, three-legged dog," he says, comparing the 330-seat theater at Broadway and Belmont to "a pet you have to put down that is deformed in some way, has some sort of terminal illness. But she just looks at you with those eyes."
Ritter, 42, was a theatrical producer who fell into comedy not out of some master plan, but because that, he says, is what worked in the room he has held together "with paper clips and rubber bands" for eight years, the last three as a comedy house.
Letting it go, clearly, is difficult. We are talking in the theater, the afternoon before a raucous farewell show featuring many of the local comics the Lakeshore has nurtured. The seats, he points out, need replacing. The running lights along the aisle went out not long ago, a fire code violation.
"There's just so many mixed feelings," Ritter says, then blinks hard and looks away, down toward the stage where national stars including Jim Jefferies, Demetri Martin, Mike Birbiglia, Maria Bamford, Doug Benson and more found a Chicago home.
Upstairs is the small apartment where Ritter, his wife, Jessica, and son, Joey, now 10, lived for six years. The family hasn't had health insurance for at least three years, and a few months ago, he says, Jessica was found to have breast cancer.
"It really gave me a personal jolt: OK, you've got an artistic mission and you're really dedicated to the place, but what are you really doing with your life?"
He adds: "I know in the core of my heart I'm doing the right thing, for myself and for my family. And I'm utterly convinced that in a month, six months, a year from now, I will have this incredible sense of relief in my life, where I'm not running around, panicked about how I'm gonna cover payroll next week, or whether the plumbing's about to explode.
"What I really want to do is work with artists and do shows. I know that that is going to be my endpoint, so there's a certain comfort in that. But the, uh" — another long pause, another look into the emptiness of a theater in the afternoon — "it's hard."
He repeats the phrase: "Stupid, three-legged dog."
•••
There were final shows Friday and Saturday from Jefferies, the budding Australian superstar whose career arc exemplified Lakeshore's strategy of building an audience for cutting-edge artists. His first show at the theater did $198 in box office in November 2007, and a lot of tickets were given away; his last ones sold out, four shows, some $6,000 per show.
But before Jefferies, on Thursday night, there is "Closing Acts," a hybrid open-mic night/Irish wake/jazz funeral.
For 61/2 hours, two dozen stand-ups take turns eulogizing the Lakeshore, roasting Ritter, taking potshots at the much more conventional Zanies comedy clubs, bemoaning Chicago's busy but undernourished comedy scene and, mostly, because there was a microphone and stage time, doing their own acts.
"Welcome to the end of any hope you ever had," says James Fritz, the night's first emcee, speaking to an audience of mostly comedy insiders.
"I'd be less upset if my parents got a divorce. Honestly, this place means more to me than my blood."
Fritz also suggests that Bert Haas, the executive vice president of Chicago's Zanies outposts, is "dancing a jig" over the closing, the first (and least derogatory) of several mentions of Haas by name.
(Haas, reached by phone, gives it right back. "It's just another venue," he says of the Lakeshore, one whose closing "means there will be other places popping up… I've been with Zanies since 1980. In those 30 years I have seen at least 60 different establishments open, try stand-up comedy and close.")
"Chris Ritter tried to be an artist on top of being a businessman," says Dan Telfer, who runs Chicago Underground Comedy, one of the alternative options that will pick up some Lakeshore slack with local acts. "This place filled a void that the country was lacking, not just Chicago."
At some point the national anthem is sung. After most everyone remaining at 1:30 a.m. gets onstage to sing it again, Roseanne Barr is officially forgiven.
"I called Ritter a couple of weeks ago about opening up for Nick Thune," says the comic Prescott Tolk. "He said, ‘Yes. Do you know anyone who has $200,000?'"
•••
The numbers, actually, were moving in the right direction, Ritter says, bearing out, he believes, the validity of the idea that he and comic Paul Provenza, an adviser, hatched in early 2007: Showcase comedy as an art form (and stop the financial bleeding).
In 2007, the first year as a comedy-only venue, he and his partners lost $404,000, according to Ritter. In 2008, the venue lost $268,000. And last year, as attendance continued to grow and Ritter cut payroll by 55 percent, it actually made a profit, of about $65,000.
But his salary kept shrinking; he took home $30,000 last year, he says. And it seemed there would never be enough to pay down the $200,000 in debt remaining (after his partners covered the bulk of the losses) or give the building the more than $150,000 in repairs he says it needs.
Since the closing announcement, Ritter has been gratified by the support and has come to believe people understood the club's mission in a way he wasn't sure they did while it was running. |
OTTAWA — Canada’s democracy would benefit best under an electoral system of proportional representation, a leading authority on voting systems told parliamentarians Monday.
But no matter what Parliament finally decides, it should avoid a referendum on the question and the danger of a vote based on voter confusion and misinformation, Arend Lijphart told a special committee on electoral reform.
“The outcomes of referenda are often highly volatile and unpredictable, often involve a lot of emotionalism and outright lies,” he warned. “The recent Brexit referendum shows how much damage a referendum can do. It’s been a disaster for the whole world.”
Lijphart, research professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, said proportional representation (PR) and the coalition governments the system typically produces, “work better because there is more negotiations, there is more compromise, therefore it builds stronger consensus.”
Years of extensive research, he said, show the most beneficial, statistically significant outcomes that correlates with PR is the quality of the democracies it produces.
“Proportional representations (was) not only slightly better, but a whole lot better, there was simply no comparison between PR and FTTP (first-past-the-post),” the system Canada has always used.
PR systems and consensus democracies also have better records for effective policy-making, he said, though FTTP is often mistakenly considered the best system to represent democratic, majority rule.
But “if you’re a majority government, one-party government, it is based on just between 30 and 40 per cent of the voters. This (type of) government actually struggles constantly with the fact of being a kind of illegitimate majority government,” he told the all-party committee of MPs.
FTTP governments really only represent a large minority
“It may seem ironic or paradoxical that, in fact, you have in PR better majority rule than with so-called majoritarian governments. FTTP governments really only represent a large minority.”
Lijphart acknowledged a legitimate complaint about PR is that parties’ election platforms and promises can be compromised or lost in the negotiations to form a coalition government . Still, in mature multi-party systems, such as in Germany’s, it is often clear prior to an election which parties (and policies) are going to work together in government, he said.
PR models have been adopted by many nations and, with a few exceptions, without holding referendums. Lijphart warned the MPs against doing so in Canada.
“If one can avoid a referendum, please avoid a referendum,” he urged. While changing the electoral system is an important decision, the problem with referenda is that other issues can come to fore, too, “including people just expressing a general dissatisfaction with the government.”
The Conservative party has argued that there may be no better way to test “broad-based support” for a new system than some kind of referendum. Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef has expressed apprehensions.
Lijphart’s criticism of referenda was countered by committee witness Benoit Pelletier, a University of Ottawa constitutional expert on electoral reform and former Liberal Quebec cabinet minister in the Jean Charest government.
“If we want to do a reform of our voting system, it’s normally for the population itself, so that the population has greater faith in its democratic institutions,” he said. “I would have a hard time seeing how we could do a significant electoral reform without calling on Canadians and asking them for their opinion.”
“When you change the electoral system significantly, you change the political culture of a country. It is not just an issue of modalities, it is not a technical issue, it is also a cultural issue, an issue of values. The electoral system is choosing the values that we as a country want to emphasize.” |
Would you be alright, he asked me, in a dream. Would you be able to hold it together, he said, a question in his eyes. I lifted my shoulders, maybe shrugging, maybe tucking my head and my neck in my sweater for warmth, as I feel the cold start to seep into my bones. It doesn’t matter now, does it, is the only thing I could reply. It hardly ever matters now.
Everyone Who Left Us
Steven Cramer
Everyone who left us we find everywhere.
It’s easier now to look them in the eyes —
At gravesites, in bed, when the phone rings.
Of course, we wonder if they think of us.
It’s easier, now, to look them in the eyes,
Imagine touching a hand, listening to them talk.
Of course, we wonder if they think of us
When nights, like tonight, turn salty, warm.
Imagine touching a hand, listening to them talk —
Hard to believe they’re capable of such coldness.
When nights, like tonight, turn salty, warm,
We think of calling them, leaving messages.
Hard to believe they’re capable of such coldness —
No color, no pulse, not even a nerve reaction.
We think of calling them, leaving messages
Vivid with news we’re sure they’d want to know.
No color, no pulse, not even a nerve reaction:
We close our eyes in order not to see them.
Vivid with news, we’re sure they’d want to know
We don’t blame them, really. They weren’t cruel.
We close our eyes in order not to see them
Reading, making love, or falling asleep.
We don’t blame them. Really, they weren’t cruel,
Though it hurts every time we think of them:
Reading, making love, or falling asleep,
Enjoying the usual pleasures and boredoms.
Though it hurts every time we think of them,
Like a taste we can’t swallow, their names stay.
Enjoying the usual pleasures and boredoms,
Then, they leave us the look of their faces
Like a taste we can’t swallow. Their names stay,
Diminishing our own, getting in the way
At gravesites, in bed, when the phone rings.
Everyone who left us we find everywhere,
Then they leave us, the look of their faces
Diminishing, our own getting in the way. |
Columbus Crew SC, the New York Red Bulls, FC Dallas and the Portland Timbers have all reached the Conference Championship after an arduous 34-game season and at least two Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoff games (three for Portland).
The ways in which they have been able to make it this far are varied. Each have relied on a particular style of play that has defined their season and ability to get this far.
You can see those styles of play in some statistics that these four teams have been able to produce throughout the course of the season. Here's one for each:
Columbus Crew SC: Crosses from Open Play
When you have Kei Kamara on your team, it is no surprise that Crew SC led the league in crosses attempted from open play.
As you can see from the table above, Columbus attempted 115 more crosses from open play than any other team in the league. The difference between Crew SC and the No. 2 ranked Portland Timbers is about the same as the difference between Portland and the No. 12 ranked Toronto FC.
Gregg Berhalter's team wasn't just attempting a ton of crosses but they were completing them at a high rate. Crew SC completed 27.26 percent of their open play crosses, the second highest rate in the league. The only team to complete a higher percentage is FC Dallas (27.46), who attempted almost 400 fewer crosses than Columbus.
New York Red Bulls: Opponent Passing Accuracy in Own Half
When Jesse Marsch was hired as the new head coach of the New York Red Bulls, he built his team to do one thing.
High press.
And they have been successful in that endeavor as the Red Bulls won the Supporters' Shield this season and were able to do so largely because of their style of play.
With their high-press system, the Red Bulls haved allowed their opponents to complete just 84.14 percent passes in their own half. That may not sound all that impressive but consider that is the lowest percentage any team has held their opponents in that statistic since 2010. It was also easily the lowest this season.
Portland Timbers: Shot Conversion Rate
This stat is a bit different as we are only taking a look at portions of the Timbers' season.
Portland's late-season surge to the No. 3 West and ultimately the Conference Championship was at least in part sparked by the formation shift to put Darlington Nagbe in the center of midfield.
The main reason they were unable to collect maximum points before this time came down to their inefficient finishing. Despite taking the second-most shots per game in the league, they had the second-fewest goals.
But since the formation switch, all that has changed.
Despite taking fewer shots, the Timbers have actually seen their goals scored per game skyrocket. Their shot conversion rate, which is goals divided by totals shots, has gone from a miserable 6.98 percent to a respectable 17.07 percent.
Timbers Before/After Formation Switch Period Shots/Game Conversion Rate Before 14.32 6.98% After 13.67 17.07%
FC Dallas: Dribbles
Ever since Fabian Castillo joined FC Dallas back in 2011, he has been the most prolific dribbler in MLS. That did not change this season.
Opta defines a dribble as "an attempt by a player to beat an opponent in possession of the ball." Basically it's when a player tries to take on another player in a 1v1 situation.
Like Crew SC, not only did they exceed other teams in a specific area, they also were efficient.
Even though they attempted the most dribbles of any team, they completed those dribbles at a rate of 43.08 percent, good for the fourth highest rate in MLS.
Castillo led the way attempting 265 dribbles just by himself and completed them successfully 43 percent of the time.
Michael Barrios (92), Mauro Diaz (79) and Ryan Hollingshead (62) also attempted more than 50 dribbles individually. |
Plenty of industry experts, psychologists and body-positive activists have criticized the big, bad magazine industry for its undying love of Photoshop.
But hearing it from "real women," aka not fashion models, on camera is powerful stuff on its own.
A new video by advocacy T-shirt company FCKH8 showcases women of various ages, races and body types giving Photoshop the middle finger, after unashamedly stripping off the brand's "This Is What a #Feminist Looks Like" shirts and showcasing what real female bodies, untouched by airbrushing, can look like.
Of course, even the models featured in magazines are "real women." But the airbrush that tweaks and tones their bodies, touches up their stray hairs and smooths over their little imperfections contributes to making the bodies we see less real.
"The retouching is excessive. I do not look like that and more importantly I don't desire to look like that," is how Kate Winslet so perfectly put it about a decade ago, when her own body was airbrushed to the hilt.
Over 10 years later, the airbrushing has gotten way more subtle and less offensive, but it's still happening all the time. "Things are never, ever as they seem," model Chrissy Teigen told the Cut earlier this year, adding, "Oh, the retouching."
Thanks to that retouching, we end up not seeing quite so many curves, nor many wrinkles.
FCKH8's video calls out Photoshop for that deception and the shame it can cause women (and men) about their own bodies.
Of course, as SheKnows points out, no video campaign is perfect. FCKH8.com is itself guilty of embracing a single body type on its website, showcasing slender white women; it's also a for-profit company, which some have said conflicts with its social justice mission to take on sexism, racism and other injustices.
Still, seeing women flip the bird to beauty standards is pretty damn awesome — especially if it can get other women, those who aren't modeling T-shirts or making viral videos, feeling inspired to do the same.
Watch the full video below.
h/t The Huffington Post |
A mural of Kevin Spacey will soon vanish from the side of a building in the northwest England city of Manchester.
Anonymous street artist Akse revealed via Facebook on Friday that he will replace his 2015 piece “as a result of the recent allegations” of sexual misconduct against the Oscar-winning actor.
The decision to remove the mural, which shows Spacey as “House of Cards” character Frank Underwood, was made jointly with the wall’s owners, Akse added.
Akse painted the mural on the building, owned by Nurhbai and Co. Accountants, in May 2015.
“We love it!” the company said via Facebook on its completion:
But as sexual misconduct claims mounted against Spacey, owner Hussain Nurbhai was “adamant” it be replaced, the BBC reported.
Akse has not revealed when or how he will paint over the piece, which formed part of his “Psychopaths” series. HuffPost has reached out for comment.
Bryan Cranston’s “Breaking Bad” character of Walter White, and Christian Bale’s character of Patrick Bateman from “American Psycho,” also are featured in Akse’s project in Manchester.
A post shared by Akse P19 Crew (@akse_p19) on Aug 2, 2017 at 3:11am PDT |
This is the same Oklahoma team. The same Sooners that this time last year were on the verge of disaster.
That couldn’t win a big game anymore under coach Bob Stoops. That no longer ruled the Big 12. That was set up for a spectacular fall after an embarrassing 34-point loss in a bowl game to a team playing a backup quarterback.
SN AWARDS: Coach of the year: Dabo Swinney | All-America teams | Freshman All-Americans
Then Baker Mayfield got eligible, Stoops hired a new offensive coordinator (Lincoln Riley) and OU is now the hottest team in the game heading into the College Football Playoff.
The reason is simple: the play of Mayfield, the Sporting News 2015 Player of the Year.
“I don’t think you can overstate how important Baker has been to this team,” Stoops said.
Maybe even the difference between playing for it all and playing out the string – both the season and a spectacular coaching career in Norman for Stoops. Fair or not, Stoops was feeling heat heading into this season, and had made changes to the staff in the offseason to address some glaring problems.
MORE: Best bowl games | Most intriging matchups | Bowl gift guide
At the top of the list was the quarterback spot, where OU had struggled the previous two seasons and where the Sooners hadn’t had a game-changer in the most important position on the field since Sam Bradford won the Heisman Trophy in 2008. Mayfield transferred from Texas Tech last season, and despite OU’s significant efforts with the NCAA, he wasn’t granted an appeal to play immediately.
On the outside looking in, OU’s desperation to get Mayfield eligible seemed strange, especially considering the Sooners were coming off a big win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl – a game where quarterback Trevor Knight played well and gave a hint of big things to come in 2014.
Now we know why OU was so intent on getting Mayfield eligible in 2014: he’s a game-changer. He’s a program-defining player whose spirit, intensity and moxie rub off on others around him, forcing them to perform at his level.
MORE: Follow Oklahoma's path to the playoffs
“I never had an idea of changing the way we do things around here,” Mayfield said. “I just wanted to fit in and do whatever I could to help.”
All he did was make OU a national power again, and lead the Sooners to the College Football Playoff – something that seemed like a pipedream this time last season. Mayfield threw for 35 touchdowns, and rushed for seven more, had 3,383 yards passing and completed nearly 70 percent of his throws.
Last season, with essentially the same two-deep depth chart, Oklahoma’s quarterbacks threw for 17 TDS and 17 INTs and the Sooners lost five games. But the impact of Mayfield goes far beyond numbers.
His magnetic personality and carefree style helped loosen up a team that at times played much too tight over the last two seasons. OU played tight, made mistakes, lost games and lost its mojo.
Mayfield brought it all back, from the way he immediately connected with teammates when he first arrived last season, to how he handled his responsibility after winning the starting job in fall camp – to how he played week after week.
“Football should be fun,” Mayfield said. “We’re playing a game. We can be serious and we can be focused on what we have to do every single play. But the bottom line is we’re having fun playing a game.”
No one played it better in 2015. |
St. Lawrence Island (Central Siberian Yupik: Sivuqaq, Russian: Остров Святого Лаврентия) is located west of mainland Alaska in the Bering Sea, just south of the Bering Strait. The village of Gambell, located on the northwest cape of the island, is 36 miles (58 kilometers) from the Chukchi Peninsula in the Russian Far East. The island is part of Alaska, but closer to Russia than to the Alaskan mainland. St. Lawrence Island is thought to be one of the last exposed portions of the land bridge that once joined Asia with North America during the Pleistocene period.[1] It is the sixth largest island in the United States and the 113th largest island in the world. It is considered part of the Bering Sea Volcanic Province.[2]
Geography [ edit ]
The United States Census Bureau defines St. Lawrence Island as Block Group 6, Census Tract 1 of Nome Census Area, Alaska. As of the 2000 census there were 1,292 people living on a land area of 1,791.56 sq mi (4,640.1 km2).[3] The island is about 90 miles (140 km) long and 8–22 miles (13–36 km) wide. The island has no trees, and the only woody plants are Arctic willow, standing no more than a foot (30 cm) high.
The island's abundance of seabirds and marine mammals is due largely to the influence of the Anadyr Current, an ocean current which brings cold, nutrient-rich water from the deep waters of the Bering Sea shelf edge.
To the south of the island there was a persistent polynya in 1999, formed when the prevailing winds from the north and east blow the migrating ice away from the coast.[4]
The climate of Gambell is:
January April July October Daily max 12 °F (−11 °C) 20 °F (−7 °C) 50 °F (10 °C) 34 °F (1 °C) Daily min 3 °F (−16 °C) 10 °F (−12 °C) 41 °F (5 °C) 29 °F (−2 °C)
Villages [ edit ]
The island contains two villages: Savoonga and Gambell. The two villages were given title to most of the land on St. Lawrence Island by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. As a result of having title to the land, the Yupik are legally able to sell the fossilized ivory and other artifacts found on St. Lawrence Island.
The island is now inhabited mostly by Siberian Yupik engaged in hunting, fishing, and reindeer herding. The St. Lawrence Island Yupik people are also known for their skill in carving, mostly with materials from marine mammals (walrus ivory and whale bone). The Arctic yo-yo may have evolved on the island.
Prehistory [ edit ]
St. Lawrence Island was first occupied around 2,000 to 2,500 years ago by coastal people characterized by artifacts decorated in the Okvik (oogfik) style. Archaeological sites on the Punuk Islands, off the eastern end of St. Lawrence Island, at Kukulik, near Savoonga and on the hill slopes above Gambell have evidence of the Okivik occupation. The Okvik decorative style is zoomorphic and elaborate, executed in a sometimes crude engraving technique, with greater variation than the Old Bering Sea and Punuk styles.
The Okivik occupation is influenced by and may have been coincident with the Old Bering Sea occupation of 2000 years ago to around 700 years ago,[5] characterized by the simpler and more homogeneous Punuk style. Stone artifacts changed from chipped stone to ground slate; carved ivory harpoon heads are smaller and simpler in design.
Prehistoric and early historic occupations of St. Lawrence Island were never permanent, with periods of abandonment and reoccupation depending on resource availability and changes in weather patterns. Famine was common, as evidenced by Harris lines and enamel hypoplasia in human skeletons. Travel to and from the mainland was common during calm weather, so the island was used as a hunting base, and occupation sites were re-used periodically rather than permanently occupied.
Major archaeology sites at Gambell and Savoonga (Kukulik) were excavated by Otto Geist and Ivar Skarland of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Collections from these excavations are curated at the University of Alaska Museum on the UAF campus.
History [ edit ]
False color NASA Landsat image of St. Lawrence Island
The island was called Sivuqaq by the Yupik who lived there. It was visited by Russian/Danish explorer Vitus Bering on St. Lawrence's Day, August 10, 1728, and named after the day of his visit. The island was the first place in Alaska known to have been visited by European explorers.
There were about 4,000 Central Alaskan Yupik and Siberian Yupik living in several villages on the island in the mid-19th century. They subsisted by hunting walrus and whale and by fishing. A famine in 1878–1880 caused many to starve and many others to leave, decimating the island's population. A revenue cutter visited the island in 1880 and estimated that out of 700 inhabitants, 500 were found dead of starvation. Reports of the day put the blame on traders' supplying the people with liquor causing the people to ″neglect laying up their usual supply of provisions″.[6] Nearly all the residents remaining were Siberian Yupik.
Reindeer were introduced on the island in 1900 in an attempt to bolster the economy. The reindeer herd grew to about 10,000 animals by 1917, but has since declined. Reindeer are herded as a source of subsistence meat to this day. In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt established a reindeer reservation on the island.[7] This caused legal issues in the indigenous land claim process to acquire surface and subsurface rights to their land, under the section 19 of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) as they had to prove that the reindeer reserve was set up to support the indigenous people rather than to protect the reindeer themselves.[8]
World War II [ edit ]
During World War II, islanders served in the Alaska Territorial Guard (ATG). Following disbandment of the ATG in 1947, and with the construction of Northeast Cape Air Force Station in 1952, many islanders joined the Alaska National Guard to provide for the defense of the island and station.
Cold War [ edit ]
The former Northeast Cape Air Force Station at St. Lawrence Island
On June 22, 1955, during the Cold War, a US Navy P2V Neptune with a crew of 11 was attacked by two Soviet Air Forces fighter aircraft along the International Date Line in international waters over the Bering Straits, between Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula and Alaska. The P2V crashed on the island's northwest cape, near the village of Gambell. Villagers rescued the crew, 3 of whom were wounded by Soviet fire and 4 of whom were injured in the crash. The Soviet government, in response to a US diplomatic protest, was unusually conciliatory, stating that:
There was an exchange of shots after a Soviet fighter advised the US plane that it was over Soviet territory and should leave (the US denied that the US plane fired at all). The incident took place under heavy cloud cover and poor visibility, although the alleged violation of Soviet airspace could be the responsibility of US commanders not interested in preventing such violations.
The Soviet military was under strict orders to "avoid any action beyond the limits of the Soviet state frontiers."
The Soviet government "expressed regret in regard to the incident," and, "taking into account... conditions which do not exclude the possibility of a mistake from one side or the other," was willing to compensate the US for 50% of damages sustained—the first such offer ever made by the Soviets for any Cold War shoot-down incident.
The US government stated that it was satisfied with the Soviet expression of regret and the offer of partial compensation, although it said that the Soviet statement also fell short of what the available information indicated.[9]
Northeast Cape Air Force Station, at the island's other end, was a United States Air Force facility consisting of an Aircraft Control and Warning[10] (AC&W) radar site, a United States Air Force Security Service listening post; and a White Alice Communications System (WACS) site that operated from about 1952 to about 1972. The area surrounding the Northeast Cape base site had been a traditional camp site for several Yupik families for centuries. After the base closed down in the 1970s, many of these people started to experience health problems. Even today, people who grew up at Northeast Cape have high rates of cancer and other diseases, possibly due to PCB exposure around the site.[11] According to the State of Alaska, those elevated cancer rates have been shown to be comparable to the rates of other Alaskan and non-Alaskan arctic natives who were not exposed to a similar Air Force facility.[12] In any event, the majority of the facility was removed in a $10.5 million cleanup program in 2003. Monitoring of the site will continue into the future.[13]
Transportation [ edit ]
The airports are Gambell Airport and Savoonga Airport.
Bibliography [ edit ]
Notes
References |
Expectations for Netflix's third quarter couldn't have been higher, but the company still managed to wow Wall Street Monday -- and shares jumped 10% as a result.
Netflix cynics have been waiting for the company's stock bubble to pop: Netflix shares are up a shocking 440% in the past 12 months, and analysts expected third-quarter earnings nearly to quadruple over the year.
But Netflix (NFLX) delivered. The company reported third-quarter earnings of 52 cents a share, well above the 49 cents that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting.
Sales came in at $1.1 billion, in line with estimates.
Netflix expects more happy news for the current quarter. The company predicted earnings of 47 cents to 73 cents per share. That's an extremely wide range -- common for Netflix -- but it's far above the 46 cents a share that Wall Street expected.
Shares of Netflix jumped 10% after-hours immediately after the news and continued their run in premarket trading on Tuesday.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings isn't comfortable with the huge stock run-up, however. On a post-earnings conference call with analysts, he said Netflix thinks "momentum investors" are "driving the price more than we like normally" -- but that it's out of the company's control.
Subscriber growth and original content: Hastings was happier with Netflix's third-quarter subscriber growth, which also impressed. Netflix added nearly 1.3 million new American subscribers during the third quarter, near the top range of the 690,000-1.49 million range the company predicted in July.
International subscriber growth was even more striking: 1.44 million new overseas streaming customers. That pushed Netflix above the 40 million subscriber mark for the first time. But Netflix warned of a surge in free-trial signups in Latin America that artificially boosted the international additions figure.
In order to continue that user-base growth, Netflix has spent years transforming itself into not only a purveyor of other studios' content, but a creator of original content as well.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and other company executives have repeatedly said Netflix "wants to become HBO faster than HBO can become Netflix." (HBO is owned by CNNMoney parent company Time Warner (TWX).)
Related story: RIP television, hello mobile gaming
That original-content strategy has included a new season of "Arrested Development," a U.S. remake of "House of Cards," and -- most notably -- the new series "Orange is the New Black." Netflix called the comedy-drama "one of the most critically well received TV shows of 2013" and said it will end the year as Netflix's most watched original series to date.
Three of those original series netted Netflix a total of 14 Emmy nominations and three wins (all for "Cards") this year, but some analysts are still concerned about Netflix's mounting costs. The company reportedly spent $100 million producing and shooting two seasons of "House of Cards," the first of which was released in February.
Netflix appears unfazed by that criticism. The company said it expects to double its spending on original content in 2014. Content chief Ted Sarandos said on the earnings call that the company is actively looking for documentaries to debut on Netflix and will keep an open mind about feature films -- but Netflix still isn't interested in airing sports.
Meanwhile, the content licensing side of Netflix's business is also expensive. Studios have demanded more money for their content as rival services proliferate: Amazon (AMZN), Hulu and Redbox (OUTR) are only a handful of the competitors. Premium channels like HBO and CBS' (CBS) Showtime are also expanding their streaming offerings. |
Baton-wielding and helmeted police have clashed with tens of thousands of protesters taking part in a demonstration against Monday's inauguration of Vladimir Putin, Russia's president-elect, arresting at least 400 in Moscow.
Those arrested on Sunday included Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption crusader, liberal leader Boris Nemtsov and ultra-left wing activist Sergei Udaltsov.
The three men are key leaders of the nascent protest movement against Putin, who served as president and prime minister before he was re-elected in March.
Police said they detained the protesters after they threw stones and water bottles at officers and blamed the violence on opposition leaders who attempted to stage a sit-in protest in the middle of the crowd.
Earlier, reports said at least 20,000 opposition protesters took part in the demonstration, which had been billed as a "March of Millions".
The protesters marched shouting "enough lies" while helmeted police, using batons, beat back dozens of mostly young protesters at the event across the river from the Kremlin.
The turnout appeared smaller than most of the winter's unprecedented wave of protests, some of which attracted crowds estimated at 100,000 or more.
National parliamentary elections were marred by fraud, but Putin won the vote easily and another round in March, returning to the Kremlin seat he held in 2000-2008.
Some of the demonstrators acknowledged that Putin's election win and his inauguration have been a blow to morale.
"It's true that some have been disappointed," said Yuri Baranov, a 46-year-old information technology specialist. But "the most important thing is that people have awakened".
Others admitted some doubts about whether the protests would spur any long-term change.
"I would like to think that our voice will be heard, but I am not totally sure of this," said Yelena Karpsova, 47, who came to the rally from Tula, about 200km south of Moscow.
Rival demonstrations
Supporters of the ex-KGB spy meanwhile planned to hold a gathering with some 50,000 people.
A senior city official said Putin's group did not need permission to bring out such large numbers onto a public square because "what they will be having is not a rally or a march or a protest".
"It will be a mass cultural event," Alexei Mayarov, a Moscow regional security department head, told Russian news agencies.
"What is important is there is still a constituency, and the most modernised constituency in Russia, that does not see Putin as a desired president" - Maria Lipman, political analyst
Organisers said the demonstration along a main Moscow thoroughfare towards Bolotnaya Square opposite the river from the Kremlin was to conclude with a meeting that city authorities officially limited to 5,000 people.
"It's called the march of millions and I suspect they wish they had not named it that name because it's going to be interesting to see just how many people do turn up to this protest," Al Jazeera's Sue Turton reported from Bolotnaya Square.
"They have got permission for 5,000 people to congregate in Bolotnaya Square, but the march starts further across Moscow and then they will walk here and then congregate and later on ... move to another square next to the Kremlin and have some sort of sit in overnight until the inauguration.
"Now we don't even know how many people would contemplate doing that. There has definitely been a wane in the momentum of the protest movement," she said.
Maria Lipman, a political analyst from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Al Jazeera from Moscow: "The rally that has been authorised implies that 5,000 will take part. Maybe more can be expected, however not the many tens of thousands that we saw in Moscow streets and squares in December, February and March."
Protests 'on decline'
"The mass protests are maybe losing momentum and may be on decline, however what is important is there is still a constituency, and the most modernised constituency in Russia, that does not see Putin as a desired president.
"I think that part of society will not reconcile to the fact that Putin holds power for the next six years, and we may see more eruptions of discontent in the following years over various kinds of developments," she said.
Putin's return to the presidency will technically give him greater powers than he previously wielded as prime minister.
He has dismissed the allegations that widespread fraud helped him win the presidential election and secured victory for his United Russia party in a parliamentary poll in December.
The inauguration ceremony will include a booming 30-gun salute and a special blessing from Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill. |
School crossing patrollers, public toilets, community centres and libraries are all under threat in a savage council savings plan that has caused a senior Tory councillor to quit the party.
Speyside Glenlivet member and planning committee chairman Walter Wilson dramatically walked away from the party yesterday following a row with colleagues.
The shock departure came as it emerged that council chiefs are looking at mothballing every community centre and public toilet in Moray, along with every library other than Elgin.
It is understood that the ruling group is also examining plans to axe every lollipop man and woman at schools.
Councillor Wilson branded his former allies “right wing extremists” as he accused them of sacrificing public safety in the penny-pinching drive.
But last night the Tories fired back, saying Mr Wilson had balked at making tough decisions and questioned whether he belonged in politics.
Mr Wilson said: “I am no longer a Conservative, which was a tough decision to make.
“But I couldn’t just sit there and listen to extreme right-wing views, and it all came to a head when my colleagues were discussing what they wanted to cut.
“It felt like Speyside Glenlivet was going to be badly affected, and it led to a big argument and some irreconcilable differences.
“I just said that was it, I couldn’t vote for a budget like that.
“There are a core of right-wing extremists who have made life difficult for some of the Conservatives in the group and the Independent members of the administration.”
Mr Wilson was one of eight Conservatives elected in May’s council elections, who later formed a coalition administration with six independent members.
Local authority leader George Alexander last night confirmed that a series of “unpalatable” cuts is expected to be made public next month.
The independent councillor said: “None of these cuts have been decided but we will make our proposals public in December and I don’t think that will be a nice Christmas present for people.
“Mr Wilson is the first councillor to balk at having to do this, but we were all aware of how unpleasant a task balancing the budget would be.”
Mr Wilson said he was horrified when colleagues suggested ward constituents affected by a change in road gritting “could just move house”.
He added: “Those are the kind of views I was trying to go up against.”
Conservative councillor for Fochabers Lhanbryde, Marc Macrae, said the remark in question was a “flippant” one which Mr Wilson had overreacted to.
He added: “It has started to get hot and Mr Wilson has left the kitchen, you need to have a thick skin in politics.
“This will be a tough budget for Moray, but no ward will be disproportionately affected and we will consult on the proposed cuts.
“I’m disappointed in Mr Wilson, I would question whether politics is for him.”
Mr Wilson – who is still owed thousands after his former employer went bust – will suffer a £10,000 pay cut as a result.
He said he hoped to continue as an independent but would “listen to constituents if they feel that I should resign my position”.
Moray MSP Richard Lochhead said Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson should launch an inquiry into the group.
The SNP representative said: “The extraordinary resignation of a councillor due to the repugnant and extremist views of his colleagues lifts the lid on the ugly politics at the heart of Moray Conservative Party
“Many local people will be troubled that some of the elected representatives who run Moray Council are deemed to be extremists by a colleague who sat in meeting after meeting with them behind closed doors and has now decided he simply can’t stomach their vile views any longer.” |
Large lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada
For the lake in Alberta, Canada, see Lesser Slave Lake
The Great Slave Lake (French: Grand lac des Esclaves) is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada (after Great Bear Lake), the deepest lake in North America at 614 metres (336 fathoms; 2,014 ft),[1] and the tenth-largest lake in the world. It is 469 km (291 mi) long and 20 to 203 km (12 to 126 mi) wide.[2] It covers an area of 27,200 km2 (10,502 sq mi)[1] in the southern part of the territory. Its given volume ranges from 1,070 km3 (260 cu mi)[4] to 1,580 km3 (380 cu mi)[1] and up to 2,088 km3 (501 cu mi)[5] making it the 10th or 12th largest.
The lake shares its name with the First Nations peoples called Slavey of the Dene family by their enemies the Cree. Towns situated on the lake include Yellowknife, Hay River, Behchokǫ̀, Fort Resolution, Łutselk'e, Hay River Reserve, Dettah, and Ndilǫ. The only community in the East Arm is Łutselk'e, a hamlet of about 350 people, largely Chipewyan Indigenous peoples of the Dene Nation and the now abandoned winter camp/Hudson's Bay Company post, Fort Reliance. Along the south shore, east of Hay River is the abandoned Pine Point Mine and the company town of Pine Point.
History [ edit ]
Indigenous peoples were the first settlers around the lake after the retreat of glacial ice. Archaeological evidence has revealed several different periods of cultural history, including: Northern Plano Paleoindian tradition (8,000 years before present), Shield Archaic (6,500 years), Arctic small tool tradition (3,500 years), and the Taltheilei Shale Tradition (2,500 years before present). Each culture has left a distinct mark in the archaeological record based on type or size of lithic tools.[6]
Great Slave Lake was put on European maps during the emergence of the fur trade towards the northwest from Hudson Bay in the mid 18th century. The name 'Great Slave' came from the Slavey Indians, one of the Athapaskan tribes living on its southern shores at that time. The name was influenced by Cree disdain for this rival tribe, with whom they shared a sordid history. As the French explorers dealt directly with the Cree traders, the large lake was referred to as "Grand lac des Esclaves" which was eventually translated into English as "Great Slave Lake".[7]
British fur trader Samuel Hearne explored Great Slave Lake in 1771 and crossed the frozen lake, which he named Lake Athapuscow. In 1897-1898, the American frontiersman Charles "Buffalo" Jones traveled to the Arctic Circle, where his party wintered in a cabin that they had constructed near the Great Slave Lake. Jones's exploits of how he and his party shot and fended off a hungry wolf pack near Great Slave Lake was verified in 1907 by Ernest Thompson Seton and Edward Alexander Preble when they discovered the remains of the animals near the long abandoned cabin.[8]
In the 1930s, gold was discovered on the North Arm of Great Slave Lake, leading to the establishment of Yellowknife which would become the capital of the NWT. In 1960, an all-season highway was built around the west side of the lake, originally an extension of the Mackenzie Highway but now known as Yellowknife Highway or Highway 3. On January 24, 1978, a Soviet Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite, named Kosmos 954, built with an onboard nuclear reactor fell from orbit and disintegrated. Pieces of the nuclear core fell in the vicinity of Great Slave Lake. 90% of the nuclear debris was recovered by a joint Canadian Armed Forces and United States Armed Forces military operation called Operation Morning Light.[9]
Geography and natural history [ edit ]
Mackenzie River drainage basin showing Great Slave Lake's position in the Western Canadian Arctic
The Hay, Slave, Lockhart, and Taltson Rivers are its chief tributaries. It is drained by the Mackenzie River. Though the western shore is forested, the east shore and northern arm are tundra-like. The southern and eastern shores reach the edge of the Canadian Shield. Along with other lakes such as the Great Bear and Athabasca, it is a remnant of the vast glacial Lake McConnell.
The lake has a very irregular shoreline. The East Arm of Great Slave Lake is filled with islands, and the area is within the proposed Thaydene Nene National Park Reserve. The Pethei Peninsula separates the East Arm into McLeod Bay in the north and Christie Bay in the south. The lake is at least partially frozen during an average of eight months of the year.
The main western portion of the lake forms a moderately deep bowl with a surface area of 18,500 km2 (7,100 sq mi) and a volume of 596 km3 (143 cu mi). This main portion has a maximum depth of 187.7 m (616 ft) and a mean depth of 32.2 m (106 ft).[10] To the east, McLeod Bay ( ) and Christie Bay ( ) are much deeper, with a maximum recorded depth in Christie Bay of 614 m (2,014 ft)[1]
On some of the plains surrounding Great Slave Lake, climax polygonal bogs have formed, the early successional stage to which often consists of pioneer black spruce.[11]
South of Great Slave Lake, in a remote corner of Wood Buffalo National Park, is the Whooping Crane Summer Range, a nesting site of a remnant flock of whooping cranes, discovered in 1954.[12]
Bodies of water and tributaries [ edit ]
Rivers that flow into Great Slave Lake include (going clockwise from the community of Behchokǫ̀);[13][14]
Emile River
Snare River
Wecho River
Stagg River
Yellowknife River
Beaulieu River
Waldron River
Hoarfrost River
Lockhart River
Snowdrift River
La Loche River
Thubun River
Terhul River
Taltson River
Slave River
Little Buffalo River
Buffalo River
Hay River
Mosquito Creek
Duport River
Marian Lake
North Arm
Yellowknife Bay
Resolution Bay
Deep Bay
McLeod Bay
Christie Bay
Sulphur Cove
Presqu'ile Cove
Rocher River
Frank Channel
Ice road [ edit ]
Great Slave Lake has one ice road known as the Dettah ice road. It is a 6.5 km (4.0 mi) road that connects the Northwest Territories capital of Yellowknife to Dettah, a small First Nations fishing community also in the Northwest Territories. To reach the community in summer the drive is 27 km (17 mi) via the Ingraham Trail.
April 28, 2012 on Yellowknife Bay. The surface melt begins to make transportation more difficult to and from the houseboats near Jolliffe Island.
Ice Lake Rebels [ edit ]
From 2014 to 2016, Animal Planet aired a documentary series called Ice Lake Rebels. It takes place on Great Slave Lake, and details the lives of houseboaters on the lake.[15]
Gallery [ edit ]
Dettah ice road on Great Slave Lake
Utsingi Point (East Arm) on the eastern edge of the proposed Thaydene Nene National Park
Northern Bay, Great Slave Lake
Hay River, one of the tributaries of Great Slave Lake
Forest fires in northern Canada, southeast of Great Slave Lake
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Canada. (1981). Sailing directions, Great Slave Lake and Mackenzie River . Ottawa: Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans. ISBN 0-660-11022-9
. Ottawa: Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans. ISBN 0-660-11022-9 Gibson, J. J., Prowse, T. D., & Peters, D. L. (2006). "Partitioning impacts of climate and regulation on water level variability in Great Slave Lake." Journal of Hydrology . 329 (1), 196.
. 329 (1), 196. Hicks, F., Chen, X., & Andres, D. (1995). "Effects of ice on the hydraulics of Mackenzie River at the outlet of Great Slave Lake, N.W.T.: A case study." Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering . Revue Canadienne De G̐ưenie Civil. 22 (1), 43.
. Revue Canadienne De G̐ưenie Civil. 22 (1), 43. Kasten, H. (2004). The captain's course secrets of Great Slave Lake . Edmonton: H. Kasten. ISBN 0-9736641-0-X
. Edmonton: H. Kasten. ISBN 0-9736641-0-X Jenness, R. (1963). Great Slave Lake fishing industry . Ottawa: Northern Co-ordination and Research Centre. Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources.
. Ottawa: Northern Co-ordination and Research Centre. Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Keleher, J. J. (1972). Supplementary information regarding exploitation of Great Slave Lake salmonid community . Winnipeg: Fisheries Research Board, Freshwater Institute.
. Winnipeg: Fisheries Research Board, Freshwater Institute. Mason, J. A. (1946). Notes on the Indians of the Great Slave Lake area . New Haven: Yale University Department of Anthropology, Yale University Press.
. New Haven: Yale University Department of Anthropology, Yale University Press. Sirois, J., Fournier, M. A., & Kay, M. F. (1995). The colonial waterbirds of Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories an annotated atlas. Ottawa, Ont: Canadian Wildlife Service. ISBN 0-662-23884-2 |
New Delhi: Noted jurist Ram Jethmalani, 94 on Saturday announced his retirement from over seven-decade-long career as advocate. He referred to the present status of governance as "calamity and said he would continue to fight corrupt politicians.
"I am here just to tell you I am retiring from the profession but I am taking on a new role as long as I am alive. I wish to combat the corrupt politicians that have been brought into the position of power and I hope the condition of India will take good shape," Jethmalani said.
Jethmalani alleged that the present NDA government has "let down" the nation like the previous UPA dispensation.
He was speaking at a function organised by apex bar body, the Bar Council of India, to felicitate new Chief Justice of India Justice Dipak Misra.
"The country is not in a good shape. The previous and the current governments, both have let down the nation very badly. "It is the duty of the members of the bar and all good citizens to rise to this great calamity," he said adding that they should do their best to see that those in positions of power are shown the exit door as soon as possible.
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Saturday December 12, 2015
East Carolina: Duke offensive coordinator Scottie Montgomery will be the next head coach at ECU, per Bruce Feldman.
East Carolina: Brady Hoke and Everett Withers were widely reported to be interviewing again today and we mentioned that there were whispers of a third potential candidate. We hear that Duke offensive coordinator Scottie Montgomery is still be involved in the process.
Hanover College (D-III – IN): Franklin College offensive coordinator Matt Theobald has been named head coach at his alma mater.
Penn State: Fordham head coach Joe Moorhead will be Penn State’s offensive coordinator according to multiple reports.
Texas: Texas has officially announced Sterlin Gilbert as offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach and Matt Mattox as offensive line coach/run game coordinator. Gilbert will earn $850,000 per year over a three-year contract; Mattox will make $550,000 a year over his three-year contract. Shawn Watson and Joe Wickline will not have their contracts renewed.
Tulsa: Quality control assistant/assistant offensive line coach Matt Bloesch has been promoted to offensive line coach. The Hurricane’s other open position will be filled after the Dec. 26 Independence Bowl.
Virginia: Bronco Mendenhall has added Ruffin McNeill as assistant head coach / inside linebackers. To recap, UVA retained Marques Hagans as receivers, added Ruffin and is bringing six assistants from BYU: Robert Anae (OC), Mark Atuaia (RBs), Jason Beck (QBs), Garret Tujague (OL), Nick Howell (DC) and Kelly Poppinga (STC).
Oklahoma State: We continue to hear that Gundy will fill Robby Discher’s special teams role in the same capacity. The hire is expected to be a grad assistant, not one of the nine full-time positions.
Georgia: Sources confirmed to us Pitt offensive coordinator Jim Chaney will be the offensive coordinator at Georgia. Sources also now have confirmed Arkansas offensive line coach Sam Pittman will join him at Georgia.
Texas: It took the President of the University, the AD, the head football coach and others to go to Tulsa last night; but UT wound up getting their guys. Sterlin Gilbert is coming as offensive coordinator and Matt Mattox will be the new offensive line coach at UT.
Jackson State (FCS – MS): If Mississippi State’s Tony Hughes can’t get a deal done, sources tell FootballScoop that North Carolina Central head coach Jerry Mack could have further discussions with JSU. |
Rep. David Schweikert David SchweikertThe Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race House Dems release 2020 GOP 'retirements to watch' for Ethics committee expanding investigation into GOP rep over finance questions MORE (R-Ariz.) on Thursday suggested that a lack of rhetorical discipline may be responsible for any appearance that President Trump attempted to obstruct a federal investigation.
"I'm at the point where we also have to be real careful from the standpoint that we have a president that's not from the political class," Schweikert said on NPR's "Morning Edition."
"The learning of the disciplined use of language and what certain words mean in our context — if you're not from this world, you may not have developed that discipline," he added.
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Schweikert's comments came after The Washington Post reported Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller was investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, signaling a major change in the federal investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
At issue is Trump's reported requests to top intelligence officials to downplay or shut down investigations involving his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
In a February meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, the president reportedly told the law enforcement official, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go." Trump abruptly fired Comey early last month amid the Russia probe.
Trump also reportedly pressed Dan Coats Daniel (Dan) Ray Coats58 ex-national security officials rebuke Trump over emergency declaration DNC unveils new security checklist to protect campaigns from cyberattacks Overnight Defense: Trump to leave 200 troops in Syria | Trump, Kim plan one-on-one meeting | Pentagon asks DHS to justify moving funds for border wall MORE, the director of national intelligence, and Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, to publicly deny the existence of evidence suggesting collusion between his campaign and Russia. |
Ed Davis was a popular player on some truly terrible Toronto Raptors teams from 2010 to 2013. An athletic big man that could rebound, block shots and finish around the rim, but wasn’t changing the fact his team couldn’t win. Traded away in a last ditch effort to save then President and General Manager Bryan Colangelo’s job, Davis has bounced from Memphis to the Lakers and is expected to decline his NBA minimum salary player option for next season to become an unrestricted free agent for the second time. So, should the rebounding challenged Raptors attempt to bring him back?
There are a lot of free agent big men available this year and Toronto has to make decisions on Amir Johnson, Tyler Hansbrough, Chuck Hayes and Greg Stiemsma before looking at the numerous possibilities available.
The issue with Davis in Toronto and elsewhere hasn’t been his production. His per 36 minute numbers have averaged right around 12.1 points, 10.6 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 0.9 steals in each of his five NBA seasons with three different teams and his average minutes bouncing between 15 and 24. This past season in Los Angeles was his best season and the analytics looked good, but it really wasn’t out of line with what he’s done in the past and the old hard to shake ‘soft’ label continued to follow him.
SB Nation, Silver Screen and Roll, Free Agent Forecast: Ed Davis raises some all too familiar observations:
Jameson Miller: Davis has had a great year in limited minutes on an awful team, so valuing him accurately comes with all sorts of potential pitfalls and caveats. Trevor Lane: He is a fantastic player but his shortcomings limit his usefulness. His slim frame kills his effectiveness as a center by making it tough for him to stand his ground defensively against bigger players, while his complete lack of a jump shot makes it difficult to play him at power forward.
Davis has looked at his best on bad teams that were willing to give him minutes. What should concern his next team looking to invest more than the NBA minimum contract the Lakers handed to him is what happened in Memphis. The Grizzlies gave him a good look, but after January 2014 he only averaged 11 minutes per game interspersed with numerous DNPs. Then Memphis let him walk as a free agent at the end of the season.
The soon-to-be 26-year-old did average 8.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, 1.2 blocks and 23.3 minutes while shooting an impressive 60.1 percent from the field with the Lakers – although 96 percent of his shots were within 10 feet of the rim. Davis has done enough to be noticed in a crowded field of free agent big men this summer and could be a nice addition off the bench in the right situation.
Toronto might be that situation – maybe. Ideally Davis would be playing beside a stretch-four/five with the physical presence needed to not get pushed around in the paint by bigger players, someone like the Raptors Patrick Patterson or Amir Johnson. It isn’t an easy call and Toronto may be able to find better options, but if Davis can convince Head coach Dwane Casey that he could help the Raptors rebound better, then there could be a role for him on the roster.
Davis should attract a little more attention in free agency this summer than he did in 2014 when he had little choice but to accept the Lakers minimal offer, but he really didn’t show any more potential this past season than he did when he was in Toronto. Davis’ agent still has a sales job to do in order to get his client a better deal. In the end it may come down to choosing between more money and a smaller role in a better/winning situation.
Stephen Brotherston covers the Toronto Raptors and visiting NBA teams at the Air Canada Centre and is a member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association. |
A Rohingya Muslim refugee woman holds her child as they wait to go to refugee camps near the Thankhali refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Ukhia district after fleeing Burma. (Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images)
The Weinstein Effect is rippling out across the globe. It’s no longer just women in the United States who are speaking up about sexual harassment — their counterparts in many other countries are, too. And we’re once again seeing confirmation of a truth that is often overlooked in discussions of sexual misconduct or assault: These stories are often more about power than they are about sex. Specifically, for men in positions of power, it’s often about demonstrating the extent of their control over the vulnerable.
The same principle applies — albeit in more extreme form — when sexual violence is used as a weapon of war. The aggressor aims to impose the most extreme humiliation on his victims, to destroy their dignity, to devastate their souls. This isn’t about pleasure. It’s about the calculated and vicious exercise of power over a helpless target. This is the absolute negation of love — the exact opposite of what sex should be about.
You will be reminded of this if you can bring yourself to delve into the latest report on Burma from Human Rights Watch. It makes for a harrowing read. One of the group’s researchers has carefully documented the use of rape as an instrument of terror during the Burmese military’s recent ethnic cleansing campaign, which since August has driven more than 600,000 members of the Muslim Rohingya minority into neighboring Bangladesh.
“In every case described to us, the perpetrators were uniformed members of the security forces, almost all military personnel,” the report carefully notes. Most of the documented attacks involved gangs of soldiers attacking individual women. Nura Begum, 35, tried to prevent her four children from seeing what was happening to her. “I kept screaming and saying not to rape me in front of the children. But they did what they wanted to my body.” Akash Abdul described how she and her younger sister tried to flee after watching security forces kill the other members of their family. “As we got to the edge of the village two soldiers grabbed me,” she said. “They threw me to the ground and then raped me.” She was 14 years old.
You might think that such crimes are outliers. You would be wrong. The use of rape as a weapon of war is widespread. Thousands of women have fallen victim to it in South Sudan’s civil war. The reign of ISIS in Syria and Iraq has resulted in the wholesale sexual abuse of young women from the ancient religious community of the Yezidis. Women were also raped during the recent ethnic unrest in Burundi.
Sri Lanka’s civil war ended in 2009, but members of its Tamil minority say that they still often face torture, including rape, when targeted by security forces. Rwanda, Bosnia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have all experienced sexual violence in recent memory; all these countries have their communities of survivors.
Men in conflict zones also fall victim to sexual violence. According to a recent story in the Guardian, post-revolutionary Libya has seen a spate of such attacks, usually involving militias from groups persecuted by the old regime taking revenge on their enemies.
Women are never exempt, though. the Guardian story also quoted one female survivor of sexual violence in Libya: “The worst thing they did to me,” she whispered, “is to rape me in front of my eldest son. Since then, he won’t speak to me.”
In the sick logic of war, rape is a highly effective weapon. Its crippling effects can last for years. By creating shame and humiliation it destroys ties within families and communities. It silences and paralyzes.
We know it’s a crime. It’s been defined as one in international law. But it’s still happening. And it will continue to happen until we can make the perpetrators truly accountable.
The case of Burma would be a good place to start. Pramila Patten, the U.N. special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, has directly accused the Burmese military of responsibility for the campaign of rape. Last week the Burmese military issued a report denying all related allegations — in terms similar to those of a Burmese officer, Col. Phone Tint, who in early September was already dismissing reports of sexual violence: “Where is the proof?” he asked. “Look at those women who are making these claims — would anyone want to rape them?”
The international community should act while these crimes are still fresh. We must demand that the Burmese government cease its ethnic cleansing campaign. Western governments should stop supplying the Burmese military with arms and aid. We must target the responsible generals with personal sanctions and move to ensure that they face justice. (The International Criminal Court is only one option.)
But let’s not forget the other victims of similar atrocities around the world. And above all, let’s make a concerted global effort to marshal money and resources for the medical and psychological care the survivors so urgently need. We should not compound past crimes by the sin of neglect. |
For other people named David McKean, see David McKean (disambiguation)
David McKean (born 29 December 1963)[1] is an English illustrator, photographer, comic book artist, graphic designer, filmmaker and musician. His work incorporates drawing, painting, photography, collage, found objects, digital art and sculpture. McKean's projects include illustrating books by amongst others Neil Gaiman, Heston Blumenthal, Ray Bradbury and Stephen King, and directing three feature films.
Career [ edit ]
Comics [ edit ]
After a trip to New York City in 1986 during which he first showed his work to editors at Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Continuity Comics, McKean met writer Neil Gaiman, and the pair collaborated on a short graphic novel of disturbing childhood memories, Violent Cases, published in 1987.[2] This was followed in 1988 by a Black Orchid miniseries[3][4] and Hellblazer covers for DC Comics.[5][6]
In 1989, he illustrated the Batman graphic novel, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, with writer Grant Morrison.[7] Comics historian Les Daniels observed that "Arkham Asylum was an unprecedented success, selling 182,166 copies in hardcover and another 85,047 in paperback...McKean produced 120 pages of paintings for Arkham Asylum, offering powerful visual reinterpretations of the classic characters."[8] From 1989–1997 McKean produced the covers for Gaiman's celebrated series The Sandman, all its collected editions, and many of its spin-offs.[9][10] In 1998, the cover images from The Sandman were released as one compiled volume titled Dustcovers: The Collected Sandman Covers.[11] Further collaborations with Gaiman produced the graphic novels Signal to Noise in 1992 previously serialised in The Face magazine, about a dying filmmaker and his hypothetical last film; and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch, which explored similar themes as Violent Cases through the imagery of the Punch and Judy show. In 1995 McKean wrote and illustrated a book for The Rolling Stones called Voodoo Lounge to tie-in with the release of their album of the same name.[6]
Between 1990 and 1996, McKean wrote and drew the ten issues of Cages, an ambitious graphic novel about artists and creativity, illustrated in a stripped-down pen-and-ink style influenced by Alberto Breccia, José Antonio Muñoz and Lorenzo Mattotti.[12] Cages was published as single volume by Kitchen Sink Press in 1998, and in a new edition by NBM Publishing in 2002. In 2010, Cages was released by Dark Horse Comics in paperback. An anniversary edition was released in 2016 by the same publisher, featuring a new introduction by Terry Gilliam.[6]
McKean's collections of short comics Pictures That Tick, and Pictures That Tick 2: Exhibition[13] were published by Dark Horse Comics in 2009 and 2015. Pictures That Tick won the Victoria and Albert Museum Illustrated Book of the Year award.
McKean created a wordless erotic graphic novel called Celluloid[14] for Delcourt, which was published in the United States by Fantagraphics Books.
Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash, which was a commission by the 14-18 Now Foundation, The Imperial War Museum and The Lakes International Comic art Festival, was released as an artist's edition in June 2016, and was published in October 2016 by Dark Horse Comics as an oversized hardback and regular paperback. The project was also a live performance featuring cellist/singer Matthew Sharp and violinist Clare Haythornthwaite, and was performed in Amiens, Kendal, London, Rye and Ashford.
Illustration [ edit ]
McKean designed the posters for the Raindance Film Festival[15] for five consecutive years between 1996–2000. In 1997 he wrote, directed and edited a ninety-second trailer for the festival. In 2005, McKean designed the poster for the 32nd Telluride Film Festival. In 2006, he designed projections, sets and directed film clips for the Broadway musical Lestat, adapted from Anne Rice's novels, with music and lyrics by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
McKean has created a few books documenting his travels using only illustrations. Examples include Postcards from Vienna, Postcards from Barcelona, Postcards from Paris (2008), Postcards from Brussels (2009), Postcards from Perugia (2011), Postcards from Bilbao (2012). He created another book of 200 pages called Squink (éditions BdArtist(e)) that gathered a number of drawings in 15 chapters.
C.D. and book covers [ edit ]
McKean created C.D. covers for many artists, amongst others for Alice Cooper, Altan, Tori Amos, Download, Frontline Assembly, Paradise Lost, Dream Theater, Skinny Puppy,[16] Toad the Wet Sprocket and Steve Walsh. He made book covers for Jonathan Carroll, Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore.
Books of photography [ edit ]
He has published four books of photography:
A Small Book of Black and White Lies (1995)
(1995) Option: Click (1998)
(1998) The Particle Tarot: The Major Arcana
The Particle Tarot: The Minor Arcana
Work with John Cale [ edit ]
McKean designed and illustrated John Cale's autobiography What's Welsh for Zen, a further biography called Sedition and Alchemy, a box set of C.D.s called Circus Live, and used John's Welsh-by-way-of-New York voice as the narrator for his short film N[eon].
Children's picture books [ edit ]
McKean has collaborated with Neil Gaiman on four children's picture books, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (1998), The Wolves in the Walls (2003), Crazy Hair (2009), and Mirrormask (2005), and illustrated Gaiman's children's novels Coraline (2002) and The Graveyard Book (2008), as well as S. F. Said's Varjak Paw (2003), Outlaw Varjak Paw (2006) and Phoenix (2013). The Wolves in the Walls: a Musical Pandemonium premiered as a play in Glasgow in 2006 with Improbable and the National Theatre of Scotland. The National Theatre of Scotland adapted The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish into a promenade performance for young people in 2013. He illustrated David Almond's The Savage published in April 2008, Slog's Dad published in September 2010, and Mouse Bird Snake Wolf (2013). In 2011, McKean collaborated with Richard Dawkins on The Magic of Reality, an introduction to critical thinking and science for children.[17] McKean also illustrated Ray Bradbury's The Homecoming (2006).
The Fat Duck Cookbook [ edit ]
In 2008, McKean collaborated with Heston Blumenthal on The Fat Duck Cookbook, an autobiography, compilation of key recipes and insight into Blumenthal's scientific method. The book was nominated in the James Beard Foundation Awards for Cooking from a Professional Point of View and won the Photography/Illustration award. In 2014, McKean collaborated again with Blumenthal and writer Pascal Clariss on Historical Heston, a collection of historically inspired recipes. The book won two James Beard Foundation Awards. McKean is the Director of Story at The Fat Duck, and helped to relaunch the restaurant after its refurbishment in 2015. He has created package designs, maps, menu designs and murals for The Fat Duck, as well as Dinner by Heston Blumenthal in London and Melbourne.
Stamps [ edit ]
McKean created six images for the Royal Mail's Mythical Creatures collection, which featured depictions of mythical creatures found in British folklore, including dragons, unicorns, giants, pixies, mermaids, and fairies. The collection was released in the UK on 16 June 2009. The Presentation Pack contains short descriptions of each subject by author Neil Gaiman.[18]
Films [ edit ]
MirrorMask, McKean's first feature film as director, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005. The screenplay was written by Neil Gaiman, from a story by Gaiman and McKean. A children's fantasy which combines live action and digital animation, MirrorMask was produced by Jim Henson Studios and stars a British cast Stephanie Leonidas, Jason Barry, Rob Brydon, and Gina McKee. Before MirrorMask, McKean directed a number of television intros and music videos as well as several short films, such as The Week Before (1998) and N[eon] (2002),[19] which are included in the compilation DVD of McKean's work Keanoshow from Allen Spiegel Fine Arts. McKean has directed The Gospel of Us, a film of the National Theatre Wales's Passion play in Port Talbot which stars Michael Sheen.[20] A new feature film, Luna,[21] written and directed by McKean and starring Stephanie Leonidas, Ben Daniels, Dervla Kirwan and Michael Maloney debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2014.
McKean was a concept artist on the TV mini-series Neverwhere (1996), which was created and co-written by Neil Gaiman, and the feature films Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).
Theatre and Live Performance [ edit ]
McKean wrote and performed a song cycle called Nine Lives[22] at the Sydney Opera House as part of the Graphic Festival. This was also performed at the British Library and at LICAF.
McKean wrote the text for Wildworks' Wolf's Child[23] site-specific theatre work as part of the Norwich Theatre Festival in 2015.
An Ape's Progress [24] was a commission by the Manchester Literature/Jazz Festivals in 2015, and was created by poet Matthew Sweeney, composer/saxophone player Iain Ballamy, cellist Matthew Sharp, singer Emilia Martensson, accordionist Stian Carstensen, and pianist Kit Downes, with McKean providing film projections and keyboards. A book of the work accompanied the show.
Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash [25] is a multi-media, music, song and performance work commissioned by 14-18 Now Foundation and LICAF. McKean performs as narrator and pianist, Matthew Sharp as performer, singer and cellist, and Clare Haythornthwaite as violinist/performer. It was premiered in Amiens, and has been performed in Kendal. In 2016 it was performed in Rye, Ashford and at Tate Modern.
Jazz label [ edit ]
McKean founded the record label Feral Records[26] with saxophonist Iain Ballamy.
Awards [ edit ]
McKean has won numerous awards and accolades. Over the years, he has been nominated five times for a World Fantasy Award in the category of "Artist", and he won the award in 1991.[27] His graphic novel Cages won the Alph-Art, Pantera, and Harvey Awards for best Graphic Novel.[28] He has been nominated six times and won three Spectrum Awards in the categories of "Advertising", "Book", and "Comic".[29] His collection of short comics, Pictures That Tick won the V&A Museum Illustrated Book Awards Overall First Prize.[28] In 2004, McKean won a BSFA Award in "Short Fiction" along with Neil Gaiman for their work, The Wolves in the Walls. His film MirrorMask was nominated for the William Shatner Golden Groundhog Award for Best Underground Movie, the other nominated films were Green Street Hooligans, Nine Lives, Up for Grabs and Opie Gets Laid.[30] Luna won Best British Feature at the Raindance Festival Awards,[31] and also the Raindance Award at the Möet British Independent Film Awards.[32] In 2017 Mckean was the inaugural recipient of the "Sergio Aragones International Award for Excellence in Comic Art", given as part of The Lakes International Comic Art Festival.[33] |
Scotland's leader Alex Salmond will on Saturday urge Scots to put aside party politics in the vote on independence, as he tries to win support from Labour rivals for his bid to leave the United Kingdom.
In an address to the Scottish National Party's (SNP) last conference before a September 18 referendum, Salmond will stress that a vote for independence is not a vote for him or his party but a way to put Scotland's future in its own hands.
His appeal comes after a narrowing in opinion polls that has for the first time made a vote for independence look a possibility, with both sides trying to persuade the up to 15 percent of voters who remain undecided.
Salmond will promise to set up an all-party "Team Scotland" group after any "Yes" vote, to negotiate the terms of independence by March 24, 2016.
His promise is an appeal to Scottish Labour voters, many of whom bitterly oppose the SNP, which won the first majority government of Scotland's devolved parliament in a landslide victory in 2011.
"A Yes vote in September is not a vote for me, or for an SNP government in 2016 (at the next Scottish election)," Salmond is expected to tell 1,200 party faithful gathered in Aberdeen, the oil capital of Scotland, for the two-day conference.
"It's a vote for a government in Scotland that the people of Scotland choose, pursuing policies the people of Scotland support."
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Rallying call against conservatives
Salmond will stress that the reason to vote for independence and end the 307-year-old tie to England is so that oil-rich Scotland can decide its own policies and not have its fate determined by politicians in London.
He will say that any government of an independent Scotland would be in control of tax, the economy, social security, employment, immigration, oil and gas revenues, European policy and a range of other areas now under Westminster's control.
"That may be the SNP. It may be Labour. It may be a coalition," he will say.
"I tell you what it won't be. It won't be a government led by a party with just a single MP in Scotland," he will add, referring to the Conservative Party which is unpopular in Scotland but the major partner of Britain's ruling coalition.
In the Scottish Parliament the SNP holds 65 seats while Labour has 38 and the Conservatives 15. The rest are held by Liberal Democrats, Greens and independents.
Salmond's appeal for cross-party support comes as opinion polls this week showed support for independence at about 40 percent, up from 30 percent a year ago, and compared to 45 percent opposition.
The pro-union Better Together campaign said the polls showed they were still ahead, citing a YouGov survey on Friday that found 57 percent of Scots supported Scotland staying in the UK but with increased powers for the Scottish Parliament.
Businesses have raised concerns about the risks of independence and the uncertainty regarding what currency would be used in an independent Scotland, financial regulations, taxation and European Union membership.
"As part of the UK we can have the best of both worlds - a strong Scottish Parliament, with the guarantee of more powers, backed up by the strength, security and stability of being part of the larger UK. Only separation would put that at risk," said the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Margaret Curran. |
When cognitive psychologists talk about testing, and when the rest of the population uses that word, they mean different things. For educators and parents, testing means standardized testing: a tool wielded by politicians and administrators to terrify children and teachers. When cognitive psychologists hear the word testing, they think immediately of “the testing effect” — one of the best learning strategies. This may seem like semantics, but it’s a problem.
The testing effect is the idea that trying to remember something leads to greater learning than just re-reading information. In one famous experiment, participants tried to learn information from a textbook either by repeatedly re-reading, or repeatedly writing out everything they could remember after reading the information only once. The strategy of writing from memory led to 60 percent correct recall of the material one week later, compared to only 40 percent in the repeated reading condition.
But despite its effectiveness as a learning strategy, the testing effect had to be rebranded to the less scary/more fun-sounding “quizzing” and we have had to come up with more and more subtle ways to produce the effect without students realizing that they are being tested — somewhat akin to hiding broccoli in brownies.
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As champions of the testing effect, we find it awkward to hear bemoaning of standardized tests. So, let’s tackle a few of the most common critiques:
Tests cause anxiety
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There’s no doubt that challenging, high-stakes tests can provoke anxiety in some students. But, perhaps counterintuitively, the solution to this problem is not to get rid of testing; instead, it is to encourage more testing – particularly frequent, lower-stakes testing. With many tests spread out across the year, each individual test will be worth less and thus necessarily lower stakes; students will become more accustomed to testing, and thus, less afraid of it. What’s more, every time they bring information to mind during a test, students are creating new memories from the cognitive effort involved. So more testing will lead to more learning and could decrease anxiety.
Teachers and parents can also try to redirect some of that anxiety, a tactic that makes students feel more confident and actually perform better on high-stakes tests. Researchers have found one promising method in which students are told that the anxiety they feel before a test is actually helpful – not harmful – to their test performance.
Finally – and this is something that ought to be examined empirically – the negative views of testing repeated by teachers and parents may be feeding into kids’ anxiety and test-aversion. Just like public speaking, tests are an aspect of education that kids tend not to like even though it’s good for them. Our job as parents is to realize that the benefits of testing outweigh the inconvenience of dealing with kids’ complaints.
Teaching to the test
The idea that teaching to a test isn’t really teaching implies an almost astounding assumption that standardized tests are filled with meaningless, ill-thought-out questions on irrelevant or arbitrary information. This may be based on the myth that “teachers in the trenches” are being told what to teach by some “experts” who’ve probably never set foot in a “real” classroom. What these defiant teachers fail to realize – or simply choose to ignore – is that these experts are groups of carefully selected individuals that always include well-seasoned “real classroom teachers”, who guide the decision-making on what material should be assessed by the tests. For those wanting to find out more about how tests are made, here’s an informative video by the Educational Testing Service which develops, administers or scores more than 50 million tests.
Standardized tests are biased
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Standardized tests are not the great equalizer that will eliminate discrimination. But it is highly unlikely an individual teacher alone could create a more fair, unbiased test than many experts with access to a lot of resources, a huge amount of diverse data, and the ability to refine tests based on those data. As stated in the ETS video, once a new question is introduced, statisticians work to figure out whether it’s performing equally well for different groups.
Unfair, biased questions are certainly an important ongoing issue for the makers of standardized tests to address, but much work is going into the refinement and improvement of these questions, with the goal of avoiding and, hopefully, eventually eliminating such biases. All individuals have implicit biases that are almost impossible to override, so leaving assessment to individual instructors can only worsen the problem. The crux of the matter is trust – can we trust a board of experts that includes experienced teachers to act in our best interest as a nation of educators, parents, and children? And if the answer is no, then how can we trust individual teachers, and how would we hold them accountable?
Tests don’t provide prompt feedback
Here standardized tests have a lot of room for improvement. Feedback on standardized tests is tardy and often incredibly confusing, and doesn’t include information on which specific questions the student answered incorrectly. By the time it comes, the feedback is just a meaningless score. Although students can learn from tests even without feedback, it is clear that feedback increases the benefits of testing. Tests can be expected to improve on this front as they transition from paper to online, where rapid feedback is more viable on a large scale.
Standardized tests were created to track students’ progress and evaluate schools and teachers. Griping abounds about how these tests are measuring the wrong thing and in the wrong way; but what’s conspicuously absent is any suggestion for how to better measure the effect of education — i.e., learning — on a large scale. In the absence of direct measures of learning, we resort to measures of performance. And the great thing is: measuring this learning actually causes it to grow. So let’s reclaim the word testing, so that the first word that comes to mind when we see it is “effect”.
Yana Weinstein is an assistant professor in the Psychology department at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Megan Smith is an assistant professor in the Psychology department at Rhode Island College. They are the co-founders of Learning Scientists (@AceThatTest on Twitter). |
It turns out that the millionaire GOP establishment donor who bankrolled the anti-Donald Trump skywriting at the Rose Bowl parade on New Year’s Day isn’t just any ordinary donor-class millionaire. He’s backing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the man who is emerging as the anti-conservative establishment and donor-class candidate for president in 2016.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Luther Stan Pate IV—an Alabama real estate developer worth millions—has donated thousands of dollars to Rubio’s electoral efforts.
On Jan. 29, 2015, Pate donated $5,200 to Rubio—who, at the time, hadn’t yet officially launched a presidential campaign but was acting as if he were running for president.
Just days earlier, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reported exclusively that Rubio had hired Anna Rogers, then the finance director for Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, to lead “the effort to raise the $50 million or more he’ll need to run in the Republican primaries.”
“He has told us to proceed as if he is running for president,” a senior Rubio adviser told ABC News for the piece, which ran on Jan. 23, 2015—six days before Pate’s donation to Rubio.
A couple months later, Pate gave another $2,500 to Rubio, according to the Center for Responsible Politics. Later in the year, after Rubio launched his presidential campaign, the Rubio campaign returned $5,000 of the $7,700 total that Pate had donated to him. That is standard operating procedure because the Federal Election Commission (FEC) only allows donors to make a total of $2,700 to an individual presidential candidate.
Pate is the man who set up, on Dec. 29, a new anti-Trump Political Action Committee. FEC filings show that Pate is listed as the Treasurer and Custodian of Records for the new group entitled the “WeThePeople Foundation.”
That organization wrote messages like “America is great. Trump is disgusting” and “Anybody but Trump” and “Iowans dump Trump” in the sky at the Rose Bowl with at least five skywriting planes on Friday. Skywriting is a fairly expensive endeavor, and doing so with five planes makes it even more expensive.
The skywriting also directed viewers to the Rubio campaign-donor Pate’s new PAC website, http://anybodybuttrump.us/, a crudely designed site that viscerally attacks the 2016 GOP frontrunner.
The website allows visitors to donate to the Rubio campaign-donor Pate’s new PAC, to buy anti-Trump items from the organization’s online store, and to display various videos and anti-Trump materials.
Pate is an eccentric establishment GOP figure who’s been associated with behavior similar to this before.
Lagniappe, a weekly newspaper in Mobile, Alabama—Pate is based in Tuscaloosa—devoted an August 2007 cover story to Pate’s sharp-elbowed political tactics.
“In mid-2005, Pate sought $16 million in public funds for a real estate development, a shopping center to be named Midtown. The Tuscaloosa City Council declined [to grant] the aid with Council President Jerry Plott and Councilman Kip Tyner being the most vocal opponents,” said the article, which was also picked up by various local bloggers.
It wasn’t Pate’s first difficulty with the councilmen and he was frustrated. “He [Pate] fought us tooth-and-nail to get that money,” Plott said. “But I didn’t think public dollars should be spent on a private business. He began a public crusade to try to destroy me.” Pate apparently conceived a Web site aimed at fomenting discord against Plott. Amidst the many charges of corruption on www.theplottthickens.com, a dormant discussion board asks for feedback on the councilman and a line on the site declares, “I am Stan Pate and I approve this message,” then gives a Northport post office box address. Pate admits to having founded the site and claims good reason for such. “I filed an ethics complaint that is a matter of public record against Mr. Plott,” Pate said, “and I made it very clear in multiple ads and in the newspaper and in Tuscaloosa and on various publications that I feel like Mr. Plott’s dealings while he was on the city council were unethical and corrupt.”
At this time, Rubio’s team is not disavowing the efforts his donor Pate has taken against Trump. Alex Conant, Rubio’s communications director, has not responded to a request for comment when presented with evidence that the Rubio campaign’s donors are behind this attack on Trump.
While Trump has battled with pretty much everyone in the entire GOP field in 2016, he’s crushed a few candidates: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) are among those still running. And outgoing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), former New York Gov. George Pataki and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are among those not running anymore.
But there are a few candidates that Trump is treating carefully.
Rubio is one of them. Trump has been very critical of Rubio’s pro-amnesty positions on immigration, his work on trade, and Rubio’s horrendous attendance record when it comes to votes and national security briefings in the U.S. Senate. But he hasn’t gone as aggressively after Rubio as he has gone after, say, Bush.
Rubio is the last remaining establishment-backed candidate who’s got a clear shot at the nomination.
Bush and Kasich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all could bounce back, but each of them is struggling and Rubio is the only non-conservative in the top-tier of polling along with Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Dr. Ben Carson.
That means Rubio presents basically the only threat to conservatives’ chances in 2016—and now that Rubio’s team is coming after Trump this aggressively, with the skywriting above the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Rubio may have just inadvertently wandered into the bear’s den. |
A MELBOURNE woman has been reunited with her dog 10 years after it went missing.
Latte disappeared from Anne Quach’s Reservoir home in 2004, sparking a fruitless search.
“I bought Latte and her brother Cappuccino in 2003, and a year later Latte went missing from our yard,’’ Ms Quach said.
“We’re not sure if she was stolen or snuck out, but I was devastated and Cappuccino whined for weeks afterwards.”
At the time, Ms Quach put up posters in the hope someone would recognise the much-loved pooch, but she eventually gave up hope of being reunited.
Until now, when she turned up at the City of Whittlesea Pound in Epping where a microchip scan revealed the identity of her owner.
Latte was unkempt and slightly malnourished, but otherwise OK.
Ms Quach said Latte didn’t recognise her or respond to her name, but she was settling in well.
“Cappuccino is very happy and my son Vin, who was only a month old when she went missing, loves his new friend,’’ she said.
Whittlesea Council animal management team leader Rod Thickins said Ms Quach’s story was a timely reminder to microchip pets.
“Microchipping our cats and dogs has led to many happy reunions at the pound. Latte’s case is extraordinary — 10 years is definitely our council record,’’ he said. |
With NES Classic Edition Discontinued, Hyperkin's Retron HD Could Take Its Place
With NES Classic Edition Discontinued, Hyperkin's Retron HD Could Take Its Place
Share. Doing what Nintendoesn't. Doing what Nintendoesn't.
Hyperkin wants to pick up where NES Classic Edition left off with the Retron HD, a new console that plays 8-bit classics from Nintendo's home system.
The Retron HD works with original NES cartridges — from both NTSC and PAL regions — displaying them at 720p on screen. The console comes with a controller with a 10-foot cord and HD cable, plus a micro USB charge cable.
Meet the Retron HD 6 IMAGES Fullscreen Image Artboard 3 Copy Artboard 3 ESC 01 OF 06 Hyperkin's Retron HD plays NES cartridges at 720p. 01 OF 06 Hyperkin's Retron HD plays NES cartridges at 720p. Meet the Retron HD Download Image Captions ESC
Announced earlier this month, the Retron HD looks like an attempt to build off the success of Nintendo's mini console. The Big N discontinued the NES Classic Edition in April, with a company representative at the time stating that the system "wasn’t intended to be an ongoing, long-term product."
Now this isn't the first time Hyperkin has released an HD console that plays NES cartridges. The Retron 5 actually supported 10 different systems, such as SNES, Genesis and Game Boy Advance.
The Retron HD will release May 25 for $40/£50 in gray and black.
Exit Theatre Mode
Evan Campbell is a freelance writer who scripts the Daily Fix, streams games on his Twitch channel, and chats about movies and TV series on Twitter. |
NEW YORK (PAI) – With sights set on the November 2014 elections, Graphic Communications Conference and International Brotherhood of Teamsters leaders are pledging to work tirelessly for pro-labor candidates and assure there is no repeat of the disastrous midterm contests of 2010.
What they aim for is to prevent a repeat of the mid-term results four years ago. That’s when, analysts say, a Tea Party-fueled backlash against Democratic President Barack Obama and his signature Affordable Healthcare law ousted 63 Democrats from the U.S. House and six from the Senate.
The GOP momentum spread to states like Wisconsin, where right winger Scott Walker was elected governor and, with Republican state legislative colleagues, quickly enacted legislation that stripped basic bargaining rights from public employees.
GCC/IBT leaders vow not to be caught flatfooted this time around.
“We let down our guard in 2010,” said union President George Tedeschi. “It won’t happen again.” Other union leaders voiced similar sentiments.
“I would tell people that labor should reward its friends and punish its enemies,” said Frank Golden, business representative and organizer for District Council 4 in the Chicago area, quoting American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers. “I use that as a stepping stone and tell these people, because we got a little time to go, and just throw that straight at them as a reminder.”
It’s a general rule of politics that midterm election results are largely determined by a president’s job approval rating. If the chief executive is well-regarded, voters are apt to favor his party. A president with low public opinion scores can be a detriment.
“Using the president’s approval rating, even in a midterm election, is useful because, for better or worse, a president is the face of his party,” wrote Charlie Cook, editor of The Cook Political Report and one of the nation’s leading political analysts. “Although voters rarely reward a party for having a popular president, they are quick to register their displeasure with a chief executive by voting against the candidates of that party in a midterm election.” That’s especially true in a president’s second mid-term.
In 2006, GOP President George W. Bush was struggling and Republicans lost 30 House seats, six Senate seats and majorities in both houses of Congress. Polls show history may repeat itself.
That’s because Obama also has lost ground recently. By mid-June, an average of 49 percent of those surveyed, in dozens of polls compiled by Real Clear Politics, said they disapproved of the president’s performance.
Obama’s slide was tied to several embarrassing episodes — Internal Revenue Service agents allegedly hounding tea party-affiliated groups, secret collection of data from Associated Press reporters, and the National Security Agency’s surveillance of phone calls and overseas Internet use.
Next year, all 435 seats in the GOP-dominated U.S. House are up for election in the president’s second mid-term. And 33 Senate seats, a majority of them Democratic-held, will be contested.
Overall, Democrats hold 52 Senate seats, Republicans hold 45, and independents, two. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who died in June, held the other. GOP Gov. Chris Christie appointed a Republican to replace Lautenberg until a special October election, upping the GOP’s Senate total, temporarily, to 46.
There will be 36 statehouse battles in November 2014, with most in GOP hands. Among the most closely watched will be the gubernatorial race in Wisconsin, where Walker is running for re-election. The GOP governor beat back a recall election in 2012 despite efforts by organized labor to oust him after Walker pushed legislation virtually killing collective bargaining for most of the Badger State’s 200,000 public workers.
Similar pieces of legislation also were proposed in Ohio and Michigan, now a right-to-work state.
Golden said that Democrats must be held accountable, too. “There’s a lot of Democrats out there who made a lot of promises that they haven’t really been stepping up on either,” he said.
The fights over worker rights, in both the states and over the NLRB, show the stakes are high in 2014 even though midterm elections lack the fanfare – and turnout – of presidential contests.
“We need to find and support the candidates that serve our members interests,” said Ronnie Pineda, president of GCC Local 140-N in Los Angeles. “In the last 10 years we’ve gotten people elected and they’ve betrayed us. I for one am a big believer in education. We need to educate ourselves completely with every one of the candidates and any other new laws that may be on the ballot.”
Jack Noone, president of Local 241-M in Scranton, Pa., said union leaders must help members – and their families – stay focused.
“Right off the bat we have to try to educate people so they understand what the really important issues are, and not be distracted by these scandals,” he said, adding some of Obama’s performance must be attributed to the Republicans’ willful obstruction of his efforts.
“We have to try and get them involved and help them understand the issues,” Noone said. “We have to get people on board.”
Zachary Dowdy writes for the Graphics Communicator.
Photo: Unions found it necessary to occupy the Capitol in Madison Wisconsin after Scott Walker, who was swept into office in the last mid-term tea party wave, attacked the collective bargaining rights of workers. Blake Deppe/PW |
Duke University's decision to scrap plans to allow the Muslim call to prayer to emanate from its chapel bell tower raises controversy on campus. (Reuters)
Duke University canceled plans Thursday to begin a weekly Muslim call to prayer from the campus chapel this week, an initiative that had set off debate on social media. A school spokesman and a Duke Muslim leader said that a serious and credible security threat played a role in the decision.
The university had announced that Muslim students would chant the ‘adhan,’ the call to a weekly prayer service, from the Duke University Chapel bell tower each Friday. The sound of the call to prayer in Muslim communities is a standard part of ritual life on Muslims’ main prayer day. Theologically, it reminds Muslims “to worship God and serves as a reminder to serve our brothers and sisters in humanity,” Imam Adeel Zeb, Muslim chaplain at Duke, said in a news release.
But reaction to the story off campus was swift. Some celebrated the decision.
I support the #DukeCalltoPrayer. Because religious inclusivity is more important than xenophobia. — Erin Howett (@EHowett) January 15, 2015
But many strongly opposed it.
Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, called on donors and alumni to withhold support from Duke until the policy was reversed. The hashtag #boycottduke spread quickly, and many of the reactions on Twitter referred to recent terrorist attacks, and interpreted it as an anti-Christian move.
Graham posted strong words about it on his Facebook page: “As Christianity is being excluded from the public square and followers of Islam are raping, butchering, and beheading Christians, Jews, and anyone who doesn’t submit to their Sharia Islamic law, Duke is promoting this in the name of religious pluralism. I call on the donors and alumni to withhold their support from Duke until this policy is reversed.”
Immediate growing backlash momentum – people to #BoycottDuke – attend #AmericanFlashmob on Duke Campus starting 12:30 on Fri with #airhorns — Rolliby (@rolliby) January 15, 2015
Muslim call to prayer to begin at Duke University. But Jesus isnt welcome @DukeU #boycottDuke — Shannon Catoe (@shannoncatoe) January 14, 2015
Franklin later praised the reversal.
I am glad to hear that @DukeU reversed its decision to allow Muslim call to prayer from its chapel bell tower. They made the right decision! — Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) January 15, 2015
In discussing the change Thursday, Duke officials said the response to the decision was not what the university had expected.
“Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus for all of its students,” said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, in a news release. “However, it was clear that what was conceived as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect.”
Schoenfeld said Thursday night that a “serious and credible” security threat was one of the reasons for the decision. University officials declined to elaborate.
Omid Safi, director of Duke’s Islamic Studies Center, said Thursday evening that the call to prayer was scaled back because of “a number of credible threats against Muslim students, faculty and staff.” The school, he said “is treating this as a criminal matter” and that the threats are “external.”
Muslim students, Safi said, have been advised not to speak and be identified, “and are scared and disappointed.” Asked if he personally had been threatened, he said he had been advised by officials to say “a number of credible threats have been made.”
On Friday, he said, there would still be a new addition to the weekly service: A call to prayer, but it would be from the steps of the chapel instead of amplified from the tower. The initial decision to have a call, he said, came last semester upon the urging of the Office of Religious Life – the overall chaplains’ office with clergy from various faiths – and Muslim students, together. He said Duke is considered a leader in Islamic studies and hospitable for Muslims. More than 100 people show up each Friday for prayer, he said.
“We had hoped for a symbolic action that would shine a light on how a leading international university in the American South can be a place where the symbol of the Christian heritage of the university is demonstrating hospitality to its Muslim community members. And instead we’re having to talk about crazy people,” Safi said.
When the idea of holding the call from the tower was pitched, he said, no one thought it would be a problem. He blamed “geography” and Duke’s proximity to influential evangelical leader Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham.
“Duke has been committed to Islamic studies for decades,” he said.
The university has held the weekly jummah prayers in the basement of Duke Chapel for many years, starting with the traditional chanted call to prayer. More than 700 of the 15,000 students at Duke identify as Muslim, according to school officials.
Duke today is non-sectarian but has historic and symbolic ties with The United Methodist Church. Its bylaws were recast last year to say its purposes are grounded in the Christian tradition of intellectual inquiry and service to the world. Sapp described the chapel as “a church.”
On Wednesday, a Duke dean of religious life published an essay in the News & Observer touting the decision to hold the call, a common sound in Muslim communities around the world.
“This opportunity represents a larger commitment to religious pluralism that is at the heart of Duke’s mission and connects the university to national trends in religious accommodation,” wrote Christy Lohr Sapp, associate dean for religious life at Duke University.
In her essay, Sapp noted that “there is much negative press” today touching Muslims, “from ISIS to Boko Haram to al-Qaida.” The call, she wrote, would be the antithesis, and “might help students feel more at home in a world marred by weekly acts of violence and daily discriminations. Perhaps, too, this small token of welcome will provide a platform for a truer voice to resonate: a voice that challenges media stereotypes of Muslims, a voice of wisdom, a voice prayer and a voice of peace.”
Now Muslim students and others on campus wishing to take part in the prayer will meet on the quadrangle outside the Chapel before gathering in the Chapel for prayers.
“Our Muslim community enriches the university in countless ways,” Schoenfeld said. “We welcome the active expression of their faith tradition, and all others, in ways that are meaningful and visible.”
President Obama said Friday that United States' "one big advantage" against terrorism was the feeling of belonging that American Muslims have to the country. He said some Muslims in European countries did not have these same national ties. (AP)
This story has been updated. |
“Hi, it’s me.” For Australians living in isolation and doing it tough this Christmas, making that phone call may be the first step they take to reconnect with friends and loved ones.
But in a world of smart phones and the nbn™, being connected is something a lot of us take for granted. It’s easy to forget that there are many Australians who don’t have the technology or financial means to access a phone line, or a way to connect with their loved ones at Christmas.
For some of these community members, not being able to come together with family, friends and loved ones at Christmas time only heightens feelings of loneliness, personal hardship and isolation.
To help those separated by distance or circumstance to get in touch with one another this festive season, we are again opening up our national payphone network and providing free local, national and standard mobile calls from Telstra payphones around Australia from December 24-26. We will also be offering free Telstra Air® Wi-Fi access from selected public hotspots.
We’re really pleased to be working alongside our long term partner, The Salvation Army, to help spread the word about our offer. Their mission is to bring hope to those facing personal hardships, such as homelessness, all year, every year, and especially at Christmas.
“With many vulnerable people suffering from feelings of social isolation, a free phone call removes financial barriers and gives everyone – regardless of their personal circumstance – the chance to make a positive emotional connection,” said Major Brendan Nottle, The Salvation Army.
As a company with connection at its heart, we want to play a genuine role in connecting people at Christmas and all year round through the technology and experiences we provide. Our ability to open up our network gives all Australians the opportunity to pick up the phone and call their friends, families and loved ones at a time of year when social connection is really important.
Last year, 170,000 calls were made from our payphone network across the same period, with our data revealing NSW residents and visitors to be the biggest payphone users overall.
Over the three days, nearly 31,000 unique connections were made via our free Telstra Air Wi-Fi access, at sites across the country. Swanston Street and Bourke Street sites in Melbourne’s CBD received the greatest number of users. Collective data usage across all Telstra Air Wi-Fi hotspots also reached 5.6 TB over the course of the campaign, with sites in Southport, Currumbin and Surfers Paradise in Queensland the top locations.
Nothing beats the sound of hearing a loved one’s voice, especially at a time like Christmas when a focus on families coming together is really heightened. It’s an important opportunity for those in the community who might be feeling isolated at this time, and we hope that even more Australians take up the opportunity to connect with their loved ones this year.
Australians will be able to call anyone in Australia across Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day free of charge from any of the 16,000 Telstra branded payphones around the country.
Things you need to know:
Free calls around Australia to local, national and standard mobiles from Telstra payphones from 24-26 December 2018. Free calls exclude international calls and premium services (19x), Mobile Satellite, and 1234, 12456 directory services. Excludes Telstra rented payphones. Free Wi-Fi data at select Telstra Air payphones and Telstra Stores, in Australia only. Telstra Air available for Wi-Fi enabled devices only. |
<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/703318/2013-05-20-joint-letter-to-sec-hagel-pii-redacted.pdf">2013 05 20 Joint Letter to Sec Hagel (PII Redacted) (PDF)</a> <br /> <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/703318/2013-05-20-joint-letter-to-sec-hagel-pii-redacted.txt">2013 05 20 Joint Letter to Sec Hagel (PII Redacted) (Text)</a>
Military attorneys representing former CIA captives detained in a top secret camp at Guantanamo have called on Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to examine whether the head of the prison’s guard force is fit for command.
Col. John Bogdan, the commander of Guantanamo’s Joint Detention Group, has been singled out by the defense lawyers for revamping dormant policies, such as inspections of Qurans and genital patdowns, that gave rise to a hunger strike, now entering its fourth month.
“Although we represent so-called ‘high value detainees, many of our concerns relate to the treatment of all prisoners, to include men whose internment appears to be indefinite” states a 13-page letter and signed by nineteen attorneys, including several who represent self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the alleged architect behind the USS Cole bombing, sent to Hagel on Monday. “There has been a serious degradation in the quality of life for detainees in Guantanamo Bay over the past year. This change appears to have coincided with the arrival of the new Joint Detention Group Commander, Col. John V. Bogdan.”
Army Captain Jason Wright, who is defending Mohammed before a military tribunal and also represents an Afghan prisoner named Obaidullah, one of the hunger strikers, told Al Jazeera the letter was prompted by “years of inaction by the US government.”
“Sadly, no none has been watching Guantanamo, much less responding to repeated concerns of uniformed service members about what is really happening down there,” Wright says. “It is important to highlight that this is a peaceful, political protest by the majority of the men in Camps five and six who have been cleared for release and who are otherwise innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of law. It is shameful that [Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, which operates the prison] has responded to the hunger strike, not only by forcibly feeding [prisoners] in violation of international law, but by punishing them and placing them in conditions tantamount to solitary confinement. America is better than this.”
Inspecting Qurans
The letter was sent to Hagel three days before President Obama is due to give a major speech about his counterterrorism policies, which will include a discussion about Guantanamo.
Bogdan became the warden of the prison last June. Three months after he settled in, a Yemeni prisoner named Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif was found unconscious in his cell and was pronounced dead at the detention hospital. An autopsy report concluded that Latif committed suicide by ingesting mass quantities of anti-psychotic medication. However, his death is still under investigation.
Following Latif’s death, according to the accounts several prisoners’ communicated to their attorneys, Bogdan ordered a shakedown of their cells and guards confiscated personal items, which included pictures, legal papers, eyeglasses and isomats.
In January, an Afghan Taliban prisoner was shot in the throat in the recreation yard with a non-lethal round for allegedly trying to climb a fence. In early February, the prisoners’ Qurans were inspected for contraband. The handling of the holy books immediately led to the hunger strike.
Prisoners have told their attorneys since they launched their protest they have been physically abused by guards, subjected to sleep deprivation and forced cell extractions, denied potable water and have had the temperature in their prison cells turned down to freezing cold temperatures.
In mid-April, on Bogdan’s orders, guards staged a pre-dawn raid at the communal camp and isolated all of the prisoners into single cells in what was seen by attorneys and human rights groups as an attempt to break the hunger strike. If that was the hope it had the opposite effect as the number of prisoners who joined the protest doubled.
"Death...is imminent"
The military has vehemently denied the allegations. But the attorneys said in their letter if steps are not immediately taken to improve the quality of life for the prisoners, “Death - whether by suicide, starvation, organ failure, or associated complications - is imminent.”
Along with their letter, the attorneys also sent Hagel an August 2011 report prepared for the United Nations General Assembly by the UN’s special rapporteur for torture, which said solitary confinement rose to the level of inhumane and degrading treatment.
US Military attorneys say detainees are not being treated humanely [Jason Leopold/Al Jazeera]
Reached for comment late Monday, Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman, told Al Jazeera, "The Department does not discuss correspondence addressed to the Secretary, in the press.”
The attorneys’ letter said in addition to the inhumane living conditions hunger-striking prisoners residing in the two main prison camps - 5 and 6 - have been living under, 14 high-value detainees residing in Camp seven, a classified facility, are also not being treated humanely, an issue the attorneys raised with the Pentagon in a dozen previous letters that have gone unanswered. They have called for Hagel to immediately authorize an independent monitoring committee to investigate conditions of confinement at Guantanamo.
“You could change the course and the consequences of the hunger strike right now Secretary Hagel by taking ownership of these issued during the political stalemate” between President Obama and Congress over how to shutter the prison, the letter says. “At stake, as you know, is not just the inalienable right to human dignity - to be treated like a human being - but America’s standing in the world.”
Separately, the attorneys, citing a law school investigation, said Bogdan may have perjured himself when he testified before the military commissions earlier this year in Mohammed’s case about secret listening devices designed to look like smoke detectors that were placed in the rooms where attorneys meet with prisoners, but were never turned on. The investigation by Seton Hall University’s Center for Policy and Research concluded that Bogdan’s testimony was inconsistent about what he knew and when he knew it. The Seton Hall report was co-written by former Guantanamo guard Joseph Hickman.
“While Seton Hall’s finding are sufficient grounds to examine COL Bogdan’s fitness to command the Joint Detention Group, his leadership should warrant further scrutiny based on the rapidly deteriorating conditions under his command and his heavy-handed response to the current hunger strike,” the attorneys wrote.
Follow Jason Leopold on Twitter: @JasonLeopold |
It’s not hard to see how, in a Japanese-dominated society, pop art might have extended its global popularity with no Campbell’s Soup cans in sight. Illustration: Chloe Cushman
Pop art without Andy Warhol? Iconic cartoon mice repping the underground comic scene? These are the possibilities in a world where Japan defeated the United States in 1945.
Here’s an alternate look at art history, reimagining movements, tropes and trends that could have evolved much differently had the Allies lost the second world war.
J-pop … art?
One of the most influential postwar creative movements, pop art elevated advertising and mechanical reproduction to the level of fine art. Combining splashy, intense colors with recognizable, everyday subjects, the style forced viewers to reconsider the sophisticated techniques underlying seemingly mundane comic books, magazine advertisements and other objects.
Given Japan’s rich ad and comic culture, it’s not surprising the country developed a pop art style of its own. Before 1945, the popularity of propaganda kimonos hinted at the movement. Since the end of the war, the style has flourished as artists like Yayoi Kusama, who inspired Andy Warhol, used advertising’s bright colors, while others like Lady Aiko and Mr have adopted comic imagery. It’s not hard to see how, in a Japanese-dominated society, pop art might have extended its global popularity with no Campbell’s Soup cans in sight.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest In a Japan-dominated postwar world, American cartoonists probably would have been repressed and manga characters reaching US shores likely would have looked more realistically Japanese. Illustration: Chloe Cushman
Manga: underground no more
Contemporary manga is a hybrid of Japanese and American comic art, says Stephen Salel, the Honolulu Museum of Art’s Robert F Lange Foundation curator of Japanese art. Many manga elements, like characters’ large eyes and exaggerated expressions, owe their origin to US cartoon pioneers like Walt Disney.
In a Japan-dominated postwar world, American cartoonists probably would have been repressed, particularly those who contributed to wartime propaganda. Manga reaching US shores likely would have looked more realistically Japanese. And, Salel points out, as the preferred style of the victors, manga probably wouldn’t have conveyed the underground chic that’s made it so popular among US comic aficionados today. Imagine outlaw teens and proud geeks in a different world: would they have clustered around smuggled copies of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse?
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rōnin did find fertile ground in postwar American western films, but in an alternate timeline we might have seen an Old West rōnin carrying a sword alongside his six-shooter, fighting a cattle-rustling gang headed by the yakuza. Illustration: Chloe Cushman
Rōnin characters roam the big screen
The rōnin, or “wave man”, the masterless samurai forever cut off from mainstream society, is a powerful Japanese icon. Freed of traditional hierarchies, he wanders from place to place, using his skills to survive – and, in some tales, to protect the innocent and punish the wicked. Sound familiar? Rōnin did find fertile ground in postwar American culture, particularly in westerns, with characters ranging from the squeaky-clean Lone Ranger to Clint Eastwood’s grim “man with no name”.
Sometimes the rōnin-gunslinger relationship is explicit: The Magnificent Seven was a western remake of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, and the 1971 movie Red Sun united veterans of both movies in a unique “samurai western”. If Japanese aesthetics had dominated postwar Hollywood, we might have seen an Old West rōnin carrying a sword alongside his six-shooter, fighting a cattle-rustling gang headed by the yakuza.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Can you imagine a postwar Ivy League alum cooling down after a tennis match wearing a yukata? Illustration: Chloe Cushman
East meets East Coast: the new preppy
In the late 1800s, Japan began adopting Western clothing; by the 1940s, it was the standard wardrobe for daily life. But if Japan had won the war, it seems likely that many of its traditional textiles and designs would have filtered into Americans’ style. Can you see a postwar Ivy League alum cooling down after a tennis match wearing a Japanese robe called a yukata? Or a CEO’s suit lined with flashy, kimono-inspired fabric?
It’s not that hard to imagine, since similar looks have made it into American stores in the real world. Japanese retailer Uniqlo, renowned for its preppy clothes, also carries yukatas and Japanese-patterned shorts in its lineup. And Harajuku style, which merges American design and theatrical Japanese aesthetic, shows how the east Asian nation’s culture has impacted western clothing today.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest California wines might have had fanciful names written in the most elegant kanji, hiragana and katakana. Translations: Mako Ishikawa. Illustration: Chloe Cushman
Typography takes a turn
In the 1900s, increased industrialization and the rising cult of efficiency in the west signaled the end of flowery, Spencer-style penmanship. The efficient Palmer method streamlined handwriting, while the widespread adoption of the typewriter in the late 1800s and early 1900s accelerating the process. In Japan, on the other hand, pictographic kanji and the syllabic writing systems of hiragana and katakana had thousands of characters, which slowed the progress of one writing machine: the first Japanese typewriter had 2,400 keys.
Emojis before the smiling poop: New York museum acquires world's first set Read more
While it’s hard to picture a postwar Japanese occupation forcing Americans to adopt Japanese “alphabets”, it’s probable that signs and other public messages would have been printed in Japanese in certain regions, especially California. And this would likely have bled out into mainstream American writing, with Asian-inspired fonts and advertisements gaining popularity. “Brush-written calligraphy on elongated formats such as poetry cards [tanzaku] and hanging scrolls might have regained far more popularity than it currently enjoys,” Salel says.
As for pictographic writing, it’s not hard to see how it could have slowly worked its way into common usage – not unlike the emoji, which originated on Japanese cellphones in the 1990s and has since traversed the world.
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previously on MeFi: 1 - 2 - 3
also previously: Brené Brown on shame & vulnerability (one, two)
One: No good role modelsTwo: Can you be ‘bad’ and yet still – overall – good?Three: It will hurt you too much to hear thisFour: No one can understand me Effectively communicating your feelings : "I know that it can be hard to talk about your feelings. We’re not taught to do it, and we’re certainly not taught that it’s an important thing to learn. But it’s definitely a skill worth practicing. Because you’re worth being heard. I promise." Effective Communication - Improving your Social Skills "People aren’t born with good communication skills; like any other skill, they are learned through trial and error and repeated practice."BakadesuyoSucceed Socially Some Common Conversation Mistakes and Core Listening Skills How Self-Awareness Leads to Effective Communication : "Our previous experiences, believes, values, assumptions, judgments and bias influence the quality of our listening. Whenever we listen to something, we evaluate what we are hearing and this in turn triggers our emotional reactions and our judgment. If we hear something that contradicts our values or our interests, we tend to react, by becoming defensive; our ability to be effective listeners is hostage of our own filters." Are You a Poor Communicator? How to Improve : "...communicating with others can be a difficult and frustrating experience. There are times when we mean well, but because of the way we say what we say, our message is misunderstood, with unintended and undesirable consequences."Raptitude |
An LGBT pride march in Scotland has banned “cis” drag queens from marching out of the fear that it could offend transgender people.
Free Pride Glasgow is scheduled to take place in August, and bills itself as an alternative to the city’s main Pride event, which has allegedly become too commercialized.
“It was felt by the group within the Trans/Non Binary Caucus that some drag performance, particularly cis drag, hinges on the social view of gender and making it into a joke, however transgender individuals do not feel as though their gender identity is a joke,” organizers said in a statement.
According to the statement announcing the policy, some transsexuals found drag performances offensive because it “hinges on the social view of gender and making it into a joke.”
Initially, the policy was also going to ban transsexual drag queens, on the grounds that it would be inappropriate to ask individual queens whether they identified as transgender or not. But then that policy offended the transgender drag queens, who complained, leading to a new policy where trans drag queens are welcome but wicked cis queens are banned (“Cisgender” means a person who identifies with their actual, physical sex).
Free Pride Glasgow justified its decision in a Monday Facebook post, saying they were deliberately choosing to desires of transgender women more than others.
“Our event aims to represent those underrepresented in our community, including but not limited to trans and non-binary people, women, People of colour, intersex people, asexual people and people with disabilities,” the post said. “As such we have decided to prioritise the needs of trans women to feel safe and included in our event.”
The decision earned a rebuke from the main Glasgow Pride event.
“Pride Glasgow believes that any community group should be given their place to flourish but that success should not be built on the negativity and ignorance towards other events, groups and like minded people and we are saddened to see that this is the direction that Free Pride has chosen to take.”
Opposition to drag queens is surprisingly common, at least on the British left. Earlier this year, the National Union of Students officially condemned drag and cross-dressing as forms of “fancy dress.”
“Transphobic fancy dress should be met with the same disdain with which we meet other prejudiced or appropriative costumes,” the group said at the time.
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Labor is a hot topic in Paris. (Loic Venance/AFP via Getty Images)
The French government recently faced huge protests against unpopular changes to the country's labor law.
Most of its critics would argue that French workers increasingly face burnout and exhaustion. But one employee has had far different problems: He sued his former company because his job was allegedly extremely boring.
The plaintiff, 44-year-old Parisian Frédéric Desnard, is demanding more than $400,000 from his former employer, a perfume enterprise, as compensation for the boredom it allegedly caused. According to the Frenchman, the company should be held responsible for mental and other health damages as well as the financial consequences of him missing out on a promotion.
Desnard claims that he was removed from his previous high-profile position in the company, which included managing certain contracts and travel expenses. For the next four years, he was asked to carry out much duller tasks.
Speaking to French newspaper Le Monde, Desnard said his company wanted to bore him "to death" in order to convince him to quit voluntarily and therefore limit severance payments. But amid a sluggish French economy, Desnard simply decided to stay and do nothing. In the following four years, he reportedly earned more than $90,000 per year -- but the money did not fulfill him, he said.
"I was ashamed to be paid to do nothing," Desnard was quoted as saying by AFP. In an interview, he described the time as "hell" and "a nightmare," which caused multiple health issues, including "epilepsy, ulcers, sleep problems and serious depression."
The Frenchman was fired two years ago after a car crash forced him to go on sick leave for more than half a year. After having paid him a salary of about $360,000 over four years, his employer stated that his prolonged absence was interrupting work processes and ended their relationship.
A verdict is expected July 27.
Read more:
French shop run by Muslim convert refused to sell merchandise to women on weekdays
These students wore hijabs for a day to promote tolerance. It didn’t go well. |
In 2010, Rachel Bradshaw-Bean — 17 at the time — was raped in the band room of her Texas high school, Henderson High. When she reported the assault to the assistant band director, he told her to "work it out with the boy." Two days later, she and a friend tried to report the assault to the assistant vice principal. She then received medical exam that showed lacerations to the hymen and bleeding "consistent with information given per the victim." A day later, she was told by the police that no criminal charges would be filed. The school did not launch its own investigation — although it was legally obligated to do so under Title IX — and instead sentenced her and her rapist to 45 days in a special disciplinary school. Their charge: "public lewdness."
Two years after her rape, Bradshaw-Bean has decided to speak out to NBC because she doesn't want anyone else "to have to go through what I did," she told reporter Abigail Pesta. She feels that her case was egregiously mishandled. Firstly, she believes that the fact that she didn't cry in her forensic interview caused the police to take her accusation less seriously. "I'm sorry, am I supposed to cry? Am I supposed to feel the emotions you tell me to?... Am I supposed to feel these emotions right now and not go into shock and not [not] know what's happening?" she asked in a taped segment with the channel. According to her account, the police were eager to push her case under the rug; she was told by the police that the sex was consensual and that there was no evidence to prove otherwise. The District Attorney of her county told NBC that she had used language that "implied consensual sex instead of forcible rape" when the police interviewed her, but he doesn't have any record of the context in which she made that statement in his notes. "I was reporting a rape," Bradshaw-Bean insisted in response. "It sounds like my words are getting twisted. If you have to twist someone's words to make your case, then something's not right."
She adds that she felt "like a prisoner" — at the disciplinary school she'd been exiled to, she saw her rapist in the hallways, when she was arriving in the morning and going to the bathroom. She tried to transfer to a different high school and was denied because the "public lewdness" charge was a stain on her record. Other students taunted her, threatening her and insinuating that she had "asked for it." After graduation, she says, "My personality changed. I didn't want to do anything. I blamed myself for the longest time." In June 2012, though, things started to look up. Bradshaw-Bean's mother, Colleen Chevallier, had filed a Title IX complaint against the school with the ACLU. And in June, a little over a year and a half after her rape, Bradshaw-Bean finally got word that the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights had ruled that Henderson High School was in violation of Title IX for failing to independently investigate the case and for its inability to provide "a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason" behind their decision to send Bradshaw-Bean to the disciplinary school.
The ED outlined and instituted a 13-point plan to bring Henderson High in line with its Title IX obligations. As part of that, the faculty was made to undergo extensive training — which was very necessary because, as Pesta points out, most high schools' Title IX coordinators don't have a real, firm grasp of what the law entails. The disciplinary actions taken against Bradshaw-Bean were also scrubbed from her record, and the school had to pay for her to undergo counseling.
"The counselor really helped," said Bradshaw-Bean. "Finally, I thought, there are some smart people in the world—rational people with levelheaded thoughts. It restored my faith in humanity." As of December 4, 2013, the school is in compliance with all 13 requirements mandated by the ED, and ED officials are still monitoring the school at the present moment. As for Bradshaw-Bean, she plans to go on to study criminal justice and criminal psychology. "I can help others facing injustice of their own," she said.
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WASHINGTON — One by one, President Barack Obama ticked through the names on the Spurs’ roster during Monday’s ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
He mentioned Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, of course. Kawhi Leonard, Boris Diaw and Tiago Splitter. He named Patty Mills and Marco Belinelli, lamenting that the latter no longer played for the president’s beloved Chicago Bulls.
Obama even brought up Matt Bonner, calling him “a sandwich blogger named 'Red Mamba.’”
Cory Joseph’s name never came up, and for good reason. In his first three mostly forgettable seasons with the Spurs, the backup point guard has been easy to miss.
“I felt coming into this year I had something to prove,” he said. “I still have something to prove.”
Thirty-six games into a make-or-break season for him, Joseph has shown he can be a solid NBA point guard.
Whether the free-agent-to-be still will be doing it in San Antonio at this time next season remains to be seen.
“I’m always going to feel like I deserve a job in the NBA,” said Joseph, averaging career highs in points (10.3) and assists (3.1) heading into Tuesday’s game at Washington. “I put in the work. I’m always going to compete to the best of my abilities. Whatever happens on that end, I leave to my agent.”
When the Spurs declined to extend Joseph’s rookie-scale contract in October, opening the door for him to become a restricted free agent this summer, it appeared he would not be back because the team had no need for him.
Now it looks like he might not be back because the team won’t be able to afford him.
With Parker and Mills missing chunks of the season with injuries, Joseph has been something of a savior for the Spurs’ backcourt.
The last time the Spurs played Washington, on Jan. 3, Joseph held his own against All-Star John Wall, going for 17 of his 19 points in the first half of a 101-92 win.
Another moment: With the Spurs teetering late in a comeback win over Phoenix on Friday, Joseph put his head down and bulldozed for six consecutive points.
“He always impressed me with the way he plays,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “He is not blessed with the most talent in the world, but I don’t think there is anybody on the planet who gets more out of what he’s got.”
Still, until this season Joseph was a fringe NBA player. One reason Obama didn’t mention him Monday: Joseph totaled only eight minutes against Miami in last season’s Finals.
So when the Spurs declined to extend him in the fall, Joseph was hardly surprised.
“I knew I didn’t play much in my first few seasons,” said Joseph, a 23-year-old Texas-ex. “I didn’t even ask my agent about it (an extension). I just assumed they wouldn’t.”
Instead, Joseph put on his hard hat and went to work, determined to grow himself into an NBA player.
It was the approach Joseph took from the beginning, when the Spurs selected him 29th in the 2011 draft, 14 spots behind the more heralded Kawhi Leonard.
Devoid of playing time his first few seasons, Joseph occasionally requested to be demoted to the Spurs’ Development League club in Austin to get minutes.
For Joseph, much of the work involved in becoming an established NBA player was accomplished in solitude.
“There were times when I was in Austin, in the gym by myself, maybe with nobody to rebound for me,” Joseph said. “I would go to to the gym a lot — a lot — and just work out.”
The work seems poised to pay off for Joseph in a literal sense. He just might have to leave San Antonio to get paid.
The Spurs have $44.4 million committed to Parker after this season and another $7.1 million to Mills.
Joseph is probably due a raise from the $2.02 million he is earning this season, but it is hard to envision the Spurs paying a third point guard much beyond that.
For now, the Spurs will take whatever they can get from Joseph. With Parker and Mills easing back into the rotation, look for Popovich to seek creative ways to keep all three point guards in the mix.
The president might have forgotten Joseph, but the Spurs have not.
“He’s stepped up and really taken the opportunity and run with it,” Duncan said. “I’m really proud of him. He’s showed he can play in the league and really play well.”
jmcdonald
@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN |
A woman who slashed another woman’s face in a “moment of madness or jealousy”, leaving her permanently disfigured, has been given a six year sentence.
Kinsi Abdullah Dirir (33) was convicted of assault causing serious harm to mother-of-five Habiba Songolo (40) at a house on Foxborough Rise, Lucan, Co Dublin on May 17th, 2008.
Dirir had denied the charge at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, however she admitted causing criminal damage to a car outside the house on the same day.
Dirir, who was born in Somalia and came to Ireland aged six, has no previous convictions. A probation report put her at high risk of re-offending.
The court heard the attack happened after Dirir discovered that her former husband was in a relationship with the victim.
Dirir, a mother-of-three of Hollybrook Park, Clontarf, was acquitted by a jury of carrying a razor blade on the same occasion.
Judge Desmond Hogan said the victim had suffered very serious injuries and continued to suffer traumatic effects, bordering on depression.
He suspended the final 18 months of the sentence for four years, after hearing Dirir’s family had offered the sum of €2,000 as compensation to the victim.
Judge Hogan took into account Dirir’s long history of mental illness and ordered that she receive appropriate medication in custody. |
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Photo: Getty Images Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Image 2 of 4 Chris Dominguez of the San Francisco Giants is congratulated after hitting a two-run home run during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park September, 21, 2014 in San Diego. less Chris Dominguez of the San Francisco Giants is congratulated after hitting a two-run home run during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park September, 21, 2014 in San ... more Photo: Getty Images Image 3 of 4 Chris Dominguezof the San Francisco Giants sits in the dugout after an 8-2 loss to the San Diego Padres at Petco Park September, 21, 2014 in San Diego. Chris Dominguezof the San Francisco Giants sits in the dugout after an 8-2 loss to the San Diego Padres at Petco Park September, 21, 2014 in San Diego. Photo: Getty Images Image 4 of 4 SF Giants rookie hits first home run, gets cute messages on ball 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
Chris Dominguez was beaming despite Sunday’s 8-2 loss, and nobody could blame him. Making his first major-league start, the 27-year-old rookie homered against Ian Kennedy for his first big-league hit.
The ball went over the fence down the left-field line, hit off the Western Metal Supply Co. building and wound up in the hands of a little girl named Estella who was celebrating her birthday.
The Padres dispatched an employee to retrieve the ball, but before a swap could be completed, the little girl’s sister got ahold of the ball and wrote on it, “Happy birthday, love M.”
The girl agreed to give the ball to Dominguez, but not before she added her own missive. She wrote, “Congratulations, (heart) Estella.”
“That is awesome,” Dominguez said when he saw the inscriptions. “I think it’s great for the memories.” |
Israeli Occupation Forces Kill Two Palestinians, Kidnap 370 In May
In its monthly report on Israeli violations, the Ahrar Center for Detainees’ Studies and Human Rights has reported that Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians in May, and kidnapped 370.
The Center said that the army shot and killed Nadim Nuwwara, 17, and Mohammad Abu Thaher, 20, near the Ofer Israeli military roadblock, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah. The two were killed on May 15, during Nakba Day protests.
Israeli army sharpshooters killed the two following clashes with the army as the Palestinians marked the Nakba Day. Video footage showed the two walking away, with their backs to the army location, when they were killed.
As for arrests carried out by the Israeli occupation army, the Center said that 370 Palestinians were kidnapped in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
In Jerusalem, soldiers kidnapped 118 Palestinians, the highest number of arrests in May, while 86 Palestinians were kidnapped in the Hebron district, 40 in Nablus, 30 in Bethlehem, 27 in Ramallah, 27 in Jenin, 16 in Qalqilia, 8 in Salfit, 4 in Tulkarem, and two in Tubas.
In addition, 12 Palestinians were kidnapped in the besieged Gaza Strip; three of them were kidnapped near the border fence, and nine were Palestinian fishers were kidnapped by the Israeli Navy in Palestinian territorial waters.
Also in May, the army kidnapped five Palestinian women in different parts of occupied Palestine, and released three of them, while two remained under interrogation.
Head of the Ahrar Center, Fuad al-Khoffash, stated that Israel is escalating the arrests, especially amongst young Palestinians, and that Israeli interrogators continue to use cruel interrogation methods, and extreme torture, in direct violation of International Law and all related human rights treaties.
He added that the arrests are happening while Administrative Detainees, held by Israel under arbitrary orders without charges or trial, are ongoing with their hunger strike despite the fact that many detainees are facing life-threatening conditions, and serious complications. |
The following table contains the main stats for all ADVENT units present in version 1.4 of Long War 2, including the units introduced by Shen's Last Gift and Alien Hunters DLCs.
The stat values can be influenced by the difficulty level (Rookie/Veteran/Commander/Legendary) and those are also displayed accordingly.
Other Stats
In addition to the stats listed above there are others that have very limited use. Here's a list of those stats and the specific situations where they are used
Flank Aim - only used by the Sidewinders with a value of 5, 0 for all other units
Flank Crit - default of 33/33/40/40 for each difficulty level, Elite Sidewinders have the values at 40/40/50/50
Strength - propose/use unknown, has a default value of 50, and higher values for units like Mutons and Stun Lancers
Items - default value of 1 of nearly all units, with the exception of the ADVENT Engineer/Grenadiers, which is set for 9
Sources |
You may recall that of all of the games I saw at E3, Eador: Masters of the Broken World was the one that caught my eye despite the lack of a huge booth and go-go dancers. Of course I have no idea how the game will come together in the end but if Snowbird Games hits its target — this is going to be something special.
When you are developing a game and tossing about words such as Master of Magic, Civilization and Heroes of Might and Magic you immediately draw the usual cries of, “Oh great another attempt at a MoM sequel” but Eador has the foundation in place and looks like it just might pull it off.
I had a chat with Vladimir Tortsov of Snowbird to talk about the game, its design, and a host of other goodies.
This one is long. Bring a snack.
First off, can you clear something up for us? I read an article recently which describes Eador as a “real- time strategy game” and yet the demo I saw at E3 looked clearly like a turn-based game. Is Eador real-time or turn-based?
You saw it correctly, of course it’s turn-based. It was some kind of misinterpretation in that other article.
OK, now that we have that out of the way, can you tell us what Eador is all about? What exactly will you be doing in the game – how do you “win”?
From the very beginning of the game Eador poses a challenge: try to unify the shattered pieces of a planet under your rule, or lose. By invading the other shards (that’s how we call these pieces of firmament floating in the astral void) and conquering them, your alter-ego, the Master, becomes more powerful and better able to shape the world as he wants.
Thus, Eador. Masters of the Broken World is all about achieving ultimate power and using it to do good or evil, depending on the player’s choice. In this sense, it’s pretty similar to the idea behind Sid Meier’s Civilization, except that in our game there are concepts of evil and good and you have to make a choice all the time.
Technically speaking, the gameplay consists of three connected levels: astral, strategic and tactical. Having invaded a shard (the astral level), the players land on its surface (strategic level) and, after a series of battles (tactical level), they conquer the shard and literally attach it to their homeland. Add in diplomacy, army and hero management, internal affairs and moral dilemmas to the mix, and you get the game.
I came away from the E3 demo excited to see more because it looks like Eador is borrowing from so many turn-based strategy staples, but this is such a large game – how challenging is it to combine so many different gameplay elements into one package? It looks like there are so many moving parts with the design.
Yeah, it’s a clockwork with a huge number of details. I have to give the full credit for this amazing work to our lead game designer Alexey Bokulev, who is an extremely creative person and a huge fan of old-school strategy games.
In fact, Eador was born from Alexey’s wish to play a perfect strategy game combining all the best features from his favorite games such as Master of Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic, and Civilization. Designing that dream game was a very complicated task indeed, but he succeeded. You can check some screenshots from the 2D version of Eador (released in 2010 in CIS countries only) here: http://www.eador.com/eador1/gallery.html. With this 3D remake we’re working on, we’re trying to introduce this extraordinary strategy game to the worldwide audience.
The combat model based off the E3 demo reminded me a lot of Heroes of Might and Magic and King’s Bounty. What makes Eador’s combat mechanic special? When readers see the screenshots they think, “Oh a HoMM clone.” Can you explain some of the differences between the two?
Yeah, it’s true – the tactical screen is the most ‘classic’ of them all. Well, the difference lies in the details. Our battleground isn’t just a field with a grid – it represents the real location with different types of terrain and obstacles. It matters a lot, because terrain affects the performance of your troops providing various bonuses and penalties. Unlike HoMM, our units don’t stack, so you couldn’t “cheat” by amassing a huge army of dragons on a single hex and eradicating all resistance. Finally, each unit has dynamically changing attributes like morale and stamina, which makes this combat system closer to the tabletop games with miniatures than to HoMM or King’s Bounty.
Can you talk a little about the various hero types that lead your armies? How do they differ fro one another and can you guide them down various paths by spending experience points?
There are four basic types of heroes in the game. They serve as generals for your armies and participate in battles alongside other units.
A Warrior is a strong melee fighter, relying on his physical strength and equipment. He is a ‘one man army’, requiring only limited support from other units.
A Scout is a skilled archer, also possessing a broad variety of non-combat utility skills such as a possibility to sabotage enemy army before the battle.
A Commander is weak in melee, but he can lead a larger army than any other hero of comparable level, granting an assortment of bonuses to his troops as he leads them into battle.
A Mage is, naturally, a very skilled spellcaster who can easily turn the tide of battle with a couple of powerful magic tricks.
Every unit in the game (including heroes, of course) gains experience points and progresses in levels. When a hero reaches level 10, he ascends to new class, either an advanced version of his initial specialization or a combination with any of the three remaining base classes. For example, our Warrior could keep his initial focus on melee and become a Berserker possessing some exciting new perks, or he can turn into a Dark Knight, able to cast deadly necromantic spells.
When you attack a shard, what sort of things will you have to manage? This “overland” portion of the game looked meaty at E3 but I was hoping to get some more information about some of the tasks and gameplay mechanics that are involved with it. What do you have to do to run your economy, for example? Do you obtain gold, wood, etc?
The strategic level is the most complex one in the game, as there is lot of stuff to take care about – economics, politics, warfare, etc. First of all, the players should expand their capital, which is their main base of operations on the shard. By choosing which buildings he needs most and constructing them, the player shapes up his strategy. Military buildings allow him to hire stronger troops; financial buildings help to increase his income, while entertainment buildings assist him in keeping the population happy.
Concerning resources, there are two basic ones: gold and magic gems. The gems are required for all our magical needs, while gold is needed for pretty much everything else. There are also nine rare resources in the game such as mithril or redwood lumber. Each rare resource has its specific purpose: for instance, mithril is used to create the most powerful artifacts with magical effects and lumber is required for the construction of some advanced buildings in the city.
What are some of the role-playing mechanics at work in Eador? I seem to recall something about hero quests during the E3 demo? Can you give me some examples of how that works?
Yeah, as I’ve said before – not just your heroes, but all units in the game level-up and get some new perks and abilities. For instance, your knights can acquire the passive ability to deal more damage to evil units starting from level 8, while your ogres may learn how to stun the enemy troops on level 3.
Speaking of quests, each hero can be assigned with an exploration task instead of a military one. It means our hero could spend his time in an allied province, wandering around and looking for places of interest. Each province has a number of dungeons, crypts, caves, magic shops etc., and our hero could visit all these beautiful places in order to gain some experience fighting the guardians and to plunder their treasures. Even if our hero was unable to find anything unusual during his search, exploration is a great way to increase tax income of that province (we can imagine that our hero is actually looking for more taxpayers to rip off, rather than for the monsters to slay?)
You mentioned unit stamina and morale? How do those affect gameplay?
Stamina represents the unit’s ability to carry out our orders – i.e. move or attack. Each action costs a specific amount of stamina points, and when the unit is attacked by the enemy, his stamina suffers as well. The unit with zero stamina is considered utterly exhausted and becomes completely useless. Therefore, the player should review the state of his troops and give his tired units a break to catch their breath.
Morale works a little bit different, but the effect is quite similar. The unit’s morale depends on many factors, including the general’s stats, magical effects, army composition and current battlefield situation. A demoralized unit cannot fight and will most probably try to flee the battle.
How does diplomacy work? What can be accomplished by talking to your opponents and not just stabbing them?
The diplomacy system is working on two levels – astral and strategic.
On the astral level, we can learn more about our competitors – the other Masters – by speaking to them. There is a strong chance that we’d want to ally ourselves with a fellow Master who shares our views and beliefs. These ‘astral’ alliances lead to different story paths, eventually providing us with different endings.
There is also a strategic level diplomacy, which takes place during the war over some particular shard. It is possible that some other Masters also chose this shard as their target during their turn, and in this case, diplomacy becomes a powerful tool of survival. Instead of fighting the war on two or more fronts, we can negotiate with some of our adversaries and convince them to leave this shard for good. We can also sign a trade agreement with other Masters and sell or buy resources.
What sort of creatures are you able to recruit in the game? Do you play a specific race such as the “Undead” or can you mix and match your unit types within an army or on various shards?
In Eador, you play as yourself – meaning that you don’t represent elves, orcs or humans when you’re hiring them. You’re the Master, a demigod, and these puny mortals are nothing but pawns in your great game. Thus, you can mix & match units from different races as you want, but you have to pay attention to the chemistry. Goblins and elves don’t really get along together, so you can expect a penalty to the troops’ morale on a battlefield.
The player may ally with any of the races populating a particular shard, thus gaining access to its warriors (but you have to construct a specific building in your capital before that). Alternately, some particular units may join your ranks as a result of a completed quest.
The game looked enormous at the show – how “big” of a game is Eador? Can you customize the options for a shorter game or is that set in stone?
If we’re talking about hours of gameplay, I’d say the first playthrough of Eador could take you about 60 hours to beat the game. Once you’ve learned the tricks and understood the basics, you can finish the game in half that time. Thus, the duration of the story-driven campaign is more or less set in stone, but in the ‘skirmish’ mode (strategic + tactical levels) you can adjust all the settings as you wish.
Let’s talk a little about the random events that pop up from time to time. How involved are these events and are there enough in the game that you won’t see the same ones too often?
According to our latest inspection, there are 1,264 different ‘event dialogues’, so there shouldn’t be a problem with their variety. Some of them are simple and last only for one round, while some others are more complex and may lead to unexpected outcomes a few turns later. Some of them are connected to your heroes, while others could happen anytime and anywhere.
Lastly, are you still on track for a 2012 release?
So far – yes, we’re still aiming for this year. Wish us luck with that!
I’d like to thank Vladimir for talking with us and you can hopefully grab Eador sometime in 2012 on a PC near you. |
As feathers settle at the end of yet another Edinburgh Fringe Festival, this year's event—celebrating its 69th birthday—showed that, despite its staunch old age, material at the fest is increasingly relevant to contemporary discourses on social media, research, science, and technology.
These topics underpinned many of the performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. One such example was The Sick of The Fringe conceived by artist, performer, and Wellcome Trust engagement fellow Brian Lobel.
He explained the rationale behind the show to Ars: "As a performer in Edinburgh for the last eight summers, I found myself frustrated by the lack of nuanced conversation, particularly about issues of health, the body, trauma, illness, and disability." He added:
I hope that The Sick of the Fringe is a safer platform for artists making work on their body, providing spaces for nuanced conversation, and opportunities for connections among artists making work on subjects which are difficult, and identities that are marginalised by differences in health and presumed capacity. I also hope that The Sick of the Fringe provides space for those working in health, medicine, and research—both here in Edinburgh and abroad—to engage with the ideas put forward by artists at the Fringe, which we hope will inspire new research, new policy, and a renewed sense of purpose.
As a member of the Sick of the Fringe team of writers in Edinburgh this year, I was asked to become part of the discourse among artists who are making work that deals directly with their own experiences relating to, say, sickness, racism, or discrimination.
We were asked to diagnose their performances by looking beyond the production quality or entertainment value of the piece, and to instead analyse the ideas presented in the work and its context within scientific and medical inquiry—often pushing writers beyond their comfort zone. While undertaking my diagnosis, I was surprised by the preponderance of performances surrounding social media and sexuality, which suggested an emerging trend in how artists' experiences of new technological platforms are being reflected upon and filtered through to the diverse audiences that attend the Fringe.
Performers would often do their best to turn audience members into collaborators by asking them to tweet or blog questions or reaction.
One such performance was Blush—created by Snuff Box theatre in association with Underbelly Untapped—which presents the primal responses to those whose lives have been affected adversely by online porn.
It included stories that address revenge porn, porn addiction, and looked at how seeking validation and approval through sexual activity online can be harmful. Characters created by Charlotte Josephine were all defined by exposure to sexually explicit online content. A desk bell is used to simulate online notifications of venomously sexist comments. Every so often a blinding camera flash lit the stage to remind the audience that any intimate selfie can instantly become common digital property. And those targeted are left with little in the way of justice as revenge porn laws struggle to be enforced.
Blush certainly brought together familiar narratives and cautionary tales for the technological age.
Continuing that theme, Infinity Pool: A Modern Retelling of Madame Bovary by Bea Roberts explored technology and sexuality by updating Gustave Flaubert’s enduring narrative on adultery for the sexting age. The performance had no actors but—with the use of a TV, a soundboard, several projectors, an animated Powerpoint presentation, and a variety of physical props—it managed to be an immersive performance. Roberts showed staggering flexibility and skill in exploring how tech can lead to loss of sexual intimacy while lubricating virtual betrayal. The evolution of online relationships is detailed here in a flurry of flirtatious e-mails and suggestive sexting.
The vast programme of the Fringe, ensures that—for every serious reflection on the dark side of humanity and technology—there’s some light relief, often taking place in minuscule, dimly lit catacomb cellars with an alternative context for tackling scientific themes. Stand up performances strangely included reason and critical thinking in The Fringe of Reason—Undiluted Brilliance, while Dan Simpson's Artificial Ineloquence warned audiences of the imminent world domination by deep learning AIs, and Dissecting the Joke saw scientists and sceptics take to the stage.
Gareth Morinan’s performance, Graph Giraffe, used Venn diagrams and bell curves to call out "heightism," privilege, and what he believes would be the benefits of living in a "Dataocracy." Using some slightly suspicious statistics to educate the audience about lanky privilege, he suggested height wasn't a simple linear scale because it must be a function of gender, and in fact all privilege factors are also functions of something else. All of which led to some impressive privilege based equations.
A government ruling through evidence based policy instead of being 99 percent ideologically based, he reckoned, would lead to more data that is recorded and openly available. I’m sure Edward Snowden would approve.
The Wellcome Trust has said that it wants to spend £5 billion on research projects over the next five years—an important shot in the arm for projects such as The Sick of the Fringe, which will be back in Edinburgh in 2017. Meanwhile, a mid-February festival in London is planned.
Lobel told Ars that he has separately been working on There is a Light, a theatrical adaptation of the BRIGHTLIGHT study—the largest research ever undertaken with young adults who suffer from cancer.
***
Lucy Orr grew up close to CERN and Fermilab, while her father was busy searching for the Higgs boson (which he eventually found). While waiting for her mutant powers to manifest, Lucy kept herself occupied programming BASIC, reading comics, and playing MUDs. With an extensive career in digital art and animation, she still finds time to pet ferrets, listen to pop punk, and drink cider. |
. --- Georgia juniorhas become the first Bulldog to win the Butkus Award, given to the nation's best collegiate linebacker.Smith, a native of Montezuma, Ga., garnered 60 percent of the first-place votes and 40 percent of the overall weighted vote, which is a greater margin than any linebacker in the past decade. He was chosen from the other finalists of Michigan's Devin Bush, Virginia Tech's Tremaine Edmunds, Wisconsin's T.J. Edwards and Clemson's Dorian O'Daniel, according to an announcement from the Butkus Foundation.Smith is the first Georgia player to win the Butkus Award in its 33-year history since 1985. There have been three other Bulldog finalists four different years in recent history, including Leonard Floyd (2015), Jarvis Jones (2011, 2012) and Justin Houston (2010).proved to be the overwhelming favorite in this year's collegiate linebacking class," according to the award selection committee. "He's always around the ball and is very tough, fast and instinctive, with exceptional football reflexes. He makes his presence felt all over the field and hits with the type of explosion that has come to define the Butkus Award. As terrific of a football player as he is, Roquan is highly regarded by teammates, coaches and support staff for his intelligence, intensity and leadership traits."Also a finalist for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy and the Chuck Bednarik Award, Smith has earned midseason All-American honors by leading the team for a second year in a row with 113 tackles (8.7 tackles/game) during Georgia's 12-1 campaign, highlighted by its 13Southeastern Conference title and first since 2005 this past weekend.Smith has added 10.5 tackles for loss, a team-leading 5.5 sacks, two fumble recoveries and a forced fumble to lead the Bulldogs. With the help from Butkus Award semifinalist, Georgia ranks second nationally in Passing Yards Allowed (158.3 yards/game), third in Scoring Defense (13.8 points/game) and fourth in Total Defense (270.9 yards/game).Georgia has held its last three opponents to a combined seven points in the second half, including the Bulldogs' 28-7 rout of second-ranked Auburn in the SEC Championship Game. In addition, Georgia blanked Tennessee 41-0 during the regular season, snapping the nation's fourth-longest active scoring streak and the sixth-longest streak in college football history.The third-ranked Bulldogs (12-1) travel to Pasadena, Calif., to face second-ranked Oklahoma (12-1) in the College Football Playoff's semifinal round in the Rose Bowl on Monday, January 1. Kickoff is at 5:10 p.m. ET.The Butkus Award selection committee is comprised of 51 football coaches, recruiters, talent scouts and journalists who study football talent yearlong. Selectors are asked to recognize qualities that defined Butkus' career; toughness, on-field leadership, competitiveness, football character, and linebacking skills. Selectors follow a 3-2-1 voting procedure for five named finalists or any linebacker they choose to write in.The 2017 high school winner is Solomon Tuliaupupu of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, Calif. The 2017 pro winner will be announced after the NFL season, succeeding 2016 winner Khalil Mack of the Oakland Raiders.The Butkus Award is presented by the Butkus Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit organization which advances health and wellness through special initiatives including the I Play Clean® program. The Butkus Award is part of the National College Football Awards Association (NFCAA), which includes 23 awards honoring 800 individuals since 1935. |
A new video shows lots of cops restraining a suspect. Is it police misconduct or necessary force? One thing is clear: You'll only see the video here.
This is something we don't normally get to see -- what happens when a drunk driving suspect refuses to give his blood to police.
But there's a video inside the Pasadena jail, last July. Nine cops will get in the action.
"It almost looks like each officer that runs through the door is wanting to get a piece of the action, more so than stopping to look and see if their assistance is even needed," defense attorney Jim Medley said.
"They were beating on this guy excessively, stomping his broke leg," Defense Attorney Sam Cammack said. "He was basically begging for mercy."
It's video that's creating more tension.
"It looks like police held a whoop-a-black-man party that was held and sponsored by law enforcement officers," Community Activist Quanell X said.
Curtis Nelson was questioned by Houston police after a traffic wreck that wasn't his fault. The Houston police officer doesn't do a full sobriety test. Instead, Nelson is taken to the Pasadena jail. With a search warrant, his blood will be drawn there whether he likes it or not.
You hear Nelson begging for another way.
"Can I do a sobriety test?" he says in the video.
''He's been afraid of needles since he was old enough to talk," said Nelson's attorney.
But the cops will try to put him in the restraint chair, and Curtis Nelson doesn't want to go.
"This is what happens to citizens, that people don't get to see all the time, if you say, 'I don't want you to draw blood,'" Cammack said.
"We got a fighter," you hear an officer saying in the video.
One officer will grab him around the neck, and he'll be taken to the floor. Then a total of nine officers join in.
"You got nine officers on one man who's got a broke leg, who's already on the ground," Quanell X said. "You can see one officer clearly kneeing the young man as he was lying down on the ground, kneeing him on his side; then you saw him punching him at the same time."
One officer appears to step on Nelson's broken leg. You hear at least one officer using profanity.
The officers tell him to stop resisting.
"'Stop resisting' was nothing more than stage rhetoric to justify what they were doing to him," Quanell X said.
The male nurse positions himself right between two chairs in the middle of the room, maybe just a coincidence that it blocked a full camera view of the incident; maybe not.
"I don't care if he was black, green, red, but it makes you pause to think that this would have happened to a 16-year-old white female," Cammack said.
After he's restrained, Nelson is not put back in the chair to get the needle. The nurse sticks him right there on the ground.
"Why would you just take a needle and ram it in somebody's arm on a dirty, dusty floor inside of a jail, which is not one of the cleanest places anybody could be in," Quanell X said.
A judge threw out the needle results this week after lawyers argued it was done with excessive force and in unsanitary conditions.
But they now want you to see what happened to Curtis Nelson.
Coming after the Tolan verdict and the suspension of eight Houston cops for an alleged beating, this video won't help calm tensions.
"This city is on the verge of erupting in a full scale riot against police officers," Quanell X said.
We reached out to Pasadena police tonight, and they couldn't comment until Friday.
But you can see the entire incident caught on camera -- from theto the
The DA's office tells us Nelson was intoxicated because blood alcohol content was 1.9. |
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Dragan Vasiljkov, centre, has been convicted of war crimes
A former Serbian paramilitary commander with Australian dual citizenship has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for war crimes.
Dragan Vasiljkovic, also known as "Captain Dragan", was convicted of torturing prisoners and a deadly attack on a village during the Croatian war of independence in the early 1990s.
He had been living in Australia prior to his extradition to Croatia in 2015.
Vasiljkovic, 62, was convicted by a court in the town of Split on Tuesday.
The court heard that Vasiljkovic had directed his subordinates to torture captured Croat soldiers in a makeshift prison he had set up in the rebel Serb stronghold of Knin.
He was also found guilty of orchestrating an attack on the town of Glina which killed two civilians and forced others to flee their homes.
Vasiljkovic was acquitted of the 1993 torture and murder of two Croat soldiers in another village.
Long process
During the year-long trial, witnesses told the court of the abuse they had suffered at the hands of Vasiljkovic and his unit.
The former commander has maintained his innocence, calling the trial an "oppressive fascist process".
Vasiljkovic moved to Australia in 1969 and later spent four years in the nation's army reserves before being courted by Serbian intelligence chiefs, The Australian reported.
He was arrested in Australia in 2006, where he had been working as a golf instructor under the name Daniel Snedden.
Vasiljkovic fought for almost a decade to prevent his extradition from Australia, arguing he would not receive a fair trial in Croatia.
His lawyers have said they will appeal the sentence. |
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Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 317
Ryzom Blog, Facebook, Twitter, and at the Paris Game Festival and the German IRL
In this last year, we have rolled out four patches. Now we are in September and it's time to get things rolling on the Ryzom front again. One of the areas that we will be working on is something you've all been asking for: Communication!
Yes, that's right. We still think actions speak louder than words, but now we're going to give you more words as well. We're going to keep you better informed of our thoughts, plans and actions and to make this possible and as dynamic as possible we have set up accounts on some social networking sites:
Facebook : Come join the Official Ryzom Group on Facebook.
: Come join the Official Ryzom Group on Facebook. Blog : You can now read the Official Ryzom Blog. We will communicate there exclusively in English for reasons of simplicity and speed, but please feel free to translate what we say there and post it on Facebook.
: You can now read the Official Ryzom Blog. We will communicate there exclusively in English for reasons of simplicity and speed, but please feel free to translate what we say there and post it on Facebook. Twitter: Join us on Twitter. We will "tweet" in English, usually, but you are free to re-tweet in your language if you want.
It's also possible to come meet and talk to members of the Ryzom Team:
In Paris, France, we will be attending the Paris Game Festival on September 19th and 20th. We won't have an exhibit there but Ryzom CTO Vianney Lecroart (vl), as well as other members of the dev and CSR teams will be roaming around the festival laden with goodies. You can find more information about this event on
In Bochum, Germany, on November 14th, one of Ryzom's biggest fans, Acridiel, will be organising an IRL. Leanon's Senior Game Master Boar will attend and bring some goodies with him. You can find more information about this IRL on
Wednesday, 16 September is the 5th anniversary of Ryzom. So that we can spend pleasant time together in celebration, we will be running small fun events during the (European) evening. Dear Players,In this last year, we have rolled out four patches. Now we are in September and it's time to get things rolling on the Ryzom front again. One of the areas that we will be working on is something you've all been asking for: Communication!Yes, that's right. We still think actions speak louder than words, but now we're going to give you more words as well. We're going to keep you better informed of our thoughts, plans and actions and to make this possible and as dynamic as possible we have set up accounts on some social networking sites:It's also possible to come meet and talk to members of the Ryzom Team:In, France, we will be attending the. We won't have an exhibit there but Ryzom CTO Vianney Lecroart (vl), as well as other members of the dev and CSR teams will be roaming around the festival laden with goodies. You can find more information about this event on the French forums In, Germany, on, one of Ryzom's biggest fans, Acridiel, will be organising an IRL. Leanon's Senior Game Master Boar will attend and bring some goodies with him. You can find more information about this IRL on the German forums Wednesday, 16 September is the 5th anniversary of Ryzom. So that we can spend pleasant time together in celebration, we will be running small fun events during the (European) evening. |
A silly copyright notice is sweeping Facebook today, with users attaching pseudo-legalese to their status updates in a misguided effort to prevent Facebook from owning or commercially exploiting their content. Facebook has issued a formal “fact check” statement refuting the legalese.
The viral copyright notice last spread on Facebook in May and June. Now it’s back and garnering lots of attention.
The notice incorrectly implies that Facebook has recently changed the copyright provisions of its user agreement. It then unnecessarily asserts a user’s copyright over his Facebook posts (you retain such copyright without posting a notice) and cites the “Berner Convention,” an irrelevant international treaty properly spelled “Berne Convention.” The notice then instructs Facebook to get written permission to make commercial use of the user’s content, which is pointless as Facebook users agree to let the social network make money off their posts when they sign up for the service. (The full text of the bogus copyright notice is below.)
Popular hoax-debunking site Snopes addressed this copyright notice in the spring and updated their refutation today. Also, Facebook has taken the further step of putting out a statement of its own:
There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users' information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been.
A blunter way of summarizing the situation is to explain that if you want to use Facebook, you must play by Facebook’s rules, even when they change. If you don’t want to play by Facebook's rules anymore, you must quit Facebook. The idea of remaining on Facebook but playing by your own rules via magic spells is a fantasy. Stay on Facebook or leave Facebook. There is no third option � not even during the holidays.
Full hoax copyright notice: |
A coalition of lawmakers in the Senate have penned a letter to the Chairman of the Federal Communication Commission and the Attorney General, urging the Obama administration to scuttle a deal that would lead to high market concentration in the telecoms industry.
As representatives of Comcast and Time Warner Cable prepared to meet with the Department of Justice on Wednesday to discuss concerns related to the proposed merger between the two companies, liberal senators urged federal regulators to block the deal.
“We believe that Comcast-TWC’s unmatched power in the telecommunications industry would lead to higher prices, fewer choices, and poorer quality services for Americans,” they wrote.
“We urge you to defend American competition and innovation and…take a stand for US consumers and businesses and reject Comcast’s proposed acquisition of TWC,” the lawmakers added.
The letter was signed by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
It’s ultimately up to the FCC and the DOJ to sign off on the $45 billion merger. If successful, it would result in a single company controlling 57% of the broadband market and 30% of the cable market.
The senators warned that the deal could have an adverse impact on upstart video streaming services, which are increasingly replacing pre-packaged cable offerings—a transition known as “cord cutting.”
“With Comcast’s ownership of NBCUniversal and the numerous popular TV networks it controls, the combined company would have incentives and means by which to extract higher prices from other multichannel video programming distributors,” they wrote.
Some of their concerns related to paid prioritization were alleviated earlier this year by the FCC, when it approved of stronger “Net Neutrality” rules. However, the senators warned that the merger could lead Comcast to “prioritize its own programming over that of competitors.”
Bloomberg reported last week that staff attorneys with the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division are likely to recommend blocking the merger. Meanwhile, the FCC, according to the Wall Street Journal, could be planning on referring approval of the deal to an administrative judge—a move that, people familiar with the process say, would amount to killing the acquisition.
The FCC’s own market data proves right many of the concerns already issued by opponents of the merger. Last December, the commission released a report showing that consumers in competitive media markets paid less, had a smaller rate of increase in their bills, and received more channels in their cable TV packages versus consumers who lived in markets with only one provider. |
Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2017 July 25
Int-Ball Drone Activated on the Space Station
Image Credit: JAXA, ISS, NASA
Explanation: What if you were followed around by a cute floating ball that kept taking your picture? Then you might be an astronaut on today's International Space Station (ISS). Designed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the JEM Internal Ball Camera -- informally "Int-Ball" -- is a bit larger than a softball, can float and maneuver by itself but also be controlled remotely, can take high resolution images and videos, and is not related to Hello Kitty. Int-Ball was delivered to the ISS in early June and is designed to allow ground-control to increase the monitoring of ISS equipment and activities while decreasing time demands on human astronauts. Int-Ball moves by turning on small internal fans and sees with a camera located between its two dark eyes. |
A COLLEGE ESSAY ON POKÉMON (649 words, complerted September quitetheoresama Nov 5th, 2014 792 Never 792Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 3.92 KB Every time I look back on what makes me who I am, the roots of my personality always traced themselves to one video game franchise—Pokémon. The Pokémon franchise, developed by Game Freak, is a series of role-playing games for portable Nintendo consoles, such as the Game Boy and Nintendo DS. Now, my love for this franchise contributed to my desire to major in game design in college. The portable nature of the games in the Pokémon franchise encourages players to communicate with each other in real-life. Pokémon fans learn how Pokémon creatures develop from other like-minded Pokémon trainers by trading and battling with each othe. As a result, players didn’t just catch ‘em all, but learned how to exchange their ideas through their Pokémon creatures! In short, Pokémon games encouraged people to communicate and express their ideas with each other. I fell in love with the aspect of expressing oneself through play. I was just two years old when that game made me who I am. At that age, I owned a Game Boy Color which I brought wherever I went while playing Pokémon. I was using my Game Boy Color all the time, to the point where it would sometimes be confiscated by teachers or parents. If ever I wasn’t eating my food or paying attention to what my parents were saying—swipe!—it would be taken away. But the Pokémon games themselves captured my attention only because I was captivated by how Pokémon worked. More importantly, it made me fall in love with video games, and I wanted to know how I could use that technology to express my ideas. I ended up taking Japanese language classes when I was six just so I could communicate with game developers and learn from them, especially those of Nintendo, whose headquarters were based in Kyoto. Nintendo was responsible for publishing Pokémon, The Pokémon Company making it known the world over. I couldn’t help but feel the need but bring my ideas to their table! As a bonus, I learned how to read, write and converse fluently in Japanese. As I learned about how Pokémon’s art was inspired by Japanese manga comics, I ended up studying manga drawing techniques and how artists crafted their characters. I worked hard to analyze the styles of various artists so I could incorporate them into my own. Lo and behold, did my drawings improve! I then became the budding manga artist in my circle of friends, presenting my drawings to others and expressing my creativity and desire to improve. Manga in itself along with Japanese language classes gave me a high degree of exposure to Japanese culture. I learned about the subtle nuances in their crafts, their attention to detail and how orderly their societies worked. And even then, it gave me a thirst to learn about other cultures, and it encouraged me to understand how people express themselves. That thirst for learning made me absorb ideas like a sponge, making school much more enjoyable as I loved seeing what ideas people had to offer. Be it a discussion, presentation or even as simple as a conversation during lunch, I made sure to let others express themselves. That exchange and expression of ideas seemed like battles between Pokémon trainers, and it only made communicating with each other all the more fun. However, you can’t communicate if you can’t express yourself! What ideas would there be to learn from? Being able to exchange and express your ideas like Pokémon battles makes quite an impact on the world around us. After all, self-expression is what solves problems, what bridges faraway societies together and what enables human beings to break ground and evolve, much like Pokémon. It’s no wonder I’m known for being so talkative—I value self-expression. Pokémon, art, video games, language and communication all share one underlying thread, and that common thread is… …self-expression! By Ryen Raftery, for submission to NYU (this portion not included in the word count of 649)
RAW Paste Data
Every time I look back on what makes me who I am, the roots of my personality always traced themselves to one video game franchise—Pokémon. The Pokémon franchise, developed by Game Freak, is a series of role-playing games for portable Nintendo consoles, such as the Game Boy and Nintendo DS. Now, my love for this franchise contributed to my desire to major in game design in college. The portable nature of the games in the Pokémon franchise encourages players to communicate with each other in real-life. Pokémon fans learn how Pokémon creatures develop from other like-minded Pokémon trainers by trading and battling with each othe. As a result, players didn’t just catch ‘em all, but learned how to exchange their ideas through their Pokémon creatures! In short, Pokémon games encouraged people to communicate and express their ideas with each other. I fell in love with the aspect of expressing oneself through play. I was just two years old when that game made me who I am. At that age, I owned a Game Boy Color which I brought wherever I went while playing Pokémon. I was using my Game Boy Color all the time, to the point where it would sometimes be confiscated by teachers or parents. If ever I wasn’t eating my food or paying attention to what my parents were saying—swipe!—it would be taken away. But the Pokémon games themselves captured my attention only because I was captivated by how Pokémon worked. More importantly, it made me fall in love with video games, and I wanted to know how I could use that technology to express my ideas. I ended up taking Japanese language classes when I was six just so I could communicate with game developers and learn from them, especially those of Nintendo, whose headquarters were based in Kyoto. Nintendo was responsible for publishing Pokémon, The Pokémon Company making it known the world over. I couldn’t help but feel the need but bring my ideas to their table! As a bonus, I learned how to read, write and converse fluently in Japanese. As I learned about how Pokémon’s art was inspired by Japanese manga comics, I ended up studying manga drawing techniques and how artists crafted their characters. I worked hard to analyze the styles of various artists so I could incorporate them into my own. Lo and behold, did my drawings improve! I then became the budding manga artist in my circle of friends, presenting my drawings to others and expressing my creativity and desire to improve. Manga in itself along with Japanese language classes gave me a high degree of exposure to Japanese culture. I learned about the subtle nuances in their crafts, their attention to detail and how orderly their societies worked. And even then, it gave me a thirst to learn about other cultures, and it encouraged me to understand how people express themselves. That thirst for learning made me absorb ideas like a sponge, making school much more enjoyable as I loved seeing what ideas people had to offer. Be it a discussion, presentation or even as simple as a conversation during lunch, I made sure to let others express themselves. That exchange and expression of ideas seemed like battles between Pokémon trainers, and it only made communicating with each other all the more fun. However, you can’t communicate if you can’t express yourself! What ideas would there be to learn from? Being able to exchange and express your ideas like Pokémon battles makes quite an impact on the world around us. After all, self-expression is what solves problems, what bridges faraway societies together and what enables human beings to break ground and evolve, much like Pokémon. It’s no wonder I’m known for being so talkative—I value self-expression. Pokémon, art, video games, language and communication all share one underlying thread, and that common thread is… …self-expression! By Ryen Raftery, for submission to NYU (this portion not included in the word count of 649) |
We don’t see it in our Gmail settings (yet), but Webmonkey reports that Gmail Labs has added a very useful opt-in feature for sending text / SMS messages to mobile phones using the built-in Chat functionality.
Update: the Labs team found a glitch and is pushing the release back a bit (‘probably within two weeks’).
Update 2: make sure you read the open letter the Webmail team at AOL writes to Google. It’s supposed to be funny, I guess, but it’s really not and quite unprofessional to boot.
Turning the option on in your Gmail account settings apparently enables you to send an SMS as soon as you start typing a phone number into Chat’s search box. When you enter new phone numbers, it will save the digits in your contact entries as well. This means that when contacts go offline, the chat window will give you the option to switch to SMS.
Our invitation for a live demo was lost in the mail, but Webmonkey has been given a demonstration of the experimental feature by Gmail product manager Keith Coleman and adds:
The first time you send a text message, it will appear on the person’s phone as coming from a number in the 406 area code. Google has made several thousands of these numbers available for Gmail users, and once a number is associated with your account, all of the text messages you send through Gmail will come from that number. The 406 number works both ways, so your friend can reply to you via text message. Also, your friend can save that number in their phone as belonging to you, and they can even use it to initiate new chats with you.
We haven’t been able to try this out ourselves yet, but Google does list the text messaging feature on its ‘What’s new in Gmail Labs‘ page (only for US phones, for now).
This is probably one of the first results we’re seeing from Google’s acquisition of GrandCentral (dating back to June 2007 already).
No official word yet on the Gmail blog (the GrandCentral blog has been silent since last April), but we suspect an announcement and general roll-out to follow soon.
(Image credit: monkey_bites) |
It is the most humble of vessels for New York City foodstuffs, ubiquitous at Chinese takeout joints and halal street carts. In pre-Starbucks days, coffee came packaged in its puffy embrace.
But the plastic-foam container may soon be going the way of trans fats, 32-ounce Pepsis, and cigarettes in Central Park.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose regulatory lance has slain fatty foods, supersize sodas, and smoking in parks, is now targeting plastic foam, the much-derided polymer that environmentalists have long tried to restrict.
On Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg, in his 12th and final State of the City address, will propose a citywide ban on plastic-foam food packaging, including takeout boxes, cups and trays. Public schools would be instructed to remove plastic-foam trays from their cafeterias. Many restaurants and bodegas would be forced to restock. |
Early interviews mentioning The Blue Album and Pinkerton. Check. A lead single that promised we’d be rocking out like it was '94. Check. It was clear what Weezer were trying to tell us: Honestly, we mean it, for real this time, this one’s going to be the one you’re waiting for. But put aside all of that and Everything Will Be Alright In the End is pretty much what you expect it to be: a record which, while sharing similarities with records from their earlier periods, is another predictably uneven entry in the Weezer discography.
It’s not actually anywhere near as much of a return to the sound of the Nineties that they’ve made it out to be. Within bars of the opener ‘Ain’t Got Nobody’, it’s clear that there’s just as much overlap with the crunch and flex of Maladroit as with the chugging fuzz of Blue. It’s a dense sound with glamorous guitar runs and, by blending the strengths of their career high points, they hit on some of the greatest moments of their recent output. The hooks of the opening track are genuinely reminiscent of Rivers’ golden age of song writing: ‘The British Are Coming’ sees a lilting turn of Rivers Cuomo’s falsetto morph into a solo which wanders from the main melody in the soulful, colourful way of Blue’s instrumental breaks. But sadly these moments of inspiration are fleeting.
One of the oddest problems with Weezer’s recent output is how blindly contradictory Cuomo can be on record nowadays in comparison to the robust character portraits he painted on his earliest records. Everything… is no different, and finds him sounding as oddly insincere as he has since on every record since 2005. After coming back on hands and knees to the audiences of the mid-nineties, he spends ‘I’ve Had It Up To Here’ rallying against those who want him to compromise some odd notion of integrity (“I’M NOT A HAPPY MEAL”, he proudly announces us in the album’s best wincer of a Cuomoism). How he squares this circle is unclear, but it totally undermines the seriousness of something like ‘Foolish Father’. Does he even mean this? Is he talking about himself? Is it all made up?
But beyond the continuation of Cuomo’s increasing incoherence, what’s perhaps most damaging is the general sense of low ambition across the record, despite gimmickry like the album’s title recurring through the lyrics, and suites of songs in trilogies. The chorus of ‘Eulogy For A Rock Band’ is lifted – almost completely intact – from Hurley’s lead single ‘Memories’. The 2D hooks of ‘Lonely Girl’ and ‘Go Away’ circle for a while, wandering out of your head immediately. Sure, it escapes outright disgrace. But that’s a pretty low benchmark for the band that wrote ‘Say It Ain’t So’, on an album based on a publicity cycle promising a return to that era to boot. In spite of its moments of charm, it’s a far cry from being either a fun retreat into 20 years ago, nor is it any indication that Weezer's reputation will be in better health 20 years from now.
 |
August 10, 2000
For the New College B.M.O.C., 'M' Is for 'Machine'
By LISA GUERNSEY
Left, Jim West/Impact Visuals for The New York Times; above, Barbara Martin for The New York Times WIRED - College students like, left, James L. Carey, and Shaun Encinias use computers for things like music, e-mail and homework.
How 20th century, college students today might say.
The computer, they declare, is the only item that could deserve to be first on any list of dorm necessities. In fact, the computer not only displaces other technology in importance but also replaces the need for some other appliances.
It serves as the stereo for students who listen to MP3 files and radio Webcasts. It makes answering machines less necessary because so much communication occurs via e-mail and instant messages. It can even substitute for televisions and alarm clocks.
The computer has also become the portal through which students do everything they need to do on campus. Using the Internet, they register for classes, turn in assignments, order books, browse the library catalog, listen to music, talk to friends, read the news, write papers, play games, pay bills, watch movies and carry on heated political discussions. Alumni returning to their alma maters will find that the quads and classrooms still exist, but the computer has become almost more central than the physical campus.
"It is an invisible change," said Matthew Pittinsky, co-chairman and founder of Blackboard, a software company that serves more than 3,300 colleges. "But it is probably the most profound change that colleges have seen since the G.I. Bill."
The computer's immense impact on the social and academic lives of college students is just beginning to become apparent. Some students say they are carrying on fewer conversations with their dorm mates and more conversations with friends across the country. Many students say that while they still hit the bars and coffee shops, they rarely go to the library. One study shows that students spend less free time watching television, now that they can be entertained online.
As students pivot toward online information, "something clearly has to give," said Eric Weil, managing partner in Student Monitor, a market research company that polls college students. In the latest Student Monitor survey, conducted in the spring, 56 percent of the 1,200 respondents at colleges across the country said that they had spent less time watching television in the previous six months.
What were they doing instead? About 42 percent said they were spending more time surfing the Web and 49 percent said they were spending more time sending and receiving e-mail. Academics played a role too: 57 percent said they were spending more time doing homework. In many cases, Mr. Weil said, that homework was probably being done on a computer, often online.
But some students say that it is not television that they neglect. Instead, they are spending less time on the telephone or talking face-to-face with their peers on campus. It is not that they are being antisocial, the students say. They are simply communicating with people in a different way, using e-mail, online chats and streams of instant messages.
Eric Kelson, a junior at Syracuse University, said he frequently chatted online with his parents, his sister, his grandmother in Florida and his friends at other colleges. "It helps because calling is expensive," Mr. Kelson said. "And e-mail is good but it is not as personal."
He and his friends often watch television while they chat, he said. And more often than not, he said, he is chatting with people in his dormitory, even though they may be only a few paces away. Instead of picking up the telephone or knocking on his neighbors' doors to see what they are up to, he will send them instant messages.
Students who once said, `See you on the quad,' now say, `Meet you online.'
Mr. Kelson's case is not unusual, said Bennett Fisher, vice president for community at CollegeClub.com, a social site for students that has attracted nearly three million users. "We used to sit in the hallway and talk to students in the dorm," Mr. Fisher said. "Now they do that on the Web."
Even conversations with professors, those moments of stimulating intellectual discussion that some baby boomers may recall with nostalgia, are often supplanted by online communication.
"Office hours are being replaced with e-mail discussions," said Gary Gigliotti, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Rutgers University. Some regret the loss, but instead of waiting for those few hours a week when professors open their doors, students would rather talk online, Mr. Gigliotti said. "It is more convenient for them," he said.
The seeds of this shift were planted in the early 1980's, when technologically adept students started taking computers to campus. But back then, the machines were by no means essential. They were primarily used for typing papers, and most students relied on the word-processing programs in computer laboratories instead of buying their own machines. Computer science and statistics students were often the only ones to use computers for more than writing papers.
In the mid-1990's, when the Internet caught on beyond the halls of engineering and computer science departments, that started to change. Large universities began to invest tens of millions of dollars in wiring dormitory rooms in the hope of providing high-speed Internet access to every student. It was the beginning of the race to provide what administrators call "one port per pillow." On average, campuses have wired about 63 percent of their dormitories, according to the Campus Computing Project, an annual survey of more than 500 institutions across the country. Private research universities have gone the furthest: Of those surveyed, all said they offered high-speed access in every dorm.
The availability of Internet access has become a deciding factor for students who are trying to decide where to apply to college. Yahoo Internet Life magazineproduces an annual ranking, "The 100 Most Wired Colleges." EduCause, a nonprofit organization that promotes technology in higher education, has created an online guide to help applicants determine which universities measure up to their needs ( www.educause.edu/consumerguide).
In a sign of how important Internet access has become, students at Michigan State University, where most dormitories are wired, lined up seven hours in advance last spring to make sure that they were assigned to wired housing. To help those who missed out, the college installed voice mail. Everyone in those dorms uses the telephone lines for dial-up access, said James L. Carey, a sophomore, "and students would be online so much they would never get phone calls."
One of the latest challenges facing administrators is whether to require all entering students to bring a computer to college, and if so, whether the computer should be a laptop or desktop. Reports on the Educause Web site show that about 100 universities have such a requirement, which in some cases is imposed only on students in certain programs.
Next fall, the number will probably increase; about 11 percent of the institutions surveyed by the Campus Computing Project last fall said they would have a laptop computer requirement in place by 2001.
Ohio University is one of the universities that have decided to tackle the issue another way. Every Ohio University undergraduate dorm room is equipped with at least one new $1,000 Gateway computer and printer. The cost of the equipment is covered in an annual student fee.
Exactly how much time do students spend on these machines? An increasing amount, according to surveys. In the fall of 1998, according to Student Monitor, students spent an average of 5.6 hours a week online. That rose to 7.2 hours in the fall of 1999 and 8.1 hours this spring.
But many students say those numbers are even higher among students with computers in dorms that have high-speed access to the Internet. Shaun Encinias, a student at San Diego State University, said he spent hours online each day, checking e-mail before leaving his room in the morning, between classes, after classes and after dinner.
E-mail, though, is not necessarily the most important reason for going online, according to the students polled by Student Monitor. More than 44 percent said that "schoolwork-related research" was their No. 1 priority.
Most courses now have an Internet component, professors say, whether it is a Web-based syllabus, an e-mail-based discussion board, an online repository of required reading or an interactive quiz. Some instructors set up online chats with experts and colleagues at other universities across the country. And many students use the Internet and online library resources to do most, if not all, of their research for papers and projects. When they are done, many send their papers via e-mail or click through Web pages during presentations in class.
The presence of the computer can sway some students away from academics, however. Mr. Carey, the sophomore at Michigan State, said he had failed all his classes his first semester. "I was shellshocked," he said. "I stayed in my room all the time." He would log on to the Internet as soon as he woke up and hung out with friends he had made online instead of doing homework or talking with friends on campus. This year, he said, he is doing much better and uses his computer mainly for homework.
he warned, it can also lead to more isolation. If students choose to interact online with people who are just down the hall, for example, they are missing the chance to see other people's facial expressions, how they look when they are joking and what their body language says about their personalities.
Kaycee Swenson, a high school senior in Wichita, Kan., who took several courses at her local college last year, said she talked to people online every day, most of whom were not at her campus. But she said she also hung out with friends in the physical world, listening to music and playing basketball. "You have to balance it," she said.
This fall, she will enroll full time at the University of California at San Diego, and she plans to take a new computer with her, even though she already has one equipped with a Pentium II processor. "It's fast," she said, "but not fast enough."
In fact, she said, when she talks to her mother about what she took to college decades ago, she cannot believe what students had to put up with. "She thought it was great," Ms. Swenson said, "that she was able to take a calculator to college or a cassette player to tape lectures." And when her mother said she had to stand in line to register for classes and to wait for professors to open their offices, she said she could hardly imagine it. "I laugh at those things," Ms. Swenson said, "but I'm sure it wasn't fun, you know?"
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Route of the M11 link road overlaid over an older map of the area, with key protest sites marked
The M11 link road protest was a major anti-road protest in Leytonstone, London, United Kingdom, in the early to mid-1990s opposing the construction of the "A12 Hackney to M11 link road", also known as the M11 Link Road, which was part of a significant local road scheme to connect traffic from the East Cross Route to the M11, avoiding urban streets.
The road had been proposed since the 1960s, as part of the London Ringways, and was an important link between central London and the Docklands to East Anglia. However, road protests elsewhere had become increasingly visible, and urban road building had fallen out of favour with the public. A local Member of Parliament Harry Cohen, representing Leyton, had been a vocal opponent of this scheme.
The protests reached a new level of visibility during 1993 as part of a grassroots campaign where protesters came from outside the area to support local opposition to the road. The initial focus was on the removal of a tree on George Green, east of Wanstead, that attracted the attention of local, then national media. The activity peaked in 1994 with several high-profile protesters setting up micronations on property scheduled for demolition, most notably on Claremont Road in Leyton. The final stage of the protest was a single building on Fillebrook Road in Leytonstone, which, due to a security blunder, became occupied by squatters.
The road was eventually built as planned, and opened to traffic in 1999, but the increased costs involved in management and policing of protesters raised the profile of such campaigns in the United Kingdom, and contributed to several road schemes being cancelled or reviewed later on in the decade. Those involved in the protest moved on to oppose other schemes in the country, while opinions of the road as built have since been mixed. By 2014, the road had become the ninth most congested in the entire country.
Background [ edit ]
The origin of the link road stems from what were two major arterial roads out of London (the A11 to Newmarket and Norwich, and the A12 to Colchester, Ipswich and Great Yarmouth) and subsequent improvements. The first of these was the Eastern Avenue improvement, that opened on 9 June 1924, which provided a bypass of the old road through Ilford and Romford.
Proposals for the route first arose in the 1960s as part of the London Ringways plan, which would have seen four concentric circular motorways built in the city, together with radial routes, with the M11 motorway ending on Ringway 1, the innermost Ringway, at Hackney Marsh.
The planned London Ringways.
A section of Ringway 1 known as the East Cross Route was built to motorway standards in the late 1960s and early 1970s and designated as the A102(M). A section of the M11 connecting Ringway 2 (now part of the North Circular Road) and Eastern Avenue to Harlow was completed in the late 1970s,[4] opening to traffic in 1977.
The Ringways scheme met considerable opposition; there were protests when the Westway, an urban motorway elevated over the streets of Paddington, was opened in 1970, with local MP John Wheeler later describing the road's presence within 15 metres of properties as "completely unacceptable environmentally," and the Archway Road public inquiry was repeatedly abandoned during the 1970s as a result of protests. By 1974, the Greater London Council announced it would not be completing Ringway 1. The first Link Road Action Group to resist the M11 link road was formed in 1976, and for the next fifteen years activists fought government plans through a series of public inquiries. Their alternative was to build a road tunnel, leaving the houses untouched, but this was rejected on grounds of cost. Drivers travelling in the areas where the new roads would have been built had to continue using long stretches of urban single-carriageway roads. In particular, the suburbs of Leyton, Leytonstone and Wanstead suffered serious traffic congestion.
The Roads for Prosperity white paper published in 1989 detailed a major expansion of the road building programme and included plans for the M12 Motorway between London and Chelmsford, as well as many other road schemes. Although Harry Cohen, MP for Leyton suggested in May 1989 that the government should scrap the scheme, a public enquiry was held for the scheme in November.
The protest campaign in East London [ edit ]
The Humble Petition of The Stop the M11 Link Road Action Campaign sheweth: That the A12 Hackney Wick to M11 Link Road will be injurious to the health and well being of the Petitioners insofar as it will cause homelessness through their homes being demolished with in many instances no replacement being offered, it will cause ill health through noise and pollution and will be unfavourable to the community at large. Petition submitted to the House of Commons, June 1990
By the 1980s, planning blight had affected the area and many of the houses had become home to a community of artists and squatters. Eventually, contractors were appointed to carry out the work and a compulsory purchase of property along the proposed route was undertaken. In March 1993, in preparation for the construction of the road, the Earl of Caithness, then the Minister of State for Transport, estimated that there would be 263 properties scheduled for demolition, displacing 550 people, of which he estimated 172 were seeking rehousing. Several original residents, who had in some cases lived in their homes all their lives, refused to sell or move out of their properties.
Protesters from the local area against the link road scheme were joined by large numbers of anti-road campaigners from around the UK and beyond, attracted by the availability of free housing along the route. These experienced protesters, who had participated in earlier events such as the Anti-Nazi League riots in Welling, gave impetus to the campaign. The new arrivals used the skills they had developed during prior protests to construct "defences", blocking the original entrances to the houses and creating new routes directly between them.
Sophisticated techniques were used to delay the construction of the road. Sit-ins and site invasions were combined with sabotage to stop construction work temporarily. This led to large numbers of police and constant security patrols being employed to protect the construction sites, at great expense. By December 1994, the total cost of construction had been estimated at £6 million and rising by £500,000 every month.
The protesters were successful in publicising the campaign, with most UK newspapers and TV news programmes covering the protests on a regular basis. Desktop publishing, then in its infancy, was used to produce publicity materials for the campaign and send out faxes to the media. When the government began evicting residents along the route and demolishing the empty houses, the protesters set up so-called "autonomous republics" such as "Wanstonia" in some groups of the houses. Extreme methods were used to force the engineers to halt demolition, including underground tunnels with protesters secured within by concrete.
The chestnut tree on George Green [ edit ]
[28] The chestnut tree on George Green, Wanstead became a focal point and a symbol for anti-M11 Link Road protesters.
Until late 1993, local opposition to the M11 extension had been relatively limited. While opposition had been going for nearly ten years, institutional avenues of protest had been exhausted, and local residents were largely resigned to the road being built. When outside protesters arrived in September 1993, few residents saw their mission as "their campaign".
One section of the M11 extension was due to tunnel under George Green in Wanstead. Residents had believed that this would save their green, and a 250-year-old sweet chestnut tree that grew upon it, but because this was a cut and cover tunnel, this required the tree to be cut down.
Support for the protests started to extend to the local community when Jean Gosling, a lollipop lady in Wanstead, upon learning of the tree's impending destruction, rallied the support of local children (and was later fired from her job for doing so while wearing her uniform), who in turn recruited their parents into the protests. It was then that the non-resident radicals realised that they had significant local support. When local residents gathered for a tree dressing ceremony on 6 November, they found their way barred by security fencing. With support from the protesters, they pulled it down.
Protesters continued to delay the destruction of the tree. Solicitors for the campaign had even argued in court that receipt of a letter addressed to the tree itself gave it the status of a legal dwelling, causing a further delay. In the early morning of 7 December 1993, several hundred police arrived to evict the protesters,[a] which took ten hours to carry out.[b] Protesters made numerous complaints against the police;[36] police, in turn, denied these allegations, attributing any misbehaviour to the protesters.[c] Media attention started to increase regarding the protest, with several daily newspapers putting pictures of the tree on their front pages.
Harry Cohen, MP for Leyton, started to become critical of the scheme and its progress. In March 1994, he said "the Department of Transport's pig-headed approach to the M11 link road has been a shambles, and a costly one at that," and described the ongoing police presence as "a miniature equivalent of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait." According to him, local resident Hugh Jones had been threatened by demolition men wielding sledgehammers and pickaxes, adding "the project has cost £500,000 in police time alone, to take over and demolish a 250-year-old chestnut tree and half a dozen houses".
Claremont Road [ edit ]
The view from the tower in Claremont Road, Leyton.
By 1994, properties scheduled for demolition had been compulsory purchased, and most were made uninhabitable by removing kitchens, bathrooms and staircases. The notable exception was in one small street, Claremont Road, which ran immediately next to the Central line and consequently required every property on it to be demolished. The street was almost completely occupied by protesters except for one original resident who had not taken up the Department for Transport's offer to move, 92-year-old Dolly Watson, who was born in number 32 and had lived there nearly all her life. She became friends with the anti-road protesters, saying "they're not dirty hippy squatters, they're the grandchildren I never had." The protesters named a watchtower, built from scaffold poles, after her.
A vibrant and harmonious community sprung up on the road, which even won the begrudging respect of the authorities. The houses were painted with extravagant designs, both internally and externally, and sculptures erected in the road; the road became an artistic spectacle that one said "had to be seen to be believed".
In November 1994, the eviction of Claremont Road took place, bringing an end to the M11 link road resistance as a major physical protest. Bailiffs, accompanied by the police in full riot gear, carried out the eviction over several days, and the Central line, running adjacent to the road, was suspended. As soon as eviction was completed, the remaining properties were demolished. In the end, the cost to the taxpayer was over a million pounds in police costs alone. Quoting David Maclean, "I understand from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that the cost of policing the protest in order to allow bailiffs to take possession of the premises in Claremont road was £1,014,060." Cohen complained in parliament about police brutality, stating "were not many of my constituents bullied—including vulnerable people, and others whose only crime was living on the line of route?" The then Secretary of State for Transport, Brian Mawhinney, pointed out that there had already been three public enquiries at which protesters could have lodged their objections against the line of the route.
Towards the end [ edit ]
Following the Claremont Road eviction, non-resident protesters moved on to other sites such as Newbury. Meanwhile, Fillebrook Road near Leytonstone Underground station had already had several houses demolished on it due to problems with vandalism. By 1995, the only house left standing was number 135. The house was originally scheduled for demolition at the same time as the others, but had been left standing in order to give the tenant additional time to relocate. After they had done so, on 11 April 1995, the Department for Transport removed the water supply and part of the roof, and left two security guards on duty. When the guards decided to sleep overnight in their cars that evening, leaving the house unoccupied, the protesters moved in. The house was renamed Munstonia (after The Munsters, thanks to its spooky appearance). Like "Wanstonia", they proclaimed themselves a micro-nation and designed their own national anthem and flag, though author Joe Moran mentions their legitimacy was complicated by the protesters continuing to claim unemployment benefits from the "mother country."
The eviction on Fillebrook Road, Leytonstone in June 1995
A tower was built out of the remains of the roof, similar to one that had existed at Claremont Road, and a system of defences and blockades were built. A core of around 30 protesters ensured that there were always people staying there (a legal requirement for a squatted home, as well as a defence against eviction). They were finally evicted on 21 June 1995, whereupon, as at Claremont Road, the building was immediately demolished. The total cost of removing the protesters from Munstonia was given to be £239,349.52, not including additional costs of security guards.
Construction of the road, already underway by this stage, was then free to continue largely unhindered, although systematic sabotage of building sites by local people continued. It was completed in 1999 and given the designation A12; its continuation, the former A102(M), was also given this number as far as the Blackwall Tunnel.
The official opening of the road in October 1999 took place without fanfare, being opened by the Highways Agency Chief Executive rather than a politician, with only journalists with passes being admitted to the ceremony.[50]
Consequences of the protest campaign [ edit ]
The M11 link road protest was ultimately unsuccessful in its aim to stop the building of the link road. The total cost of compensation for the project was estimated to be around £15 million.
Proposals for the M12 motorway were cancelled in 1994 during the first review of the trunk road programme. The most significant response from the government occurred when Labour came into office following the 1997 general election, with the announcement of the New Deal for Trunk Roads in England. This proposal cancelled many previous road schemes, including the construction of the M65 over the Pennines, increased fuel prices, and ensured that road projects would only be undertaken when genuinely necessary, stating "there will be no presumption in favour of new road building as an answer."
Some protesters went on to join the direct action campaign Reclaim the Streets. A protester arrested and detained on the grounds of breach of the peace unsuccessfully challenged the UK Government's legislation at the European Court of Justice.
In 2002, in response to a major new road building programme and expansion of aviation, a delegation of road protest veterans visited the Department for Transport to warn of renewed direct action in response, delivering a D-lock as a symbol of the past protests. One such protestor, Rebecca Lush went on to found Road Block to support road protesters and challenge the government. In 2007, Road Block became a project within the Campaign for Better Transport. The M11 Link road protests inspired the launch of the video activism organisation Undercurrents. Training activists to film the protests, they released You've got to be choking in 1994, a 40-minute documentary about the M11 link road campaign.
In 2007, the BBC reported that the cost of the M11 link road had doubled due to the intervention of protesters. Residents in Leytonstone have complained that, following the completion of the road, their streets became rat runs for commuters trying to get ahead of queues.
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ The BBC give the figure as two hundred; Wall gives the figure as four hundred. ^ According to the BBC; Wall gives a figure of nine hours. ^ The BBC quotes then-Chief Superintendent Stuart Giblin as saying "My officers acted professionally despite some of the comments and behaviour of the protesters."
References [ edit ]
Citations [ edit ]
Books
News articles
Websites
Hansard
Further reading [ edit ]
Coordinates: |
FRANKFURT, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Nokia NOK1V.HE needs to speedily boost its offering of mobile internet solutions, marketing head Anssi Vanjoki told a German magazine.
Nokia, the No. 1 global cellphone maker, needs to catch up with the rivals Apple (AAPL.O), Google (GOOG.O) and Blackberry-maker RIM RIM.TO in offering online solutions, Vanjoki was quoted as saying by weekly Wirtschaftswoche in an excerpt of an interview to be published on Monday.
Vanjoki did not rule out a sale of its core handset manufacturing business in the long term.
Nokia’s mobile-device factories offered an important competitive advantage but one should “never say never” should a sale at some point be warranted as part of Nokia’s transformation, he was quoted as saying. (Reporting by Ludwig Burger, editing by Mike Peacock) (([email protected]; +49 69 7565 1311; Reuters Messaging: [email protected])) |
Kevin Yakes spends so much time trying to keep his Golden Valley construction firm staffed, he sometimes feels like a full-time recruiter. During a recent family getaway in Florida, Yakes hopped in the car and drove more than an hour to have beers with a refrigeration technician he wanted to attract to Minnesota.
“It’s like dating,” Yakes said. “I’ve never, ever, had such a hard time trying to find people.”
Nearly a decade after the U.S. economy collapsed and construction workers fled the industry, Twin Cities builders and contractors are in the midst of one of their busiest years. But a shortage of skilled workers means that new projects — from modest office renovations to soaring new apartment towers — are costing more and taking longer to complete. The situation has contributed to a housing shortage in the region.
Even last year’s completion of U.S. Bank Stadium, a project that kept thousands of workers busy for nearly three years, hasn’t fully replenished the pool of construction help. “We have more work than we know what to do with,” said Robert Heise, president of the Minnesota-North Dakota chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors.
As of May, there were more than 125,000 construction workers in Minnesota, the most for that month since 2006. And the latest tally of construction job openings was the highest in at least a decade. Electricians, carpenters and plumbers are among the most scarce.
Labor leaders say the industry has struggled to attract young people to replenish the pool of workers drained by the 2008-2009 recession, even though construction jobs pay above-average wages and most require just a high school diploma.
One reason for that, says Tim Worke, chief executive of the Associated General Contractors of Minnesota, is that vocational training has been devalued. “Everyone has been told that you have to have a four-year degree to be prosperous at life,” Worke said.
But it’s a fine line, he added, because the old notion that construction is a field only for those with a “strong back and a strong body” isn’t the case anymore. The work is more technical and workers need advanced training, Worke said.
James Mahler, a 35-year-old project manager for River City Tile & Underlayment in Chanhassen, joined the trades at age 19. “College was never something that appealed to me,” he said. “I was eager to begin working and making my own career path.”
In the recession, as others fled the industry, he stayed the course and is glad he did. He has never been without work and has been able to pick and choose jobs.
“We make extremely good money, work reasonable hours, get to be active and build actual communities within the Twin Cities,” he said. “I want young people to realize that it is not a step down to go into construction.”
With costs and job openings on the rise, the industry is getting more creative. This summer a consortium of industry groups will launch one of its most comprehensive efforts yet to help fill jobs: Project Build Minnesota, a marketing campaign aimed at “making construction sexy again,” said David Siegel, executive director of the Builders Association of the Twin Cities. The goal is to sweep as many trainees into both union and nonunion jobs. The consortium plans to raise $800,000.
Earlier this year, a collective of labor unions launched its own PR campaign dubbed Elevate Minnesota to promote union construction jobs.
A third group called the Twin Cities Construction Sector Initiative, which includes the Associated General Contractors, the Minnesota Building Trades Council, educational institutions and other stakeholders, is taking a higher-level look at workforce needs. That group hopes to roll out a multiyear plan by end of the summer.
Until those efforts gel, the effects of the tight labor market are rippling through Twin Cities property markets.
Commercial construction costs are increasing two to five times the rate of inflation, local analysts say. Jim Durda, executive vice president of the local office of Zeller Realty Group, which manages the Fifth Street Towers and LaSalle Plaza in Minneapolis, said that 10 years ago it might have cost $25 per square foot to build out or remodel a commercial space. Today, it’s $35 to $50 per square foot, partly because of labor costs.
Such increases can be even more detrimental for new buildings, which employ hundreds of workers from many trades. Last month, plans to build a Hy-Vee store in White Bear Lake were scuttled. High labor costs contributed to the decision not to build, according to both John Johannson, a manager in the local development company on the project, and Tara Deering-Hansen, a spokeswoman at Hy-Vee’s Des Moines headquarters.
Homebuilders are facing similar issues. Some builders have painted “help wanted” and phone referral numbers on their trucks.
Two weeks before the start of a luxury house tour in the Twin Cities, Scott Busyn and several other custom homebuilders were scrambling to finish in time for it. Busyn paid overtime and offered other perks to discourage subcontractors from jumping ship to work with other companies.
At CPM Cos., one of the biggest apartment developers in the Twin Cities, the situation is making it difficult to finish buildings on time.
Construction manager Troy Wenck of Reuter Walton Commercial said that he’s spending valuable time trying to recruit employees, and the company has had to turn away projects.
Mark Scherer, an owner of the one of the largest lumberyards and truss-building plants in the region, has managed to keep his staffing levels steady by regularly raising wages. At a plant in Albertville, he gave workers a nearly $1 an hour raise last fall. “That seemed to take care of the problem,” he said.
He hasn’t, however, been able to solve a more serious problem: Timing. He said it normally takes 90 days to build a house, but it’s now taking 120 to 180 days in some cases.
Houses are also more expensive. Scherer said an upscale house used to cost $175 per square foot, but increases in labor and other inputs means the price is now $250 to north of $300 per square foot.
For Yakes, the chief executive of Summit Commercial Facilities Group, a fix couldn’t come soon enough.
He has a handful of openings to add to his current staff of 30 — and he wasn’t able to persuade the Florida technician he met for drinks to join his company.
“It is a whole lot of work,” Yakes said. “You just always have to be ready to hire that next top talent.”
Nicole Norfleet • 612-673-4495 Twitter: @nicolenorfleet
Jim Buchta • 612-673-7376 Twitter: @JustListedBlog |
The advantage of a hazelnut rod ... is the possibility to attach test-nodes (Testnosoden) at the tip. This allows to search more aimed at different oscillation patterns. … on my left pinky finger, there is a polarization ring made from ferrite material; this serves the determination of polarization, which means, whether the water vein spins right or left handed.
This is from a diploma dissertation presented to the faculty for landscaping architecture at the University Weihenstephan-Triesdorf in Bavaria. The German diploma is equivalent to the Master level. It was not forwarded to the campus health center’s mental health division to ensure that the student receives help. Professor Doctor F. Luz evaluated with the highest possible grade! The student now uses his 'dowsing expertise' to earn a living. No, not relieving cat-ladies of their money, but with urban planning, paid for by tax payers.
This was two years ago. Everything sorted out now? You bet. The university has officially opened the course “Landscape aesthetics&geomancy and Feng-Shui in Landscape Architecture”. Diploma certified Engineer S. Broennle teaches whenever Luz is out in the field dowsing. According to all we know, grades are established with pendulum and Ouija board.
This updates Germany ranks first in Internationalism, the one where I told you the secret about that studying in Germany is still free. Now you don’t even need to care about the science that traditionally was in the way of academic degrees. Pack your stuff, lazy students of the world. Germany Abolishes Itself.
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More from Vongehr Topic for Topic |
JOE SCHMIDT HAS rejected the notion that the inclusion of Tommy Bowe in Ireland’s matchday squad is a ‘nostalgia’ call.
The 33-year-old wing was used off the bench in Ireland’s defeat to Scotland on the opening weekend of the Six Nations, after which Schmidt’s selection was criticised.
Bowe is now back on Ireland’s bench for tomorrow’s clash with Wales, with more eyebrows being raised by the decision.
Bowe is back on the Ireland bench for tomorrow. Source: Inpho/Billy Stickland
Former Ireland wing Shane Horgan, who played under Schmidt with Leinster, told the Second Captains podcast that Schmidt’s decision to include Bowe against Scotland had been an error.
“That looked like a nostalgia call, having him in the team,” Horgan said. “He hasn’t been playing well. I was very surprised that he was in the 23.”
Bowe was subsequently left out of Ireland’s matchday squad for the trip to Italy and missed out on the home win over France.
The Ulster wing was then ommitted from Schmidt’s extended 36-man squad for the closing two rounds of the championship.
However, a hand injury for Andrew Trimble saw Bowe called in as an injury replacement last weekend and he has jumped ahead of Tiernan O’Halloran, Andrew Conway, Craig Gilroy and Jared Payne for the 23 shirt ahead of tomorrow’s clash with Wales in Cardiff.
When Horgan’s suggestion that Bowe’s inclusion during this Six Nations was a nostalgic decision was put to the Ireland head coach, Schmidt rejected it outright.
“Look, I think Shane hasn’t spent any time in our environment, so he’s never seen Tommy train, so I think it’s a typically external opinion that is purely opinion based,” said Schmidt.
“We try to base our decision on how a player is performing. I’ve coached Shane and there’s probably been times when people have questioned my selecting him in the past. There’s always going to be people questioning selection.
33-year-old Bowe will win his 69th cap if used off the bench. Source: Ryan Byrne/INPHO
“I feel that we’re best placed. There’s no way I’d say we get it right every time, because again, there’s a human factor in coaching, just as there is in playing, as I referred to with George North.
“I think he’s a super player, and if somebody has a slightly off day, there’s no guarantee that off days continue, in fact it’s potentially going to be the reverse, they’re going to revert to type and be outstanding in their next performance.
“I’m not sure whether, over the last three and a half, four years, how many nostalgic decisions I’ve made. But I can’t really remember many.”
Having included Bowe as the 23rd man for a second time in this championship, Schmidt backed the 68-times capped Ulsterman to deliver for Ireland tomorrow night at the Principality Stadium.
The Ireland head coach also indicated that Bowe’s aerial strength was one of the key reasons for picking him.
“I think if you look at his last two Ulster performances, you can see his ability to read the game, to run a good line, to be in the right place at the right time,” said Schmidt.
“His aerial game is a real strength for him, and for us. That’s where they came after us last time with Dan Biggar and Liam Williams, George North is such a big man, Leigh Halfpenny got a couple of good aerial takes early in the game.
“Therefore, you cut your cloth, you account for how somebody’s training, you calculate what they bring to the game, and then you make decisions.
“That’s where I’d challenge anyone to do as much work looking at how people are preparing themselves, and then make decisions. The caveat of all that is – I’m not claiming that we’ve got it right, we’ve just worked hard to try to make the best decisions.”
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Thoughts
I’ve made some pretty bad mistakes in my past, and I’ll “fess up” to them at any point.. not because I’m proud that I messed up at something but because acknowledging your faults, weaknesses and most importantly stupidity in the past has taught me to be a better human being. And you see, being a better human being, by bettering yourself from your own mistakes is a concept that most can’t even dream of.
So, by doing this, as my “new year’s resolution” – Whatever kind of meaningless dribble people throw up on their facebook walls, as if to tell the world that this year they’ll be different, this very year they’ll increase their own self esteem by sorting after other peers appreciation of their own divisiveness to change. When in the very, very sad reality people don’t change – You never really change, you can regret a decision and improve on that decision but your mistakes WILL “haunt” (as if to say your past and your previous decisions were a different beings choices, and not your own which you didn’t, for even a slight second think of the repercussions) you for the rest of your life.
As a person, if you kill or hurt another person – You may face the repercussions and realize you can’t do it again or you’ll face the same music, but your head is still not screwed on right, and you know deep down in your head that every second of your life is a methodical plan to commit another… of whatever it is you’re ashamed (or maybe just scared of showing society, or a loved one, or any number of people or entities) of.
I used to be a “hacker” but it was more than that, and it was because of a few stupid mistakes I made that I got caught and won’t ever be doing anything stupid, like that again. That’s not because I don’t still think in my head (which is currently the only place of privacy we have) of what I could be doing, or that the women in front of me at the line of the grocery store just entered her pincode as 3782 or that my friend who works for the government just left her emails logged on in her computer. It’s because of the fear that I don’t want to “face the music” as some may say, and anyone who isn’t scared of that then I’ll look up to as a hero, hence my reference to Edward Snowden earlier.
“People aren’t as evil as you may think, but temptation pushes most to the brink.”
You might be asking yourself (or perhaps in your head, you’re asking me) wtf the point of this article even is, and why I’ve so far, refused to even give you a title (Not referring to the meta title here) well it’s to do with the subtitle of my blog “politically pissed off” and it has even more to do with a YouTube video I found on the front page of Reddit today –
This clip, and my entire rant here is about one specific thing and it’s a phrase that I’m sure has been used millions of times.
The World doesn’t owe you anything, but you owe it the world – It’s a slight alteration to “the world doesn’t owe you anything” which according to Google has been brought up over 55,000,000 times across the indexed web.
Mr Feenie proves this point even more. When most of you have a device in your pocket that could break most security precautions on the internet in minutes (with the right “push” of course) yet you decide to use it to take photos of yourself to create a falsified image of yourself on some random social networking site. That shows how pathetic of a life you’ve gotten yourself ravelled up in.
This extends to more than just the average joe as well. Justin Bieber has over 48,000,000 twitter followers (granted a lot will be fake/bots) as of writing this. If he were to, for example: tweet a small pizza restaurants website… Within minutes it’d more than likely crash. For a kid who put a song on YouTube this one time, he holds an unbelievably large amount of power – With the help of the internet of course.
Yet he decides to tweet selfies and him downloading his own tracks of iTunes.
Then again, I’m a paradox of my own stance on hypocrisy –
I’m sitting on a i7 3.4 ghz CPU, 16gb ddr3 ram and a 4gb DDR5 Graphics card… Whilst using about a percent of the CPU’s power and typing into an open source CMS, on a site that pretty much no one reads.
My moral of this story, and the question I bet you were asking yourself earlier is then?
Spend your time wisely, and spend your time learning – Because for though it may seem like an eternity in hell, your life is almost irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. |
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s determination to reconnect with voters in localized, informative settings is commendable, but is in danger of being overshadowed by questions about the interplay of politics and wealthy foreign donors who support the Clinton Foundation.
Nothing illegal has been alleged about the foundation, the global philanthropic initiative founded by former President Bill Clinton. But no one knows better than Mrs. Clinton that this is the tooth-and-claw political season where accusations are going to fly for the next 19 months. And no one should know better than the former senator and first lady that they will fester if straightforward answers are not offered to the public.
The increasing scrutiny of the foundation has raised several points that need to be addressed by Mrs. Clinton and the former president. These relate most importantly to the flow of multimillions in donations from foreigners and others to the foundation, how Mrs. Clinton dealt with potential conflicts as secretary of state and how she intends to guard against such conflicts should she win the White House.
The only plausible answer is full and complete disclosure of all sources of money going to the foundation. And the foundation needs to reinstate the ban on donations from foreign governments for the rest of her campaign — the same prohibition that was in place when she was in the Obama administration. |
Battle lines are being drawn for a fight over the future of rooftop solar energy in Maine, as the Public Utilities Commission prepares to hold a hearing Monday in Hallowell on proposed rules that would cut financial incentives for homeowners with solar panels.
Similar fights are taking place across the country, as utility regulators and politicians try to define the value and benefits of small solar-electric installations, as well as who should pay, and how much, to help expand their use.
Zach Good of ReVision Energy prepares a roof for solar panels at a home in Cape Elizabeth last year. The cost of solar technology has fallen dramatically. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Press Herald file SOLAR PANEL HEARING WHEN: Monday, 1 p.m. WHERE: Worster Room of Maine Public Utilities Commission building, 101 Second St., Hallowell
The outcome of these skirmishes matters because thousands of jobs are tied to these home-scale installations, and shifting policies about compensation have led many residents to put off investing in solar. Maine installers say that began happening last spring, after the Legislature failed by two votes to override Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of a bill that would have restructured the financial incentives.
What’s happening this fall at the PUC is likely to be only a prelude to a rematch next year in the Legislature. Clean-energy advocates are talking about drafting another bill, all but assuring that the matter won’t be settled in the near future.
At issue is a decades-old rule that requires utilities to credit the bills of small energy generators for the full retail price of all the electricity they send into the grid. Those credits chiefly help homeowners recover the investment in solar-electric panels, which can average $10,000 or so. They continued to be paid as long as the power’s being generated.
This arrangement, called net-energy billing or net metering, was set up in the 1980s to help jump-start solar when the technology was new. But panel costs have fallen sharply in recent years, and utilities and some policymakers say it’s time to trim the incentive. As solar’s popularity grows, they say, the payments are shifting the cost of serving homes with solar panels onto other customers.
Last month, the three PUC commissioners – all appointed by LePage – proposed a change that would grandfather net-metering credits for 15 years for residents who already have solar panels installed at their homes, and limit benefits for new solar owners to 10 years.
DISPUTING VALUE OF HOME SOLAR
The PUC review was triggered by a requirement that net metering be revisited once peak solar power production hit 1 percent of Central Maine Power Co.’s installed capacity. But reducing the net-metering incentives drew immediate fire from solar installers and clean-energy supporters. They countered that the value of this energy actually is greater than the cost of service. And they pointed to a study done for the PUC in 2015, and updated last summer, to prove it.
The updated study concluded that the value of distributed solar – power produced near its point of use – is worth roughly 27 cents per kilowatt hour over 25 years. In Maine, the average home electric rate today is less than 16 cents per kilowatt hour, so solar advocates see a clear benefit.
But teasing out the components that contribute to that 27-cents figure paints a more-complicated picture. The PUC’s consultant found that just over 17 cents of the total value was from avoiding “market costs,” largely by not needing power from large generators. The other 9 cents or so were “societal benefits,” linked to emitting less climate-changing carbon dioxide and pollutants into the air.
In testimony filed Wednesday, Portland-based ReVision Energy, the state’s largest solar installer, reiterated its view that the cost-shifting claim isn’t supported by the study. It also criticized the PUC for proposing changes to net metering before any investigation of the facts.
“The failure to fairly, fully and rigorously evaluate the overall impact of net metering delegitimizes the proposed rule and this proceeding,” ReVision said. “The commission has made critical findings of fact and proposes to fundamentally change the existing, legislatively approved rule based on these findings – yet there is no sworn testimony in the record.”
Responding to this criticism, PUC spokesman Harry Lanphear said the commission laid out its reasoning in a notice of rulemaking last month. In it, the commissioners acknowledged that net metering supports state energy policies to promote renewable, clean electricity supplies, and that there may be environmental values to ratepayers. But they added that “programs that involve the cross-subsidization of ratepayer funds among customer groups should be reviewed periodically,” especially when the cost of the technology is falling sharply.
CMP is expected to amplify that point Monday. John Carroll, a spokesman, said the cost of rooftop solar has fallen by roughly half over the past decade, yet it’s still being subsidized at the same level as it was in the 1980s. He said CMP gets little benefit from rooftop solar because the values cited in the PUC study are largely tied to generation and energy supply, not to the cost of delivering power to homes. CMP contends that the cost of crediting solar homeowners shifted $1.3 million in expenses to other ratepayers in 2015, although solar advocates say CMP hasn’t substantiated those figures.
CMP has hired an expert witness to testify about the value of solar. Ashley Brown is a former Ohio PUC commissioner and executive director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group, which studies power issues. He is expected to make a case for why net metering should be discarded and replaced with market-based pricing.
LePage, through his Governor’s Energy Office, will make a similar plea. The office has filed comments that say the PUC’s proposed rule should be scrapped. A system should instead be adopted that uses CMP’s smart meters to compensate small generators for the value of their power in real time, because costs vary hour by hour.
The office wrote: “During the duration of the proposed rule that extends through 2040, there are companies proposing the colonization of another planet – yet the proposal is stuck in 20th-century thinking and fails to utilize modern metering technology that has already been deployed across the state.”
SOLAR DEBATE IN OTHER STATES
These opposing views, in various forms, underpin the debate nationwide. The Solar Energy Industries Association website has posted links to cost-benefit studies from 17 states that are studying or have examined the value of solar. They include California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii. Various interest groups and think tanks also have weighed in with national studies.
But in Maine, as elsewhere, value studies are ammunition for larger political battles. In their filed testimonies, clean-energy advocates such as ReVision, the Natural Resources Council of Maine and SunRun, a national solar installer, urge the commission to hold off on any rule change and let the next Legislature set solar policy.
In a recent email message, ReVision also encourages its supporters to vote for candidates who will advance solar.
“We are confident that Maine’s Legislature can do the right thing for solar,” ReVision says, “and we will work to make the facts clear despite ongoing campaigns of misinformation and bullying on the side of anti-solar advocates.”
Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or
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Secretary of State Jon Husted today defended use of the word "monopoly" in ballot language describing state Issue 3, which seeks to legalize marijuana in Ohio. "We are trying to use simple, plain language that accurately describes the issue," Husted said during a Columbus Metropolitan Club luncheon, where, when asked, he also said he is interested in being governor someday.
Secretary of State Jon Husted today defended use of the word monopoly in ballot language describing state Issue 3, which seeks to legalize marijuana in Ohio.
�What we tried to use is simple, plain language that we believe the average voter will understand and that accurately describes the issues,� Husted said during a Columbus Metropolitan Club luncheon, where, when asked, he also said he is interested in being governor someday.
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Supporters of Issue 3 strongly disagree with ballot summary and title that uses the word monopoly and seems to stress that aspect of the issue over the marijuana legalization.
�The ballot title and language Jon Husted has assigned to Issue 3 is deceptive and misleading,� said Ian James, executive director of ResponsibleOhio, the group of investors pushing to legalize marijuana in Ohio and set up 10 exclusive commercial growing sites.
�It's unthinkable that Ohio's chief elections officer is waging a campaign against Issue 3 from his elected office and using taxpayer dollars to confuse voters and rig the system.�
ResponsibleOhio wants the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn ballot language approved by Husted and the state Ballot Board.
Husted said ResponsibleOhio wants to use poll-tested language to describe the issue in a way voters will support, but he doesn�t want to use �weasel words� that mask what the issue really does.
�The folks who wrote this, if they didn�t want it called a monopoly, then they shouldn�t have created a monopoly,� Husted said, as both he and moderator Mike Thompson broke out the dictionary.
Husted also reiterated his position that if both Issue 3 and Issue 2, a legislative anti-monopoly proposal, pass in November, the marijuana issue would be invalidated, regardless of which issue gets more votes. The language of Issue 2, plus the fact that it would take effect immediately, makes it the dominant issue.
However, if both issues pass, that interpretation is likely to be challenged in court.
Husted also indicated his support for state Issue 1, altering the legislative redistricting process, which currently allows the majority party to gerrymander districts to its benefit. The new process would require minority-party votes in order to pass a 10-year map.
Outside the Athletic Club, more than a dozen protesters held signs and chanted largely in opposition to Husted�s decision in August to deny an effort to place fracking ban charter proposals on the ballot in Athens, Fulton and Medina counties. Three protesters later came into the luncheon, holding signs and chanting �let the people vote� after the program concluded.
Tish O�Dell, a community organizer with the Community Legal Defense Fund and a leader in organizing the protest, said the courts should be allowed to weigh in on the charter proposals, rather than Husted deciding they should be banned from the ballot.
�Residents are upset that they do not have a vote,� O�Dell said.
Husted argued that the Supreme Court has already ruled that the state, not local communities, have the authority to regulate fracking, and the proposals violated that law.
�That doesn�t mean we took the democratic process away from them,� he said. �They just need to use it in the proper venue.�
He suggested that supporters could go to the legislature, or use the initiated statute ballot process, to get the law changed.
Husted also discussed his continuing push to get online voter registration enacted in Ohio.
�I spoke to the speaker of the House (Cliff Rosenberger, R-Clarksville) the other day, and he indicated he thought it was something they�d be able to do this year,� Husted said.
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Why would Sinn Féin go into an executive in which the DUP has a disproportionate degree of influence over the British government – an alleged, joint-guarantor with the Irish government of the Belfast Agreement
Sinn Féin won seven seats in the Westminster general election, running on an abstentionist ticket, which has been the party’s policy for at least one hundred years.
The SDLP, which boasted about sitting in Westminster but had nothing to show for it, lost its three seats – seat held by three former party leaders and two of which have now been taken by Sinn Féin.
And yet despite the wishes of the electorate which had been heavily exposed to all the arguments, Sinn Féin’s critics, including the SDLP and southern political parties, and many in the media, few of whom wish Sinn Féin well, continued to criticise the party for keeping to its manifesto commitment.
I was at the Belfast count on Thursday night/Friday morning and was asked by a succession of journalists about whether in the circumstances of a hung parliament Sinn Féin would not drop its policy and help Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party or, at least, make it more difficult for Theresa May to form a government with the help of the DUP.
I said, No, it was not going to happen.
Many arguments have been advanced in defence of abstentionism including that the oath or affirmation of allegiance to a foreign monarch and her heirs presents a difficulty and is inimical to one’s republicanism; or that one’s influence is miniscule and dwarfed by the major parties with few from the North able to demonstrate worthwhile achievements commensurate with their attendance.
These arguments, whilst valid, are not at the core of abstentionism. For example, the oath could be completely removed. Or, imagine Britain a republic. It might well be possible for some of the parties which take their seats to point to pieces of legislation that they have influenced or initiated. In the circumstances of a hung parliament it is undeniable that a tail might be able to wag the much bigger dog for a time.
Even if the oath was removed and I was an MP I would still not take my seat.
Even if Britain was a republic I would still not take my seat.
Even if I held the balance of power and could get through bits and pieces of legislation (while flattering myself as to the magnitude of my importance) I would still not take my seat.
For me, it is quite simple.
How can I object to Britain interfering in Irish affairs if I go over and interfere in theirs?
Once I took my seat, with or without an oath, I have lost the moral high ground on that question of Irish sovereignty. I have already conceded Britain’s right to govern on this shore – a claim that was demonstrably rejected in December 1918 by the majority of people in Ireland in a democratic election.
Even though for reasons of pragmatism I support Agreements which were passed into law in the House of Commons, this does not mean that I recognise Britain’s claim to rule over me as being legitimate.
Leinster House and Stormont, for all their many flaws, are assemblies of the people of this island. Furthermore, the state in which I live is not the state in which I grew up. Much has changed; often beyond recognition. Much has clearly still to be changed. I am in the business of building a new society in Ireland out of the two states which currently exist. To do that I need to win over a significant body of support from the unionist community, as well as winning over people in the South who have lived for a century under successive partitionist governments which have never acted in truly national terms.
The establishment in the South distances itself from us by increasingly in its discourse conflating the Twenty-Six Counties with ‘Ireland’; although the threat of Brexit to the southern economy, and to the security of the peace process, has suddenly produced fresh – some might say, opportunistic – interest in reunification.
On Friday, the day after the general election, I tweeted: “In interfering in British affairs the DUP will gather many enemies.” I hadn’t appreciated how quickly that would happen nor the scale of the revulsion.
The British, especially the English, deeply resent anyone else telling them what to do.
In simplistic terms it explains their dislike of Europe and the way they voted on Brexit.
As an exercise, imagine that the Labour and Tory wins were reversed and that Sinn Féin’s seven seats would be enough to support a Labour minority government, and that the party, out of the blue, took its Westminster seats.
Make no mistake about it: the British public and the British media would be just as scathing of republicans as they are now of the DUP; although the DUP because of its homophobic, racist and sectarian proclivities present much more fertile ground for ridicule and attack.
And that is because the British, especially the English, do not like outsiders interfering in their affairs.
Although the SNP would also have faced criticism were it to prop up, say, a Corbyn minority government, the criticism and the type of condemnation would not be as visceral as the attacks on the Irish unionists because Scotland and Wales are unquestionably viewed differently from the Six Counties.
Incidentally, those famous Irish politicians who did take their oath and seats in Westminster failed abysmally in their objectives.
Daniel O’Connell failed to achieve the Repeal of the Union. Charles Stewart Parnell and his Irish Parliamentary Party after decades in Westminster, and his successor, John Redmond, failed to achieve Home Rule, but did manage to sacrifice the lives of 50,000 Irish Volunteers in WWI who were fooled into believing they were fighting for the freedom of a small nation, Ireland.
I’m not including one major success at Westminster by the original Ulster Unionist Party because their exclusion of the Six Counties and the abandonment of the Home Rule Act has proved to be one unmitigated disaster for everyone.
By abstaining from Westminster Sinn Féin is making a powerful statement – that the people who vote for it reject British rule and British interference.
And that is something that should give British people pause for thought: if you are livid at the prospects of a party from here, going over there to interfere and make your laws, how do you think we feel after all these centuries?
This sordid Tory/DUP arrangement, if it comes off, may not last long, will ultimately damage both parties, but more immediately will jeopardise the prospects of a return to devolution.
Why would Sinn Féin go into an executive in which the DUP has a disproportionate degree of influence over the British government – an alleged, joint-guarantor with the Irish government of the Belfast Agreement?
One, perhaps unforeseen consequence of the DUP’s willingness to go into coalition with a British government is that the DUP is effectively relinquishing any objection it might make in the future to Sinn Féin doing exactly the same in Dublin.
For the DUP I hope that the demonization they are facing (and which must appear as unjust and unfair to them) is a chastening experience and one which will make them or their supporters reflect on the antediluvian nature of their policies which encroach on the freedom of others.
I also hope it makes them realise that in actual fact they belong here more than over there.
It is here, not over there, they should be entering into a true pact with their fellow Irish people. |
Decided to wait until I had the other three done before uploading them all. Here we have Pinkie Pie as Hawkeye. Again, a difficult choice for me to make with who would fit with Pinkie Pie (considering Deadpool is not an Avengers). Still, I kind of consider Hawkeye sort of the comic relief of the group (though he wasn't much of a joker in the movie). Plus, I like the wordplay, Pinkeye. - Ew. Nothing really funny about Pink Eye. Heard that a nurse was using pinkie crust to make....Okay! Pinkie! No need for the details!Pinkie Pie own and (c) by HasbroHawkeye own and (c) by MarvelArtwork (c) Kenichi-ShinigamiMy Little Avengers -Shining Fury- [link] Captain Equestria- [link] Twilight Widow - [link] Ironmare - [link] Pinkeye - HereRainbow Thor - [link] Flutterhulk - [link] |
It’s been a while since I last took part in the Peanut Butter Bash Group but its time to join in again! Because of my job I have had to sit the last few months out but this is fate because the month I could join in again was banana month……. seriously anyone who has read this blog for a while will know just how obsessed with all things banana I am, so I could’t wait to try these two together. And I came up with this Light and Fluffy Peanut Butter Banana Layer Cake.
This is everything a cake should be and oh so much more, let me explain 😀
Layer Cake’s & Banana
I don’t often make layer cakes, I find them too much to eat and can occasionally be just a little bit too dry for my liking. Hence why I tend to make traybake’s, snack cakes and cupcakes. It’s just a personal preference of mine. But I got it into my head that I wanted a layer cake. Banana cake is almost always a moist cake but it can make a sponge dense and heavy.
To make sure there were no dense heavy sponge issues with this cake I added buttermilk to the batter. Buttermilk is almost a wonder ingredient in cakes. It ensures a light and fluffy tender crumb. Ensuring the banana did not weigh the sponge down.
Peanut Butter Overload
Because banana can be a strong flavour I wanted to make sure the peanut butter was an equal partner and not a side show. To do this I included a healthy amount into the cake batter, I also smothered the cake in a light and creamy peanut butter cream cheese frosting and to finish if off I added a handful of peanut butter chips.
Making sure that each bite had that peanut butter goodness in it 😀 The peanut butter chips are completely optional as I know they are not the easiest thing to come by, especially in the UK. I have to order mine online, so chocolate chips will work fine instead.
Or leave them off all together. All in all this a light and fluffy cake that is equally flavoured with banana and peanut butter. It’s simple to make and comes together in one bowl so there aren’t too many dishes to wash up afterwards 😀
Honestly you will love this Light and Fluffy Peanut Butter Banana Layer Cake as much as me. It really is a tea time treat for the whole family!
Light and Fluffy Peanut Butter Banana Layer Cake A light and fluffy peanut butter and banana layer cake. Peanut butter and banana sponge filled and covered with a light and creamy peanut butter cream cheese frosting. 0 from 0 votes Print Pin Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 35 minutes Total Time: 55 minutes Servings: 8 -10 slices Author: Emma Ingredients For the cake
125 grams unsalted butter (1 stick & 1 tablespoon)
250 grams light brown sugar (1 & 1/8 cup)
125 grams smooth peanut butter (1/2 cup)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 medium sized ripe bananas - mashed
120 millilitres buttermilk (1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
290 grams plain / all purpose flour (2 & 1/4 cups)
For the frosting
212 grams unsalted butter (1 cup)
65 grams smooth peanut butter (1/4 cup)
400 grams icing sugar (3 cups)
155 grams full fat cream cheese (3/4 cup)
50 grams peanut butter or chocolate chips (1/4 cup) Instructions Preheat your oven to 190C / 375F / Gas mark 5 and either line or lightly grease two 8inch round tins that are at least 2 inches deep and place to one side.
Cream the butter, sugar and peanut butter together until they are light and fluffy. About 2-3 minutes if you are using a stand or electric mixer.
Then add the eggs one at a time beating in-between each addition then add in the vanilla extract and mashed bananas. Mix until everything is well combined about another minute.
Sieve in the baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour.
Then gently fold in the dry ingredients into the batter.
Divide the batter equally between the two tins and gently spread it out in the tin so it is level. Then pop the tins in the middle of your oven.
After 25 minutes you need to reduce the temperature of your oven to 170C / 325F / Gas mark 3 and bake your cake for a further 10 minutes.
After this 10 minutes check you cake for doneness, it should just be starting to pull away from the sides of your tins be a light golden colour and be firm to the touch. If you have a pick press it into the middle and it should come out clean. If it doesn't pass these tests give your cake a further few minutes and test again.
Take the cakes out of the oven and let them rest in their tins for 5 minutes then transfer them to a wire rack to fully cool down.
Once the cakes are fully cooled down its time to make the frosting.
Using an electric mixer or stand mixer beat the butter until it is light and fluffy, this will be about 5-7 minutes.
Mix in the peanut butter and beat for another minute or two until it is well mixed into the butter.
Turn your mixer off and pour in half of the icing sugar, on a low speed start to mix it in. When its fully combined repeat with the remaining icing sugar.
Add in the cream cheese and beat on a medium speed for a minute until it is well mixed in.
Your cake is now ready to decorate.
Put half of your frosting on top of one of your cakes and gently spread it out over the sponge but keep it a few centimetres from the edges and then sandwich it together with the other half.
Then place the remaining frosting on the top of the cakes and gently work in over the top and down the side of the sponges until everything is fully covered.
If using sprinkle your peanut butter chips or chocolate chips over the top.
Slice and serve.
Kept in an airtight tin in cool temperatures this cake will last 4 days. Tried this recipe? Mention @BakeThenEat or tag #BakeThenEat Share this recipe Mention @BakeThenEat or tag #BakeThenEat
Do you want to join in on the peanut butter bash fun? If so, email Miranda and request to join the Peanut Butter Bash facebook group! The first Thursday of each month we post a dessert with peanut butter and a mystery ingredient. There is also a Facebook group if you want to join in the fun but don’t run your own blog The Peanut Butter Recipe Box. Here are the other peanut butter and Banana creations! |