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Manitoba Public Insurance will no longer charge a deductible to most drivers whose vehicles are vandalized.
As of Friday, the insurer is offering a $0 deductible for vandalism claims for customers who are part of its $100 or $200 deductible programs.
The changes officially take effect Oct. 1, but officials said all vandalism claims filed from Friday forward would be dealt with in "good faith" and be included in the new program.
If you're part of the 25 per cent of MPI customers who are in the $500 deductible program, you'll be out of luck, though.
The insurer offers a base deductible of $500 for claims, but gives customers an option to "buy down" the deductible to $100 or $200. About 700,000 customers take that option, according to the insurer.
To cover the costs, MPI will up premiums by between $3 and $5 per year starting in March 2016.
The insurer dealt with 10,000 vandalism claims last year, and a rash of vandalism cases in River Heights this year brought the issue to the forefront, MPI officials said.
"It's just the basic principle of insurance. You spread that loss," said Manitoba Justice Minister Gord Mackintosh. "The average vandalism claim is $1,300, and you could, with the purchase of the option, reduce it to zero. It's a really good deal."
Mackintosh said people who lived in the area were being repeatedly victimized and were fed up with having to continually shell out deductibles.
"What we were experiencing in River Heights was repeated vandalism of a particular vehicle. So it wasn't just a matter of paying $100. It was $100 and $100, $100 and $100," he said. "People were asking, 'Can we have some relief from this?'"
Peter Smith lives in the area and had his car windows smashed three times in three months.
"It's really kind of wanton – nothing to be gained from it," he said. "I keep nothing in my car, so they never got anything. They just smashed the window."
Smith said he's happy MPI has now stepped up to cover the deductibles.
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Custom Dice!
As we get back into the swing of getting Silent Fury up to speed, one thing we’re doing is maximizing our visual appeal for convention games. I’ll have some more posts about that soon, but as part of that I just finished one minor project that I’ve wanted to do for awhile – making some custom dice for Silent Fury.
Silent Fury doesn’t officially require custom dice, but the way the rules are laid out I’m anticipating that they’ll be useful. Here’s the short of it if you haven’t read the rules – for d6s we have black Impact dice and red Effect dice. Impact dice work this way on a normal D6: If you roll a 1, 2, or 3, you get no points. A ‘4’ or a ‘5’ is 1 point, and a ‘6’ is 2 points.
Effect dice are similar – you get a special damage effect if you roll a ‘5’ or a ‘6’ on any of the red dice on a damage roll.
All of the above works with standard dice and we’ve played successfully with those for years, but I’ve always wanted to go one better and get custom dice to exactly reflect the above outcomes. At Historicon I found my solution – blank dice that I could mark, and for a marker I used this silver oil-based paint pen.
With impact dice (black) you total up the overall value from all the dice rolled, so I marked them with pips like standard dice – three sides are left blank, two sides have one pip, and one side has two pips. At con games this will let me skip the explanation of how to translate black d6’s into point values and remove the necessity for new players to do so.
Effect dice (red) are NOT added up, the only thing that matters is if you get that ‘5’ or ‘6’ anywhere in the set and they are never added, so I drew exclamation marks on two faces of each die and left the rest blank. This clearly differentiates the results and I’m hoping makes it clearer to new players that they are treated entirely separate from the Impact dice.
A little clumsy freehand drawing later, and voila!
I have no idea how durable they’ll prove (they’re still drying as I write this) but I have high hopes that they’ll last since the paint is oil-based (and even if they chip off I’m keeping the marker around for touch-ups). I also had the good fortune to have designed a game where all the dice have at least one blank side that can be put on the table while the other sides dry – if you were going to mark every side then you would probably need to mark some faces, let those dry, then go back and mark the rest.
In terms of cost this worked out to about ten bucks total, and most of that was the paint pen – so this is probably the cheapest way you can get good looking custom dice. The other way is to use indented blanks and stickers, but I didn’t like the look of dice with stickers and wanted something more ‘natural’ looking.
Assuming these work as well in a game as I’m hoping they do, down the road I plan on ordering professional custom dice for the game, but since the rules are still in flux I didn’t want to commit that much to dice that I might make obsolete in a few months (I doubt I will as this dice system has been solid for years now, but you never know – nothing is safe from redesign!) I checked on custom dice from Chessex and you’re looking at a dollar per side – for the above set even with all the blank sides, that’s gonna work out to about 30 bucks.
Considering that the other part of our visual enhancements is going to involve several of these Khadoran Royal Navy and Deisho Confederation ships from the Cold Navy miniatures line, I can stand to save money on the custom dice…
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Introduction
Ever since Windows Server 2012 we have SMB Direct capabilities in the OS and Windows Server 2012 R2 added more use cases such as live migration for example. In Windows Server 2016, even more, workloads leverage SMB Direct, such as S2D and Storage Replication. SMB Direct leverages the RDMA capabilities of a NIC which delivers high throughput at low latency combined with CPU offloading to the NIC. The latter save CPU cycles for the other workloads on the hosts such as virtual machines.
Traditionally, in order for SMB Direct to work, the SMB stack needs direct access to the RDMA NICs. This means that right up to Windows Server 2012 R2 we had SMB Direct on running on physical NICs on the host or the parent partition/management OS. You could not have RDMA exposed on a vNIC or even on a host native NIC team (LBFO). SMB Direct was also not compatible with SR-IOV. That was and still is, for that OS version common knowledge and a design consideration. With Windows Server 2016, things changed. You can now have RDMA exposed on a vSwitch and on management OS vNICs. Even better, the new Switch Embedded Teaming (SET) allows for RDMA to be exposed in the same way on top of a vSwitch. SET is an important technology in this as RDMA is still not exposed on a native Windows team (LBFO).
As an early adopter of SMB Direct, I have always studied the technology and pretty soon via Mellanox user manuals such as MLNX_VPI_WinOF_User_Manual_v5.35.pdf we found some experimental capabilities in Windows Server 2016. I’m talking about the ability to expose an RDMA to a VM vNIC. This is not supported in any way right now. But it can be done, imperfect and tedious as it is. The Mellanox document gives us the information on how to do so. What follows is a glimpse into a possible future via experimentation. Again, this is NOT supported and is still limited in what you can do. But it sure is interesting. I have a couple of use cases for this and I’d love to get some POCs lines up in the future if Microsoft adds this as a fully functional and supported solution.
Join me in the lab! Remember that this is buggy, error-prone, sometime frustrating early poking around and you should never ever do this on production servers.
Putting the power of Mellanox RoCE RDMA into a virtual machine is just too tempting not to try.
Setting it up
Let’s start with some prerequisites we need to take care of. We need a Hyper-V host that supports SR-IOV. A DELL R730 served us well here. We also need NICs that support SR-IOV and RDMA. For that purpose, we used Mellanox ConnectX-3 Pro cards. The OS has to be Windows Server 2016 on both the parent partition and on the guests VM. At the moment of writing, I still need to get some lab time on this with RS3.
Make sure you have SR-IOV enabled on the host or parent partition. That means that it’s set in the BIOS and enabled on the RDMA NICs.
On every host involved where you want RDMA in the guest to add the following registry DWORD registry key “EnableGuestRdma” to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mlx4_bus\Parameters path and set it to “1” (enabled). After you have done this enable and disable the NIC in device manager to have the setting take effect.
Create then a vSwitch with SR-IOV enabled as follows:
New-VMSwitch W2K16-Switch -NetAdapterName MyRDMANIC -EnableIov $true 1 New - VMSwitch W2K16 - Switch - NetAdapterName MyRDMANIC - EnableIov $ true
Note: this works with SET but it’s limited in various ways. For now, at the time of writing, Guest RDMA only works on Mellanox port. With a SET vSwitch of more than 1 member you’ll have to map the vmNIC to port 1 of Mellanox NIC via Set-VMNetworkAdapterTeamMapping Like this Set-VMNetworkAdapterTeamMapping -VMNetworkAdapterName “Network Adapter” -VMName VM1 -PhysicalNetAdapterName “My Physical NIC”. For this reason, I have opted to not use SET in this demo and focus on SMB Direct in the guest without other distractions of SET for now.
Deploy a VM (x64 bit, Windows Server 2016 – just like the host, fully updated) and create a vNIC that you attach to your SR-IOV enabled vSwitch.
Boot your VM, log in and go take a look in device manager under Network adapters and System devices. As you can see we find a Mellanox ConnectX-3 Virtual Function Ethernet Adapter for which Windows Server 2016 in the VM has the onboard drivers.
For the best results, we opt to install the Mellanox drivers in the guest as well. I’m keeping the parent partition and the guest partition at the same driver versions.
I restart the VM for good measure and voila … the Mellanox driver shows up
and in the System devices for the Mellanox ConnectX-3 VPI (MT04100) Virtual Network Adapter we see more of the Mellanox menus.
Between those two devices, we can control any aspect of the rNIC that’s exposed and available to the VM. The only thing we deal with on the Hypervisor level for the VM is the VLAN tagging and some of the RDMA configuration options are not controlled from within the VM.
For the demo, we actually created a 2 vNIC virtual machine. This has one “normal” LAN NIC connected to a standard vSwitch and one vRDMA NIC connected to the SR-IOV enabled vSwitсh.
In the VM setting, this gives as in the figure below.
As you can see we tag the VLAN on the vRDMA NIC in the vNIC Settings. So now it’s time to set up RDMA in the guest itself. The Mellanox counters itself are not yet ready for this scenario in the guest so I cannot use those to show you priority tagging at work or any other Mellanox counter goodies or so. We will use the native windows RDMA Activity performance counters and the SMB Direct Connections counters to check traffic in the guest. On the parent partition, we can follow what’s happening with the Mellanox counters.
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I’m not going to document setting up DCB configurations on the host here, that’s been described more than enough all over the place. My blog might be a good place to get that information. The best thing you can do before you start even to get RDMA to flow in or out a VM is to make sure your RDMA works in the lab between the physical hosts.
We must not forget to enable RDMA on the vNIC in the VM. You can see this by running Get-NetAdapterRDMA we still need to enable guest RDMA inside our VM.
We do this by running Enable-NetAdapterRdma on “Guest RDMA vNIC” – the one attached to our SR-IOV enabled vSwitch.
Enable-NetAdapterRDMA -Name "Guest RDMA vNIC" 1 Enable - NetAdapterRDMA - Name "Guest RDMA vNIC"
“Guest RDMA vNIC” will leverage the S-IOV virtual function Mellanox NIC for RDMA. Running Get-NetadapterRdma will confirm it’s enabled.
You might have to restart the VM after any changes to get things to work. It’s all a bit finicky.
Showtime! Let’s copy some data from the guest to another host over RDMA. We use a separate physical host with RDMA enabled as the target to avoid any VM to VM magic that might bypass a vSwitch. The result in the screenshot below is RDMA to/from a virtual machine. We are copying data (large ISO files) from within the virtual machine to a physical host over RDMA. The behavior is like what you expect RoCE RDMA traffic to look like. No IO to be seen in task manager but clearly RDMA / SMB Direct traffic in PerMon of the virtual machine.
On the physical machine, the RDMA traffic can also be visualized with the Mellanox performance counters. These counters don’t work in the VM, but this is all very early days, not supported, experimenting in the lab. But hey, this is sweet! I do have use cases for this. Some industrial apps that dump vast amounts of metrics to file shares can leverage this for example. Also for moving data around in GIS or Aerospace engineering environments, this can be very useful. Remember that this isn’t just about speed & low latency but also CPU offloading. Not hammering the CPU’s to serve network traffic leaves more resources for the actual payloads in the VMs.
Conclusion and observations
It’s geeky cool to see RDMA traffic flow in and out of a virtual machine. It offers a glimpse at what will be possible in the future and at how some things are probably being handled for Azure workloads. The push for ever more affordable performance and throughput is still moving forward. I have several workloads and use cases where this capability interests me in order to virtualize even more workloads than ever before.
As we already stated above this is today only an experiment and not supported at all. But you get a glimpse of the future here.
The whole DCB configuration inside of the guest and NetAdapterQoS support in the guest is still something to figure out, as it’s not there for now it seems. One of the main issues that will have to be resolved when (if) all the SMB Direct traffic is tagged with the same priority for FPC/ETS. When we start mixing parent partition (management OS) and guest RDMA/SMB Direct traffic over the pNICs this will lead to potentially even more competition and congestion issues due to ever more workloads leveraging SMB 3 over the same traffic class. The question is whether more traffic classes will be allowed in the future, noting that the number of lossless queues is limited to 2 or 3. The future will show how things evolve both for RDMA, DCB and SMB Direct. Sure, 25/50/100 Gbps networking is here and will help mitigate these issues by the virtue of raw bandwidth in some cases. Designs with these use cases in mind will also help. For now, we’ve just taken a look at some early capabilities that are not supported yet and have lots of questions on top of great prospects. The next steps will be to experiment with the public previews of RS3 (Windows Server Insider Preview Builds).
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How’s you like to improve your snatch without any extra training? Here’s a great article explaining why a pre-lift routine is critical to nailing PRs. The post below from Fubarbell explains how a routine helps top level athletes make big lifts. Normally, I’m pretty skeptical but this post basically mirrors what a number of CrossFitters have reported after attending five time national champ Donny Shankle’s o-lifting seminar. I’d also guess that having a consistent pre-lift routine is a great way to help your nervous system reset after a failed lift.
Read to the end of the article
Weightlifters have a routine. There’s a specific way they like to address the bar, set-up and pull; and they’ll do this subconsciously before every rep especially as they get to their heavier attempts. As part of their “pre-flight check,” you’ll also notice them adopt an almost zen-like state. All of this automation and calming of the nerves serves a purpose to reduce activities happening in the psyche and body which result in maximal force being produced into the bar. In order for the barbell-weightlifter system to have the potential to move the most efficiently, power must be expressed from the floor into the weight. The body must reduce levels of internal resistance or turn down any muscular excitement that isn’t productive towards transmitting force. This is part of the reason why a hook-grip is so valued ‘cause it allows the lifter to hang onto the weight without excessively engaging the flexor muscles of the forearm and biceps. The chassis (or trunk) of the body must be set into absolute extension and locked in tight for this serves as the main transmitter between the lower and upper extremities; and the legs must be positioned so the hips can sit in closer towards the bar allowing for a more stable and verticalized torso. All this must be done without overstimulating unnecessary musculature. The lifter’s attitude must be taken into consideration as well. Any excessive thinking or negative emotion will also retard the flow of movement. Thinking excites the psyche too much causing paralysis of analysis and negative emotion (anger, rage) overstimulates the sympathetic nervous system causing the body to produce too much internal resistance. The moral of the story? Well, as my BFF Bruce Lee would say, “The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”
p.s. I dig the point about the hook grip as well. I always thought hook grip was only useful if you were having grip issues. I never thought of it from a simplicity perspective. Bam!
p.s.s. We’ve got a little post about hook grip here.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. –The tax-relief package recently signed into law includes an important provision authored by U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, that makes the $250 teacher tax credit permanent. This provisionwill provide important tax relief to help cover the out-of-pocket expenses our nation’s teachers incur to improve the education of our children. Senator Collins authored the law that first created the $250 teacher tax deduction in 2002.
“In Maine, and throughout the country, dedicated teachers take on the challenge of educating our young people and helping them to realize their full potential,” said Senator Collins. “In spite of tight budgets and their own modest salaries, it is truly remarkable how often our teachers in Maine and throughout our country take money out of their own pockets to purchase classroom supplies for our children. I have visited more than two hundred schools in Maine, and everywhere I go I find teachers who sacrifice their own money to ensure that our nation’s children have the resources they need to receive a good, quality education. I am so pleased to announce that this important tax deduction has been made permanent and can continue to reimburse our nation’s educators for a small part of what they invest in our children's futures.”
The teacher tax credit allows teachers, teacher's aides, principals, and counselors to take an above-the-line deduction of up to $250 for books and supplies they purchase for their students. According to the National Education Association, the average public school teacher spends more than $400 annually on classroom materials.
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A full twenty years after its release in Japan, After War Gundam X has finally made it to English speaking audiences. This show came out in 1996, just a year after Gundam Wing, and has continued to live in its shadow. Gundam Wing was not only successful in Japan, but wildly popular in the United States as a Toonami flagship series that introduced many westerners to the Gundam franchise for the first time. It would be logical to think that after a runaway overseas success like that, Sunrise would want to bring the next Gundam show to the west as soon as possible. So why did Toonami air the older title G-Gundam, and pass over Gundam X?
The viewer numbers say it all. Gundam X saw audience ratings so low that it soon lost its coveted 5 PM Friday timeslot and began airing at 6 AM Saturday. The numbers didn't get better from there, and the series was cut from a year-long run to just 39 episodes. Its cancellation means it shares something with the original Gundam show, Mobile Suit Gundam, but it certainly could not have been seen as a good omen. Now that the first half of the show is out in the west, fans can finally see for themselves that it's a fairly average show. If you can get used to that '90s slowness, it's a Saturday morning cartoon calibur story with a few interesting points, memorable characters, and bizarre oddities that gets its depth from being part of the Gundam universe.
Gundam X has a '90s era plot that won't resonate with fans accustomed to a quicker pace. It takes three initial episodes to set everything up: teenage protagonist Garrod Ran meets the mysterious, childlike Tiffa Adill, gets hired to “rescue” her from a salvage ship captained by Newtype Jamil Neate, and eventually decides not only to disobey his shady employer, but to join the ship as a pilot himself. Had it been made in 2016, the first three episodes would have been compressed into one. The real story begins when Tiffa and Garrod join the Freeden crew and begin assisting the team with its overarching mission to seek out Newtypes all over Earth, a quest that gives the plot a Star Trek feel—a constant panorama of new places and temporary allies and antagonists—with the slate wiping clean again after every arc.
With this pair on board, the pace begins to escalate: Tiffa, a Newtype with clairvoyant powers, sketches out the locations she sees in her dreams, and Garrod goes out to investigate (and is often forced to fight what he finds) in his Gundam. In these first 19 episodes, the team encounters three Newtypes which all fall into tropes—the cybernetically enhanced prettyboy enemy-turned-ally Carris Nautilus, the “nude lady in a tube” Lutil Liliant, and oh yeah, a hyper-intelligent white dolphin. With all three, there's a feel of science-turned-magic that you might find in any Saturday morning cartoon, and treated with the same quasi-sincerity. Less interesting are the two recurring villain entities, the telepathic Frost Brothers and the pirate queen Ennil El, who have dubious motivations of revenge against Garrod.
Similarly, the main characters are all cookie-cutter tropes you've seen, if not in other Gundam series, in other '90s anime. Captain Jamil is the ship's strong leader with an unhidden vulnerable side thanks to his wartime trauma. He serves as a father figure to both fifteen-year-olds, helping hotheaded Garrod become a better Gundam pilot, and protecting meek woman-child Tiffa, a Newtype like himself, from harm. Garrod endures brotherly joshing from fellow pilots Witz and Robea, while Tiffa receives motherly guidance from Toniya and tough love from Sala. Even on a ship with a child mechanic actually named Kid, these two are treated like the ship's children and this show, like most Gundam shows, is a coming of age story. But it's a too-rare treat when the show focuses on extending character development beyond basic archetypes, like in the unexpectedly heartfelt episode 15, “Do You Think There Is A Heaven?” which narrows in on side characters Witz and Robea.
There's not much visual innovation here, either. Characters are line drawn with limited shading, providing visual interest only to make exaggerated '90s facial expressions during each episode's occasional gags. When Carris Nautilus kidnaps Tiffa, he asks “How do you like your quarters?” and receives total silence in return. We the viewers are treated to a mere suggestion of dark brown wood paneling and white sheets—no wonder Tiffa's not impressed! The music is considerably more conducive in setting the mood—while the upbeat tempo intro song is just as addictive as I've come to expect from Gundam openings, the instrumental themes have considerable range and shift with the show's serious-funny-serious tone. Also, this is the first time Gundam X has been officially subtitled in English, but I found its reliance on modern turns of phrase to be weirdly colloquial and a little out of place for the older property.
With its slower pace, wacky faces, and revolving door of antagonists that includes a sentient dolphin, this is the cartooniest of Saturday Morning cartoons. But it's not totally forgettable, and it owes any glimmer of depth to its belonging in the established Gundam universe. Most likely, the people who are going to give Gundam X a chance are people already familiar with the Gundam canon. Within the universe, Gundam X has some interesting things to say about Gundam concepts. While many Gundam series attempt to hold off the apocalypse, Gundam X presents a world in which the worst has happened, and how humanity attempts to get by anyway. While other Gundam series portray Newtypes as the chosen few, Gundam X suggests the other side of the coin, an increased risk of exploitation and trauma. And of course, there's the innovative and beloved Gundam X design—but it's one gem in a sea of clunky suits, and the animation budget is rarely enough to show everything the X can do. Looking at Gundam X as a whole reveals some interesting riffs on the intellectual property it has to work with, but you'll still have to slog through predictable characters and ho-hum animation to get there.
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In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual[1][2] with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances.
Description [ edit ]
The name derives from a 15th-century English morality play called Everyman.[2]
The contemporary everyman differs from his (or her) medieval counterpart in many respects. While the medieval everyman was devoid of definite marks of individuality in order to create a universality in the moral message of the play, the contemporary storyteller may use an everyman for amoral, immoral, or demonstrative purposes.[citation needed]
Uses [ edit ]
The everyman character is constructed so that the audience can imagine themselves in the same situation without having to possess knowledge, skills, or abilities that transcend human potential. Such characters react realistically in situations that are often taken for granted with traditional heroes.
Alternatively, an everyman occupies the role of protagonist without being a "hero" and without necessarily being a round character or a dynamic character. In this scenario, the everyman is developed like a secondary character, but the character's near omnipresence within the narrative shifts the focus from character development to events and story lines surrounding the character. Some audiences or readers may project themselves into this character, if no dominant characteristic of the everyman prevents them from doing so. Others may ignore the character and concentrate on the story arc, the visual imagery, the irony or satire, and any other aspect of the story which the orchestrator(s) of the story have focused upon or, indeed, whatever personally interests the reader.[citation needed]
An everyman character may occasionally be used as a narrator for the action, or to gloss over or fill in temporal gaps in the flow of a story. This allows for the presence of narrators without drawing attention to their role, by having a character commentating on events from within the dramatic action rather than separate from it. When employed in this way, the everyman character may by necessity have to break the convention of the fourth wall, speaking directly to the audience. Examples of this role would include the character of Ché in the musical Evita.[3][4]
Examples [ edit ]
In fiction [ edit ]
A prominent example of an everyman character is Christian, the protagonist of John Bunyan's Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress (1678).[5] Other figures often characterized as everymen include:
In non-fiction [ edit ]
An example of the term's use in non-fiction is the description in Salon of Dustin Hoffman's reaction to the Weather Underground's townhouse explosion: "[...] the news footage of the Greenwich Village townhouse destroyed in 1970 by bomb-making gone wrong in the basement still has enormous impact. Standing in the chaotic street, actor Dustin Hoffman, who lived next door, seems like Everyman at the apocalypse."[20]
See also [ edit ]
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Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. (Getty Images, Reuters)
There's a mystery, or riddle, in the latest national Washington Post-ABC News poll.
A majority of registered voters say Donald Trump is "not qualified" to be president — 58 percent said as much in the latest survey, compared with 42 percent who said Hillary Clinton is unqualified. In all, 49 percent now feel "strongly" that Trump is not qualified to be president. Yet Trump trails Hillary Clinton by a mere 4 percentage points in the latest survey (47 to 43), a smaller margin than one might imagine, given that so many reject his basic qualifications. How is he overcoming (most of) the deficit?
Digging one level deeper in the survey offers some clues, looking at voters who have contrasting views of Clinton and Trump's qualifications. The decision for these voters seems like it should be fairly simple — one candidate is qualified and the other is not. It isn't. In the poll, 46 percent of all registered voters said Clinton is qualified and Trump is not, while a smaller 30 percent said only Trump is qualified.
Republicans and Democrats alike are slamming Donald Trump for his comments about a federal judge. Here are six times something Trump said made sparked a huge backlash from critics. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
These groups of voters are acting largely as expected — Trump receives a near-universal 98 percent support from voters who say that only Trump is qualified, while Clinton receives slightly less support among those who say only Clinton is qualified (92 percent).
Greater unity among the only-Trump crowd is notable, but only nets Trump about 1 percentage point more support among the electorate overall. Clinton still nets a 13-point advantage among all registered voters based on her advantage with those who see Clinton or Trump as more qualified than the other.
By deduction, Trump's strength must come from the remaining fifth of voters who see no difference between Clinton and Trump's qualifications — either saying both Trump and Clinton are qualified (9 percent) or "neither" of them are qualified (11 percent). These voters see Clinton and Trump as roughly equal on this basic question of qualification, and we might expect they'd split about evenly in support for the two major-party candidates.
But it turns out that that expectation would be wrong. Pooling June and July surveys to boost sample size for these smaller groups, Trump leads by 67 percent to 25 percent over Clinton among voters who say both candidates are qualified, and Trump has a 41 percent to 17 percent lead among those who say neither is qualified. A sizable 41 percent of the "neither" group say they would support neither candidate or have no current preference.
Trump's margins with "both" and "neither" qualified groups have a big impact. Trump nets a 7 percentage-point gain in support from voters who see Clinton and Trump as equally qualified or not qualified, overcoming more than half of Clinton's advantage among voters who say only one of the candidates is qualified.
Why is Trump faring so well with voters who see Clinton and Trump as equally qualified or unqualified? Their partisanship offers clues — over the past two surveys, voters who said "both" or "neither" candidates were qualified were 14 points more likely to lean toward the Republican Party than voters overall. Those who said both are qualified were also 11 points more likely to be men, a group that tilts more Republican.
This latter dynamic makes some sense — many Republican leaders have vocally questioned Trump's fitness for the presidency, and some of those concerns are seen among Republicans nationwide. These voters were always going to be hard gets for Clinton, and many may adopt Paul Ryan's reasoning that stopping Clinton is enough motivation to put aside reservations about Trump and vote the party line.
The poll also shows that Clinton has a lot riding on her ability to differentiate herself from Trump on a basic level of qualifications, one of his biggest weaknesses. Trump's choice of Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate could help him along these lines, as could taking on Clinton's record as secretary of state, in which capacity she was seen as an effective and strong leader.
But the more important takeaway is that Trump doesn't need to beat Clinton on the qualifications measure — a draw with the right amount of voters would be enough.
The Post-ABC poll was conducted July 11-14 among a random national sample of 1,003 adults reached on cellular and landline phones. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; the error margin is 4 points among the sample of 816 registered voters.
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So can we get off of Earth already and start building bases on the Moon or an asteroid? As highlighted in a recent Office of Science and Technology Policy blog post, one way to do that quickly could be to use resources on site. But how do we even get started? Can we afford to do it now, in this tough economic climate?
Universe Today spoke with Philip Metzger, a former senior research physicist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, who has explored this subject extensively on his website and in published papers. He argues that to do space this way would be similar to how the pilgrims explored North America. In the first of a three-part series, he outlines the rationale and the first steps to making it there.
UT: It’s been said that using resources on the Moon, Mars or asteroids will be cheaper than transporting everything from Earth. At the same time, there are inherent startup costs in terms of developing technology to do this extraction and also sending this equipment over there, among other things. How do we reconcile these two realities?
PM: Space industry will have a tremendous payback, but it will be costly to start. Several years ago I was frustrated because I didn’t think that commercial interests alone would be enough to get it fully started within our generation, so I asked the question, can we find an inexpensive way for the governments of the world (or philanthropists or others who may not have an immediate commercial interest) to get it started simply because of the societal benefits it will bring? That’s why my colleagues and I wrote the paper “Affordable Rapid Bootstrapping of Space Industry and Solar System Civilization.”
We are advocating a bootstrapping approach because it helps solve the problem of the high startup cost and it enables humanity to start reaping the benefits quickly, since we need them quickly. A bootstrapping approach works like this: instead of building all the hardware on Earth and sending it into space ready to start manufacturing things, we can send a reduced set of hardware into space and make only a little bit of what we need. We can send the rest of the manufactured parts from Earth and combine them with what we made in space. Over time we keep doing this until we evolve up to a full manufacturing capability in space.
This is how colonies on Earth built themselves up until eventually they were able to match the industry of their homelands. The pilgrims, for example, didn’t bring entire factories from Europe over on the Mayflower. Now it took hundreds of years to build up American industry, but with robotics and advanced manufacturing and with some intentionality we can get it done much more quickly at still an affordable price. We have done some rudimentary modeling of this bootstrapping approach and it looks as though it would be a small part of our annual space budget and it could establish the industry within just decades.
What I think is even more important than the cost is that with a bootstrapping approach we can get started right away. We don’t need to complete the entire design and development up front. It also spreads the cost over time so the annual expenses are very low. And it allows us time to evolve our strategy, to figure out what works and what will have more immediate economic payback, as we go along. Many people are looking for the immediate ways to get a payback in space, and there are some great ideas and I am sure they will be successful. One example is to set up a mining operation that refuels communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit. These sorts of activities will contribute to, and will benefit from, the effort to start industry in space, and they will generate revenue to fund their portion of the effort.
UT: Why do you feel the Moon is a good spot to start operations? What would be some activities to start with there? How do we move from there into the rest of the solar system?
When my colleagues and I wrote the paper, we were focused on the Moon in part because that was during NASA’s Constellation program to establish a lunar outpost. However, it is equally possible to use near-Earth asteroids to start this space industry, or to use both. In any case, we need to start space industry close to the Earth. That will keep transportation costs low during the startup. It also enables us to work with much shorter time delay in the radio communications, which is important in the early stages before robotics become sufficiently automated. Ideally the industry will be fully automated; we want robots to prepare the way for humans to follow.
However, if we think we will need humans during initial start-up of the industry – for example, to fix or troubleshoot broken hardware, or to do complex tasks that robots can’t yet do – then starting near Earth becomes even more important. It turns out that both the Moon and asteroids are excellent places to start industry. We now know that they have abundant water, minerals from which metals can be refined, carbon for making plastics, and so on. I am glad there are companies planning to develop mining in both locations so we can see what works best.
Another reason to start industry close to Earth is so it can have an early economic payback. In the end, when everything including spaceships and refueling depots are made in space by autonomous robotics, then industry becomes self-sustaining and it will pay us back inestimably for no further cost. Getting to that point requires some serious investment, though, and it will be easier to make the investments if we are getting something back. So what kinds of payback can it give us in the near-term? I keep a list of ideas how to make money in space, and there are about 19 items on the list, some crazy and some not so crazy. A few of the serious ideas include: space tourism; making and selling propellants to NASA for exploration and science missions; returning metals like platinum for sale on Earth; and manufacturing spare parts for other activities in space.
Some of the initial things we will do on the Moon or asteroids includes perfecting the low-gravity mining techniques, learning how to make solar cells out of regolith, and learning how to extract useful metals from minerals that would not be considered “ore” here on Earth. All of these are possible and require only modest investment to make them work.
It will take decades of effort to make space industry self-sustaining. Maybe 2 decades if we get started right away and work steadily, or maybe 5 decades if we have a lower level of funding. But if robotics advance as fast as the roboticists are expecting, soon there will be no manufacturing task a robot cannot do. When that day arrives, and we have set up a complete supply chain in space, then it will be an easy thing to send sets of hardware to the main asteroid belt to begin mining and manufacturing where there are billions of times the resources more than what we have on Earth.
Then, the industry could build landing craft to take equipment to the surface of Mars where it can build cities and eventually even terraform the planet. When we have machines that can use local resources to perform work and build copies of themselves, then they can perform the same role on dry worlds that biological life has performed here on our wet Earth. They can transform the environment and become the food chain so those worlds will be places where humanity can work and live. I realize this sounds too ambitious, but 20 to 50 years of technology growth is going to make a huge difference, and we are only talking about manufacturing – not rocket science — and that is something that we are already quite good at here on Earth. With just a little extrapolation into the future it is not a crazy idea.
UT: What are the main pieces of equipment and robotics that we need up there to accomplish these objectives?
PM: There is an interesting open source project developing what they call the “Global Village Construction Set.” It is 50 machines that will be capable of restarting civilization. It includes things like a windmill, a backhoe, and a 3D printer. What we need is the equivalent “Lunar/Asteroid Village Construction Set.”
A study was done by NASA in 1980 to determine what set of machines are needed in factories on the Moon to build 80% of their own parts. The other 20% would need to be supplied constantly from Earth. In our paper we argued that we can start at much less than 80% closure, making it more affordable and allowing us to start today, but the system should evolve until it reaches 100% closure. So the first set of hardware might make crude solar cells, metal, 3D printed metal parts, and rocket propellants.
Having just that will allow us to make a significant mass of the next generation of hardware as well as support the transportation network. Over time, we want to develop an entire supply chain which would be more extensive than just 50 different types of machines. But before we put anything in space we will want to test them in rugged locations here on Earth, and in the process we will discover what set of machines makes the most sense for the first generation. The idea is to learn as we go, so we can get started right away.
This is the first in a three-part series about building a space base. Tomorrow: How much money would it take? Day after tomorrow: Making remote robots smart.
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Update: We were right! Diablo III: Eternal Collection is coming to Xbox One on June 27. Blizzard just confirmed this today.
It looks like Diablo III is getting another edition on Xbox One. Blizzard charged $60 for the original game, another $60 for the Reaper of Souls expansion and we imagine another $60 for this. While we don’t know much about the Eternal Collection, it’s safe to assume that it’ll include content like the new Necromancer class. Hopefully it’ll be more than just that but we won’t know for sure until Blizzard makes a formal announcement. Here’s hoping that they do because there’s going to be a lot of speculation about this Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) listing. We can’t imagine gamers will be pleased if they have to pay a lot for new content for such an old game.
With that said, the upcoming Necromancer is a powerful class. The character is heavily focused on blood. Blood will not only gush around as creatures are torn into, but Necromancers will be able to use skills like Blood Rush to effectively teleport by dissolving into blood and then reforming at their destination. Playstyles will be centered around evasion and having your summoned creatures do the majority of the work.
That’s not all though. Necromancers will also be able to use their own blood–basically health–to boost damage. This is definitely a new way to play Diablo III and it might just be the best class yet. Hopefully we’ll receive information about Diablo III: Eternal Collection soon now that the cat’s out of the bag! Since this ESRB listing will create a lot of confusion, Blizzard should clarify what’s in the Eternal Collection before E3 2017. We’ll update you as soon as we know more. Though, we feel that it’s safe to assume that this is going to be Diablo III: Reaper of Souls with the new Necromancer class and some additional character-focused content. Let’s just pray it doesn’t cost another $60.
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Indoctrination: 4-H Sells Its Soul to Monsanto and the US Soybean Council
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If you’re looking for wholesome activities for your kids, you might be considering something like 4-H. Geared towards an agricultural lifestyle, the 4-H Youth Development Organization seems like a great way for your child to hang out with other kids who are interested in more than the latest TV reality show. Doesn’t this sound great?
4-H is the nation’s largest youth development and empowerment organization, reaching more than 7 million 4-H youth in urban neighborhoods, suburban schoolyards and rural farming communities. Fueled by university-backed curriculum, 4-H’ers engage in hands-on learning activities in the areas of science, healthy living, and food security. (source)
Unfortunately, 4-H has sold out and become irrevocably tainted by it’s corporate donors. The roster reads like a Who’s Who list of evil corporations, including the ever evil Monsanto, the eugenicists extraordinaire at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United Soybean Board (don’t forget that 90% of the soybeans produced in America are GMO), Coca-Cola (who spent over $1.5 million to fight against the labeling of GMOs in California), Big Biotech buddies Cargill and DuPont, and Big Pharma representative, Pfizer.
Dr. Joseph Mercola revealed the appalling corporate connections in an article on his site. He wrote eloquently:
The organization is extremely influential to children, impacting their intellectual and emotional development through their numerous programs and clubs. Unfortunately, Monsanto is using its partnership with 4-H as a vehicle to worm its way into your child’s mind in order to influence her developing beliefs and values. Children are like little sponges, soaking up everything they see and hear, which makes them particularly vulnerable to being sucked in by propaganda. And the effects could be life-long—at least they’re intended to be. Indeed you’d be hard-pressed to convince an adult, who from childhood was taught the merits of genetically engineered foods, that there’s anything wrong with such alterations of the food supply. If your child is involved in 4-H, it would be wise to monitor the messages she’s getting, given this organization’s corporate sponsors and alliances. 4-H is really the perfect vehicle for Big Ag to manipulate an entire generation, using tactics not that different from the youth indoctrination strategies employed by political extremists in order to gain children’s trust and then “groom” them however they wish. Think about it—what better way to control the future of our food system than to brainwash 6.8 million impressionable youth into believing that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe and beneficial, if not the answer to all the problems of the world? (source)
Obviously, when an organization is given millions of dollars, they will provide the messages that the corporate sponsors want them to provide. Would they speak out against GMOs when biotech is the one that funds them? Of course not. A quick visit to their website takes you to the “AgriScience” page, where it blatantly says, “The 4-H AgriScience curriculum and supporting programming has been created to cultivate the emerging study of biotechnology and business/economics in the agriculture industry.” (emphasis mine)
The page goes on to discuss the involvement of the US Soybean Council (remember, these aren’t organic soybeans we’re talking about!) with the indoctrination…oops – I mean, curriculum.
National 4-H Council partnered with the United Soybean Board (USB) and five state 4-H programs to conduct AgriScience/Biotechnology programs in ten urban areas of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio. In addition to providing an introduction to AgriScience/Biotechnology, youth learned concepts such as Agricultural Literacy, Global Food Security, Sustainability, and about the variety of career paths associated with the field. A total of 82 teenagers were extensively trained, and in turn, reached 620 youth in afterschool and summer programs during 2012. Each of the sites involved biotechnology partners from agribusinesses, commodity groups, and universities. (source)
For those who couldn’t attend and be brainwashed in person, power point presentations are available on PDF.
But it gets even worse. Dr. Mercola’s article also points out that Public Enemy Number 1, Monsanto, is actually training 4-H volunteers!
Pro-GMO propaganda would be easy to weave into 4-H’s program since they already occupy the role of teaching children the art of farming, and in their position of authority, children would never question it. Monsanto is now also training tens of thousands of 4-H volunteers, according to an article in 4-Traders: “In 2007, Monsanto expanded its 4-H volunteerism support by funding state and regional development. More than 52,600 volunteers have attended Monsanto-supported forums and training events in 50 states, three US territories and four Extension regional forums.” (source)
Monsanto also boasts of the connection on their website. Read between the lines and you’ll find this to be a rather chilling message.
The motto of the world’s largest youth organization is “To Make the Best Better.” This is honored by Monsanto as we are proud to share and support the motto of 6.8 million youth, aged 5-21, who are involved in 4-H programs annually. 4-H can be found in every county in every U.S. state, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and more than 80 countries around the world. As 4-H programs continue to develop youth to reach their fullest potential through developing life skills, learning by doing, and utilizing the knowledge of the land-grand university system, we at Monsanto directly support the program in many ways, including the 4-H Volunteer Initiative, which attracts volunteers who coordinate local community clubs and help to plan and conduct local, regional, state and national 4-H events. (source)
That’s right…Monsanto is directly influencing the developing minds of 6.8 million kids per year. Let that terrifying figure sink in.
If your kids are already involved in 4-H, please take a close look at what they’re being taught, because damage control may well be in order.
Biotech will stop at nothing to dominate American agriculture. From their website called GMOAnswers, which is nothing but a compendium of disinformation, to the use of cartoons to make their ways of farming seem normal and acceptable, this is just another terrifying effort to control the minds of the future farmers of this country so that they believe the benefits of toxic farming methods outweigh the horrific damage caused by it, as was tragically seen on the island petri dish of Molokai, Hawaii.
The corporate sponsorship of 4-H is a match made in hell. A once-positive organization for kids has sold its soul to corporate sponsors, and the insidious brainwashing may well put GMO-tainted food on every plate in America within the next 20 years. If you think that the cancer epidemic is outrageously high now, just wait. The USDA keeps approving the use of ever-more-toxic chemicals, and through 4-H propaganda, an entire generation of future farmers is being taught that this is the best way to feed the world.
Thank you to Survival for Blondes!
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But to discuss Westerns as if they just boiled down to heroic stories of saving the homestead from savages, tracking the bad guy through the wilderness, or finding the treasure in the mountains would be to miss the real meaning of the genre. Westerns have earned their place at the heart of the national culture and American iconography abroad because they've provided a reliable vehicle for filmmakers to explore thorny issues of American history and character. In the enduring examples of the genre, the real threat to the homestead, we learn, is an economic system that is being rigged for the wealthy, or the search for the bad guy becomes a search for meaning in a culture of violent retribution, or the treasure of the Sierra Madre is a diabolical mirage of the American dream.
Through the past century of Western movies, we can trace America's self-image as it evolved from a rough-and-tumble but morally confident outsider in world affairs to an all-powerful sheriff with a guilty conscience. After World War I and leading into World War II, Hollywood specialized in tales of heroes taking the good fight to savage enemies and saving defenseless settlements in the process. In the Great Depression especially, as capitalism and American exceptionalism came under question, the cowboy hero was often mistaken for a criminal and forced to prove his own worthiness--which he inevitably did. Over the '50s, '60s, and '70s however, as America enforced its dominion over half the planet with a long series of coups, assassinations, and increasingly dubious wars, the figure of the cowboy grew darker and more complicated. If you love Westerns, most of your favorites are probably from this era--Shane, The Searchers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the spaghetti westerns, etc. By the height of the Vietnam protest era, cowboys were antiheroes as often as they were heroes.
The dawn of the 1980s brought the inauguration of Ronald Reagan and the box-office debacle of the artsy, overblown Heaven's Gate. There's a sense of disappointment to the decade that followed, as if the era of revisionist Westerns had failed and a less nuanced patriotism would have to carry the day. Few memorable Westerns were made in the '80s, and Reagan himself proudly associated himself with an old-fashioned, pre-Vietnam cowboy image. But victory in the Cold War coincided with a revival of the genre, including the revisionist strain, exemplified in Clint Eastwood's career-topping Unforgiven. A new, gentler star emerged in Kevin Costner, who scored a post-colonial megahit with Dances With Wolves. Later, in the 2000s, George W. Bush reclaimed the image of the cowboy for a foreign policy far less successful than Reagan's, and the genre retreated to the art house again.
Under the presidency of Barack Obama, there has been a short-lived Western revival that would seem to match America's tentative new moral authority. If the genre in this era can be said to have a unifying aim, it's to divest itself and its audiences of a strictly white, male, heterosexual perspective on history, and by extension on present day conflicts. Cowboys & Aliens is a cynical attempt at a post-racial Western--just take the Indians out of the equation so we can be good guys again!--but with more sincerity, True Grit, Django Unchained, and now The Lone Ranger have all put non-male, non-white perspectives front and center. (Two other notable movies from the past 15 years, the wonderful Brokeback Mountain and the awful Wild Wild West, also fit this model.) It's worth pointing out, however, that all of these examples (except Brokeback Mountain) were directed by white men, and The Lone Ranger has Tonto played by an actor with only the slightest claim to American Indian ancestry.
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Elijah: Hurray! We’re back with the Trails Legacy!
Finn: No, not the overseer again!
Hey buddy, I’m right here.
Finn: Whatever.
Cece: Aww, look! It’s brotherly bonding!
Yeah!
Cece: Looks like Finn was worried about nothing!
I guess so.
Hey, it’s Jules!
Cece: Yeah… he’s been wearing his speedo around the house lately.
Aww, you love him so much!
Cece: Well, he isn’t dead yet!
…
Cece: Joking!
Cece: Take that Finn! We’re kicking your butt!
Finn: The only thing you’re good at is cooking and wasting grandma’s money.
Burn.
Cece: Shut it!
Elijah: Finn, let’s focus on fun.
Finn: Fine.
Cece: Good Finn. He’s so sassy!
*clears throat* You and your siblings are called the Sass Squad. Trust me, I’ve seen the sass pass through your genes.
Cece: Whatever.
See?
Cece: Hey-
Sh!
While Cece was getting some adorable photos taken…
Cece: NOOOOOOO-
These two were flirting it up.
Cece: His little doll thing?
Yes.
Cece: Yes! When they get out of the house I’ll kill two birds with one stone!
…
Cece: Oh right, the killing jokes are still off limits.
Whatever, they’re still cute together.
Cece: NOBODY CARES ABOUT THEM!
Oops, I forgot!
Here’s Cece singing a song for Jules.
Jules loved it.
Cece: But of course!
I guess he didn’t mind the awful accent.
The next morning was photogenic…
Well, except for Glenn.
Cece: Of course the perfectionist of the family gets the awful looking least photogenic child.
Finn: That is pretty funny.
Cece: Hey, look who has the best mood today!
Well actually…
Elijah might win that contest.
Cece: Why?
He’s off to university!
Cece: Woo!
This is the last you’ll be hearing from Cece for the time being. We’ll hear from Elijah while he’s at university! I bet she’s disappointed.
Cece: WOOOO. VACATION!
I guess not.
What’s wrong Elijah?
Elijah: There’s only men here…
Don’t worry, that’ll change. For now…
You might as well take some selfies.
Elijah: Why not?
Elijah: Now that’s more like it.
What, the black haired girl?
Elijah: Ugh, no. I’m looking to lose my virginity. I’m not looking for a lifelong partner.
*groans* I forgot about that.
Let’s make you a guy friend that won’t hit on you.
Elijah: WOO!
I don’t remember his name at the moment.
It seems things are going great!
Elijah: Yeah, but…
But what?
Elijah: I have to go to a party!
Who is throwing the party?
Elijah: This girl, Samantha Grey.
Do you even know her?
Elijah: Nope!
Perfect!
Elijah: Calm down.
Hey look, it’s your friend.
Elijah: Whatever.
What are you doing?
Elijah: Oh, it’s a dare.
A dare to do what?
Elijah: To call this guy’s mother a llama.
Hmm… he looks offended. I might as well get him away from you before punches get thrown. Now where did you go…?
Elijah: Hey baby, your stink trail just lures me in…
I almost forgot your purpose in being here…
After some more selfies…
and a little bit more flirting-
He went in for the kiss.
Elijah: *mumbles something unintelligible*
Surprisingly, she accepted.
Elijah: BOO-YA!
Guy that hates Elijah: Of course all the jerks get the girls…
Anyways, what a successful first night!
Elijah: Thanks for reading… I guess?
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If you take his personal assistant’s word for it, John Lennon was a closet Republican who supported Reagan at the time of his death:
In new documentary Beatles Stories, Seaman tells filmmaker Seth Swirsky Lennon wasn’t the peace-loving militant fans thought he was while he was his assistant. He says, “John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on (Democrat) Jimmy Carter. “He’d met Reagan back, I think, in the 70s at some sporting event… Reagan was the guy who had ordered the National Guard, I believe, to go after the young (peace) demonstrators in Berkeley, so I think that John maybe forgot about that… He did express support for Reagan, which shocked me. “I also saw John embark in some really brutal arguments with my uncle, who’s an old-time communist… He enjoyed really provoking my uncle… Maybe he was being provocative… but it was pretty obvious to me he had moved away from his earlier radicalism. “He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he’d been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy’s naivete.”
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Since the existence of a stray B minor in Tom Petty’s “American Girl” inspired a number of angry e-mails to be sent my way yesterday (don’t ask), I can only imagine what opining on Lennon will do. But I think it’s non-controversial among conservatives — and indeed all men of good sense — that “Imagine” is the most politically naive song ever written, so bad that I can’t, as I usually can, mentally separate its lyrics from its otherwise beautiful melody. Then there was Lennon and Yoko’s oft-repeated line “War is over, if you want it”, which displays an ignorance not only of human nature but of the metaphysics of action.* It’s cheering to hear he was beginning to see the light before his untimely end.
*I say this even though a shocking number of my favorite Beatles songs are Lennon or primarily-Lennon compositions (“Don’t Let Me Down”, “Hide Your Love Away”, “In My Life”). But if you ask me what kind of guy I am, I’d say I’m a Paul Guy.** He was far more prolific than Lennon, especially in the last years of the Beatles, and unlike Lennon he had a truly big voice. His lyrics often weren’t as thoughtful or affecting as those of Lennon, but then they also weren’t as self-indulgent and pseudo-intellectual. I recall Lennon saying in an interview somewhere that McCartney was ‘We hope you will enjoy the show’ while he was ‘I heard the news today, oh boy’. That’s elegant.
**Harrison’s was pound-for-pound in the same league, if not at quite the same level, as either McCartney or Lennon. Pound for pound.
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Advertisement No charges filed in case of boy mauled to death by dogs Yuba County Sheriff's Dept. previously recommended charges should be filed Share Shares Copy Link Copy
The Yuba County District Attorney announced Friday that no charges will be filed against a woman whose 9-year-old brother was mauled to death by the her three pit bulls.In a statement, the district attorney said after reviewing the case, it was determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove Alexandria Griffin-Heady's actions were "incompatible with proper regard for human life" or demonstrated "an indifference to the consequences" of her behavior.The Yuba County Sheriff's Department previously recommended that Griffin-Heady, 24, should be charged with felony child endangerment in her half-brother's death, Undersheriff Jerry Read said.Tyler Trammell died Jan. 3 after he was attacked by Griffin-Heady's three dogs when he was left alone inside a trailer for three hours while his sister went to work, the sheriff's office said.More coverage -- Sister of boy mauled by pit bulls: I should have done things differentlyGriffin-Heady's attorney, Roberto Marquez, argued in January that his client didn't willfully place her brother in a position to be harmed and believed that no judge would want to send her to prison. He added that adults were int he house next to the RV."When she left these dogs, and two were in the kennel, by the way. The mother dog was not in the kennel, but the other two somehow got out of their kennel in the RV,” Marquez said in early January. “(Griffin-Heady) had no reason to believe that these dogs would pose any threat at all to her younger brother.”Griffin-Heady had overnight visitation rights with Tyler, who was in Sacramento County's foster care system.38170400
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× One day left to help Broad Ripple Dog Park win $30K makeover
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – There’s only one day left to vote for Broad Ripple Bark Park to win a $30,000 makeover.
The two-acre park at 1500 Broad Ripple Avenue is one of seven in the U.S. that is competing for the money.
In addition to the $30,000 prize, the winner will also receive $5,000 in new dog park equipment.
To help the Broad Ripple park win, you must vote using Twitter and Instagram. The city with the most votes will win.
Here’s how you can vote:
Visit http://wm6.walmart.com/Beneful and select Indianapolis
Post your vote using your Twitter and/or Instagram account
Use #BenefulDogPark and #Indianapolis or #Indy (must include two hashtags with the contest name and one of the city names)
Include a photo of the dog park, dogs having fun or some connection to the park
Voting lasts until November 1, and currently we’re only in the lead by two percent.
“Through this contest, we are racing to bring needed resources back to Indianapolis while showcasing Broad Ripple Bark Park as one of the best places for dogs to play,” said Linda Broadfoot, director of Indy Parks.
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NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Just the excuse you need to make that espresso a double.
Hidden Grounds, the popular coffeeshop with two locations on Easton Avenue in New Brunswick, plans to donate 100 percent of its profits over the next week to families affected by Hurricane Harvey. The coffee retailer announced the move today, complementing the tall order with a GoFundMe page through which customers can make their own contributions.
“As a company, we feel so compelled to help out the victims of the devastating Hurricane Harvey that struck in the heart of Houston,” the coffeeshop and its co-owner Anand Patel wrote online. “All in all, it's a dire situation in Houston right now and unfortunately, it's not getting as much publicity as it needs!”
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But Hidden Grounds doesn't intend to give the money to a nonprofit. Instead, the company wrote, it will donate the funds directly to “families who need this really badly.”
Hidden Grounds noted that now is when victims of such natural disasters most need help. The company claimed that federal dollars could be slow to reach victims.
“Unfortunately, for a lot of these families, there is no other option but to pay for all of the work themselves since they want to stop the mold from growing,” Patel wrote online.
Hidden Grounds plans to donate all profits from tomorrow, Sept. 6, through Sept. 13. The business will post a receipt of the donations—and it has already committed $500 to the GoFundMe campaign.
Hurricane Harvey tore through Texas and parts of Louisiana last week, booting millions from their homes and killing at least 60 people. The storm could cost “tens of billions” of dollars, according to reports.
In New Jersey, many businesses, organizations and individuals have jumped to support the victims. That could be, in part, because the devastation of Superstorm Sandy in 2012 remains fresh in their memory.
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Image copyright Durham Police Image caption Neville Husband was jailed for 12 years in 2003 for abuse
Hundreds of vulnerable boys at a detention centre may have been abused by a paedophile ring in the 1970s and 1980s, police fear.
The Durham force said it was "shocked" after getting hundreds of calls after a BBC programme about sexual and physical abuse was shown in January.
A spokeswoman said there were now up to 500 victims claiming physical or sexual abuse at the Medomsley juvenile centre.
Two members of staff at the centre were jailed in 2003 and 2005 over the abuse.
Prison officer jailed
Durham Police said many former inmates who had been in touch since the BBC Inside Out programme was shown were now get counselling.
The majority of men - about 340 - claim they were physically assaulted and around 160 said they were sexually abused.
The centre closed in 1988 after the abuse came to light, but has since reopened as a secure training unit.
Neville Husband, who worked at the detention centre as a prison officer, was jailed for 12 years for in 2003 for sexual abuse.
Leslie Johnson, a store man, was sentenced to six years in 2005. Both men have since died.
However, police are investigating if other people were involved in abusing boys at the centre.
A spokeswoman for Durham Police said: "We are now looking at potentially 500 victims linked to Medomsley."
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11:50am: Carpenter's deal will be worth $50-55MM if completed, Rosenthal tweets.
11:40am: Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports that the extension, if completed, would buy out two free agent seasons (Twitter links). The two sides are "very close," says Rosenthal.
11:17am: The Cardinals and Carpenter are closing in on an extension of "significant length," sources tell Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. The deal is believed to buy out all three of his arbitration seasons and at least one free agent season, "and probably more than that," according to Heyman.
12:06am: The Cardinals are talking with Matt Carpenter about a long-term contract extension, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Cards GM John Mozeliak confirmed that he had been in contact with Carpenter's agents at SSG, and though the general manager gave no hint as to whether or not a deal was close, Goold said that Carpenter left the club's Spring Training facility in the middle of Wednesday's game, "presumably to have a physical."
2013 was Carpenter's first full season as a Major Leaguer and he delivered in style, hitting .318/.392/.481 with 11 homers and leading the league in runs (126), doubles (55) and hits (199) while producing 7.0 fWAR and 6.6 rWAR. He did all of this while playing primarily as a second baseman, a position Carpenter had never played as a professional before last year (he'll move back to third base this season). This spectacular campaign earned Carpenter his first All-Star appearance, an NL Silver Slugger Award and a fourth-place finish in NL MVP voting.
Carpenter was also one of baseball's top bargains, as he did all that while still playing for around the league minimum. He isn't eligible for arbitration until next winter and the Cards have him under team control through the 2017 season, and an extension would give St. Louis some cost-certainty through those three arb years. Since Carpenter isn't eligible for free agency until his age-31 season is over, a multiyear pact would give him security now rather than risk missing his chance at a big contract if he's already seen as being on the decline once he hits the open market. This isn't to say that Carpenter will be at a negotiating disadvantage, of course, as he's still coming off an elite season.
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Even after the end of the Cold War, the United States has been maintaining its military installations in friendly European nations, such as Germany. Apparently, such a heavy military presence hasn’t been enough to ensure loyalty, since Uncle Sam has also been spying on their leaders and the people of these nations.
It went off like a bomb: instead of focusing on al-Qaeda and the jihadis, America’s National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on America’s European allies. Numerous reports in German newspapers and magazines in 2013 suggested that their country, which hosts the largest number of US military installations in Europe, was also one of the key targets on the NSA spying list.
The US established listening posts in Berlin and Frankfurt, as well as a number of other European cities. Some of these facilities were operating from within US diplomatic compounds.
Apparently, Washington didn’t trust its allies much, since it carefully monitored every step that Berlin made. According to German media, the NSA has been listening in on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone conversations for as long as 10 years.
Obama NSA and CIA intercepts of German Chancellor Angela Merkel (archive) https://t.co/aEfJefkbZW pic.twitter.com/Pk53yizRAd — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 17, 2017
According to WikiLeaks, besides the chancellor’s new and old mobile devices, the NSA targeted the landlines and cellphones of Merkel’s aides, her chief of staff, her political office and even her fax machine – a total of 125 phone numbers.
The US wanted to know it all – for instance what Merkel had said in her conversations with her French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy about the future of Europe’s economy, or what she thought about Obama’s engagement with Iran, as she spoke with United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Shaykh Muhammad bin Zayid al-Nuhayyan.
Merkel commented on the spying scandal, saying that it was unacceptable for friendly nations to spy on each other, but supported Germany’s own spy agency BND in its cooperation with the NSA when it comes to fighting terrorism.
Preventing terrorist activity was initially proclaimed as one of the main purposes of the extensive surveillance programs in the US and abroad, but, as it turns out, Uncle Sam was collecting much more data than it needed for the cause – both at home and abroad.
Further publications by WikiLeaks revealed how easy it was for US spies to tap into communications and how much American taxpayers were charged for it. Cyber offense programs were funded ninefold more than cyber defense strategies by the US government, and all possibilities were explored to penetrate computer networks, including the use of undocumented security flaws in popular hardware, such as Cisco network equipment.
More proof of Obama spying on other world leaders including our own. Can't defend when you're always poking around other people's business. — An American Voice 👠 (@_Tiredoftheshit) 2 апреля 2017 г.
Caught red-handed, the American leadership had no other choice but to specifically address the NSA’s mass surveillance practices.
In January 2014 Barack Obama gave a speech, promising to increase restrictions on the data collection of American citizens and calling for increased oversight of government agencies.
But while Obama’s speech might have satisfied some critics at home, it certainly didn’t have that calming effect abroad. Obama’s words weren’t enough for the US allies, since he mostly concentrated on domestic surveillance and didn’t say much about putting an end to America’s spying games overseas.
According to classified documents obtained by the media from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the US spy agency was keeping tabs on 122 world leaders, among them presidents and prime ministers, heads of international nonprofits, corporate leaders and private individuals.
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Believe me, I’m sympathetic to Russian conspiracy claims.
I grew up reading John le Carre novels. No joke, I first read The Spy Who Came in From The Cold while riding the Moscow Metro back and forth from my dormitory on the outskirts to the classrooms in the center.
When studying in the Soviet Union I learned that everyone was paranoid — and justifiably so! The fire detectors on the ceilings of our dorm were really listening devices, a Hungarian student who hated the Soviets whispered to me.
I couldn’t prove it or disprove it. But based on circumstantial evidence of Soviet spying elsewhere, it certainly could have made sense.
I had random, but minor, brushes with obvious KGB types.
Like the time years later when my wife and I were visiting a refusenik family in Moscow I was friendly with as a student. We entered the wrong entrance to the apartment block, and walked to the fourth floor only to realize we were off by one stairwell. The guy in the apartment was mortified that two foreigners showed up at his door. As we walked back down two thick-necked men from KGB central casting were walking up, and all I remember is the man in the apartment pleading with them, “I don’t know who they are, I don’t know who they are.”
So I start from a base of knowledge and experience that is ready to believe in Russian intrigue.
Which brings me to the DNC email hack.
The attempt to isolate Hillary from the DNC email leak damage is proceeding as predicted: The Russians are coming, The Russians are coming.
There is repeated and increasing focus on the allegation that Russia hacked the DNC and gave the files to Wikileaks in order to help Donald Trump.
I express no view on the technical details because I claim no technical expertise. But based on the accounts I’ve read, the technical view comes down to indications in the data reflecting a connection to Russia. “Metadata” and other such stuff, and use of Russian or Russian related descriptors (if that’s the right term) lingering in the background.
Motherboard elaborates on background on why the hack looks similar to other Russian hacks and methods, and describes the technical aspects as follows, in part, All Signs Point to Russia Being Behind the DNC Hack:
The metadata in the leaked documents are perhaps most revealing: one dumped document was modified using Russian language settings, by a user named “Феликс Эдмундович,” a code name referring to the founder of the Soviet Secret Police, the Cheka, memorialised in a 15-ton iron statue in front of the old KGB headquarters during Soviet times. The original intruders made other errors: one leaked document included hyperlink error messages in Cyrillic, the result of editing the file on a computer with Russian language settings. After this mistake became public, the intruders removed the Cyrillic information from the metadata in the next dump and carefully used made-up user names from different world regions, thereby confirming they had made a mistake in the first round.
I have no way, based on my own knowledge, to evaluate this technical information.
Fortunately, Andy LoCascio, who maintains Legal Insurrection’s server and has extensive experience with computer security issues, emailed me his thoughts. He scoffs at the popular technical analysis floating around in the media:
The idea that that the Russians were sophisticated enough to hack an email account and then stupid enough to leave meta data in place that implicates them (or any other breadcrumbs) is beyond ludicrous. Thinking that Wikileaks isn’t sophisticated enough to scrub the data is even further beyond the pale of reason. Hacks of this nature are typically done by very sophisticated individuals who in turn sell that information to the highest bidder. Their only motive is profit. The media love the Russian angle because it makes another story of carelessness, into something that is more exciting. It is possible that hack came from some individual(s) in Russia, but unlikely that some state sponsored hacking attack would be so sloppy. Marching high ranking Dems in front of the camera and have them making vague references to how this came from Russia is silly. They will never have any evidence that this is the case.
The other angle is correlation. Trump has said some nice things about Putin; some of Trump’s statements about NATO align with Russian interests; Trump’s campaign manager had a business relationship to people aligned with Putin; and so on.
The problem with these correlations is that they are often based on exaggeration or suppositions as to facts, and confuse correlation with causation.
An article by Jeffrey Carr posted at Medium takes apart these correlation arguments, by focusing on a widely shared post by Josh Marshall of the left-wing Talking Points Memo, Fact-Checking That “Trump & Putin” Thing:
Josh Marshall asked me to substantiate my criticism on Twitter of his use of facts in his TalkingPointsMemo.com article “Trump & Putin. Yes, It’s Really A Thing”. As background, Josh published the above mentioned post. Mark Cuban called him out for jumping to conclusions. Josh replied that he stuck narrowly to the facts. I disagreed w/ Josh and gave a few reasons why. Josh asked me for specifics. What follows are seven statements from the TPM article which Josh has claimed are facts. He only got two out of seven correct.
Read the whole thing, here are his conclusions:
A fact is defined as a “true piece of information”. How many of Josh’s facts were true? Trump’s debt load was a Bloomberg estimate, not a fact.
Trump is highly reliant upon money from Russia. Open to interpretation, not a fact.
Trump Soho took investment money from Russian criminals. Fact.
Trump’s campaign manager used to work for Viktor Yanukovych when he was running for Prime Minister of Ukraine. Fact.
Putin could put Carter Page, Trump’s foreign policy advisor, out of business at any time. Not only not a fact, but untrue and ridiculous on its face.
Putin has aligned all state-controlled media behind Trump. False.
The Trump Camp only cared about softening the platform on arming Ukraine. False. For the record, I despise Donald Trump. I can’t imagine a worse candidate for President and I’m shocked and appalled that he is the Republican nominee. However, there’s no need to invent Russian conspiracies to make the Trump boogeyman appear worse than he is.
Carr had an earlier post in June, before Marshall’s viral hypothesis, The DNC Breach and the Hijacking of Common Sense:
Who Is Responsible? The person or persons responsible are unknown, but let’s assume that CrowdStrike is correct and the responsible party are Russian hackers employed by one or more of Russia’s intelligence services. They used APT28 malware developed and maintained by a Russian lab. Or — the DNC was breached by a Russian-speaking hacker (Guccifer 2.0?) who is not employed by the Russian intelligence services but has access to the APT28 malware. Or — the DNC was breached by a Russian hacker who does contract work for the FSB when he isn’t running his own hacker-for-hire business for Russian oligarchs and Swiss lawyers. Or — the DNC was breached by multiple actors including all of the above. Attribution is hard enough without cybersecurity companies picking the evidence they need to support the conclusion that they want with threat actor models that are completely devoid of common sense. We can do better. UPDATED 6/21/16 Here’s a perfect example of how flawed attribution by technical indicators is. Bloomberg reported that the initial attribution of the Bangladesh Central Bank cyber heist to North Korean hackers due to similarity to the malware used against Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014, may actually be the work of Russian hackers.
So did the Russians to it, and do it to help Trump?
I don’t know, maybe it was the Chinese trying to make it look like the Russians.
What I do know, is that it’s politically convenient to blame the Russians, as it distracts from the content of the communications, which are tearing the Democratic Party apart.
[Featured Image, “Emergency” scene from The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming]
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Training return: The club's first-to-fourth year players will return to training on November 20, with the rest of the playing group coming back on December 4. The Crows will complete the majority of their pre-season in Adelaide.
Injury list: Brodie Smith (knee) is aiming to be back near the end of next season in his recovery from a torn ACL. Captain Taylor Walker had minor surgery on his finger and ankle, but is expected to recover in time for the start of training. Josh Jenkins has also had finger surgery, and is expected to available for the start of pre-season training. If he's retained on the rookie list, Cam Ellis-Yolmen (knee) will ramp up his training loads after missing all of last season.
Draft picks: 12, 39, 77, 109
Arrived: Bryce Gibbs, Sam Gibson.
Departed: Scott Thompson (retired), Jake Lever (traded to Melbourne), Charlie Cameron (traded to Brisbane Lions), Harrison Wigg (traded to Gold Coast), Dean Gore (delisted), Troy Menzel (delisted), Jono Beech (delisted), Sam Shaw (removed from rookie list).
Major off-field moves: There's been a couple of changes to Don Pyke's coaching panel. Premiership-winning defender Ben Hart returns to the club in an assistant coaching role after working in the media this year. Josh Francou is also back in South Australia after looking after Sydney's midfield. The Crows are yet to finalise their roles. David Teague has left the Crows to take up an assistant coaching role with Carlton, while Matthew Bode leaves the Crows' high-performance department to also join the Blues. Development coach, and former Crows skipper Nathan van Berlo, returns to Western Australia as part of Adam Simpson's staff at West Coast.
Round one: Essendon, Etihad Stadium, Friday night, 7.50pm.
Premiership odds: $5.50 (CrownBet)
We say: Expectations will be sky high on this year's beaten grand finalists after adding Carlton star Bryce Gibbs to an already quality side. Getting durable North Melbourne tagger Sam Gibson for next to nothing was a bonus. Losing Jake Lever and Charlie Cameron are significant blows, as is being without the injured Brodie Smith for most of the season, but the Crows will be banking on improvement from the likes of Wayne Milera, Alex Keath and Tom Doedee to fill those spots. With six of their first nine games at Adelaide Oval, the Crows have been given the perfect draw to get off to a flyer. - Lee Gaskin
Training return: The first-to-fourth year players – most of the Lions list – start back on Monday, November 6. The rest of the squad returns two weeks later. After last year's success, the Lions have another training camp planned for Tasmania in December, although the specifics are still to be released.
Injury list: The main concern is captain Dayne Beams, who had shoulder surgery immediately after his season finished. Beams is progressing well and coach Chris Fagan recently confirmed he would be back in full training prior to Christmas. After a wretched run with collarbone problems, Allen Christensen is fine to start pre-season training, as is Mitch Robinson, who missed the second half of last season with a broken foot.
Draft picks: 1, 15, 18, 40, 44, 52, 93
Arrived: Charlie Cameron, Luke Hodge
Departed: Claye Beams (delisted), Josh Clayton (delisted), Michael Close (delisted), Jono Freeman (delisted), Blake Grewar (delisted), Matthew Hammelmann (delisted), Cian Hanley (delisted), Ryan Harwood (delisted), Jarrad Jansen (delisted), Tom Rockliff (FA), Josh Schache (trade) Reuben William (delisted).
Major off-field moves: For the first time in a long time, the Lions have off-field stability. Coach Chris Fagan, footy manager David Noble and list manager Dom Ambrogio are all relatively new to their roles. Fagan has also kept the same coaching team that helped the Lions' steady improvement in 2017.
Round one: St Kilda, Etihad Stadium, Saturday, March 24, 3.35pm
Premiership odds: $126 (CrownBet)
We say: After a season of clear improvement under Fagan, a little more will be expected in 2018. Although they might not win many more games, the development of the Lions' young core will be closely monitored. Hodge's addition is huge for an inexperienced backline, while Cameron adds the speedy winger/small forward they've been crying out for. The Lions finally have some continuity, and while the older heads were terrific last season, the development of Harris Andrews, Eric Hipwood, Hugh McCluggage, Jarrod Berry and Alex Witherden will ultimately determine how far the club goes next season. - Michael Whiting
Allen Christensen's return should bolster the Lions' midfield next year. Picture: AFL Photos
Training return: The Blues' first-to-fourth-year players returned to training last Monday, with the full squad reuniting on the track on Monday, November 13.
Injury list: Midfielders Patrick Cripps (broken leg) and Ed Curnow (bruised larynx) have recovered from the injuries that ended their 2017 campaigns and will be right to start the pre-season. Ruckman Andrew Phillips, who had surgery on a recurring problem in his left foot, is expected to be back training this month. Veteran Sam Rowe is recovering from a ruptured ACL in his right knee and will be a late starter to full pre-season training.
Draft picks: 3, 10, 30, 73
Arrived: Matthew Kennedy, Darcy Lang, Matthew Lobbe, Aaron Mullett
Departed: Dennis Armfield (retired), Blaine Boekhorst (delisted), Dylan Buckley (delisted), Andrew Gallucci (delisted), Bryce Gibbs (Adelaide), Daniel Gorringe (retired), Kristian Jaksch (delisted), Matt Korcheck (retired), Rhys Palmer (delisted), Ciaran Sheehan (delisted), Billie Smedts (delisted), Simon White (delisted), Liam Sumner (delisted)
Major off-field moves: Carlton is looking for a new CEO after the resignation of Steven Trigg last month. The club’s 2004 club best and fairest winner, David Teague, has returned as an assistant coach after a stint under Don Pyke at the Crows and he will be joined by Cameron Bruce, who worked with Brendon Bolton at Hawthorn and will be his senior assistant. Brent Stanton and Jason Davenport have joined the Blues as development coaches. Andrew Walker has moved on as the club’s development and integration coach to return home to Echuca and become its playing coach in the Goulburn Valley league.
Round one: Richmond, MCG, Thursday, March 22, 7.25pm
Premiership odds: $67 (CrownBet)
We say: The 'reset' under Bolton has continued at breakneck speed with 13 changes to the list since the end of the season, making a total of 42 since he took over as senior coach. While the loss of the experienced Gibbs may cause short-term pain, the Blues have attempted to boost their midfield stocks with the recruitment of Kennedy and Lang and are likely to use their No.3 draft pick on another midfielder. Carlton's fixture has been kind with a return to Broadway, being given four Friday night games and the traditional Thursday night blockbuster against Richmond to open the season. This presents a big challenge from early on, with the scrutiny sure to be intense on everyone involved. Off the field, the major focus is finding a replacement for Trigg. - Howard Kotton
Training return: The Magpies' first-to-fourth-year players will resume on November 8, while the more experienced players are due back on November 20. They will hold a training camp on the Gold Coast in early January and their community camp in February will take them to Victoria's La Trobe Valley and the Northern Territory.
Injury list: No real issues at this stage for the Pies, which is a welcome change compared to previous seasons. Jordan De Goey underwent season-ending hip surgery in August but is back training, as is Travis Varcoe, who had an operation to repair a dislocated elbow in July, while skipper Scott Pendlebury's fractured finger has healed well enough for him to be available for the 2017 Virgin Australia International Rules Series. Daniel Wells is said to be in good shape to attack the pre-season – a far cry from his condition when he arrived at the club last year – which the Pies hope will help safeguard him against further soft-tissue injuries.
Draft picks: 6, 38, 56, 61, 70, 80, 98
Arrived: Sam Murray (Sydney)
Departed: Lachie Keeffe (delisted), Adam Oxley (delisted), Jackson Ramsay (delisted), Ben Sinclair (retired), Jesse White (retired), Liam Mackie (delisted), Mitch McCarthy (delisted), Henry Schade (delisted)
Major off-field moves: Following an extensive internal review, the Pies have embraced change and injected fresh ideas, and there's more to come. Under-siege coach Nathan Buckley, who was given a new two-year deal at season's end, will lead a revamped coaching panel that includes incoming assistants Garry Hocking (stoppages and opposition coach) and Justin Longmuir (backline and team defence), and development coach Matthew Boyd. Former assistant Scott Burns has joined Hawthorn while development coach Anthony Rocca wasn't offered another contract. Fitness boss Bill Davoren has been replaced by Kevin White, an Irishman whose previous job title at the club was sports scientist. Player manager Ned Guy has been hired to fill the new role of list and strategy manager, and former list manager Derek Hine has become national recruiting manager. The club's 2010 premiership captain Nick Maxwell has returned as leadership and culture manager and looms as a key appointment. The Pies are still yet to replace former CEO Gary Pert, who resigned in July after 10 years in the job. The interim CEO is Peter Murphy, the former board member who conducted a review of the club's administration.
Round one: Hawthorn, MCG, Saturday, March 24, 7.25pm
Premiership odds: $26 (CrownBet)
We say: Despite another tough start to the season, with games against five of this year's finallists (including all top-four teams) in the opening eight rounds, the Pies won't be able to use the fixture as an excuse given their double-up opponents comprise three bottom-six clubs and just two from the top 12. A fifth season in a row without finals would indeed be disastrous. Young gun Darcy Moore will be trialled at centre half-back in what should prove a great learning experience for when he presumably returns to the forward line. He'll need to stand up given the Pies could be left light on for key defenders after axing Schade and Keeffe. Pacy, ball-carrying backmen are also in short supply so don't be surprised if untried ex-Swan Murray becomes a pre-season bolter. – Ben Collins
Adam Treloar and Taylor Adams remain elite, but can the rest of the Pies lift? Picture: AFL Photos
Training return: The first-to-fourth-year players at Essendon will return to the club on November 13 before heading on a training camp in Darwin. The senior players, who have been at the club five years or longer, will be back on November 27.
Injury list: Michael Hurley had two post-season surgeries – on his wrist and hip – and is set to be on a restricted training program when the pre-season gets underway for senior players. They were issues he had throughout his All Australian year but waited until the end of the season to repair. Josh Green had surgery on his foot after a late-season injury, while David Myers underwent further surgery on a finger injury from the start of the year. Matthew Leuenberger had off-season shoulder surgery and will start pre-season on a limited program, but Ben McNeice (neck) and Jackson Merrett (broken leg) should be ready to go.
Draft picks: 48, 67, 85, 103
Arrived: Adam Saad, Devon Smith, Jake Stringer
Departed: Craig Bird (delisted), Yestin Eades (delisted), Heath Hocking (delisted), Ben Howlett (delisted), James Kelly (retired), Alex Morgan (delisted free agent), Brent Stanton (retired), Jobe Watson (retired)
Major off-field moves: Football manager Rob Kerr announced last week he was leaving the Bombers later in the year having guided the club through its turbulent few seasons. Assistant coach Guy McKenna has departed already for a role in cricket after a restructure of the club's coaching department, while former player James Kelly has moved into a coaching position having retired at the end of the season.
Round one: Adelaide, Etihad Stadium, Friday, March 23
Premiership odds: $15 (CrownBet)
We say: All eyes will be on the Bombers over pre-season after a busy and fruitful Trade Period that will see plenty of expectation for a rise up the ladder next year. With former captain Jobe Watson retired, and a number of other senior players also departing the club, the Bombers have a new look to them next year as they attempt to go better than their elimination final defeat in 2017. - Callum Twomey
Training return: A group of first-to-fourth-year players who did not play WAFL finals will start their pre-season on November 6. Other young players in that bracket who did play on with Peel Thunder will return on November 13. The rest of the squad will be back in training on November 20.
Injury list: The Dockers were able to send a number of players in for early surgeries, meaning they will be back for day one of the pre-season. Connor Blakely (dislocated shoulder), Ed Langdon (knee) and Brady Grey (hamstring) were all in this boat, finishing the season early to seek treatment. Alex Pearce progressed well in his recovery from a broken leg and had a big off-season program planned.
Draft picks: 2, 5, 42, 60, 66, 71, 79, 83, 97
Arrived: Nathan Wilson, Brandon Matera
Departed: Harley Balic (trade), Zac Clarke (delisted), Sam Collins (delisted), Hayden Crozier (trade), Zac Dawson (retired), Josh Deluca (delisted), Jonathon Griffin (delisted), Garrick Ibbotson (retired), Nick Suban (delisted), Matthew Uebergang (delisted), Lachie Weller (trade), Shane Yarran (retired)
Major off-field moves: Stoppages coordinator Mark Stone did not seek a new contract. Tendai Mzungu has returned as the inaugural coach of the club's Next Generation Academy. University professor Colleen Hayward AM joined the board, while Peter Bell was ratified for a second full term.
Round one: Port Adelaide, Adelaide Oval, Saturday, March 24, 4:05pm
Premiership odds: $51 (CrownBet)
We say: The list management group, led by Brad Lloyd, turned a potential disaster into a big win for the club when Lachie Weller requested a trade to Gold Coast. The Dockers landed pick No.2 in that deal and it's now up to the club to nail its first two picks at No.2 and No.5 in the NAB AFL Draft. The fixture was a mixed bag, with a bonus home game and four of six matches to start the season at Perth Stadium. A difficult run of opponents in the first two months, however, looms as a big mountain to climb for a young group in 2018. - Nathan Schmook
Connor Blakely suffered a dislocated shoulder late in the season. Picture: AFL Photos
Training return: The first-to-fourth year year players are due back on November 20, with the rest of the list to resume on Monday, December 4. They have no training camps planned at this stage, with the brunt of their program to be held in the Geelong region.
Injury list: Cory Gregson (foot) and Lincoln McCarthy (groin/hip) were running in October with an eye to starting pre-season on time with the main group. Gregson hasn't played since the middle of 2016 while McCarthy didn't return after round three this season. Quinton Narkle is also back running after a June knee reconstruction and is aiming for a summer program that focuses on an April return.
Draft picks: 22, 24, 35, 58, 72, 90, 108
Arrived: Gary Ablett
Departed: Josh Cowan (delisted), Matthew Hayball (delisted), Darcy Lang (traded to Carlton), Tom Lonergan (retired), Andrew Mackie (retired), Steven Motlop (free agency to Port Adelaide), Tom Ruggles (delisted)
Major off-field moves: A bit has gone on at the Cattery recently. Football manager Steve Hocking went to AFL HQ, which prompted a football department restructure and the internal appointment of Simon Lloyd to the role of director of football. Michael Poulton, former AFL competition and stakeholder manager, has been appointed as elite performance and development manager to work alongside Lloyd, and they're currently without a permanent chief commercial officer after Justin Reeves left to take up the role of Hawthorn CEO. There's stability at the very top though, with CEO Brian Cook signing on to continue in his role until the end of 2020.
Round one: Melbourne, MCG, Sunday, March 25, 3.20pm
Premiership odds: $9 (CrownBet)
We say: They won't be able to use the draw as a cause of poor form; it's very friendly, with nine games at their home fortress and six straight games in Victoria to end the season. Their hot midfield combination of Gary Ablett, Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield will bond during the International Rules series in November, and they'll start pre-season training with nearly everyone on the park. There's been just the one on-field arrival so far, but it's a doozy – the return of Ablett and just how he'll fit in has everyone talking in Geelong, and many bullish about their prospects despite the loss of 489 games of backline experience with the retirements of Tom Lonergan and Andrew Mackie. – Jennifer Phelan.
Training return: The Suns' first-to-fourth year players will return on Monday, November 6. The senior players will return two weeks later on November 20. There is no pre-season training camp scheduled, but the Suns will have to move their training base to nearby Bond University in early March when the Commonwealth Games closes in on their Metricon Stadium precinct.
Injury list: The list is in good shape, with key position player Sam Day back running after the horrific dislocated hip injury that wiped out his 2017. Day will progress slowly through the pre-season. Michael Barlow is back running at full strength after his broken leg and co-captain Tom Lynch will put in a full pre-season after a knee injury interrupted him late season.
Draft picks: 19, 41, 50, 54, 76, 94
Arrived: Lachie Weller, Harrison Wigg, Aaron Young
Departed: Gary Ablett (trade), Keegan Brooksby (delisted), Dan Currie (delisted), Ryan Davis (delisted), Jarrad Grant (delisted), Mitch Hallahan (delisted), Cameron Loersch (delisted), Brandon Matera (trade), Trent McKenzie (DFA), Adam Saad (trade), Matt Shaw (delisted), Mackenzie Willis (delisted).
Major off-field moves: The biggest move came with the appointment of coach Stuart Dew, who gets his first coaching job to replace Rodney Eade. Dew has brought George Stone with him from the Sydney Swans who will oversee the coaching department. Shaun Hart has also returned to the Suns after four years at Port Adelaide as the head of development. The club is still looking to appoint a replacement for Marcus Ashcroft as the general manager of football.
Round one: North Melbourne, Cazaly's Stadium (Cairns), Saturday, March 24, 6.25pm
Premiership odds: $151 (CrownBet)
We say: A huge year coming up for Gold Coast as it tries to gain credibility in the competition. Dew's appointment gives them a fresh face in charge, and after a long apprenticeship at the Swans, you can expect to see a harder edge in both their pre-season and playing style. No Gary Ablett for the first time in club history, but the Suns will still be in the headlines with co-captain Lynch the biggest free agent name in the game. The raw talent is there to be competitive, but just how they gel under Dew will be intriguing. - Michael Whiting
Training return: After reaching the preliminary final for the second-straight year, the Giants' first-to-fourth year players aren't due back until Monday, November 20. The older players will come back two weeks later on December 4.
Injury list: The major concern for the Giants is All Australian midfielder Dylan Shiel who had a shoulder operation in the off-season. Shiel will come back on a modified program that should not hinder him too much. Toby Greene broke his toe last week, but the clever half-forward won't miss any of the pre-season. New recruit Lachie Keeffe is expected to begin his pre-season program with the young players in two weeks.
Draft picks: 11, 27, 28, 57, 65, 89, 107
Arrived: Lachie Keeffe
Departed: Tom Downie (retired), Steve Johnson (retired), Matthew Kennedy (traded), Shane Mumford (retired), Tendai Mzungu (retired), Sam Reid (delisted), Devon Smith (traded), Nathan Wilson (traded)
Major off-field moves: Nothing major, but a few positions in the coaching ranks have been shuffled. Brad Miller has gone from the club's NEAFL coach to an assistant role, with former Saint and Swan Adam Schneider coming on board to take Miller's place as the reserves coach. Shane Mumford has gone straight from retirement into a part-time ruck coaching role to replace Dean Brogan.
Round one: Western Bulldogs, UNSW Canberra Oval, Sunday, March 25, 1.10pm
Premiership odds: $6.50 (CrownBet)
We say A quiet off-season for the Giants, but when you've made back-to-back prelims, that's not a bad thing. The loss of Devon Smith, Nathan Wilson and Matthew Kennedy during the trade period will hurt the depth, but not their overall chances of winning a premiership in 2018. Injuries to Dylan Shiel and Toby Greene are not long-lasting. With some believing the 'premiership window' isn't as open as it once was, what the Giants do during pre-season will be of great interest. - Michael Whiting
Time is running out for Heath Shaw to claim a flag with the Giants. Picture: AFL Photos
Training return: Many of the Hawks have been living it up overseas on holiday over the off-season, but most of them are home now and ready to prepare for season 2018. The first-to-fourth-year players will return to Waverley on November 6, with the rest of the team to hit the track on November 20.
Injury list: Most of the injured Hawks from last season should be right for day one of pre-season. Star Hawk Cyril Rioli missed the second half of the 2017 season with a knee injury, but is ready to go. Defender Grant Birchall had knee surgery in August, and while he has been on his own training program, he isn't likely to join his teammates on the track until December. Young midfielder James Cousins will have a delayed start to pre-season, the 19-year-old has resumed running after shoulder surgery, but is more likely to start full training post-Christmas.
Draft picks: 43, 68, 75, 81, 99
Arrived: Jarman Impey
Departed: Josh Gibson (retired), Luke Hodge (traded to Lions), Billy Hartung (delisted), Kade Stewart (delisted), Dallas Willsmore (delisted), Jack Fitzpatrick (retired), Luke Surman (retired)
Major off-field moves: The biggest off-field move was the return of outspoken president Jeff Kennett. The former Victorian Premier was approached by the board to return following the resignation of Richard Garvey over the bungled CEO appointment. Kennett took no time in appointing Justin Reeves as chief executive to replace Tracey Gaudry, who was in the job for just five months. As for the football department, former Magpie Scott Burns and ex-Eagle Darren Glass have joined the Hawks as assistant coaches.
Round one: Collingwood, MCG, 7:25pm
Premiership odds: $26 (CrownBet)
We say: Let Jaeger watch begin. Many Hawthorn fans view the midfielder as the great white hope, but in his first year, his troublesome knee had anxiety levels at an all-time high. But after the final game of 2017, Hawks fans were buoyed to see O'Meara up and running, and looking fit. The ex-Sun needs a big pre-season to catapult himself into 2018. The brown and gold faithful, as well as Hawthorn's football department, will have all their fingers and toes crossed that he gets through unscathed. O'Meara aside, the new-old president Kennett will be one to keep an eye on. He has had a robust relationship in the past with coach Alastair Clarkson, and isn't afraid to say what he thinks, especially when it comes to the issue of Tasmania and the AFL. - Nat Edwards
Training return: The first-to-fourth year players resume on Monday, November 6, with the rest – except draftees – returning on Monday, November 20. The Demons will again hold their pre-season training camp in Maroochydore in January.
Injury list: Co-captain Jack Viney (foot), Dean Kent (shoulder), Tim Smith (navicular bone) and Aaron vandenBerg (heel) will be in the rehab group up to Christmas. Swingman Tom McDonald (ankles) is on a running program and will be integrated into the main group in late December, while Pat McKenna (hamstring) will start on a modified program and Lochie Filipovic will rehab interstate before returning in December. Jesse Hogan (hamstring) will be in the main group from November 20.
Draft picks: 29, 31, 36, 47, 84, 102
Arrived: Harley Balic (traded from Fremantle), Jake Lever (traded from Adelaide)
Departed: Colin Garland (retired), Liam Hulett (delisted), Ben Kennedy (delisted), Heritier Lumumba (retired), Jake Spencer (delisted), Jack Trengove (delisted), Jack Watts (traded to Port Adelaide), Mitch White (delisted)
Major off-field moves: Jade Rawlings is the Casey Demons' new senior coach, taking over from Justin Plapp, who becomes an assistant with Melbourne's AFL side. Recently retired defender Colin Garland is also moving into various coaching roles at the club, including with the AFL team, Next Generation Academy and AFL Women's, as well as being the VFLW Casey Demons' inaugural senior coach. Melbourne also appointed Peter Maynard as Casey's general manager of football, a role where he will oversee the VFL, VFLW and NGA programs.
Round one: Geelong, MCG, Sunday, March 25, 3.20pm AEDT
Premiership odds: $16 (CrownBet)
We say: The time is now for the Demons, who last played finals in 2006 and missed the 2017 post-season by just 0.5 per cent after a disappointing round 23 loss to Collingwood. Jake Lever's addition will strengthen an already solid defence, and their talented young crop – including Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca, Angus Brayshaw, Sam Weideman, Jesse Hogan and Jayden Hunt – should be ready to go to another level. The lack of Thursday and Friday night exposure (only one match) is a disappointment, but six of Melbourne's first seven matches are in Victoria and it doesn't have back-to-back six-day breaks or interstate travel. – Marc McGowan
Jesse Hogan's luck must surely turn around in 2018. Picture: AFL Photos
Training return: The first-to-fourth year Roos left for a two-week training camp in Utah last Friday, October 27. The high-altitude program will include hikes, time trials, interval training, skills sessions, cross-training and weights at the United States Ski and Snowboard Association centre. The rest of North's list will resume training in Melbourne on Monday, November 13.
Injury list: Ben Jacobs (foot) and Sam Wright (foot/ankle) will start the pre-season on modified programs as they bid to overcome the lingering injuries that have dogged them the past two seasons. Marley Williams (back) and Jack Ziebell (toe) will also be on restricted programs initially, while second-year defender Declan Watson is continuing his rehabilitation after rupturing his left anterior cruciate ligament in late July. In better news for the Kangaroos, Jy Simpkin (ankle), Nathan Hrovat (ankle), Ryan Clarke (shoulder) and Ben Brown (elbow) should be right to go from day one after minor post-season operations, along with Paul Ahern (knee), Ed Vickers-Willis (knee), Mitchell Hibberd (shoulder), Jamie Macmillan (finger) and Mason Wood (calf).
Draft picks: 4, 23, 64, 78, 91, 96
Arrived: Alex Morgan
Departed: Will Fordham (delisted), Sam Gibson (traded to Adelaide), Lachlan Hansen (delisted), Aaron Mullett (delisted free agency to Carlton), Matthew Taylor (delisted), Lindsay Thomas (delisted), Corey Wagner (delisted)
Major off-field moves: Brad Scott's coaching team will have a different look in 2018 following the departures of assistant Brad Green (defence) and part-time ruck coach Alex Ishchenko, with coaching director Darren Crocker set to assume a line role again and oversee the Roos' ruckmen. North is also redeveloping its Arden St headquarters, largely in preparation for its entry into the VFL next season.
Round one: Gold Coast, Cazalys Stadium, Saturday, March 24, 6.25pm (AEST)
Premiership odds: $126 (CrownBet)
We say: The Kangaroos have continued their list regeneration, waving goodbye to veterans Gibson, 31, Thomas, 29, and Hansen, 29, while contracted former skipper Andrew Swallow, 30, remains a chance to join Gold Coast as a rookie. Many are predicting North's 2018 season will be one of doom and gloom, but don't be surprised if they exceed expectations. Champion Data has rated their fixture as the second easiest in the competition, while the Roos are confident of improving on their largely competitive 2017, especially if they have a better run with injury and can welcome back senior regulars Jacobs and Wright. There is also significant scope for development in youngsters such as Jy Simpkin, Braydon Preuss, Sam Durdin, Daniel Nielson, Ben McKay, Nick Larkey and Josh Williams, while North has big hopes for forgotten former Giant Ahern and should snare an exciting player with its No.4 draft pick. – Nick Bowen
Training return: The Power's first-to-fourth year players return to training on Monday, November 20, while the remainder of the group come back a week later on November 27. As they did last year, the Power will stay around Adelaide for their pre-season.
Injury list: Star forward Robbie Gray could miss the start of pre-season training after having chemotherapy as part of his treatment for testicular cancer. Defender Jack Hombsch (hip) and ruckman Billy Frampton (shoulder) both had surgery in August.
Draft picks: 46, 49, 59, 62, 63, 86, 95, 104
Arrived: Trent McKenzie, Steven Motlop, Tom Rockliff, Jack Trengove, Jack Watts.
Departed: Brendon Ah Chee (traded to West Coast), Logan Austin (traded to St Kilda), Brett Eddy (delisted), Jarman Impey (traded to Hawthorn), Nathan Krakouer (retired), Angus Monfries (retired), Matthew Lobbe (traded to Carlton), Jesse Palmer (delisted), Jackson Trengove (signed as a free agent with the Western Bulldogs), Matthew White (delisted), Aaron Young (traded to Gold Coast).
Major off-field moves: The Power's playing list has changed dramatically, but the coaching staff has remained relatively stable. The only changes are the departure of development coach Jacob Surjan and SANFL reserves coach Mark Clayton. Ian McKeown will oversee his first pre-season after taking over as the club's head of high performance midway through the year when Darren Burgess joined EPL heavyweight Arsenal.
Round one: Fremantle at Adelaide Oval, Saturday, 4.05pm.
Premiership odds: $10 (CrownBet)
We say: The Power have pushed all their chips into the middle and are making a big push at winning the club's first premiership since 2004. Their top 22 is stronger with the additions of Tom Rockliff, Steven Motlop and Jack Watts, but a few injuries – something they didn't have much of this year – could put their depth to the test after losing several experienced back-ups to other clubs during the Trade Period. It's a gamble, but one definitely worth taking as the Power aim to be a genuine premiership contender. - Lee Gaskin
Port Adelaide has brought in the cavalry to help Paddy Ryder. Picture: AFL Photos
Training return: The Tigers' first-to-fourth-year players return on November 27, with the rest back on December 4. Vice-captain Jack Riewoldt has already been spotted at the club completing running sessions four weeks after the club's premiership triumph.
Injury list: Daniel Rioli suffered a broken foot in the Grand Final and was in a moon boot. He is expected to start running after the Christmas. Nathan Drummond was the Tigers' only injury concern going into the decider and is more than five months into his recovery from a knee reconstruction. He was running well early in his rehab.
Draft picks: 17, 20, 25, 53, 55, 74, 92, 110
Arrived: Nil
Departed: Jake Batchelor (delisted), Todd Elton (delisted), Taylor Hunt (delisted), Ben Lennon (delisted), Ivan Maric (retired), Steven Morris (delisted), Chris Yarran (retired)
Major off-field moves: Nil
Round one: Carlton, MCG, Thursday, March 22, 7:25pm
Premiership odds: $8.00 (CrownBet)
We say: It's been a settled off-season as far as player/off-field movement for the premiers after they found a mix that works. The Trade Period was about positioning strategically to land father-son prospect Patrick Naish in the NB AFL Draft, while retaining strong picks for two other players. Two pick swaps, with Geelong and the Brisbane Lions, achieved this. The Tigers couldn't avoid controversy, however, after premiership defender Nathan Broad distributed a photo of a topless woman without her permission during the aftermath of the Grand Final. He was suspended by the club for the first three home and away games of 2018. - Nathan Schmook
Dylan Grimes and the Tigers are enjoying this off-season as premiers. Picture: AFL Photos
Training return: First-to-fourth-year players are back at the club on Wednesday, November 8, then will go to Yea for a training camp on the Thursday and Friday. The rest of the list returns on Monday, November 20.
Injury list: Young gun Jade Gresham had adductor release surgery at the end of the season but is expected to be well and truly back into his running program by Christmas. Onballer Koby Stevens carried a groin injury throughout the year and had surgery at season's end but should not be delayed too much. Key defender Hugh Goddard will be fit for the start of pre-season after having a toe on his right foot operated on in June. David Armitage (groin) and Nathan Wright (ankle) will have limited workloads when they return to Seaford.
Draft picks: 7, 8, 34, 45
Arrived: Logan Austin
Departed: Joe Baker-Thomas (delisted), Nick Coughlan (delisted), Sean Dempster (retired), Jason Holmes (delisted), Leigh Montagna (retired), Nick O'Kearney (delisted), Lewis Pierce (delisted), Nick Riewoldt (retired)
Major off-field moves: Ameet Bains will leave a big hole when he crosses to the Western Bulldogs as their new chief executive officer in December. He was the chief operating officer and general counsel at the Saints, and had a big hand in list management, so will be tough to replace. The coaching panel was beefed up with Henry Playfair joining as an assistant coach and Ben Dixon brought in to improve the goalkicking, while ruck coach Adam Skrobalak will have less contact hours, having taken on the head coaching role at Frankston. Aaron Hamill will take over Lindsay Gilbee's role as coach of Sandringham, with the former Bulldog moving into a development position.
Round one: Brisbane Lions, Etihad Stadium, Saturday, March 24, 3.35pm
Premiership odds: $34 (CrownBet)
We say: Next season looms as a crunch year in Alan Richardson's coaching reign. Despite having signed a contract to stay at the club until the end of 2020, St Kilda needs to start delivering on the field, not having made finals since 2011. A relatively tough fixture will make that difficult, so its goalkicking will need to improve over the off-season after inaccuracy spread through the team last year. The Saints weren't able to nab Josh Kelly or a similarly classy ball user through the NAB AFL Trade Period so will lean on the likes of Jack Billings and Jade Gresham to add their impeccable foot skills to the midfield. - Dinny Navaratnam
Training return: The first-to-fourth-year players return on Monday, November 20, while the rest of the list will be back a fortnight later on Monday, December 4.
Injury list: A couple of key forwards have gone under the knife. Kurt Tippett will not start running until December after having left ankle surgery but the Swans expect him to be available for round one. Superstar Lance Franklin also had an ankle operation but his was less significant than Tippett's. A combination of the operation and his 13 years in the system means the Swans will take a conservative approach and manage his workload until the end of the year.
Draft picks: 14, 33, 51, 88
Arrived: Nil
Departed: Shaun Edwards, Sam Fisher, Brandon Jack, Alex Johnson, Tyrone Leonardis, Jeremy Laidler, Sam Murray, Michael Talia.
Major off-field moves: There has been a shake-up in the coaching ranks, with senior assistant coach Stuart Dew taking over at Gold Coast. Another of John Longmire's highly respected aides has moved on, with Henry Playfair going to St Kilda, while Josh Francou left for a job at Adelaide. On the other hand, retired champion Steve Johnson and former Swans Tadhg Kennelly and Jeremy Laidler have taken roles on the coaching panel. Rhyce Shaw has been promoted from NEAFL coach to become an assistant, while Nick Davis will work closely with the academy.
Round one: West Coast, Perth Stadium, Sunday, March 25, 4.20pm
2018 premiership odds: $5.50 (CrownBet)
We say: Sydney being bundled out in the semi-finals was surprising to most football watchers but it was perhaps understandable, considering the toll of having to recover from a 0-6 start. A proud club, Sydney will be determined to go better in 2018. Losing a lot of coaching nous will take some negotiating for John Longmire but his side is nevertheless well placed considering the core of elite players at his disposal. Making sure those stars stay on the park is the crucial part, although a healthy dose of luck is needed to achieve that, as shown when Dane Rampe broke an arm ahead of round two this year after tripping over a chain while going for a run. - Dinny Navaratnam
Josh Kennedy and the Swans will be hoping for a faster start in 2018. Picture: AFL Photos
Training return: The Eagles' first-to-fourth-year players are back on November 20, with fifth-year players returning on December 4.
Injury list: Nic Naitanui underwent a minor arthroscope on his reconstructed left knee but is back into full rehabilitation training. Club champion Elliot Yeo (hip soreness) and veteran Mark LeCras (ankle surgery) are also on managed workloads before Christmas. Full-back Eric Mackenzie underwent minor toe surgery.
Draft picks: 13, 21, 26, 32, 37, 69, 87, 105
Arrived: Brendon Ah Chee
Departed: Paddy Brophy (retired), Sam Butler (retired), Jonathan Giles (retired), Tom Gorter (delisted), Josh Hill (delisted), Tom Lamb (delisted), Sam Mitchell (retired), Drew Petrie (retired), Matt Priddis (retired), Jordan Snadden (delisted), Simon Tunbridge (delisted), Sharrod Wellingham (delisted)
Major off-field moves: Senior assistant Justin Longmuir (Collingwood) and midfield and stoppages coach Dean Cox (Sydney) have each departed for news clubs. Sam Mitchell has joined the coaching team after retiring, and Nathan van Berlo has crossed from Adelaide. The pair will share midfield duties, with Adrian Hickmott to take on a new line.
Round one: Sydney, Perth Stadium, Sunday, March 25, 4:20pm
Premiership odds: $34.00 (CrownBet)
We say: One of the quietest clubs during the Trade Period, West Coast targeted picks inside the top 50 to help replenish its list through the NAB AFL Draft. A final-day deal with Gold Coast landed them those desired picks, but it came at the cost of their positioning in the 2018 draft. Twelve players have departed, making this is a period of transition for the club as it reshapes its list. Fresh voices in the coaching team will be a positive, coming at the cost of experience. - Nathan Schmook
Training return: The first-to-fourth-year players return on November 9, while the rest of the list resumes on November 20.
Injury list: Midfielder Lin Jong is expected to have a delayed start to full pre-season training after an ACL tear sustained back in June. Delisted rookie Roarke Smith, who will be redrafted onto the rookie list, should be right to go from day one after his knee reconstruction in March.
Draft picks: 9, 16, 82
Arrived: Hayden Crozier, Josh Schache, Jackson Trengove
Departed: Matthew Boyd (retired), Stewart Crameri (delisted), Travis Cloke (retired), Declan Hamilton (delisted), Robert Murphy (retired), Josh Prudden (delisted), Jake Stringer (traded to Essendon), Roarke Smith (delisted), Tristan Tweedie (delisted)
Major off-field moves: Despite rumblings that disharmony was rife throughout the club during their ill-fated flag defence, the Dogs have made few changes to their brains trust. The coaching panel under coach Luke Beveridge remains unchanged. The one major appointment was poaching St Kilda executive Ameet Bains to replace interim CEO Gary Kent.
Round one: Greater Western Sydney, Canberra, Sunday, March 25, 1.10pm
Premiership odds: $23 (CrownBet)
We say: The Dogs are one of the great mysteries going into 2018, with it hard to gauge whether they can regain the form that took them to the flag just over 12 months ago. The additions of Trengove and Crozier should help fill holes in defence, while it will be fascinating to see how young and highly touted key forwards Tom Boyd and Josh Schache combine in attack. With Murphy and Boyd hanging up their boots, look for the dependable Easton Wood and superstar playmaker Marcus Bontempelli to assume joint captaincy. If the Dogs can recapture their mojo, a favourable draw should help them return to September action. - Ryan Davidson
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Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible and film media used to convey information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate and complete work. The editing process often begins with the author's idea for the work itself, continuing as a collaboration between the author and the editor as the work is created. As such, editing can involve creative skills, human relations and a precise set of methods.
There are various editorial positions in publishing. Typically, one finds editorial assistants reporting to the senior-level editorial staff and directors who report to senior executive editors. Senior executive editors are responsible for developing a product for its final release. The smaller the publication, the more these roles overlap. The top editor at many publications may be known as the chief editor, executive editor, or simply the editor. A frequent and highly regarded contributor to a magazine may acquire the title of editor-at-large or contributing editor. Mid-level newspaper editors often manage or help to manage sections, such as business, sports and features. In U.S. newspapers, the level below the top editor is usually the managing editor.
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In what’s considered the largest mass stranding in decades, over 400 pilot whales have beached themselves on a New Zealand shore. Hundreds of whales died overnight, and rescuers are now frantically working to save the dozens of remaining whales who are clinging to life.
According to New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC), 416 pilot whales had beached themselves at Farewell Spit in Golden Bay, at the northern tip of the country’s south island. When the DOC arrived on the scene, around 250 to 300 whales had already perished, and by the time dawn broke this morning, more than 70 percent of the whales were dead. DOC staff and dozens of volunteers are now trying to save the remaining 80 to 90 whales.
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For those trying to help, the sight must be truly horrific. Images from the scene show the beach littered with the large black-bodied corpses. The ones still alive are surrounded by rescue workers who are desperately trying to keep them cool, wet and and calm.
“It is one of the saddest things I have seen, that many sentient creatures just wasted on the beach,” noted volunteer rescuer Peter Wiles in The Guardian. The DOC has made a plea to the local community to come and help, and to provide towels, buckets, and sheets. Some rescuers have been working in the cold, wet conditions for upwards of nine hours straight. The response was incredible, and the DOC says no more volunteers are needed at this time.
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The next opportunity to save the remaining whales is scheduled for noon tomorrow (Saturday) when the tide comes in. Frustratingly, the remaining whales were “refloated” at high tide earlier today (at about 10:30 am local time), but 90 of them came back and re-beached themselves. As social mammals, they were likely trying to stay close to their pod—the majority of which are now lying dead on the beach.
“We are trying to swim the whales out to sea and guide them but they don’t really take directions, they go where they want to go,” said DOC team leader in The Guardian. “Unless they get a couple of strong leaders who decide to head out to sea, the remaining whales will try and keep with their pod on the beach.”
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New Zealand has one of the highest rates of whale strandings in the world; about 300 whales and dolphins beach themselves on the nation’s shorelines each year. Golden Bay is particularly conducive to strandings because of its shallow topography, which makes it difficult for whales to swim out once they’ve entered.
On top of that, pilot whales are notorious for stranding themselves. Entire groups of these whales will beach themselves on account of their strong social bonds. It’s possible that the whales got stuck when an old, sick, or injured whale got stranded, and its pod-mates swam to its aid. The stranding may also have something to do with the pilot whales’ compromised ability to use echo-location in shallow, gently sloping waters. These whales, which are the largest of the oceanic dolphins, prefer steep areas such as continental shelf edges. Farewell Spit, with its shallow waters, is a death trap.
This stranding is now considered the third largest in New Zealand’s recorded history. In 1918, over a thousand whales beached themselves on the Chatham Islands, and in 1985, 450 stranded themselves at Great Barrier Island off the coast of Auckland. Two years ago, 200 whales were killed in a mass stranding at Farewell Spit.
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[DOC, Guardian]
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Fur sale: Coat made from male chest hair (Picture: Supplied)
They say fur is murder, but this fur coat is a crime against fashion of another kind.
This limited edition coat is made entirely of male chest hair.
Manly: Yet still clean-shaven (Picture: Supplied)
It took designers up to 200 hours to weave together up to a million strands of hair.
Dairy firm Arla commissioned the coat to coincide with the launch of a new milk drink, Wing-co, aimed at men.
Despite promotional material featuring a model with a clean-shaven chest, the company said the coat represents a protest against the ‘manning-down’ of British men, particularly via emasculating fashion.
The link between a fur coat and a milk-based drink is clear for all to see (Picture: Supplied)
The coat can be yours for just £2,499.
Last week we revealed how Chinese women had apparently taken to wearing hairy stockings to deflect unwanted male attention.
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“It’s always a bit like Ricki Lake at my shows,” Jessie Ware said with a wickedly droll smile. The mastermind of heartbreak elegance was midway through belting out a handful of her sumptuous tracks during a tiny acoustic set at London’s Ace Hotel this May. It was the south London artist’s first performance in two years, at which she spent as much time chatting with her fans as singing for them. She interrupted her set to pass the mic to Hannah, who’s travelled down from Scotland (“for six songs? Jesus!”), to quiz a fan about their upcoming wedding, and to offer a theory to a Greek audience member about why her R&B-leaning second album Tough Love didn’t sell in his home country. “I’d like to think it was because of the crisis,” she says, and he laughs. “It was more optimistic.”
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That’s true, sort of. Ware’s two albums to date have drawn links between after-dark bass music and stately soul, and, if they catch you at a certain moment, her songs like “Wildest Moments” and “Pieces” can feel like holding back tears until you feel your front door safely close behind you. Even though her tracks like “You & I (Forever)” explore the giddy highs of relationships, a subtle shift of Ware’s rich voice can flip a lighter track’s lyric like “I could wait all night” (“Imagine It Was Us”) from being a flirty come-on to something close to dancefloor masochism. Her currently-untitled third album will arrive later this year, with a strutting lead single, “Midnight,” out this week. The song pairs a “Bennie and the Jets” by way of “Super Rich Kids” piano line with brooding reflections on being in a long-term relationship (she’s been married to her husband Sam for three years), as well as foregrounding the desperate anxieties that can come with putting yourself in another’s hands: “Don’t let me fall through/ Now that I need you,” she roars.
The writing and production credits of her new album are a roll-call of the artists currently shaping pop radio, with artist and Justin Bieber songwriter Julia Michaels, Francis and The Lights, and Cashmere Cat joining her previous collaborators like Benny Blanco and Ed Sheeran. The teasing Spanish guitars of Ryan Tedder co-write “Selfish Love” would make a steamy soundtrack to a heated summer romance in the Basque, and one featherlight bop deploys Chairlift-esque synth wizardry. Still, a specific magic remains, in the way Ware’s lovelorn anthems can feel both painfully intimate and designed for arena singalongs. But the artist’s lyrics draw increasingly on her wariness, as a new mom, of the forces that can threaten a family — she’s already taken her 10-month-old daughter on the London’s Women’s March to protest systemic misogyny.
Ware’s songs may suggest tumultuous undercurrents, but at her spacious and tastefully decorated east London home on a recent summer’s day she seems relaxed, curled up on her front room’s cozy-looking sofa with her hair in a loose topknot. In an adjacent room, her daughter naps, undisturbed by the family's adorable cocoa-colored French bulldog, Stanley, who scuttles around the wooden floors and yelps when anyone approaches the front door. During an hour-long conversation, Ware opened up about digging deep on her new music, working with Nicki Minaj on “The Crying Game,” and how, if step one is establishing a family home, then the subsequent — and more enduring — challenge is to protect it.
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The use case is pretty simple: you want 3G/4G on your Raspberry Pi because you want to access it when there is no WiFi. You could use an AT&T starter kit 3G shield but it seems more complex. I also believe it is locked to AT&T. The $50 Sfera Labs Sierra AirCard 320U USB modem seems like a viable option because it's unlocked, making it quick and easy to set up. It should work anywhere in the world either roaming or using a local SIM. This is important for me, personally, because it's part of a demo rig.
The good news is that the pre-built kernel 4.4 of Raspbian automatically recognizes this card, so you don't have to build your own kernel.
This is a great article from Netgear. What you see here is a short and simple example largely based on that article and my experience with this particular setup.
Interface
Here is what you need to know about this modem. Like most modems, it responds to AT commands. Thus, the first thing to do is make sure that the kernel sees the modem driver correctly.
# modinfo sierra you should see v.1.7.x or later
# modinfo sierra_net you should see v.1.xx or later
# ls /dev/ttyUSB* you should see: /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/ttyUSB1 /dev/ttyUSB2 /dev/ttyUSB3
# ifconfig you should see a WWAN without ip address.
# minicom –s you should see 115200-8N1 : 115200 bps and 8 bits none parity, 1 stop bit.
I got a real feeling of nostalgia and fondly remembered the BBS when doing this. I did not need to enable echo: its ATE1, so if you don't see what you are typing, just type 'ATE1 <enter>' and it should respond let you see what you are typing.
The next thing you need to do is know your APN and additional details. For the AT&T starter kit, you will use this: m2m.com.attz
For regular retail SIMs: broadband.# minicom -s AT #
Verify the thing is ON. This should return OK.
at!gstatus? should return device status.
Ok, now you are good to set your APN into the modem.
at+cfun=1 at+cgdcont=3,"IP","CustomAPN" at!scdftprof=3 at!scprof=3," ",1,0,0,0
At the end of this, the modem should be connected.
Check the IP address that the modem has at!scpaddr=3 and it should display the real life address. Now, you face the next challenge: how to exit Minicom. Ctrl-A and X worked for me.
ifconfig the interface should have the IP address. How to test it without losing the terminal? ping -I wwan0 8.8.8.8
If it's pinging its on.
Check out our other open source projects on Github.
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CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela condemned on Thursday the United States’ revocation of its ambassador’s visa as an “imperial” move by President Barack Obama’s government, saying the measure should be immediately overturned.
Supporters of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez hold the national flag on Margarita island September 26, 2009. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
In the latest flare-up between the ideological foes, Washington withdrew the visa of ambassador Bernardo Alvarez on Wednesday in retaliation for the rejection by socialist President Hugo Chavez of Obama’s nominated envoy to Caracas.
Diplomat Larry Palmer had criticized Venezuela’s government, saying morale in its military was low, and that there were clear ties between members of the Chavez administration and leftist rebels in neighboring Colombia.
“This is a new aggression by the State Department,” Roy Daza, a prominent ruling party member who heads parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told Reuters. “The only possible solution is for the United States to rectify its position.”
The tit-for-tat appeared to bury any lingering prospects of rapprochement between the Obama administration and Chavez, who has inherited Fidel Castro’s mantle as Latin America’s leading critic of the United States.
Despite the diplomatic spat, few expect either Venezuela or the United States to risk jeopardizing trade ties — principally oil — crucial to both nation’s economies.
The OPEC member is one of the top five oil suppliers to the United States, exporting 930,000 barrels per day of crude and products in October, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. (r.reuters.com/pef34r)
Chavez had blocked Palmer’s arrival because of the diplomat’s comments in a letter to a U.S. senator during his confirmation process. In addition to Palmer’s views on military morale and Colombian rebel links, he had also alleged growing Cuban influence in Venezuela’s armed forces.
“Mr. Palmer insulted, slandered and lied shamelessly in his speech to the Senate. For this reason, he disqualified himself as the United States’ diplomatic representative to Venezuela,” Daza said in a telephone interview.
“IMPERIAL MENTALITY”
When Obama took office in January 2009, promising more engagement with foes, there had been expectations of a possible rapprochement. Chavez toned down his tirades against the “empire” and shook hands with the new U.S. leader at a summit.
But within months, Chavez said Obama was disillusioning the world by following his predecessor George W. Bush’s foreign policies, and the rhetoric from Caracas cranked up again.
His government said Washington’s insistence on naming Palmer showed its “policy of aggression” against the Venezuelan people, and Chavez said the diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks had proved that all U.S. ambassadors were “spies.”
Daza said the visa revocation showed there had not been any real change in the U.S. line toward the rest of the world.
“It shows that the change in U.S. president did not represent a change of the imperial mentality,” he said.
The Foreign Ministry also issued a protest note condemning the “history of interventionism and aggression against Venezuela’s people, institutions and democracy.”
But analysts did not expect the spat to affect trade ties including Venezuelan oil exports to the United States. Although it is seeking to diversify its export portfolio toward political allies like China, Venezuela is in a second year of recession and cannot afford to drastically cut U.S. sales. Past threats by Chavez to do so have not materialized.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Caracas had brought the visa measure upon itself.
“We said there would be consequences when the Venezuelan government rescinded agreement regarding our nominee, Larry Palmer. We have taken appropriate, proportional and reciprocal action,” Toner told reporters in an e-mail late on Wednesday.
Related Coverage Factbox: Energy ties between Venezuela and United States
A member of Venezuela’s political opposition said Chavez and Washington were both playing a dangerous game.
“This has been a badly-handled relationship by both government, and that worries us in the opposition because the United States is Venezuela’s main trade partner,” Ramon Jose Medina, foreign affairs spokesman for the Democratic Unity opposition coalition, told Reuters.
“The United States is an important nation with which we should have stable and cordial relations.”
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The Conservative government has quietly adjusted its labour data to ignore job postings from Kijiji and similar websites, a change that essentially erases the dire warnings of labour shortages that Ottawa has used as justification for expanding the controversial temporary foreign worker program.
With these sites removed from the source data, the government's latest labour market report points to a job vacancy rate of 1.5 per cent, which is dramatically less than the 4 per cent vacancy rate Finance Canada warned of on budget day.
The government has repeatedly pointed to concerns over skills shortages as the reasoning for a number of its decisions, including expansion of the temporary foreign worker program and tightening the eligibility rules for employment insurance.
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The temporary foreign worker program has come under intense criticism after it was revealed that businesses were bringing in workers while Canadians said they were being denied work.
(What is the temporary foreign worker program? Read The Globe's easy explanation)
Employment Minister Jason Kenney has imposed a moratorium on the program for the food-service industry and has previously vowed to review the entire program.
Mr. Kenney has said lately that while there is not clear evidence of a national skills shortage, there is a need for specific skills in specific regions. Many employer groups insist shortages are real and that the program is desperately needed.
The Globe and Mail reported in March that a Finance Canada Jobs Report released with the Feb. 11 budget contained claims of rising job shortages that were largely based on a problematic software program.
The Parliamentary Budget Office discovered that while the software by Wanted Analytics scans all online job boards, the growth in job postings was almost entirely due to a rise in postings on the classified site Kijiji. The site allows the same job to be posted in numerous sections, which inflated the job numbers.
The job vacancy rate is arrived at by calculating the number of online job postings divided by labour demand, which is total job postings plus occupied positions.
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A new labour market report released last week by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) uses Wanted Analytics data, but removes numbers from Kijiji and other sites that allow jobs to be posted anonymously.
The department's Employment Insurance, Monitoring and Assessment Report is a detailed annual assessment of Canada's labour market and the federal government's EI policies. The report does not list a vacancy rate, but does say that after anonymous postings were removed, the Wanted Analytics data set added up to 276,525 jobs. From that figure, it is possible to calculate the vacancy rate of 1.5 per cent for the 2012-13 fiscal year.
Mostafa Askari, the assistant parliamentary budget officer, said the changes underscore the fact that Canada lacks reliable job data. As a result, it is impossible to know whether there is a justification for policy measures such as the temporary foreign worker program.
"There's isn't really any good data out there. Online postings are online postings. How well can you clean those up?" he asked, pointing out the need to avoid double counting jobs or counting jobs that have been filled but were not taken offline. He said the solution would be to give Statistics Canada more money to improve its research on job vacancies, which are based on surveys of employers.
"I think Statscan can definitely provide better data if they have the means to," he said. "I assume they are obviously under budget constraints as well. So they have to put that as a priority but they won't do it unless there's pressure on them to provide that kind of information."
Finance Canada had claimed in its initial February report that "the number of online postings from Wanted Analytics provides highly accurate job vacancy rates."
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It is not clear, however, that Finance Canada agrees with ESDC that removing Kijiji data entirely is the right approach.
"A significant number of legitimate job postings appear on the Kijiji and similar sites, and these sites are growing in popularity," said Finance Canada spokesperson Stephanie Rubec on Wednesday in an e-mailed statement. "The Department of Finance is working with Wanted Analytics and is consulting with ESDC and Statistics Canada to examine ways to improve the measure of job vacancy presented in Budget 2014.
"Estimates of vacancy rates will vary depending on the measures of vacancy used. Given the uncertainty with respect to the level of the vacancy rate, the Department of Finance focuses on the evolution of the vacancy rate over time when assessing labour market conditions."
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NON-Invasive DNA Paternity Testing in Canada and the USA (NO-RISK)
Updated November 7, 2015
Paternity Testing Before Birth During Pregnancy
INVASIVE PRENATAL PATERNITY TESTING
Before understanding non-invasive paternity testing, understand INVASIVE prenatal ( before birth ) DNA paternity testing.
An INVASIVE DNA paternity test can be performed accurately before a child is born ( 9+ months into the pregnancy, often cited as 14-16 weeks because of laws in certain countries regarding abortions after 13 weeks into the pregnancy ).
Amniocentesis (also referred to as amniotic fluid test or AFT) or chorionic villus sampling (CVS) involve a needle inserted into the stomach / uterus of the pregnant woman to get either a amniotic fluid or placenta tissue sample. Both medical procedures are performed by a specialists doctor OB/GYN and there is a small risk of miscarriage. Before either of these tests are performed a woman should consult proper medical authorities to discuss the risks and get from them the complete information. Newer technologies are replacing these methods to determine certain genetic disorders or chromosomal abnormalities.
NON-INVASIVE DNA PATERNITY TESTING IS THE NEWER TECHNOLOGY
A newer technology, non-invasive DNA paternity testing, is being sold by a few companies claiming various success rates. This is proprietary technology and therefore the success rates vary with some companies claiming an accuracy rate of 96% to 99.9%. Generally post-natal ( after birth ) DNA paternity testing has an accuracy rate of 99.9%. Contact a DNA paternity testing company to explain the details and how they can exclude a certain man with 100% accuracy.
There have been lawsuits by women in the U.S.A. , in particular one in 2009, in which a woman claimed she had an abortion based on the non-invasive DNA paternity test results thinking that the fetus was fathered by her boyfriend and not her husband. After abortion testing the fetus' DNA proved that it was fathered by her husband, so she pursued a lawsuit. The paternity testing company then closed up immediately and opened again under a different corporate name in the same location and with the same employees. The merits of the legal case are therefore not available.
Fetal DNA Paternity Testing ( Non-Invasive Prenatal DNA paternity testing )
Non-invasive DNA paternity testing can now reliably be done at 9+ weeks into the pregnancy. The mother's blood carries enough fetus DNA to be used to do a DNA paternity test. The fetus DNA sample is collected by a simple extraction of blood from the mother's arm which is compared to DNA of a male.
Non-invasive prenatal DNA paternity testing during pregnancy has been available since about 2002. The success rates vary in 2015.
There are now major companies which are selling this.
In Canada, this is not yet recognized, in family law matters.
Traditionally, prenatal testing required samples to have been obtained from "INVASIVE" procedures called CVS (Chorionic Villi Sampling) or Amniocentesis, both medical procedures done by an obstetrician . In many cases such sample collection is difficult and the risks to the fetus may not warrant such invasive procedures to establish paternity.
Through application of research technology it is now possible to determine the paternity of an fetus using a simple maternal blood sample and a simple DNA sample from the alleged father(s).
Non-invasive prenatal DNA paternity testing utilizes a blood sample taken from the pregnant woman's arm. Thus it is called a "NON-INVASIVE" test. There is no risk to the pregnant woman or to the fetus. The pregnant woman's blood contains both her DNA and that of the fetus. The fetal DNA is utilized in determining the paternity relationship. The alleged father(s) supply a DNA sample usually by means of a simple DNA specimen from swabbing the inside of the cheek to collect cheek cells. Other DNA samples from the alleged father such as, but not limited to, a hair with the root attached can also be used.
Once all samples have been received by the laboratory, an extraction procedure is used to separate fetal DNA from the maternal blood samples. Fetal DNA is extractable after 8-13 weeks fetal gestation.
Non-Invasive Prenatal DNA Paternity Testing of one man and the fetus is about $1,000 (Cdn/US). Each additional possible father tested costs about $150 (Cdn/US). Non-Invasive prenatal paternity testing is Read More ..fe and cost effective than traditional invasive prenatal paternity testing.
Scientists have reported what they refer to as "2nd generation NON-INVASIVE prenatal DNA paternity testing". Ask the company you choose for everything in writing.
"Legal" and "Curiosity" paternity tests
It's the same test using the same technology in most but not all cases. The "legal" refers to the collection of the identity information of the people providing the genetic DNA specimens. The other issue that arises is the "chain of evidence" or "chain of custody" of the DNA specimens collected, the ID, pictures and fingerprints. Some "curiosity" testing are not done to the same standards as those done by accredited labs in Canada.
The difference is the collection of proof of identity of the people being tested. Family laws haven't kept up with the new technologies and recognize only post-natal DNA paternity test results at this time in most countries. The "legal" above is not in reference to the legality of doing the test or the methods used. Consult a lawyer local to your jurisdiction about the legalities of collecting and using another person's DNA specimens. We are not lawyers and don't give legal advice. The legalities are different in different countries.
Some
Paternity testing at the time of birth
You may also choose testing the child immediately after birth using a DNA specimen ( umbilical cord blood ), which will pose no risk to the child.
Paternity testers will be able to provide results 3 to 7 working days after the samples are collected. If you would like test the child at the time of delivery, please contact the paternity testers in advance to arrange for testing and to have an umbilical cord blood collection kit forwarded to your physician before the due date.
INVASIVE Prenatal DNA Paternity Testing Cost
The cost for an INVASIVE DNA paternity test involving a chorionic villus sample or an amniotic fluid sample is the same as a standard paternity test . Generally, only women over 35 years of age are subjected to amniocentesis testing which may be done to provide information about fetus development. Sample collection is arranged by the patients with their obstetrician, and any fees imposed by the obstetrician for the amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling procedure are the responsibility of the patient. This is classified as a private medical practice issue in Ontario, Canada and is not allowed for paternity testing alone. Some companies providing this type of paternity testing send the pregnant woman to Buffalo, New York, USA or to Montreal, Quebec where such procedures are allowed. Once an appointment is arranged with the obstetrician, the laboratory will contact the obstetrician directly to arrange the details for specimen requirements. Comprehensive results stating inclusion of 99.9% (or more) or exclusion of 100% will be provided for all prenatal tests. Cost is about $400-500 (Cdn) in March 2008 plus the obstetrician's fees..
"FREE" Home Paternity Test Kits aren't worth anything.
There is no such thing as a "home paternity test kit". It's not like a home pregnancy test kit. The pregnancy test kit actually does a test and provides a test result. What companies are really referring to are DNA specimen collection kits which are nothing Read More ..an some buccal swabs ( large Q-Tips ) , envelopes and written directions on how to properly swab the inside of your mouth to get a good specimen of cheek cells. In addition, they may provide a postage paid envelope to send in the specimens to the paternity testing company.
Many reputable paternity testing companies make the specimen collection directions available on their websites and you can use some Q-Tips from your medicine cabinet. Follow the paternity testing company directions on handling the specimens. Paternity testing companies will email you directions for specimen collection, if you prefer.
In the USA, some large retailers are selling " Home Paternity Testing Kits" for $29.99 each. Save your money.
The Supreme Court of Canada - Baby Naming Case
In Canada, a child has the right to be named using both of the last names of the biological mother and father, even if the mother and father are not in any type of permanent relationship. You can read the Supreme Court of Canada - Newborn Baby Naming case on this website. Also, see our section on Child Identity Rights
Why is establishing paternity important?
Information for Americans
Most states have laws that require an unmarried couple to fill out an Acknowledgment of Paternity (AOP) form to legally establish who the father is. If the couple is unmarried and the mother has not been married in the last 300 days, then no father will be listed on the birth certificate until this legally binding form is filled out. The AOP is sent to the states Bureau of Vital statistics, is recorded, and the father listed becomes the legal father.
The Canadian Children's Rights Council advocates for mandatory paternity testing . The feminist phrase is "misattributed paternity" when a woman falsely represents a certain man to be the father. We call it paternity fraud. The woman giving birth certainly knows with whom she has had sex and should inure that the child's identity be properly registered. After the AOP is signed, couples have 60 days to request a DNA paternity test to be done and amend the AOP, or the father previously listed on the AOP could be held legally responsible for the child even if he is not the biological father. This is not the case in Australia or Canada.
If the mother is married to someone other than the father of the baby or has not been divorced for over 300 days, her husband is presumed to be the father of the baby. The biological father can only be named the legal father if he fills out an AOP and the husband also signs a denial of paternity. If the husband does not sign the denial of paternity, then either biological parent would need to take action in court to establish true paternity.
During the time that no father is listed as legal father, the baby's rights are not fully protected. Naming a legal father is vital in ensuring that the baby is eligible for child support, and benefits such as social security, veterans benefits, and health care. Read More ..portant yet is supporting the baby's relationship rights with their biological father and/or informed social father, as the case may be.
For Read More ..formation regarding naming a legal father and filing an AOP, contact your state attorney generals office.
Information for Canadians
Paternity fraud or providing false information about the identity of a child on a "Statement of Live Birth" (Ontario) or similar provincial birth registration form used to register a birth with provincial/territorial registrars of vital statistics, is a serious matter.
In Ontario, the act says that providing false information has a maximum penalty of a fine of $100,000 plus 6 months in jail. Other provinces have few penalties. Child identity rights aren't enforced by these governments properly and such violations are fundamentally a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Canadian Children's Rights Council advocates for stringent penalties in order to protect children's identity rights, their relationship rights from birth to be raised by both their biological parents. The legal cost to change this later can be horrendous.
The best and often only time that identification can be made is at or before the time of birth. Masculists in Canada are seeking gender equality with women who control reproduction and know definitively that they are the biological parent of the child, with the exception being women using surrogate mothers.
When child identity secrets are found out years later, it can be very damaging to everyone. The search for identity in cases of adoption when children grow up and seek out information about their biological parents is well known and illustrates the importance of these biological relationships as well as social relationships.
Read More ..d Read More ..urt judgements of family court, some of which you can read on this website, terminate financial support paid by men falsely identified to be the biological father and were "duped" into raising children fathered by others. The human need to carry on the family heritage through reproduction is strong human need.
New Australian Laws to Reimburse Male Victims of Paternity Fraud, June 2005
Canadian laws often follow those made in Australia and the UK. In June 2005, Australia enacted new family law which provides for the man wrongfully identified as the father to get back child financial support and the cost of raising a child which he falsely believed was his biological child. There have also been a number of civil lawsuits around the world ( France, Korea, The U.S.A. and Australia to mention a few) in which men were awarded substantial amounts of damages for the mental anguish etc. caused by paternity fraud. You will find some of these judgments on this website. See our section on Paternity Fraud
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By
21st Century Wire says…
Even on a corrupt country like Mexico, not everyone is bought and paid for.
Residents of this relatively poor Campeche region of Mexico have kicked out GMO ‘gene giant’ Monsanto Corp, located in the southwestern portion of the Yucatán Peninsula, have a set of cojones which have long since become extinct in the US and Europe.
How did they do it? The Latin American Bureau explains:
“The contemporary Mayan heirs of great millennial civilizations are the pivotal inhabitants of this land and everywhere match the state’s rich biodiversity. The great transnational corporation Monsanto just learned this the hard way. A company fabricated out of thin air; based essentially on bits of paper filed somewhere in a secretary of state office in the U.S. less than a half generation ago; this fictive entity that is now considered a person by the delusional Supremes just found out what it is like to go up against a bunch of deep rooted angry Indians [sic]. Why the anger? Essentially, because Native beekeepers are against the presence of GMOs of any kind in the pollen that bee populations are exposed to.”
CORPORATE SOCK PUPPETS CLUELESS: “What about GMOs? Look, we bought General Motors already.”
Back at home, things are more pathetic by an order of magnitude, where the corruption has been cemented within government institutions through share holding, promises of boardroom positions, perks and other bribes. Washington, London and Brussels have failed to protect the public interest regarding food security and generational health while acting like Banana Republics themselves – only with a lot more bling, more concrete and flexing its corporate media muscle to brainwash its own populations. But ‘relax’ we are told, “We have freedom and democracy, we aren’t corrupt”.
Time to learn a trick from the Mayans who, unlike western legion of nanny-states, have some clue who they are, and what it means to live…
Natural Health Warriors
Mayans of the Campeche Region have just won a two-year legal battle to get rid of Monsanto and their GMO soybeans (suicide beans). Following the ban of GM maize in Mexico, this ancient and agriculturally savvy culture has won a major battle against biotech monopolies around the globe. The Second District Court ruled in favor of three Mayan communities from the Hopelchén township who dared to take on the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock , Rural Development, Fisheries and Food ( Sagarpa) and the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources ( SEMARNAT). This means that Saragapa now must make a concerted effort to be sure that no GM soybeans are planted throughout Pachen and Cancabchen communities in Hopelchén. Just two years ago, the same agency allowed Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready GMO soybeans to be planted in the region – infecting more than 253,000 hectares with suicide seeds that cause human infertility and poison the environment. Seven states were under Monsanto’s reign – free then to plant their GM seeds wherever they liked within those borders, including the municipalities of: Campeche, Hopelchén , Tenabo , Calkiní , Escárcega, Carmen and Palisade. In just a few of these places, the authorities were angry that the government had given Monsanto authorization, and they decided to fight the ruling. Campeche beekeepers were especially upset since this would affect bee-keeping negatively in the region. They called Monsanto’s influence, ‘pollution of production,’ resulting in loss of income and closing of markets for many bee keepers with international contracts. After two years of litigation, and arguing that the planting of GM soybeans was in direct opposition of traditional beekeeping practices, AND that it was in violation of their right to a healthy environment – pointing out that increased use of herbicides and deforestation were both outcomes of GM planting – the Mayans won their case. These small indigenous communities have taken on the multi-billion-dollar biotech and Big Ag companies and won. They are an example to us all. Original Source: naturalsociety.com Join the next March Against Monsanto on May 24th in your area: http://bit.ly/1gCpTgf Related: France Bans GMO Corn Maize Despite EU Commission Pressure READ MORE GMO NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire GMO Files
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With prices shooting skywards in many digital currencies, a question on the minds of many who are holding onto big gains in Ethereum and Bitcoin is: what happens next? Are we likely to see an implosion of the price growth that until now has been nothing short of spectacular? Or are more gains on the way?
There are a variety of reasons we can predict with fairly precise accuracy that digital currencies are here to stay for a while. The primary reason we should expect continued expansion without dramatic contraction is that this is a network-enabled value chain. We’ve never seen this before. (If you don’t understand what I mean by this go here and read about Blockchain value configurations first.)
Digital currencies, by virtue of taking into account a value network configuration in addition to being value chain units of supply-demand capacity, means the value chain properties (i.e. prices) are somewhat extraordinary in the early stages. Since Blockchain units are simultaneously a unit of value chain, value shop and value network configuration, that means their network properties are directly linked to their chain properties, thus creating enormous price rises in the underlying units as more users jump onto the networks. We’ve never seen a comparable innovation before, so we aren’t used to these price increases. But sure enough, as their networks expand in size, we should expect the units to increase many, many multiples.
We can be more specific than this however. Here are three predictions for the second half of 2017 then:
Ethereum Overtakes Bitcoin As The World’s Number 1 Digital Currency Peercoin Gets Back Among Its Peers Initial Token Offerings (ITOs) Become Dividend-Enhanced
Ethereum Overtakes Bitcoin As The World’s Number 1 Digital Currency
When Ethereum leaps up over $480-$550 (around there), there’s going to be a huge cross-over event: specifically, the world’s largest digital currency is no Bitcoin, but instead, it will be Ethereum.
For anyone who knows anything at all about what’s going on in the Blockchain development sphere, the question of whether or not Ethereum will overtake Bitcoin as the Number 1 digital currency by market capitalisation is not a question of speculative curiosity but rather a matter of fact. Ethereum employs most of the architecture for the Internet of Things economy that we’ve been talking about in the mainstream press for the best part of the past 3 years now. The smart properties of its network and the “unpacked” aspect of its value configuration vs. Bitcoin’s more tightly-knit Blockchain functionality means that if Bitcoin was to stay in top spot, then Bitcoin would be highly overvalued in terms of end-user and underlying technological functionality.
The only reason that Ethereum has traded at a discount thus far to Bitcoin is simply that Ethereum’s network is much more complex and much, much newer by design: naturally, there is a risk associated with both these properties. This risk commands a price discount relative to the risk of owning a fraction of the network growth going forward. Most of that risk now is disappearing however, as more engineers are engaged in maintaining and developing the Ethereum network in the form of both Ethereum developers and the multitudinous others brought onto the scene in the form of token developers and so forth.
Peercoin Gets Back Among Its Peers
Peercoin was one of the early digital currencies, and in fact it was the very first to employ a technical concept known as Proof of Stake (PoS) vs. Bitcoin’s Proof of Work (PoW) mining standard at the time.
Peercoin transactions are not anonymous, and that plus a few other more exciting innovations in the digital currency space among peers has meant that PPC has lagged well behind the rest of the digital currencies in terms of really climbing upwards in this year’s asset value rally.
But PPC is a solid, well-built, long-lasting unit of virtualised value that has stood the test of time. It’s lack of anonymity is really a very irrelevant consideration for many later-stage adopters, and the digital coin has many of the ideal properties for ICO issuance. Despite comprising a somewhat smaller share of the digital currency market than comparative peers such as DASH, it’s Beta (volatility) is much lower, making it a more reliable store of value consistently than other digital coins. That’s something that makes it a very attractive store of digital value for entrepreneurs engaged in ICOs, who need to simultaneously retain the value they raise at the point of ICO even as they work on generating more value for users.
Peercoin almost certainly belongs among the top 10 digital currency leaders, and at $50m market cap, is outrageously cheap right now. It has a faithful user community – which is vital for network propagation over the longer term – and volumes have remained consistently strong throughout the previous year. If it was back on the Top 10 digital currency leaderboard, it would be worth roughly 20 times as much as it is today, so there’s substantial price appreciation embedded in this little gem lying at the bottom of the deck for now.
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) Become Dividend-Enhanced
One of the things that is most striking about token issuances is that none of them have any underlying earnings. Instead, Initial Coin Offerings (or Initial Token Offerings as they are now known) are used exclusively right now to fund venture capital, seed-stage projects with little-to-no underlying history, performance or cashflows.
That’s all about to change. This prediction I suppose is a little bit of a cheat, since my own firm DMH&CO is actively leading the development of the very first income-backed ICO. The launch of that ICO will for sure rock the token market completely.
The reason for this is simple: imagine, when holding a single unit of Ethereum today at around $400, it suddenly paid out $80 in earnings into your wallet. What do you think would happen to the price of Ethereum all of a sudden? That’s exactly the way a dividend-enhanced token is designed to work. It’s ground-breaking, and seeing as these token issuances will issue dividends in digital currencies – which as I pointed out up above, will continue to rise aggressively in value as a result of the interconnection between their value network and value chain attributes – the dividends themselves will be in massively high demand among digital currency users since they will represent “free crypto”. What this means is that instead of mining new crypto, in many cases it will just make more sense for someone to leave that stuff to the heavy duty guys in China and the Philippines, and instead purchase high-yield dividend-enhanced tokens with a strong forecast Crypto payout trajectory.
What makes these tokens more difficult to put into circulation is the simple fact that first, you have to have cashflow-positive businesses to put underneath the tokens so that the dividends can materialize. But for firms like my own and for those of my partners, that’s an easy feat to handle, since pretty much all we have is cashflow-positive investment positions. Thus, the transformation of the token market into something resembling a hybrid stock market-digital currency trading market will begin to emerge by December 2017.
Summary: Token-Driven Growth
These are intuitive predictions – it doesn’t take that much to see how they make sense right now. Specifically, underlying them is a very central theme: the propagation of the digital token market, and by extension the ICO market as a whole. This is where you should expect to see the bang that moves the buck in the forthcoming half of this year.
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Sac and Soke and their derivitives (socage, sokeman, sake, soc) are found so frequently in so many different contexts, I finally started to question whether I understood them at all. It appears that these terms are more complicated than I first thought.
The basic definition implies a feudal-like tenancy, where the sokeman rendered non-military services to his lord (using soke as related to ploughshare). The sokeman apparently ranked between the free tenant and the bond tenant (or villein). He was a free man within the lord’s soke, or jurisdiction. But it does not stop there. According to Peter Rex in his “HAROLD II” book (p.276), “Then there is the Anglo-Scandinavian institution called a ‘soke‘. This was an estate made up of a main or central village and dependent pieces of property called variously berewicks or sokelands. The tenant of a soke, called a sokeman, held his land by attending the court of his lord, the holder of the soke, and by paying him a money rent and rendering various services of a non-military kind. The sokes were governed by a great body of custom requiring the sokemen to seek the lord’s court, his mill, his sheepfold, his church and so on, to the exclusion of other competing institutions.”
If you look up Soke in the Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition is: “The right in Anglo-Saxon and early English law to hold court and administer justice with the franchise to receive certain fees or fines arising from it: jurisdiction over a territory or over people.” The Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases interprets it thus: “Grants of sake and soke allowed the granter to intercept the fines and other profits of justice relating to his own estate which would otherwise have gone to the king.” Do Sac and Soke always go together? Apparently not. The English historian Adolphus Ballard stated that when used alone, soke denoted services. And according to Alexander Mansfield Burrill in his “A law dictionary and glossary”, when mentioned together soc gave the right to constitute a court, and sac gave authority to try cases in it.
In “The Domesday Inquest”, Adolphus Ballard points out that the sake and soc sometimes “varied according to the social position of those from whom it was due”. For instance, in the half-hundred of Diss, “all those who held less than 30 acres…their fines were paid to the officer of the manor…of all those who held 30 acres or more…their fines were payable to the sheriff at the hundred-moot.” Even the forfeitures could be broken up: “The possession of sake and soke did not confer on its owner the right to all forfeitures. The fines for certain offenses—peace-breach, “heinfare” (forcible entry), and “forestel” (assault) were in the King’s demense throughout England and were paid to him alone; the Earl had no share in them.”
So apparently, sake and soke had more to do with judgments and fines than mere service owed as a tenant, although that was certainly an integral part of it. A man could possess sac and soke over others of lower rank (but not over himself), and a sokeman was the one who did the owing. Apparently the finer definitions go on and on, and there is plenty of confusion depending on what part of England you are talking about. Although sac and soke continued into the Anglo-Norman period, it seems to have been eventually supplanted by the feudal system, although knowing the difference sounds like another field of study.
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By Nikki [email protected]
Charleston, S.C. (WCIV)Forget about AMC's hit show "The Walking Dead." The Lowcountry has its own zombieswell, sort of.
On Sunday, the third annual Charleston Zombie Walk took to the streets of downtown Charleston. Participants first gathered at Marion Square before the "walkers" then traveled a route in the shape of a coffin.
This is the only event of its kind in the Lowcountry, and all the money raised will go to three charitable organization including Soles for Souls, Camp Happy Days, and MUSC's pulmonary hypertension program.
At last check, the zombie walk had walked raised more than $5,000.
Cassandra White organized the event three years ago in memory of her friend, Kristafer Bristow, who lost his battle with Pulmonary Hypertension in 2009.
If you missed this year's walk, don't worry. White plans to host the event next year.
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"Sunne" redirects here. For the Swedish town, see Sunne, Sweden
This article is about the Norse sun goddess. For the Roman sun god, see Sol (mythology)
Sól (Old Norse "Sun")[1] or Sunna (Old High German, and existing as an Old Norse and Icelandic synonym: see Wiktionary sunna, "Sun") is the Sun personified in Norse mythology. One of the two Old High German Merseburg Incantations, written in the 9th or 10th century CE, attests that Sunna is the sister of Sinthgunt. In Norse mythology, Sól is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson.
In both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda she is described as the sister of the personified moon, Máni, is the daughter of Mundilfari, is at times referred to as Álfröðull, and is foretold to be killed by a monstrous wolf during the events of Ragnarök, though beforehand she will have given birth to a daughter who continues her mother's course through the heavens. In the Prose Edda, she is additionally described as the wife of Glenr. As a proper noun, Sól appears throughout Old Norse literature. Scholars have produced theories about the development of the goddess from potential Nordic Bronze Age and Proto-Indo-European roots.
"Horse cure" Merseburg Incantation [ edit ]
Wodan Heals Balder's Horse (1905) by Emil Doepler (1905) by Emil Doepler
One of the two Merseburg Incantations (the "horse cure"), recorded in Old High German, mentions Sunna, who is described as having a sister, Sinthgunt. The incantation describes how Phol and Wodan rode to a wood, and there Balder's foal sprained its foot. Sinthgunt sang charms, her sister Sunna sang charms, Friia sang charms, her sister Volla sang charms, and finally Wodan sang charms, followed by a verse describing the healing of the foal's bone.[2]
Norse attestations [ edit ]
A depiction of Sól, her daughter, and the wolf Fenrir (1895) by Lorenz Frølich.
Poetic Edda [ edit ]
In the poem Völuspá, a dead völva recounts the history of the universe and foretells the future to the disguised god Odin. In doing so, the völva recounts the early days of the universe, in which:
Benjamin Thorpe translation: The sun from the south, the moon's companion, her right hand cast about the heavenly horses. The sun knew not where she a dwelling had, the moon know not what power he possessed, the stars knew not where they had a station.[3] Henry Adams Bellows translation: The sun, the sister of the moon, from the south Her right hand cast over heaven's rim; No knowledge she had where her home should be, The moon knew not what might was his, The stars knew not where their stations were.[4]
In the poem Vafþrúðnismál, the god Odin tasks the jötunn Vafþrúðnir with a question about the origins of the sun and the moon. Vafþrúðnir responds that Mundilfari is the father of both Sól and Máni, and that they must pass through the heavens every day to count the years for man:
Mundilfæri hight he, who the moon's father is, and eke the sun's; round heaven journey each day they must, to count years for men.[5] "Mundilferi is he who began the moon, And fathered the flaming sun; The round of heaven each day they run, To tell the time for men."[6]
In a stanza Vafþrúðnismál, Odin asks Vafþrúðnir from where another sun will come from once Fenrir has assailed the current sun. Vafþrúðnir responds in a further stanza, stating that before Álfröðull (Sól) is assailed by Fenrir, she will bear a daughter who will ride on her mother's paths after the events of Ragnarök.[7]
In a stanza of the poem Grímnismál, Odin says that before the sun (referred to as "the shining god") is a shield named Svalinn, and if the shield were to fall from its frontal position, mountain and sea "would burn up". In stanza 39 Odin (disguised as Grimnir) says that both the sun and the moon are pursued through the heavens by wolves; the sun, referred to as the "bright bride" of the heavens, is pursued by Sköll, while the moon is pursued by Hati Hróðvitnisson.[8]
In the poem Alvíssmál, the god Thor questions the dwarf Alvíss about the sun, asking him what the sun is called in each of the worlds. Alvíss responds that it is called "sun" by mankind, "sunshine" by the gods, "Dvalinn's deluder" by the dwarves, "everglow" by the jötnar, "the lovely wheel" by the elves, and "all-shining" by the "sons of the Æsir".[9]
Prose Edda [ edit ]
Far away and long ago (1920) by (1920) by Willy Pogany
Sól is referenced in the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning, where she is introduced in chapter 8 in a quote from stanza 5 of Völuspá. In chapter 11 of Gylfaginning, Gangleri (described as King Gylfi in disguise) asks the enthroned figure of High how the sun and moon are steered. High describes that Sól is one of the two children of Mundilfari, and states that the children were so beautiful they were named after the sun (Sól) and the moon (Máni). Mundilfari has Sól married to a man named Glenr.[10]
High says that the gods were "angered by this arrogance" and that the gods had the two placed in the heavens. There, the children were made to drive the horses Árvakr and Alsviðr that drew the chariot of the sun. High says that the gods had created the chariot to illuminate the worlds from burning embers flying from the fiery world of Muspelheim. In order to cool the horses, the gods placed two bellows beneath their shoulders, and that "according to the same lore" these bellows are called Ísarnkol.[11]
In chapter 12 of Gylfaginning, Gangleri tells High that the sun moves quickly, almost as if she were moving so quickly that she fears something, that she could not go faster even if she were afraid of her own death. High responds that "It is not surprising that she moves with such speed. The one chasing her comes close, and there is no escape for her except to run." Gangleri asks who chases her, to which High responds that two wolves give chase to Sól and Máni. The first wolf, Sköll, chases Sól, and despite her fear, Sköll will eventually catch her. Hati Hróðvitnisson, the second wolf, runs ahead of Sól to chase after Máni, whom Hati Hróðvitnisson will also catch.[11] In chapter 35, Sól's status as a goddess is stated by High, along with Bil.[12]
In chapter 53, High says that after the events of Ragnarök, Sól's legacy will be continued by a daughter that is no less beautiful than she, who will follow the path she once rode, and, in support, Vafþrúðnismál stanza 47 is then quoted.[13]
In the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, Sól is first presented in chapter 93, where the kennings "daughter of Mundilfæri", "sister of Máni", "wife of Glen", "fire of sky and air" are given for her, followed by an excerpt of a work by the 11th century skald Skúli Þórsteinsson:
God-blithe bedfellow of Glen steps to her divine sanctuary with brightness; then descends the good light of grey-clad moon.[14]
In chapter 56, additional names for Sól are given; "day-star", "disc", "ever-glow", "all-bright seen", "fair-wheel", "grace-shine", "Dvalinn's toy", "elf-disc", "doubt-disc", and "ruddy".[15] In chapter 58, following a list of horses, the horses Arvakr and Alsviðr are listed as drawing the sun,[16] and, in chapter 75, Sól is again included in a list of goddesses.[17]
Theories [ edit ]
Scholars have proposed that Sól, as a goddess, may represent an extension of an earlier Proto-Indo-European deity due to Indo-European linguistic connections between Norse Sól, Sanskrit Surya, Common Brittonic Sulis, Lithuanian Saulė, Latin Sol, and Slavic Tsar Solnitse.[18]
Regarding Sól's attested personifications in Norse mythology, John Lindow states that "even kennings like 'hall of the sun' for sky may not suggest personification, given the rules of kenning formation"; that in poetry only stanzas associated with Sól in the poem Vafþrúðnismál are certain in their personification of the goddess; and "that Sól is female and Máni male probably has to do with the grammatical gender of the nouns: Sól is feminine and Máni is masculine." Lindow states that, while the sun seems to have been a focus of older Scandinavian religious practices, it is difficult to make a case for the placement of the sun in a central role in surviving sources for Norse mythology.[10]
Rudolf Simek states that Nordic Bronze Age archaeological finds, such as rock carvings and the Trundholm sun chariot, provide ample evidence of the sun having been viewed as a life-giving heavenly body to the Bronze Age Scandinavians, and that the sun likely always received an amount of veneration. Simek states that the only evidence of the sun assuming a personification stems from the Old High German Incantation reference and from Poetic Edda poems, and that both of these references do not provide enough information to assume a Germanic sun cult. "On the other hand", Simek posits, the "great age of the concept is evident" by the Trundholm sun chariot, which specifically supports the notion of the sun being drawn across the sky by horses. Simek further theorizes that the combination of sun symbols with ships in religious practices, which occur with frequency from the Bronze Age into Middle Ages, seem to derive from religious practices surrounding a fertility god (such as the Vanir gods Njörðr or Freyr), and not to a personified sun.[19]
See also [ edit ]
Solveig, an Old Norse female given name that may involve the sun
Sowilo rune, the s rune, named after the sun
rune, named after the sun Sunday, a day of the week named after the sun in Germanic societies
Notes [ edit ]
^ Orchard (1997:152). ^ Lindow (2001:227). ^ Thorpe (1907:1). ^ Bellows (1923:4). ^ Thorpe (1907:12). ^ Bellows (1923:7). ^ Larrington (1999:47). ^ Larrington (1999:57). ^ Larrington (1999:111). a b Lindow (2001:198–199). a b Byock (2005:19–20). ^ Byock (2005:35). ^ Byock (2005:78). ^ Faulkes (1995:93). Divided into four lines. ^ Álfröðull is translated as "elf-disc". Faulkes (1995:133). Hereis translated as "elf-disc". ^ Faulkes (1995:137) ^ Faulkes (1995:157). ^ Mallory (1989:129). ^ Simek (2007:297).
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On the move: Ignasi Miquel will join Norwich
Arsenal are set to accept a £1.5million offer from Norwich for defender Ignasi Miquel.
The Spaniard has struggled to establish himself in the Gunners' first-team and has been told he can leave the Emirates Stadium ahead of Monday's transfer deadline.
Manager Arsene Wenger has been forced into rethinking his plan to offload Miquel this summer following the departure of Thomas Vermaelen.
The Belgian's exit has left Arsenal short of central-defensive cover, nevertheless the decision has been taken to allow the 21-year-old to leave.
It was originally though Miquel's protracted move to Carrow Road would be on loan, but it is understood the Canaries want to take him on a permanent deal.
The news means that Arsenal are almost certain to sign a new defender before the transfer window closes on Monday.
They have seen attempts to sign Kostas Manolas fail after the Greek defender joined Roma.
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A cyclic model (or oscillating model) is any of several cosmological models in which the universe follows infinite, or indefinite, self-sustaining cycles. For example, the oscillating universe theory briefly considered by Albert Einstein in 1930 theorized a universe following an eternal series of oscillations, each beginning with a big bang and ending with a big crunch; in the interim, the universe would expand for a period of time before the gravitational attraction of matter causes it to collapse back in and undergo a bounce.
Overview [ edit ]
In the 1920s, theoretical physicists, most notably Albert Einstein, considered the possibility of a cyclic model for the universe as an (everlasting) alternative to the model of an expanding universe. However, work by Richard C. Tolman in 1934 showed that these early attempts failed because of the cyclic problem: according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy can only increase.[1] This implies that successive cycles grow longer and larger. Extrapolating back in time, cycles before the present one become shorter and smaller culminating again in a Big Bang and thus not replacing it. This puzzling situation remained for many decades until the early 21st century when the recently discovered dark energy component provided new hope for a consistent cyclic cosmology.[2] In 2011, a five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies and spanning 7 billion years of cosmic time confirmed that "dark energy is driving our universe apart at accelerating speeds."[3][4]
One new cyclic model is brane cosmology model of the creation of the universe, derived from the earlier ekpyrotic model. It was proposed in 2001 by Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University and Neil Turok of Cambridge University. The theory describes a universe exploding into existence not just once, but repeatedly over time.[5][6] The theory could potentially explain why a repulsive form of energy known as the cosmological constant, which is accelerating the expansion of the universe, is several orders of magnitude smaller than predicted by the standard Big Bang model.
A different cyclic model relying on the notion of phantom energy was proposed in 2007 by Lauris Baum and Paul Frampton of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[7]
Other cyclic models include Conformal cyclic cosmology and Loop quantum cosmology.
The Steinhardt–Turok model [ edit ]
In this cyclic model, two parallel orbifold planes or M-branes collide periodically in a higher-dimensional space.[8] The visible four-dimensional universe lies on one of these branes. The collisions correspond to a reversal from contraction to expansion, or a big crunch followed immediately by a big bang. The matter and radiation we see today were generated during the most recent collision in a pattern dictated by quantum fluctuations created before the branes. After billions of years the universe reached the state we observe today; after additional billions of years it will ultimately begin to contract again. Dark energy corresponds to a force between the branes, and serves the crucial role of solving the monopole, horizon, and flatness problems. Moreover, the cycles can continue indefinitely into the past and the future, and the solution is an attractor, so it can provide a complete history of the universe.
As Richard C. Tolman showed, the earlier cyclic model failed because the universe would undergo inevitable thermodynamic heat death.[1] However, the newer cyclic model evades this by having a net expansion each cycle, preventing entropy from building up. However, there remain major open issues in the model. Foremost among them is that colliding branes are not understood by string theorists, and nobody knows if the scale invariant spectrum will be destroyed by the big crunch. Moreover, as with cosmic inflation, while the general character of the forces (in the ekpyrotic scenario, a force between branes) required to create the vacuum fluctuations is known, there is no candidate from particle physics.[9]
The Baum–Frampton model [ edit ]
This more recent cyclic model of 2007 makes a different technical assumption concerning the equation of state of the dark energy which relates pressure and density through a parameter w.[7][10] It assumes w < −1 (a condition called phantom energy) throughout a cycle, including at present. (By contrast, Steinhardt–Turok assume w is never less than −1.) In the Baum–Frampton model, a septillionth (or less) of a second (i.e. 10−24 seconds or less) before the would-be Big Rip, a turnaround occurs and only one causal patch is retained as our universe. The generic patch contains no quark, lepton or force carrier; only dark energy – and its entropy thereby vanishes. The adiabatic process of contraction of this much smaller universe takes place with constant vanishing entropy and with no matter including no black holes which disintegrated before turnaround.
The idea that the universe "comes back empty" is a central new idea of this cyclic model, and avoids many difficulties confronting matter in a contracting phase such as excessive structure formation, proliferation and expansion of black holes, as well as going through phase transitions such as those of QCD and electroweak symmetry restoration. Any of these would tend strongly to produce an unwanted premature bounce, simply to avoid violation of the second law of thermodynamics. The surprising w < −1 condition may be logically inevitable in a truly infinitely cyclic cosmology because of the entropy problem. Nevertheless, many technical back up calculations are necessary to confirm consistency of the approach. Although the model borrows ideas from string theory, it is not necessarily committed to strings, or to higher dimensions, yet such speculative devices may provide the most expeditious methods to investigate the internal consistency. The value of w in the Baum–Frampton model can be made arbitrarily close to, but must be less than, −1.
Other cyclic models [ edit ]
Conformal cyclic cosmology—a general relativity based theory due to Roger Penrose in which the universe expands until all the matter decays and is turned to light—so there is nothing in the universe that has any time or distance scale associated with it. This permits it to become identical with the Big Bang, so starting the next cycle.
Loop quantum cosmology which predicts a "quantum bridge" between contracting and expanding cosmological branches.
See also [ edit ]
Physical cosmologies:
Religion:
Notes [ edit ]
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Huu-ay-aht councillor Cook stands on beach in the aboriginal village of Anacla, British Columbia Thomson Reuters By Julie Gordon
PORT ALBERNI, British Columbia (Reuters) - In Sarita Bay, a remote cove on Canada's Vancouver Island, aboriginal-owned land used for decades by loggers is slowly being reimagined as a multibillion-dollar export terminal to ship liquefied natural gas to Asia.
Aboriginal groups in the West Coast province of British Columbia are often in the news for opposing major resource projects. But the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, who own the land where the plant would be built, have partnered with Steelhead LNG on the proposal.
Both parties say the alliance was facilitated by a so-called modern treaty reached in the past decade, which granted the Huu-ay-aht ownership over a swath of their traditional territory and jurisdictional powers.
"We wanted to open our doors to business," Huu-ay-aht councillor John Jack said of their 18-year effort to achieve treaty status. "We wanted the soft power of being in the boardroom."
"We weren't really able to have those kinds of relationships before self-government," he added.
It is a sentiment shared by other aboriginal communities with modern treaties, illustrating how such deals, though rare, are providing one model for fostering growth in poverty-hit communities and reducing conflicts over resource development.
Between 1701 and 1923, aboriginal people across much of Canada signed treaties giving up claim to their traditional lands. But in British Columbia, few signed on, leaving vast swaths of the province subject to land claims.
This has led to conflict when industry and aboriginals disagree over development on these contested lands.
Enbridge Inc's Northern Gateway oil pipeline, for example, has faced protests and lawsuits from aboriginal groups.
Such conflict is less apparent in pockets of the province with modern-day treaties, first negotiated in Canada in the 1970s.
In northern British Columbia, the Nisga'a Nation have signed a deal on a natural gas pipeline that will cross their treaty lands, giving them numerous benefits including the option to tap pipeline capacity in the future for their own LNG plant.
"By supporting these projects we've secured long-term benefits for our people," said Nisga'a President Mitchell Stevens, adding that the community pushes its industry partners to take a sustainable approach to development.
"No one wants to get into a business to fail," he said. "We want to create a climate that encourages businesses that are willing to work with us."
PROCESS QUESTIONED
To be sure, communities like the Haisla on British Columbia's northern coast and the Osoyoos in the Okanagan Valley have attracted business to their communities without treaties.
And negotiating a treaty can take decades. So far just nine of roughly 200 aboriginal groups in British Columbia are covered under fully ratified modern treaties. Others have preliminary or partial agreements.
Critics of the process say it takes too long, costs too much and is too arbitrary in settling disputes between aboriginal groups with claims on the same land. Those who sign deals say they are often criticized for "selling out" to government and industry.
The appeal of negotiated deals took another hit late last year, when Canada's top court awarded land and self-governing rights to a nontreaty aboriginal group, in what was seen by some as a more favorable outcome than settlements achieved through talks.
Still, many leaders of aboriginal groups who already have a modern treaty say they are past dwelling on such details and are focused on rebuilding communities plagued by poverty.
BETTER FUTURE
Just south of Vancouver, near the suburb of Delta, the imposing metal frame of a major shopping mall complex is rapidly taking shape on Tsawwassen First Nation (TFN) treaty lands.
The Tsawwassen have partnered with two major Canadian developers on the malls and the construction of a nearby residential subdivision. They have also scored industrial ventures like a container inspection facility for the nearby port.
But transforming a tiny urban reserve into an independent municipality will require improved infrastructure, including a new sewage treatment plant, new roads and drainage - all at a cost of roughly C$100 million ($78.79 million).
"We've taken a huge business risk," said Tom McCarthy, the TFN's chief administrative officer. "We're willing to take that leap because we know our development model is going to work."
($1 = 1.2692 Canadian dollars)
(Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Matthew Lewis)
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LIFELONG Republican David Goss, 35, was hanging out with his conservative friends in February when he came up with the idea of TrumpSingles.com, a dating web site for supporters of the presumptive Republican nominee.
Mr Goss’ female pal, who’s a diehard Trump fan, told him that when she revealed her political leanings to a male Hillary Clinton supporter in the middle of a dinner date, he got up and left her with the check, reports the New York Post.
“I think there’s a special stigma when people say they’re supporting Trump, because of some of the brash things that he’s said,” Mr Goss, an associate TV producer based in Santa Clarita, California, tells the New York Post. “That immediately gets [projected] on his supporters, and it makes it hard for them when trying to date.”
More than 500 Trump fans have joined since TrumpSingles went live in May. Goss says most of his users are from New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Like most online dating services, users can search matches by age, location and interests. While it’s free to sign up, users can only send one message a day unless they cough up a $4.95 monthly subscription.
“At first I was concerned that people would think this was a parody site,” says Mr Goss, whose wife, Tonya, is also pro-Trump. “But people have told me that they’re so happy they can finally go on dates without worrying about political differences.”
TrumpSingles user and libertarian Richard, who asked that his last name not be used for privacy reasons, agrees.
“Trump is bastardised and demonised in the media, so I kind of keep to myself that I’m a Trump supporter because people can have a violent reaction to it,” said Richard, a 27-year-old retail associate from Oxnard, California.
“It’s hard for me sometimes to meet new people.”
The Trump fan, who recently got out of a four-year relationship with a liberal woman, says political differences were a big factor in their breakup.
“In my next relationship, I’m looking for a woman who shares my values,” he says.
Amber Williams, a 34-year-old paralegal based in LA, says she signed up for the site because most of the guys in her area are Bernie Sanders supporters.
“I hate bringing up political views on a first date, since my friends have gotten in political arguments on their dates,” says Ms Williams, who’s planning to meet a fellow Trump supporter she matched with who’s based in San Diego.
Dating expert Kim Samuels, a Hillary Clinton fan from LA, says that establishing deal breakers early on in a relationship is important.
“I thought this site was a joke, but I get that everybody needs somebody, and relationships can be hard if both parties have widely different political views,” says Ms Samuels, the 57-year-old author of “He’s Just NOT: Dating Deal Breakers.”
Founder Mr Goss plans to roll out a TrumpSingles mobile app in the next week.
“We’re not a hook-up service,” he says. “We want to be an actual real dating site that helps people find real love.”
This story first appeared in the New York Post.
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Blood pressure regulation in Thra1+/m mice. The hypotension observed in the recently identified patient with a mutant thyroid hormone receptor α1 (TRα1) allele (14) prompted us to investigate blood pressure and associated serum parameters in our Thra1+/m animal model. Surprisingly, despite strongly reduced pulmonary angiotensin-converting enzyme (Ace) expression and lower serum angiotensin II levels in the mutant animals (Figure 1A), we found that blood pressure was similar to that in wild-type controls (Figure 1B). We thus tested whether the reduced Ace expression was an acute consequence of the defective TRα1 signaling by treating Thra1+/m mice with supraphysiological doses of triiodothyronine (T3), which reactivates signaling through the mutant receptor (11). The treatment increased pulmonary Ace expression, normalized serum angiotensin levels (Figure 1C), and restored the bradycardia in the mice (12). Determination of blood pressure in the T3-treated animals, which now had normalized heart rate and angiotensin II levels, revealed a 25% increase in systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressure (Figure 1D), suggesting an additional defect in the control of cardiovascular function in Thra1+/m mice. As the phenotype was only revealed in the T3-treated adult animal, we hypothesized that a developmental defect residing in the central nervous system caused this phenotype.
Figure 1 Regulation of blood pressure in Thra1+/m mice before and after treatment with T3. (A) mRNA expression of renal renin (Ren1), hepatic angiotensinogen (Agt), and pulmonary Ace as well as serum aldosterone (Aldost) and angiotensin II (Ang II) levels in wild-type and Thra1+/m mice. (B) Systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) in wild-type and Thra1+/m mice. (C) Heart rate in wild-type and Thra1+/m mice before and after T3 treatment as well as pulmonary Ace mRNA expression and serum angiotensin II levels in T3-treated animals. (D) Systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressure in T3-treated wild-type and Thra1+/m mice. All values are mean ± SEM; n = 5. **P < 0.01. NS, not significant.
Fewer pv neurons in the anterior hypothalamus of Thra1+/m mice. Our previous studies already indicated a defect in the central autonomic control of cardiovascular function (12). Thus, we examined the cellular composition of the hypothalamus — the master regulator of the autonomic nervous system (15). The data revealed that the levels of pv mRNA were halved in the mutant animals (Supplemental Figure 1A; supplemental material available online with this article; doi: 10.1172/JCI65252DS1). A subsequent immunohistochemical analysis identified an approximately 70% reduction of a previously unknown population of small hypothalamic pv+ cells (Figure 2, A and D) localized in the AHA (Supplemental Figure 1D). Cells expressing other calcium-binding marker proteins, such as calretinin and calbindin, were unaffected (Supplemental Figure 1, A and B) as well as a more distant nucleus of pv+ cells in the lateral hypothalamic area (Supplemental Figure 1B) described recently (16). Similar to pv+ neurons in the cortex (17), the AHA pv+ cells also appeared between postnatal days 7 and 14 (Supplemental Figure 1C).
Figure 2 Reduced number of pv cells in the anterior hypothalamus of Thra1+/m mice. (A) Immunohistochemistry for pv in the anterior hypothalamus, as overview (left; scale bar: 250 μm) and high magnification (right; scale bar: 50 μm) in wild-type and Thra1+/m mice (middle; scale bar: 250 μm). fx, fornix; mt, mamillothalamic tract; PVN, paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus; 3V, 3rd ventricle; opt, optic tract. (B) Double immunohistochemistry for GFP (green) and pv (red) in the AHA of a mouse strain expressing a chimeric TRα1-GFP protein. Yellow indicates overlapping staining. Scale bar: 25 mm. (C) pv neurons in T3-treated wild-type and Thra1+/m mice or crossings with hyperthyroid Thrb–/– mice. Scale bar: 250 μm. (D) Quantification of pv neurons in the AHA of the different animal models. All values are mean ± SEM; n = 4–9. *P < 0.05 to untreated wild type; ***P < 0.001 to untreated wild type; #P < 0.05 to untreated Thra1+/m.
As we detected the presence of TRα1 protein in the pv+ cells (Figure 2B), we tested whether a reactivation of the mutant receptor through increased thyroid hormone levels (11) would restore the number of cells in Thra1+/m mice — either by a 14-day oral thyroid hormone treatment or through genetic inactivation of thyroid hormone receptor β (TRβ) that causes hyperthyroidism in the animals throughout their postnatal life (18). Neither condition led to normalization; in contrast, the lack of TR further reduced the number of cells in Thra1+/mThrb–/– and Thra1+/+Thrb–/– animals (Figure 2, C and D). This observation demonstrates that intact thyroid hormone signalling via both TR isoforms is required for proper pv+ cell development in the AHA and that the cells are absent in Thra1+/m mice rather than exhibiting a diminished pv expression due to impaired TRα1 signaling.
AHA pv+ cells respond to temperature alterations and thyrotropin-releasing hormone stimulation. To obtain information on a possible function of the AHA pv+ neurons, we performed whole-cell patch-clamp recordings (Figure 3A) in hypothalamic slices of adult mice expressing GFP under the pv promoter (19). While most of the cells were not responsive to angiotensin II (Figure 3B), all tested AHA pv+ cells responded to alterations in temperature ranging from 25°C to 40°C. Sixty-nine percent of the cells were excited by increasing temperature with reversible depolarization and increase in action potential discharge, whereas 31% were inhibited and showed reversible hyperpolarization and cessation of action potential discharge (Figure 3C). This sensitivity persisted even after blocking synaptic transmission with tetrodotoxin, demonstrating that the thermosensitivity of pv+ AHA neurons is an intrinsic property and not the consequence of other neuronal inputs (Supplemental Figure 2, A and B). No temperature sensitivity was observed in pv+ neurons from the cortex in control experiments (Supplemental Figure 2B).
Figure 3 Electrophysiological responses of pv+ cells in the AHA. (A) Differential interference contrast (DIC) micrograph showing a recorded AHA pv+ neuron (indicated by an asterisk) (left; scale bar: 200 μm) and higher-magnification images of the same GFP-positive neuron under fluorescence and DIC (right; 500-fold magnification). (B) Response of AHA pv+ neurons to angiotensin II (82% no response; n = 14 out of 17). (C) Temperature responsiveness of the AHA pv+ cells to heat (31% inhibited, n = 5 out of 16, and 69% excited, n = 11 out of 16) in patch-clamp recordings on hypothalamic sections of transgenic pvGFP mice. (D) Response of AHA pv+ neurons to TRH (48% excited, n = 10 out of 21; 19% inhibited, n = 4 out of 21; and 33% nonresponsive, n = 7 out of 21) (the neuron in the top panel was held below threshold to prevent action potential firing; no holding current was applied in the other experiments).
To reveal the underlying molecular mechanism, we performed voltage clamp ramps in the heat-inhibited neurons. These experiments revealed a current reversal at –85 mV (Supplemental Figure 2, C and D), which — in conjunction with the depolarizing effects of the potassium channel blocker tolbutamide (Supplemental Figure 2B) — suggested an involvement of K+-ATP channel activation in the thermosensation of these cells. We also detected the temperature-activated transient receptor potential (TRP) channel TRPV4 on 56% of the AHA pv+ cells (Supplemental Figure 2E), which likely contributes to the depolarization observed in the heat-excited pv+ cells (20, 21). That also TRPM8 was detected on a majority of AHA pv+ cells (Supplemental Figure 2E), indicates a complex interplay between several thermosensitive channels (22).
To differentiate better between the cell types, we tested whether other substances would also elicit different electrophysiological responses specific to some AHA pv+ neurons. Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), known to have central effects on the control of the autonomic nervous system (23–25), excited 48% (Figure 3D) and inhibited 19% of the neurons. Some of these inhibitions were associated with an increase in inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (Supplemental Figure 2, F and G), suggesting that the AHA pv+ neurons are part of a TRH excited inhibitory network. However, there was no correlation between the TRH response of a neuron and the type of temperature sensitivity, suggesting that at least 4 different subpopulations exist among the AHA pv+ neurons.
Physiological role of the pv+ cells in the AHA. To understand the physiological function of the pv+ neurons, we aimed to ablate the cells in vivo by stereotaxic injection of a novel conditionally neurotoxic adeno-associated virus (AAV) into the AHA of pvCre transgenic mice (Figure 4A). As a result of diphtheria toxin A expression after Cre recombination, we achieved approximately 40% reduction of pv+ cells in the AHA of pvCre mice (Figure 4C, right). The presence of GFP-positive cells at the injection site (Figure 4B) demonstrated that the infection was not lethal for Cre-negative cells. This was further corroborated by the absence of alterations in other hypothalamic cell populations of AAV-injected pvCre mice (Supplemental Figure 1E), including the pv+ cells in the lateral hypothalamus (16). Moreover, the number of pv+ cells in the AHA of AAV-injected wild-type mice remained normal as expected (Figure 4C, left).
Figure 4 Effect of the in vivo ablation of AHA pv cells in pvCre mice. (A) AAV construct before and after Cre recombination. CMV, cytomegalovirus promotor; loxP, Cre recombination site; tpA, triple polyadenylation site; neoR, neomycin resistance gene; dtA, diphtheria toxin A. (B) Immunohistochemistry for EGFP at the site of the injection (indicated by asterisks) showing AAV-infected cells (scale bar: 250 μm). (C) Immunohistochemistry for pv in AAV-injected wild-type, nonablated pvCre, or AAV-injected ablated pvCre mice (the overall ablation efficiency is shown in the cell count at the bottom; ***P < 0.001 to nonablated, unpaired 2-tailed Student’s t test; the respective groups for the subsequent cardiac and metabolic analyses had cell counts of 81 ± 13 in the ablated animals vs. 142 ± 10 in the nonablated animals; n = 6, P = 0.002; scale bar: 500 μm). Asterisks indicate the site of injection. (D) Systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressure in mice with reduced numbers of pv+ cells in the AHA (black bars) and controls (white bars; *P < 0.05 for ablated vs. nonablated, unpaired 2-tailed Student’s t test). (E) Heart rates in these mice (*P < 0.05 for ablated vs. nonablated at 4°C, 2-way ANOVA). (F) Change in heart rate upon pharmacological deinnervation of the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) (scopolamine methyl bromide) or the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) (timolol) in mice with reduced numbers of pv+ cells in the AHA (black bars) and controls (white bars; *P < 0.05 for ablation, 2-way ANOVA). All values are mean ± SEM.
Subsequent physiological analyses after the virus-induced ablations revealed no immediate effects on body weight, food intake, overall activity, respiratory quotient, or body temperature when compared to those of nonablated pvCre controls (Supplemental Figure 3, A–G). Furthermore, no activation of the brown fat was detected upon ablation (Supplemental Figure 3, H and I); only a minor decrease in oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production was observed at room temperature (Supplemental Figure 3, D and E). In contrast, we found a prominent hypertension in animals with AHA pv+ cell ablations (Figure 4D), with a 13% increase in systolic and a 22% increase in diastolic blood pressure. We did not observe any change in adrenal mRNA expression and aldosterone serum levels (Supplemental Figure 3J), serum angiotensin II levels (79% ± 18% of control levels, P = 0.98), or total T3 and thyroxine (T4) levels (total T3, 1.22 ± 0.18 nmol/l in control vs. 1.31 ± 0.28 nmol/l in ablated, P = 0.63; total T4, 46.25 ± 6.18 nmol/l in control vs. 46.20 ± 9.64 nmol/l in ablated, P = 0.99), suggesting that the AHA pv+ cells control cardiovascular function directly by the autonomic nervous system rather than through endocrine alterations.
To understand the cardiovascular phenotype better, radio telemetry transmitters implanted into the abdominal cavity were used to measure heart rate in conscious and unrestrained animals. This revealed a minor tachycardia at room temperature in the animals with ablated AHA pv+ cells, which was increased during night activity (Figure 4E and Supplemental Figure 3K). When exposed to cold, these mice exhibited a pronounced increase in heart rate, 24% higher than that in control animals (Figure 4E). Interestingly, the tachycardia disappeared entirely at thermoneutrality (Figure 4E).
Given the abnormal cardiovascular response to temperature and the fact that the autonomic innervation of the heart shifts in rodents with decreasing temperature (26), we hypothesized that the ablation of AHA pv+ cells changed the autonomic control of the cardiovascular system. To test this hypothesis, we performed a selective pharmacological deinnervation of the heart as described previously (12), using the muscarinic antagonist scopolamine methyl bromide and the β-adrenergic antagonist timolol (Supplemental Figure 3L). Indeed, the analysis revealed reduced sympathetic and parasympathetic input to the heart in mice with ablated AHA pv+ cells (Figure 4F), demonstrating the important role of these neurons in the autonomic control of cardiovascular function.
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Tucked away in an unsuspecting neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley are the offices and stages of the CW series “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” The freshman musical-comedy was co-created by star Rachel Bloom, who plays Rebecca, and Aline Brosh McKenna, who oversees the writing staff. Things will gear back up in a few weeks for season two, after the finale left several of the show’s central relationships in flux. McKenna’s comfortable office includes a basket full of jackets in case it gets cold, ceramics made by her 16-year-old son, and a pillow with Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s face on it.
PORTRAIT SESSION
One wall of her office is covered in vintage portraits of women she’s collected over the years, mostly from flea markets. “My husband is not fond of them,” she admits. “He finds them sad and creepy. But I love them. So I’m very excited I have a place to put them.”
CALLING THE SHOTS
She made her directorial debut with the “Crazy Ex” season finale, and kept the clapper from the episode. One of her favorite moments is when Rebecca and friend Paula (Donna Lynne Champlin) are reunited and shower each other with compliments. “All the stuff they say when they come together was completely improvised,” she says. “I told them to just start talking. If I had not said cut, they’d still be there doing it.”
TIMING IS KEY
“Crazy Ex” is set in the L.A. suburb of West Covina (“Two hours from the beach!”), and residents couldn’t be more thrilled — so much so that the outgoing mayor gave the show the key to the city. “We love West Covina, we have a great relationship with them,” says McKenna. “We shoot on location as much as we can.”
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Vera Shengelia is a Russian journalist, a mental health activist, and a trustee at the Moscow-based Life Route Foundation, which provides assistance to teenage and adult disabled persons. For the past several years, Shengelia told RuNet Echo, she’s been helping one disabled young man in particular, whose relatives had him committed and placed in a psychoneurological center. She used to visit him at a facility outside Moscow, but he was recently transferred to a clinic in the city.
Last week, Shengelia saw this man at his new home, where the living conditions startled her. On March 16, she described the experience on Facebook, drawing more than 450 shares and 1,700 reactions. RuNet Echo presents that text below, translated into English.
I can’t count how many times I’ve been to discussions and roundtables about the “Soviet Man,” where we examine his cultural code, his values, and all that. Today, in just five minutes, I finally understood everything.
I visited a residential care center for adults — a psychoneurological facility, they call it.
I went up to the second floor, where I was hit by this smell. For dinner they were having fish and potatoes. If you’re looking for the “Soviet cultural code,” search no further than the panic attack you get from this smell.
Tearing at my collar, unable to leave, I went up another floor. There I found a plastic door bolted shut. The door had an oblong little window, and through it I saw living people looking back at me, like animals in a pen. There were a dozen men, all wearing identical clothes. I couldn’t even nod in return.
Christ, just two hours earlier I’d been telling a room full of students about the concept of dignity, about human rights, about the pillars of social journalism, about talking as equals, and about the fact that any person is always a person. Now, out of sheer fear, and because of that terrible smell of fish, I started looking around the room for anyone in a lab coat, for any supervisor — for anyone at all who would protect me.
I visited a young man — a good, down-home kid who studied political science at Moscow State University. He repairs computers, and sometimes corresponds with friends in English. They’d just transferred him here. I never would have guessed it. He was weathered. He moved slowly. His voice trembled, like in one of those gruesome movies about the Gestapo. I brought him cookies, and he couldn’t even open the box himself.
And from this pit of despair, from under all his thick blankets, he says to me, “Vera, it would have been better if they’d put me in prison. I’d already be out.” He says, “I think to myself that I must have done something to anger God.”
But what did he do to anger anyone? Was it that his mother died? That his remaining relatives then dumped him here?
Twice a day, they take them out for a smoke, lined up in formation. His phone has been taken. Dinner is at six. A grown man has dinner at six o’clock. And then that’s it for the day. Is this some kind of punishment? Is this some kind of prison? What is this?
On the way out, I met up with the facility’s deputy director. We already know each other. I tell him: give the guy his phone back. He only just got here, he doesn’t know anyone, and he’s scared. He tells me the young man can always ask the head nurse to place a call. “Vera,” he tells me, “some very scary things happen when you start granting freedoms.” Hazing, for example.
I left the cookies. I bought a coffee from a machine and stepped out for a cigarette. When I got back, the young man told me uncomfortably that he can’t even go to the bathroom at this place: there are no stalls, everything’s open, and he’s embarrassed.
I’m not afraid of the handicapped or of people with mental disabilities. But I am afraid of fascism, and I’m afraid when people are locked up like livestock. I’m afraid of your fried fish. I’m afraid when there’s no edge or end to this shit.
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CTV Winnipeg
Manitoba Sustainable Development is advising people of the risks that the emerald ash borer poses if introduced to the province’s trees.
"The emerald ash borer is an extremely destructive insect that has destroyed tens of millions of ash trees in North America and has been spreading into the north eastern United States, Quebec and Ontario,” the province said in a release.
The emerald ash borer is introduced to new areas through the transportation of infected ash firewood.
The invasive species has not yet been found in Manitoba, according to the release, but it has been found in Minneapolis and more recently, in Thunder Bay.
The province said it has partnered with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and local communities to install and monitor emerald ash borer traps along highways.
Another prevention method is the enforcement of restrictions on movement of raw ash materials.
Help protect our forests. Don't move firewood from one location to another. Learn more at https://t.co/YbZ5l1gAun. pic.twitter.com/A5gCS6Crca — Manitoba Government (@MBGov) July 15, 2016
“Prevention is the key and the province is working with all levels of government to take additional steps to prevent the introduction of this devastating invasive species,” said the province.
For more information on this and other invasive species, head to the government’s website.
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For dance class we read the beginning pages of the book “Emergent Improvisation: On the nature of spontaneous composition where dance meets science” by Susan Sgorbati with Emily Climer and Marie Lynn Haas. The three main ideas that stuck with me was:
1. “When my students, Marie Lynn Haas, and I began to write this chapbook, we looked to refine a language that could articulate the communication processes that occur in our practice. When we first imagined who our audience might be, we thought they will be dancers, particularly improvisers, since movement has been central to our discoveries. But finally, we see it is for anyone interested in a dialogue about improvisational processes and the meaning carried within them, whether scientists, musicians, or city planners. The phenomenon of ‘Emergence’, when a new pattern is created because the sum of our interactions is greater than any one of our individual contributions, is an experience we want to share with all who might be interested in this journey” (Sgorbati pg 6). This is one of the ideas that seem to continually slip the mind. Who is the audience that a dancer is performing to or the author is writing to. It is easier to think of the author to audience ratio, but when it comes to dancing we forget mostly about the audience consisting of many more people than only dancers. While this is in relation to an author and their audience when it comes to dance shows many dancers go to dance shows or people that love to immerse themselves in the ideas and concepts of dance. It gets difficult over the years to think of the audience including those that are not in the profession of any part in show business. This feeling transfers to books about dance as well because of how mainly dancers read books about dance. The idea of those not in the dancing profession watching a performance or reading a book is an interesting idea that should be remembered any time there is a dance performance or book that is created for public viewing and reading. Anyone could be an audience member and one must take that into consideration when creating any type of art form.
2. “…improvisation…was always a part of dancing. But the idea to take it seriously as a form for performance– that there are skills involved, that it could be practiced, that musicians and dancers were working as equals– was radical for the contemporary dance scene at the time”(Sgorbati pg.11). Again this reminds me of the idea that the Africanistic style of dancing was created by improvisation when in reality it wasn’t. African style dancing does have steps to perform to specific beats, but the idea of “Improvisation” not being taken seriously just has a profound impact on how I see dance today. By which I mean the idea that improvisation could have been not considered a serious dance form is a bit foreign to me. I do not want to forget that idea and keep seeing this as an important idea that should not be forgotten. Comparing how Improvisation was thought of in the past and how the dance is seen today is a part of the history of dance as well as the world. To forget this idea is to not realize the struggles of those that fought for the freedom of their own dance form so that I could learn those dances and free my own dance spirit today.
3. “He compares evolution to the creative process in a dance that has no meaning meaning or direction, but is just itself. I do not agree about ‘no meaning or direction’, however he is probably speaking in a scientific linear sense, rather than a metaphoric or symbolic expression of meaning” (Sgorbati pg.12). This was said in response to Brian Goodwin’s essay “Biology is just a Dance”. While I see what Susan was saying that dance does have meaning and direction even in improvisation I still see that Goodwin’s idea could be considered metaphorical. While to the dancer there is a sense of direction while dancing to the rest of the world that direction is a mystery much like the idea of evolution to those that have not heard of the concept before. The dance and the idea of evolution is there and it exists, possibly in it’s own little world beyond our understanding in that moment, but it is in front of us and has it’s own meaning or direction separate from our understanding. He wanted to emphasize the idea of randomness that life has to it’s own pattern and while this does seem to have no direction the end result is something a random assortment of components that come together to create a meaning or reason for the “random” events and occurrences. At least that is what I get from Brian’s argument even though it seems I am taking Susan’s side. I really have to read the essay to say if this is what Brian meant or if this is just Susan’s side.
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Have you played Portal 2? And if so, did you notice any insensitivity within the game?
The game is rated “E” for everybody and lists itself as educational by its creator Valve, but a brief moment in the game put shocked a father so much that he had to shut off the game immediately.
A character in the game makes some jokes about being adopted and the father, who has an adoptive daughter, thought it was extremely harsh to single-out adopted children and their parents.
Personally, I absolutely loved the game (read my review here) while I can see his argument, I think it is taking it a bit too far. It is a game, and should be treated as such, not as a fact. If she thinks that is true, what about homicidal robots, portal guns and magical goo’s?
Check it out, and let us know what you think: Is the father’s argument valid or is he making mountains out of molehills?
Related
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Category: Nerd Culture, Videogames
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Toilet-related injuries and deaths - overview
A toilet.
There have been many toilet-related injuries and deaths throughout history and in urban legends.
Accidental injuries [ edit ]
Infants and toddlers have fallen into toilets and drowned. Safety devices exist to help prevent such accidents.[1][2] Young boys may experience a genital injury if the toilet seat falls down while they are standing at a toilet.[3] Injuries to adults include bruised buttocks, tail bones, and dislocated hips from unsuspectingly sitting on the toilet bowl rim because the seat is up or loose. Injuries can also be caused by pinching due to splits in plastic seats or by splinters from wooden seats, or if the toilet itself collapses under the weight of the user. Older high tank cast iron cisterns have been known to detach from the wall when the chain is pulled to flush, causing injuries to the user. The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in Public Health was awarded to three physicians from the Glasgow Western Infirmary for a 1993 case report on wounds sustained to the buttocks due to collapsing toilets.[4] Furthermore, injuries are frequently sustained by people who stand on toilet seats to reach a height, and slip. There are also instances of people slipping on a wet bathroom floor or from a bath and concussing themselves on the fixture.
Toilet related injuries are also surprisingly common, with some estimates ranging up to 40,000 injuries in the US every year.[5] In the past, this number would have been much higher, due to the material from which toilet paper was made. This was shown in a 1935 Northern Tissue advertisement which depicted splinter-free toilet paper.[6] In 2012, 2.3 million toilets in the United States, and about 9,400 in Canada, were recalled due to faulty pressure-assist flush mechanisms which put users at risk of the fixture exploding.[7]
Injuries caused by animals [ edit ]
There are also injuries caused by animals. Some black widow spiders like to spin their web below the toilet seat because insects abound in and around it. Therefore, several persons have been bitten while using a toilet, particularly an outhouse toilet. Although there is immediate pain at the bite site, these bites are rarely fatal.[8] The danger of spiders living beneath toilet seats is the subject of Slim Newton's comic 1972 country song The Redback on the Toilet Seat.
It has been reported that in some cases rats crawl up through toilet sewer pipes and emerge in the toilet bowl, so that toilet users may be at risk of being bitten by a rat.[9] Many rat exterminators do not believe this, as pipes, at generally six inches (15 centimeters) wide, are too large for rats to climb and are also very slippery. Reports by janitors are always on the top floor, and could involve the rats on the roof, entering the soil pipe through the roof vent, lowering themselves into the pipe and then into the toilet.[10]
In May 2016, an 11 ft snake, a reticulated python, emerged from a squat toilet and bit the man using it on his penis at his home in Chachoengsao Province, Thailand. Both victim and python survived.[11][12]
Self-induced injury [ edit ]
Some instances of toilet-related deaths are attributed to the drop in blood pressure due to the parasympathetic nervous system during bowel movements. This effect may be magnified by existing circulatory issues. It is further possible that people succumb on the toilet to chronic constipation, because the Valsalva maneuver is often dangerously used to aid in the expulsion of feces from the rectum during a bowel movement. According to Sharon Mantik Lewis, Margaret McLean Heitkemper and Shannon Ruff Dirksen, the "Valsalva maneuver … occurs during straining to pass a hardened stool. If defecation is suppressed over long periods, problems can occur, such as constipation or stool impaction. Defecation can be facilitated by the Valsalva maneuver. This maneuver involves contraction of the chest muscles on a closed glottis with simultaneous contraction of the abdominal muscles."[13] This means that people can die while "straining at stool." In chapter 8 of their Abdominal Emergencies, David Cline and Latha Stead wrote that "autopsy studies continue to reveal missed bowel obstruction as an unexpected cause of death".[14]
A 2001 Sopranos episode "He is Risen" shows a fictional depiction of the risk, when the character Gigi Cestone has a heart attack on the toilet of his social club while straining to defecate.[15]
Exploding toilets [ edit ]
In the Victorian era, there was a perceived risk of toilets exploding. These scenarios typically include a flammable substance either accidentally or deliberately being introduced into the toilet water, and a lit match or cigarette igniting and exploding the toilet.[16] In 2014, Sloan's Flushmate pressure-assisted flushing system which uses compressed air to force waste down the drain was recalled after the company received reports of the air tank failing under pressure and shattering the porcelain.[17]
Historical deaths [ edit ]
In 1945, the German submarine U-1206 was sunk after a toilet malfunctioned, resulting in seawater flooding into the hull, which when coming into contact with a battery, created chlorine gas, forcing the submarine to resurface. At the surface, it was discovered and sunk by Allied Forces. This case may not be due to toilet malfunction, due to the possibility that the pressurized flushing system in the U-Boats, which was incredibly complex and required a training course to operate, may not have been properly operated.[18]
Godfrey the Hunchback, Duke of Lower Lorraine (an area roughly coinciding with the Netherlands and Belgium) was murdered in 1069 when staying in the Dutch city of Vlaardingen. Supposedly, the assassin made sure which of the latrines, which were built and drained on the outer side of the wall, according to medieval building style, belonged to the duke's sleeping room, and took a position underneath. Some sources say that a sword was used for the assassination; others mention a sharp iron weapon, which could have been a sword but also a spear or a dagger, but a spear seems to be the most practical choice. After being stabbed in the bottom it took him several days to die. The assassination was ordered by Dirk V Count of Holland and his ally Robrecht the Frisian, Count of Flanders.[19]
King Wenceslaus III of Bohemia was murdered with a spear while sitting in the garderobe on August 4, 1306.[20]
George II of Great Britain died on the toilet on October 25, 1760 from an aortic dissection. According to Horace Walpole's memoirs, King George "rose as usual at six, and drank his chocolate; for all his actions were invariably methodic. A quarter after seven he went into a little closet. His German valet de chambre in waiting heard a noise, and running in, found the King dead on the floor." In falling he had cut his face.[21]
Ioan P. Culianu was shot dead while on the toilet in the third-floor men's room of Swift Hall on the campus of the University of Chicago on 21 May 1991, in a possibly politically-motivated assassination. His killer has never been caught.[22]
Elvis Presley died when using the toilet.[23] "Most sources indicate that Elvis was likely sitting in the toilet area, partially nude, and reading when he collapsed."[24] According to Dylan Jones, "Elvis Presley died aged fortytwo on August 16th, 1977, in the bathroom of the star's own Graceland mansion in Memphis. Sitting on the toilet, he had toppled like a toy soldier and collapsed onto the floor, where he lay in a pool of his own vomit. His light blue pyjamas were around his ankles."[25] In similar terms, Elvis biographer Joel Williamson writes, "For some reason — perhaps involving a reaction to the codeine and attempts to move his bowels — he experienced pain and fright while sitting on the toilet. Alarmed, he stood up, dropped the book he was reading, stumbled forward, and fell face down in the fetal position. He struggled weakly and drooled on the rug. Unable to breathe, he died."[26] This led to the common saying, “The King died on the throne”.[27]
Possible occurrences [ edit ]
Albert Faille found dead in outhouse. Famed gold prospector in Fort Simpson NWT, Canada.
Urban legends [ edit ]
Urban legends have been reported regarding the dangers of using a toilet in a variety of situations. Several of them have been shown to be questionable. These include some cases of the presence of venomous spiders[38] Except for the Australian redback spider who has a reputation for hiding under toilet seats.[39] These recent fears have emerged from a series of hoax emails originating in the Blush Spider hoax, which began circulating the internet in 1999.[40] Spiders have also been reported to live under seats of airplanes, however, the cleaning chemicals used in the toilets would result in an incompatibility with spider's survival.[41] In large cities like New York City, sewer rats often have mythical status regarding size and ferocity, resulting in tales involving the rodents crawling up sewer pipes to attack an unwitting occupant. Of late, stories about terrorists booby trapping the seat to castrate their targets have begun appearing.[42] Another myth is the risk of being sucked into an aircraft lavatory as a result of vacuum pressure during a flight.[43]
In fiction [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
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by
It had been some time since I tuned into a Senate hearing on CSpan – this one was the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the State Department’s 2015 budget with Secretary of State John Kerry as the only witness. Having once walked the marbled halls of Congress for a living, I am familiar with Congressional hearings but times have changed and so have the Democrats who are virtually indistinguishable from Republicans – if only by tone rather than content.
Staged as a legitimate legislative process, the hearing served as a rude reminder of the self-delusional nature of American foreign policymakers, assuming the American public will accept their version of reality – although current polls show 61% of Americans still believe the country is headed in the wrong direction with 53% disapproval on Obama’s foreign policy. Two and a half hours of listening to distorted adaptations of the historical record left me wondering that if a country’s elected officials repeatedly act contrary to the wishes of its citizens, is that country still a democracy?
Chair of the Committee, Sen. Robert Menendez greeted Kerry citing his recent travel itinerary of 44 countries with over 855 hours in the air equivalent to 35 days of continuous flying which could be one explanation for the Secretary’s sometimes obvious jet-lag and unpredictable off-the-cuff responses. Oxygen deficiency, gravity overload – all that rarified air can play tricks on one’s ability to get your feet on the ground.
Menendez, a reliable carrier of legislative water for AIPAC who frequently sounds as if he is reciting AIPAC talking points, opened the hearing with these noteworthy excerpts:
“As the situations in the Ukraine, Syria and Venezuela demonstrate, never has the need for American leadership and engagement in the world been greater. “ “…in this complex and rapidly changing global environment, we know that our national security interests are our priority number one and they cannot be jeopardized. The $40.3 billion in base discretionary funding for the Department of State and US AID provides solid footing after years of uncertainty for our international efforts…. and the $5.9 billion for overseas contingency operation activities allow us to continue to address challenges in the middle east and north Africa including the Syrian humanitarian crisis, in Afghanistan and other front line states.” “We also need to make sure this budget is structured so our nation is capable of meeting the new challenges and opportunities of today’s world.” “…the menacing threat by Russia in the Ukraine – a challenge to its very existence. We can and will continue to stand with the Ukrainian people who by right will choose their own destiny. …authorizing a billion dollars in loan guarantees and other assistance to strength civil society and security in the region, we have also have given you tools to respond to Russia in the form of sanctions. Our message to President Putin and his cronies must be robust and swift. “ “On Syria, as we commemorate the third anniversary of the uprising, I am pleased that the Administration is prioritizing assistance both in humanitarian aid and support for the opposition … the $1.7 billion request sends an important signal to Syria and to the world of our commitment.”
Even a semi-conscious reader with a less than discriminating eye can find good cause for alarm in Menendez’s words. All the talk about ‘engagement’ and ‘national security” and ‘priority number one’, ‘new challenges,’ ‘support the opposition’ and a ‘robust and swift’ response are frightening indications of an indifferent, out-of-control government on the edge of lunacy.
It was ‘overseas contingency operation activities’ that caught my eye and when Menendez, a prominent Republicrat, describes those activities using legislative-ese lingo, he is cautious to not alert the comatose media or American public as to exactly what ‘activities’ the US State Department is spending $5.9 billion a year on ‘overseas’.
In case you’re wondering why ‘overseas contingency’ is a function of the State Department, “Overseas Contingency Operations” from the Department’s 2012 budget request says that the Department “will take on new roles previously filled by the Department of Defense (DOD) in order to maintain its civilian presence, and face security and logistical challenges for expeditionary diplomatic missions. These vital national security roles place unprecedented demands on the Department and its people.”
In other words, the OCO serves as political rationale for a continued US presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as a funding and organizing source for ousting legitimate governments like Ukraine and similar ‘activities’ elsewhere. A critical piece of State Department exploits, the OCO operates with little public awareness or any real Congressional oversight.
Here are added reasons for concern from the OCO document:
“The Department will work with Pakistan to disrupt violent groups that destabilize the region while strengthening Pakistan‘s resolve to combat those elements. These tasks are formidable.” … “essential foreign policy goals’ include ‘safeguard nuclear stockpiles to supporting over 250 locations overseas.” “The increased role in the frontline states (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) will be an exceptional test for the Department, its diplomats and its resources, one that adds considerable expense and requirements to an already ambitious mission.” “The OCO request will fund extraordinary Department operations in the frontline states that are above and beyond the Department‘s normal mission costs.”
While praising the Department’s goals and direction, Menendez confessed that he was ‘incredibly troubled” that State Department funding for the western hemisphere would be decreased $358 million and that those cuts would “lead us to a lack of comprehensive approach in Latin America and necessary resources to back it up whether in Central America where nations are facing a threat of criminal violence and major challenges to governance and the rule of law….and then threats to democracy, freedom of expression and human rights in our hemisphere in Cuba and Venezuela and Ecuador. As we have seen a volatile situation in Venezuela, undermining democracy can lead to political crisis and violence that has implications for the entire region.”
And while $5.9 billion may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to what has already been squandered on American wars since 2003, it would be a heaven-sent lifeline to millions of Americans who have lost unemployment benefits or their homes or their food stamp allocation or to twenty million homeless American children – but then people programs are not Sen. Menendez’s ‘priority number one’ and when Victoria Nuland referred to $5 billion spent in Ukraine by the State Department, we now know it was an ‘overseas contingency operation’.
As the hearing moved on, I do hereby publicly confess to a modicum of empathy for Kerry when Menendez who has taken his role as Senate spokesman for AIPAC, oops, I mean committee Chair ultra- seriously, went after Kerry like a dog on a bone in a lengthy exchange opposing the Obama Administration’s proposed uranium enrichment agreement with Iran.
In response to Sen. Corker (R-Tenn) regarding why the US had not yet implemented the ‘use of force’ resolution that the Committee (and Congress) had approved months earlier in response to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons, Kerry missed the opportunity to suggest that Corker read Seymour Hersh’s recent investigation that Turkey and Saudi Arabia had roles in providing sarin (a different strain from what is found in the Syrian government arsenal) to al Nusra, the US -supported rebel group.
But that would have meant that Corker and Kerry would have had to read either Hersh’s reportage or the highly classified US Defense Intelligence Agency briefing paper – but maybe they are not on the distribution list. Instead, Secretary Kerry went on to inform the Committee that “we are deeply engaged with opposition, more engaged than we have ever been before.” Corker and Kerry tussled briefly whether the Congressional ‘use of force’ resolution on Syria would have been a ‘limited strike’ as Kerry contends or whether dropping bombs had the effect of ‘going to war’ as Corker maintained.
The Secretary assured the Committee that Russian “provocateurs and paid operatives” had “crossed an international boundary” and were operating in eastern Ukraine with the purpose of “creating chaos” and that it was “absolutely unacceptable” and part of a ‘transparent’ effort to “destabilize a sovereign state” and to create a “contrived crisis.” At times, it was confusing whether the Secretary was referring to Russia or the US.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D- Md), another AIPAC champion. raised the controversial idea that “those responsible for attacks on innocent civilians should be held accountable by international community.” What he probably meant to say is that every country should be held accountable, except Israel and the US.
Cardin went on to disparage Palestinians for “making negotiations difficult “ because they “will not acknowledge the right of a Jewish state” but the basic question of why there should be a separate Jewish state to the exclusion of other ethnicities never seems to get asked. It would seem plain common sense that Israel would benefit from becoming a more diverse, a multi-denominational, all-encompassing country integrating Jews along with other peoples; a nation where all religions can live side by side.
The next Democrat to take the microphone was Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn) who will be remembered for taking the stage in Kiev to stand with Oleh Tyahnybok, a member of the anti-semitic Svoboda party, during the Ukrainian uprising. Regarded as a liberal Democrat, Murphy’s comments that ‘one of the guiding principles behind Putin’s foreign policy is to poke a stick in the eye of the US” and that ‘we are not willing to play by the same rules he is willing to play” did little to enhance his stature as a thoughtful progressive.
Secretary Kerry assured the Senators that the State Department would “manage the process going forward with a clarity,” “…that things were professed before going into Crimea that weren’t upheld; statements were made about not violating the integrity of Ukraine and they did”…“all of our European partners, countless other people are invested in this notion that what has happened is a violation of the international order, a structure by which we have dealt since WWII in recognizing boundaries of countries and sovereignty and integrity of territory.”
In praising US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoff Pyatt (see Victoria Nuland audio tape), Murphy described how the committee rushed Pyatt’s nomination “voted out of the committee and Senate expeditiously (approved by the Senate, July, 2013) so that he was on the ground in time to know the country, learn the players so that he was ready to go when this crisis erupted, having no idea at the moment of his confirmation that he would be needed in this way “ But that raises the question of how did the Statement Department know to ‘expeditiously’ get Pyatt into Ukraine if they did not know that a rebellion was about to occur?
The only small glimmers of any analytical or independent thinking appeared at the end of the hearing as the two newest Senators on the Committee took their turns.
Sen. Ed Markey (D- Mass) referred to recent protests in Donetsk with pro-Russian citizens demanding a referenda on May 11 ahead of the Ukraine presidential election on May 25 with “clearly the goal in that part of the country wishing to secede and go back to Russia.” Markey asked Kerry about a referenda strategy as it is unfolding and what is the Obama Administration’s thinking on such strategy and how would it deal with additional requests for secession to Russia.
Markey’s question deserved a response but all he received was that secession requests would be seen as ‘very dangerous’, ”completely unconstitutional”, ”internationally unsupportable”, in “violation of territorial integrity of Ukraine” and so on blaming it all on some unknown ‘paid individual’ in Donetsk.
The last Senator to address Kerry was Sen. Rand Paul (R- Ky) who pointed out certain department expenses such as $100,000 for an electric charging station in Vienna, $700,000 for landscaping at Brussels Embassy, $100,000 to send a “make chai, not war’ comedy tour to India, $650,000 for Facebook ads and a whopping $5 million for crystal glassware. Without specifically naming the ‘overseas contingency operation,’ Paul resuscitated Benghazi in the context of whether the State Department should be in charge of security and whether it can ‘adequately be in charge of security.’
Secretary Kerry responded that there is a “very significant increase in American personnel on the ground (in Libya); more significant emergency contingency plans.”
But all Senators missed the mark – absent was any reference to minding our own business and when will the troops come home.
Renee Parsons was a staffer in the U.S. House of Representatives and a lobbyist on nuclear energy issues with Friends of the Earth. in 2005, she was elected to the Durango City Council and served as Councilor and Mayor. Currently, she is a member of the Treasure Coast ACLU Board.
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On Thursday, Alliance MMA (AMMA) went public on the Nasdaq, aiming to raise $10 million. Shares opened at $5 and closed at $4.19. The company is, for the moment, the only publicly traded mixed martial arts entity; if you want to buy shares in an MMA promoter, this is it.
But this is not the first time that an MMA company has gone public. MMA promoters ProElite and IFL (International Fight League) both offered “over the counter” (OTC) shares, but have both since gone out of business.
So, how can Alliance avoid the same fate?
By complementing the biggest professional MMA promoters, rather than competing with them, says CEO Paul Danner. Alliance aims to bring together, under one umbrella, small regional MMA promoters that have local popularity and hometown-bred fighters, but don’t enjoy the national brand-recognition of leading national promoters like UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) or Bellator.
Alliance will function like a minor league, or development league, for pro MMA. (In football, investors who bought the defunct USFL are aiming to do the same for the NFL.)
Think of Alliance as, well, an alliance—or a seal of quality. The company won’t dispense with the brand names of the regional promoters it acquires, but will add them under an Alliance umbrella, to “bring a level of professionalism to increase the value of the sport,” says Danner. “Some people have compared us to the relationship the NCAA has with the NFL: it showcases the best athletes, and the cream rises to the top.”
Alliance’s public offering comes at a time when the entire business of mixed martial arts is consolidating. The sport’s popularity has grown exponentially, but most of the national focus is on just three or four of the top promoters, most of all UFC. In July, UFC sold for $4 billion to an investor group led by giant entertainment-and-sports agency WME-IMG. In September, two regional MMA promoters, Legacy Fighting Championship and RFA (Resurrection Fighting Alliance) merged. And now Alliance will continue the consolidation.
The company started down that road this year by acquiring MMA ticketing site Cagetix.com and MMA video platform GoFightLive. Within the next 12 months, Alliance expects to have grown its national footprint to the point where it can put on 125 MMA events per year, which “will make us attractive to national sponsorships,” Danner hopes.
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On the morning of July 4, 1999, a Ryder truck holding Sonic Youth's massive collection of one-of-a-kind modified touring gear (amps, drums, pedals, guitars) was stolen in Orange County, California. The truck was found several days later in L.A., its door hanging open, completely empty. All was lost.
But over the years, some fans have remained on the lookout, tipping the band off whenever a guitar for sale raises an eyebrow. This month, the sixth and seventh guitars to be recovered from the robbery both mysteriously reappeared within one week of each other. "It's kind of wild," Lee Ranaldo said. "After all this time, things are still surfacing thanks to the diligence of fans."
One white Jazzmaster, used by Thurston Moore on songs including "Bull in the Heather" and "Dirty Boots" and in the "Diamond Sea" video, came from a fan in Belgium who noticed it on eBay. "He wrote saying, 'Check out this auction. The color's different, but it definitely looks like your guitar. The serial number matches,'" Ranaldo says.
Thurston's recovered guitar, pre-robbery:
The second was Lee's burgundy Jazzmaster from "French Tickler" on A Thousand Leaves, put up for sale by a pawn shop and discovered in a lengthy thread at the website OffsetGuitars, a "forum of geeks for these kinds of guitars," Ranaldo said. "Three pages into this discussion, someone said, 'This looks like it's Sonic Youth-ized or one of those stolen SY guitars.'"
Lee playing the guitar, pre-robbery:
Two long-lost guitars, recovered within one week, 13 years later. A cosmic coincidence... or a sign delivered by the powers that be?
The band began to recover these stolen guitars in 2005, when they played a show in L.A.
Ranaldo explained:
These two scruffy teenage boys came up. They told us they knew about our stolen guitars. One claimed his uncle was involved with stealing the van. We were like, 'yeah, sure kid.' But he sent us these anonymous pictures of our gear in basements-- foot pedals where you could see our crew guys' writing on the sides, and somebody's sneaker on top. These kids were destitute. They'd been kicked out of their homes, living in a car in L.A. We said, 'we'll give you a few hundred dollars each for them.' It did happen.
Sonic Youth guitars are recognizable-- and don't sell well-- because they're heavily modified. The band has long destroyed their guitars' value by stripping them down to their essential elements, ripping out extraneous electronics, switches, and the tone knob ("an immediate tell-tale sign" of a SY guitar, says Ranaldo). All of their gear is catalogued with descriptions and photos on their website.
Ranaldo said he hopes he can one day recover his sunburst "Jazzblaster" prototype, which also went missing in 1999. "I'm just so curious as to what ever happened to the rest," Lee said. "It was a massive amount of gear to see only these few guitars come back. I would love to one day know the real story."
Watch the video for "Bull in the Heather", plus Lee Ranaldo's interview with Pitchfork.tv regarding his new band and the status of Sonic Youth.
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This is the final painting that started with this: [link] If I had more free time there is a bunch of things I'd like to tweak but seeing as how I do not (presently), I'm just gonna stick a fork in it and call it done.Naira: OI! Watch where yer stickin that fork, eh!? *grabs a fork and counter forks*Me: *Jab jab* Hey look, we're forking, lol.Naira: EN GARDE!Me: TOUPÉE!Naira: I think you mean touche.Me: Nope. I meant TOUPÉE! *steals your hair and puts it on* OOOOH! LOOK AT ME, I'M NAIRA! *naira naira naira naira*Naira: HEY! Give that back! What the crap are you doing!?Me: I'm Nairaing. *naira naira naira* Everyone DO THE NAIRA! *strike a pose, it's very vogue, touch your nose and SPAZFLAIL*~~~~~~~~Me: Yeah, I might be slightly Dain bramaged.Satan: slightly? I think the word you're looking for is MAGNITUDINOUSLY.Me: I can't help it. I sponge bathed in the cheese sauce one to many cows and it really went to my toaster oven because ultimately, once you go black you can never go full metal toe-socks on the pandas again which are not actually bears but sentient pizza except not as tasty and also very endangered. So don't eat them or do anything else to them for that matter..... that includes brushing their teeth with Elmer's glue which is actually not very good for them anyway, if you didn't know. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, ROBERT. *cough* There are, after all, other kinds of pizza that are not sentient. HEAR YE, HEAR YE! THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST IS NOT A PIZZA MENU! Believe me, I know. I've been to the volcano. It's not as good the four-hundred and forty-seventeenth time to the power of mozzarella (very powerful and also quite constipatory), especially when the penguinuns are there watching- all of them. Very auk bird. And they will commentate on the verisimilitude of your rhinoplasty. However, there is a really simple way to get around that. If you must know....... toothpaste. Yes, toothpaste, applied liberally to the bollocks. It's nasty business, that, so ensure that you use a well attuned hair dryer set to "gentle spring breeze" or else you will toast your bollocks off and we don't want that. Well then, there you have it. Quod erat demonstrandum, I am a pickle. I hope you have a nice gardenia.Satan: ........... Congratulations.Me: On what?Satan: On being the first mortal to ever, with perfect accuracy, simulate a giant throbbing penis probe to the brain with mere words. Well, actually, second. I think Michelle Bachmann beat you to that punch. *shudder* But still, congrats.Me: Oatmeal, oatmeal very Jack Russel terrier. I anticipate cheese.Satan: *Faint*
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8 years ago
(CNN) – It's rare that two media watchdogs – one on the left and one on the right – ever agree when it comes to assessing coverage on the cable news outlets.
But both the conservative Newsbusters and liberal Media Matters are aiming fire at Fox News' Geraldo Rivera and Judge Andrew Napolitano for recently suggesting the third building to fall on September 11, 2001 – 7 World Trade Center- may have collapsed for reasons beside the widely held belief that fire from the two World Trade Center towers nearby was the ultimate cause.
In a segment that aired on his program more than two weeks ago, Rivera reported on those who claim the building's collapse was more consistent with that which would occur from explosive devices.
"I'm certainly much more open-minded about it than I was," Rivera said of the alternate possibility for the building's fall.
Days later Napolitano – a legal analyst for Fox – said of the theory:
"It's hard for me to believe that [7 World Trade Center] came down by itself. I was gratified to see Geraldo Rivera investigating it. I'm gratified to see the people across the border interested.
"I think 20 years from now, people will look at 9/11 the way they look at the assassination of JFK today," he added, in an interview with radio host Alex Jones. "It couldn't possibly have been done the way the government told us."
In a post on its Web site Tuesday, Newsbusters said the suggestion lacked any common sense and amounted to "moral repugnance."
"Just so Fox is clear about the people whom they've given soapboxes, Geraldo and the Judge are apparently unconvinced by physics, common sense, and the simple human decency of their elected officials," wrote Newsbuster's Lachlan Markay.
Meanwhile, Media Matters Eric Hananoki wrote: "Napolitano's belief in 9-11 conspiracy theories may make things awkward with his Fox News colleagues – especially Glenn Beck - who have denounced 9-11 conspiracy theories and those associating themselves with anyone making them."
A federal report in 2008 determined fires at the World Trade Center site ultimately spread to 7 World Trade Center and weakened critical floor beams and structural columns of the nearly-50 story building, leading to its collapse. The building– which housed offices of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service and the Giuliani administration's emergency response center - was completely evacuated at the time of its collapse.
Fox News did not respond to CNN's request for comment.
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Chaeyoung made a big decision and took a serious step when she decided to cut her hair short without telling Park Jin Young she wanted to cut it.
Idols give their companies the right to transform their looks for any concept they have coming next. When it comes to hair, the companies have the choice to change their hair color, curl it, twist it, and even cut it.
If an Idol chooses to do something with their hair without telling their company, it could cause the stylists to have to change their original look to fit the Idol’s new image, and TWICE‘s Chaeyoung did just that.
Before
After
TWICE visited MBC‘s Weekly Idol where Chaeyoung talked about her choice to cut her hair. She explained that she doesn’t like to stick to one style which is what her longer hairstyles made her feel like she was doing.
She loved celebrity Kristen Stewart’s short hair cut and wanted to change her hair right away.
“When I want to do something, I’m very impulsive about it.” — TWICE Chaeyoung
The new hair cut surprised JYP since no one in the company knew about Chaeyoung’s choice to get a hair cut. More taken aback than anyone else, Park Jin Young talked to Chaeyoung about her decision.
“Your decision should have been known to the company before you went any further. You should’ve asked or mentioned this to the company before making a dramatic change like a hair cut.” — Park Jin Young
Source: Wiki Tree
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One way of relating to your natural superiors is to recognize that their attributes validate the ideals of excellence that you also aspire to as a human being. But Left-leaning people do not like high standards. A self-described “fat, ugly” woman writes:
Your DNA is an abomination. Beauty will be over because we want it to be. Ontologically speaking, your death will mean liberation for all… Until then, remember this: I hate you because you shouldn’t exist. You are both the dominant apparatus on the planet and the void in which all other women, upon meeting you, die…
Oh, wait. I got that wrong. Correction: Texas State University’s student paper ran a genocide-inciting, anti-White op-ed by a Hispanic male student, Rudy Martinez. Actual quote:
“Ontologically speaking, white death will mean liberation for all… Until then, remember this: I hate you because you shouldn’t exist.”
The writer exhibits what I call “Existential Hate:”
It comes from the fear of annihilation at the hands of one’s equals or superiors in intelligence, organizational skill, or cunning. The impulse can also be expressed as hostility toward anyone more successful or beautiful.
Steve Sailer’s “Coalition of the Fringes” is bonded together by its constituents’ biological envy of their betters. Under European patriarchy, the classes of people that are virtuous, accomplished — or superior by certain universally recognized criteria — serve as an aspirational example to everyone else. The hack of cultural Marxism was to turn the skyward-gaze of the masses forward, liberating them to repudiate high standards and yearn for the day when anyone who reminds them of something they can never fully become is destroyed.
“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” — Satan, Paradise Lost
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One of only two bowl games played on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day that isn't one of the New Year's Six decided by the College Football Playoff committee, the Citrus Bowl will continue its lengthy history with another matchup between the Big Ten and SEC.
The SEC has a five-game winning streak in the game as the SEC offenses have managed to hang at least 30 points on the Big Ten defenses in each of the last five games.
Founded as the Tangerine Bowl in 1947, it wasn't until 1983 that the game became known as the Florida Citrus Bowl. After a 12-year stint as the Capital One Bowl, it became the Citrus Bowl once again last year when Buffalo Wild Wings took over as the title sponsor.
Here is everything you need to know to get ready for this year's Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl:
Date and time: Friday, Jan. 1, 1 p.m.
TV channel: ABC
Location: Orlando, Fla.
Stadium: Orlando Citrus Bowl Stadium, 65,000
Last year's score: Missouri 33, Minnesota 17
Last year's attendance: 48,624
Last year's TV rating: 3.6
Last year's payout for each school: $4.25 million
Teams with the most all-time appearances: Georgia, 6
Teams with the most all-time wins: Georgia and Tennessee, 4
Michigan Wolverines (9-3, 6-2 in Big Ten)
If you would have told a Michigan fan before the season that the Wolverines would finish 9-3 in Jim Harbaugh's first year, they probably would have taken it, especially after missing a bowl game under Brady Hoke last season. Michigan bounced back from an opening loss to Utah to dominate 10-2 Northwestern, 38-0, and the Wolverines' only other two losses came to Michigan State on a fluke play and to Ohio State in the final game of the season.
The defense has been the story of the season for the Wolverines. They pitched three straight shutouts against BYU, Maryland and Northwestern, and gave up 16 or fewer points in seven of their 12 games. That's thanks to a monstrous defensive front and the outstanding secondary combination of Jabrill Peppers and Jourdan Lewis.
The offense has been a work in progress, but it has improved substantially in the second half of the season with graduate transfer quarterback Jake Rudock behind center. But the last-second loss to Michigan State and the blowout loss to Ohio State leave a poor taste in the mouth of this program.
Last bowl game: 2013 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl (31-14 loss to Kansas State)
All-time bowl record: 20-23
Head coach's bowl record: Jim Harbaugh is 1-1 in bowl games, both at Stanford. He lost the 2009 Sun Bowl and won the 2011 Orange Bowl.
Florida Gators (10-3, 7-1 in SEC)
Despite a valiant effort by their defense, the Florida Gators ultimately fell to the Alabama Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship Game. It was a fitting end to a regular season that had a very different feel to it after Will Grier was suspended for failing an NCAA drug test. The Gators finished the regular season with just two losses, but had some trouble along the way.
The defense was phenomenal all season, as expected. However, the story of the first half of the season was the emergence of the Grier-led offense. The country took notice of the Gators as a serious College Football Playoff contender when Florida toppled Ole Miss, which was ranked No. 3 at the time. After Grier was replaced by Treon Harris in the starting lineup, the Gators fell to LSU, struggled to beat Vanderbilt and FAU, and lost to rival Florida State in the season-finale.
Florida's recipe for success is simple -- do just enough on offense and hope the defense can suffocate its opponent. That strategy has worked well enough for the Gators against lesser opponents, but didn't work out against LSU, Florida State or Alabama. Whether or not they're able to get enough from the offense to compliment their NFL talent-laden defense will determine the outcome of their bowl game.
Last bowl game: 2014 Birmingham Bowl (28-20 win over East Carolina)
All-time bowl record: 21-20
Head coach's bowl record: Jim McElwain is 1-0 as a head coach in bowl games (2013 with Colorado State). He did not coach in Colorado State's 2014 bowl appearance after accepting the Florida job.
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As expected , TriMet has backed away from many of the service cuts that it proposed earlier this year as part of a plan to fill a $12 million budget gap.
Among other things, Oregon's largest transit agency has decided to spare what is now the the Line 89-Tanasbourne -- serving the Cedar Mill area, Beaverton and Hillsboro -- from a plan to discontinue several daily trips. However, come September, the line will be merged with Lines 47 and 48. There will no no longer be a Line 89.
Still, the final budget proposal released Wednesday calls for significant schedule and fare changes that will mean higher costs and more transfers for many riders.
TriMet still plans to end fare zones, saying a systemwide flat fare where an adult ticket jumps to $2.50 would increase revenue by $6 million.
The plan, which will go before the TriMet board April 25, also eliminates the Free Rail Zone in downtown Portland, creating an estimated $2.7 million in additional revenue.
This change would eliminate free rides on MAX in downtown and the Lloyd District.
When it comes to service cuts, however, TriMet has eased the pain by about 50 percent. The initial proposal in February totaled $2 million in cuts. The final plan calls for $1.1 million in reductions, with no elimination of any weekend bus service or MAX service.
“With nearly 16,000 comments received from the community, it truly helped shape our proposal and focus on our shared priority that preserving service was the top priority,” said TriMet General Manager Neil McFarlane.
Starting in September, Line 9 will only serve Powell Boulevard, while Northeast segment of the current route will be combined with the No. 17. "It will be called 17-Holgate/Broadway" in Northeast Portland, said TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch.
In another change, the Line 15's Montgomery Park segment would extend into the Northwest Industrial area.
In fact, all of the cuts would affect bus routes:
15 bus routes will be reconfigured. The plan will eliminate segments of routes that overlap with other routes while maintaining service to an area, TriMet said. This may mean more transfers for some riders on these 15 bus lines: 6, 8, 9, 12, 16, 17, 47, 48, 67, 70, 73, 77, 82, 87 and 89. Line 9-Powell will travel only as far west as Downtown Portland; Line 17 will be combined with the former 9-Broadway to become the 17-Holgate/Broadway. The final Line 16 routing will travel along Front Avenue to Kittridge Avenue with service to St. Johns and Sauvie Island.
Routes will be changed on two bus lines. In response to community input and to make closer transfers, the agency said, Line 15 will be extended between Montgomery Park and the Northwest Industrial area. As previously proposed, routing along Line 43 would be modified in Downtown Portland.
Bus trips with low ridership on 9 bus lines will be eliminated. Instead of reducing service on 10 bus lines that were part of the revised proposal, the final proposal would eliminate trips on 9 lines, with service either beginning later in the morning and/or ending earlier in the evening, and may include extending time between trips on 15, 18, 36, 37, 43, 50, 55, 59 and 92.
At the same time, TriMet expects to add service on seven bus lines to alleviate overcrowding: 4, 9, 33, 35, 44, 76 and 94.”
TriMet would also adjust the LIFT paratransit service boundary, reduce its annual contribution to the Portland Street car by $300,000, sell ads on its website and find “internal efficiencies” of $1.2 million.
Officials initially said they needed to deal with a budget shortfall of up to $17 million. But the agency said it's now counting on a state arbitrator to rule in its favor in the long-simmering labor dispute with Amalgamated Transit Union 757. The unresolved union contract, which ended in 2009, would add $5 million to $10 million to the fiscal year 2013 budget shortfall, said TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch.
Speaking to the TriMet board last month about deferring $5 million in cuts, TriMet General Manager Neil McFarlane said, "We will kick that down the road."
The union has repeatedly rejected TriMet's proposals to have drivers, mechanics and support staff contribute more to their generous benefits. And a recent Employee Relations Board ruling removed certain cost-saving proposals from TriMet's final offer, saying it broke state labor laws.
In May, both sides will go before an arbitrator, who will be charged with picking one contract proposal over the other with no compromises, with a final decision after July 1. The latest changes to TriMet's budget plan come after a series of town hall meetings.
TriMet has also reversed an initial proposal to allow only one-way transfers. So, riders will still be able to take "short-hopper" trips – running quick errands or going to appointments and then catching the same bus or MAX line home on a single two-hour fare.
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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney may have graduated cum laude from Harvard, but his campaign clearly failed Venn Diagrams 101.
On Monday, the campaign released a Venn diagram that attempted to show President Barack Obama had not kept his promises about lowering the costs of health care. The left circle in the diagram indicated that Obama promised to lower health care premiums by $2,500, while the right circle indicated that actual health care costs had risen by $2,393. In the area where the two circles intersected, the Romney campaign claimed was a “gap” of $4,893 in higher premiums that families would be forced to pay each year.
But that’s not how Venn diagrams are supposed work.
John Venn introduced the charting mechanism in 1880 to help illustrate things that sets of information have in common. The area where the two circles overlap should indicate items that are common to both sets, not a “gap” between the sets.
And then on Tuesday, the Romney campaign did it again.
They released a second diagram to attack the president’s record on job creation. Again, the campaign called the overlapping area a “gap” to depict the difference between the jobs Obama had promised to create and the jobs that had actually been created.
“The Romney campaign reveals that a mastery of Powerpoint does not, in itself, translate to mastery of Venn diagrams,” Slate’s Dave Weigel noted on Tuesday.
Last month, Romney began looking for a new copywriter after a series of typos where the campaign misspelled “America,” “official” and “sneak-peek.”
At this rate, they may soon have an opening for a graphics designer too.
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Python has this neat feature of unpacking tuples during item assignment. Here’s a general example:
a, b, c = (a, b, c) 1 2 3 a , b , c = ( a , b , c )
or if you have a function that returns multiple items:
a, b, c = foo() 1 2 3 a , b , c = foo ( )
But what if (for some reason) you have a function that returns some large number of variables (or a smaller number of long-named variables) and need to unpack all of them? How do we style this for PEP8 compliance and maintaining readability?
The Ugly
This is the naive approach, and also breaks line-length style.
first_var, second_var, third_var, fourth_var, fifth_var, sixth_var, seventh_var, eighth_var, ninth_var, tenth_var, eleventh_var, twelfth_var = foo() 1 2 3 first_var , second_var , third_var , fourth_var , fifth_var , sixth_var , seventh_var , eighth_var , ninth_var , tenth_var , eleventh_var , twelfth_var = foo ( )
The Good
This is probably the best style for this sort of thing (indentation style-dependent)
(first_var, second_var, third_var, fourth_var, fifth_var, sixth_var, seventh_var, eighth_var, ninth_var, tenth_var, eleventh_var, twelfth_var) = foo() 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 ( first_var , second_var , third_var , fourth_var , fifth_var , sixth_var , seventh_var , eighth_var , ninth_var , tenth_var , eleventh_var , twelfth_var ) = foo ( )
The Bad
Don’t do this. No matter how tempted you are. This is bad.
first_var, *_ = foo() second_var, *_ = _ third_var, *_ = _ fourth_var, *_ = _ fifth_var, *_ = _ sixth_var, *_ = _ seventh_var, *_ = _ eighth_var, *_ = _ ninth_var, *_ = _ tenth_var, *_ = _ eleventh_var, twelfth_var = _ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 first_var , * _ = foo ( ) second_var , * _ = _ third_var , * _ = _ fourth_var , * _ = _ fifth_var , * _ = _ sixth_var , * _ = _ seventh_var , * _ = _ eighth_var , * _ = _ ninth_var , * _ = _ tenth_var , * _ = _ eleventh_var , twelfth_var = _
The Worse (Halloween Edit!)
Here’s a followup, even worse way to do things…
Let’s assume we have some function called foo that returns some number of variables. For testing purposes we’ll set this function to just return all of its arguments.
def foo(*args): return args 1 2 3 4 def foo ( * args ) : return args
We can call this and bind each of the returned variables to a custom variable in the locals() or globals() namespace (or both if we really want).
for i, arg in enumerate(foo(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)): locals()[f'variable_{i}'] = arg 1 2 3 4 for i , arg in enumerate ( foo ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ) ) : locals ( ) [ f 'variable_{i}' ] = arg
Which works great!
>>> locals() {... 'variable_0': 1, 'variable_1': 2, 'variable_2': 3, 'variable_3': 4, 'variable_4': 5, 'variable_5': 6, 'variable_6': 7, 'variable_7': 8, 'variable_8': 9, 'variable_9': 10} >>> variable_0 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 >>> locals ( ) { . . . 'variable_0' : 1 , 'variable_1' : 2 , 'variable_2' : 3 , 'variable_3' : 4 , 'variable_4' : 5 , 'variable_5' : 6 , 'variable_6' : 7 , 'variable_7' : 8 , 'variable_8' : 9 , 'variable_9' : 10 } >>> variable _ 0 1
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Jason Thompson sent me a copy of his The Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath & Other Stories. It even came in a cool envelope, but I’ll get to that.
I’ve been on a bit of a Lovecraft quest.
HP Lovecraft is more than a Geek-only in-joke, there’s still something powerful about his works — or so I discovered reading “The Festival,” “Shadow over Innsmouth” and “Whisperer in the Dark” to my 8-year-old daughter. She experienced the stories as like Scoobie Doo, but when you pull off the bad guy’s mask his face is made of worms.
So, though the style is dated and thus heavy going in places, the structure is sound: he really nailed the whole “unfolding mystery leading to horrible revelation” trope. (I must therefore take back what I said before, I’m sure people do read HP Lovecraft for pleasure from time to time, much as we might also read Malory, because I am now one of them.)
Lovecraft’s power goes way beyond spinning a spooky yarn. He has a knack of being intriguingly vague with great certainty.
The intriguingly is the important part that people often miss.
As frustrated teenage writers discover, vague descriptions of random stuff you made up are not in themselves intriguing. What makes Lovecraft intriguing as well as certain is that he is referencing what feels like a fully realised and disquieting story world, his famous Cthulhu Mythos.
The Cthulhu Mythos is like the Harry Potter world of magicians that hides behind the mundane world of us “muggles”.
Just as we love JK Rowling’s stories, but we also yearn to hear more about the Ministry of Magic, the Knight Bus and Quidditch, and demand more history and legend, we enjoy Lovecraft’s yarns but crave more forbidden knowledge about the Fungi from Yuggoth who infest the stars, the City of R’lyeh where Cthulhu sleeps, and the Deep Ones living out their parallel lives in decaying fishing ports. That the we are at best cookies to the alien monsters lends a dark thrill to the exploration. Each story gives us a glimpse not just of the existential horror behind our reality, but of its living structure.
Which leads me to Lovecraft’s Dreamlands stories in which he turns Dante and visits one corner of his Mythos in great detail.
The Dreamlands are a material astral plain or fairy land which human dreamers can shape but also must mingle with very real and dangerous denizens — essentially Second Life but where the scammers can eat your soul.
This is a lushly dark secondary world, but Lovecraft at his most descriptive is also Lovecraft at his least readable: these days processions of big long words are more alienating than evocative! Since Lovecraft was painting pictures with words, wouldn’t it be better just to provide pictures?
And so we have the various graphic novel versions of these stories.
The snag is that the artist or writer must replace the effect of being intriguingly vague with something else as powerful. In his graphic novel Kadath — which I’ve already reviewed — Charles Cutting turns Randolph Carter, the protagonist, into the real object of horror: the loud spoken Imperialist tourist who destroys what he touches. It’s a powerful re-reading of the tale, colorfully illustrated.
Jason Thompson, however, in his crowd funded The Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath & Other Stories takes a different track.
He copes with the challenge partly by “going up to 11” with the artwork, but also by using his art to inject, or bring out, the pathos of the dreamers themselves. Otherwise, apart from the odd tweak for story logic, he sticks to the text of the original stories, reusing snippets it in his narrative panels.
The artwork is amazing!
The setting has an Orientalist feel but an alien one. Thompson doesn’t directly lift from our own world, which has the benefit of avoiding cultural appropriation and imperialism — Orientalism was always a western projection anyway, so why not start with a blank canvas? The monsters are… well monstrous, and the alien denizens have a subtle nightmare quality about them. This may not be what Lovecraft saw in his mind’s eye, but since it draws on early 20th century visual tropes, it feels like it could be.
There’s more than a visual feast. There’s the pathos generated by Thompson’s “Mockman,” the childlike avatar he uses to represent the dreamer protagonist in each of his stories.
I said the book arrived in a cool envelope. He’d drawn one of these figures on it!
When I quizzed him about it, he explained that the figure began long ago as an easy-to-draw protagonist he could consistently reproduce from panel to panel, but ended up having a deeper significance.
The Mockman paradoxically reminds us that this is a dream while at the same time to heightening the peril. He never really feels like an adult, but rather a child being “super serious” and pretending to be grown up while facing grownup perils, like the kids in Stranger Things solemnly selecting stones for a slingshot with which they expect to take on what we know is a lethal [SPOILER REDACTED]. This quietly and uncomfortably takes us into Transactional Analysis territory, with our Inner (simplification!) Child sometimes shouldering responsibilities it would be be best handing off to our Adult or Parent.
It’s the pathos, though, that really justifies the Mockman.
The Mockman is the ageless child who quests but lives in the now. The Dreamer, though, is not ageless and has a life history and expectancy.
This comes across most obviously in “Celaphais” and its follow-ip sequence in “Kadath.” (Spoilers!)
Kuranes is born into the decaying aristocracy of our world, becomes sucked up by the alienating big city. But all his life he dreams of the awesome city of Celephais. The dream world is so much better than the reality that he spends more and more time there, meanwhile sinking lower and lower in the real world. Aged homeless and drug addled, he meets his end near his ancestral home, but a cortege from the Dreamlands fetches his soul home to rule in Celaphais, and the soul of course is an ageless childlike Mockman.
This strikes so many chords!
It’s the tragic Geek life experience.
I once had a tech job so bleakly meaningless that I couldn’t bear to listen to music while doing it. Rather than lift my spirits, the Gladiator soundtrack just reminded me of where I was not!
I don’t think that’s unusual. The office rarely measures up to Friday night playing D&D, or evenings gaming online or watching genre TV, or rainy weekends tucked up with a good book, or glorious long weekends at conventions.
Most of us would rather be with our friends — real or imaginary — in the Dreamlands than at the keyboard with our colleagues.
It’s also the human experience!
As a friend of mine put it: inside every old person is an 8-year-old going, “WTF went wrong here?”
And perhaps that’s the true horror that underlies this excellent graphic novel rendering of HP Lovecraft’s Dreamland stories. Compared to that, the gods and monsters are a welcome distraction…
(Is this book suitable for children? I’d confidently give it to any Mythos fan over 12. The artwork is beautiful just to flick through, but depicts horrors that Lovecraft only evoked, with cannibalism, dismembered body parts and a dungeon with dead torture victims… no worse than the Horrible Histories, I guess. The narrative panels are direct quotes from the Lovecraft original, suitable for a literate 10-year-old perhaps, but only if they’re hooked on the world. Thompson depicts ethnicity, not all of it earthly, but avoids racist stereotypes. He doesn’t try to “improve” Lovecraft, so slavery is taken for granted — as per many fantasy and historical stories — and there is a reference to “black slaves” being shipped off to an uncertain fate, which you may find problematic or at least worth a conversation. There are drugs references. You might also want to talk about those too.)
You can buy H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and Other Stories direct from the artist’s website or from Amazon.
M Harold Page is the Scottish author of works such as Swords vs Tanks (Charles Stross: “Holy ****!”). For his take on writing, read Storyteller Tools: Outline from vision to finished novel without losing the magic. (Ken MacLeod: “…very useful in getting from ideas etc to plot and story.” Hannu Rajaniemi: “…find myself to coming back to [this] book in the early stages.”)
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For the engineers, it was a blessing in disguise. They had drilled to a depth of up to 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) below the sea floor when gas and oil suddenly began shooting upward. But there was no explosion. The 69 workers at the site were evacuated and no one was killed.
It was the morning of Aug. 21, 2009, when engineers lost control of the well beneath the West Atlas oil rig in the Timor Sea off Australia's northern coast. It took 10 weeks to stop the flow of oil. By that time, about 4,300 tons of oil had flowed into the sea. It was only by drilling a so-called relief well that the Thai company overseeing the operation managed to pump enough mud into the well to cap the flow of oil.
For the BP engineers attempting to stop the out-of-control well still gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, the relief well method -- so-called "bottom kill" -- is also seen as the last solution available. The company began drilling the two relief wells in May, and BP CEO Tony Hayward says that he is confident that "the relief wells ultimately will be successful." He expects that the spill in the Macondo oil field will finally be capped by early August.
Hayward's forecasts, however, have not always proven to be reliable and independent experts warn that relief wells, like any well, are not without risk. "More oil could leak than before, because the field is being drilled into again," says Fred Aminzadeh, a geophysicist at the University of Southern California. Ira Leifer, a geochemist at the University of California in Santa Barbara, voices similar concerns: "In the worst case, we would suddenly be dealing with two spills, and we'd have twice the problem."
Making the Situation Worse
Leifer is a member of a team of experts deployed by US President Barack Obama to estimate the volume of oil currently flowing in the Gulf of Mexico. Just last week, the scientists almost doubled their estimate and now say that between 25,000 and 30,000 barrels of oil a day is gushing out of the well into the Gulf of Mexico. On Tuesday, they once again upped their estimate -- to between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day.
BP's most recent efforts to stop the flow of oil have only made the situation worse, says Leifer. The engineers' attempt to seal off the well from above, using a method known as "top kill," failed and only enlarged the borehole, according to Leifer. Now, he adds, there is almost nothing stopping the oil from flowing out of the well.
Most experts now believe that the relief wells, despite the risks, are the only option left. The principle of the method sounds simple enough. The engineers start by drilling vertically, and then diagonally toward the out-of-control well. Once they've reached the well, they drill into it from the side and pump large amounts of mud into it. The material fills up the well from below and eventually acts as a plug. In the end the well, like a decayed tooth, is capped with cement.
As straightforward as it sounds, this approach has not always been easy to implement in the past. The disaster in the Timor Sea, for example, ended in a debacle. It took engineer five tries to even find the borehole under the sea floor. Shortly before the end, the West Atlas oilrig went up in flames, after all.
Repeat of History?
Another case is also a warning sign for BP. In June 1979, engineers with the Mexican oil company Pemex lost control of the Ixtox I, an exploratory well in the Gulf of Mexico. Just as BP is now attempting to do, engineers at the time drilled two relief wells.
The first relief well was finished by the end of November, but it took until March 1980, more than nine months after the accident, to cap the well. By then, 480,000 tons of crude had flowed into the Gulf, the second-biggest oil spill the world has seen to date.
Is history repeating itself? The spill in the Macondo oil field could also continue to gush uncontrollably well beyond BP's August deadline. Pemex Director Carlos Morales, currently providing BP with technical advice, expects the spill to continue for another "four to five months." Leifer also believes that the disaster on the sea floor could drag on "until late fall."
Although the BP engineers have already completed two-thirds of the first relief well, it is extremely difficult to find the out-of-control well in the middle of the bedrock, says David Rensink, incoming president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
"You're trying to intersect the well bore, which is about a foot wide, with another well bore, which is about a foot wide," Rensink said recently. Hitting it with the first attempt, he adds, "would truly be like winning the lottery."
Instead, the engineers will presumably have to repeatedly pull back the drill head to adjust the direction, Rensink predicts. "If they get it on the first three or four shots, they'd be very lucky."
More Caution
Rensink is particularly concerned that BP, in drilling the relief wells, will penetrate into precisely those rock formations in which extreme pressure and temperature conditions facilitated the April blowout in the first place. Gas bubbles and gushing oil from the depths are real possibilities. "Any relief well has to be drilled more cautiously than the original well," warns Donal Van Nieuwenhuise, a geologist at the University of Houston. "You don't want to experience the same disaster a second time."
Still, most geologists are confident that the bottom kill method will ultimately be successful. Van Nieuwenhuise says he has never seen the method fail entirely and points out that BP has ultra-modern drill bits bristling with sensors scanning the bedrock. Furthermore, the bits can quickly change direction. Once the stricken well is found, the drilling mud that will be pumped in is heavy enough to stop even the most high-pressure oil flows. Rensink too believes that the relief well method will eventually plug the leak. "The question is only when exactly that will happen," he says.
Indeed, the engineers aren't only facing a formidable technical challenge. Weather will also play a significant role. Forecasters have already predicted that this hurricane season, which began this month, could be one of the most active on record. Drilling would have to be ceased for the duration of each strong storm.
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How Rice Built A Lowcountry Legacy
Have you ever heard the phrase, "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize"? The Gullah/Geechee of South Carolina most certainly understand its meaning, as they bring the recipes, culinary point of view and local ingredients of their ancestors into the 21st-century food scene.
In the 1700s, West Africans from countries like Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia were hand-picked and enslaved by plantation owners for their knowledge of rice cultivation in hot, humid climates like those of the Lowcountry and Sea Islands of South Carolina's coast. Many years later, after emancipation and the construction of bridges to and from the mainland, the customs of the Gullah people spread throughout the area and their spiritual, musical and culinary traditions eventually became part of South Carolina's cultural identity.
Now residents and visitors of the Palmetto State are embracing Gullah food culture more than ever, with restaurants from the mountains to the coast serving up Gullah classics like shrimp and grits, gumbo and Frogmore Stew. In fact, many of the dishes South Carolinians consider classic Southern favorites are actually derived from Gullah culture. Rice, for example - a Southern staple on its own or traditionally served with gumbo, gravy and stews - would've never survived in this area without the Gullah people's expert cultivation techniques.
The South's one-pot wonders are also thanks to Gullah culinary tradition. As the Gullah/Geechee worked on South Carolina plantations, they would stew whole vegetables in large pots and let them simmer all day long as they tended the fields. When they returned for supper, the vegetables would be tenderized and perfect for enjoying with homegrown rice and leftover meats from the master's table. The Gullah cooks are the originators of South Carolina's farm-to-table movement, and using the same local, seasonal ingredients and cooking techniques of their ancestors, the new generation of the Gullah/Geechee are propelling the time-honored dishes of their storied past into the mainstream.
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Last night, the Pirates’ Gift Ngoepe became the first African-born player to appear in a major-league game. He came in to play second in the top of the fourth and hit a single off Jon Lester in his very first at-bat in the bottom of the inning. Later, he walked and helped turn the game-ending double play in the Pirates’ 6-5 victory.
Although baseball isn’t big in South Africa, where Ngoepe is from, he grew up practically on a baseball field (this entire SI profile on him is worth a read). He lived with his mother and little brother, also signed by the Pirates, in the clubhouse of an amateur team, where she worked odd jobs. As a teenager, he attended Major League Baseball’s annual three-week European Academy in Italy, where he was mentored by Barry Larkin, and eventually discovered and signed by the Pirates.
Now 27, Ngoepe has been in the Pirates’ organization for almost nine years, working his way up through the minors as one of the team’s top defensive prospects. This morning, Deadspin caught up with him after his big night.
Has it been a totally exhausting, whirlwind 24 hours?
Yeah, you could say that. I was beat last night. I couldn’t even take any more phone calls.
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Was everyone calling last night—friends and family and reporters?
I had mostly text messages from my friends and family back home. As soon as I got to my hotel everyone was like, “Can I call you? Can I call you?” And I was just like, “Oh boy.” Yeah, I had a couple phone calls and eventually I had to switch my phone off and go to sleep. And I woke up to more phone calls from interviews.
Did you go out and celebrate last night after the game?
No, I had a friend of mine from Texas that I played baseball with, Zack Dodson, he flew up from Texas the same day I told him. He came to PNC to come watch. And then he called the house guy that I stayed with in Altoona, the guy that rented his house to us, John Prosperi, cause we became close. He’s like the head guy for the Altoona Curve, looking after the guys. He came up too, so we all went out to get some food together. And then we just came back. We didn’t celebrate too hard.
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Did people out in the street recognize you?
There was one little girl who did when I was trying to walk through. But all the other people kept to themselves. I don’t know if they recognized me. I was trying to act normal.
What was your first exposure to MLB baseball back in South Africa?
I haven’t had that question yet! I’ve got everything memorized, guys, it’s flying off my tongue. Now you just threw me a curveball. I wasn’t ready for that.
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Well, did you root for any MLB teams growing up?
So basically, this is how it all started: Me and my best friend at the time, he liked the Yankees for some reason and I knew there were huge rivalries with Boston so I took the Boston team, so me and him and had a little bit of a battle going on. That’s how Boston became my team to support. Baseball would come on Sunday night and he would record it on his TV, when I guess the recording devices started coming out, so on Monday after school we would go watch the game. That’s how we watched baseball. And then if we were trying to watch the World Series we’d have to stay up late, especially on weekends, that’s the only time that we could watch.
I know you’ve been in the Pirates organization for 8.5 years but you’re usually off playing when they’re playing, so had you been to a Pirates game at PNC Park before?
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Yeah, I had to come here one time to go see the doctor and they had a game that same day that I was arriving, so I was able to come watch.
But I imagine it’s a little different being down on the field.
It’s a lot different. I got lost a couple times in the clubhouse and people were like, “You look like a lost lamb right now.” And I’m like, “Totally correct. Because I don’t know where anything is and I’m trying to figure it out without having to... you know, you guys got your own thing going on so I’m trying to figure this out right now. I’m limited on time cause I’ve got to do this and I’ve got to do that.” It just felt like everything was happening at one time and I’m like, just take a deep breath, Gift, and say, okay.
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Did you know you were going to play last night?
No, I knew that I might come off the bench because it’s a National League game... The pitcher and the pitch counts and how he’s doing and all that other stuff. I might hit for the pitcher. So I knew I had a possibility that I might come in at some point in the game. I didn’t know it was going to be that early.
Were you nervous for your first at-bat?
I was nervous, I was nervous. I was just thinking, “It’s okay. Just go out there and play.” I was basically sort of talking to myself about how I’d be and being as positive as I can and stay as calm as I can be so I can have a chance to put up a quality AB against Jon Lester.
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What did guys say to you, either right before you went out or when you came back? What sort of stuff were they saying in the dugout?
Basically in the dugout they told me that I was going into the game and I was like, okay Gift, the time as come. I went out to the [field] and [Francisco] Cervelli was like, “Come here.” And I’m like, “Okay.” I’m like, “I just got on the field.” And he just put his hand on my chest and listened to my heartbeat and I felt my heartbeat beating against his hand. And I’m like, oh this is not good. I’ve had this feeling before and it’s not good when I do this. I’ve got to calm down. And Cervelli told Jay Hay, “Hey you gotta listen to this. This is what we live for.” And then Jay Hay felt my heartbeat too and was like, “Hey, we’ve all been there. Just relax and do your thing.” And that kind of calmed me down.
What was hearing all the people in the stadium like?
I heard the fans yelling when they called my name to hit and I was like, “Oh boy, yeah, okay, thanks.” There’s like 30,000 people watching right now. No worries. And that’s not even counting the people that are streaming it. Or ESPN might be showing it across the whole world or something. I don’t even know what’s going on. I just tried to keep everything simple at that point.
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There was probably more than 30,000 people watching.
Oh thanks, no worries.
In the offseason do you live here or go back to South Africa?
I live a little bit in America and then I go home for like two or three months.
When you go home, what do people ask you about playing baseball in America?
The first thing they ask me is, “How many home runs did you hit?” That’s like the basic normal questions. And then they’re like “Oh you play pro baseball!” And then want to know where I am and then I tell them I’m not in the majors yet and they’re like, “Oh, okay. Well...” I’m like, “Well, I’m almost there! It counts!” A lot of people ask me, “How’s McCutchen? How is he in the clubhouse?” and, “Jay Hay seems so cool, is he as cool as I predicted?” and I’m like, “Yeah, those guys are awesome. That’s why they’re in the big leagues.”
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What are some of the differences between how the game is played here versus in Africa. I know the game that you grew up around was really informal, but are there in-game differences?
The play is very different. I mean, the unwritten rules of baseball in America did not apply in South Africa. And so, a lot of things can go in many ways. You can be beating a team 6-0 and then you find yourself losing the game 10-8 at the end of the day. There’s so many things that can happen. People try to squeeze in a run here, double steal, any way to score as many runs as possible. There’s a lot of errors that happen in the game. You’re expecting like four or five errors each game.
When you first moved here, was it harder to adjust to the way they play baseball or was it harder to adjust to living in America?
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It was a little bit harder, I guess, living in America. The people are a little bit different, they didn’t quite understand me because I spoke with slang that I had from South Africa. And my English was very fast, when it came out of my mouth. Like I had to break it down. And I wouldn’t finish a word, that’s just how we spoke in South Africa. They would be like, “What did you just say?” And I would be like, “This is what I just said.” And they’d be like, “You just said all that in a few seconds?” Like, yeah, this is how I speak.
The baseball side of it was just, coming from South Africa where we play one game a week, now I’m playing six or seven games a week, my first year.
What are some things the Pirates coaches have worked on with you over the years? You’re generally known for your defense but there was that hit last night—have you been working on your swing?
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I started focusing more on my offense the last couple of years. And the hitting coach, [Jeff] Branson, pulled me aside in spring training this year and was like, “Well, your way didn’t work.” I was like, “Well, thanks, that’s really positive right there. That’s what I was looking for this year!” He wanted me to simplify everything. Getting me in a good hitting position early. I had a lot of movement when I was trying to get ready hit the ball. And sometimes I wouldn’t be ready for this kind of pitch or that kind of pitch. They wanted me to be ready to hit all the pitches that came in the zone, in the location that I wanted that ball to be. So they just simplified everything and made my approach more simple and effective.
What do you miss about South Africa?
I just miss the people. In South Africa, we’re more like a family. We call it a braai, but you call it a barbecue. And we just braai anytime. It’s just like, you can call a friend and be like, “Hey, Hannah, we’re having a braai right now, come on over.” And you’d be coming on over at this very moment. For no current reason. We’re just having a braai.
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It’s a lot more regimented here.
Yeah everything is planned out. If it’s not in my plans, we’re not doing it, basically.
A lot has been made about you being the first ever African in the majors. Is that something you thought about or you just focus on your own career?
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I just focus on my own career but at the same time, knowing that I do have this... the first Africa kid to make it to the big leagues, it’s always in my sights. That pushed me and sometimes it pressed me down. It just depended on how you viewed it. You either viewed it in a positive way in order to encourage you to get stronger and keep you going. Or, you felt the pressure just beating down on your shoulders.
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About
Dungeonforge is an Action-RPG in the spirit of classic D&D where you, as dungeon master, drive and shape the gameworld and everyone has a chance to weave their unique part of gaming lore.
In Dungeonforge all the action takes place in a massive, open gameworld. This world is your canvas; the place where you will tell your story as a dungeon master. Through our in-game editor which we've termed "the Dungeonforge," you will be able to craft adventures rife with deep dungeons, dark woods, frosty mountain tops, and just crawling with the unspeakable legions of darkness. Your content then becomes part of the over-arching gameworld for all to enjoy. You can script quests within your adventure for players to complete, or even perform a "Live Telling" of your adventure, wherein you actively take the role of dungeon master, playing the part of NPCs, weaving dialog on the fly, and controlling monsters to shape the experience of the players dynamically, in real time. Going further along that theme, we will also feature a competitive, PvDM game type, which will pit the players against the DM, who will be given charge of the hordes of evil in an attempt to thwart the players on their quest.
Making sure the best content is available and easy to find during online play is important. All content is rated by the players. The lowest scoring content is hidden, while the highest scoring content will even be pointed out to you by NPC quest-givers in the gameworld's central hub city.
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Create and edit large outdoor areas - including adding towns and areas to encounter enemies - to form the overworld for your adventure.
Build complex dungeons into your overworld with a simple dungeon tool.
Script quests for players to follow with an easy to use interface
Script interactions with NPCs in your adventure, including branching dialog.
Script events and triggers into your adventure for a more unique and epic experience.
Creation Tools Trailer:
A token may be purchased in game that when used, gives the creator of the dungeon a tip, redeemable for real-world currency. This is just another way in which taking the time to create truly enjoyable content is rewarded. The person giving the tip token gains aesthetically unique, "Epic Loot" drops in return for their generosity. "Epic Loot" features unique designs, aura and particle effects, but is not gameplay affecting. It comes in sets and is meant to be collectible. It's a way for players to really differentiate their character and show to the world that they have a generous spirit.
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Dungeonforge features a unique blend of gameplay concepts. We went with a top-down perspective, so the game shares the same simplicity and intuitiveness in the control scheme as games like Diablo. At the same time, we love the engaging, varied combat of games like Dark Souls and The Witcher 2. Thus the combat is driven by timing your mouse clicks to form combos, avoiding taking damage, dodging, parrying and countering enemy attacks, positioning yourself well and waiting for openings to attack. We knew going in, with the idea of a game driven by player-made content, that the gameplay would have to be good enough for people to actually want to make content for our game and play the content others make. Thus, gameplay became the top priority for us. We're working hard to polish the mechanics and deliver on that premise. We think we've got a fantastic, well thought out blend of concepts that truly sets gameplay in Dungeonforge apart and makes it a can't miss type of experience.
Dungeonforge is built to be equally enjoyable whether playing alone and completely offline, or in a group with friends just as in the days of ye olde tabletop game night.
The combat is backed by vast character customization options:
Piles of loot with with special traits and effects to really refine your build
An extensive stat sheet
Deep skill customization with an array of special abilities to suit your particular play style
Steam Workshop integration where the community can create and submit custom loot to be dropped in dungeons and special abilities to be added to a character's skill sheet and earned right along with the default skills
In addition to offline single-player and online play, LAN and same-screen multiplayer (using a mix of gamepads and mouse/keyboard) will be available to support that true, old-school feeling of playing D&D with a bunch of buddies in the same room.
Dungeonforge will feature five playable character classes to start with, each with unique abilities suiting various playstyles. Each character will also have a unique back story which will be elucidated via first-party campaign-style content. Each character's campaign will contain around 20 hours of gameplay. Future playable characters will be released over the life of Dungeonforge, each with an accompanying campaign of similar length. Whenever there's an opportunity to improve the game via new editing tools, a first-party adventure will be released to showcase the new tool.
Platforms:
Dungeonforge was recently Greenlit by the Steam community and will be available for the Steam platform on PC, Linux, and Mac computers.
A mobile version in which players on their high-end, gaming-oriented mobile devices may play with their Steam using brethren will be available on the Android market at launch, with iOS support being considered based on response to the mobile version.
We are completely thrilled to be bringing Steam Workshop support to Dungeonforge at launch! Using our custom mod tools and/or your favorite 3D content creation programs, you'll be able to create and submit content for everyone to use in their dungeons and adventures.
Create custom:
Monsters
Weapons
Spells and abilities
Scripting for events, monster behavior, NPC interaction and, well, anything else!
Dungeon tiles
Decorative and environmental items
Custom playable characters with your own models, animations, spells and abilities for everyone to enjoy
A voting and comment system will ensure the best made content rises to the top and that new submissions can be easily found and tried out.
Click to view larger image.
A Word on Rewards
Two major things of note:
The first is that all backers who receive the game as a reward will receive a Special Edition version where their characters come outfitted with a unique look that only backers have access to. You also get early access codes, meaning that every backer who gets the game gets to play it before release and have a say in the way the final product comes out. The Special Edition version also comes with 20 tip tokens so you can start tipping top dungeon makers right out the gate and reap the aesthetically unique "Epic Loot" that ensues. All backers will also receive a backer tag in the game and on the forums that is appropriate to their pledge level.
The second thing is the difference between a single-character account and a five-character account. Each character in the game will have an accompanying 20+ hour campaign detailing their back story. Purchasing a single-character copy gives you the choice of one of five characters to play. This will only give you access to their particular campaign. Of course, you'll be able to upgrade at any time, so this option is preferable for anyone wanting to try out Dungeonforge with a reduced cost of entry. The full experience can be had by grabbing a five-character account which gives you all five characters and over 100 hours of campaign content to quest through.
The levels for single character accounts are $5 normally, and an early backer special where the first 150 people to pledge get it at $1. Early backers can also snag a full, five-character copy for $10, down from $20 (limit 100).
Stretch Goals:
A quick word about our stretch goals:
These are all things we hope to put into Dungeonforge in any case. They all rely on us getting sufficient funding. So, how much funding we receive from this campaign will determine how quickly we are able to tackle these goals. The stretch goals we reach will be available at the game's launch.
70k Expanded PvP and PvDM game types
85k New continent with two new environment themes
100k In-Game Custom Dungeon Tile Creation System (Currently handled by external tools)
115k In Game Weapon Creation System (Currently handled by external tools)
130K In Game Monster Modeling and Creation System (Currently handled by external tools)
150k In Game Character Modeling and Creation System (Currently handled by external tools)
200k In Game Cut-scene creation system, featuring custom cameras, voice capture, and event scripting (Currently possible through external tools)
250k Cyberpunk Content Theme (including weapons, environments, and characters especially built to fit this theme)
300k Sci-Fi content theme (including ship-based dungeons!)
500k We'll seek licenses from major entertainment franchises to add content from your favorite movies, books, and tv shows to the game and you will help us choose what content to pursue!
A Word from the Devs
Dungeonforge is a real work of heart for us. The core motive of our team revolves around that sense of wonder and fascination each of us has with video games and the stories they hold. We've all wanted, all our lives, to be able to tell the stories that are within us and we know we're not alone. The mission we've ascribed to with Dungeonforge is simple, yet in it's own way quite daunting; to enable each and every person that has the desire, to weave their unique tale. To leave their particular mark. To make something that inspires them, satisfies their desire to create and makes them proud. Each and every member of our team is passionate about this ideal.
For me, it comes from the little boy in me who once took the little boxes from the CDs my mom got delivered on monthly subscription, because they looked vaguely like a Sega Gamegear, and would draw buttons on the sides and scenes from imagined videogames on their "screens."
That same boy grew up to play Neverwinter Nights when it first came out and it appeared I'd have the opportunity to live my dreams of creating in that game as many did. But at 17 I must have been too sick with hormones and addled by girls and ADHD to really give it the attention it deserved. That was one of my deepest regrets and one I hope, through this game, I can save some other poor youth from.
We have guys who lost hours in the Starcraft and Warcraft map editors before going on to make their own games. These same guys are passionate about bringing a similar experience to a new generation; one in which the existence of quality mod tools for the games you buy is becoming an ever more rare occurrence.
Counterstrike, DoTA, Team Fortress, DayZ and others are games that exist solely because of the creativity of the community. The guys that made them? They've all got jobs doing what they love and fulfilling their dreams. While we'll never claim to be on a level with the games that spawned those mods, we hope, in some small part, to provide the inspiration for those who have a story to tell, and the tools to allow them to do so.
-Mason Stanford, The Collective Dream Studios
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As legislators who represent the citizens of Minneapolis, we believe it is very important to warn the people of our city and across Minnesota about the last-minute push by the right-wing Minnesota Jobs Coalition, in cooperation with leaders from the Minneapolis Downtown Council business group — under the moniker “Minneapolis Works!” — to infuse significant spending in an effort to buy the city elections in Minneapolis this fall.
The Minnesota Jobs Coalition is an ultraconservative political advocacy organization that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect conservative Republican majorities to the Minnesota House in 2014 and Senate in 2016. It receives significant funding from the national Republican State Leadership Committee, which donated $325,000 to the coalition in 2014. The group’s business donors include big tobacco, oil companies, the Koch brothers, Walmart, insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and conservative media organizations such as Hubbard Broadcasting.
Conservative big money has distorted our national politics by pumping huge contributions from wealthy individuals and large corporations to elect hundreds of far-right Republicans to state and federal offices. It has unfortunately tipped the scale in elections right here in Minnesota. Big business is now able to literally write, verbatim, the legislation it wants and that gets passed into law in the Minnesota Legislature. Now these Republican donors have set their sights on our municipal races.
When the Legislature was debating passage of a comprehensive, progressive transportation bill, the Minnesota Jobs Coalition swung into action, relentlessly hammering DFL legislators with negative media, ads and mailers. The message was clear to DFL and Republican legislators alike: “Support new revenue for roads and transit at your own peril.” In a very aggressive negative campaign, marked by unprecedented efforts to divide Minnesotans on the basis of race, class, geography and other differences, six DFL senators were defeated in 2016, and the Senate flipped to Republican control.
In the wake of the coalition’s success in 2014, one co-founder was hired to become the newly installed Republican House speaker’s Republican caucus executive director. Its other co-founder has been nominated by Minnesota Republican members of Congress to President Donald Trump to serve as Minnesota’s next U.S. attorney.
Consider the policy priorities the Republican Legislature has advanced since winning control: passing budget-busting tax breaks for the wealthy, big tobacco and out-of-state corporations; cutting over $1 billion from health and human services; eliminating environmental protections; disinvesting in public E-12 education; disinvesting in the University of Minnesota; public money subsidizing private religious schooling; eliminating clean and fair campaigns and elections; passing debilitating cuts to Metro Transit; eliminating reproductive health freedom; attacking LGBTQ citizens’ human rights; trying to limit Minnesotans’ constitutional right to free assembly and protest; attacking our immigrant communities; rolling back progressive energy and climate advances; refusing to consider important consumer and privacy protections; making significant cuts to local government aid that goes to Minneapolis; and pre-empting local democracy from enacting laws to protect workers and communities we care about. That’s just for starters.
We call on the people of Minneapolis to send a message to the Minnesota Jobs Coalition and its partners in Minneapolis Works!: The power of the people is greater than the power of right-wing money. We encourage voters to get their own information on candidates’ experience, values and policy priorities: Call up candidates on the phone, attend forums, look at candidates’ own literature and websites. Be wary of mail and ads from Minneapolis Works!.
We also call on all Minneapolis candidates running in this year’s municipal elections to join us in rejecting this outside, big-business attempt to buy Minneapolis elections. If the Minnesota Jobs Coalition in the form of Minneapolis Works! is spending in favor of your candidacy, we call on you to demand that it stop.
If this Minneapolis push succeeds, conservative business interests like the Minnesota Jobs Coalition will continue to try to buy elections in all of our cities and towns, not just in Minneapolis but all over Minnesota.
And we can’t lose sight of the bigger picture: a win for the Minnesota Jobs Coalition in Minneapolis will make it harder to elect a DFL governor next year. Total control of state government has been the coalition’s goal since it formed. That will be extremely bad for Minneapolis and the people who make their lives here.
As your fellow Minneapolitans, we believe it is so important to successfully resist this outside intrusion into our elections.
This article was signed by Sens. Scott Dibble, Bobby Joe Champion, Kari Dziedzic, Jeff Hayden and Patricia Torres Ray; and Reps. Frank Hornstein, Susan Allen, Jim Davnie, Ilhan Omar, Fue Lee and Jean Wagenius. All are DFLers.
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Grant Halverson/Getty Images
Sorting out the playoff picture, understanding the Jets' woes and reassessing our view of Todd Gurley.
1. Contenders, Pretenders and Frauds
In a league where often there are few surprises, one thing has legitimately shocked me: how many people across the NFL believe the Kansas City Chiefs are the best team in football.
I think it's Dallas, Oakland or New England. Take your pick. But the Chiefs? What was I overlooking?
In speaking to several front-office executives and veteran players, I was given three main reasons: 1. They are a conservative, defense-oriented team built to win in the postseason; 2. They are well-coached by Andy Reid and his staff; and 3. Their quarterback, Alex Smith, makes few mistakes.
In theory, it would seem the Kansas City offense would need to take more chances, and be more aggressive, to stay with prolific offenses like those in Oakland and New England (though Chiefs backers say the loss of Rob Gronkowski is another reason the Chiefs are better). But the executives with whom B/R spoke think Kansas City is so top-heavy with defense and special teams that it can make up for its conservative offensive ways.
All of us will have a better idea Thursday night, when the Chiefs play the Raiders. If Kansas City wins that contest, then, hell, it might be just that good.
Now in the thick of the playoff stretch run, let's break down the contenders, pretenders and frauds.
Contenders (in order of contender-ness)
Cowboys: For all those waiting for Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott to hit a rookie wall, it's time to say it won't happen. This team is for real, the best in football.
Hannah Foslien/Getty Images
Patriots: They lose Gronkowski but have, you know, Tom Brady.
Raiders: An argument could be made they are the best team in football. Why? They have two vital elements for a Super Bowl team—a hot quarterback and excellent coaching.
Chiefs: They are making me a believer. What they did in Atlanta shows a versatility few other teams (if any) possess. And they can boast of road wins against the Falcons, Broncos and Raiders.
Seahawks: Seattle has suffered some nasty injuries, but I'm a believer in Russell Wilson. Sorry, all you Wilson haters.
Packers: If they make the playoffs—and they will—no team will want to play them.
Possible Pretenders (in order of most pretender-ness)
Dolphins: I wrote recently that it's safe to finally start believing in Ryan Tannehill. Can I take that column back?
Ravens: A brutal, hard-hitting defense. The problem is Joe Flacco. He might be great in the postseason. Or he might not.
Steelers: The defense just isn't that good, ranking 14th in yards allowed per game.
Broncos: Good defense, obviously, but the quarterback play is still worrisome.
Lions: They have shown a great deal of heart, but the Lions simply cannot keep winning games with comeback after comeback. It will eventually catch up with them.
Buccaneers: I debated this one long and hard. Jameis Winston is the real deal, but I'm not convinced there's enough talent on the roster to make a run.
Giants: Which Eli Manning will the team get down the stretch?
Frauds (in order of putridity)
Texans: Two words—Brock Osweiler.
Scott Cunningham/Getty Images
Falcons: Not a believer in Matt Ryan at the end of the season and especially in the playoffs.
Cardinals: It's over. They're not catching anyone unless Carson Palmer plays more consistently.
Titans: The remaining schedule includes the Broncos, at the Chiefs, at Jacksonville and home against the Texans. The Jaguars are a vacation, but those first two games are nasty.
Vikings: No way Sam Bradford leads this team anywhere except to call Uber for a ride to the airport and home for the playoffs.
Bills: The collapse to the Raiders likely doomed their playoff hopes.
I'm not certain where to place one team in particular, and that's the Colts. They are confusing. I could see this team making a Super Bowl run or flaming out. The defense is still a sieve, and as talented as Andrew Luck is, he is still prone to mental errors.
2. It's Not Easy Being Green
Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
Coach Todd Bowles isn't the problem for the Jets. The lack of talent is.
Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick has been dreadful. Matt Forte is a borderline Hall of Famer, but he's 30. (That's like 45 in NFL running back years.) Brandon Marshall has taken a step back. And the offensive line isn't that good. Other than that, things are terrific.
It's also hard for me to buy the narrative circulating throughout parts of the league that the Jets quit on Bowles. Has he been perfect? No. But a genetically engineered version of Bill Belichick, Tom Landry, Don Shula, Bill Walsh, Spider-Man and James T. Kirk wouldn't do much better with a team that has this little talent.
3. Playing QB Is a Roller Coaster
Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon offered some interesting thoughts about Cam Newton on CBS' NFL Monday QB:
Cam is a good leader when it comes to his work ethic and what he does as far as putting time in to prepare for football games and leading by example that way. But he definitely has a problem learning how to handle losing and the low points that happen throughout an NFL season. You have to keep your emotions a little bit more in check and [be] a little bit more even-keeled. He has a tough time doing that.
This is pretty accurate. Newton isn't a front-runner, which has become a common refrain on social media. The issue is that he doesn't handle losing well.
And that, in many ways, is an admirable quality. We want our athletes to care, and he does—a great deal.
But a quarterback also has to ace the balancing act Moon references. He has to exhibit the same demeanor whether things are going well or not. That's what you see with Russell Wilson or Tom Brady or most of the great quarterbacks.
That isn't the case with Newton. And while coach Ron Rivera's rule of requiring players to wear a tie for road games is silly and typical NFL, a quarterback with more situational awareness simply says: "I hate this rule, but my teammates are watching me, and I need to lead."
Then the quarterback puts on the stupid tie, rolls his eyes and plays football.
4. The Unforgiving Game
Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images
When the leg of Earl Thomas was shattered on what looked to be a routine collision, it once again showed just how nasty this game can be.
Players make lots of money. They aren't soldiers fighting in a war or firefighters saving kids from a burning building. They're playing a game; they're not heroes.
Yet over the course of several decades covering the sport, I am regularly shell-shocked at how quickly it all ends for some players. A shattered ligament or a broken bone not only can change the career arc of a player, but an entire franchise as well.
One second, they are the baddest athletes on the planet. In the next, they are gone, wondering about their futures. The journey from one path to the next takes just a moment.
I've seen this over and over and still can't quite get used to it. I know a lot of these players. I know their families and friends. But even for players I don't know personally, there's a jarring aspect to it.
Men and women lose jobs every day and don't have millions to fall back on. But that doesn't make what I see happen to NFL players every week any less important.
5. Peppers Rushing to Canton
Norm Hall/Getty Images
One of the best pass-rushers I ever covered was Michael Strahan from the Giants. A Hall of Famer for good reason, Strahan was, at times, almost unstoppable.
For a player to pass him on the sack list, he has to be special.
After recording a sack last week against Houston, Green Bay linebacker Julius Peppers now has 142.5 for his career, moving him past Strahan and into fifth place in league history.
Peppers is an easy choice for the Hall of Fame. That doesn't mean he'll get in; Terrell Owens is an easy choice and hasn't made it in yet. But Peppers remains as good as this game has ever seen.
6. One of a Kind
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
The story of Chiefs defensive back Eric Berry and his fight against cancer is one of the greatest in NFL history. Maybe in sports history.
On Sunday, Berry became the first player to ever return a two-point attempt for a score and record a pick-six in the same game, the NFL says.
His remarkable story continues…
7. Did We Overrate Todd Gurley?
Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
I have some smart editors at Bleacher Report. Yes, I am totally sucking up to them right now, but it's also true. One of them raised a point with the Rams running back that had not occurred to me.
I've blamed, almost exclusively, Gurley's running woes this season on the Rams offensive line. While the line is a huge part of the problem, what if another crucial element is Gurley himself?
Gurley has carried the ball 211 times this year and doesn't have a single run of 25 yards or more. Last season, Gurley broke off nine plays for 25 yards or more in 229 total rushes.
So it is a fair to ask: Is something wrong with Gurley? Is he hurt? Did he hit a wall in his second season?
Or is Gurley not as good as we thought?
8. New-Look Cowboys
Adam Bettcher/Getty Images
When the recent, Tony Romo-led edition of the Cowboys made the postseason—the few times they did—they carried the air of a one-and-done team, because, well, that's what usually happened.
This year's version feels different. They've shown resiliency. They've won in different ways. And now that the Cowboys are the first team to officially make the postseason, I think we're going to see a much different Dallas playoff team than in recent years.
This iteration has far more edge and the potential to develop into a massive force in the league for a long time.
9. These Aren't Your Father's Lions
If you want one piece of data that shows the Lions are no longer Lions-y, here it is, brought to you by the NFL Network's Andrew Siciliano: Before winning this past week, when Detroit beat the Saints 28-13, the Lions had lost 22 consecutive road games the week immediately following Thanksgiving.
10. Mr. Ambassador?
Michael Adamucci/Getty Images
I read with particular interest a story that Jets owner Woody Johnson is under consideration to become ambassador to the United Kingdom, per Ian Mohr and Emily Smith of Page Six (via Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk). This reminded me of one of the more interesting stories I ever heard about the Jets owner, one I reported in a book about the future of the NFL.
In the fall of 2014, Johnson had a fundraiser at his home. Lots of money. Lots of powerbrokers. But what Johnson didn't know was that a civil rights leader also was in his home. The man's name was Ray Halbritter.
Halbritter, the lead representative of the Oneida Nation, a group of Native Americans who were this country's first allies during the Revolutionary War, fought against the use of the Washington team nickname for years.
Halbritter had somehow gotten an invite to the fundraiser and wanted to query Johnson about why he backed Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington franchise, in using the nickname. Halbritter and Johnson were introduced.
"Hi, I'm Ray Halbritter," he said. "Very nice to meet you. I'm working on the team mascot issue."
"You mean, to keep it?" Johnson asked.
"No, I'm actually working to change it," Halbritter responded.
"To what? To what?" Johnson responded. "Dan is never going to change it. Ever."
Then Johnson walked away.
Does that reveal what kind of ambassador he might be? Maybe or maybe not. Still, I found it an interesting glimpse into Johnson's approach.
Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @mikefreemanNFL.
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THREE years after Victoria's gambling regulator gave the AFL the all-clear over suggestions teams were tanking to win better draft picks, the regulator will again investigate the AFL over Brock McLean's revelations.
A spokeswoman for the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation said they were ''aware of the comments'' and the regulator ''will be making its own inquiries''.
Melbourne coach Dean Bailey with his team at quarter time during the round 18 clash against Richmond in 2009. Melbourne lost the game by four points. Credit:Sebastian Costanzo
The regulator investigated the possibility of tanking in the AFL in 2009.
After a two-month investigation the regulator found ''no evidence that tanking has occurred'' and it was satisfied ''with measures taken by the Australian Football League to ensure the integrity of football matches''.
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The gambling commission has the power to set gambling conditions on the AFL, such as banning betting on teams at the bottom of the ladder, which have the greatest incentive to tank.
It also has the power to revoke the AFL's status as a sports-controlling body, stripping it of its power to demand money for betting on games.
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A potential test case on the rights of sperm donors and recipients in a new age of unconventional parenthood was supposed to have ended for good last year.
That’s when the donor suddenly dropped a lawsuit against the lesbian parents of his biological son, and agreed to stay clear of the boy, now aged four, after a single, limited visit.
These people seemed to be stopping at nothing to get close to my child, and that’s a really scary thing
But the two women say now they were essentially hounded out of a northern Ontario town after the case wrapped up. They claim the donor’s parents followed them and drove repeatedly past their isolated home, while other residents subjected them to angry criticism.
Fearing the boy would be harassed when he started school, they relocated to British Columbia and have since moved to another part of Ontario.
“It was just an all-around awful situation,” said one of the boy’s mothers. “These people seemed to be stopping at nothing to get close to my child, and that’s a really scary thing … It’s a Pandora’s box. Once they say, ‘Hi, I’m your grandmother’ or ‘I’m your father,’ you can’t undo that.”
Their treatment underlines the need for clear laws on the issue, something most provinces lack, said Michelle Flowerday, the couple’s lawyer.
Legislation must make it explicit biological ties in such situations “do not constitute a claim to parenthood,” she said.
A court-ordered publication ban prohibits revealing the names of any of the parties.
The sperm donor’s parents tell a different story. If they ever came in contact with the family after the April 2013 settlement, it was purely by chance, said the man’s father, noting they live in Cochrane, a town of just 5,300 people.
He scoffed at the suggestion he and his wife ever trailed the couple and their son.
The donor’s father did say they abandoned the lawsuit for financial reasons, and were disappointed they could have no access to the boy.
“We won’t see him, I guess, unless maybe he comes back 20 years from now, or something,” he said Monday.
“We didn’t have much of a say, even if we are grandparents. We would have liked to see him once in a while, even if it was just maybe once or twice a year or something.”
Growing numbers of children are being born in Canada as a result of in-vitro fertilization and other forms of assisted reproduction, often to same-sex couples. When donations are obtained anonymously from sperm banks, and in the few provinces with laws that directly address the issue, parenthood is generally uncontested.
In situations where couples and single people make arrangements with sperm donors they know, however — especially in provinces like Ontario that lack such legislation — the rights of the various parties remain largely unresolved.
In the Cochrane case, the donor’s sperm was used for insemination done at home. The man signed a contract saying he would play no part in the child’s life.
Later, he had a change of heart and sued to get access to the child, saying he had been unfairly pressured by one of the women, a former high-school classmate.
The donor’s father said the woman “took advantage” of his son, whom he said is easily influenced.
A trial, with interest groups intervening, had already been scheduled when the case was unexpectedly settled. As part of the agreement, the sperm donor and his parents were allowed a one-hour meeting with the boy, but could not mention their relationship to him.
After that meeting, though, the couple say they saw the donor’s parents drive repeatedly past their rural home, 13 kilometres outside Cochrane, though there would be no other reason for them to be there. They also followed them while they were driving through the community.
Others also made life difficult, said the mother. One time, a woman approached them in a supermarket, knelt down and put her face inches from the boy’s head, staring at him and not saying a word, she said.
“It got to be so absurd,” she said. “I was constantly looking over my shoulder, constantly scanning the crowd at the store, at a mall, at an event … I was at my wit’s end and there was nothing I could do about it.”
She said they contacted police, but were told authorities could do nothing unless someone trespassed on their property.
National Post
• Email: [email protected]
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UPDATE 17/04/2015: It turns out Wolfenstein: The Old Blood will get a physical edition on Xbox One after all.
Publisher Bethesda confirmed the Xbox One physical edition of the £14.99 standalone Wolfenstein add-on will launch alongside the PlayStation 4 and PC boxed copies on 15th May 2015.
PSA - #TheOldBlood Xbox One physical edition will also be available on 15th May alongside PS4 and PC boxed copies pic.twitter.com/O5uNVdRZB3 — Bethesda (@bethesda) April 16, 2015
Meanwhile, The Old Blood includes Nazi zombies - but don't expect them to work exactly like you remember from the 2001 cult classic Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
"These types of enemies can be tricky, because they don't typically have range weapons," executive producer Jerk Gustafsson, of developer MachineGames, said in a post on the Bethesda Blog.
"But in The Old Blood, some of them actually use a rifle, and we also have some intense dash attacks!"
ORIGINAL STORY 20/03/2015: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood's disc version launches the week after its download version.
Publisher Bethesda Softworks confirmed the PC and PlayStation 4 physical editions will be available in Europe on 15th May. That's a Friday.
The Xbox One and PC download versions will be available in Europe over a week earlier, on Tuesday 5th May, with the PS4 version available to download from the PlayStation Store a day later, on Wednesday 6th May.
.@Wolfenstein: #TheOldBlood PC and PS4 physical editions available in Europe on 15th May (1/2) pic.twitter.com/Hnow8Ixgfb — Bethesda (@bethesda) March 20, 2015
.@Wolfenstein: #TheOldBlood Xbox One and PC digital available in Europe on 5th May, PS4 digital on 6th May (2/2) pic.twitter.com/7fxWVO5fwL — Bethesda (@bethesda) March 20, 2015
One question this throws up is: why not launch a physical edition of the Xbox One version?
When asked for comment, Bethesda told us the following:
"Availability at retail will vary by territory but currently, our plans only include physical versions for PC and PS4. Should anything change, we will let fans know."
Not much of an answer.
The Old Blood is a standalone prequel to Machine Games' Wolfenstein: The Order, and as such carries a budget £14.99 price (it's not yet up on the PlayStation Store but is on Steam, priced £14.99).
There's also the issue of why The Old Blood will skip a release on PS3 and Xbox 360, when The Order launched on those platforms.
"To achieve our intended scope for the game, we decided to focus on current gen," was Bethesda's explanation when asked for comment.
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Japan 20-14 US Eagles, Tokyo, August 21
Japan edge USA for valuable win
ESPNscrum Staff
Report Match details
Date/Time: Aug 21, 2011, 19:00 local, 10:00 GMT Venue: Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium Japan 20 - 14 United States of America Attendance: 12519 Half-time: 8 - 14 Tries: Kikutani, Ueda, Usuzuki
Cons: Webb
Pens: Nicholas
Tries: Swiryn 2
Cons: Malifa 2
Japan wrapped up their Rugby World Cup preparations with a morale-boosting 20-14 victory over the USA in Tokyo on Sunday.
The Brave Blossoms trailed their visitors 14-8 at half-time but struck back with 12 unanswered points after the break thanks largely to tries from Takashi Kikutani and Takehisa Usuzuki. Kevin Swiryn notched two tries for the Eagles but it was not enough to prevent them from slipping to their third straight defeat.
The result will be a huge boost for coach John Kirwan following his side's reverse at the hands of Italy last weekend with their World Cup opener against France in North Harbour on September 10 while Eddie O'Sullivan's Eagles must re-group before their first pool clash against against Ireland three weeks today.
In front of a good crowd at the Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium, Japan opened the scoring in the sixth minute through Taihei Ueda. In horrendous conditions, Ueda took advantage of good work from Alisi Tupuailai to crash over the line. The hosts' joy proved to be short lived though as Swiryn responded in kind with a try of his own moments later. The Eagles took the lead with the conversion from Nese Malifa but the hosts struck back soon after through a drop goal from Ryan Nicholas.
The USA hit back before the break with Swiryn's second try giving them the edge once more before Malifa added the conversion with the last kick of the half to cement his side's lead.
However, it was all Japan in the second-half and Kikutani barged his way through the Eagles' defensive line shortly after the re-start to bring his side back to within a point. Shaun Webb added the extras to put the hosts back in front Usuzuki's score just past the hour mark secured the win for the home side.
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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A woman has been dragged from her car and raped in the John Lewis car park in Cheadle.
The horrific attack happened on Friday at 7pm and police are hunting a ‘distinctive’ attacker, with a deeply-pockmarked face.
The victim was parked up in the far end of a car park at the store in Cheadle when she was attacked.
The attacker opened the door to her car, dragged her out and into nearby bushes and raped her.
Police believe that prior to the attack, the man may have been waiting near the cut-through from the Wilmslow-Handforth bypass, the A34, and the junction of Wilmslow Road and Etchells Road and are appealing for witnesses to come forward.
The offender was an Asian man aged around 40 years old, of medium build, with black hair and thick black ‘monobrow’ eyebrows.
He is also described as having distinctive heavily pockmarked, open-pored skin on his face.
At the time of the attack he was wearing black jogging bottoms.
Following the attack on Friday evening, the woman went to the St Mary’s Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Manchester and the attack was reported to police on Sunday.
Forensics officers were spotted examining the scene throughout Sunday morning, with a white tent covering part of the area.
Appealing for witnesses, Detective Inspector Richard Ennis said: “This young lady has suffered a deeply traumatic ordeal and we have a team of detectives who are working on this case to try and identify the man that did this to her.
“We believe that the area close to where the victim was parked in her car is used as a cut-through between Wilmslow-Handforth by-pass and the junction of Wilmslow Road and Etchells Road and we are appealing for anyone that may have seen a man fitting this description hanging around this area, to please get in touch.
“The description of this attacker is very distinctive, with deep pock-type scars on his face and I am hoping that this may jog someone’s memory to call us, so we can find the person responsible and take him off our streets.”
Anyone with any information is asked to contact police at Stockport on 0161 856 9770 or contact the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.
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When we think about American finance, the default image is of a pinstriped banker on Wall Street. But increasingly financial services is shifting away from the traditional bastions of money.
In an analysis of recent and longer-term employment trends, we have identified the large cities --those with over 450,000 jobs – that are gaining jobs in financial services, a sector that employs 7.9 million people nationwide. Overwhelmingly, the fastest growth has been in cities not associated with high finance, but largely low-cost Sun Belt cities, which account for seven of the top 10 large metro areas on our list.
In first place: Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, Ariz., where financial employment has expanded 12.3% since 2008 and a remarkable 7.2% last year. Close behind in second through fourth are San Antonio-New-Braunfels, Texas, Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, Texas, and Nashville-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tenn. These metro areas have advantages beyond just warmer weather; all are places with affordable housing and no state income taxes.
The three metro areas outside the Sun Belt in our top 10 also enjoy lower levels of taxation and housing prices. St. Louis, Mo. (fifth), Salt Lake City (seventh), and Richmond, Va. (ninth), have begun to bulk up on financial jobs, largely to the detriment of the traditional money centers New York (44th), San Francisco (48th), Boston (55th), Los Angeles (57th) and Chicago (61st). Despite the current stock market boom, and good times for large banks, financial services employment in these cities has been stagnant in recent years. Since 2008, New York has lost 3.8% of all its finance-related jobs, while Los Angeles’ financial sector has shed 7% of its jobs and Chicago 6.7%.
Why Financial Services Are Moving
Current financial trends—accelerated By TARP and "too big to fail" regulations—have led to a growing concentration of banking and financial services in the six largest money-center banks. In the first five years of the Obama administration the share of financial assets held by the top six banks soared 37% to account for two-thirds of all bank assets.
But as we have seen in other industries, that domination of market share don’t necessarily drive employment growth where the big banks are headquartered. Increasingly we are seeing the rise of what urban analyst Aaron Renn describes as the “executive headquarters,” where only elite employees and their support staff remain while the vast majority of jobs migrate to lower-cost places.
Given the advances in telecommunications technology, many of the core functions of banks can be conducted anywhere. Why have a midlevel salesperson or mortgage loan processor occupy expensive Manhattan office space when they could function as effectively from much cheaper space in Phoenix, Saint Louis or Richmond?
Pundits like to speak about “face to face” contact as critical in financial services. This may be true for putting together mergers or IPOs, or to concoct the latest derivative, but it doesn’t matter in taking care of customer questions, monitoring credit cards or administering offices in suburban strip malls.
The People Advantage
These smaller cities have advantages for both the financial institutions and their employees. For one thing, the cost of employees is much lower. According to salary reporting website Payscale.com, the median financial manager in New York or San Francisco costs $90,724 to $98,783, respectively; while one in Phoenix costs only $77,467.
But this is not just good for the companies. Employees who make less in St. Louis, Phoenix or Dallas often live far better than their counterparts who earn higher salaries in the traditional money centers. One big reason is housing costs, which are a third to half cheaper in the top cities on our list than in places like Boston (2013 median home price of $375,900) New York ($465,700), or San Francisco ($679,200). Compare that to $183,600 in top-rated Phoenix or $171,000 in San Antonio-New Braunfels. Even in Austin, with its surging growth in technology and its role as state capital and home to a huge public university, the median home costs a relatively affordable $222,900, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Sometimes it‘s not just lower costs. If you are servicing Spanish-language customers, for example, a location in San Antonio, Phoenix or Austin with their large Spanish-speaking workforces might prove convenient. If you are interested in trade finance, Texas, now the leading export state, might prove attractive. Firms concentrating on mortgages might also see advantages in locating in places like Nashville, Phoenix, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio, which are all expected to add many more households, according to a recent Pitney Bowes survey, than much slower-growing locales in California or the Northeastern seaboard.
And then there is the unique case of Salt Lake, another emerging financial powerhouse. Mormons’ linguistic skills have attracted loads of big international companies, such as Goldman Sachs, who need people capable of conversing in Lithuanian, Chinese and Tongan. Goldman has 1,400 employees in Salt Lake City, making it the investment bank’s sixth largest location worldwide.
Future Trends
People tend to see the growth of the biggest banks as confirming the notion that economic opportunity will continue to be concentrated in our elite, expensive cities. Yet in reality urban growth patterns seem to suggest that these cities cannot easily accommodate mid-skill or middle-management jobs. So even as decision-making remains ensconced in New York, Boston or Chicago, the flow of the vast majority of financial jobs should continue to head outward.
This competition may become all the greater if, as Deloitte predicts, financial service employment begins to spike with a long-term economic recovery. Nor will the emerging financial states be satisfied long-term with the bottom end of the financial employment pool. Palm Beach, Fla., for example, has set up an office to lure hedge funds out of the New York area, touting warm weather and much lower taxes.
Increasingly, some New York financial institutions are starting move more critical roles to lower-cost areas, like investment advisory and technology jobs. Places like St. Louis, where the industry has grown and approaches critical mass, seem to be in position to make a serious bid for higher-end jobs.
Although no one expects Phoenix or Salt Lake City to overtake Manhattan as the financial center of the world, over time we can expect these cities to develop into important banking centers. Just as the move of automakers to the Southeast and tech companies to Austin, Salt Lake City and Raleigh remade the economic map of those industries, the shift of financial services to the new centers might eventually do the same in that sector as well.
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Arizona claims a whole list of artists who hail from, lived in, and got their starts in the state, and their music is more familiar than you might think — especially if you didn't know they're from the area. These artists have lent their music, vocals, and talents to the silver screen, both in low-budget independent films and blockbuster moneymakers. Here are nine you might recognize:
9. Zella Day – “Sacrifice” – Insurgent
This Pinetop-born singer-songwriter grew up spending time in her parents’ café/art space, whose regulars inspired her creative drive. Classic records and the surrounding nature of her town influenced her songs, which she started writing at age 9. Zella Day first gained recognition for her take on The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” but with the release of last year’s Kicker, she proved her worth as an original artist. She appears on the soundtrack of Insurgent, the second installment in Veronica Roth’s dystopian, post-apocalyptic trilogy of young adult novels, with her track “Sacrifice.”
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8. Jordin Sparks – “Celebrate” with Whitney Houston – Sparkle
Born in Phoenix and later attending Sandra Day O’Connor High School, Jordin Sparks won various local talent competitions and sang the national anthem for the Valley’s professional sports teams. After winning Arizona Idol, Spark caught her big break and rose to fame after winning the sixth season of American Idol at a mere 17 years old. Her debut album generated hits “No Air” and “Tattoo.” Sparks sings a duet with Whitney Houston on the single “Celebrate” from the 2012 remake of Sparkle, which chronicles the life of singer Sparkle Williams. It was the last song Houston recorded before her death.
7. Miniature Tigers – “The Wolf” – Easy A
Trio Miniature Tigers originated in Phoenix back in 2006, and quickly caught the likes of Rolling Stone and Spin as one of the year’s hottest up-and-coming bands. Their endearing nature — and the fact that frontman-guitarist Charlie Brand kisses either of his bandmates during each performance — make them memorable, and that earned them a spot on fun.’s tour supporting Some Nights. “The Wolf” is a track about a girl who is lusted after by many, and it plays quietly in the background of Easy A, Will Gluck’s Scarlet Letter-inspired film starring Emma Stone.
6. Michelle Branch – “Together” – Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Pop artist Michelle Branch hails from Sedona, where she began taking voice lessons at Northern Arizona University at age 8, composing original songs at 14, and switching to home school after her sophomore year of high school to focus on musical pursuits. Her supportive parents helped her book local gigs and even financed her independent debut album, but she signed with Maverick Records in the early 2000s and started cranking out catchy, radio-friendly songs perfect for preteen girls. It only makes sense that her song “Together” appears in the second installment of Ann Brashares’s Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book-series-turned-movies.
5. Meat Puppets – “Two Rivers” – Crime and Punishment in Suburbia
Alternative rock band Meat Puppets met at Brophy Prep in Phoenix and relocated to Tempe after graduation. The group began as a punk band but experimented with psychedelic and country sounds throughout the '80s on their many tours, while playing venues like The Mason Jar and The Sun Club. When Meat Puppets appeared as guest musicians on Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance, the band got exposure like never before, and experienced their most successful album the following year with Too High to Die. “Two Rivers” appears on the soundtrack for Crime and Punishment in Suburbia, the 2000 film loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel, Crime and Punishment.
4. Jimmy Eat World – “Seventeen” – Never Been Kissed
The beloved Jimmy Eat World formed in 1993 in Mesa and struck gold with “The Middle,” which remains one of the most memorable pop-punk tracks from the early 2000s. The group’s roots are in the punk rock common of local bands during that time period, and the name comes from a drawing made by guitarist Tom Linton’s younger brother, Ed, of other younger brother Jim shoving the world into his mouth. Never Been Kissed, the 1999 film about Drew Barrymore’s painfully single character reporting undercover at a high school, appropriately features JEW’s song, “Seventeen.”
3. Linda Ronstadt – "It's So Easy" — Brokeback Mountain
Tucson-born Linda Ronstadt boasts Grammys, a National Medal of Arts and Humanities, and a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, among her numerous other awards. She grew up listening to her family sing and play Mexican music, but her career started in folk as she fronted The Stone Poneys and later transitioned to post-60s rock as a solo artist. Ronstadt toured with the Doors, Neil Young, and Jackson Browne to garner fame while also singing on collaborative albums. The '70s saw Rondstadt's rise to the decade's most successful female solo artist, and she ended up on the cover of Time in 1977. "It's So Easy" appears in the predicament faced by the two male leads in that film is simple.
Waylon Jennings, left. Warren K. Leffler/Library Of Congress
2. Waylon Jennings – "Good Ol' Boys" — The Dukes of Hazzard
The late singer-songwriter Waylon Jennings was supposed to play bass for Buddy Holly. After switching spots on the fateful, fatal flight whose crash killed Holly and musicians Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, Jennings began a DJ career in Coolidge and Phoenix. He also formed rockabilly group The Waylors in 1961 as the centerpiece of JD's, the new Scottsdale club contracted by Jimmy D. Musiel. Jennings developed a fan base here and attracted the attention of local radio stations, which led to national recognition. In the late '70s, he joined the cast of The Dukes of Hazzard, the television series that led to the 2005 film by the same name. Jennings is The Balladeer, the show's narrator, and he composed the show's/film's theme song, "Good Ol' Boys."
EXPAND Alice Cooper's life of shock rock makes his late-life conversion to Christianity even more surprising. Maria Vassett
1. Alice Cooper – "Feed My Frankenstein" — Wayne’s World
We all know that Phoenix claims Alice Cooper for building his career here. After moving from Detroit in the '60s, he fronted rock band The Spiders, who later changed their name, legend has it, to Alice Cooper after a particularly memorable Ouija board experience. However, the band later debunked the myth in an interview. Alice Cooper (the band) realized their controversial aesthetic would draw attention, and it worked for the rest of the decade. The band released "School's Out" fame in 1972, and their track is still one of the most popular on classic rock radio. Mike Myers, the star of Wayne's World, is said to have requested "School's Out" for the soundtrack of the 1992 film, but "Feed My Frankenstein" was used instead.
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The outpouring of love in Montreal for Gary Carter when the former Montreal Expos catcher and Baseball Hall-of-Famer passed away from cancer at the age of 57 this past February 16 continues unabated.
A City of Montreal selection committee – with the participation of Carter’s family – is currently studying over 2,000 suggestions how to honour Carter (Montrealers had until March 31 to pitch ideas via the city’s website), former Expos Warren Cromartie’s Montreal Baseball Project will honour Carter at an 1981 Montreal Expos reunion weekend celebration in Montreal June 14-16, and TSN 990 AM Radio sportscaster David Kaufman has organized an “Evening for Gary Carter” silent auction and tribute at Hurley’s Irish Pub on May 3.
“I wanted Expos fans to have an opportunity to get together and celebrate all that Carter has done for baseball and for our city,” says Kaufman. “There was an incredible outpouring of emotion after The Kid passed away, and a yearning for baseball that hasn’t been felt in this town for a long time. Hopefully, a night like this will allow us to celebrate all the great times that Carter and the Expos brought us.”
Kaufman has lined up a stellar line-up of music acts, including Annakin Slayd who will perform his hip-hop tribute to Carter (watch the video below), The Blushing Brides, The Jimmyriggers, Kristen Bussandri, and Joseph Kearns. The host of the evening will be TSN 990 sportscaster Mitch Melnick.
There will also be a silent auction. Items up for bid include two Via Rail return tickets to Toronto plus two Blue Jays tickets and a night at the four-Star Grand Hotel on Jarvis Street, Just For Laughs tickets, a keg from Hurley’s, a Pete Rose bat, a rare collection of Denis Brodeur Expos photographs, a signed Jonah Keri book, artwork from Dwight Baird, restaurant certificates, etc.
All told – in addition to the $30 admission – Kaufman says he hopes to raise $10,000 for The Sarah Cook Fund at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.
“Carter did a lot of work for the Cedars Cancer Institute when he was playing here, so the Sarah Cook Fund for pediatric cancer – which is associated with the Cedars and the Montreal Children’s – seemed like the natural choice,” Kaufman says. “Plus, the Sarah Cook Fund is the beneficiary of the Kids for Kids gala, which seemed to me like a perfect choice when raising money in the name of ‘The Kid.’”
Tickets for an “Evening for Gary Carter” – to be held at Hurley’s Irish Pub (1225 Crescent) on May 3 beginning at 7:30 p.m – are $30 and are available at the downstairs bar at Hurley’s.
The Kaufman Show airs Monday nights at 11 pm on TSN 990 AM and www.TSN.ca/montreal/listen. Listen to podcasts of The Kaufman Show by clicking here.
And click POP TART here to read whether or not Warren Cromartie’s Montreal Baseball Project can really bring pro baseball back to Montreal.
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As the world waits to see if Apple’s business really has stopped growing because the momentum of iPhone sales increases has slowed down a bit, it confounds me yet again how little Wall Street gets “it”.
“It”
You’d think those highly-paid captains of that bailed out by the public industry, ensconced in their gold-encrusted ivory towers with their spreadsheets, tax avoidance advisors and bailiffs came from another planet.
You see, while the analysts hop, skip and jump in hope to make a few bucks the easy way by making guesses at AAPL stock, they’re missing the point.
The smartphone industry is transforming.
Think about it.
Connected
The entire planet is becoming connected one sensor at a time. As it is, artificial intelligence, proactive intelligence, big data and predictive analytics are becoming woven into every part of human life. We are entering a world defined by machine intelligence.
Computers are everywhere, and everything with an (electronic) pulse is becoming connected. And that’s changing the meaning of mobile.
Mobile is the network, but when the network itself becomes intelligent the actual devices we use to access that intelligence will also transform.
That’s the kind of future Apple Watch explores. An evolution toward an access all areas computing environment in which the devices you carry become the keys to using other connected devices around you. One day you won’t need a computer, just access to one. Like in the movies.
Transition
This kind of future is going to be explored in things like Apple Watch, Apple Car, iCloud services, Siri, Proactive and online services.
For Apple it’s an incremental progression from a risky past during which products drove all its revenue to a new model in which products are only part of the mix.
Apple is already deep into that journey. (It generated around $19.9 billion from iTunes-related services in fiscal 2015.)
This is a transition. Keep that in mind when Apple does or doesn’t announce unexpectedly healthy iPhone sales numbers later on today. We are moving away from the traditional connected device (the phone) toward a plethora of connected devices, in different forms.
Wearable
So how is Apple doing with its exploration of different kinds of connected device?
Some people claim Apple Watch has not sold as strongly as they had hoped. True or false, it doesn’t matter, Apple is learning its lessons and has sowed the seeds of innovation in that space, but there is one metric that suggests it is having more success than critics claim.
Swiss watch sales are down.
“December exports declined 3.8 percent,” Bloomberg Business reports. Jean-Louis Gassée’s Monday Note looked at this in a little detail.
He estimates 12 million Apple Watch sales so far, giving the company $6 billion income (on watches alone) in comparison to the $20 billion total of the Swiss watch industry.
Those are two key alternative data points the analysts really should consider before they rush off to join the lemmings jumping the cliff over iPhone sales.
iPhones are trucks
The lemmings don’t get that iPhones don’t matter any more. iPhones are going to be trucks. Just like PCs -- they’ll still be around, but the connected intelligence they provide will disappear into the background of our evolving existence within connected environments.
That’s the picture within which we should frame Apple news across the next few years. It is also why the company and its competitors will begin to explore new industries. And that future seems to me a whole lot more interesting than number-crunching AAPL stock prices, but each to their own.
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Debra Messing, Trevor Noah, and Whoopi Goldberg were among the high-profile winners at Saturday’s 28th Annual GLAAD Media Awards.
Following last month’s Los Angeles edition of the ceremony, the New York City event handed out hardware for some more journalism-centric categories, such as Outstanding Talk Show Episode going to The Daily Show‘s sit-down with businesswoman, actress, and transgender rights activist Angelica Ross and Outstanding TV Journalism Segment to The Rachel Maddow Show.
Receiving the prestigious GLAAD Excellence in Media Award was Will & Grace star Debra Messing. The award, whose past winners include Tyra Banks, Kelly Ripa, and Robert De Niro, goes to those who serve as an advocate of the LGBT community and further the movement for acceptance and equality.
Moonlight, Transparent, and Black Mirror previously took home honors for film and TV.
See more winners below.
Excellence in Media Award: Debra Messing
Vito Russo Award: Billy Porter
Outstanding Talk Show Episode: “Angelica Ross” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Comedy Central) [accepted by: Trevor Noah, Angelica Ross]
Outstanding Reality Program: Strut (Oxygen) [accepted by: executive producer Whoopi Goldberg, and cast members Cecilio “CeCe” Asuncion, Laith De La Cruz, Dominique Jackson, Isis King, Ren Spriggs, Arisce Wanzer]
Outstanding Documentary: Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four (Investigation Discovery) [accepted by: Kristie Mayhugh, Liz Ramirez, Cassie Rivera, Anna Vasquez, and director Deborah Esquenazi and producer Sam Tabet]
Outstanding TV Journalism – Newsmagazine: “Church and States” VICE on HBO (HBO)
Outstanding TV Journalism Segment: “Gay Community in U.S. ‘Forged in Fire’” The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC)
Outstanding Music Artist: Tegan and Sara, Love You to Death (Warner Bros. Records.)
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Egypt international Mohamed Salah’s move to English giants Liverpool is nearing completion after Liverpool give in to AS Roma demands.
Mohamed Salah is set to finalise his move to Liverpool after the club’s acceptance of AS Roma’s fee for the Egyptian winger.
Salah’s ongoing transfer saga to Liverpool has hit highs and lows but the club will submit a bid in the region of Roma’s valuation tomorrow, KingFut understands.
Ramy Abbas, Salah’s agent, arrived to England to hold crunch talks with the club and KingFut sources confirm that Liverpool have finally accepted that they’d have to break the bank to sign the winger.
Salah, who turned 25 this week, has had his best-ever season since going professional, scoring 19 goals in all competitions for Roma, despite missing almost a month and a half due to his presence with the Egyptian national team for the Africa Cup of Nations. At the AFCON in Gabon, Salah was involved in four of Egypt’s five goals with 2 goals and 2 assists as he led the Pharaohs to the finals, where they lost 2-1 to Cameroon.
📈 | @22mosalah is fresh off his highest-ever scoring season, #LFC fans hoping for some Egyptian magic 🎩. pic.twitter.com/sVBDYReg87 — KingFut.com (@King_Fut) June 1, 2017
It is worth noting that the Italians initially put a €50 million price tag for their star player, with Roma sporting director Monchi confirming this week than an offer had already been received from an ‘English club’ for Salah, but the club would not sell until their valuation was met.
Their first bid for the player came at £28.5 million, which was immediately rejected by Roma as they demanded a figure between £35 million to £40 million to part ways with Salah.
Sources confirm to KingFut that the next bid for Salah would be a record-fee €45 million, subject to approval, medical check ups and personal terms.
It is worth noting that the former Chelsea winger was one of only eight players in Europe’s top five league to record double figures for goals and assists last season.
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Biomutant Preview
Prior to attending PAX West 2017, I hadn’t given much thought to THQ Nordic and Experiment 101’s Biomutant. It generated a ton of buzz at Gamescom a couple weeks ago, and while the furry, gun toting creature moderately stirred my curiosity, I struggled to discern the considerable hype it had generated. As I sauntered past the game’s booth on the PAX West show floor, an open spot caught my eye. With twenty minutes to kill and nothing but my ignorance to lose I thought, “What the hell, I might as well see what all the commotion’s about.” Following my hands-on time with the game, it was inherently clear that what had initially sparked my curiosity, now has my full attention.
Biomutant is an ARPG based in a post-apocalyptic open-world inhabiting a mutated, raccoon-looking creature that knows kung fu, shoots guns, and has super powers. Believe me, it’s just as badass as it sounds. The game features a dynamic combat system that combines shooting, melee, and special abilities. You fight a myriad of bizarre enemies plaguing the land in order to reunite or eradicate the divided tribes existing within it.
At the start of the demo, you customize the physique of your mutated character. Altering your height and weight determines the attributes you begin with. The tall, muscular build I decided on granted me additional strength and vitality at the sacrifice of intellect. In other words, I was a dumb, mutated jock. You can also personalize the nature and colors of your fur too. Naturally, I chose the fluffiest coat available sporting COG maroon with a flare of white. After deciding between the path of the righteous or the anti-hero, I immediately encountered a hulking brute of some sort as I was introduced to the free-flowing kung fu fighting mechanics.
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“Biomutant is an ARPG based in a post-apocalyptic open-world inhabiting a mutated, raccoon-looking creature that knows kung fu, shoots guns, and has super powers. Believe me, it’s just as badass as it sounds.”
Combat is based on gunplay, melee attacks, and dodging. Fighting feels silky smooth as you constantly switch between firearms and melee weapons. I began with dual handguns and a massive sword. I quickly discovered that you can briefly slow down time if you shoot when leaping through the air. It’s incredibly effective as it enables you to dodge attacks while granting additional time to analyze the enemies surrounding you. In addition to hacking and slashing foes up close, you can perform a devastating spin attack. It’s perfect for groups of assailants that converge on you simultaneously.
Creativity and style are at the forefront of Biomutant’s combat system. You target enemies by locking on, which eliminates the requisite to aim. Shooting, slashing, leaping, and dodging are all a breeze in the heat of a fight. One second I’d be blasting an enemy from a distance, the next I’d be sliding between it’s legs to chop it from behind. Truthfully, it’s one of the smoothest third person combat systems I’ve ever experienced. The constant swap between weapons in combat feels nearly immaculate and is the preeminent factor contributing to my growing esteem for the game.
Following my triumph over several groups of enemies, I was introduced to crafting and mutant abilities. Scattered throughout the open world are materials that can be collected to craft weapons at a workbench. You can craft anything from enormous two-handed swords to a series of eccentric firearms. Weapons can be further enhanced with a series of attachable modules that can deal fire, frost, or poison damage. Slash an adversary with a poison module equipped and it’ll puke it’s guts out. Mutant abilities amplify combat and manipulate the environment. The Mothmouth ability spawns a swarm of insects that daze and confuse enemies. I found it to be especially effective when dealing with the larger groups of combatants. The fungi ability generates a mushroom that you can bounce on to overcome platforming obstacles. All of your mutant abilities can be upgraded periodically as you progress through the game. You can continue to manipulate your attributes by equipping variations of gear. By the end of my play through, I wore a suit of heavy armor and wielded a rifle decorated with buzzsaws.
In the final moments of the demo you get glimpse of the vibrant open world that awaits you. Beyond the tutorial area of the game lie vast mountains to traverse, underground caverns to explore, diverse enemies to combat, and strange characters to encounter. There’s seemingly a lot of ground to cover, so, whether by land, sea, or air, there’s a plethora of vehicles to take for a spin. I’m rather eager to uncover the secrets of my character and the peculiar world he inhabits.
Biomutant is distinct in the best ways possible. The world and characters are mystifying, the combat feels magnificent, play style is deeply customizable, and it all culminates into an alluring experience. Ultimately, I’ve only experienced a mere fragment of what Experiment 101’s open-world ARPG has to offer. Currently the game is slated for release sometime next year and will surely see evolution over the course of it’s continued development cycle. Also, I’m now aboard the hype train in case you haven’t already figured it out.
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Iran’s goal in Yemen is anchored in creating a political reality out of the Houthis, as it did with Hizbollah in Lebanon, argues Majid Rafizadeh
While Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister Javad Zarif set the tone, they do not enjoy the final say in Iran’s policy towards Yemen.
Instead, the major decision makers are Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Although there exist religious affinities between Iran and the Houthis, the convergence of a number of strategic interests is the main driving force behind Tehran-Houthi commonalities.
Mr Khamenei and the IRGC are utilising several means when it comes to Yemen’s war.
Iran’s supreme leader is heavily reliant on rhetoric and social media to spread his message on Yemen.
Currently, Iran’s message is that the war in Yemen is the struggle of “the oppressed” against the oppressors.
In addition, one of the core revolutionary slogans of the Islamic republic is that Iran views itself as the saviour of “the oppressed”.
As a result, Iran’s narrative towards the conflict in Yemen is placed within Tehran’s broader ideological principles.
The Supreme Leader has used his recent speeches to emphasise this principle.
Iran projects its role in Yemen as limited to humanitarian assistance in order to help the “oppressed”.
Iranian leaders have continually denied giving any military and weapons assistance to the Houthis, but why does it issue such denials?
An Iranian diplomat once told me it is not in its interests to advertise the deployment of hard power against the will of the majority.
Another layer of complexity is that the Iranian government views the war in Yemen through the terms of its rivalry with Saudi Arabia.
From the perspective of the Iranian leadership, the tension is deep-rooted: it is sectarian, ethnic, ideological, geopolitical and strategic.
Economically and financially speaking, for Iran, its role in Yemen is not especially costly.
Iran does not spend billions of dollars in Yemen as it does in Syria to maintain the bankrupt power of Bashar Al Assad.
In addition, Yemen does not pose a national security threat to Iran as it does to Saudi Arabia.
Although Iran’s role in Yemen is partially sectarian, it is mainly ideological, as Iranian leaders attempt to tip the regional balance of power and unsettle the regional order.
However, geopolitically and strategically speaking, Iran also uses Yemen to advance its revolutionary ideology.
Iran can also exploit its ties with the Houthis as an additional leverage against Saudi Arabia and its allies.
This leverage can be used by Iran as a strategic bargaining chip in future negotiations or to pressure Riyadh to change direction.
Although Iran pursues a sectarian and ideological agenda in Yemen, Iranian leaders skilfully attempt to avoid using sectarian language within this narrative. This is due to one of Tehran’s key revolutionary principles, which projects the supreme leader as the supposed leader of the Islamic world.
Mr Khamenei’s official website refers to him as the supreme leader of Muslims. Mr Khamenei has accused the West and its allies in the region of using sectarian language to divide and rule.
Iran’s goal in Yemen is anchored in creating a political reality out of the Houthis, as it did with Hizbollah in Lebanon.
This is to ensure Tehran’s influence in a country which borders its regional competitor.
Based on Mr Khamenei’s rhetoric and IRGC actions, the likelihood of Iran compromising in Yemen is very remote.
As a result, direct negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, with the mediating presence of the UN, would be a practical approach.
Dr Majid Rafizadeh is an Iranian-American Havard scholar and president of the International American Council on the Middle East
On Twitter: @dr_rafizadeh
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Patriots nose tackle Vince Wilfork, whose contract situation with the team has become a major storyline this offseason, has not only asked for his release but has also cleaned out his locker at Gillette Stadium, according to a Boston Herald report.From the Herald:
According to two sources, an angry Wilfork ripped his name plate off his locker stall, and cleaned out his locker. That's how Big Vince felt about the proceedings. Naturally, time and distance can change perspective, but Wilfork seemed convinced he was done in New England.
On Monday, Patriots owner Robert Kraft spoke out in support of keeping Wilfork. Speaking to reporters at the NFL owners meetings in Orlando, Kraft called Wilfork “one of my personal favorites’’ and said he hopes the two sides can come to a compromise. The Patriots are trying to decrease Wilfork’s $7.5 million base salary and $11.6 million salary cap number for this season, which is the final year of his contract with the team. From the Globe’s Ben Volin:
"In pro sports, it's a business as well as commitment to one another, and we have to work through it, and I'm still not giving up hope that he'd be part of our team next year," Kraft told a group of reporters. "Either we get it done or we don't. I very much hope we get it done, and I believe he very much would like to do it as well, and we've been so lucky to have him, so we'll see what happens."
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Kraft also told reporters, “Going back over the last 20 years, we’ve had some pretty special people come through, and he is one of my personal favorites. I’m thinking of Tedy Bruschi and Matt Light and Kevin Faulk and Troy Brown. They made their careers with us, and I surely hope Vince will be with us next year.’’
The 32-year-old Wilfork has been selected to five Pro Bowls since being drafted by the Patriots in 2004.
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THE NRL is set to trial a video referee bunker next season amid the ongoing discontent surrounding refereeing decisions.
The bunker has been on the agenda for some time but head of football Todd Greenberg announced on Wednesday the NRL aims to test what they’re calling a “central command centre” mid-way through the 2015 season which could even deliver match review charges as well as match decisions.
RUN HOME: END LOOMS FOR BRONCOS, DRAGONS
PANTHERS FAN ABUSES NRL TOUCHIE
While insisting he was happy with the standard of refereeing despite the complaints this season, Greenberg admitted there was room for improvement and believed having a smaller group of video referees involved could help.
media_camera Jamie Soward complains to referee Ben Cummins. Pic: Gregg Porteous
“Given the technology that’s available we have to look at ways to get better,” Greenberg said on Wednesday.
“The aim is to improve efficiency, consistency and accuracy for our match officials.
“We’ll undertake a feasibility study into a central command centre, where in-game decisions can be made by a smaller number of experts.
“We think this will have a real impact on consistency because the same group of people can make calls on various games around the round.
“It’s going to take some time but we’re hoping by mid-way through next season we can be trialling it at the same time as our current processes are in place.”
Greenberg sent a team to the US last year to research the costly centralised review technology used in both the NFL and NHL.
While saying trials will likely proceed next season he would not speculate when it could be officially introduced.
“The command centre is something we think could be a real game-changer for rugby league. It could be the biggest thing we’ve done since bringing video technology in,” said Greenberg.
“But it’s a significant investment. It will take millions of dollars to make happen.
“We’re going to put a detailed feasibility study in place to see if we can make it happen.” Greenberg said one of the main advantages would be the real-time decisions, with coaches possibly informed straight after the match who of their players have been charged and with what.
“We’re going to dare to dream about the possibilities of what it would look like, about putting other parts of the NRL business in football into one place,” he said.
media_camera Brett Stewart and Jamie Lyon try to understand a referee’s ruling against Parramatta. Pic: Mark Evans
“Not only reviewing decisions on the field (but) injury surveillance.
“Imagine our match review panel making decisions in real-time where a coach walks into a press conference and has a charge sheet already available to him.”
The NRL also announced other intiatives to help improve the stantard of refereeing for next season, including the expert help of former Australia cricket coach John Buchanan.
Buchanan will be hired alongside rugby league Immortal Bob Fulton to see if models used by officials in other sports could be borrowed from.
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New Fathers 4 Justice campaigner writes book covering court battles, David Cameron rooftop protest and parental alienation
Roger Crawford of Meppershall has written a book about his campaign for fathers' rights. Daniel Wilson
A dad who has spent years campaigning for fathers’ rights has written a book about the emotional abuse he says he suffered at the hands of the family courts when he was denied access to his only child.
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Roger Crawford has written a book about his struggle with the family courts Roger Crawford has written a book about his struggle with the family courts
Roger Crawford, of Shefford Road in Meppershall, says being prevented from seeing his daughter, Heather, grow up has been a torturous experience.
Despite fighting constantly to be part of her life, Roger has not seen his daughter for 21 years and says ‘parental alienation’ means the 23-year-old does not want to see him now.
Roger is a member of campaign group New Fathers 4 Justice and as such has taken part in a number of protests, including climbing onto the roof of Prime Minister David Cameron’s constituency office in Witney, for equal rights for fathers and reform of the family courts.
Roger, who dresses as a jester during protests, has now written a book called Rebel Without a Clue, The Jester’s Tale.
His struggle to be part of his daughter’s life is vividly recorded, including court battles, rooftop protests and representing the Equal Parenting Alliance when competing for the Oxford East set in 2010’s general election.
The 66-year-old, who was adopted at birth, said: “All I wanted was contact with my daughter, but I had a torrid time in the family courts.
“I found them adversarial rather than helpful and that’s why I joined New Fathers 4 Justice.
“This book exposes what fathers are forced to go through in the family courts, and parental alienation by mothers.
“Obviously there are some exceptions, but time and time again it has been proved that children are best brought up knowing both parents. Contact denial is emotional abuse.
“In 2010 David Cameron promised a presumption of shared parenting after family breakdown, but the government has failed to keep that promise.
“This lack of justice for children is one of the biggest social scandals of our time.”
Rebel Without A Clue, The Jester’s Tale is available from online retailer Amazon priced at £8.99.
To buy a copy search for ‘Roger Crawford’ under the books category at www.amazon.co.uk.
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This photo shows a drone and controller in Jessup, Md., that Maryland State Police and prison officials say two men planned to use to smuggle drugs, tobacco and pornography videos into a prison. Federal regulators are proposing a $1.9 million fine for a company that markets “bird’s-eye views” of some of the country’s most congested airspace. (David Dishneau/AP)
Federal regulators sent a shot across the bow of civilian drone operators Tuesday, proposing a record $1.9 million fine for a company that markets “bird’s-eye views” of some of the country’s most congested airspace and heavily populated cities.
“Flying unmanned aircraft in violation of the Federal Aviation Regulations is illegal and can be dangerous,” said Michael Huerta, head of the Federal Aviation Administration. “We have the safest airspace in the world, and everyone who uses it must understand and observe our comprehensive set of rules and regulations.”
In seeking the record civil fine against SkyPan International of Chicago, the FAA said the company conducted dozens of unauthorized drone flights over New York and Chicago, two of the nation’s most heavily trafficked airspaces.
“We haven’t had a chance to review it, so we can’t comment at this time,” Karl Brewick, production manager at SkyPan, said.
The FAA has been struggling to contain the use of drones that are now readily available to hobbyists and commercial operators who use them to meet a wide range of needs, including marketing real estate and covering sporting events.
This summer, two men were charged with attempting to use a drone to smuggle contraband into a Maryland prison. Last month, a drone crashed into an unoccupied section of the stands during a match at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York. Two days later, a drone crashed into the scoreboard at the University of Kentucky stadium. A drone crash-landed on the White House lawn in January.
But the biggest fear of federal regulators is that a drone will collide with an airplane in flight, possibly bringing down the aircraft with passengers on board.
[Rogue drones a growing nuisance across the U.S.]
As of Sept. 27, the FAA had logged 920 reports of drone sightings this year — most coming from commercial or general aviation pilots. An indication of the growing popularity of the unmanned aircraft comes in comparison with 2014, when just 288 sightings were reported.
FAA spokesman Les Dorr said the agency is unable to quantify how many drones are in private hands.
“There certainly are thousands, and probably hundreds of thousands,” Dorr said.
SkyPan has 30 days after receiving the FAA’s enforcement letter to respond to the agency. Unless the case is settled, the FAA will look to the Justice Department to file a civil complaint against SkyPan in U.S. District Court.
Dorr said the largest proposed fine before Tuesday’s action was lodged against Xizmo Media, a New York video company. Although that proposed fine was $18,700, he said most fines have ranged from $1,100 to $5,000.
[FAA records detail hundreds of close calls between airplanes and drones]
SkyPan markets itself primarily to urban developers who want to use aerial views in their planning, promising to provide “unique, 360-degree, ‘bird’s-eye views.’ ”
“Most clients first use our images for investor presentations . . . site positioning . . . price determination studies and architectural design planning,” the company says on its Web site.
The FAA said SkyPan conducted 65 flights over New York and Chicago to take photos or videos between March 21, 2012, and Dec. 15, 2014; 43 of them were over the highly restricted New York airspace.
The FAA said the drones used in flights over the two cities did not meet federal requirements.
They were flown without the necessary air-traffic-control clearance and were not equipped with two-way radios, transponders and altitude-reporting equipment. The drones also lacked airworthiness certificates and registrations.
The FAA said SkyPan operated the aircraft in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger lives or property.”
A House transportation subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday on ensuring aviation safety in the era of drones, the usage of which is expected to expand after the holiday season puts more of the devices into the hands of people who fly them as a hobby.
The subcommittee on aviation is scheduled to hear from FAA Deputy Administrator Michael G. Whitaker; James Hubbard of the U.S. Forest Service; Tim Canoll of the Air Line Pilots Association; Rich Hanson of the Academy of Model Aeronautics; and Mykel Kochenderfer, a Stanford University professor of aeronautics.
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It's Official, Cars 2 Is Pixar's First Bad Movie By Josh Tyler Random Article Blend Cars 2. It’ll be Pixar’s twelfth movie since they first began releasing them with Toy Story in 1995, and it’s also the animation studio's first bad one.
With 58 reviews in, Cars 2 currently has a Cars 2 will have a decidedly rotten score.
This isn’t some conspiracy by Rotten Tomatoes, it’s coming up negative pretty much everywhere else too. On Metacritic it currently has a 55/100 and on pretty much every other review compiler currently in existence, the movie’s average score is even worse.
For my part, I don’t think it is a bad movie. I’m one of the very few critics who submitted a
The numbers back that up pretty strongly. Before Cars 2 the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score any Pixar film has ever received was the 74% the first Cars ended up with in 2006. It shouldn’t be a surprise that making a sequel to their worst film might result in their first bad one, but Pixar’s track record has until now warranted confidence. Aside from the two Cars movies no Pixar movie has ever received a Rotten Tomatoes score lower than 90%. Here’s a breakdown of how their other movies have scored with critics over the years:
Toy Story (1995) | 100%
A Bug’s Life (1998) | 91%
Toy Story 2 (1999) | 100%
Monsters, Inc. (2001) | 95%
Finding Nemo (2003) | 98%
The Incredibles (2004) | 97%
Cars (2006) | 74%
Ratatouille (2007) | 96%
WALL-E (2008) | 96%
Up (2009) | 98%
Toy Story 3 (2010) | 99% Not only is Cars 2 set to become Pixar’s worst movie, it could end up as one of the worst reviewed computer animated movies of all time. DreamWorks Animation’s worst reviewed movie for instance, is Shark Tale, which earned a dismal 36%. Sony Pictures Animation’s worst reviewed movie is Open Season with a 47% score. 20th Century Fox backed Blue Sky Studios has made six computer animated features, and their worst reviewed movie is Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs with 45%. With its current RT score of 38% and dozens of reviews still to be turned in, Cars 2 stands a very real chance of ending up below all of them.
In some sense, the reviews Cars 2 is getting may be unfair. Audiences and critics have come to expect the best from Pixar, so when they turn in something less than, the reaction is sure to be much more pronounced than it would have been were Cars 2 released by hit or miss studios like Sony or DreamWorks. Maybe it is being graded on a Pixar curve, but whatever the reason, for Pixar this is the end of their unprecedented run.
No matter how it has fared on that Pixar scale, it’s all but certain that Cars 2 will still do well at the box office. Kids are clamoring to see it and audiences won’t want to believe what they hear from critics based on their past love of Pixar’s other films. I get it. You can’t blame them. We’ve always gotten the sense that for Pixar, it was about more than making money. I’m not sure I really believe Cars 2 is a cynical cash grab as much as it is a misstep. I want to believe that the people at Pixar still care, and if they still care, this is going to punch them right in the gut.
At least the ongoing internet debate over which movie is Pixar’s worst can finally end. Before Cars 2 the argument usually raged between fans of A Bug’s Life and Cars, but now we have something almost everyone will probably agree upon: Cars 2 is Pixar’s low point.
Let’s end on a positive note and celebrate all the great thing Pixar has accomplished during this unbelievable winning streak. Eleven incredible movies in a row, without a single mistake, is an achievement far more impressive than any Best Picture Oscar (which they should have won at least two of by now). So, cast a vote in the poll below for your favorite Pixar film, then hop down in the comments section on this page and tell us why it’s your favorite. Remember the good times, it’s the end of an era.
Tomorrow will be a dark day for movie lovers. On Friday, June 24, 2011 the most impressive winning streak in Hollywood’s history will come to an end with the release of. It’ll be Pixar’s twelfth movie since they first began releasing them within 1995, and it’s also the animation studio's first bad one.With 58 reviews in,currently has a 38% score on the review compiler Rotten Tomatoes. As I type this it’s sinking further. Any hope that this sequel might drift high enough to pass the 60% mark necessary to certify it as fresh, has now vanished. When you wake up tomorrow morning,will have a decidedly rotten score.This isn’t some conspiracy by Rotten Tomatoes, it’s coming up negative pretty much everywhere else too. On Metacritic it currently has a 55/100 and on pretty much every other review compiler currently in existence, the movie’s average score is even worse.For my part, I don’t think it is a bad movie. I’m one of the very few critics who submitted a positive Cars 2 review to Rotten Tomatoes. Yet my defense of it is only half-hearted, my review a mixed-positive at best, and even I readily admit that this is definitely Pixar’s worst effort yet.The numbers back that up pretty strongly. Beforethe lowest Rotten Tomatoes score any Pixar film has ever received was the 74% the firstended up with in 2006. It shouldn’t be a surprise that making a sequel to their worst film might result in their first bad one, but Pixar’s track record has until now warranted confidence. Aside from the twomovies no Pixar movie has ever received a Rotten Tomatoes score lower than 90%. Here’s a breakdown of how their other movies have scored with critics over the years:Not only isset to become Pixar’s worst movie, it could end up as one of the worst reviewed computer animated movies of all time. DreamWorks Animation’s worst reviewed movie for instance, is, which earned a dismal 36%. Sony Pictures Animation’s worst reviewed movie iswith a 47% score. 20th Century Fox backed Blue Sky Studios has made six computer animated features, and their worst reviewed movie iswith 45%. With its current RT score of 38% and dozens of reviews still to be turned in,stands a very real chance of ending up below all of them.In some sense, the reviewsis getting may be unfair. Audiences and critics have come to expect the best from Pixar, so when they turn in something less than, the reaction is sure to be much more pronounced than it would have been werereleased by hit or miss studios like Sony or DreamWorks. Maybe it is being graded on a Pixar curve, but whatever the reason, for Pixar this is the end of their unprecedented run.No matter how it has fared on that Pixar scale, it’s all but certain thatwill still do well at the box office. Kids are clamoring to see it and audiences won’t want to believe what they hear from critics based on their past love of Pixar’s other films. I get it. You can’t blame them. We’ve always gotten the sense that for Pixar, it was about more than making money. I’m not sure I really believeis a cynical cash grab as much as it is a misstep. I want to believe that the people at Pixar still care, and if they still care, this is going to punch them right in the gut.At least the ongoing internet debate over which movie is Pixar’s worst can finally end. Beforethe argument usually raged between fans ofand, but now we have something almost everyone will probably agree upon:is Pixar’s low point.Let’s end on a positive note and celebrate all the great thing Pixar has accomplished during this unbelievable winning streak. Eleven incredible movies in a row, without a single mistake, is an achievement far more impressive than any Best Picture Oscar (which they should have won at least two of by now). So, cast a vote in the poll below for your favorite Pixar film, then hop down in the comments section on this page and tell us why it’s your favorite. Remember the good times, it’s the end of an era. Which Pixar movie is your favorite? Cars 2
Toy Story 3
Up
WALL-E
Ratatouille
Cars
The Incredibles
Finding Nemo
Monsters, Inc.
Toy Story 2
A Bug's Life
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In a statement released on Monday, Statistics Canada announced that in 2016, as in 2011, there will be a compulsory short-form census and a voluntary national household survey. The mandatory long-form census that was controversially eliminated in 2010 is not scheduled to return, despite complaints about the quality of data produced by the voluntary survey in 2011.
But StatsCan has made one notable change to the process.
. . . in order to reduce the time required and to make it easier for Canadians to respond to the National Household Survey, income questions will be replaced with more precise tax and benefit data that have been available to Statistics Canada since 1985. As this will be done for all Canadians, income information for 2016 will be the most accurate in the history of the census.
What does this mean?
Within the 2011 national household survey were various questions about income. But respondents were also given the option to skip those, if they agreed to let Statistics Canada access information already provided in their tax filings.
To save time, each person can give Statistics Canada permission to use the income information already available in his or her income tax files . . .
The same option was available on the 2006 long-form census. According to Statistics Canada, the same approach has been used with other household surveys, and “the overwhelming majority of Canadians granted permission to Statistics Canada to access their data, rather than respond to detailed questions.” Starting in 2011, the agency says, it began informing respondents to other household surveys that income information would be used automatically. And that’s what will be the case for the 2016 census: Instead of the option to allow StatsCan to use income and benefit information, the information will be used automatically.
In addition to saving respondents time, StatsCan says it will save the agency money. In the case of 2016, income data will be linked to census responses.
Liberal MP Ted Hsu had proposed a private member’s bill to, among other things, reinstate the long-form census. That bill was defeated in February, but, at the time, he told me about a possible compromise: adding some number of questions to the short-form census to provide a better statistical basis. UBC economist Kevin Milligan dubbed this the “medium-form census” and Milligan says he’s somewhat pleased with the change. “I think it is a step toward a medium-form census,” he says. “If I couldn’t have a long-form census, and I was asked for one change to the short form, this is what I would have asked for.”
Hsu would still rather have the long-form census—something the Liberals are committed to reinstating if they form government—and notes that the voluntary nature of the NHS will still create problems. Hsu also thinks it would be useful to link tax and benefit data to the NHS so that income could be correlated with dwelling, education and labour market information. Milligan would also rather have income data linked to the NHS, but says, “Having it for short form gets you pretty close to the tools you need to make some decent weights that make all the other surveys (like NHS) more useful.”
And though Hsu doesn’t think the use of tax and benefit information is a big deal, he does think there needs to be a conversation about possible privacy implications if the government moves further to use administrative data that it already possesses. Back in 2010, when debate arose over the government’s decision to eliminate the long-form census, the Scandinavian model of data collection and use raised as a possible alternative, but the databases maintained by those countries might raise questions for Canadians about the handling of personal information.
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COLUMN ONE A Sleeping Lawyer and a Ticket to Death Row
George McFarland is awaiting execution in Texas. But his lawyers didn't mount much of a defense, and the state that leads the way in executions did little to ensure that he was competently represented.
Months after the trial ended with a conviction and death sentence, Benn was asked at a court hearing about his snoozing. "I'm 72 years old," he said. "I customarily take a short nap in the afternoon."
"Benn slept during great portions of the witness testimony," juror Mary Louisa Jensen said in an affidavit five years later. "It was so blatant and disgusting that it was the subject of conversation within the jury panel a couple of times."
During the 17-day trial, Benn's performance took a turn for the worse: He fell asleep.
Benn was 72 years old and had not handled a capital murder trial for at least 19 years. Nor did he jump headlong into the new case--he spent four hours preparing for the 1992 trial. Benn did not examine the crime scene, interviewed no witnesses, prepared no motions, did not request that any subpoenas be issued, relied solely on what was in the prosecutor's file, and visited his client only twice.
HOUSTON — When George McFarland was accused of robbing and killing a neighborhood grocery owner, he took the advice of an acquaintance and hired longtime criminal lawyer John E. Benn. That may prove to be a fatal mistake.
McFarland, now 39, is one of more than 450 people on death row in Texas and one of at least two with a lawyer who dozed off during their trials.
McFarland's writ of habeas corpus, which challenges the constitutionality of his conviction and sentence, is considered among the most significant pending in Texas because of the profound questions it raises about the quality of legal representation courts deem acceptable for a defendant facing capital punishment.
Since Texas reinstated the death penalty in 1977, the state has executed 224 people--137 while George W. Bush has been governor--three times as many as the next highest state, Virginia.
Although lawmakers in some states are questioning the wisdom of the death penalty and public support is declining in opinion polls, Bush maintains that everyone executed in Texas on his watch was guilty and "had full access to the courts."
In the McFarland case--and another--prosecutors acknowledge that sleeping occurred but say that should not bar the execution. Harris County prosecutors insist McFarland had a fair trial.
Critics of capital punishment vehemently disagree.
"For poor people facing the death penalty, this is what it means to be represented by 'the Dream Team,' " said attorney Stephen B. Bright of Atlanta, who specializes in capital appeals as director of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
A Fateful Choice
In Texas, where there is no public defender system for capital cases, numerous defendants have been poorly represented by unskilled lawyers, many of whom were appointed by trial judges, said Elisabeth Semel, who heads the American Bar Assn.'s death penalty representation project. Houston judges, in particular, have had a reputation for appointing lawyers who moved cases along rapidly and often had greater loyalty to the jurists than to their clients. Two lawyers, favored by certain judges but widely criticized by leading legal experts, wound up with 10 and 12 clients respectively on death row.
For that reason, McFarland decided to hire a lawyer on his own. Clearly, he made a poor choice, according to the trial judge in the case, Doug Shaver, who prosecuted 18 murder cases as an attorney and has presided over dozens while on the bench.
"I knew John Benn. I knew he wasn't competent," Shaver said in a courthouse interview in late June. The judge said Benn had the appearance of "a heavy drinker. . . . His clothes looked like he slept in them. He was very red-faced; he had protruding veins in his nose and watery red eyes. . . . I can't imagine anyone hiring him for a serious case."
So Shaver appointed a second lawyer, Sandy Melamed, to assist Benn.
Melamed had never worked on a capital case before and remained deferential, even though he saw Benn's limitations.
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Gaslamp Games is quite pleased to announce a free downloadable content pack for Dungeons of Dredmor that we’ve put together with the cooperation of a handful of the Dredmor community’s top modders. To wit:
Expanded Features
Steam Workshop; mod integration with Steam! We’re turning it on! It’s Steamy!
Battle Geology , a wizard-like warrior skill with earth-shattering consequences by the terribly mysterious Null (how mysterious? terribly.)
, a wizard-like warrior skill with earth-shattering consequences by the terribly mysterious (how mysterious? terribly.) Clockwork Knight and Rogue Scientist , a pair of crafty steampunk skill lines by the too-clever-by-half Ruigi
and , a pair of crafty steampunk skill lines by the too-clever-by-half Warlockery , the wizard skill for wizards who would rather by warriors, by the utterly mad Essence — he wrote over 500 lines of xml for one spell.
, the wizard skill for wizards who would rather by warriors, by the utterly mad — he wrote over 500 lines of xml for one spell. A mess of twisty little rooms, all different, created by the deranged architect our mortal speech renders “ Bergstrom “; The geometry is all wrong.
“; The geometry is all wrong. And to inhabit the renovated Dungeons of Dredmor we’ve summoned a pack of new monster variations dug up by one FaxCelestis , from the existentially troubling Poorly Cloned Hero to the lofty Diggle Rocketeer.
Naturally there are some new items and other such nonsense happening which you’ll have to discover on your own.
You Have To Name The Expansion Pack for Dungeons of Dredmor will be released very soon — We just need to do a couple rounds of testing and hook up all the Steam Workshop internet-pipes. If you would like to participate in the beta have a wander through our IRC channel.
To the modders:
Thanks guys for keeping the lid on this one for so long – and for the ridiculous amount of hard work you’ve put into this whole thing. Seeing as how the whole pack is built on your scripts and designs, it could not have happened without you.
This pack is for you and all the other modders out there – here’s hoping the Steam Workshop helps you get your work out to Dredmor players everywhere*.
(*For values of everywhere that are on Steam, of course. Um. There’ll always be our modding forum for everyone else.)
More screenshots:
We’ll keep you posted.
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Wisconsin took some time out of its bowl preparation Sunday to check out the Green Bay Packers-Chicago Bears game, which was a duel for a playoff spot - winner went on to the postseason, the loser went home.
So, it was no surprise that most of the Wisconsin players were glued to the television as the Packers trailed 28-27 with less than a minutes remaining.
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That was, however, until Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers found a wide-open Randall Cobb open 48 yards down the field for the game-winning score.
And the Wisconsin players went crazy.
Well, everyone except for redshirt freshman running back Vonte Jackson, who is sad panda while wearing the jersey of Bears’ running back Matt Forte. Since I have no dog in this fight, I would have loved to see the video of Jackson as the lone celebrator while the rest of his team looked at him in disgust.
Not sure that would have topped the player that jumps into the other player's arms, which is absolutely classic. It's almost like they were getting black uniforms for the first time.
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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter!
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English actress, dancer, and former singer
Billie Paul Piper (born Leian Paul Piper; 22 September 1982)[1] is an English actress, dancer, and former singer, from Swindon, Wiltshire. She made her debut in Scratchy & Co. (1995–1998), and at the age of 15, she signed a recording contract and released her debut single "Because We Want To", which entered at the top of the UK Singles Chart and made her the youngest artist ever to enter at number one on the chart. The single was followed by Piper's album Honey to the B (1998), which was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand and platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. In 2000, she released her second album, Walk of Life. In 2003, she retired from the recording industry and launched an acting career.[2]
Piper's transition into acting began in 2003. She played Rose Tyler, companion to The Doctor from 2005 to 2006, in the BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who, reprising the role in 2008,[3] 2010, and 2013.[4] From 2007 until 2011, she starred as the high-flying escort Belle de Jour in the television series Secret Diary of a Call Girl. She also starred as Brona Croft/Lily in the Showtime series Penny Dreadful.
More recently, Piper has taken to the stage. She has starred in five plays and picked up numerous Best Actress awards, most notably a Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in Yerma. She went on to pick up a total of six Best Actress awards for that one performance, including the Olivier Award, making Piper the only actor to have picked up six out of an available six Best Actress awards for a single performance.
Early life [ edit ]
Piper was born in Swindon, Wiltshire. Her first name, Leian, was legally changed to Billie on 25 April 1983, by her parents, Paul Victor Piper and Mandy Kane Kent.[5] She has one younger brother, Charley, and two younger sisters, Harley and Elle.[6] She studied at the Sylvia Young Theatre School and Bradon Forest School.[7][8]
Career [ edit ]
Music [ edit ]
Honey to the B [ edit ]
Piper's career began when she was selected to appear on the Saturday-morning children's television show Scratchy & Co. She later landed a role in a television commercial promoting the pop magazine Smash Hits. She was offered a record deal at the age of 15, and in 1998, became the youngest artist ever to debut at number one in the UK Singles Chart with "Because We Want To", released under the stage mononym "Billie".[9] Her follow-up single "Girlfriend" also debuted at number one.
Piper's debut album Honey to the B was released immediately afterwards, and debuted and peaked at number 14 in the UK album charts, selling more than 300,000 copies in the UK alone along with a platinum certification, and a 2x platinum certification in New Zealand, where it reached number three. However, Honey to the B found limited success in other territories, such as Australia, where it debuted and peaked at number 31 despite the success of "Honey to the Bee", and in the US, it almost went completely unnoticed, peaking at number 17 on the Heatseekers.[10]
At the 1998 Smash Hits Poll Winners' party, Piper was nominated for Best New Act (for which she came second, it being won by B*Witched) and won Princess of Pop (she was the first to win this award). She then released "She Wants You" as the third single from the album. The song reached number three. "Honey to the Bee" was released as the fourth single from the album; like the previous single, it reached number three. At the same time, "She Wants You" was released in the US, reaching number 9 on the "Hot Club Dance Play" chart.
In 1999, Piper was nominated for two BRIT Awards and won two awards at the 1999 Smash Hits Poll Winners' party, although she was reduced to tears at the latter ceremony after being booed by fans of Ritchie Neville, whom she was dating at the time. She then started to tour and release in Asia. The singles and the album were released during mid- to late 1999. In August of that year, the follow-up to "Because We Want To" was released in Japan, a single comprising "Girlfriend" and "She Wants You" combined. She recorded a song for Pokémon: The First Movie titled "Makin' My Way (Any Way That I Can)".[11]
Walk of Life [ edit ]
Piper in 2004
During that time, Piper recorded her second album. She decided to release further records under her full name of Billie Piper. She returned to the Singles Chart in May 2000 with her third number-one single "Day & Night". She waited until September to release "Something Deep Inside", which reached number four, but her success waned. In October 2000, Piper released her second album, Walk of Life, which reached #14 in the UK Album Chart, but quickly fell off the charts and was certified silver in the UK. The album only charted in two other countries: New Zealand, where it reached #17 only, and Australia, where it was a minor success and peaked at #23. In Piper's autobiography, she states that the album was a "commercial bomb". The song "Walk of Life", the final single off this album, was released in December 2000 and reached #25 in the UK Singles Chart.
In February 2001, Piper appeared in court to testify against a woman named Juliet Peters. Peters was charged with, and eventually convicted of, stalking as well as making numerous threats against Piper and members of her family.[12] Peters received psychiatric treatment as part of her sentence. According to her autobiography, Piper was reluctant about the court case, but was pushed by her parents and her label. She also stated in the book that this was why "The Tide Is High" was not released as a single, writing: "The court case succeeded in doing what I alone could not – cutting the ties. Without it I might have been tempted back."
In January 2007, BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles started a campaign to get "Honey to the Bee" back into the top 100 on download sales as a way of testing out new chart rules that favour download sales.[13] The campaign was successful, with "Honey to the Bee" re-entering the official UK singles chart at #17, eight years after it was first released.
Acting [ edit ]
Doctor Who [ edit ]
In the autumn of 2003, it was announced that Doctor Who would be resurrected in 2005 after a sixteen-year absence from TV; the casting of Piper as Rose Tyler, a travelling companion to the ninth incarnation of The Doctor (to be played by Christopher Eccleston), was announced in May 2004. Piper won the Most Popular Actress category at the 2005 and 2006 National Television Awards for her work on Doctor Who.[14] BBC News named her one of its "Faces of the Year" for 2005, primarily due to her success in Doctor Who. At The South Bank Show Awards in January 2006, she was awarded The Times Breakthrough Award for her successful transition from singing to acting. In March, the Television and Radio Industries Club named her as the best new TV talent at their annual awards ceremony. In September, she was named Best Actress at the TV Quick and TV Choice Awards.[15]
After the completion of the very successful first series of the revamped Doctor Who, the British media regularly released conflicting reports about how long Piper would be staying with the show. In March 2006, she claimed that she would continue on Doctor Who into its third series in 2007.[16] In May, however, she was reported to be considering quitting the series, although she did express an interest in playing a female version of the Doctor in the future (possibly related to a proposed Doctor Who spin-off series about Rose, which was later dropped).[17] In June, the BBC announced that she was to depart in "Doomsday", the final episode of the second series.[18] Her decision to leave had been made a year previously, but remained a secret until news of her departure became public.[19] Although Piper was absent in the 2007 series, her character Rose was mentioned several times and seen in archive footage on some occasions. In November 2007, the BBC confirmed that she would reprise her role as Rose Tyler in the fourth series of Doctor Who for three episodes. Later, it was confirmed by Russell T. Davies in Doctor Who Magazine that this return had been planned since she left. It was also revealed in Doctor Who Confidential that Piper had made arrangements to return as Rose since she decided to leave.
The series began in April 2008,[3] and after several cameos, Piper made her official return as Rose in the series four final episodes "Turn Left", "The Stolen Earth", and "Journey's End". She did not initially state whether she would be reprising the role again. Interviewed on Doctor Who Confidential, she commented that "it's never really the end for the Doctor and Rose, but it's certainly the end for the foreseeable future".[20] She reprised her role as Rose Tyler in "The End of Time", the last of the 2008–2010 Doctor Who specials,[21] as a younger version of Rose Tyler (specifically 3 months before her initial meeting with the Ninth Doctor in 2005 episode Rose).
In January 2013, Piper stated on The Graham Norton Show that she had not asked to return for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who,[22] however, the BBC announced in the following March that she would be returning in the special,[4] titled "The Day of the Doctor", which was broadcast in November 2013. Despite being credited as Rose Tyler, Piper's actual role in the episode is the consciousness of "The Moment", a sentient weapon which takes on the form of Rose's "Bad Wolf" personality.
Piper returned to the role of Rose Tyler alongside David Tennant in three stories that form Volume 2 of The Tenth Doctor Adventures audio drama series from Big Finish Productions. One story also features Camille Coduri reprising her role as Rose's mother Jackie Tyler.[23] The set was released in November 2017. It was later announced that Piper would be headlining her own Big Finish audio drama titled Rose Tyler: The Dimension Cannon. The series will feature four stories with Rose Tyler alongside her parents Jackie (Coduri) and Pete Tyler (Shaun Dingwall) and is set for a September 2019 release.[24]
Secret Diary of a Call Girl [ edit ]
Piper starred as Hannah Baxter in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, an ITV2 adaptation of Brooke Magnanti's The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, a memoir detailing the life of a high-class prostitute who adopted "Belle de Jour" as her pseudonym, which aired from September 2007. As part of her preparation for the role, Piper met the memoir's author two years before her identity as a research scientist was revealed in a Sunday newspaper: "I absolutely had to meet the person behind the words to be able to take the part... people did ask me about her and I just had to smile, to avoid giving anything away."[25]
A second season, with Piper again in the starring role, started filming in May 2008, during which two body doubles were hired to hide Piper's pregnancy during the sex scenes.[citation needed].[26] Piper was also quoted during this time as worrying that she may have "ruined her future career" due to the nature of the topless scenes and other sexual scenes required.[27] The third season began airing in January 2010.[28] For the third and fourth series Piper was credited as executive producer.
In January 2010, tying in with the broadcast of the third season and following on from the real Belle de Jour confirming her real identity, ITV2 broadcast an interview special, Billie and the Real Belle Bare All, which saw Piper meeting with Dr. Brooke Magnanti on camera for the first time.[29]
Penny Dreadful [ edit ]
On 11 May 2014, Showtime aired a new horror series called Penny Dreadful in which Piper plays Brona Croft, a poor Irish immigrant who is trying to escape a dark past.[30] In the show's second season, Brona is resurrected by Victor Frankenstein as "Lily".[31] She was nominated for "Best TV Supporting Actress" in the 2015 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards. The show was renewed for a third and final season, which she began filming on 17 September 2015.
Yerma [ edit ]
In 2016, Piper starred in an adaptation of Federico García Lorca's 1934 play Yerma at the Young Vic, written and directed by Simon Stone.[32] Upon opening the play received critical acclaim, namely for Piper's performance. She was described as "earth-quaking" by The Guardian[33] and "a generation's greatest performance" by The Stage.[34] The Independent described her as "shattering" with the reviewer admitting he found himself "still visibly shaking from its effects on the Tube home afterwards." [35] The Jewish Chronicle warned that Piper's performance was "dangerously draining" [36] whilst The Arts Desk told its readers that her performance was "an utterly grueling, almost unbearable 100 minutes." [37]
In total, Piper went on to pick up a total of six out of an available six Best Actress awards for that one performance, making it one of the most acclaimed and awarded stage performances in British theatre history - and making her the only female actor to have picked up all six Best Actress awards for a single performance. Among others, she fended off competition from former Labour MP and veteran actor Glenda Jackson to win the coveted Olivier Award for Best Actress. See main article: List of awards and nominations received by Billie Piper
On 31 August, Yerma streamed live into more than 700 cinemas across the UK. Whilst ticket sales are yet to be confirmed, more than 100 cinemas confirmed they had sold out to capacity with many requesting encore copies.[38] In an unprecedented event, after the live screening had finished, '#Yerma' trended on Twitter at number three, with some writers claiming Twitter had 'gone into complete meltdown' over Piper's performance.[39] The play was streamed across the world, including America, from 21 September.
Piper reprised the performance in a limited run at New York's Park Avenue Armory during March and April 2018. The performances marked her NY stage debut. She once again received unanimous critical praise.[40] The New York Times said Piper's performance was "an unconditional victory" and "blisteringly powerful" [40] awarding it five stars, whilst Hollywood Reporter found her "simply staggering" adding; "When the actress appears at the curtain call, looking emotionally and physical exhausted, you find yourself relieved that she's OK and concerned that she'll have to do it all over again the next night." [41] Time Out likened Piper to an "angry beast" warning that her "astonishing" performance inflicted psychological-like emotions on the audience. NBC's Katie Englehart said "Piper is so devastating I almost vomited in my seat - that doesn't sound like an endorsement but it is." [42] Vogue hailed Piper as "one of the great talents of her generation" and described her performance as "astonishing, raw, feral and terrifying." The AM New York critic claimed to be left "gasping for air" whilst the New York Stage Review found Piper's "downward spiral into abyss utterly harrowing and blazingly remarkable." [42]
Other work [ edit ]
Piper in 2015
Piper in 2016
In 2004, Piper appeared in the films The Calcium Kid and Things to do Before You're Thirty. Shortly before starting work on Doctor Who, she had a starring role in the horror film Spirit Trap, released in August 2005 to poor reviews. In November 2005, she starred as Hero in a BBC adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, updated for the modern day in a similar manner to the Canterbury Tales series in which she featured, with Hero now being a weather presenter in a television station.
Piper completed work on two stand-alone television productions. In the first, a BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman's historical novel The Ruby in the Smoke which was broadcast in December 2006, she played protagonist Sally Lockhart, a Victorian orphan. The BBC planned to film all four of Pullman's Sally Lockhart novels, with Piper continuing in the role in The Shadow in the North, which was shown in December 2007. Piper made her stage debut in a touring production of Christopher Hampton's play Treats, which opened in early 2007 in Windsor, Berkshire. Treats was to have ended its tour in the West End, at the Garrick Theatre, starting in February 2007 with previews. The play officially closed in May.[43]
In 2007, Piper appeared as Fanny Price in an adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park, screened on ITV1.[44] This was her first acting role on television for a broadcaster other than the BBC.
Piper has provided voice-overs for various television commercials, including one for Comfort fabric-softener airing in June 2007 and Debenhams airing in 2011. She also shared the role of Betty with Sue Johnston in the two-part TV adaptation of A Passionate Woman, screened on BBC 1 in April 2010.[45][46]
In May 2011, it was announced that Piper would join the cast of a romance-comedy film directed by Robin Sheppard titled Truth about Lies.[47]
Piper played Carly in the UK premiere of Neil LaBute's play reasons to be pretty at the Almeida Theatre, running from November 2011 to January 2012. It received critical acclaim, with Quentin Letts claiming it was "one of the better theatre productions I have seen".[48] The Guardian, The Observer, Daily Mail, London Evening Standard, Metro, The Times, The Telegraph, Time Out, The Arts Desk, Daily Express, and The Financial Times all gave the production rave reviews with a minimum of four stars.[49]
BBC Radio 4 reviewed the show live, applauding Piper as "fantastic, completely brilliant. Her performance is so convincing and moving, an absolutely terrific performance".[50] The Jewish Chronicle hailed Piper's performance as second to none, being the best of the night, and stating that "no actor can cry more convincingly than Piper", giving the show four stars.[51]
Piper made her National Theatre debut in The Effect by Lucy Prebble, which ran from November 2012 to February 2013.[52] The play went on to become the most critically acclaimed show of the season with Piper going on to be nominated for the WhatsOnStage Best Actress award for her work in The Effect. The play was also nominated for Best New Play and Best Set Designer.[53][54]
Due to success and demand, the show was extended for a further month and an online petition was started for the show to be added to the National Theatre's Live Programming.[55] In 2013, Piper was nominated for Best Actress at the Olivier Awards and Evening Standard Theatre Awards for The Effect.[56][57]
Piper also starred in Great Britain at the Royal National Theatre in 2014.[58] On 29 May 2014, Piper appeared alongside Ben Whishaw in the Playhouse Presents television special Foxtrot.[59]
Piper will appear alongside Sally Hawkins, Alice Lowe, and David Thewlis in Eternal Beauty, directed by Craig Roberts.[60]
Personal life [ edit ]
Piper married DJ, television presenter and businessman Chris Evans in a secret ceremony in May 2001, in Las Vegas after six months of dating. Their marriage attracted much comment due to Piper being 18 at the time of the ceremony, and Evans being 16 years older than her.[61] The couple separated in 2004, and divorced in May 2007.[62] They have remained friends.[63]
A report in The Independent on 27 June 2006 stated that Piper had declared she did not wish to claim any money from Evans' reported £50,000,000 wealth or his £540,000 annual salary from BBC Radio 2. In an interview with the Radio Times, she said: "I'm not taking a penny from him. I think that's disgusting." She also revealed that she ended her singing career with very little money.[64] Evans has admitted that the sixteen-year age gap was a reason for the divorce.[65]
Piper married actor Laurence Fox in December 2007, at St. Mary's Church in Easebourne, West Sussex,[66] where they lived as of 2007.[67] Their first son, Winston James, was born in October 2008, via emergency C-section after a 30-hour labour.[68][69] They had a second son, Eugene Pip, in April 2012.[70][71] On 24 March 2016, Fox announced on his Facebook page that the pair had split after eight years of marriage. He stated that no third party was involved in the separation.[72] On 12 May 2016, it was announced that Piper and Fox had divorced.[73] Piper began dating Tribes frontman Johnny Lloyd in 2016. On 1 August 2018 it was announced that Piper was pregnant with her third child.[74] She gave birth to a daughter, Tallulah, in early January 2019.[75]
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
Stage [ edit ]
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
Discography [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
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Politics lost, culture won.
It is the best and worst of times for progressives and liberals.
Politically, their obsessions with identity politics and various racial and gender -isms and -ologies have emasculated the Democratic party: loss of governorships, state legislatures, the House, the Senate, the presidency, and the Supreme Court.
Democrats, for the time being at least, are now reduced to largely a coastal, big-city party. It can certainly pile up lots of blue electoral votes. And, thanks to California, Democrats can capture the popular vote, without necessarily winning presidential elections.
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The old liberal idea that the new demography is progressive destiny did not work out as planned. When the Blue Wall crumbled; Hillary Clinton lost a sure-thing election. Large Latino populations in red Texas and blue California are not likely to turn either one into a swing state. Inner-city voters so far have not transferred prior record levels of turn-out and bloc voting to candidates of the Hillary Clinton sort. Identity politics did not ensure that the white liberals who created it were always exempt from the natural boomerang of their own ideology.
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24/7 Sermonizing
Yet culturally, the progressive octopus continues to recalibrate popular life according to the new orthodoxies shared by a minority of the population.
Indeed, the octopus has formidable and far-reaching tentacles that reach into every crevice of modern American life. Our progressive mollusk is big, and he swims with us everywhere.
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Most Americans are quite willing to concede spheres of partisanship — but not lawlessness. Some colleges, such as Evergreen State or UC Berkeley, while public and tax-supported, are, by definition, leftist in the manner that a private Hillsdale College or Saint Thomas Aquinas are traditionalist and conservative. But whereas the latter are calm and tolerant of dissent; the former, with public monies, are hysterical and often Stalinist when confronted by opposing views. That disconnect is unsustainable.
Most citizens are fine with the fact that Fox News is the conservative cable-channel bookend to the progressive MSNBC. Americans realize that a different sort of crowd goes to a NASCAR race than watches the Tour de France.
But what is bothering half the country is not such ideological birds-of-a-feather tribalism per se. The rub instead is the progressive attempt to undermine all shared public institutions by turning them into left-wing megaphones and in the process condoning the use of violence, obscenity, and racialism.
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So it is not quite accurate to complain of the “politicization of everything,” given that the phenomenon is largely a progressive project in which nothing is much sacred from left-wing political hectoring — our vocabulary, the very cars we drive, even the TV shows we watch.
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No Escape
Why are the major private research universities such as Yale, Harvard, Duke, and Stanford, not just liberal but fully in service to a left-wing social agenda? Do they not all pile up huge billion-dollar endowments that are not taxed, thus robbing taxpayers of considerable annual revenue, while they turn out more biased yet less educated students?
Network news was always liberal. Yet in the last decade, ABC, NBC, and CBS, along with PBS and NPR, as well as their cable counterparts such as CNN, have become veritable progressive operatives. Mention of transgenderism, gay marriage, abortion, global warming, and identity politics will be massaged to promote a progressive position that was once held only by minority — until the position morphs into an intolerant mainstream orthodoxy that does not allow dissent.
Sometimes the scripted metamorphosis takes just a few years. Obama’s loud support of traditional marriage in 2008 changed to support for gay marriage in 2012. And when he left office, he conformed to the idea that only homophobes agreed with the position he’d held a few years earlier. Bill Clinton’s stance not too long ago on legal-only immigration would reduce him to a nativist racist by today’s progressive standards.
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Whether it is a 2006 or 2016 Oscar ceremony, it matters little. Some actor, some screenwriter, some director is eager to lecture the audience (to applause) and a national television audience (to mute disdain) that George W. Bush or Donald Trump (the conservative names come and go; the progressive hysterical outrage stays the same), is a fascist, or a Nazi, or a buffoon, or a criminal.
Thanks, but No Thanks
The result is that increasingly millions of Americans do not watch the Oscars as they once did in the days of the liberal but mostly sensible Hollywood of Doris Day, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier, Debbie Reynolds, Jimmy Stewart, and John Wayne. The Emmy Awards are even more polarizing in their lockstep messaging that resembles the dreariness of a May Day parade on a cold Soviet Moscow morning.
Half of America no longer goes to the movies, for reasons that transcend the advent of cable TV and computer viewing. They are bored with the latest predictable remake of a far better earlier movie — now updated with tattooed, white villains speaking in a Russian, South African, or southern accent, diabolically seeking to harm a young, picture-perfect progressive social-justice warrior as she uncovers the racist, sexist, and homophobic machinations of an evil corporation or government agency, run by a white male cabal, that aims to pollute the water, dirty the air, or rob noble progressive victims.
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Much of America finds Hollywood a boring Pravda enterprise. It is hypocritical too in the Soviet style of a privileged apparat — given that movies are the products of huge corporations and multimillionaire actors who live apartheid existences.
Sports used to be sacred. Not now.
ESPN op-eds dressed up as sports analyses are not subtle. The working-class audience is often assumed to be bigoted in some way; the wealthy and elite sportscasters, athletes, and media celebrities imagine that they themselves are virtuous and exempt from their own criticism.
Colin Kaepernick was the straw that broke the viewing audience’s proverbial back. He is lionized as Martin Luther King Jr. rather than portrayed as a confused young man of so-so talent, pampered by a multimillion-dollar salary. He and his newfound followers will not stand for the anthem of the country that ensured that the National Football League would be the most ethnically diverse athletic corporation in the world, with the most highly compensated players, and dependent on fans who would scrimp to pay outrageously high sums for tickets and cable packages just to see a simple football game — only to be insulted as the supposedly guilty party.
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The result is Orwellian on two counts.
One, the NFL is an admirably meritocratic enterprise, absolutely immune from the progressive dictums of “proportional representation” (diversity in the workplace and university must reflect the race, gender, and ethnic ratios of the general population) and “disparate impact” (there is no need to show that the NFL is racialist in order to force it to diversify). Otherwise, the NFL, as in the case of universities or other publicly subsidized entities, would demand that player rosters “look like us.” That is, they’d make the necessary adjustments to ensure affirmative action for underrepresented Latino, Asian, and white players — in the manner that UC Berkeley currently takes steps apparently to keep it from becoming an Asian-majority university based on merit and skills.
The subtext of not saluting the flag seems predicated on the notion of a racist white America, which in overwhelming numbers watches, enjoys, and pays for a mostly black NFL.
Two, the subtext of not saluting the flag seems predicated on the notion of a racist white America, which in overwhelming numbers watches, enjoys, and pays for a mostly black NFL. Do the players, then, not wish their viewer base to keep watching, given its supposedly illiberal temperament and contemptible respect for the National Anthem?
The Soviet Strangulation of Thought
Major weather disasters are now almost immediately contextualized in progressive terms (often on the air by news readers) — and not just by politicians. (Do we remember Barack Obama’s saying “10,000” died in a Kansas tornado because George W. Bush had shorted the National Guard?)
A drought is proof of climate change. But so is a deep freeze. Storms or the doldrums, it doesn’t matter: Greedy corporations and clueless, in-hock consumers are the carbon culprits. A tsunami or a receding sea, fog, or sun — climate change did it. When everything is proof of climate change, then nothing is.
Before 2017 there may have been a decade-long dearth of hurricanes into the Caribbean. There may have been a number of scientists who stated on the record that two large late summer storms in 2017 were not proof of global warming. Surely there is room for reasoned debate?
Again, no. All the pop-culture talking heads, from somber pundits to late-night television hosts, explained Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in a drearily similar way: Americans’ wasteful consumption of carbon energies had heated the planet and brought down upon them a Biblical retribution of bad weather.
Some even went so far to point out that the work of divine retribution had deliberately targeted Florida and Texas. The reason was not the obvious one that coastal states have long shorelines on the tropical Gulf of Mexico. Instead, they were hit by Nemesis because they were red states with populations more likely to doubt theories of catastrophic man-made global warming. Even the telethon for victims of the hurricanes turned into yet another media event in which celebrities trashed Donald Trump and his supporters.
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When Facebook is caught censoring, when Google fires its employees for talking freely, the sanctimonious high hand predictably comes down on the values of Middle America.
Nothing is spared from rank politicization. Late-night TV? Superman comic books? Marquee chefs?
The weary messaging is everywhere and always predictable: Superman now protects illegal aliens, so we are no longer to imagine him as an oversized cartoon hero but instead as a newly muscled Jorge Ramos.
No Mas
As the progressive octopus squeezes the country, its dominance comes at a price. Lately fewer and fewer want to waste precious time watching the pampered adolescents of the NFL. Fewer wish to blow an afternoon viewing preachy mediocrities from Hollywood.
Madonna is a tiring bore who needs to go away and age gracefully. Ditto ESPN.
Who wishes to pay for the latest overpriced Apple gadget, because an aging zillionaire dressed in black prances back and forth on stage before stockholders as if he were Mick Jagger with a mic?
Donald J. Trump symbolically served as a radiologically hot CAT scan that revealed long-festering inner metastases.
Most yawn that Mark Zuckerberg and Pope Francis have given one too many sanctimonious rants that project their own hypocrisies. And one too many sober and judicious ex-diplomats (of the sort whose mellifluous prior appeasement led to a thermonuclear North Korea) bores us with warnings about Trump’s “incendiary rhetoric.”
Apparently in 2016, the deplorables and irredeemables struck back. Donald J. Trump symbolically served as a radiologically hot CAT scan that revealed long-festering inner metastases. Next, as deadly chemotherapy, he unpleasantly saturated the patient until the cancers within slowly began to fester and shrink — even as the convalescent resented the harsh therapy as much as he did the symptoms of the disease.
If the diagnosis and treatment are clear, the prognosis is not: Will America the patient buckle under the treatment and its side effects before the malady is mastered?
READ MORE:
Why Trump Won: Media, Hollywood and Democrats Double Down on Trump Hate
No Way to Treat Old Glory
On #TakeTheKnee
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, to appear in October from Basic Books.
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poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201603/1328/1155968404_4781711137001_160301-trump-hands-00-00-52-22-Still001.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump nails Rubio: I have beautiful hands
One of Marco Rubio’s latest barbs played right into Donald Trump’s “beautiful hands.”
Trump has begun referring to the Florida senator as “Little Marco,” so Rubio went after the businessman’s “small hands.”
“He’s like 6-2, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5-2,” Rubio said at a rally in Roanoke, Virginia, on Sunday. “Have you seen his hands? You know what they say about men with small hands — you can’t trust them.”
The billionaire responded to Rubio's remarks Tuesday at a rally in Columbus, Ohio.
“Actually I’m 6-3, not 6-2 — but he said I had small hands. They’re not small, are they?” Trump asked, extending his hands for supporters to see. “I never heard — I never heard that one before. I’ve always had people say, ‘Donald, you have the most beautiful hands.’”
Former GOP candidate and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker got into the action on Tuesday afternoon, tweeting a photo of his hand before signing dozens of bills into law. The tweet itself made no direct reference to any other candidate's hands.
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An excerpt cross-posted from the Women’s News Network
To push for safer streets in Taiz City, Ghaidaa al Absi, a rising group of 200+ women have brought attention back to the issues of women and Yemeni society. Persistent problems of street harassment throughout regions in the Middle East were discussed openly during a recent world conference on women in Istanbul. But what are the solutions?
The 12th AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development) International Forum on Women’s Rights, April 19 – 22, recently provided a dynamic space for open discussion on issues facing women in Yemen and throughout the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. Activism and action were highlighted.
As part of the work for ‘Defying the Silence’ in Yemen, Absi’s goal has been to train over 200 women to become ‘experts’ in using open source online digital publishing tools as they become active voices for their communities using digital cyber-activism.
“Society accepts it and women expect that they will be touched and talked to,” said Absi at the AWID conference.
Continued reports of harassment in Yemen’s capital city of Sana’a has brought Maeen district police chief, Ahmed Al-Tahiri, to step up efforts to catch and prosecute predatory acts against women on the streets. Despite this promise for stepped up efforts, most men who are reported on sex-harassment charges often have their case caught up in what Sana’a policewoman Bushra Al-Khawlani explains is a process of office “referals’ where a case is referred from one department to another with often little to no final punitive measures being made against the offender.
Currently Yemen does not have any specific legislation protecting women from sexual harassment.
Using Google maps, Wiki and Facebook, numerous Yemeni women cyber-activists are currently now working with other activists to stop the abuse on the streets as they seek solutions, in spite of mobile challenges in certain areas and a lack of sustained internet connections they are working together to bring impact to the issues. Their work is based on efforts to improve, change and remove strife for women in the region.
“Every day I walk in the streets, and every day I face sexual harassment. Unfortunately, it becomes daily life, and we women are forced to adapt to it either by being silent or yelling at the harassers,” shared Absi in a February 2012 interview to highlight the conditions many women face on the streets as they go about their daily routines.
Stepped-up efforts by the women under a recent micro-grant by the Tactical Technology Collective (TTC – Tactical Tech), along with the organizational leadership of Absi, are now working toward solutions. TTC is an online digital resource that shares open source toolkits, guides and information for cyber-activists worldwide. Through the TTC program grant the Safe Streets website has produced an interactive map that now reveals ‘real-time’ locations where sexual harassment on the street has been reported by women throughout the Yemeni region.
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BY:
In a development that is not sending shockwaves through the pro-Israel community, the "pro-Israel, pro-peace" advocacy group J Street has declared its support for the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
In a statement posted on the group's website, executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami says that to "keep moving forward, both [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] now need to give a little."
Netanyahu, he says, must drop his insistence that Abbas recognize Israel as a Jewish State because "it is simply unrealistic and unreasonable to expect any Palestinian leader to consent" to such a demand.
Ben-Ami never goes on to say what Abbas "needs to give."
J Street's advocacy for the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state follows a nearly unbroken period of advocacy for Palestinian and Iranian interests since the group's founding in 2008. J Street took the Hamas position on Israel during Operation Cast Lead later that year, accusing the IDF of war crimes and promoting the discredited Goldstone Report. It lobbied for the Iranian regime's position against Iran sanctions. It defended the terrorists who attacked IDF soldiers on the 2010 Gaza flotilla. J Street also took the Palestinian and Arab League position on a UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements in 2011.
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If you need proof that the iPhone can handle a console quality experience, look no further than Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard. We're huge Gameloft fans, and this time, the publisher took its skills to the next level, producing a brutal and downright fun first person shooter with all the trimmings, from 11 missions of terrorist hunting mayhem to fast-paced and smooth online multiplayer. Visually, it's a bit rough around the edges, and the inability to customize the button layout knocks it down a peg, but factoring in the numerous positives, there's no question this is a superstar App.
Single player is what we'd expect from a game like this, as you lead a team of three counter terrorists into hostile territory, killing evildoers while completing various objectives and securing hostages. You're able to crouch behind and safely fire from cover, aim down the sights of a weapon to score headshots and toss grenades to destroy multiple bad guys at once.
What makes Shadow Vanguard stand out is the presentation, as Gameloft borrowed a page from Ubisoft's Xbox 360 exclusive, Splinter Cell Conviction. Not only will you see objectives painted onto walls in a stylish manner, but you also have icons that, once pressed, instruct your cohorts to perform different actions, from going into cover to breaching a room with a flash bang grenade. It sure beats giving them orders using a d-pad.
Taking this a step further, bringing a friend along for the ride (either through local or online co-op) bumps up the replay value significantly. Gameloft also gives you a chance to earn XP that helps unlock different weapons and attachments, giving Shadow Vanguard an extra layer of depth.
Then you have the local/online multiplayer, which is by far the coolest feature. There's only five maps and a couple of modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch), but the action moves so buttery smooth that we can't help but jump into a match at all hours of the day, simply because it's so easy and seamless; online leaderboards keep track of matches played, kills, deaths and XP earned.
The only thing that mars this otherwise phenomenal video game is the firing button, which sits exactly where our thumb would go to tilt the right stick. Gameloft provides ample space above this icon, but we continue to accidentally squeeze off a few rounds at the worst possible moments. If enough people complain, perhaps the company will release an update that lets users customize the HUD.
On top of that, Shadow Vanguard probably won't win any awards for best graphics. While not ugly by any means, some of the visuals (most notably bushes and character faces) look horrible. At the same time, the game also looks decent on the iPad, so long as you're OK with magnifying its flaws.
Of course, outstanding graphics don't make a great game. Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard is without question one of the App Store's premier first person shooters. Fork over the $6.99 and hop online. We'll be right behind you...literally.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later.
Download Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard
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The world’s climate scientists must now revise their computer models, and for reasons that cannot make global warming alarmists happy. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) now says that the sun has far more to do with the globe’s warmth than they suspected.
The CERN CLOUD experiment
CERN announced yesterday the results of its latest experiment, called CLOUD (for “Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets”). As The Register (London) reported, CERN found that cosmic rays actually cause clouds to form, at least in the high reaches of the troposphere. (See Kirkby et al., “Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation”, Nature, 476: 429–433, 25 August 2011, DOI 10.1038/nature10343.)
The two most important things that CERN has found are:
Cosmic rays can make clouds form up to ten times faster, strictly by acting on sulfuric acid and ammonia vapor. This works most strongly at altitudes of five miles and higher, where the air is cool. Within a mile of the ground, something more must be happening. Sulfuric acid and water alone cannot account for all the cloud formation at this level.
On the second basis alone, the lead investigator, Jasper Kirkby, said that climate scientists would have to revise their models. At issue: these models assume that water, sulfuric acid, and ammonia vapors are the only vapors that form clouds. This is not correct. Other vapors take part—and whether they come from the wild or from human activity, even CERN does not know yet. (See this video interview with Dr. Kirkby.)
What this means for global warming
These findings mean that everything that everyone ever thought about global warming needs a second look. The cosmic-ray finding especially says that the sun has far more influence on the earth’s temperature than any activity of man. The Register knows this, and so does the head of CERN:
CERN’s director-general Rolf-Dieter Heuer warned his scientists “to present the results clearly but not interpret them”. Readers can judge whether CLOUD’s lead physicist Jasper Kirkby has followed his boss’s warning.
Paul Joseph Watson at Infowars.com put it more bluntly:
In a shocking illustration of how the man-made climate change establishment has seized control of the scientific process, physicists at the CERN lab in Geneva were gagged from drawing conclusions about data that seeks to replicate studies which prove the sun is the main driver of climate change, after their boss told them that such heresy was politically incorrect.
This refers to an earlier report about the CLOUD findings from The Register. In it, Andrew Orlowski makes a serious charge: that CERN deliberately sought to suppress a finding unfriendly to the consensus of progressive politicians and the United Nations. That consensus is: that governments need to tax carbon dioxide, cap it, trade it, and do everything possible to limit it. And if they don’t, global warming will go on without stopping, until the earth turns into a desert.
Is global warming real or unreal?
That question is more than academic. The man now holding office as President, Barack H. Obama, campaigned on that issue. The question is more than political, too: it has provoked at least one major lawsuit. (Connecticut et al. v. American Electric Power et al.)
At least one frequenter of the comment space of this site suggests that 98 percent of all climate scientists believe that:
Global warming is happening, Man is to blame for it, Man can stop it, if he adopts a “sustainable lifestyle.”
If these three points look familiar to frequent readers, they should. They look like the elements of standing in a court of law:
Injury in fact, A connection between the injury and something that someone did, A way that a court can relieve the injury.
The CERN findings go directly, not only to whether global warming is happening, but also to whether man is to blame. This is the second part of standing: a connection between an injury in fact (in this case, global warming) and the conduct of the defendant (in this case, man’s industrial activity). Consider the implications: a scientist finds something to suggest that man is not to blame. And his boss doesn’t want him to talk. But of course, now that Nature has published the article, Kirkby must talk. The press expects him to talk.
The larger question
Whether CERN’s higher-ups tried to cover up this finding is less important than the finding itself. Usually the cover-up is worse than the embarrassment that one tries to avoid by covering up. This time the first embarrassment is far greater, greater even than the Climate-gate scandal of two years ago. That earlier scandal showed that the world’s climate scientists loved their global warming theory too much to let dissent get in the way. We see now that those scientists don’t have the facts they thought they had. Worse, they love their theory too much even to let facts get in the way.
Related
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Coming Soon
Cannon Busters
With a maintenance robot and a deadly fugitive tagging along, friendship droid S.A.M searches for its best friend, the heir to a kingdom under siege.
Paskal
Naval unit PASKAL is among the most elite special forces in Malaysia. But all bets are off when one of its own stages a hijacking. Based on true events.
Trinkets
In this coming-of-age series, three teenage girls from different social circles form an unlikely friendship over their shared affinity for shoplifting.
THE STRANGER
Secrets, violence and a conspiracy send family man Adam Price on a desperate quest to uncover the truth about the people closest to him.
Music Teacher
Burned by his past, an emotionally troubled, small-town music teacher risks everything he has to reconnect with a now-famous former student.
Raising Dion
A single mom must hide her young son's superpowers to protect him from exploitation while investigating their origins and her husband's death.
Maya and the Three
A Mesoamerican warrior princess embarks on a quest to recruit three legendary fighters to help save the world of gods -- and humankind.
ReMastered: Devil at the Crossroads
Robert Johnson was one of the most influential blues guitarists ever. Even before his early death, fans wondered if he'd made a pact with the Devil.
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Countdown to Draw & Ticket Sales Launch | 27.10.2016
Euro 2017 will feel a little closer from 8th Nov when the draw is made in Rotterdam & tickets go on sale for the finals!
The UEFA Women’s EURO 2017 final draw will take place on Tues 8th November at 4.30pm (UK time) at the Luxor Theatre in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
The final tournament takes place from 16 July to 6 August 2017, across seven venues in the Netherlands.
The seedings for the finals draw have been confirmed with the hosts the Netherlands placed in position 1 in group A. The 15 remaining competing teams will be placed into four pots, based on each team’s position in the UEFA women’s national team rankings at the end of the qualifying group stage. Four groups will be formed by the draw, with the top two sides in each progressing to the quarter-finals. More information on the draw procedure, venues and match schedule is available on UEFA.com.
• Pot 1: Germany (title-holders), France, England
• Pot 2: Norway, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland
• Pot 3: Italy, Iceland, Scotland, Denmark
• Pot 4: Austria, Belgium, Russia, Portugal
The UEFA president, Aleksander Ceferin, and the president of the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB), Michael van Praag, will speak at the beginning of the draw ceremony, which will be presented by Dutch sports journalist Diana Kuip and be conducted by the all-time top scorer of the Dutch women’s national team, Manon Melis, and a member of Germany’s 2013 UEFA Women’s EURO winning side, Nadine Kessler.
The UEFA President, Aleksander Ceferin, said: “Another important step in the development of women’s football will be taken next summer in the Netherlands. For the first time, 16 teams will contest the Women’s EURO trophy, giving the tournament an exciting new dimension. I would like to thank the Royal Netherlands Football Association, the KNVB, for their hard work, dedication, enthusiasm and cooperation in preparing the draw and the tournament. They have laid excellent foundations for a truly wonderful event, which will feature many of the best female players in Europe.”
The KNVB president, Michael van Praag, added: “It is an honour to welcome the delegations of the teams and the international press in our country for the draw. I’m also very pleased that UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin will be present. The draw is always a very special moment. Most of all, because you can feel the excitement of the tournament as it comes closer. We in the Netherlands we will do everything to make sure that UEFA Women’s EURO 2017 is a unique experience for the teams and fans.”
Germany’s 2013 triumph was their sixth consecutive time and the president of the German Football Association (DFB), Reinhard Grindel, will hand the UEFA European Women’s Championship trophy back to UEFA President on stage. In turn, he will entrust the trophy to the hosts for safekeeping until it is presented to the 2017 champions.
Ticket sales will also be launched at the draw ceremony, with tickets available from 19.00CET on 8 November on www.weuro2017.nl/tickets.
The draw will be broadcast live on UEFA.com.
Follow UEFA Women’s EURO: UEFA.com Facebook/WEURO Twitter/WEURO
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Billionaire Oracle chief Larry Ellison has announced his company's public and private cloud services and a multi-tenant version of his core database product, completing his Saul-like conversion from befuddled skeptic.
The database company's chief executive opened his annual Oracle Open World (OOW) conference announcing a public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud along with a private service, both using Oracle hardware.
Oracle's clouds are thought to be a multi-tenant services, running on a single version of an Oracle database, and will include compute and storage.
The difference between the private and public services is that the public cloud runs in an Oracle data centre while the private version will run on Oracle hardware but on a customer's premises, where it'll be managed by Oracle. Oracle had been expected to announce these IaaS services.
"We own it. We manage it. We upgrade it. You only pay for what you use," Ellison told delegates on Sunday during part one of his customary two-part keynote speech at OOW.
The second keynote comes on Tuesday, where Ellison - who just paid $36.9m on the biggest property deal in California's Malibu this year - is expected to provide more details.
Ellison has come a long way in a short time on cloud computing. In 2008, when cloud hype was rapidly inflating, Oracle's chief rightly highlighted the term's relativity and meaninglessness, skewering Silicon Valley's mindless recategorising of everything as "cloud".
At that time, Ellison reckoned he couldn't see how Oracle could change what it was making or selling in order to capitalise on cloud: "I don't understand what we have to do different, other than change the wording on some our ads," he said.
Four years later, he appears to have recognised that cloud computing means more than just a copy change.
The chief exec also used OOW to complete another conversion. He announced the Oracle 12c database would have multi-tenancy as a major feature. Oracle's chief seems to have overcome his early hostility to multi-tenancy, something he once lambasted Salesforce.com for using as part of its cloud service - which just happens to run on an Oracle database.
Ellison called 12c "the first multi-tenant database in the world".
Back at OOW 2011, you might remember, Ellison attacked Salesforce's model of multi-tenancy, saying: "That's a very bad security model. It's called multi-tenancy and it was state of the art 15 years ago. This is 2011. All the modern compute clouds use virtualization as part of their security model. You get a separate virtual machine, your data's in a separate database because it's virtualised. They put your data at risk by commingling it with others."
When it comes to Oracle, Ellison reckons the database provider's got it right. "I've been very critical of multi-tenancy at the application level. A lot of security features don't work properly when multi-tenancy is implemented at the application level, but they do work properly in Oracle database 12c," Ellison is reported to have said at OOW.
During the remainder of his Sunday-evening show, Ellison continued to romance hardware. The Oracle CEO announced the latest Exadata database server, the X3, running eight-core Intel Xeon processors, with 4TB of storage per rack and a main memory of 40TB of compressed data. ®
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The President of Mexico has suffered a hefty defeat at the polls after taking moves to recognise same-sex marriage.
Mexico has seen a string of court battles over same-sex marriage, with Mexico’s Supreme Court last year ruling that it was unconstitutional for states to ban LGBT couples from marrying – leading to Mexican states recognising same-sex marriages.
Last month, the country’s leader Enrique Peña Nieto announced he would pursue country-wide reforms to codify into law the right to recognise “the right to enter into marriage without any discrimination”.
Announcing the move on Twitter on International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, he said: “I signed reform initiatives to boost the #MatrimonioIgualitario is enshrined in the Constitution and the Federal Civil Code”.
However, the move has sparked a backlash from the country’s strong Catholic ‘traditional values’ lobby, and Nieto’s party is being punished in the local elections this week.
The President’s PRI Party appears to have lost seven governorship elections with gains for social conservatives – a warning sign ahead of the Presidential elections in 2018.
Though the President is unpopular for a number of reasons, more than a thousand religious and social conservative groups had founded a coalition known as the National Front for the Family which appears to have contributed to the punishing result.
The president of the Mexican Council for the Family, Juan Dabdoub Giacomán, told the Catholic News Agency that the outcome showed a clear “protest vote… to oppose the decision of President Peña Nieto to regularize so-called homosexual ‘marriages’ and adoption.”
He added: “The important part was that in less than three weeks an organization was created that was able to mobilize an entire country against an initiative of the president attacking the family, calling for a protest vote against him and his party.”
Giacomán warned that if Nieto continues his reforms, the coalition would work against him in the Presidential election too.
He said: “We don’t want [the re-election] of a party like the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has openly declared itself, through the voice of its president, as an anti-family party.
National Front for the Family spokesperson Carlos Alberto Ramírez Ambríz told CNA: “Mexico has spoken at the ballot box; the affront against the family has cost the president and the party that supports him dearly.”
“Mexican society is tired of the corruption, impunity and arrogance that the PRI represents in Mexico and that fatigue was seen reflected in the recent elections.
“This weekend the family won! It was an historic event for Mexico; everything indicates that society is waking up and we’re not going to go on allowing a corrupt political system to continue governing.”
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Thanks to You
We are Taking Back America
Thank you GOP Trust Supporter:
This morning we delivered a massive blow to Obama's radical agenda. Governor Walker just signed a heroic piece of legislation into law in Wisconsin that will send shockwaves from Madison to Washington, DC.
The brave leaders in Wisconsin were able to take on Big Labor because of your overwhelming support. Our ads provided the much needed counterpunch to the dirty smear machine launched by Obama and the Democrats.
Make no mistake this is the first battle of the 2012 presidential race. The Left and their hired muscle in the unions are raising tons of money on this and we need to fight back or we will walk into 2012 way behind.
If we can break the unions' back in 2011, the Democrats will be on life support to begin 2012.
Thank you for your efforts! This is a great victory but...OUR WORK IS NOT DONE YET!!
We must respond to the unions with strength and resolve.
* SEIU has planned 10 Wisconsin rallies on Saturday and 6 more on Sunday
* The Unions have launched a national campaign to recall 8 conservative Wisconsin senators.
* Big Labor and the Democrats are preparing legal challenges and organizing their biggest rally yet at the Wisconsin State Capitol.
* Big Labor organized a huge march yesterday in-front of the Indiana Capitol.
GO HERE TO TAKE THIS FIGHT NATION WIDE!
Help us produce more powerful ads to win this fight!
This battle to reign in the unions is popping up all over the country and we need to come together and remain focused to support the brave leaders taking on this fight.
* Ohio - The State House is just days away from a vote to limit collective bargaining.
* Florida- The legislature is debating legislation to limit teacher tenure and restore commonsense to education.
* Idaho The Governor is ready to sign similar legislation reforming teacher tenure.
* Iowa - The House of Representatives is currently debating legislation to curb collective bargaining rights for government employees.
* Michigan - The Michigan legislature has approved separate measures to give the state the power to break union contracts.
* Indiana - The Senate passed a bill to limit public school teachers' collective bargaining rights and is considering other measures that curb organized labor influence.
* New Hampshire - The House passed a right-to-work bill that prohibits public sector workers from being required to join labor unions.
* Kansas - The House passed legislation outlawing employee payroll deductions for union dues and political action committees.
* Tennessee - The Senate Education Committee just passed a bill that would end teachers' rights to working conditions through collective bargaining.
* 9 Other States - have introduced legislation to limit on public worker collective bargaining: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Washington.
We must get our ads running in these states. If you have not seen it yet, please watch our TV ad now.
Watch the Ad
As Obama said, "elections have consequences." It is our time to take back our country and restore fiscal discipline.
The best investment of 2011 is to crush the Democrat Party's base. We are so close to stripping the Democrats of their power base, WE CANNOT LET UP NOW
GO HERE TO TAKE THIS FIGHT TO EVERY STATE!
Help us produce more powerful ads to win this fight!
Their spinsters are already painting this as a David vs. Goliath battle, as ironically illustrated by multimillionaire Michael Moore's "this is war.... we're going to throw your___ in jail" rant on the Rachel Maddow Show.
The far-left is trying to hijack the narrative here and paint the unions as a counterweight to corporate power, when in reality they have become MORE powerful than corporations under the current administration.
Unions are not the little guy anymore and haven't been for a long time, no matter how politically expedient it may be for them to portray themselves as such.
Now we, the American people, are the little guy and it's time for honest, hard-working Americans who don't have an army of union thugs to back them up to fight back.
The GOP Trust has shifted gears and is fully prepared to take this aggressive campaign nationwide. We will win this war for the future of our great country.
Help us bring victories to every state taking on Big Labor
Together we can do it!
Thank you again for your tremendous support.
Yours for America,
Scott Wheeler
www.GOPTrust.com
Paid for by The National Republican Trust PAC. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. 2100 M St., N.W., Suite 170-340, Washington, DC 20037-1233.
Contributions to The National Republican Trust PAC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. No corporate funds are accepted.
The National Republican Trust PAC is not an official RNC committee. We are conservative Republicans dedicated to helping restore the GOP to its historic conservative roots by mobilizing like-minded Republicans nationwide
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Many expressed doubt when the USFWS posted a photo showing a bighorn sheep seemingly walking straight down a sheer cliff, but the doubters have been silenced.
A photo showing a bighorn sheep seemingly walking straight down the sheer face of a rocky cliff in Wyoming was met with so much doubt after it was posted to Facebook that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was compelled to offer the entire series of photos as proof.
The photo, posted above this story, was captioned, "Gravity … totally overrated.”
Reads one of the initial comments: "How can anything with HOOVES do that?"
That was Oct. 30 and the photo has since been shared hundreds of times.
On Wednesday the USFWS Mountain-Prairie Region posted the four-photo sequence, under the introduction, "Some of you (who will remain nameless) have questioned the authenticity of our very awesome, gravity-defying bighorn sheep photo. So, we are providing, to eliminate all doubt, the series of photos that shows the nimble critter navigating the cliffs of the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming."
As a result, most doubters have experienced a change of heart.
Reads one such confession: "Yeah I did too doubt it. Was hard to believe an animal with hooves could do such a thing without slipping off. I thought the photo was tilted to one side in order to make it look more dramatic."
Bighorn sheep and other mountain sheep have amazed observers throughout their ranges in various parts of the world.
Extremely powerful legs, specialized hooves and rough soles enable the animals to climb rocky cliff faces with apparent ease, even though it almost always looks as though they could fall at any moment.
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Former soccer player Pele speaks with children in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2014. The athlete's auction of memorabilia begins today and a portion of the proceeds will go to a children's hospital in Brazil. - YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images
The auction of Brazilian soccer star Pele’s personal collection of soccer gear and awards started off with a big sale Tuesday — the boots he wore in a 1981 film sold for more than $9,000, the BBC reported.
Pele wore the boots, which fetched about $9,113 at an auction in Los Angeles, in the movie “Escape to Victory,” known as “Victory” in North America. It featured Sylvester Stallone and Sir Michael Caine.
For the next three days, the 75-year-old retired athlete is selling more than 2,000 pieces of his soccer memorabilia, including shirts, medals and awards. He is donating a portion of the proceeds to Pequeno Principe, the largest children’s hospital in Brazil, according to CNN.
While Pele has been a longtime star in the world of soccer, the sport in general has gained popularity in the U.S. in recent years with millennial fans leading the push. FIFA, the international organization who runs the World Cup, made $2.2 billion off the games, which generated $4.8 billion in revenue, in 2014. But that money has also come with some problems connected to allegations of corruption within the ranks of the FIFA. It's an image the soccer organization is working to repair.
As the only player to have won the World Cup three times, Pele’s medals are expected to go for nearly $159,000 each. The medals are from the 1958, 1962 and 1970 World Cup games.
Aside from his $9,000 boots, the other items that have already sold include a "Pele 2015 best in the world wood plaque," which raised $1,391 and a "Pele 2014 Brazilian Football Confederation 100th anniversary medal," which went for about $483.
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