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By politics.co.uk staff
August 2011's riots across English cities could be repeated in the future, police fear.
Interviews with officers conducted by the LSE and Guardian found that most expected more rioting within the next 12 months.
Magistrates imposed harsh sentences on many of those convicted of looting and rioting in London, Manchester, Birmingham and elsewhere.
But police officers told researchers in a series of anonymous interviews that they believe further disorder is possible.
"I don't think anything has changed between now and last August, and the only thing that's different is people have thought: riots are fun," one police superintendent said.
The same officer said that anything from "bad economic times" to "hot weather" could set off another wave of rioting. Last summer's looting spread from Tottenham in north London, after public anger over the death of a local man at the hands of the police.
The interviews also revealed concerns that the police were stretched very thin during the riots.
Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said the government needed to "take stock" of the report's findings.
The Police Federation is bitterly opposed to the reduction in frontline policing numbers it says will result from the Home Office's 20% spending cuts during this parliament.
According to Reading the Riots, police said that their commanders had been too slow to mobilise extra resources available to them.
"Officers interviewed rightly identify and voice concern that, should the same circumstances occur again, the police service would struggle to cope and contain the situation with the loss of police officers numbers we are experiencing as a direct result of the cuts – over 5,000 last year alone," McKeever commented.
"The government must take urgent stock of this; the safety and security of the public must be their number one priority."
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There are a few basic rules in museums. The first: don't touch the art. The second: don't take selfies while touching the art.
At a museum in Milan, Italy, a student reportedly broke that second rule: he climbed on a statue dating back to the early 19th century to take a selfie and caused the statue's left leg to fall off. The discovery was made on Tuesday morning by the staff of the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, one of Italy's most renowned academic institutions, and it was apparently also recorded by security cameras.
The statue depicts the "Drunken Satyr," an ancient Greek sculpture of the Hellenistic era showing a human-like figure with animal features drunkenly sleeping. Fortunately, the statue is a copy located in the academy's hallway leading to a room full of more valuable works of the most famous sculptors of the era, including Antonio Canova, Italian newspapers reported.
Unfortunately we don't know whether the student, whose name has not been reported, was actually able to snap the ambitious photo before the amputation occurred.
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Amanda Warren
Activist Post
Any news story that is able to throw in the highly marketable “zombie” term won’t miss the chance. In this case it might actually apply – you decide.
Researchers in Albuquerque NM have come up with an alchemy that breathes more power into dead mammal cells. These super undead cells can survive conditions that living organisms cannot, making them highly favorable for study versus typical “mummified” or preserved dead specimens.
Scientists from Sandia National Laboratories in partnership with University of New Mexico processed living cells in a Petri dish and coated them with silicic acid solution that acts like an embalming fluid, penetrating even the nano-parts of the cells. It forms a “permeable armor” that can withstand tests above 750 degrees Fahrenheit and high pressure.
After the heat treatment, the protein boundaries around and within the cell (organic material) evaporate leaving the silica as a perfect mold or replica of the former living being, like a wax museum exhibit. But it’s not just a surface mold – the silicic acid permeates everything down to the last intricate nano part.
So what are they creating? Fossils? In a sense, yes. And one that can be studied and shelved possibly forever unlike dead cells. They called it a reverse molding and compared it to wood that burns and leaves ash mold, but, instead, this mold is a highly viable replica. “Such materials would have substantial utility in fuel cells, decontamination and sensor technologies,” they wrote. Scientist Bryan Kaehr made the (possibly first ever) distinction between a mummy and zombie cell:
King Tut was mummified — to approximately resemble his living self, but the process took place without mineralization [a process of fossilization]. Our zombie cells bridge chemistry and biology to create forms that not only near-perfectly resemble their past selves, but can do future work. [emphasis added]
While it is a scientific breakthrough (it allows scientists to kill and revive mammal cells as opposed to recreate the same structures) — what do you say? Can these preserved cells constitute “zombie-ism”? Are they really undead? The researchers involved definitely call them “zombie replicants” and emphasize that they “outperform the living.”
Is this decade’s zombie fascination a matter of target-marketing? Making science sexy? Or a predictive ushering in of something more?
Read other articles by Amanda Warren
Source:
http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2013/02/20/researchers-develop-zombie-cells-that-can-increase-performance-after-death/
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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas formally announced Friday that the Palestinians will ask the U.N. Security Council next week to approve full membership of a Palestinian state in the United Nations.
The announcement, in a speech to top Palestinian officials at Abbas’s office in Ramallah, appeared to seal the fate of last-ditch efforts by the Obama administration and other international mediators to come up with a formula to resume Israeli-Palestinian talks and head off the U.N. bid.
The declaration also set up a direct confrontation with the United States, which has said it will veto a Palestinian membership resolution in the Security Council. Under U.N. rules, a state applying for U.N. membership must receive the Security Council’s recommendation, followed by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly to grant the application.
“We are going to the Security Council,” Abbas said to sustained applause in remarks broadcast on Palestinian television. “As soon as I address the General Assembly, I will submit the letter of application to the secretary general of the United Nations, so that he will pass on this application to the chairman of the Security Council.”
“Our choice is the Security Council,” Abbas added. “As for other options, we will not make a decision on them. We will decide about any other options later.”
Abbas is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Sept. 23.
Palestinian officials have said that if their bid is thwarted at the Security Council, they could ask the General Assembly, where there is no veto, to elevate the Palestinians’ status to that of a non-member observer state, in effect conferring formal international recognition.
Abbas’s announcement was promptly rejected by Israel.
“Peace is not achieved by going unilaterally to the United Nations,” said a statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. “Peace will be achieved only through direct negotiations with Israel.”
The statement added: “The Palestinian Authority and its leader are consistently evading direct negotiations with Israel. When the Palestinian Authority abandons futile moves such as going unilaterally to the U.N., it will find in Israel a partner to direct negotiations for peace.”
In his remarks, which formally inaugurated the U.N. membership bid, Abbas argued that efforts to negotiate an end to Israeli occupation had reached a “dead end.” But he said the Palestinians were prepared to resume talks with Israel on all outstanding issues after receiving international recognition of statehood.
“The negotiations will be state-to-state: one an occupier, and the other under occupation,” he said.
“The occupation will not end the day after recognition,” he said, “but we will have gained recognition of the world that our state is occupied and our land is occupied, not disputed, as propagated by the Israeli government.”
“We are not going [to the United Nations] in order to isolate Israel or delegitimize it,” Abbas added. “We want to isolate the policy of the state of Israel, and we want to delegitimize the occupation.”
Abbas also parried accusations by Israel and Washington that the U.N. initiative was a unilateral move in a conflict that should be resolved through negotiations. “We are going in order to address 193 states, and it is called a unilateral step,” he said, citing the number of member states in the United Nations.
He exhorted Palestinians at home and abroad to keep demonstrations in support of the U.N. bid nonviolent.
“All the activities must be peaceful,” he said. “Don’t give them an excuse,” he added, referring to the Israelis. “Any deviation on this issue from peaceable [demonstrations] will harm us and destroy our efforts.”
Abbas pledged that efforts to carry out a reconciliation agreement between his faction, Fatah, and the militant Islamic group Hamas, which rules Gaza, would continue, despite disagreements that so far have stymied movement to implement the accord.
Countering arguments that U.N. recognition of a state along the 1967 boundaries with Israel would push aside the Palestine Liberation Organization, which currently has observer status in the United Nations, Abbas asserted that the organization would continue to represent Palestinians everywhere.
The PLO, Abbas said, remains “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” until it achieves independence and all outstanding disputes with Israel are resolved — primarily the issue of Palestinian refugees — and the results are implemented on the ground.
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Taking Back the Street
» The fact that street space is about more than just automobile movement has yet to be recognized by a big swath of the population.
The recent furor over the installation of bike lanes along Brooklyn’s Prospect Park West is indicative of the myopic perspective too many people continue to hold on to in regards to the use of the most basic transportation resource, the street.
Even in a city as progressive and transit-friendly as New York, the work of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan to reapportion a very limited portion of total street space to pedestrians, bicyclists, and buses — usually in areas where people in automobiles are outnumbered — have been greeted by lawsuits and calls for the commissioner to resign.
The absurdity of these efforts is difficult to comprehend. Already, the majority of public space in this country is devoted to the circulation of automobiles. Is the integration of a few complete streets in a network of usually single-use roads so tough to accept?
Try taking a toy away from a child and telling her that — after years of playing alone — from now on she must share. That, in effect, is how automobilists must feel about their precious rights-of-way. Convinced of the importance of driving from place to place, they cannot imagine a world in which the street’s purpose is broadened to include fulfilling the needs of people relying on other vehicles. Who cares about the inefficiency of the fact that they hog the street all day and night? What difference does it make if other transportation modes are pushed away or greatly inconvenienced? The street, after all, is designed for the car.
If transportation alternatives must be offered, this crowd says, buy another toy — put them underground, out of sight, no matter the costs. The street must be preserved for the car’s advance.
This attitude must be fought. People who live in dense parts of cities like New York, or Boston, or San Francisco are pedestrians at heart. Their residents face the sidewalk and they rely on neighborhood stores for their daily needs. And yet too often they suffer the daily indignity of the poorly designed street. As automobiles pass in every direction, they are confined to sidewalks often too small and a dearth of public space. When they hop on their bikes, hoping to extend their trips, they are caught between fast-moving and dangerous cars, despite their pollution-free form of travel. When they get on the bus, they are stuck in congestion despite the fact that they take up far less of the overall travel corridor than their driving peers.
These are the problems that policies like those that have been implemented in New York are attempting to address.
For those reading this article, these points are likely more than obvious, and yet it is clear that the motivation for opening our streets to users other than those stuck behind the wheels of their private vehicles remains murky for a significant percentage of the population. Even in New York, where most people have corner stores to which to walk and transit lines on which to ride, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are desperately convinced that if you were to remove a car lane and replace it with something else like a pedestrian plaza or a bike lane, chaos would result: Congestion would overtake the streets.
The removal of automobile traffic from parts of Manhattan’s Broadway including Times Square has been delightfully trouble-free.
Compounding this problem is the fact that people who drive, despite often constituting a small percentage of overall users, frequently command a high degree of influence thanks to their greater wealth, which allows them not only to drive but also to pay lawyers able to sue transportation commissioners for doing their jobs well.
All this hoopla, however, may be just a predictable slowdown in what is inevitably a slow process. It may be obvious to some that bike and bus lanes are beneficial, but many will remain attached to their automobiles and fight any attempt to reduce their dominance for years to come. There is opposition to these improvements today, but there will be less of it as more and more people experience the benefits of good biking facilities, effective bus service, and comfortable pedestrian street space.
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Image copyright NASA/ESA/R.ELLIS/HUDF12 Image caption Objects like UDFj-39546284 are at the limit of the Hubble telescope's vision
Hubble astronomers have observed deeper into space than ever before.
In doing so, they have identified six new galaxies of stars that formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang itself.
The study also updates a distance estimate for a seventh galaxy, placing it further back in time than any object previously identified.
Called UDFj-39546284, this is seen when the cosmos was less than 3% of its current age.
The new Hubble telescope investigation was led by Richard Ellis from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and colleagues at Edinburgh University, Jim Dunlop and Ross McLure.
Its significance is that it gives us the clearest insight into how some of the earliest years of cosmic history unfolded.
The data supports the notion that the first galaxies assembled their constituent stars in a smooth fashion - not in some sudden burst.
These are baby pictures of the Universe John Grunsfeld, Nasa science chief and 'Hubble repair man'
"Of course, the most distant object is interesting, but it's the census - the seven objects - that gives us the first indication of the population of objects in the heart of this… era," said Prof Ellis.
"If you compare the number of galaxies that we see to the abundance of objects once the Universe had expanded a little bit, we describe a very smooth decline in the number of objects as we go back into cosmic history," he told reporters.
The new results stem from a project called UDF12 and centre on a tiny patch of sky in the Constellation Fornax (The Furnace).
This is the location where Hubble has repeatedly stared since 2003, trying to build up a picture of objects whose separation from us is so great that their light arrives in dribs and drabs.
Ellis's and colleagues' work adds more than 100 hours of observations to this extraordinary Ultra Deep Field imagery - one of Hubble's greatest accomplishments.
Image copyright NASA/ESA/R.ELLIS/HUDF12 Image caption The positions of the seven galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, a patch of sky one-tenth the diameter of the full Moon. Their redshifts ("z") are indicated. One object (z=11.9) is likely a record-breaker
The light being seen from the remotest objects in the UDF would have started out as short wavelength (ultraviolet) emission that was then subsequently stretched to longer (infrared) wavelengths by the expansion of the Universe. And because it has taken so long for this light to reach us, the observations are effectively looking back in time.
This is difficult work, however. By the time the "redshifted" light lands on Hubble's powerful Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, it has been stretched to the very edge of what is detectable by this equipment.
Nonetheless, the team believes the data is robust enough to certify the six new galaxies and the one re-classification.
The objects lie in a range that covers redshifts 8.2-11.9 - the technical way of describing a period in time that runs from about 600 million years to 380 million years after the Big Bang (current cosmology suggests the Big Bang occurred some 13.77 billion years ago).
Hubble Space Telescope Image copyright NASA The Hubble telescope was carried into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990
It creates images of the Universe from near ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light
Hubble helped astronomers calculate the age of the Universe, which is about 13.7 billion years old
The telescope is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble Source: BBC Science See more stunning Hubble pictures
The most distant object, UDFj-39546284, was first announced by Garth Illingworth and Rychard Bouwens in a Nature paper in 2011. They gave it a redshift of 10 (480 million years after the Big Bang).
But the improved and extended dataset from Prof Ellis's group strongly suggests this galaxy really lies at an even greater distance. Either that or it has properties in its light emission that hitherto have never been noted in a closer object.
Scientists are very keen to probe these colossal separations in time and distance because they will learn how the early Universe grew its structures, and that in turn will help them explain why the cosmos looks the way it does now.
In particular, they want to see more evidence for the very first populations of stars. These hot giants would have grown out of the cold neutral gas that pervaded the young cosmos.
These behemoths would have burnt brilliant but brief lives, producing the very first heavy elements.
They would also have "fried" the neutral gas around them - ripping electrons off atoms - to produce the diffuse intergalactic plasma we still detect between nearby stars today.
"When we look at the properties of the six new galaxies at redshifts eight and nine - they already seem reasonably mature," Prof Dunlop from Edinburgh's Institute of Astronomy told BBC News.
"They've already got a reasonable amount of heavy elements from previous generations of stars.
Image copyright ROE Image caption Edinburgh University's Ross Mclure and Jim Dunlop helped design the new Hubble survey
"So, in a way, the take home message is that we're still not seeing the first generation of stars - the so-called Population III stars. Even when we push to less than what is now 5% of the age of the Universe; we're still seeing second-generation, relatively evolved objects."
John Grunsfeld, Nasa's associate administrator for science and the astronaut known as the "Hubble repair man" because of the number of servicing missions he flew to the telescope, commented on the latest research: "These are baby pictures of the Universe," he told reporters.
"These images are giving us the tantalizing view of what happened in the very earliest stages of the Universe. This is the time when the Universe was filled with hydrogen and starts to make stars and galaxies that make the chemical elements that we are primarily made out of - the oxygen we breathe, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones."
Going even deeper in time is going to be extremely difficult with Hubble. This will likely have to wait for its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), due for launch in 2018.
JWST will have a bigger mirror and more capability in the infrared regions where the light from the very first objects is expected to be found.
What Hubble can do, however, is broaden its search, conducting deep field observations in other places on the sky. This will provide more reliable statistics on early populations, giving astronomers reassurance that the Fornax UDF does not represent some sort of cosmic quirk.
Scholarly papers describing the Ellis group's work are being published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Looking back in time with the Hubble Space Telescope
Period before the first stars switch on is known as the 'Dark Ages'
The cosmos at this stage is dominated by neutral hydrogen gas
First stars forge the first heavy elements and 'fry' the gas around them
Epoch of "First Light" is a key epoch for cosmic evolution
[email protected] and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos
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Have you ever had a boss so ill-suited for leadership that you almost felt sorry for him? Kenyan Hezekiah Ochuka was one of those kinds of guys -- inept to the point where you begin wondering if his whole deal was performance art.
Let's start with his military background. Ochuka was a senior private in the Kenyan Air Force -- the second lowest rank there is. And that was after six years of service. In the Kenyan Air Force.
Can you imagine the kind of person who would picture himself as president of a country despite having only held authority over his own wiener and the cafeteria up to that point? Yes, you can, because you know at least one guy like that. We all do. Anyway, when several conspirators approached Hezekiah about a possible coup, he not only said he was in, but insisted they put him in charge. "Sure," the higher ranking, more experienced military leaders said before rolling their eyes and making the universal "loco" sign to one another. Hezekiah didn't notice.
Getty
"Oh, for the love of Christ, OK, you can be the 'leader guy.' But you're not getting a gun."
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The scheme was pretty typical, as far as terrible coup schemes go: The group would hijack a radio station, announce they were in charge and just see what developed from there. Oh, and they'd kidnap some air force jet pilots and make them bomb the president's house. You know, just in case.
The first part was easy. After all, no one arms their radio DJs with automatic weapons anymore, not even in Kenya. So at midnight on August 1, 1982, the group easily overtook the Voice of Kenya radio station and whoever was running the late night request line. (We like to think her name was Linda and she enjoyed the butter-smooth easy-listening stylings of Genesis.) So then it was time to get down to the business of overtaking the government, which you'd think they would have accomplished before they announced they were in charge on the radio, but again, these weren't the brightest crayons in the rebel school box. And this was also where the story got fun. Hezekiah ordered his henchmen to abduct pilots from their homes at the air force base and force them to bomb the president's house. Just to be safe and make sure they did the deed, the henchmen would tag along in the jets.
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Though spontaneous fire seems like it would be a rare natural phenomenon, they are actually quite common both above and below the ground. Usually fueled by underground coal, gas, or oil seeping to the surface, some of these “eternal flames” have been burning continuously for centuries — and yet remain oddly obscure.
5 The Eternal Fire Of Baba Gurgur Iraq
Located at the center of an enormous oil field in Iraq is the eternal fire of Baba Gurgur. It is created by natural gas which percolates up through the rocks. Local legend claims that the fires were used by shepherds to warm their sheep in the cold months of the year.
Legend also has it that pregnant women would visit the flames if they were hoping for a boy. This natural fire formation may be the source of the Biblical story of the “fiery furnace” into which King Nebuchadnezzar threw three Jews for refusing to worship a golden idol.
For thousands of years, native people have used the natural asphalt at Baba Gurgur for their homes, their roads, and other things. The flames are visible for miles, and visitors to Kirkuk, Iraq can see them from the city. The flames also emit deadly hydrogen sulfide gas, so visitors are told by warning signs to stay upwind of the smoke.
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The U.S. government is certainly NOT of the people, NOT by the people, and NOT for the people. In the vernacular of the day, what do we have? Government of the People, by the People, for the People. NOT.
I submit that the people or peoples that inhabit a certain portion of North America known as America did not overthrow the government of Iran in 1953. They did not direct themselves into the Vietnam War. They did not decide to bomb Serbia, starve the people of Iraq, and later invade Iraq. They didn’t decide to debase the dollar. They did not devise or pass Obamacare. They did not decide to bail out Wall Street investment bankers or hedge funds. They did not decide to militarize America’s police. They did not decide to have a war on drugs with stiff prison sentences. They didn’t decide to have a war on poverty. They didn’t decide to have a massive NSA program of surveillance and spying on themselves and the rest of the world and then to keep it secret from themselves. A certain number of Americans may have been polled and their positive, negative and ambiguous opinions sounded out on some of these actions, but the People certainly didn’t make these decisions and many other important decisions.
Obama’s agenda has been his own. The same goes for his predecessors. The People have never written a State of the Union address that contained the president’s favorite causes and agenda. What the people have done is to supply the bodies and the resources to the State and to obey its laws and directives, and all of that under the threats that if they did not obey, they would be punished.
The People simply do not have decision rights on what the State does. In the normal course of events, what the State does is out of the People’s hands. Occasional mass protests, polls or votes have influence on the State, but only temporarily so and not to any substantial degree. The People are not running the ship of State.
In a masterpiece of political propaganda, the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln penned one of the most famous slogans in American history: “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Lincoln was referring to the U.S. government, but U.S. government has never fit such a description. A government of that description with its seat in Washington could not have perished from the earth in 1863 because no such government existed in the first place. What existed was a State, one that Lincoln wanted to be large, permanent and growing.
This slogan has been fabulously successful at getting people to identify with, acquiesce in and support the State and its administrative apparatus. Schoolchildren are encouraged to memorize the Address or at least that clause.
“Of the people” makes people think that the State’s officials and bureaucrats are drawn from “us” and are “of us”. Physically, they are. Morally and behaviorally, they are not. Their intentions and actions differ drastically from us. It is the difference between rulers and the ruled, between sovereigns and subjects, and between masters and slaves.
The rulers, who are apart from us, over us, and wield powers unavailable to us, would have us believe that they are “one with us”. Obama is still saying the same thing as Lincoln almost 150 years later when he tells us: “The government is us [sic].”
The phrase “by the people” fools people into thinking that American government is being accomplished by everyone in a team effort and by team decisions. A democratic consensus is supposed to be at work, or else in republican fashion, the people are not construed to have rulers but representatives who are agents. We are supposed to believe that they sense and read our collective will and then translate it into laws and regulations, taxes and wars, programs and debts, for our own good, for the general welfare. These are the illusions fostered by those who enter the ruling elite.
These illusions are designed to make people think that they are governing themselves. The State’s apparatus of potentially unlimited despotism is substituted for self-government and for limited government that protects rights.
Does voting mean that government is by the people? Ask yourself what influence you have on any legislation by your vote or by your vote in conjunction with others. Many members of Congress frequently do not even have an influence, neither reading the massive bills nor knowing what is in them. A few members and lobbyists are writing laws in the dead of night. Hearings are rigged.
What influence do you have on what a president decides? What influence do you have on what a Supreme Court says is or is not law? What influence do you have on what a Congress legislates?
What influence do you have on who is elected to office and who your representatives are? In 1789, there were less than 30,000 constituents for each representative in the House. Today that number is about 700,000.
Most of those who are elected to national office are candidates of the two major parties, which themselves are entrenched by behind-the-scenes rules and laws. These parties vet the candidates using criteria and processes of politics and finance that are not constructed by the people but by the party’s leaders and suppliers of money. The resulting representatives do not represent issues and priorities of the people, and they are not beholden to them but to their backers and financiers. Furthermore, if they wish to remain in Congress and gain power, they must accede to the priorities of the more powerful politicians that they must work with inside the State’s system.
If the apparatus of the State, commonly called government as by Lincoln or “the” government as by Obama, is not of or by the people, is it “for the people”? This is hardly possible given the ways in which the offices and bureaus of government are filled and the ways that priorities are established, taxes imposed and decisions made. It is impossible to think that an organization with the powers of the State, that can instill fear of punishment and can actually punish anyone who does not pay their taxes or do exactly as they’re told to do, is making decisions “for” us and not for their own interests and those who control the organization.
Obama follows the well-worn path of apologists for the State when he says “The government is us”. The government is not We the People – not us – when the ruling apparatus is that of a State, as is the case in America and many other nations.
A State is an organization that always is manned by an elite bent on domination for its own purposes. Its powers are not unlimited, but their expansion can become exceedingly uncomfortable for those forced to submit to them or who mistakenly support them. When the elite poses as a popular movement or the democratic voice of the people or the leadership of the general will or the vanguard of the people, it is at its most dangerous for then it possesses a rationale that may result in the acquiescence of large numbers of its subjects who tie their own nooses.
A State always has a government, but not all government is of a State. Government refers to the governing body of such groups as a nation, State, tribe, aggregation of people, federation, association or community. A nation and a people need not have a State, but they still can have a system by which they govern themselves. Members of a church may govern themselves. A corporate organization can govern its own behavior. A clan can develop its own government. So can a commune, a scientific community or an industry.
The State is peculiar in its claim to be the final word in government in a territory. It is ironic that as the form of government has become more democratic over the past few centuries, that is, supposedly of the people, by the people and for the people, the government has in reality become more all-encompassing and more oligarchic. The form does not accord with the substance. This is in part because the State has had the power of being the final word and the democratic form has reinforced the legitimacy of its sovereignty. The mythical “of the people, by the people, for the people” has reinforced the actual “not of the people, not by the people, not for the people”.
The myth of self-rule in the face of very real elite rule has not acted alone in enlarging the State. Certain ideas that previously limited the scope of the State and its government have been greatly reduced in importance, sometimes perverted, or even have fallen by the wayside; and the democratic form provides no resistance to their absence, in fact, it supports the degradation of these ideas and the expansion of government under the State’s power. Certain other ideas have risen greatly in esteem and importance in supposedly providing support to enlarging the State. A few examples follow. Natural law has fallen in esteem and positive law has risen. Common law has fallen and civil codes have risen. Self-reliance has fallen and expert rule has risen. Individual responsibility has fallen and social causation risen. Neutrality has fallen and expansionism risen. Negative rights have fallen and positive rights risen. Moral codes have fallen and pragmatism risen. Distrust of the State has fallen and trust in the State has risen. God has fallen and the State has risen.
Throughout these alterations in ideas, the statists have continually promoted Lincoln’s slogan “of the people, by the people, for the people”, Obama’s pronouncement being a recent prominent example. The statists want a pliant and acquiescent people, not an active thinking people that questions the State or its constantly increasing encroachments. Witness the State’s reactions to the Occupy movement and to Assange, Manning and Snowden. These are further evidence of Government of the People, by the People, for the People. NOT.
The Best of Michael S. Rozeff
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Internet connectivity and mobile communications throughout the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been fully restored, but the country’s political turmoil is far from over.
The government had moved to block communications in an attempt to quell public protests sparked by President Joseph Kabila’s political maneuvers to extend his tenure in office.
The DRC government shut down Internet, social media and mobile phone communications on Jan. 19, restoring Internet service only to banks, government agencies and other corporate bodies 10 days later.
People had been using text messages and social media networks to coordinate rallies to protest Kabila’s attempts to introduce an electoral bill and change the country’s constitution in order to continue his stay in office. The DRC government admitted that the debate over the bill would likely delay the next presidential election by at least one year.
About 45 people reportedly died and more than 1,000 were injured during just four days of protests last month. As in many other countries in Africa hit by political unrest—including Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi—the DRC government claimed the Internet and mobile phones were putting the security of the nation at risk.
The political opposition has threatened to call for more protests should there be any further attempt to prolong Kabila’s stay in power. Kabila has been in power for 14 years and looks set to extend his tenure, which ends next year. But so far, he has not officially announced he will be running.
DRC government spokesman Lambert Mende earlier this week accused political dissidents of using social media networks to incite protesters to destroy state property and commit murder.
France’s Orange Telecom, one of the many international telecom companies operating in the DRC, has been sending text messages to its subscribers over the last 48 hours, informing them that Internet connectivity and SMS services have been restored. South Africa’s Vodacom apologized for the inconvenience via radio, blaming circumstances beyond its control.
Operators and ISPs in the Central African country complained of losing millions of dollars during the shutdown period.
The U.S. has joined mounting calls for the DRC to hold elections next year. The U.N. and France have also put pressure on Kabila to step down when his term ends.
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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia’s health ministry on Saturday defended its decision to host a contest on how to “prevent” homosexuality and transgenderism, saying the competition was aimed at helping teens make better health decisions.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation reported on Friday activists had criticised the contest, saying that it could fan hatred and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.
In response, Malaysian deputy director-general of health Lokman Hakim Sulaiman said the contest, titled the National Creative Video Competition on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health, was to gather views and enhance knowledge among teens on healthy lifestyle practices.
“This creative video competition is purely to tap knowledge and creativity of adolescents on sexual and reproductive health related matters and does not intend to create discrimination to any particular group,” he said in a statement.
The contest on the ministry’s website calls on participants to submit video clips for categories including one on “gender identity disorder”.
Its guidelines added that the videos must include elements showing the “consequences” of being LGBT, as well as how to “prevent, control and seek help” for them.
Other categories include cybersex and sexual reproductive health.
Lokman said the topics were chosen as statistics showed an increase in sexual and reproductive health problems among teens, including higher rates of sexual activity and a rise in HIV transmission.
The ministry did not discriminate against any group in providing health services, including LGBT people, he added.
“We have specific guidelines for all health workers to treat every client equally and with due respect to an individual’s right,” he said.
Activists say intolerance of LGBT people has spiked in recent years in Malaysia, a multi-ethnic Southeast Asian country that is majority Muslim.
Transgender activist Nisha Ayub said the contest encouraged “discrimination, hatred and even violence” towards minority groups.
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A giant windowless brick shell traversed only by an old, warped fire escape juts up some 40ft directly above the store front, a giant black box. I learned from people in the neighborhood that this was once the old Hollywood Theatre which shut down in 1959, but what was more surprising was when I found out it wasn't just another dusty, gutted empty space, but that it was the functional store room for my dearest bodega! If the store was my sparkling spring, this was its cavernous aquifer. I began asking regularly about going upstairs at every two-dollar hydration visit. I wanted to photograph it and at one point late at night did receive permission, only to return the following day to be met with language barriers and gestures of denial. Eventually, I found my friend working again and received an invitation to return "after midnight." So I showed up with my camera and tripod, he warned me there was only one light, but it was plenty. Walking through the back past all the things you would expect and up a small staircase deposits you stage-left in this little store's swollen subconscious.
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MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities have passed clothing that belonged to some of the 43 students missing from rural teachers’ college to a lab in Austria for genetic testing.
The attorney general’s office said in a statement Tuesday that it sent some 53 items to the University of Innsbruck almost a year after the students’ disappearance.
The announcement came after a panel of independent experts working under the auspices of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights criticized the government’s investigation for not testing the items or informing the students’ families that they existed.
According to the government, the 43 students from the teachers’ college in Guerrero state were seized by police in Iguala on Sept. 26, 2014. The police turned them over to a drug gang that killed them and incinerated their remains.
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WASHINGTON - A US-Iranian engineer was arrested at Newark International Airport while attempting to smuggle secret documents to Iran – among them the blueprint for the coveted F-35 multi-role fighter jet, which Israel is set to receive in 2016.
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Mozaffar Khazaee, a former US defense contractor employee, was arrested on January 9 at Newark International Airport in New Jersey following the first leg of his flight to Tehran via Germany.
Khazaee, who was naturalized in 1991, state-run Russia Today (RT) reported, was charged with “transporting, transmitting and transferring in interstate or foreign commerce goods obtained by theft, conversion, or fraud.” According to RT, he faces a maximum of 10 years in jail.
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In November US customs officers inspected a shipment Khazaee had sent from Connecticut to California intended to eventually reach Hamadan, Iran, ABC reported.
The shipment, which Khazaee had listed as containing "books and college-related items, two suitcases, a vacuum cleaner and some other items," in fact held "thousands of pages contained in dozens of manuals/binders relating to the JSF (F-35 Joint Strike Fighter) program."
Quoting an affidavit, ABC reported that he had visited Iran some five times in recent years.
Reports said that Khazaee had been employed for different air defense contractors. According to ABC, a spokesperson for Pratt & Whitney, a contractor specializing in fighter jet engines confirmed that Khazaee was recently an employee. Pratt & Whitney is "fully cooperating with law enforcement and will support the government's investigation in any way necessary."
The F-35 is the most expensive fighter jet in the history of warfare, costing the American government some $400 billion to develop. The jet is expected to replace the majority of US military aircraft across the military branches.
Israel has already pre-ordered some 19 F-35s for around $2.5 billion. Last year, Reuters reported that the Pentagon reached an agreement with Lockheed Martin Corp on a $450 million program to enhance electronic warfare equipment on the F-35 fighter jet, and integrate Israeli-unique systems beginning in 2016.
The deal marked a big step forward for Israel's agreement to buy the F-35 jets, which was signed in October 2010 and includes options for up to 75 of the radar-evading fighters.
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Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has violated judicial ethics through numerous speeches where he suggests the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage shouldn't be followed, the Southern Poverty Law Center said today.
For the second time this year, Montgomery-based SPLC has supplemented its complaint against Moore to the Judicial Inquiry Commission of Alabama.
The SPLC filed its original complaint against Moore on Jan. 28 and filed a supplement on Feb. 3.
The initial complaint stated Moore was "encouraging lawlessness by attempting to assemble state officials and judges to oppose the federal court system."
Alabama Reproductive Rights Advocates filed an ethics complaint against Moore this month as well claiming he showed public support for domestic terrorism by speaking at an anti-abortion rally held by Operation Save America in Montgomery on July 11.
A Moore spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the filing.
In its filing today, SPLC says Moore has committed new ethics violations by improperly commenting on pending or impending cases in numerous speeches and interviews; by suggesting that Supreme Court precedent need not be followed; and by announcing that he would recuse himself from cases rather than apply precedents with which he disagreed.
The SPLC also contends Moore's continued association with the Foundation for Moral Law also violates the Alabama Canon of Judicial Ethics. Moore's wife, Kayla, services as the president of the legal services organization; Moore is listed as president emeritus.
"Justice Moore has been removed from office for unethical actions once before, but it's clear that he hasn't learned his lesson," SPLC President Richard Cohen said in a statement. "It's obviously unethical for him to urge defiance of a United States Supreme Court ruling. He needs to understand that he is a judge, not a preacher."
The SPLC complaint states that in a July 7 interview with political activist Randall Terry, Moore indicated that he was in "active" conflict with the federal judiciary over its "horrendous opinion" in the same-sex marriage case and was fighting the same-sex ruling with briefs and speeches.
"If Chief Justice Moore wants to make political speeches or be an activist in opposition to same-sex marriage, he is free to do so, but he cannot simultaneously hold his current position on the Alabama Supreme Court," Cohen said. "His blatant disregard for judicial ethics demonstrates once again that he is unfit for office."
The Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed Moore from the office of chief justice 12 years ago after he refused to comply with a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building.
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Previously in series: Selecting Rationalist Groups
Followup to: Rationality is Systematized Winning, Extenuating Circumstances
Why emphasize the connection between rationality and winning? Well... that is what decision theory is for. But also to place a Go stone to block becoming a whining-based community.
Let's be fair to Ayn Rand: There were legitimate messages in Atlas Shrugged that many readers had never heard before, and this lent the book a part of its compelling power over them. The message that it's all right to excel—that it's okay to be, not just good, but better than others—of this the Competitive Conspiracy would approve.
But this is only part of Rand's message, and the other part is the poison pill, a deadlier appeal: It's those looters who don't approve of excellence who are keeping you down. Surely you would be rich and famous and high-status like you deserve if not for them, those unappreciative bastards and their conspiracy of mediocrity.
If you consider the reasonableness-based conception of rationality rather than the winning-based conception of rationality—well, you can easily imagine some community of people congratulating themselves on how reasonable they were, while blaming the surrounding unreasonable society for keeping them down. Wrapping themselves up in their own bitterness for reality refusing to comply with the greatness they thought they should have.
But this is not how decision theory works—the "rational" strategy adapts to the other players' strategies, it does not depend on the other players being rational. If a rational agent believes the other players are irrational then it takes that expectation into account in maximizing expected utility. Van Vogt got this one right: his rationalist protagonists are formidable from accepting reality swiftly and adapting to it swiftly, without reluctance or attachment.
Self-handicapping (hat-tip Yvain) is when people who have been made aware of their own incompetence or probable future failure, deliberately impose handicaps on themselves—on the standard model, in order to give themselves an excuse for failure. To make sure they had an excuse, subjects reduced preparation times for athletic events, studied less, exerted less effort, gave opponents an advantage, lowered their own expectations, even took a drug they had been told was performance-inhibiting...
So you can see how much people value having an excuse—how much they'll pay to make sure they have something outside themselves to blame, in case of failure. And this is a need which many belief systems fill—they provide an excuse.
It's the government's fault, that taxes you and suppresses the economy—if it weren't for that, you would be a great entrepreneur. It's the fault of those less competent who envy your excellence and slander you—if not for that, the whole world would pilgrimage to admire you. It's racism, or sexism, that keeps you down—if it weren't for that, you would have gotten so much further in life with the same effort. Your rival Bob got the promotion by bootlicking. Those you call sinners may be much wealthier than you, but that's because God set up the system to reward the good deeds of the wicked in this world and punish them for their sins in the next, vice versa for the virtuous: "A boor cannot know, nor can a fool understand this: when the wicked bloom like grass and all the doers of iniquity blossom—it is to destroy them till eternity."
And maybe it's all true. The government does impose taxes and barriers to new businesses. There is racism and sexism. Scientists don't run out and embrace new ideas without huge amounts of work to evangelize them. Loyalty is a huge factor in promotions and flattery does signify loyalty. I can't back religions on that divine plan thing, but still, those wealthier than you may have gotten there by means more vile than you care to use...
And so what? In other countries there are those with far greater obstacles and less opportunity than you. There are those born with Down's Syndrome. There's not a one of us in this world, even the luckiest, whose path is entirely straight and without obstacles. In this unfair world, the test of your existence is how well you do in this unfair world.
I earlier suggested that we view our parents and environment and genes as having determined which person makes a decision—plucking you out of Platonic person-space to agonize in front of the burning orphanage, rather than someone else—but you determine what that particular person decides. If, counterfactually, your genes or environment had been different, then it would not so much change your decision as determine that someone else would make that decision.
In the same sense, I would suggest that a baby with your genes, born into a universe entirely fair, would by now be such a different person that as to be nowhere close to "you", your point in Platonic person-space. You are defined by the particular unfair challenges that you face; and the test of your existence is how well you do with them.
And in that unfair challenge, the art of rationality (if you can find it) is there to help you deal with the horrible unfair challenge and by golly win anyway, not to provide fellow bitter losers to hang out with. Even if the government does tax you and people do slander you and racists do discriminate against you and others smarm their way to success while you keep your ethics... still, this whole business of rationality is there to help you win anyway, if you can find the art you need. Find the art together, win together, if we can. And if we can't win, it means we weren't such good rationalists as we thought, and ought to try something different the next time around. (If it's one of those challenges where you get more than one try.)
From within that project—what good does a sense of violated entitlement do? At all? Ever? What good does it do to tell ourselves that we did everything right and deserved better, and that someone or something else is to blame? Is that the key thing we need to change, to do better next time?
Immediate adaptation to the realities of the situation! Followed by winning!
That is how I would cast down the gauntlet, just to make really, really sure we don't go down the utterly, completely, pointlessly unhelpful, surprisingly common path of mutual bitterness and consolation.
Part of the sequence The Craft and the Community
Next post: "Mandatory Secret Identities"
Previous post: "Incremental Progress and the Valley"
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Whether Marvin Bagley will actually be cleared to play at Duke this season remains undetermined. But, just for fun, let's assume the projected No. 1 pick of the 2018 NBA Draft is in uniform and ready to go when the season starts. How will he be?
Great?
Good?
Or just a work-in-progress -- a better prospect than player?
My guess is ... great.
Hand to heart, I really do believe Bagley will be terrific from Day 1. And, by end of the season, I think it'll be clear that he lived up to the hype and established himself as a fantastic prospect and player who looks like the NBA's next great thing. Put another way, I think he'll be the best power forward in all of college basketball.
Which got me thinking.
Who will be the second-best power forward? And what about point guards? And shooting guards? And small forwards? And centers? So, with that in mind, I sat down and made a list. The result is below. Let's call it the Five Best College Basketball Players At College Basketball's Five Different Positions.
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(Or something like that.)
Here we go ...
Point guards
Rank Player School Class Height 2016-17 numbers 1 Jalen Brunson Villanova Junior 6-3 14.7 ppg, 4.1 apg 2 Joel Berry North Carolina Senior 6-0 14.7 ppg, 3.6 apg 3 Landry Shamet Wichita State RS Soph. 6-4 11.4 ppg, 43.9 3-pt pct 4 Trevon Duval Duke Freshman 6-2 16.1 ppg, 7.5 apg (HS) 5 Collin Sexton Alabama Freshman 6-2 32.6 ppg, 6.3 rpg (HS)
Explanation: Brunson is experienced, steady, a good-enough shooter and a total winner who is terrific at the free-throw line and thus built to close games. So, I think, he's the best point guard in college basketball. But Berry, the reigning Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, is a reasonable alternative. If you prefer him, that's not stupid. Shamet could be this season's breakout star. And though I considered SMU's Shake Milton and Kansas' Devonte' Graham for the fourth and fifth spots, I went with Duval and Sexton because, almost every year, elite first-year point guards emerge. Lonzo Ball and De'Aaron Fox were those guys last season. Duval and Sexton should be those guys this season.
Shooting guards
Explanation: It's probably reasonable to go with Trier or Allen in the top spot here. But I went with Trier simply because he was significantly better than Allen last season. He shot it better from the field and from 3-point range. He scored more and rebounded more. So Trier's the pick. But I do think Allen will have a bounce-back season. If he's an All-American, it won't surprise me. Carter doesn't register with casual fans. But he's been a productive guard for a team that's made three straight NCAA Tournaments, including two Sweet 16s. I'm expecting a big season from Brown, who averaged 11.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists as a freshman. And Diallo should be the nation's best freshman shooting guard, in my opinion. He'll benefit from the time he spent practicing with Kentucky last season.
Small forwards
Rank Player School Class Height 2016-17 numbers 1 Miles Bridges Michigan State Sophomore 6-7 16.9 ppg, 8.3 rpg 2 Michael Porter Jr. Missouri Freshman 6-10 36.2 ppg, 13.6 rpg (HS) 3 Trevon Blueitt Xavier Senior 6-6 18.5 ppg, 5.7 rpg 4 Kevin Knox Kentucky Freshman 6-9 28.9 ppg, 10.9 rpg (HS) 5 Mikal Bridges Villanova RS Junior 6-7 9.8 ppg, 39.0 3-pt pct
Explanation: Bridges and Porter could be listed as power forwards; they each play some small-ball four. But I decided to put them in the small forward category because that's their natural position. And I went with Bridges over Porter -- even though I believe Porter is the superior NBA prospect -- because I think Bridges is just going to be awesome this season. Unless I change my mind for some reason, he'll be my pick for National Player of the Year in the preseason. I could easily see him averaging 20 and 10 and producing countless highlight-reel dunks for a Big Ten champion. Bluiett should end up surpassing the 2,200-point scoring mark for his career this season. Knox is one of UK's next one-and-done stars. And Bridges should have the breakout season a lot of people thought was coming last season.
Power forwards
Explanation: Colson is the only CBS Sports All-American from last season back in school. He could reasonably be placed at the top of this position. But, like I've said and written many times, Bagley is special. So he has to be No. 1 ahead of Notre Dame's leading scorer and rebounder. Williams averaged 11.9 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.5 blocks last season and should be better in every category this season. Daum is the nation's best so-called mid-major player. He averaged 25.1 points and 8.1 rebounds while leading the Jackrabbits to the 2017 NCAA Tournament. And the fifth spot went to Boatwright, who led USC in scoring last season while averaging 15.1 points and shooting 90.7 percent from the free throw line. He barely edged Georgia's Yante Maten and Michigan State freshman Jaren Jackson for the fifth spot.
Centers
Rank Player School Class Height 2016-17 numbers 1 DeAndre Ayton Arizona Freshman 7-1 26.0 ppg, 15.0 rpg (HS) 2 Angel Delgado Seton Hall Senior 6-10 15.2 ppg, 13.1 rpg 3 Ethan Happ Wisconsin Junior 6-10 14.0 ppg, 9.0 rpg 4 Jock Landale Saint Mary's Senior 6-11 16.2 ppg, 9.2 rpg 5 Mohamed Bamba Texas Freshman 7-0 14.0 ppg, 8.0 bpg (HS)
Explanation: Everything I've heard out of Arizona is that Ayton has been tremendous in offseason workouts. So he should be the Wildcats' next one-and-done star and, possibly, the key to Sean Miller's first Final Four. Delgado averaged 15.2 points and a national-best 13.1 rebounds last season. He's a no-brainer pick for this list. And I can't tell you how much me and some of my friends who are also college basketball writers argued over Happ. Some thought he should be listed as a power forward. But the truth is that he spends most of his time playing what amounts to center for the Badgers. So I placed him on the centers list -- just ahead of Landale, who averaged 16.2 points and 9.2 rebounds last season. And the fifth spot went to Bamba, who should be a one-and-done shot-altering standout at Texas. He edged USC's Chimezie Metu, who averaged 14.8 points and 7.8 rebounds last season.
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Is it capitulation when Mexico, which faces an existential threat from drug cartels, decides to decriminalize drugs?
Is it cynicism when California, which faces a budget crisis, considers legalizing and taxing marijuana?
Quips are easy. But the problems are complex, and we are about to get a look at the consequences, for good or bad, of what happens when governments relax their drug laws. It is a moment for studied observation.
Mexico's new law decriminalizes small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD and methamphetamine. Those caught will be told to seek treatment the first two times; treatment is mandatory the third time.
Under previous laws, possession could lead to long jail terms. Treating drug abuse as a social and public-health problem rather than a law-enforcement issue is expected to free up prison space and resources to go after criminal drug cartels, according to Mexican officials.
It may seem contradictory to excuse the user while targeting suppliers. But in Mexico, which has long supplied the U.S. market for illicit drugs, domestic consumption is a relatively new phenomenon. According to government statistics, the number of addicts in Mexico has risen by more than 50 percent in six years.
Will Mexico's new policy result in more addicts seeking treatment, or will it create an atmosphere in which more people become addicts? Will Mexico provide the necessary treatment for the 300,000 to 465,000 addicts estimated to be in the country? Will this change in policy legitimize the drug cartels? Or help Mexico's aggressive campaign against these criminal syndicates, which are responsible for more than 11,000 deaths since 2006?
Arizona's shared border with Mexico also raises concerns about the impact on U.S. visitors to Mexico, particularly spring-break revelers.
Arizona's western border offers the chance to observe another experiment in moving away from a law-and-order model for dealing with drug use.
In 1996, California voters approved medical marijuana. The needed prescription is a small fig leaf that covers a wide variety of "ailments."
California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a Democrat, proposes full legalization of marijuana for adult use, with regulation and taxation. A tax of $50 per ounce is estimated to raise $1.3 billion annually. According to one poll, 56 percent of California voters support such a plan.
There also are three initiative efforts in California to put marijuana-legalization measures before voters in November 2010.
Again, there are more questions than answers.
Both California's move toward legalization and Mexico's experiment with decriminalization provide real-life laboratories for observing the effects of new approaches to drug use. We'll be watching.
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By Phil McNulty
Our man with England
Our assessment of every England player's performance at Euro 2004. Sven-Goran Eriksson - 6: Mixed tournament for England's coach. Was proved right about the selection of Ledley King ahead of Jamie Carragher against France, but did he substitute Wayne Rooney too soon in that game? Never truly solved his midfield puzzle, particularly on the left side and was again guilty of over-caution against Portugal. David James - 6: Never inspired confidence in England's defence and was fortunate to get away with several moments of mishandling. Good shot-stopper, but decision-making questionable and must now be replaced by either Paul Robinson or Chris Kirkland. Gary Neville - 7: True leader on and off the pitch, performing with great reliability. Dug deep when needed and was an inspiration when England were under pressure against France and Portugal - which was often. Sol Campbell - 8: The rock at the heart of defence. Barely put a foot wrong in Portugal and will once again rue a debatable disallowed goal, this time against Portugal. Towering in the air and excellent as the senior partner in central defence. John Terry - 6: Tournament disrupted by a hamstring injury that forced him to miss the opener against France. Never quite looked fully match sharp, although improved with games. Was at fault for Helder Postiga's crucial late equaliser against Portugal when he failed to cut out a cross. Ashley Cole - 8: Outstanding throughout - one of the giants of England's campaign. Capped it all with a magnificent display against Portugal which his team-mates regarded as one of the great individual international performances. Arrives home with a good reputation hugely enhanced. David Beckham - 5: The biggest disappointment. England's captain looked lightweight and jaded, and while he made a contribution to the win against Switzerland, was poor when it mattered against France and Portugal. Missed penalties only inflicted more damage on his reputation. Paul Scholes - 6: Mixed campaign from the Manchester United man, but sympathy because he was playing in a position to which he is clearly unsuited on the left flank. Scholes drifts naturally into the centre and is at his most effective when in possession. Ended his three-year goal-scoring drought against Croatia, but will have wished for more from Euro 2004. Steven Gerrard - 7: Recovered well from his calamitous back-pass that gave France victory in the opening game. Maybe not quite the stellar impact England had hoped for, but still a good tournament. Scored against Switzerland and ran a marathon against Portugal until cramp caught up with him. Frank Lampard - 7: Three goals in four games was an excellent contribution from midfield and can regard his first major tournament as a success. His partnership with Steven Gerrard in midfield is still a work in progress but nailed down a place for the future. Wayne Rooney - 9 (STAR MAN): The new England superstar. Astounding performances for an 18-year-old, frightening France and scoring twice against Switzerland and Croatia. Rooney's early injury against Portugal had a devastating impact on England's mood and attacking threat. The best young prospect in world football. Michael Owen - 7: Slow starter, but finished the tournament as the world-class striker he is. Owen's partnership with Rooney grew with every game. The Liverpool striker turned creator for his Everton partner in this tournament and forms a strike partnership that will be the envy of Europe. Fantastic finish against Portugal. Ledley King - 7: The Spurs youngster was thrown in against France because of John Terry's injury and acquitted himself superbly. Composed and quick, did his growing reputation no harm whatsoever. Now firmly pencilled in as part of England's future. Darius Vassell - 6: Will be remembered for missing the crucial penalty against Portugal, but gave a particularly lively performance as a substitute against Switzerland, where he created a goal for Rooney. Vassell's performance when given 75 minutes as a substitute against Portugal suggests he will always be better as a shock tactic rather than a starter. Phil Neville - 6: Valuable squad man who made his contribution as a substitute, but was unable to stop the Portugal tide when thrown on as a destructive force with England under fierce pressure in the Stadium of Light. Owen Hargreaves - 6: Willing runner and full of energy, but is possibly just short of class to be a regular starter in England's team. Emile Heskey - 5: Oh dear. Was painted, rather harshly, as the villain of the piece for clumsily conceding the foul that led to Zinedine Zidane's injury-time equaliser against France, but subsequently almost disappeared off the radar. A sensitive soul who may have trouble rebuilding his England career after this. Kieron Dyer - 5: Lively appearance as a substitute late on against Switzerland, but otherwise tournament was something of a non-event. Wayne Bridge, Paul Robinson, Jamie Carragher, Nicky Butt, Joe Cole and Ian Walker did not play in Euro 2004.
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In This Section Eriksson drops Sweden hint FA targets winter break Queiroz blasts Beckham England at Euro 2004 Merk slams English press Cantona blasts France Figo rejects Beckham claim Real unhappy with Beckham Campbell accuses referee Eriksson rues French loss Beckham hits back Campbell focused on future Defiant Meier stands firm Eriksson eyes new blood Eriksson vows to stay on England back in UK King returns to England England player ratings England need to be bold Rooney faces two months out Why does it always end like this? So painful, so cruel, so typical Beckham takes the blame Where was the real Beckham? What went wrong with Beckham? Beckham to stay as skipper Wayne Rooney diary Rooney 'the new Pele' Rooney's route to the top Rooney, the boy I know Rooney has pundits purring How does Rooney match up? Portugal break England hearts Virtual Replay: Key incidents Record audience for England match England rue bad luck James defends Vassell Eriksson cools controversy England player ratings Scolari savours progress Ricardo had penalty plan Neville hits out at referee Clockwatch: Portugal-England Croatia 2-4 England Virtual Replay: Key incidents Terry dismisses injury fear Eriksson sets sights high Baric reflective in defeat England victory watched by 16.7m England player ratings England 3-0 Switzerland Virtual Replay: Key incidents Rooney given England goal Eriksson laughs off revolt Swiss result was everything England player ratings France 2-1 England Virtual Replay: Key incidents Eriksson remains upbeat England stay positive England can take heart despite defeat England v France player ratings England squad How they qualified: England England's road to Portugal England flatter to deceive England's track record The Football Association
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The United States has begun withdrawing troops from Iraq ahead of a major August pullout. A contingent left July 13, cutting short their normal 12-month tour of duty.
The August withdrawal is billed as ending the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, fulfilling a vow President Obama made shortly after taking office last year. Yet some 50,000 “noncombat” troops will remain, along with thousands of private contractors and other U.S. personnel. It remains to be seen what the impact will be on Iraq, and whether all U.S. troops will really leave by 2011 as specified in the agreement signed by President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the Bush administration’s final days.
The number of U.S. troops in Iraq is already down to around 75,000 from a peak of about 170,000 during the 2007 “surge.”
Under the status of forces agreement signed in December 2008, the U.S. agreed to pull out of Iraqi towns and cities by June 30, 2009, and remove all troops by Dec. 31, 2011.
U.S. troops did withdraw from Iraqi cities last June, moving to massive bases nearby. However they continued to conduct joint operations with the Iraqi army, officially at the Iraqis’ request.
Violence continues, with suicide bombings in Baghdad on Sunday killing at least 43 Sunni “Awakening Council” members waiting to collect their government paychecks. Yet attacks are down overall, according to a variety of sources.
U.S. officials are taking pains to insist that next month’s withdrawal will proceed as planned. The U.S. pullout “will not in any way affect the physical stability of Iraq,” Vice President Joe Biden told ABC News shortly after the Sunday bombings.
Earlier this month, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, suggested that UN peacekeeping forces could be brought in to northern Iraq when U.S. forces leave, to help the Iraqi government curb violence in Mosul and other areas disputed between Kurds and Arabs.
Odierno said a UN force would benefit both the Iraqis and the U.S., enabling President Obama to stick to his withdrawal timetable.
Brig. Gen. Kenneth Tovo, who heads U.S. operations in Anbar province, told the Christian Science Monitor he and his Iraqi counterparts believe that “political opportunism” is behind most of the current violence “in this uncertain period when we are working on national government formation.” Tovo reflected a wide Iraqi view that when the new Iraqi government is formed, “a lot of this will settle down.”
The attacks, which are being credited to “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” come in the context of a four-month political leadership stalemate following Iraq’s March 7 national elections. The elections did not produce a clear winner, with Maliki’s State of Law slate coming in 2 votes behind a slate headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Neither garnered enough votes to form a government on their own. Both presented themselves as non-sectarian, but Maliki’s party is Shiite Islamist while Allawi’s slate is linked to former Baathists. The outcome was skewed by a controversial election law which essentially disenfranchised smaller parties, including Iraq’s well-respected Communist Party and other democratic and ethnic minority parties, and handed their votes to the dominant slates.
Since March, the big political blocs have been engaged in non-stop deal-making, each trying to line up support to head the new government. Neighboring countries, especially Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, are involved, each seeking a post-occupation Iraqi government that is friendly to the economic and political interests of their respective ruling circles.
And the U.S. is looking for a friendly and stable Iraqi government that will quell the remaining violence, enable the U.S. to free its strained military for Afghanistan and other ventures, and put out a welcome mat for U.S. corporations.
Of course, certain right-wing U.S. circles want to keep a military presence there. And Iraqi commentators say some Iraqis, including some former Baathists but others as well, want the U.S. to stay, feeling the Americans will help them gain leverage over their opponents.
Before the March elections, some saw the U.S. as favoring the Allawi slate. Certainly, Allawi’s campaign benefited from vast sums of money from Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally.
Biden went to Iraq July 3, his fifth trip there since taking office as vice president 18 months ago, to press for a speedy resolution to the governmental crisis. Reportedly he pushed for an alliance between the Allawi and Maliki slates. But according to the Iraqi political analysis site Niqash, “Biden’s visit raised fears among the other major political parties that they will be excluded from the government.” Since then, the wheeling and dealing has continued.
Iraqis say the much talked-of Sunni-Shiite divide was largely manufactured and then exacerbated by the U.S. occupation. Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-based regime also included Shiites. Allawi, a former Baathist now heading a Sunni-based slate, is a Shiite. Maliki’s Shiite slate also includes Sunnis. Communists and other progressive parties include Sunnis as well as Shiites.
But Shiites, persecuted under Saddam Hussein, and generally associated with Iraq’s working class and poor, make up 60 percent of the population. Together with the Kurds, who are 20 percent, and some smaller ethnic minorities, they have no intention of allowing Allawi and his Sunni-Baathist-linked slate to take the prime ministership.
Photo: U.S. Army Sgt. Alma Santiago, 25, from Worcester, Mass., with 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, waits at Baghdad International Airport as her unit begins their journey to the United States, July 13. The soldiers, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., are headed home after nine months in Iraq as part of the U.S. drawdown of forces, which begins in earnest next month. (AP/Maya Alleruzzo)
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Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
… doesn’t mean that men literally pay her. Sure, she’s someone stuck in a time when she can have nothing of her own; someone who assembles her life from the odd bits she collects from others, choosing a catch-all existence over a suffocating marriage—made second-rate perhaps by her time, not by her self—but the “fee” doesn’t mean she is being paid for sex. He tells you that you just don’t get it. What he doesn’t get is that she’s a person. He is aging and bald and enjoys saying “whore” to a roomful of children. A few years later, he gets fired for having sex with a student. Him? Him. Of course, him.
The next time you meet Donald Trump, he’s your boss. Well, he’s your boss’s boss. A vice president in marketing who seemingly, literally, cannot stop talking. He’s on his third wife, and that’ll be over in a few years. He can’t believe your mother is his age. He thinks you are friends. He asks you if you’ve changed your hair every time he sees you. Sometimes during meetings he’ll turn away and open a magazine while someone is presenting. One time he comes to a halt in the middle of his own sentence to stare at a woman’s boobs for somewhere from seven to 27 uncomfortable seconds. (It’s hard to gauge time accurately during a truly aggressive boob-stare.) When he finally gets fired years later, his HR file as fat as a pig knuckle; the rumor is he’s caught stealing his own office furniture on the weekend. They don’t even stop him. They just let him go. It’s like the building itself sighs with relief.
And then you get out of your more corporate job and become a television comedy writer on a good show, a show that keeps going. You go from staff writer to producer to co-executive producer in the space of seven years. You work with your sister, which is like a dream, and your co-workers are cool, and your boss is very, very cool. It’s almost as if the fact that you’re a woman doesn’t matter at all. At all. It’s like you finally escaped.
The Trumps are vanquished. They’re dead, or arrested, or fired, sobbing quietly into their stolen office furniture, wondering where it all went.
But then, it starts happening. The actual Trump—the real Donald Trump—starts making a bunch of noise about the birth certificate of a black man. It’s racist. It’s so racist. But it’s just background noise. Then he starts winning in the primaries. You say “no fucking way,” under your breath a lot when you read the headlines.
There he is, implying that people of color are dangerous, that women are whores, that you just don’t get it, opening a magazine while someone else is talking. There he is, all the worst people you ever had to meet, and tolerate, and fight, or at least ignore. There is the villain at the end of the horror movie rising up again with his knife and you are like: “This motherfucker again? No way, I’m tired.”
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Pictures of “Technical Preplan on Blocking Bitcoin overseas Transaction” were circulated in Wechat group and later posted on weibo around 18pm 16 September. The document describes the preplan of blocking bitcoin exchanges and Bitcoin blockchain data-syncing, along with a list of overseas exchanges. The news caused panic sell, a daily low of 16,661 was observed on OKCoin around that time. Chinese Bitcoin community is vulnerable after the “exchange ban”. Could things get worse like shutting down mining pool in China?
Although the screenshots or pictures cannot be verified without a reliable source, a report on Sina confirmed the authenticity, citing support from “insiders”.
Technical Preplan for blocking Bitcoin overseas transaction
The technical measures that should be deployed by 30 September include:
1. Block accesses to overseas exchanges such as Coinbase, bitfinex, localbitcoins on main egress router, including web access, app access, and API access interfaces. 2. Block access to the Bitcoin seeding nodes on the primary exit router, 3. Through DPI recognition, discard Bitcoin blockchain synching data on main firewall.
The Bitcoin exchanges mentioned in the document include: Coinbase, Okex, Okcoin, Bithumb, Bittrex, coinone, bitflyer, bitstamp, bitstar, bitfinex, Poloniex, kraken, bitmex, localbitcoins.
Meanwhile, to prevent nodes from synching data through VPN, mining pools in China (Appendix 4) will be closely monitored and
“Contact local communication administration authority to cut off internet access of mining pool if necessary. “
The “Appendix 4” is missing but the strong-arm of authority is not to be doubted. In the past,
According to a document released by XJEIC (the Economic and Information Commission of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) on 19th July, the authority asked subsidiaries to “take caution on supporting Bitcoin mining enterprises”. The 2-page document points out that Bitcoin mining is not cloud computing center. Mining farm has no economic contributions locally other than “consumption of lots of power”.
“Take caution on supporting Bitcoin mining enterprises”released by XJEIC
The document also suggests that the renting fee of such mining farm should be collected once a month and other premium policy like taxation cut are not applicable for such business.
“Local government or enterprises is suggested not to get involved
According to forum post on 8btc, Bitmain planned to build huge data center in Xinjiang. But the plan was delayed by bad weather, according to chatlog by Jiang Zhuo’er.
The news may be FUD, but Haipo Yang, CEO of Viabtc, expressed his concern:
Technically, China can’t ban bitcoin traffic, we have our own sync network. But if China gov say mining is illegal, we are fucked.
Mining pools business is not considered illegal at the moment, and BTCChina reiterates that the BTCC mining pool service continue after the trading closure on 30 September. We have observed a turn of regulatory attitude towards Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As 5 out of top 6 bitcoin mining pools are situated in China, it would be a disaster if internet connection of these mining pools were taken offline.
Bitcoin network saw a 19.58% difficulty increase at blockheight 485,856 yesterday.
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"It was a terrible accident," recalls Alex Kovkov during a DW interview. The car crash he is referring to left him so badly injured that he could hardly say his name, but the hospital employees refused him treatment. Nobody even offered him a glass of water.
While this scenario may sound like a bad dream, for the 33-year-old Russian lawyer it was a real-life experience. After driving his Mercedes-Benz into a wall at high speed, he was taken to the renowned Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Care with head injuries and deep cuts - but no emergency care was provided to him.
No help for gays
"We don't need HIV-infected people in our hospital," Kovkov was told after informing hospital staff of his condition as a precautionary measure. He only still heard the words "go home" and then woke up in the hospital's psychiatric ward. No treatment was given to him there either. Left alone and bleeding for a few hours, he eventually mustered up the strength to leave the hospital and take a taxi home.
In March 2013, several months before his car accident, Kovkov and his boyfriend were beaten up on a Moscow subway train by two strangers, who had figured out from their conversation that they were gay. "You are impostors and a disgrace to our country! Die!" yelled the attackers as they pointed the nozzle of a fire extinguisher towards Kovkov's eye and attempted to activate it. But Kovkov was lucky: the extinguisher did not work. "So then they decided to hit us with it," says Kovkov with a bitter smile.
While his boyfriend received heavy blows, bleeding from the mouth and sustaining a neck injury, Kovkov attempted to prevent the worst.
Russian gay groups want to draw gobal attention to their situation
"There were about 20 people in the metro car, but they didn't do anything," he says. "They just observed how two gays were being beaten up."
After managing to escape from the metro, they reported the incident to police. But the officers refused to associate the attack with homophobia. The statement that such a crime does not exist in Russian law came across as scornful mockery to the two men. After being put under pressure for an extended period of time, they finally signed a report stating that they had been attacked for no apparent reason.
Growing discrimination
Tanya Cooper from Human Rights Watch (HRW) sees Kovkov's ordeal as a typical case of its kind. The so-called propaganda law passed in July 2013, which makes speaking about homosexuality in front of children punishable, has only worsened the already precarious situation of gays and lesbians in Russia.
"They are increasingly exposed to violence," said Cooper, who works for HRW in Moscow. "The police essentially show them that they are not interested in investigating attacks against gay people because they feel gay people brought it on themselves by exposing their homosexuality."
This lack of support from Russian authorities has prompted many Russian homosexuals and gay-rights activists to leave the country and seek refuge in more tolerant societies.
Seeking asylum
After years of fear and violence, Kovkov traveled to the US on March 5, shortly before his 33rd birthday. He is receiving support in his asylum application process by human-rights organization Spectrum.
Being a certified lawyer, Kovkov documented both violent incidents according to protocol, but received no response from Russian authorities. In February 2014 he also lost his well-paid job at Gazprom subsidiary GPB EnergoEffect, for which he started working in December 2011 after being headhunted. He endured increasing bullying in the office and wrote complaint letters about it to the managing director and other company managers. These may now come in useful in the asylum application process, since they act as proof of discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Life is not easy for homosexual people in Russia
There are no official figures indicating how many Russian homosexuals are currently seeking asylum in the US. But organizations such as Spectrum, Human Rights Watch and Immigration Equality have confirmed to DW that interest in information and support has more than doubled since the introduction of the "propaganda law" in Russia. Spectrum currently has 16 cases on its books and Immigration Equality has 44. And while these numbers may sound low, according to legal advisor Aaron Morris from Immigration Equality only the most serious cases can be taken up due to capacity limitations. "We haven't lost a single case yet," he added.
Various Russian asylum seekers in the US have been trying to draw attention to their situation. A group of them recently demonstrated in front of the White House, telling passers-by about the threats and violence they experienced in Russia. They also felt uncertain about the future, not knowing if they would be able to remain in the US.
Kovkov also does not know at this stage whether his application will be successful. He is sure of one thing, though: he never wants to return to Russia.
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As Ancelotti takes his side to Denmark for Tuesday’s first leg of their last-16 tie, he is pondering his position at a club whose fortunes have taken a turn for the worst since November.
No-one is certain whether it was the sacking of his assistant, Ray Wilkins, or the loss of form and fitness of a clutch of key players that started the rot, but it is clear that things have changed dramatically.
From a position at the top of the Premier League and talk of an unprecedented quadruple back then, Chelsea ’s last hope of a trophy is in the Champions League , and the way they are playing it is hard to see them seeing off Europe’s finest.
Saturday’s dramatic defeat to Everton put them out of the FA Cup, and Ancelotti admitted that they are unlikely to make up the 12-point gap between them and league leaders Manchester United.
Even more worrying for him and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is the prospect that Chelsea will fail to supplant Tottenham or Manchester City in the top four.
So Tuesday’s match in Copenhagen, and the return leg three weeks later, have taken on added importance. Asked if Chelsea need to win to keep their season alive, he answered: “Yes.We’re not having good results and we have to do better. Maybe this will be a good moment to take a result in Denmark. We need to have the right pressure and play well against Copenhagen. We have 180 minutes to win this game.”
He is remarkably bullish considering Chelsea’s form since November, which has brought them only six victories in the 19 games since Wilkins left.
“We have the possibility to win against Copenhagen,” he said. “The Champions League is not easy, but it will bring a lot of motivation for everyone, especially because we are not doing well in the Premier League and are out of the FA Cup.”
The defeat against Everton was symptomatic of Chelsea’s current malaise. They did not play as a cohesive unit, they struggled to score and some of their biggest names played some way below their best.
Didier Drogba, Florent Malouda, Michael Essien and John Obi Mikel looked like shadows of the players who inspired Chelsea to the league and cup double last season, and Ancelotti is painfully aware that only two or three of his team are playing at their usual level.
“At this moment there is [Branislav] Ivanovic and [John] Terry, and [Frank] Lampard played well. We have a problem at this moment with Mikel and Essien. They’re not 100 per cent fit. I said a lot of times that we lost confidence in our play and it’s difficult to move on. The results are not good.”
What makes Chelsea’s decline all the more remarkable is that they started the season so strongly, with six straight wins in the first month, scoring 25 goals and conceding two.
But Drogba contracted malaria, which appears to have sapped his strength, Lampard missed four months through injury, and Malouda faded badly. Lampard’s goal in extra-time against Everton was Chelsea’s first in almost five hours of football, even though they created plenty of chances.
They have scored just 18 goals and conceded 17 in the 14 league games since the departure of Wilkins, and it was soon after that point when Ancelotti realised he had a problem.
“We have to keep going, create chances and hopefully have more shots converted,” he said. “Against Everton, we worked hard for 120 minutes, we didn’t play fantastic but we created 10 chances and scored just one goal. We didn’t have any luck, but I hope the lucky moment we didn’t get will happen on Tuesday.”
While quick to point out that he will not walk away from Chelsea, the Italian is aware that Abramovich must be looking at his options. It seems fanciful that the Russian would consider bringing back Jose Mourinho, but Ancelotti knows his time will surely be up if he fails to deliver the Champions League this term.
“I don’t have to consider my position. It is the owner that has to consider my position, not me. I have to work and try my best. This is football. You have to be able to manage this moment,” he said.
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Amidst the sea of crossovers and SUVs that flooded the show floor at this year’s New York Auto Show, the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon stood alone and self-assured in its 840-horsepower drag strip-slaying abilities. Voices from all across the automotive media industry sang praises. All except one.
Automotive News, an automotive industry publication, penned a 260-word searing, nuclear fire-hot editorial take this week, stating that it doesn’t believe that the Demon should be sold to the public, calling it “inherently dangerous to the common safety of motorists.” What what!
From the story:
We don’t reach this conclusion lightly. There are more powerful, and even faster, vehicles available from other automakers that are rightly street legal.
Advertisement
Aside from the fact that they just undercut their whole argument, the publication denounced FCA for unleashing a “purpose-built drag racer as a road-legal automobile” with “barely legal slick tires” and “monstrous acceleration” that is “unsafe at any speed.”
It claimed that the Demon is “the result of a sequence of misguided corporate choices that places bragging rights ahead of public safety” and that Dodge “knowingly placing motorists in danger in the process.” Lastly, it said that while the Demon may adequately comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, it doesn’t “fulfill the spirit of those standards.”
Concerned for the safety and soundness of American lives, I scanned the editorial, looking for some statistic or figure that supported this panicked argument but found none. And since it didn’t link to any road test or review, I felt that I could safely assume that no one who contributed to this editorial had actually driven the Demon, either.
Advertisement
In fact, this whole piece smelled like the same type of bro-ish intimidation marketing campaign that the Demon ran on leading up to its official debut.
We have emailed Automotive News for confirmation on whether or not this was a sponsored post and will update if we hear back.
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PETA UK Launches Great Vegan Bake Off
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Tonight marks the start of the sixth series of the cult UK baking show the “Great British Bake Off,” in which amateur bakers from around Great Britain battle it out in the kitchen.
While it might be fun to watch, the recipes on the show certainly aren’t cruelty-free. However, anyone who’s serious about vegan baking should find it simple enough to whip up a vegan version of a recipe from the program, or come up with a tasty, animal product-free recipe of their own.
Vegan bakers shouldn’t feel left out, because PETA has launched its second annual Great Vegan Bake Off contest. The aim of the contest is not only to showcase talented vegan bakers, but also to allow non-vegans to see that it’s easy to bake without milk, eggs and other animal products.
The finalist in last year’s contest came up with recipes such as hazelnut praline cake and this chocolate tofu pie.
Image courtesy of Cruelty-Free Cottage, with permission from PETA UK
Entrants have up until August 21st to create a video or blog post containing images and a recipe for their best vegan baked goods. Once the finalists have been announced, there will be a round of voting, open to the public. The winner will be announced on September 10th.
Anyone who fancies themselves the vegan version of Mary Berry or Paul Hollywood can check out PETA UK’s website for more details on how to enter the Great Vegan Bake Off.
Photo Credit: Featureflash / Shutterstock.com
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Wii U still hasn’t received an official release date or price from Nintendo, but a new industry source has stepped forward and hurled its hat in the ring. Pinches of salt at the ready, here we go.
Video Product Distributors – the same company that supplies stock to Amazon and Blockbuster – has posted up SKU, price and release date information for Wii U in North America.
NintendoLife made the discovery, and reports that VPD has posted the following details on Wii U’s North American launch:
WIIU SYSTEM – GM – 11/11/12 $249.99
WIIU SYSTEM W/ – GM – 11/11/12 $299.99
WIIU SYSTEM 349 W/ – GM – 11/11/12 $349.99
Note that there are three bundles listed.
Because you have to log-in to view VPD’s product slate, YouTube user H0undd0gg has captured a video of the site, along with its Wii U listings. Here it is:
Thanks NintendoLife.
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PlayStation Store Global Update – March 13, 2012
Each week Sony brings PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable owners new content, add-ons, games and more. PlayStation LifeStyle catalogs the PlayStation Store updates for the major regions across the globe. Check back every Tuesday and Wednesday to keep up to date with each week’s PlayStation Store Update.
** Note for other regions **
European PSN is updated on Wednesdays.
North American Update
PlayStation Plus Content
Discounted PS3 Games: Bioshock 2 ($14.99)
Bioshock 2 Complete Pack ($20.99)
Phineas And Ferb: Across The Second Dimension ($23.99)
Call Of Duty Classic ($7.34)
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ($14.69)
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Bundle ($29.39)
Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare ($9.79)
Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Super Bundle ($14.69) Discounted Game Add-Ons: MotorStorm RC ELITE Vehicle Pack 1 (FREE)
MotorStorm RC ELITE Vehicle Pack 2 ($0.50)
MotorStorm RC Pro-Am Expansion Pack ($1.25)
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Resurgence Pack ($7.34)
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package ($7.34)
Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Variety Map Pack($4.89)
Call Of Duty: World At War Map Pack 1 ($4.89)
Call Of Duty: World At War Map Pack 2 ($4.89)
Call Of Duty: World At War Map Pack 3 ($4.89)
Call Of Duty: World At War Map Pack Bundle ($12.24) Full Game Trials: James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game
Phineas And Ferb: Across The Second Dimension Free Avatars and Themes: Cool Cat
Stick Up Kid
Top Dawg
Mexican Skulls Dynamic Theme Discounts: Bioshock 2 (PS Plus Price: $14.99)
Bioshock 2 Complete Pack (PS Plus Price: $20.99)
Phineas And Ferb: Across The Second Dimension (PS Plus Price: $23.99) PlayStation Store Events –
More With Plus: Spring Fever Event – 3/13 – 4/3
PS Vita Games
Reality Fighters ($26.99)
Ridge Racer ($24.99)
PS Vita Demos (Free)
Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational Demo
Wipeout 2048 Demo
Ridge Racer 2011 E3 Interactive Demo
Shinobido 2: Revenge Of Zen Demo
PS Vita Add-Ons
MotorStorm RC Add Ons (x6) ($0.25 – $2.99)
Blazblue: CSE – System Voice Arrange Tsubaki Type-A, Type-B (Vita DLC) ($5.99)
Ridge Racer Add-Ons (x7) ($0.99 – $7.49)
Ridge Racer Music Pack 01 – 13 (free)
Ridge Racer New Songs Pack 01 (Free For Gold Pass) ($0.99)
Army Corps Of Hell – Frog Equipment Set (free)
MotorStorm RC Add Ons (x6) ($0.25 – $2.99)
Reality Fighters Online Pass ($9.99)
PS Vita Videos (free)
MotorStorm RC Launch Trailer
Unit 13 Briefing 1 – How To Play
Unit 13 Briefing 2 – Game Types
Unit 13 Briefing 3 – Sharing & Competing
Escape Plan Launch Trailer
Super Monkey Ball Banana Splitz CGI Trailer
The Tester Season 3 Episode 6
Pulse 3/13 Episode
PSN Games
Journey ($14.99)
Warp ($9.99)
Time Machine: Rogue Pilot ($6.99)
Shoot Many Robots ($9.99)
PS3 Full Games
Bioshock 2 ($19.99)
Phineas And Ferb: Across The Second Dimension ($29.99)
James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game ($19.99)
Game Demos (free)
Shoot Many Robots Demo
Add-On Game Content
UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception Co-op Shade Survival Mode ($5.99)
Top Gun: Hard Lock – Multiplayer Pass ($9.99)
Blazblue: Cse – System Voice Arrange Tsubaki Type-A, Type-B (PS3 DLC) ($5.99)
MotorStorm RC Vehicle Pack 1 – 2 ($0.99 each)
MotorStorm RC Special Muscle Car – Voodoo Undertaker ($0.25)
Street Fighter X Tekken – Mega Man & Pac-Man (free)
Tales Of Graces f (x13) (free – $2.99)
Disgaea 4 (x5) ($0.99 – $3.99)
Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 DLC (x8) (free – $0.99)
Renegade Ops Add-On Bundle ($4.99)
DC Universe The Battle For Earth ($9.99)
Final Fantasy XIII-2 -Opponent: Nabaat ($2.99)
Dynasty Warriors 7 (x3) ($1.99 – $3.99)
Dynasty Warriors 7 Xtreme Legends (x3) ($0.99 – $3.99)
UFC Undisputed 3 – Fighter Pack: Fight Of The Night Pack ($4.99)
Shoot Many Robots (x4) ($0.99 – $9.99)
Rock Band 3
“Pain” – Three Days Grace ($1.99)
“The Good Life” – Three Days Grace ($1.99)
“I Hate Everything About You” – Three Days Grace ($1.99)
Three Days Grace Pack 01 ($5.49) – Build your Rock Band library by purchasing this song game album: Three Days Grace Pack 01. This pack includes “Pain”, “The Good Life” and “I Hate Everything About You”. By Three Days Grace.
Rock Band Network v2.0
“Eternity Below” – Eternity Below ($0.99)
“Happy People” – Big Kenny ($0.99)
“Heartless” – Pythia ($1.99)
“Leave Me Be” – Kylie D. Hart ($0.99)
“Pray For You” – Jaron and the Long Road to Love ($1.99)
Updates
Grandia (Price Drop) (PS3) (now $5.99, original price $9.99)
Saints Row: The Third – Money Shot Pack (Price Change) (PS3) (now $1.99, original price $2.99)
Sam And Max – The Devil’S Playhouse – Full Season (Price Change) (PS3) (now $19.99, original price $29.99)
Myst (Price Change) (PS3) (now $12.99, original price $19.99)
Dead Block (Price Change) (PS3) (now $6.99, original price $9.99)
SkyDrift (Price Change) (PS3) (now $9.99, original price $14.99)
Game Videos (free)
The Tester Season 3 Episode 6
Pulse 3/13 Episode
Unit 13 Briefing 1 – How To Play
Unit 13 Briefing 2 – Game Types
Unit 13 Briefing 3 – Sharing & Competing
Borderlands 2: Release Date Trailer
EA SPORTS FIFA STREET Free Your Game Trailer
EA SPORTS FIFA STREET Gets Messi Trailer
EA SPORTS FIFA STREET Pre-Order Bonus Trailer
Grand Slam Tennis 2 Launch Trailer
Grand Slam Tennis 2 Producer Video 2: Gameplay Features
Max Payne 3 Official Trailer #2
Sleeping Dogs Announce Trailer
UFC Undisputed 3 Greg Jackson Strategy Video
UFC Undisputed 3 Launch Trailer
Far Cry 3 Stranded Trailer
PS3 Themes
Santa Cruz: Not A Crime ($2.99)
Santa Cruz: Rob Face ($2.99)
Santa Cruz: Screaming Hand ($2.99)
Santa Cruz: Skate Park ($2.99)
Rip Curl: Alana Blanchard ($2.99)
Rip Curl: Mick Fanning ($2.99)
Rip Curl: Owen Wright ($2.99)
Dpro: Backcountry Powder ($2.99)
Dpro: Heli-ski Summit ($2.99)
Bundles
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Complete Bundle ($41.99)
Mercury Hg: Heavy Elements Bundle ($4.99)
Bioshock 2 Complete Pack Bundle ($29.99)
Renegade Ops Bundle ($17.99)
PlayStation Store for PSP
Game Videos (free)
The Tester Season 3 Episode 6
Pulse 3/13 Episode
PSP Themes
Wendy 14 PSP Theme ($1.99)
Next Page: Japanese & Hong Kong Update »
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A bottle of the liquid sedative Pentobarbital Sodium. REUTERS/Tomas Bravo SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Texas, the state with the highest execution rate in the country, is running out of a sedative used for lethal injections for the second time in 13 months, a state official said on Thursday.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark confirmed that the state's supply of pentobarbital, which has been used in the execution of condemned killers in the state since July 2012, will reach its expiration date in September.
Texas switched to pentobarbital, a barbiturate that is the drug of choice for physician-assisted suicide in Europe, when supplies of sodium thiopental, previously used by the state in a three-drug execution mix, were cut off.
The Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Hospira Inc said in 2011 it would stop making thiopental after the government of Italy, where it planned to move production of the drug, raised objections, citing its use in executions.
Richard Dieter, who heads the Death Penalty Information Center, said Texas and other states that were forced to switch from thiopental are now facing a problem with the availability of pentobarbital, which is often used to euthanize pets and other animals.
Texas has executed 11 inmates so far in 2013 - including one Wednesday night - while 10 executions have been carried out elsewhere in the country. Officials said five more Texas executions are scheduled for this year, with the next one set for September 19.
Clark said Texas is confident it will be able to continue executions but did not say whether September's execution may have to be delayed.
"Alternate sources of pentobarbital are possible, or an alternate drug," he said.
Dieter said all executions carried out in the United States during the past 13 months have used pentobarbital. He said some states are in the process of obtaining the necessary legal approval to switch to other sedatives.
One option is the surgical anesthetic propofol, which was blamed for the 2009 death of singer Michael Jackson. Missouri revised its execution protocol in 2012 to include it but the state has not had an execution since the protocol was changed.
Makers of the drug have objected to its possible use in executions.
States might consider turning to so-called compounding pharmacies, small laboratories that can remix existing narcotics to fill specific needs, generally on the order of a doctor, Dieter said. But compounding pharmacies might also be reluctant to cooperate on moral grounds.
"They have their own ethics," he said. "I'm not sure that will be a fruitful way to go."
Texas has executed 503 prisoners - more than any other state - since a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming capital punishment.
(Reporting by Jim Forsyth; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Bill Trott)
(This August 1 story was refiled to correct the first paragraph to reflect Texas now uses single drug in executions)
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