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You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters An Atlas 5 rocket lifted off Wednesday morning from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The primary payload on this mission for the US Air Force is the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). This 29 -foot long, 9.5-foot high “mini-space-shuttle” began its life as a NASA project to create a reusable space plane before being transferred to the Department of Defense. Specifics of exactly what is aboard this and the other 3 OTVs is classified, but these reusable spacecraft do provide a platform for experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth. Like many Atlas 5 launches, a little payload space is available for small satellites carrying experiments aboard CubeSats. These miniaturized satellites are based around cubes measuring 10 cm on a side. The U.S. Naval Academy is experimenting with TCP/IP in space with 30cm x 10cm web server equipped CubeSat they’ve titled USS Langley. Their Psat CubeSat will also enable handheld texting from the ground. The Naval Academy teamed up with nearby George Washington University in propulsion equipping a 15cm x 10cm CubeSat with miniature pulse plasma thrusters The Air Force Research Lab’s 30cm x 10cm CubeSat experiments with the commercial Globalstar communications constellation in low Earth orbit. MIT is launching a pair of 15cm x 10cm CubeSats demonstrating Carbon Nanotube and Scalable ion Electrospray Propulsion system in support of the National Reconnaissance Office. The Planetary Society led LightSail-A CubeSat will experiment with Solar Sail technology from a 30cm x 10cm CubeSat (about the size of a loaf of bread). While small teams of students will eagerly watch each of the university led CubeSat projects, the crowd anticipating LightSail-A’s launch is much larger. 11,142 (and rising) private citizens have donated nearly $600,000 to fund the project. LightSail uses solar pressure, or photons coming from the sun to provide low-thrust propulsion. The idea isn’t new, scientists like Johannes Kepler described effects of pressure coming from the sun and science fiction writers like Jules Verne have written about harnessing it for space travel. The satellite uses an clever system for keeping itself steady in orbit. Three magnetorquer rods (oriented along the X, Y and Z axises) to interact with the Earth’s own magnetic field to provide attitude control (ACS). This enables the little spacecraft keep its sail pointed to the stream of photos so that it can “tack” like a sailboat in low Earth orbit. Two hours after liftoff, LightSail will be ejected from the rocket’s upper stage and the ACS will engage beginning the process of aligning to the Earth’s magnetic field. An antenna will be deployed and begin transmitting about an hour later. Ground stations at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo and another at Georgia Tech will monitor the satellite as it orbits during the month long mission. Should the launch occur on time, teams should get their first signals back from LightSail 19 minutes later when it is visible in the sky above Cal Poly. By 5:29 p.m. Eastern, teams at Georgia Tech will have their turn at tracking the satellite. In subsequent days images from onboard 2-megapixel cameras will be downloaded. The teams plan to deploy the solar sails more than two weeks into the mission after a spacecraft checkout period. A small motor will be engaged and four tape-measure like booms will extend unfurling the solar sails. The mission is expected to live another two days at this point before reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. Tony Rice is a volunteer in the NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador program and software engineer at Cisco Systems. You can follow him on twitter @rtphokie. |
Action from the clash between the VFL Cats and Port Melbourne (Credit: Arj Giese) Geelong’s VFL side has gone down to an efficient Port Melbourne on Saturday, falling to the Borough 6.8 (44) to 13.18 (96). The Cats played catch-up football all day and could never trim the margin back after a poor first term. The visitors came out of the blocks firing, their five unanswered goals put the Cats on the back foot at quarter time. Geelong’s woes continued in the second term with turnovers proving costly, allowing the Borough to open up a 38-point half time lead. The Cats started strongly in the third term but their impressive play was soured by a significant head injury suffered by Cats’ youngster Campbell Floyd. Despite the Cats slowing the visitors’ scoring in the final two quarters, they were unable to close the gap between the sides, ultimately falling by 52 points. It was a poor performance by Shane O’Bree’s side, but one they can learn from according to the Geelong coach. “It was a good reality check against a quality opposition in Port,” O’Bree said. “We’ve continually got to teach these guys, a lot of young players, with their method and being able to do it for the whole game.” Whilst the overall result was disappointing, there were numerous positives to take out of the match. Scott Selwood made his return from a foot injury and got through the match unscathed. Selwood finished with 23 disposals, four clearances and four tackles in limited game time. “(Selwood) got a bit of the ball, which was tough going as a midfielder, I think Scooter got what he needed out of today’s game,” O’Bree said. “We will just keep adding layers to his game over time.” Jack Henry played his first match since the JLT Community Series and showed promise playing across half forward. The Cats rookie kicked a goal from eight touches and looks to be a dangerous player according to his coach. “Jack is very lively, he’s got a bit of X-factor about him,” O’Bree said. “We have just got to get as many games into Jack as possible and expose him to different things that are at a high level.” After an inconsistent start to the year, Ryan Gardner returned to form as a quality lockdown defender on Saturday, shutting down key forward Jordan Lisle. The Port Melbourne spearhead kicked seven goals in round one but was kept goalless by Gardner in a strong showing by the young Cat. Jed Bews put his hand up for AFL selection, compiling a consistent game switching between forward and back. Bews was named best on ground for the Cats after finishing with 24 possessions, 14 of which were contested, along with four tackles. “I thought (Bews) was one of our better players, consistent on the day, tried to use the ball effectively and tried to do what he needed to do,” O’Bree said. Rhys Stanley also pushed his case for a senior recall, dominating in the ruck whilst having a strong impact around the ground. Stanley finished with 27 hitouts, 20 disposals and six marks to be amongst the Cats’ best. Geelong’s VFL contingent also provided a number of contributors with the evergreen Tom Atkins, Alex Hickey and Sam McLachlan performing admirably. The VFL Cats will return to Simonds Stadium next week and look to get back on track in their round three clash with Casey. VFL Round 2 – Bendigo Bank Cats 6.8 (44) def. by Port Melbourne 13.18 (96) Goals: Buzza, Hayball, Henry, Jones, Reid, Atkins Best: Bews, Edwards, Atkins, McLachlan, Stanley, O'Connor Reports: W. Buzza (Striking) Injuries: Floyd (Concussion) @ Simonds Stadium |
CRISPR provides a far easier and more specific way to edit genes than has been previously available. Editas Medicine, a company at the forefront of developing the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR, has raised $120 million to create new treatments for conditions including cancer, retinal disease, and sickle-cell anemia. Monday’s announcement reflects a surge of interest in CRISPR, a technology that is only a few years old. It also serves to clarify the goals and strategy of Editas, which was founded by some of the most prominent inventors of the gene-editing system, including Feng Zhang, a researcher at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. “We’re here to make medicines,” Katrine Bosley, Editas’s CEO, declared in an interview at the company’s offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The new group of investors was led by Boris Nikolic, who was Bill Gates’s chief science and technology advisor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is managing director of the investment company Bng0. Editas confirmed that Gates was also among the new investors, as are several other wealthy individuals whom the company declined to identify. Editas, which had previously raised $43 million before this latest round, is one of several private biotechnology companies that have been amassing cash in order to create new types of treatments. Earlier this year, for instance, the biotechnology company Moderna Therapeutics raised $450 million. Juno Therapeutics—which is trying to treat cancers by genetically engineering T cells, a key part of the immune system—raised more than $300 million before going public this year. CRISPR is particularly promising in making precise changes in cells. T cells taken from a patient could be edited and then infused back into a patient’s body, for example—an approach that Editas is developing through a partnership with Juno. Or cells could be fixed and put back in the blood of a patient with sickle-cell anemia. Such treatments, however, are in their early days. Editas is not yet running clinical trials involving CRISPR-edited cells. “We don’t want to get out there so fast with patients when we’re not ready, we don’t have the programs yet,” said Bosley. In addition to using T cells in treating blood cancers, a second major project Bosley will discuss involves treating a genetic retinal disease called LCA10, which causes blindness. A dysfunctional protein in the eye’s photoreceptors is to blame. Editas scientists have taken retinal cells out of patients with LCA10 and used CRISPR to give those cells proteins that function—in the lab, for now. Editas is also working on sickle-cell anemia. And, said Bosley, “there are some interesting viral diseases.” But she said Editas is not working on HIV, though its new investor Nikolic had been active in HIV-related investments while at the Gates Foundation. The funding comes less than two years after Editas was founded. “I was working out of a closet,” says Morgan Maeder, the first scientist Editas hired in October 2013. Now the company has just over 40 employees. |
Students welcomed Chancellor Carmen Fariña to the Washington Heights Educational Campus for a town hall meeting on Dec. 15, 2015. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Carolina Pichardo FORT GEORGE — Parents worried about cuts to school foreign-language programs were told by education chief Carmen Fariña that, if they don't like it, they should buy the pricey audio course Rosetta Stone. The schools chancellor slapped down concerns about the loss of language classes at a recent town hall meeting to discuss the effectiveness of dual-language programs and second-language learning in Uptown's District 6. When the mother of a seventh-grade student at the Mott Hall School told Fariña that her son had his French courses cut from twice to once a week amid a growing emphasis on STEM education — short for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math — Fariña gave an answer that drew gasps from the room. "I’m going to give you my grandmother advice to this one. I have a 9-year-old grandson that loves language and I bought him Rosetta Stone for the holiday," she told the mom at the Dec. 15 meeting. The educational software, which retails for $200, is "a really good program," she added. "That’s something I strongly recommend. It’s very exciting." “First and foremost, be happy you have an embarrassment [of] riches," Fariña added, to the shock of many in the 1,200-person crowd that had gathered in the George Washington Educational Campus. Fariña also noted that Rosetta Stone can be "integrated" into after-school programs. "All you need is the use of a computer room and laptops," she said. Parents said they were blown away by the comment, given that 27 percent of the population in Washington Heights and Inwood lives below the federal poverty line, according to the U.S. Census. "Rosetta Stone is expensive," Kari Steeves, a local parent and former member of the Community Education Council for District 6, said after the meeting. “If she really means what she says about the importance of being bi- or multilingual, her policies should reflect that for all children, whether or not they're in a dual-language school.” Fariña has been a strong proponent of dual-language programs. This past year, the city created 40 new ones and expanded dual-language programs at schools across the five boroughs, bringing the total number to 154 and making it the single most requested program for parents. Of those dual-language programs, 21 are in District 6 alone, including at Inwood's Amistad and Washington Heights' Dos Puentes schools, according to district superintendent of elementary and middle schools Manuel Ramirez. The Mott Hall School parent was speaking about stand-alone foreign-language classes rather than dual-language programs, in which two languages are built into the curriculum. Judith de los Santos, principal for the Mott Hall School, said the cuts to foreign-language programs were necessary because the school was already exceeding the number of years that it had to be taught. Schools must provide one year of foreign-language instruction, which Mott Hall offers in eighth grade, she said. But students were also being taught in seventh grade. The Department of Education did not respond to questions about Fariña's Rosetta Stone remark. "The DOE has prioritized opening and expanding dual language programs and is committed to ensuring that all students have access to a great education regardless of their native language or zip code they live in," spokeswoman Yuridia Peña said in a statement. Fariña — who also highlighted her family’s travels to Spain and Miami and told how she emphasizes learning a second language to her grandchildren — said parents need to take the lead in how their children learn about different languages and cultures, and not just leave it to teachers. “I think this is something parents have to get,” Fariña said, “People with two languages actually have more assets than anyone else.” Fe Florimon, CEC president and chairwoman of the youth and education committee for Community Board 12, said the council has shared with the chancellor the district's concern about bilingual programs on several occasions. "This is the population that has a great problem with the [English] language," Florimon said. Although this was Fariña's second town hall in the district, she has come Uptown several times since her appointment in 2013 and meets regularly with principals, attends events and stays in constant communication with District 6's superintendents, Florimon said. For her part, Fariña said the dual-language programs have proven effective, and she's hoping that next year the number of schools carrying them will double. |
PARIS (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande on Thursday (July 28) confirmed that a National Guard would be formed from existing reserve forces to better protect citizens facing terror attacks. A "defence council" to be held early next month will hammer out the force's hierarchy and command structure, Mr Hollande's office said in a statement. Parliamentary consultations will follow in September in the hope that "this force can be created as fast as possible to protect the French". The announcement came after France suffered two attacks in less than a fortnight this month - in a bloody series that began with the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo killings - and the government has come under fierce criticism for alleged security lapses. Calls arose for the National Guard following the Nov 13, 2015 massacre in Paris that claimed 130 lives. The President said he hopes the guard, made up of volunteers from the police, paramilitary police and military, will be operational by early autumn. Mr Hollande had previously considered boosting existing reserves among the three groups. In this framework, some 15,000 operational reservists should be available by the end of the month "to ensure security for various events of the summer", Mr Hollande said while on a visit to south-western France. Earlier this month he said the Defence Ministry would call up 28,000 reservists for the coming weeks, while the paramilitary police will tap an extra 10,000 men and women who retired less than two years ago. In January, he called for the number of army reserves to be boosted from the current 28,000 to 40,000 by 2019. France has not had a national guard since 1872. Members of the very first one, formed in 1789 at the outset of the French Revolution over fears of a royalist coup, wore a blue, white and red rosette on their hats - the origin of the French national colours. |
Glenn Thrush, New York Times Sexual Deviant, Ousted From White House Press Job It was just announced that Glenn Thrush, the sexual deviant who writes for Carlos Slim’s New York Times blog, will no longer be covering the daily press briefings with Sarah Sanders. But get this: he will still be working at the New York Times. Hey @PressSec, now that @GlennThrush won't be preying on women in the WH anymore – can I have his seat? https://t.co/2saFcCGSsC — Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) December 21, 2017 A month ago, VOX wrote a lengthy report detailing the mounting claims of sexual harassment against correspondent Thrush; many of the reports and claims discuss the 50-year-old Thrush luring women as young as 23 into alcohol-induced “mentorships” that end with the young women in terrified and in tears. Three young women I interviewed, including the young woman who met Thrush in June, described to me a range of similar experiences, from unwanted groping and kissing to wet kisses out of nowhere to hazy sexual encounters that played out under the influence of alcohol. Each woman described feeling differently about these experiences: scared, violated, ashamed, weirded out. I was — and am — angry. Details of their stories suggest a pattern. All of the women were in their 20s at the time. They were relatively early in their careers compared to Thrush, who was the kind of seasoned journalist who would be good to know. At an event with alcohol, he made advances. Afterward, they (as I did) thought it best to stay on good terms with Thrush, whatever their feelings. An hour ago, the New York Times announced that Thrush would be reassigned within the organization. In a truly bizarre statement, Baquet admitted to Thrush’s outrageous and violent behavior but said that it is STILL not worthy of termination: “While we believe that Glenn has acted offensively, we have decided that he does not deserve to be fired.” “We understand that our colleagues and the public at large are grappling with what constitutes sexually offensive behavior in the workplace and what consequences are appropriate,” Mr. Baquet added. “Each case has to be evaluated based on individual circumstances. We believe this is an appropriate response to Glenn’s situation.” The NYT piece ends with an odd and tasteless list of Thrush’s “accomplishments” including Bobby Moynihan portraying him on “Saturday Night Live” because that’s every MSM reporter’s real goal. |
Highlighting: Every time a user signs a transaction, that transaction is factored into their own individual moving average. Any time a user’s moving average exceeds the current network limit their transaction is delayed until their average falls below the limit. Rate limiting based upon balances implies that there exist unique accounts with publicly knowable balances. Any account with a balance below the minimum required to transact once per week would be unable to transact. This implies that all new accounts should be funded with at least this minimum balance. Basically, this is the same business model as my bank account: everything is free as long as you have at least $5000 in your account, and you let the bank earn interest off of it and pay you 0.05...um, I mean 0.00%. Because there's still a rate limit, and that rate limit is still proportional to how much you put in (if you want to have 2x more transaction processing capacity, you could at the very least get two accounts), and as we've known since at least Bastiat the time value of money is itself worth money, this is basically an incredibly roundabout transaction fee scheme, and so it raises the question: are there other somewhat less roundabout transaction fee schemes that would also do the trick? The "gas" metaphor in Ethereum was chosen in part for this reason: it's supposed to feel like filling a tank of gas, driving around for a while, and filling it again. Gasoline is a micropayment system, and yet we've managed to avoid the problem of drivers anxiously deciding whether or not moving their car left one lane to get around a slow driver ahead of them is worth the $0.0057124 amortized cost. |
After a 10-month ordeal in the wake of a broken left wrist suffered last May while playing for Russia at the IIHF World Championships, Washington Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov is scheduled to return to game action. The 23-year-old was formally reassigned to the Hershey Bears Friday for conditioning purposes and will make his 2014-15 season debut Friday night when the Manchester Monarchs visit Giant Center. "Today is a big day for me," Orlov said. "It's hard to explain what I feel right now. Just positive things. I'm ready to go." Orlov, who has practiced with Hershey since Tuesday, underwent surgery and lengthy rehabilitation for the injury. "It was tough mentally," Orlov said. "It's good to have my parents and my girlfriend to help me a lot, to help my mind be OK and try to, you know, not kill myself. It was tough to come to practice everyday and do bag skating and all this stuff." Orlov, a left shot who prefers to play right D, will pair with Mike Moore and also play on the second power play unit. Bears head coach Troy Mann said the plan is to get him 15 minutes of ice time. "We're all familiar with him, especially myself," Mann said. "There's a little bit of concern of rust, but I'm sure he's probably pretty excited to play his first game. Emotion, hopefully, will take over in terms of having a pretty solid game for us." Mann was Hershey's assistant coach and ran the defense during Orlov playing stints in Hershey starting late in the 2010-11 season and running through 2012-13. Orlov also played 11 games for Hershey last season. "He's a nice guy," Orlov said of Mann. "He always makes jokes. It's nice to be with this team. Everybody is together and coaches and whole staff and the team. "Right now, positive things happen and I'm pretty excited to be back. It's always fun to play. It was a tough time for me, but I try to forget and focus on this time when I can play. I need to try to get my confidence back, game feeling in all situations. I just hope I will be good." Orlov said he feels comfortable with his entire shot repertoire. "It feels pretty good," Orlov said. "Finally, I can shoot and can do one-timers. It's a long time and a long road for me." Mann said if things go well for Orlov Friday night, the plan is for him to sit Saturday and then play Sunday at Bridgeport and Wednesday against Worcester. "Then they'll sit down as an organization next week and make the decision on whether he can finish the year up there as one of their seven or shut him down for the season," Mann said. If Orlov can successfully return to Washington's active roster, it will increase organizational depth on the blue line and reduce the potential of recalls from Hershey. NOTEBOOK Former Bears winger Louis Robitaille, 33, now an assistant coach with Drummondville (QMJHL), was named an assistant coach for Canada's National Men's Under-18 team for the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship. Former Caps assistant coach Tim Hunter was named head coach. Morning skate lines: Conner-Kennedy-Galiev Burakovsky-J. O'Brien-Wellman Gazley-Newbury-Brown L. O'Brien-Stephenson-Mitchell Extras: Cornet, Broda D-pairs: Schilling-Oleksy Schmidt-Carrick Moore-Orlov Landry-Burgdoerfer Extras: Djoos, Kundratek ON TWITTER: @timleone |
The White House on Saturday denied a report that President Donald Trump had demanded a royal carriage to ride in during an upcoming state visit to the U.K. “We have not even begun working on details for this trip,” a White House spokeswoman said, according to People. Earlier: President Donald Trump is reportedly demanding that a trip in a royal carriage be a part of his itinerary during a state visit to Britain later this year, according to the U.K.’s The Times. A carriage procession from London’s Horse Guards Parade to Buckingham Palace is a normal part of the protocol for a state visit. But The Times notes that President Barack Obama chose not to travel in the carriage during a 2011 visit, opting instead to make the trip in his armored limousine. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. If Trump does travel by carriage, he could likely use the lavish gold-plated Diamond Jubilee State coach, which other foreign dignitaries, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, have used during past state visits. Sources told The Times that the carriage was not as secure as the president’s traditional armored vehicle, which is bulletproof and can protect against a chemical attack and a small bomb. Security officials are preparing for massive protests during Trump’s visit, which The Times reported will require unprecedented security. The Evening Standard reported in February that policing costs for the visit could be up to 7 million pounds. “The vehicle which carries the president of the United States is a spectacular vehicle. It is designed to withstand a massive attack like a low-level rocket grenade,” a source told The Times. “If he’s in that vehicle he is incredibly well protected and on top of that it can travel at enormous speed. If he is in a golden coach being dragged up the Mall by a couple of horses, the risk factor is dramatically increased.” The drain on resources for a carriage trip may be of little significance to Trump. He has stretched the Secret Service thin and spent millions in American taxpayer funds to protect his family and to take frequent weekend trips to his estate in Florida. Trump, known to obsess over imagery and the way he appears on television, toyed with the idea of having military equipment in his inaugural parade. More than 1.8 million people signed an online petition earlier this year arguing that Queen Elizabeth II shouldn’t extend a formal invitation for a state visit to Trump because “it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.” In January, British Prime Minister Theresa May extended an invitation to Trump on behalf of the queen for a state visit. He accepted. “This invitation reflects the importance of the relationship between the United States of America and the United Kingdom,” the Foreign and Commonwealth Office wrote in response to the petition. “At this stage, final dates have not yet been agreed for the State Visit.” |
The NCAA Tournament is getting set to come to a conclusion and the Orlando Magic Daily Mailbag is full. We continue to answer your questions! I had so many questions to clean out of the mailbag that I wanted to get to, that I decided to split it up into two posts. You can see Volume 5 of the Mailbag here, where I answer questions about the Magic’s draft needs and what the Magic need to go after in free agency. A lot of the questions are going to persist for the next few months. But I am happy to answer them. So as the NCAA Tournament winds down, I am finishing off my mailbag. Keep those images of Stanley Johnson, Mario Hezonja (more on him in a bit) and Willie Cauley-Stein dancing in your heads. It would also be nice for the Magic to get a new coach. I will address that some in this mailbag. And, oh by the way, the Magic season is winding down to its end as we are less than 10 games from the season’s end and getting a lot of these questions (finally) answered. If not satisfactorily answered. Phew, it will be very busy here in the Magic Kingdom for some time. If you have an Orlando Magic question, or any kind of question, send it to me for future mailbags at [email protected], or tweet at me anytime @omagicdaily. I save some for future mailbags and some I answer immediately. I am here for you. Let’s continue the mailbag: |
WHEN soldiers bundled Honduras’s elected president onto an aeroplane to Costa Rica in a coup in 2009, nobody believed that the Central American country would swiftly get back to normal. But even pessimists must be disappointed by what has happened. Although the constitutional crisis was resolved early in 2010 after the election as president of Porfirio Lobo and the return of Manuel Zelaya, his ousted predecessor, Honduras continues to march backwards. Gang violence, catalysed by drug trafficking, and weak law enforcement have given Honduras the highest murder rate in the world. Poor financial management and the hangover from a stop to aid after the coup have left the government struggling to pay its bills. And Congress has picked a fight with the judiciary, creating fresh constitutional strains just as the country gears up for another presidential election in November. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. The scale of violence is dizzying. Last year saw 86 murders per 100,000 people according to the National Autonomous University. That was about the same as in 2011, but more than double the Central American average—itself among the highest in the world (see chart). In 2012 Honduran men in their 20s faced a 1-in-300 chance of being murdered, or 1-in-150 in the most dangerous towns. Drug mafias, under pressure in Mexico, have set up in Honduras. In January the authorities discovered a cache of weapons, including a gold-plated AK-47, believed to belong to Mexico’s “Zetas” mob. Honduras’s wild coast and empty jungle provide landing points for some 40% of cocaine destined for the United States. Traffickers pay their hired help in drugs rather than cash, creating a local market and the mayhem that goes with it. Some of the violence comes from gangs known as maras, which migrants form in jails in the United States and remain members of in Central America after they are deported. Then there are seemingly targeted assassinations. At least 25 journalists, including eight last year, have been killed since the coup. Some members of the opposition have accused the government of snuffing out dissent. But Robert Marín, a reporter on El Heraldo, a newspaper, who has himself received threats, points out that journalists of all political stripes (and none) have been victims. So, too, have gay-rights campaigners—at least eight were killed last year—and lawyers, 15 of whom were murdered. However, these are by no means the people most at risk: some 60 taxi drivers were killed in 2012, in many cases following extortion attempts, and about 70 police. Last month the teenage son of a former police chief was shot dead. The underlying problem is that few of the killings are investigated, let alone punished. Even as Honduras’s murder rate has doubled, the number of police has fallen, from about 14,000 in 2009 to 13,000 now. Many supplement their $400 monthly wages by charging a “war tax” on citizens. A vetting programme begun in August tested 1,231 officers by the end of the year, firing 281 of them. A further 450 left voluntarily. The remainder are due to be vetted this year, and a thousand more recruited annually until the force reaches 20,000. Training time has been doubled, to 12 months. It will take a decade fully to restore faith in the police, which had “fallen into total discredit”, admits Héctor Mejía, the force’s spokesman. The army patrols with the police in Tegucigalpa, the capital, and in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, as part of an “emergency” measure renewed three times since it was introduced in 2011. Many Hondurans are taking protective measures into their own hands. In Villa Cecilia, a small working-class suburb of mechanics, seamstresses and policemen in Tegucigalpa, residents pay 700 lempiras ($35) per household per month to employ four security guards with shotguns. Next will come CCTV, an entry-phone system and a bigger perimeter wall. “If you want to sleep well, you have to pay”, shrugs Jiovanny Aguilera, a taxi driver whose home is protected by two metal doors, barbed wire, and a pair of large dogs. The city government has encouraged such barrios seguros, permitting residents to block off their streets. The poorest districts, built on steep hillsides lacking formal roads, remain unsealed. Despite the violence, Honduras’s economy grew by a respectable 3.3% last year, and clocked up record (legal) exports. A free-trade deal with Central America and the United States has helped to attract maquila factories and call-centres, and to protect investments from political turbulence. Remittances keep consumption going, as shown by the glitzy shopping malls mushrooming in the capital. But the resilient economy hides weak public finances. The government’s unpaid bills to its workers and contractors amount to 4% of GDP. Many teachers have stopped turning up at school. A standby agreement with the IMF has not been renewed. As a result, the World Bank has halted its budget support, though it plans to step up other project funding. The government has turned to borrowing in the expensive local market. It is considering an international bond issue. But last month Moody’s, a credit-rating agency, changed its outlook on Honduras’s already weak credit rating to negative. The government has told several loss-making state-owned companies to come up with reform plans by the end of March. But any savings may be squandered in the run-up to the election. Honduras’s politics has become as dysfunctional as its government and security forces. In December Congress voted to sack four Supreme Court justices who had repeatedly found new laws to be unconstitutional. Their replacements have been more co-operative, approving several controversial laws. One gives the legislature the power to sack senior public officials. “The rule of law in this country has broken down”, says Ramón Custodio, head of the official but independent Human Rights Commission. He is among the officials who can now be fired by Congress. He also worries about a media bill that promises new taxes and regulations, which newspapers have described as censorship. The head of Congress, Juan Orlando Hernández, is the candidate of the ruling National Party in the presidential race. Polls show him neck and neck with Xiomara Castro, Mr Zelaya’s wife. Salvador Nasralla, a television personality, is running for a new Anti-Corruption Party. He has little chance of winning, but he may split the anti-Zelaya vote, to Ms Castro’s advantage. If Honduras is to halt its spiral of decline, it desperately needs strong democratic leadership and an end to its political splits. Neither looks likely. |
Several months ago, Facebook acquired messaging startup WhatsApp for a whopping $16 billion, plus an additional $3 billion for its founders and small staff . On Tuesday, Facebook announced that in 2012 and 2013, WhatsApp lost a combined $192.8 million. (WhatsApp famously has no advertising, and its current revenue model is to make money off annual subscription fees.) Facebook also disclosed for the first time how it arrived at that $16 billion purchasing figure: $15.3 billion of that was simply wrapped up in the nebulous accounting term: “goodwill.” "We're the most atypical Silicon Valley company you'll come across," Brian Acton, a WhatsApp co-founder, told Wired UK in February. "We were founded by thirtysomethings; we focused on business sustainability and revenue rather than getting big fast; we've been incognito almost all the time; we're mobile first; and we're global first." Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner Research, told Ars that while the $15 billion goodwill figure is high, it's not as crazy as it may seem. "It is a big task for the WhatsApp and Facebook teams and this is a product they will need to focus on and really build as a community, but if there are missteps along the way then all that goodwill will be a sorely missed resource," he said. This announcement came on the same day that Facebook filed its quarterly earnings reports. This year, the social network giant profited $806 million in its third quarter, nearly double its total from the same period a year ago. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Munich's Police President Hubertus Andrae confirmed the suspect's death A shooting at a Munich shopping centre which left nine people dead was carried out by one gunman who then killed himself, German police have said. The suspect was an 18-year-old German-Iranian dual national who lived in Munich, police told a news conference, but his motive is unclear. Sixteen people were injured, three critically, police added. A huge manhunt was launched following reports that up to three gunmen had been involved in the attack. The body of the suspect was found about 1km (0.6 miles) from the Olympia shopping centre in the north-western suburb of Moosach. Events as they happened Munich shooting in pictures Eyewitness accounts Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae told the news conference early on Saturday that the suspect had not been known to police and there were no known links to terror groups, although investigations were continuing. The reports of three suspected attackers came when witnesses saw two people leaving the scene in a car "at considerable speed", but they were later confirmed not to be involved, he added. "The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear," he said. Mr Andrae also said that children were among the casualties, but gave no further details. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Many people, including tourists, were stranded when the city main railway station was closed Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Armed police escorted people from the shopping centre after the shooting Following the attack, the Bavarian capital's transport system was suspended and the central railway station evacuated. Public transport was reopened several hours later when police gave a cautious "all clear". Thousands of people stranded by the emergency and unable to get home were offered shelter by local residents. First reports of the shooting came in just before 18:00 (16:00 GMT) on Friday. Witnesses said the attacker opened fire on members of the public at a fast-food restaurant in Hanauer Street before moving to the nearby Olympia shopping centre. A video circulated on social media showed a pistol-wielding man dressed in black walking away from a restaurant while firing on people as they fled. Police described it as "an acute terror situation" although officials stressed that the motive was as yet unknown. Witness Luan Zequiri, who was in the shopping centre, told German broadcaster N-TV that the attacker had been wearing military-style boots and a backpack. "I looked in his direction and he shot two people on the stairs," he said. Mr Zequiri said he hid in a shop but when he left he saw bodies of the dead and wounded on the ground. Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, told national TV: "We cannot rule out that it is linked to terrorism but we can't confirm it either, but we are also investigating in this direction." Mrs Merkel is to convene her government's security cabinet on Saturday. Police urged the public to avoid speculation on social media and to desist from using photos or video of their deployments online. German security forces have been on alert since a teenage migrant stabbed and injured five people on a train in Bavaria on Monday, in an attack claimed by so-called Islamic State. The authorities had warned of the danger of further incidents. Germany's allies rallied to give their support following Friday's attack. US President Barack Obama said the US would give "all the support that they may need in dealing with these circumstances". French President Francois Hollande offered his "sympathy and support to the German people in this difficult hour". British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he was "shocked and appalled" by the attack. "We stand ready to assist our friends in Germany," he added. |
Quote of Hacker: umad? turns out u guys dont own us the community fights back we wont take your s*** u ban us from ur game u hide your codes u run stop its time for the community to take over you let idiots like elf and raider run your servers and you expect security you expect me to run away from a home ipd box i lold. you wont figure out how i got in you wont rid yourselfs of me guess what happens next you loose control no more dictatorship no more closed source only community only success no more fs goodbye fs we wont miss you Link to source removed as it's a criminal act and we can't verify it's free from viruses. good bye As you may be aware of the event unfolding this weekend we have had a data breach which resulted in all of our sources stolen. This has been confirmed both by our own investigations of the server in question and of course the public release of our code base.Today RaideR received this email:Of course this is going to have some long lasting and major impact on how Urban Terror is developed going forward. Honestly, they have had a victory, let's not be naive about that. They got what they wanted and pretty sure it has the desired effect. To say otherwise would be foolish.However, it is the strong reservation of this team that we will not simply "roll over and die" which seems to be the personal mission of "persons unknown". We won't go after them, such a pursuit would be futile, but almost certainly we will not quit simply because some bullies want us to.In the coming days we will have some major changes (obviously) in the way that this team will move forward on our project. In addition we would like to make the following statement.The source code for 4.2 was taken and published without consent and the theft has been reported to law enforcement. While we won't actively pursue the case, this data is stolen property and we ask that should you come across these sources that you do not use them. Crime has been committed here and while we have little to no interest in pursuing the individuals responsible we appreciate any information people have regarding the incident.This is an attack on Frozensand and this community, we have been abused and forcibly violated. No less by people who claim to be acting in its best interests.Further information will follow this public statement in the near future!Regards,Team FSYou can discuss this on our forums |
Source: The Humanist and ArtVoice March/April 2003 Title: “What bush didn’t want you to know about Iraq” Author: Michael I. Niman Faculty Evaluator: Thom Lough Ph.D. Student Researcher: Lindsey Brage, Licia Marshall First covered by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! Throughout the winter of 2002, the Bush administration publicly accused Iraqi weapons declarations of being incomplete. The almost unbelievable reality of this situation is that it was the United States itself that had removed over 8,000 pages of the 11,800 page original report. This came as no surprise to Europeans however, as Iraq had made extra copies of the complete weapons declaration report and unofficially distributed them to journalists throughout Europe. The Berlin newspaper Die Tageszetung broke the story on December 19, 2002 in an article by Andreas Zumach. At the same time, according to the investigation by Michael Niman, the Iraq government sent out official copies of the report on November 3, 2002. One, classified as “secret,” was sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency, another copy went to the UN Security Council. The U.S. convinced Colombia, chair of the Security Council and current target of U.S. military occupation and financial aid, to look the other way while the report was removed, edited, and returned. Other members of the Security Council such as Britain, France, China and Russia, were implicated in the missing pages as well (China and Russia were still arming Iraq) and had little desire to expose the United States’ transgression. So all members accepted the new, abbreviated version. But what was in the missing pages that the Bush administration felt was so threatening that they had to be removed? What information were Europeans privy to that Americans were not? According to Niman, “The missing pages implicated twenty-four U.S.-based corporations and the successive Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. administration in connection with the illegal supplying of Saddam Hussein government with myriad weapons of mass destruction and the training to use them.” Groups documented in the original report that were supporting Iraq’s weapons programs prior to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait included: – Eastman Kodak, Dupont, Honeywell, Rockwell, Sperry, Hewlett-Packard, and Bechtel, – U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture and Department of Defense, – Nuclear weapons labs such as Lawrence-Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia. Beginning in 1983, the U.S. was involved in eighty shipments of biological and chemical components, including strains of botulism toxin, anthrax, gangrene bacteria, West Nile fever virus, and Dengue fever virus. These shipments continued even after Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran in 1984. Later, in 1988 Iraq used the chemical weapons against the Kurds. But perhaps most importantly, the missing pages contain information that could potentially make a case for war crimes against officials within the Reagan and the Bush Sr. administrations. This includes the current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld – for his collaboration with Saddam Hussein leading up to the massacres of Iraqi Kurds and acting as liaison for U.S. military aid during the war between Iraq and Iran. UPDATE BY MICHAEL I. NIMAN: The first time I had a story nominated for a Project Censored award was in 1989 after I went into the bush on Costa Rica’s remote Osa Peninsula to track pirate gold miners and the U.S. military. I drank stagnant water to battle dehydration and picked ticks from my body. In short, I went after the story. This was different. I didn’t break this story. It was broken by German reporter Andreas Zumach and brought to the U.S. by Amy Goodman on her Democracy Now radio show. No media outlet in my hometown of Buffalo covered it, so I added some media analysis, a few rants about censorship, and ran it in Buffalo’s weekly ArtVoice. Since the national media never picked up the story, The Humanist took my story nationwide. I didn’t use primary sources for this story. I just monitored the alternative and foreign press. With such thorough self-censorship in the U.S. press – reading the international press is now akin to going into the remote bush. It is now five months later and there are still no new developments regarding this story. No corporate or government figures have been indicted. There is no investigation. The major media still hasn’t carried the story. In its place, however, most media outlets ran false pronouncements from the Bush administration about pending Iraqi weapons programs. We now know that these weapons no longer existed. And that the Bush administration was able to hijack the U.S. into war based on a combination of misinformation and missing information. |
An Arizona company that makes traffic cameras may have systematically bribed public officials, including some in Massachusetts, in exchange for contracts, according to a lawsuit filed by a former employee. Aaron Rosenberg, the one-time executive vice president of sales for Redflex Traffic Systems, claimed in court filings that he was “carrying out orders’’ from the company’s executives and Board of Directors when he bribed officials in at least 13 states, including Massachusetts. Redflex, which denies Roesenberg’s claims, had a company-wide practice of “lavishly providing customers, including government officials, with perquisites and gifts in various forms,’’ Rosenberg claimed in suit against the company. He said the bribes often took the form of meals, golf outings and tickets to sporting events. Advertisement Redflex executives set aside money for bribes in the “entertainment’’ expense category of the company’s annual budget, Rosenberg said. “There was never a distinction between those types of entertainment expenses and expenses that are considered gratuities and bribes,’’ he claimed in the suit. Redflex fired Rosenberg and five other executives last February, after the Chicago Tribune reported that money and bribes had been flowing from the company to a city official in charge of Chicago’s traffic camera program. In a suit filed in Arizona the same month, the company blamed Rosenberg for the scheme. In October, Rosenberg countersued the company, claiming Redflex had defamed him by alleging he was solely responsible for the bribes. Rosenberg did not name specific officials or municipalities that received bribes in his countersuit. He said he was cooperating with authorities investigating Redflex. In December 2006, Redflex signed a three year contract with Saugus to install traffic cameras at up to 10 intersections in the town, according to the company’s SEC filings. The cameras were designed to capture the license plate numbers of cars that sped through red lights. They were never installed, however, and Redflex was never paid because the state legislature did not pass legislation allowing the town to use the cameras, said Andrew Bisignani, who was Saugus’ town manager at the time. Advertisement “I can tell you that [bribery] never happened with us, it was all above board,’’ he said. “It was a very transparent process.’’ Saugus’ police department, fire department, and Board of Selectmen all signed off on the Redflex contract before it was finalized, Bisignani said. As of 2008, the last year Redflex submitted SEC filings, Saugus was the only municipality in Massachusetts to contract with the company. Redflex vehemently denied Rosenberg’s accusations in a statement released last month. “Redflex will aggressively defend itself against the allegations as well as prosecute its claims against the former executive,’’ the company said. “We are committed to transparency and honesty in our business practices. Our focus continues to be on providing best in class customer service and technology to our clients to make their communities safer.’’ |
Luke 19:1-10 New International Version (NIV) Zacchaeus the Tax Collector 19 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” 8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” |
C-130 Hercules News Accident report for Jalalabad C-130J crash released Air Mobility Command has released the results of an accident investigation that examined what caused the Oct. 2, crash of C-130J-30 #08-3174 during a takeoff from Jalalabad Airfield, Afghanistan, which killed all 11 individuals onboard and three Afghan Special Reaction Force (ASRF) members on the ground. USAF C-130J #08-3174 from 40 AS seen recovering to Nellis AFB during MAFEX 11-1 on May 18, 2011. [Photo by Bruce Smith] However, because the pilots were operating in darkened nighttime flying conditions and wearing NVGs, neither pilot recognized and removed the NVG case after loading operations were complete or during takeoff. Once airborne, the aircraft increased in an excessive upward pitch during the takeoff climb. The co-pilot misidentified the flight control problem as a trim malfunction, resulting in improper recovery techniques. The rapid increase in pitch angle resulted in a stall from which the pilots were unable to recover. The aircraft impacted approximately 28 seconds after liftoff, right of the runway, within the confines of Jalalabad Airfield. The aircraft struck the ground, a perimeter wall and a guard tower, which resulted in all personnel onboard the aircraft being killed, along with three ASRF members assigned to the tower. "Our hearts go out to the family members and friends of those killed in this accident," said Brig. Gen. Patrick X. Mordente, who led the accident investigation board. "The investigation team pushed an intense fact-finding investigation to understand what happened on Oct. 2, 2015, and to honor all whose lives were cut short." The crew consisted of the pilot, copilot, and two loadmasters assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. Also on board were two fly-away security team members assigned to the 66th Security Forces Squadron, Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass, and five civilian contractor passengers. The aircraft was from the 317th Airlift Group, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, and operated by the 39th Airlift Squadron. While operating at the deployed location, the aircraft and crew were assigned to the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. April 15, 2016 (by Asif Shamim) -The crew flew a successful mission from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, to Jalalabad Airfield. While conducting engine running on-load/offload operations at Jalalabad Airfield, the pilot raised the elevators mounted to the horizontal stabilizer by pulling back on the yoke. This provided additional clearance to assist with offloading tall cargo. After a period of time in which the pilot held the yoke by hand, he placed a hard-shell night vision goggle (NVG) case in front of the yoke to hold the elevator in a raised position.However, because the pilots were operating in darkened nighttime flying conditions and wearing NVGs, neither pilot recognized and removed the NVG case after loading operations were complete or during takeoff. Once airborne, the aircraft increased in an excessive upward pitch during the takeoff climb. The co-pilot misidentified the flight control problem as a trim malfunction, resulting in improper recovery techniques. The rapid increase in pitch angle resulted in a stall from which the pilots were unable to recover. The aircraft impacted approximately 28 seconds after liftoff, right of the runway, within the confines of Jalalabad Airfield.The aircraft struck the ground, a perimeter wall and a guard tower, which resulted in all personnel onboard the aircraft being killed, along with three ASRF members assigned to the tower."Our hearts go out to the family members and friends of those killed in this accident," said Brig. Gen. Patrick X. Mordente, who led the accident investigation board. "The investigation team pushed an intense fact-finding investigation to understand what happened on Oct. 2, 2015, and to honor all whose lives were cut short."The crew consisted of the pilot, copilot, and two loadmasters assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. Also on board were two fly-away security team members assigned to the 66th Security Forces Squadron, Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass, and five civilian contractor passengers.The aircraft was from the 317th Airlift Group, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, and operated by the 39th Airlift Squadron. While operating at the deployed location, the aircraft and crew were assigned to the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. Courtesy of Air Mobility Command Public Affairs Related articles: C-130J crashes in Afghanistan (2015-10-01) C-130 Hercules news archive External link: Accident Investigation Report (PDF) Forum discussion: Start a discussion about this article in the C-130.net forum. Tags |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California will move its presidential primary from June to March under a bill signed on Wednesday by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, a change aimed at giving the liberal-leaning state more influence in choosing candidates from either national party. FILE PHOTO - A poll worker places a mail-in ballot into a voting box as voters drop off their ballot in the U.S. presidential primary election in San Diego, California, United States, June 7, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo The most populous U.S. state, which voted heavily for Democrat Hillary Clinton in November’s presidential election, has traditionally held its primary so late that Democratic and Republican voters in other states had essentially already chosen their parties’ candidates. “The Golden State will no longer be relegated to last place in the presidential nominating process,” said Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat who backed the change, in a statement. “Candidates will not be able to ignore the largest, most diverse state in the nation as they seek our country’s highest office.” The bill was passed mostly along party lines in the majority-Democrat legislature. The new date will leave the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary in place as the first and second contests of the presidential election cycle, during which voters in each state choose the candidate they would like their party to nominate for president. Because California’s primary has been in June while others were held earlier, candidates have largely ignored the state, spending less on outreach than elsewhere, making fewer visits, and failing to prioritize California voters’ concerns in their campaigns, supporters said. In 2016, California Democrats chose Clinton and Republicans opted for Donald Trump, the populist businessman who ultimately won the presidency. Backers in the legislature said the early primary would lead to less divisive choices by members of both major parties in the 2020 election cycle, and establish California as a leading voice in the choice of candidates. Progressive Democrats also believe that moving the primary up could result in their party’s selection of more liberal candidates. “California is the beating heart of the national resistance to Trump, and California Democrats are defining the progressive agenda for America,” state Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman said in a press release. “When it comes to deciding the Democratic nominee, our voices need to be heard early in the process.” |
Welcome to Cybracero Systems. These days, it’s hard to avoid the news: America is facing a crisis unlike any seen before. A combination of economic catastrophes and international security challenges threatens the very fabric of our nation. Central to these challenges is one issue: immigration. Immigration is an economic issue -- in many sectors our economy relies on immigrant labor. It is also a security issue -- our borders must be sealed. However, if America solves the immigration crisis through true border security, it could further weaken the economy, by removing a source of low cost labor. CYBRACERO SYSTEMS believes “We can have it all!” Our business model is the first to use network technology, and cutting-edge robotics, to create a final solution to the immigration crisis – and keep America competitive along the way. On this site, we’ll elaborate on exactly how the multiple challenges facing America can be turned into opportunities. This is a time of great change, and for CYBRACERO SYSTEMS, great hope. |
MIT Trying To Block The Release Of Aaron Swartz's Secret Service File from the sharing-of-knowledge dept I have never, in fifteen years of reporting, seen a non-governmental party argue for the right to interfere in a Freedom of Information Act release of government documents. My lawyer, David Sobel, has been litigating FOIA for decades, and he’s never encountered it either. It’s saddening to see an academic institution set this precedent. It's not all that uncommon to see government agencies try to refuse to release information that is subject to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request -- but to have a non-governmental third party jump into a FOIA request to seek to block the info from being released? That's pretty damn rare. But it's happened -- and, amazingly, the third party is MIT, a school that is supposedly dedicated to advancing knowledge . Except, apparently, if that knowledge is going to make MIT look bad.We recently noted that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had ordered Homeland Security to release the Secret Service file on Aaron Swartz that had been requested by Wired reporter/editor Kevin Poulsen. However, MIT has now stepped into the case trying to block the release of the information . The judge has consented to putting a stay on the initial order until MIT can file its motion.MIT's concern -- as it was in a separate legal fight concerning releasing the evidence used against Aaron -- is apparently that the released documents will reveal which MIT employees helped with the investigation, and that could lead to unwarranted harassment. However, as Poulsen notes, the documents that have already been released have been redacting those names, so it's unlikely that these further releases would leave those same names unredacted.The larger issue, however, is that an institute of higher learning, one which supposedly supports information sharing and knowledge transfer, is intervening in a FOIA case to actively support keeping information from the public. This is quite incredible, and a rather shameful move from the MIT administration, following a string of similarly shameful moves having to do with how it handled the Swartz situation from the very beginning. As Poulsen notes, the situation is incredibly rare:MIT was one of the first universities to support open online courses. It has a long history of encouraging the open exchange and sharing of knowledge and information. It seems like quite a departure from its history and mission to suddenly focus on trying to increase the government's secrecy and blocking access to information. Filed Under: aaron swartz, foia, homeland security, mit, public information |
youtube.com Jon M. Chu in his Crazy Rich Asians casting call “This guy has a great look; his accent is close. He seems like he’s Australian,” filmmaker Jon M. Chu said to BuzzFeed News as he sat perched on a couch in the airy living room of his West Hollywood home in late February. He was watching an audition video on YouTube that had been submitted by one of the thousands of actors hoping to land a part in his upcoming film adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians. A small smile crept across the director’s face, as his eyes stayed glued to the computer screen. Weeks prior, Chu had released a video of his own, requesting aspiring Asian and Asian-American actors to post audition tapes online to be considered for a part in Crazy Rich Asians. “We’ve done open calls before on some of my other movies,” he said. “[The actors] are not always the highest quality because they are inexperienced, but I always find a couple — sometimes many — people who just never had that opportunity.” The move to bust the audition process wide open is one way Chu hopes to make good on his promise: that Crazy Rich Asians would comprise “amazing Asian actors cast in EVERY SINGLE ROLE.” His pronouncement followed a particularly egregious season of Hollywood “whitewashing” and now, nearly a year since he set that goal, the Step Up director intends to deliver, but finding a “cream-of-the-crop Asian cast” has proven to take some time. View this photo on Instagram Instagram: @jonmchu Chu and Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan For one thing, Crazy Rich Asians — originally a bestselling novel by Kevin Kwan — consists of more than a dozen distinctive characters. There’s Chinese-American Rachel Chu, who travels with her Singapore-born boyfriend for a wedding in his homeland. There, she meets her partner’s mother, his Hong Kong-bred cousin, and another cousin from London, among many other roles that require actors to adeptly speak with a British or Singaporean accent on top of having what Chu describes as an X factor. “When you have a wide range of characters that you’re supposed to find, they’re not going to be people you know necessarily,” Chu said. “When I do a ‘regular’ movie with Caucasian actors as the leads,” he said with a small laugh, gesturing with air quotes,“… actors are everywhere.” That’s not the case when it comes to finding Asian actors, he said, but it’s not because there aren’t enough Asians to audition. In fact, the director attacked the myth that there are few Asian entertainers (“There are so many!”) and explained that, rather, it’s a consequence of the lack of roles written for them. When actors can’t land managers, agents, or other representation, they have less of an opportunity for exposure, and the vicious circle spins on. “There are not parts for these people, and so … why would they have a manager?” Chu's search for Asian male leads has been particularly challenging, because he needs five of them. “It’s a systemic problem because there aren’t enough leading-man roles for people to cut their teeth on and learn how to be a leading man,” he explained. “As an Asian male myself, I feel like this representation is very important to me, and I want it to be a range of dudes that have a range of looks and feels, so it’s not just one-note either.” Although Chu said Warner Bros., the studio behind the forthcoming film, has been supportive of his vision and has agreed to invest “more money, more time, more effort” into finding actors who fit the bill, he wanted to cast a wider net for those who aren’t established names already. Frazer Harrison / Getty Images Constance Wu at the 68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards “Even though we’ve seen thousands of professional actors and now thousands of new people who want to pursue acting … it is still very difficult,” Chu said. “[We] realized mainland Chinese actors can’t necessarily do an English accent properly or understand the strife of an Asian-American character.” Fortunately for Chu, he at least has found one of his leading women in Constance Wu, who signed on as Rachel, the Chinese-American girl-next-door naïve to her boyfriend’s lavish world — and to his scheming, status-obsessed family. “When we started to develop this movie, I always had her in mind but didn’t know if she would ever do it,” Chu said of Wu. The pair met last year to discuss the prospect of her joining the film, but the actor was filming Fresh Off the Boat Season 2 through the end of 2016, which was the same time production on the movie was slated to begin. However, she later asked him to delay production until she was done shooting Fresh Off the Boat so that she could join the cast, he revealed. “She wrote an email to me and said, ‘I know there are some logistical things that are in our way, but I keep thinking about the book … I think it’s a very important story to tell. I think we can tell it together.’” Chu shared her note with the movie’s producers, who agreed to Wu’s request. Some very exciting news for y'all ❤️️ so much love and gratitude for this https://t.co/OVBCgKaNvx “I always wanted a true Asian-American to represent the journey of Rachel, and she was always the perfect person,” he said, grinning. (Wu did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.) While he is thrilled to have Wu on board, there are other issues that have “kept me up at night.” “One of the biggest questions now is: Do we have to hire a Chinese to play a Chinese? Can you have a Korean play a Chinese? Can you have a Japanese play a Chinese? Can you have a mix?” Chu said. He admitted to consulting many friends and colleagues involved in Asian-American entertainment — his own private “brain trust” — for their thoughts on the matter. So far, he’s heard a range of opinions, though he thinks limiting his cast to solely those of Chinese descent would be “a ridiculous ask.” “That’s saying, ‘Oh you’re Chinese, you can’t come to the call. You can only come to the call if you’re Japanese.’ I get that we look different, but at the same time, there are passable tradeoffs in the same way Caucasian actors are passable,” he said, visibly frustrated. “That would take out so many opportunities for so many Asian actors. I mean, Meryl Streep can play any ethnicity that she kind of looks like. We have US soldiers being played by British dudes and superheroes — very American superheroes — being played by other people, so why do [Asian-Americans] need to have that kind of restriction?” At the same time, Chu said, “It’s definitely a priority to try to get ethnicity as accurate as possible.” And he understands why some see the need for ethnicity-specific casting, citing the problem of Memoirs of a Geisha, which features three Chinese actors as Japanese women. “Maybe it’s because Memoirs of a Geisha is so culturally Japanese.” Columbia Pictures Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, and Gong Li in Memoirs of a Geisha |
On Monday, the trial began in the case against Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, former aides of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who were allegedly involved in orchestrating lane closures on the George Washington Bridge as payback against a political opponent. The scandal, known as “Bridgegate,” caused traffic delays that affected emergency vehicles responding to calls, and significantly longer trips for commuters. It was allegedly done after Mark Sokolich, the Democratic Mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, didn’t endorse Christie when he ran for reelection. Opening statements in the case took place Monday morning, and prosecutors let out a little bombshell. They claimed that Gov. Christie knew about the plot when it was happening in 2013. Christie has long denied being behind it or having any knowledge of the scheme. The prosecution alleged that Baroni and co-conspirator David Wildstein bragged to Christie about the lane closures when it happened, and that the point of it was to “mess” with Sokolich. Defense attorneys had previously indicated that Christie had knowledge of the operation, but this was the first time prosecutors made that claim. LawNewz.com will provide updates on the case as it unfolds. [Image via Rich Koele/Shutterstock] |
Denver, Colorado (CNN) -- During emergency drills at Deer Creek Middle School, teacher David Benke used to tell his students that if anything ever happened, he wanted to be able to "do something about it." When he saw a man shooting at students as they were leaving the Littleton, Colorado, school on Tuesday, "What was going through my mind," Benke said, "was that I promised." Benke tackled the gunman, who had shot and wounded two students, and with the help of another teacher and some bus drivers, was able to hold him until police arrived. "I noticed that he was working a bolt-action rifle," he said. "I noticed that and realized that I had time to get him before he could chamber another round." Still, Benke told reporters Wednesday, "it bothers me that I was a little bit late. It bothers me that he got the second shot off" and struck a second student. Authorities identified the suspect as Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood, 32. Eastwood, who police said had been a student at the school in the 1990s, was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder. He appeared in court via video link from jail Wednesday morning. CNN affiliate KUSA reported a judge ordered him held on $1 million bond. If he does post bond, the court ordered that he have no contact with anyone under 18 and said he must seek mental health treatment, KUSA reported. It also said that if he posts bond, he cannot possess alcohol, drugs or firearms and must be monitored by GPS. The affiliate said Eastwood's next court appearance is March 2. Authorities released no information about a motive in the shooting, saying the case was still under investigation. Deer Creek is two miles from Columbine High School, site of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, where 12 students and one teacher were killed in 1999. The two gunmen, both Columbine students, then turned their guns on themselves. The students wounded Tuesday, a boy and a girl, were taken to Littleton Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, a sheriff's office spokeswoman said. Principal Rob Hoover said one is doing well and the other was "progressing well" but was still hospitalized. Both students were eighth-graders, the school district said. KUSA reported one was Reagan Weber, who was treated and released from Littleton Adventist Hospital. The other, Matthew Thieu, was in serious condition at Children's Hospital. In a written statement, his mother expressed gratitude for the outpouring of support, but asked for privacy as she focuses on his recovery. She said her son was recovering from a fractured rib and a lung injury. Eastwood's father, War Eagle Eastwood, told KUSA that his son had struggled with mental illness, was behind on bills and couldn't hold a job because of his "not really knowing what he's doing half the time." His son, who heard voices, tried to seek help, he said, but had no money to pay for it. Bruco Eastwood had been cooperative with investigators, said Jefferson County sheriff's spokeswoman Jacki Kelley. Eastwood had been living with his father for about five years, and was unemployed other than working as "kind of a ranch hand" for his father, she said. He had been attending a community college attempting to get his GED. The rifle used belonged to Eastwood's father, she said. Authorities found additional rounds around the school property. School officials could not give many details to reporters Wednesday because of an ongoing police investigation, but Hoover said the suspect had come inside the school earlier and signed in. "We know he did that much, but then we know he left, and that was all we knew at that point." Assistant Principal Becky Brown told reporters she ran outside after hearing "the pop" and saw Benke tackle the suspect. "When I saw Dr. Benke and the look on his face, I knew that we needed to help," she said. While Benke and the suspect struggled on the ground, she grabbed the gun "and got it out of there," she said. Benke said the suspect threatened to sue him during the struggle, saying he was using excessive force. Asked why she ran toward gunshots when others might flee, Brown grew emotional as she said, "Those kids are my kids, and it's important, and my teachers, we're like family." "You're just doing what you can do to try and protect your kids," Benke said. CNN's Andy Rose contributed to this report. |
I hate to say it, but I get some bad writer’s block sometimes, and I’ve discovered some easy ways to plow through even some of the worst blocks. I’ll give you my favorite six ways to move your cursor further in the page and get you towards that print button. 1. Dreams I always keep a notebook by my bed, and as soon as I get a dream I write it down. Hopefully when I wake up, I’ll have a new perspective on something or a new idea entirely. Why it works: Often, dreams present a problem we are dealing with a random cast of characters and a jumbling of everything. There is no conscience when we dream, so there is no one to say; hey, this is ludicrous or that’s not possible. It may be just the right mixture of truth and ridiculousness to get you through your block. 2. Coffee Coffee is my best friend, and when I’m writing it’s always there beside me. If I’m struggling on a piece of writing, I’ll switch up my mugs or the blend of beans. Why it works: it just does. I swear. Okay, I do not have any facts to back this up. At least, it can’t hurt. 3. Change what you are writing Give yourself a break. If you are struggling, try working on another piece, write an email, or hell write a love letter. Write something. Why it works: getting your mind off of what you are struggling with will allow you possibly to revisit the problem after a break. Also, get the writing juices flowing; then head back to take out that writer’s block. 4. Read something inspiring When I cannot find the write words, I often just read books on grammar, writing, or writer’s biographies. It will get me inspired to forge ahead in whatever I’m doing. It also might give me some way of solving a problem that caused my writer’s block. Why it works: reading about how someone conquers their own issues will only help encourage you to do the same with yours. 5. Ask a friend Have a friend look at your writing and see if he/she has some input or even some words of encouragement. Why it works: You may be solid in why you chose what you chose, but maybe your friend has a couple questions that challenge where your writer’s block may have originated. Even if they just say it was good, that might be enough positive reinforcement you need to wage ahead. 6. Change of Scenery If you are at your apartment, go to the local coffee shop. If you are at your local coffee shop, go to the park. If you are at the park, go to the library. Change where you are and what you are looking at. Why it works: Different scenery will change what you hear and see, which may help you need to overcome your struggles. |
LGBT people of color face a high risk of suffering from poverty because of discrimination and lack of strong legal protections, according to a new report released on Thursday. An estimated 3 million American adults identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) people of color, according to the report co-authored by the left-leaning Center for American Progress, a think tank, and the LGBT-focused advocacy group the Movement Advancement Project. Black, Latino, Native American and Asian LGBT people are more likely to be poor than white LGBT people, the report said, with transgender people suffering from poverty most of all. “Disproportionate numbers of LGBT people of color live in places that lack any explicit state-level protections for LGBT people,” Ineke Mushovic, executive director of the Movement Advancement Project, said in a release. “This means that LGBT people of color face a high risk of economic harm from anti-LGBT laws.” While the report (PDF) said research in this area is limited, LGBT people of color are more likely than white LGBT people to suffer from poverty. For example, black Americans in same-sex couples are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than those in opposite-sex married couples. While the average unemployment rate among the general LGBT population in the U.S. hovers around 8 percent, according to the report, the number reaches 15 percent among that population who are black, 14 percent among those who are Latino, and 11 percent among those who are Asian/Pacific Islander. But transgender people of color are most threatened by extreme poverty: Some 28 percent of Latino trans people, 34 percent of black trans people, 23 percent of Native American trans people and 18 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander trans people are extremely poor, with annual household incomes of $10,000 or less. That’s compared with 15 percent of the trans population as a whole that suffers from extreme poverty. Being an LGBT racial minority has an even stronger impact when it comes to wage discrimination, the report said, because black and Latino workers make between 17 to 43 percent less than white and Asian workers. “Additionally, workers of color, and likely LGBT workers of color, are heavily concentrated in low-wage jobs that lack opportunities for advancement or benefits,” the authors wrote. The federal Civil Rights Act protects against workplace discrimination based on “sex,” the report points out, but it may not be specific enough to apply to gay, bisexual and lesbian workers. In absence of a federal law explicitly protecting LGBT people against job discrimination, those living in the 22 states and the District of Columbia that do have laws protecting LGBT people against employment discrimination have better luck. However, just 19 of those states protect against employment discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity expression, and in the rest of the country, LGBT employees can be fired based on their sexuality or gender identity. When it comes to health care, LGBT people of color are less likely to have health insurance than whites and more likely to experience discrimination from health workers. For example, while 82 percent of white LGBT people are insured, just 61 percent of Latino LGBT people, 71 percent of Asian LGBT people and 79 percent of black LGBT people have health insurance. The report, citing a survey from Lambda Legal, (PDF), a civil rights organization, said that 7 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual people of color have experienced physically rough or abusive treatment in health care settings, 11 percent have been denied care and 14 percent were spoken to harshly. Among transgender people of color, it was far worse — 29 percent were denied care, 25 percent were spoken to harshly, and health care workers would not even touch 18 percent of them. The authors of the report recommended that lawmakers strengthen federal and state-level laws to explicitly protect against housing, employment and public accommodation discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. They also recommend that government agencies and other researchers who do population surveys should include questions about gender identity and sexual orientation so they can have a better idea about how to better serve the needs of the LGBT population. “Eliminating the injustice and the financial penalties facing LGBT Americans of color simply requires that they, and their families, be treated equally under the law,” the report said. |
You’re about to hear quite a lot—again—about the Republican National Committee’s “Growth and Opportunity Project.” That was the official name of he party’s “autopsy” on the 2012 election. In the wake of Mitt Romney’s defeat, Republicans focused extensively on the party’s inability to appeal to the core of Barack Obama’s coalition: minority voters and women. It also noted the party’s problem with young voters. In 2016, Donald Trump and the party he now leads set fire to the “autopsy” and disregarded its recommendations. The problems the party faces with these demographics have only been exacerbated by Trump’s campaign. That is particularly true for the youngest elements of the electorate. Given the drubbing the GOP appears set to endure in the fall, the question the party must ask itself is whether it has alienated an entire generation for good. Research suggests that an individual’s first vote, particularly their first presidential vote, is a powerful determinative force that shapes his political perceptions and self-identification for most of his adult life. “The clearest pattern is that younger voters who turned 18 during the presidencies of Clinton, Bush or Obama –the younger members of Gen X and the Millennial generation – have typically voted much more Democratic than the average,” read Pew Research Center’s report on political affiliation across generations, citing data spanning nearly 20 years. Their conclusion, that the national political environment and electoral events that occur when a voter reaches 18 are formative, is supported by the findings of the New York Times’ “Upshot” team. They found that political events and the sitting president’s approval ratings “at age 18 are about three times as powerful as those at age 40” when gauging effects on political identity. This isn’t to say that these voters cannot be wooed by the party with which they do not identify later in their adult life, but that first impressions are by far the most important. Trump’s performance among young voters is among his worst. A national Marist University survey released last week showed Trump drawing the support of 17 percent of young voters, well behind Hillary Clinton’s 53 percent and “neither,” which garnered 26 percent of the youth vote. Trump fares no better in surveys that include all the options on the ballot in November, including Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein. A YouGov/Economist poll found 22 percent of voters “under 30” backing Trump. Fox News’ latest poll found Clinton winning 50 percent of voters “under 35” backing Clinton with 23 percent supporting Trump to 19 percent backing Johnson—well within that subsample’s margin of error. Investors Business Daily’s latest survey showed the youngest eligible voters are the most repelled by their choices in 2016. That survey found Trump in fourth place with the backing of just 12 percent of the Millennial vote. Now, young voters are notoriously unlikely voters, and they appear unenthusiastic about their choices in November. It is therefore reasonable to assume that young voters will make up a smaller portion of the electorate this year than they had in past presidential cycles (in 2012, voters aged 18 – 24 made up 11 percent of the electorate, down from the high watermark of 2008, when young voters made up 18 percent of the vote). Cold comfort for Republicans. This year, Millennials surpassed Baby Boomers as the largest living generation in America. They will grow up, and their turnout rates will increase as they age. They voted enthusiastically for Barack Obama, a president who will likely leave office with a majority of Americans approving of the job he did as president. The Republican brand to which they’ve become accustomed is represented by a man they find unambiguously racist, bigoted, and backward-looking. An entire generation’s formative period will be one in which identifying with Republicans is socially unacceptable. Hillary Clinton is by no means the draw for young voters that Obama was, and Republicans have a deep stable of young officeholders to whom they can look next year for youth appeal. But Republicans are likely to lose a lot of their talent at the state and federal level if Trump proves to be a drag on the ticket. The GOP cannot simply wait until young voters become homeowners and start paying income taxes. That is a recipe for permanent minority status. It will likely take the utter repudiation of the approach that the party took in 2016 to focus Republican voters on the prescription the party’s leaders acknowledged was necessary in 2012. In November, the Republican Party may actually benefit from the kind of thrashing it needs to get back on course. |
Story highlights Belgium pulls three points clear of Croatia after beating Serbia 2-1 in Brussels Expected to collect three points against Scotland, Croatia loses 1-0 at home Portugal ends Russia's perfect record with a 1-0 victory in Lisbon Striker Mario Balotelli sees red in Italy's 0-0 draw at the Czech Republic Belgian defender Vincent Kompany said this week there would be a "commotion" in Belgium if his country failed to qualify for next year's World Cup. After Friday's win against Serbia, Belgium, with its so-called golden generation of players, is getting closer to Brazil. The Red Devils, who last appeared at soccer's showpiece event in 2002, beat Serbia 2-1 in qualifying. Kevin De Bruyne and Marouane Fellaini scored headed goals in each half in Brussels to lift Belgium to 19 points in Group A. Kompany's club teammate at Manchester City, Aleksandar Kolarov, pulled a goal back for Serbia in the 88th minute. De Bruyne, who also set up Fellaini's effort, could be the next Belgian to move to the Premier League -- he's being linked with Chelsea. The majority of players Belgium used on Friday ply their trade in England's top division. Belgium received a further boost, guaranteed of at least second spot, when Croatia blew an opportunity to go level on points with three matches remaining. Despite registering nearly 20 shots, Croatia was upset 1-0 by Scotland in Zagreb. Elsewhere, Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal defeated Russia 1-0 to move into top spot ahead of Fabio Capello's men in Group F. Postiga winner Veteran striker Helder Postiga netted on a tap-in in the ninth minute in Lisbon to end Russia's perfect 4-0 record. Portugal, which qualified for the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 courtesy of playoff victories against Bosnia-Herzegovina, improved to 14 points, although Russia possesses two games in hand. JUST WATCHED Pele: Mourinho is 'good for Chelsea' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Pele: Mourinho is 'good for Chelsea' 01:42 JUST WATCHED Grooming Ghana's next football stars Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Grooming Ghana's next football stars 08:08 JUST WATCHED FIFA Congress tackles racism and reform Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH FIFA Congress tackles racism and reform 02:41 Ireland and Austria recorded victories to rise to 11 points in Group C as they seek to nail down second place behind runaway leader Germany. Robbie Keane celebrated becoming Ireland's most capped player -- he made his 126th appearance to surpass goalkeeper Shay Given -- by scoring all of Ireland's goals in a 3-0 win against the Faroe Islands in Dublin. "There was a lot of talk about getting the record caps but that was almost in the back of my mind," Keane said. Even with Zlatan Ibrahimovic in its ranks, Sweden fell 2-1 to Austria in Vienna. Johan Elmander, not Ibrahimovic, tallied for the visitor with eight minutes remaining. Sweden, though, will be favored to reach 11 points next week, as it faces the Faroe Islands. Ukraine, co-host of Euro 2012, did England a favor in Group H by topping group leader Montenegro 4-0 away from home. Ukraine took the lead early in the second half -- after being reduced to 10 men -- with Montenegro then having two players dismissed as its frustration grew. Montenegro leads the group with 14 points, two more than England and three more than Ukraine but with a game more played. Away wins for Bosnia-Herzegovina and Greece, over Latvia and Lithuania, respectively, leave Bosnia-Herzegovina three points ahead of Greece in Group G. More trouble for Mario Although in little danger of not qualifying from Group B, there was a sour note for Italy in its 0-0 draw at the Czech Republic. Striker Mario Balotelli, no stranger to controversy, was dismissed in the second half after receiving two yellow cards. He struck defender Theodor Gebre Selassie in the face with a forearm to receive his marching orders. "Balotelli should control himself better -- he allowed himself to be provoked," Italy coach Cesare Prandelli told reporters. "There were a couple of fouls that were not given but that's no explanation for what he did." |
The Action Team of Lucca in 1922. Jose Antonio/Wikimedia Commons Excerpted from Ordinary Violence in Mussolini’s Italy by Michael R. Ebner. Published by Cambridge University Press. This article supplements Fascism, a Slate Academy. To learn more and to enroll, visit Slate.com/Fascism. During the high tide of “squadrismo,” members of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento movement, who would form the official Fascist party by 1922, mobilized tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of Italian men who carried out thousands of acts of brutal violence within their own communities and neighboring cities, towns, villages, and hamlets. Before this “takeoff” in provincial fascism, the Fascists were initially an urban phenomenon, motivated primarily by nationalism. They desired revenge against the Socialists and others who had not supported Italy’s participation in the Great War. Even before the war’s end, veterans who would later become Fascists were calling for the extirpation of Italy’s “internal enemies,” whom they held responsible for Italy’s crushing defeat to the Austro-Hungarian and German forces at the 1917 Battle of Caporetto.1 Fascist attacks against Socialists, according to Benito Mussolini, were like assaults “on an Austrian trench.” He declared, “This is heroism…This is the violence of which I approve and which I exalt. This is the violence of Fascism.”2 The rise of fascism in the provinces of the Po Valley, in northern Italy, occurred in reaction to the remarkable postwar growth of Socialist power. During the biennio rosso (red two years), between 1918 and 1920, Socialists made huge electoral gains nationally and locally, while labor unions unleashed a wave of strikes unprecedented in Italian history. In the Po Valley, the Socialists established a virtual “state within a state,” winning control of municipal government, labor exchanges, and peasant leagues (unions). Socialists also founded cooperatives, cultural circles, taverns, and sporting clubs.3 Such working-class organizations exercised their power largely through legal means—elections, boycotts, strikes, and demonstrations—which nonetheless often led to clashes with police, with injuries and deaths on both sides. Political culture and the social order had been radically altered, with rough peasants and workers occupying the halls of power and red flags hanging from town halls. For landowners, life in this new “red” state meant higher wages, higher taxes, reduced profits, lost managerial authority, deteriorating private property rights, and the threat of social revolution. Moreover, displays of red flags, busts of Marx, and internationalist slogans offended nationalist and patriotic middle-class sentiments.4 Conservatives denounced the “red terror” and “atrocities” of this period, though the landowners and middle classes were in little real physical danger.5 They were not physically assaulted, nor were their homes, offices, or private property damaged or destroyed. Yet, from their perspective, they lived in a world turned upside down. The Socialists had virtually “taken over,” and the liberal state appeared to have lost control of law and order. In the provincial centers, Fascist violence was initially used to break the Socialist hold on local administration and labor organizations. Fascists interrupted meetings, beat elected officials, and made impossible the work of local government. Socialists in particular were intimidated, threatened, and even beaten until they resigned. The consequences for the Socialist Party, which was entirely unprepared to counter organized, paramilitary violence, were disastrous. In the province of Bologna, one of “reddest” provinces in the entire Po Valley, where the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) received almost three-quarters of the vote in 1919, the Fascists demolished the Socialist Party in a matter of months. Between March and May 1921, the squads destroyed dozens of newspapers offices, chambers of labor, peasant leagues, cooperatives, and social clubs.6 Throughout northern and central Italy, Fascists replicated this feat. Having conquered major provincial centers, Fascists spread out into small towns and hamlets. Major cities provided launching points for attacking other cities. Having consolidated power in these places, the squads then moved into more peripheral areas. Newly founded fasci were local initiatives, organized by Fascists who understood the life of the place. The leaders were often locals who bore a particular grudge against Socialists, whether economic, political, or personal. When necessary, stronger fasci nearby lent paramilitary support. After rooting Socialists out of a community, Fascists commonly held a public ceremony inaugurating the new fascio. As fascism penetrated smaller rural communities, it became a mass movement without precedent in Italian history. As Adrian Lyttelton has noted, the most immediate and powerfully symbolic form of squadrist violence was the annihilation of the institutions of the Socialist Party, “but the ‘conquest’ of Socialist organizations and municipalities was reinforced and made possible by terror exercised against individuals.”7 The peasant leagues, cooperatives, labor halls, and social clubs—the entire infrastructure of the Socialist “state”—were intensely parochial institutions, organized around popular, charismatic political and labor leaders.8 Fascist squads thus practiced highly personal, localized strategies of violence and intimidation, attacking the most prominent and influential “subversives” within a given province, town, or comune. Fascists sometimes beat these men, occasionally with homicidal intent, but perhaps more commonly intimidated them until they were forced to leave town, thereby decapitating their organizations. The Fascists spent their weekends chasing prominent peasant leaders across the countryside. Thus, life for labor leaders became terror-filled, especially because Fascists did not limit their attacks to the public sphere. Nowhere was safe. Late at night, 10, 30, or even 100 Blackshirts, as these squad members became known, sometimes traveling from neighboring towns, might surround a home, inviting a Socialist, anarchist, or Communist outside to talk. If they refused, the Fascists would enter forcibly or threaten to harm the entire family by lighting the house on fire.9 In small towns, where everyone knew everyone, Fascists inflicted ritual humiliation on their enemies, a powerful strategy of terror understood by all. Blackshirts forced their opponents to drink castor oil and other purgatives, and then sent them home, wrenching with pain and covered in their own feces. In some cases, squads forced their enemies to defecate on politically symbolic objects: pages of a speech, a manifesto, a red flag, and so on. After administering a castor oil treatment, Fascists sometimes drove prominent anti-Fascist leaders around in lorries in order to reduce them in the eyes of their own supporters.10 They also accosted their opponents in public, stripped them naked, beat them, and handcuffed them to posts in piazzas and along major roadways.11 Although individual working-class leaders might have been willing to live under the constant threat of physical attacks, most were unwilling to subject their families to such danger. Deprived of leadership, meeting places, offices, records, and sympathetic Socialist town councils, the landless peasantry became subject to the landowners’ conventional tactics of strike breaking and intimidation. Having broken the leagues, the Fascists then forced the laborers into “politically neutral” (Fascist) syndicates. Vulnerable peasants had little choice but to join. Landowners used their newfound position of power to restore labor relations to the 19th century status quo. The squadrists’ most explicit goal—destroying “Bolshevism”—was rapidly achieved, yet the violence continued unabated. Only by perpetuating this “revolutionary” situation could the Fascist movement undermine the liberal state and continue its push for political power. Additionally, at the local level, violence and criminality persisted more or less independent of any immediate larger political goals. The power of the Ras and the bonds of squadrist camaraderie depended on Fascists sustaining a state of lawlessness and initiating new attacks.12 Illegal activities increased feelings of belonging and emotional interdependence among squadrists, making it more difficult for individual Blackshirts to pull out of the squads or refrain from violent acts. Any retreat, any return to normalcy, would have required dealing with potentially serious legal and psychological consequences.13 Violence thus became cyclical and self-sustaining. Squads perpetuated the environment of terror by constantly identifying new victims. Not surprisingly, due to its intimate nature, Fascist violence was shaped by local conditions: petty feuds, personal rivalries, and other motives beyond mere class warfare. Having “conquered” and “pacified” Socialist communities, Fascists next asserted domination over the political and symbolic use of public space. The Fascists tore down red flags, busts of Marx, and Socialist slogans, replacing them with the Italian flag, busts of the king, and the fasces. Marches, parades, and political ceremonies reinforced the perception that the Fascists now dominated public spaces only recently occupied by Socialists. This “performance” of Fascist dominance intimidated real and potential enemies, while also fostering cohesion and solidarity among the Blackshirts.14 It also served to reassure the provincial bourgeoisie that their dominant social position had been restored. Conservative and even moderate liberal provincial newspapers expressed support for the Blackshirts, praising their “patriotism” and respect for “law and order.”15 The new Fascist “state within a state” was very different from the preceding two years of Socialist hegemony. Through illegal violence, rather than elections, Fascists controlled government administration and destroyed the offices, newspapers, and cultural and social organizations of the Socialists, trade unions, and peasant leagues. Cyclical violence directed against local leaders prevented Socialists from reorganizing. Mass demonstrations, supported by the police and property-owning classes, were patriotic, reaffirming the primacy of the nation over internationalism. Politically, economically, and socially, traditional elites had reasserted their dominance over the laboring classes. Despite its broad geographic impact and the importance of large, coordinated, interprovincial squad activity, the Fascist “Revolution,” or reaction, largely consisted of thousands of intensely local episodes of violence. Fascists and their victims perceived squadrismo as a continuation of the Great War, squads resorted to personal, highly symbolic, face-to-face violence and murder, rather than mass anonymous killing. In essence, although they could be exceeding brutal, Fascist squads practiced a selective, calibrated, and choreographed economy of violence. Squad political violence started to erode the institutions of the liberal state even before the Fascists marched on Rome.16 Inside the parliament, deputies debated the legitimacy of squadrismo. Right-wing Fascist sympathizers deemed it patriotic, and therefore just, while Socialist and anti-Fascist Liberals lamented the demise of the rule of law. Meanwhile, the governments of Ivanoe Bonomi (1921) and Luigi Facta (1922) seemingly failed to appreciate the scope of the phenomenon, issuing assurances that incidences of attacks against citizens and the state were “limited and isolated.”17 On one hand, this misperception seems justifiable. Accounts of murders, beatings, and arsons appeared, if at all, in local newspapers, often in the sections devoted to common crime.18 Political elites with no personal connection to the localities affected by Fascist terror thus might be excused for failing to comprehend its magnitude. On the other hand, Fascist violence deeply affected national politics.19 The elections of May 1921, which brought 35 Fascists into the parliament, were preceded by a wave of squad violence that, in just two weeks, left 71 people dead and 216 wounded. Fascists attacked candidates in their home districts, in Rome, and even in the parliament. At the convening of the new legislature, the Fascist deputies refused to allow the Communist deputy, Francesco Misiano, to enter the chamber. Fascists had thus successfully pushed for, and attained, a system in which state agents and political leaders tolerated and even legitimized illegal right-wing violence inflicted on Socialists, Communists, Catholic Popolari, and anti-Fascist liberal moderates. Though its success was not inevitable, the 1922 March on Rome was a Fascist coup against a system whose institutional integrity had already been severely compromised.20 The March on Rome has often been portrayed as a comic opera, a “bluff.” But as Giulia Albanese has shown, it was accompanied by serious, widespread violence. In provinces throughout Italy, paramilitary groups seized control of prefectures, telegraph offices, post offices, and rail stations. In Rome, Fascists marched through popular neighborhoods and destroyed the offices and meeting places of left-wing newspapers, social clubs, and co- operatives.21 Fascists also raided the homes of nationally prominent politicians—including the former prime minister, Francesco Nitti—throwing their books and furniture out the window and lighting the pile on fire. Meanwhile, in the provinces, Fascists seized control of local administrations that had resisted up until then. By the end of 1922, Fascists or pro-Fascists controlled virtually every communal administration in Italy.22 Finally, the freedom of the press was severely curtailed. In the days following Oct. 28, 1922, Fascists prevented most major dailies from publishing news of events.23 On Oct. 29, 1922, the Italian king appointed Mussolini prime minister. Mussolini presided over a mixed cabinet consisting of Fascists, Nationalists (who were absorbed by the Fascists in 1923), Liberals, and Popolari. Many political elites assumed that a Mussolini government would bring an end to two years of violent disorder, but it did not. By taking the portfolio of minister of the Interior for himself, he controlled the Italian police.24 Political violence in the years after the March on Rome continued to serve the same purposes as before: it suppressed opposition, replaced Socialist and non-Fascist administrations, and extended Fascist control over the rest of Italy.25 Mussolini occasionally decried the illegal activities of the squads, but they operated as the motor that drove his government along the road to dictatorship. Excerpted from Ordinary Violence in Mussolini’s Italy by Michael R. Ebner. Published by Cambridge University Press. 1. See Angelo Ventrone, La seduzione totalitaria: Guerra, modernita`, violenza politica, 1914–1918 (Rome, 2003), 211–54. 2. Mussolini, OO, XIII:64–6. 3. De Grazia, Culture of Consent, 6–10. 4. See Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 76–84; and Lyttelton, “Fascism and Violence,” 259. 5. On the overstatement of “red violence,” see Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbu ̈ nde, 70–1. 6. Cardoza, Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism, 340–1. 7. Lyttelton, “Fascism and Violence,” 266. 8. See Lupo, Il fascismo, 68–70. 9. On home invasions, see Partito Socialista Italiano, Inchiesta socialista sulle gesta dei fascisti in Italia (Milan, 1963), esp. 21–4; see also Franzinelli, Squadristi, 73. 10. Franzinelli, Squadristi, 77–8. 11. Lyttelton, “Fascism and Violence,” 266–7. 12. Ibid., 268–9. 13. Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbu ̈ nde, 474–5. 14. Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbu ̈ nde, 135–39; Lyttelton, “Fascism and Violence,” 269. 15. On the support of provincial elites, see Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 113–15; Cardoza, Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism, 309–10; Snowden, Fascist Revolution in Tuscany, 56–7, 226n158. For examples of moderate and conservative press coverage, see Alberghi, Il Fascismo in Emilia Romagna, 267–8. 16. Giulia Albanese, La Marcia su Roma: violenza e politica nella crisi dello stato liberale (Bari, 2006). 17. Petersen, “Violence in Italian Fascism,” 285. 18. Ibid., 286. 19. Franzinelli, Squadristi, 77–8. 20. Albanese, Marcia su Roma, 36–41. 21. On violence and March on Rome, see Albanese, Marcia su Roma, 117–18. 22. Ibid., 119–21, 127. 23. Ibid., 100–1. 24. Lyttelton, Seizure of Power, 8–9. 25. Albanese, Marcia su Roma, 176. |
A little over a month ago, in a room of uniformed military commanders and the press eager to catch a glimpse of the new presidential aesthetic, Trump referred boastfully to a “calm before the storm” that their meeting represented. Characteristically coy, and perhaps uncharacteristically restrained, Trump bid the press wait and see what would happen. Media speculation ran wild for days, suggesting that it could be a planned strike on the DPRK or an end to the Iran deal; perhaps some other imperial plot, hatched between the various blood-suckers populating the room. But so far no such “storm” has yet materialize at the behest of the orange menace. In any case, as those words are lost down the memory-hole there remains a very real unease spreading among the media and people. The unease cuts a bit deeper than the potential for an end to a nuclear agreement, or the fear of a new war between amerika and the DPRK (although such a thought does evoke serious anxiety). This anxiety cuts to the core of the project of empire in amerika, as the people are coming to see the writing on the wall: a new, deeper crisis is coming. European finance ministers can sense it, economists in the united $tates have warned about it. Although gas prices are—for the moment—reasonable and the standard of living is going up in the united $tates, this unease concerning the potential for an political and economic sinkhole persists. Consumer confidence may have peaked in the united $tates on halloween, but the confidence of average people in the political situation is sinking like a stone. Things like “this country won’t exist much longer” are more common than ever. A statement that we never thought would be uttered in the 1990’s, when the world seemed to be truly falling apart as we knew it, is now treated as absolute fact. Trump is right, this is the calm before the storm, and we have no idea how long it may last. The worldwide tension that existed throughout the cold war, with people wondering when things would come to a head, abruptly ended with the collapse of the socialist bloc. However “socialist” we may believe it was by the end, nobody can deny that it has had a poisonous effect on the state of geopolitical affairs for the communist left since then. The decline of the world into an amerikan unipolarity, along with their NATO allies in Europe, was a disastrous climax to the decay of socialism in the East. However, such a crisis had not been seen in decades up until that point, and then after an 18-year party in the west, we had the first global micro-crisis. The “great recession” caused by the amerikan housing market collapse would seriously upset the post-Soviet boom in the First World. We say “micro-crisis” because ultimately the economic effects, though politically and psychologically profound, were soon more or less patched up. It lingered, but it did not explode the world order; it ignited an accelerated decay. We are now entering the decade post-collapse, and in the First World things appear rather normal. There are still lingering effects of austerity measures introduced by the imperialist governments, partially reversed by the stubborn working classes who have now found themselves, for the first time in decades, forced into a kind of political action. However, no revolutionary movement has arisen, parties have collapsed rather than coalesced, and we are no closer to a genuine international class consciousness than 10 years previous. That is not to be defeatist, or to assume that nothing can be done, it is simply meant as a critical reflection on the shortcomings of the spontaneous actions lead by the labor aristocracy following the first collapse. Conducting such an autopsy on the long-dead occupy movement, and those that sprung up in the years following, is necessary to prepare for what is to come. It is clear that another crisis is on its way, and we have no idea what will serve as its impetus. That is not to say that the people have not been spurred to political consciousness, or even to a kind of rudimentary class consciousness. Certainly a great degree of this tension and unease that we currently feel burning slowly in our stomachs is the fact that it is, to a great degree, a political tension. However, this consciousness has been largely petty bourgeois and labor aristocratic class consciousness, which lurches rightward to protect its historical political-economic position in the First World. The alt-right, a movement that existed solely online and whose membership and ideas were virtually unknown until 2016 despite having existed for more than a decade, now cannot hold a simple march without instant international news coverage and top-trending on social media. That said, and to the credit (and hope) of the left, revolutionary Maoists are now periodically featured by local as well as national news agencies, despite having no party or national organization. This is no doubt provoked by the burning debate over antifa tactics in dealing with fascist and conservative movements, but even in considering this we must recognize that we are far behind the mobilization on the right. However, this looks only at the united $tates. If we zoom out and take a look at the world situation as it is currently developing, we see an existing—not just looming—conflagration in the Third World. One that has excited all manner of anti-imperialist forces both left and right, with perhaps one of the most promising world-scenarios for communist revolution we have experienced in decades. We have seen the decline of supranational authority—Negriists be damned—and the aggressive rebirth of multipolarity threatening to tear the world apart at the seams. Of course we have also witnessed the decline of some of the most prominent revolutionary armies, fighting for the rebirth of Marxist socialism, but they also seem to be on the cusp of a second wind, this time without the trifling unipolarity that made even small slights against empire nearly impossible in the past. To avoid an endless and unproductive optimism, we must also be aware that it is only because of the extreme danger that we now face that such exciting developments have come into being. With the degradation of supranational power has come the aggressive multipolarity previously mentioned, wherein the UN has now taken a backseat to the “big persons” discussion and brawling. Just as the League of Nations was eventually stripped of all the laughable authorities it was given, in a practical (rather than legal) sense so too has the UN become a toothless entity, incapable of legally mediating global conflict—a condition that preconditions a great intensification of inter-imperialist warfare. Where competing powers once made demands, they now simply take. Such is the case in the various territorial disputes between amerikan imperialists and China, which now utilizes its status as a world power to simply take what it wants. That is not to justify amerikan claims or that of its puppets, but simply to demonstrate that the emerging world powers no longer need to utilize the UN when something must be settled. The same is true of the Crimea and Russia. Albeit with the support of the people, the Russian government decided to simply take what they considered theirs, and to promote its authenticity post facto. This is not to equate the power and criminality of Russian and Chinese imperialists with that of the amerikans and the west. Rather, this is an observation of the flimsiness of international law, which has decried the obvious land-theft of nations that held internationally recognized sovereignty. This is without even touching upon Israel, which has done the same to the Palestinians first by consent of the UN and then in spite of it. This degradation has only accelerated with the departure of world leaders from the International Criminal Courts, the amerikan condemnation and subsequent departure from UNESCO, and the nearly 30 years of begging by UN human rights watchdogs to prevent and intervene in the very real genocides that have gone on at the behest of various imperial actors. Most recently, the UN committee designated to investigate and lead the challenging of Saudi and Western war crimes in Yemen, that has lead to the literal hands-and-knees begging of human rights investigators from the UN commission on human rights itself, resulted in a shrug and a nod from UN leaders that could affect absolutely no change. It is no longer a performance, it is an outright disintegration. The only time that the UN can pass any kind of meaningful decisions that are truly enforceable is through the consensus of the imperial multipole. Primarily, this has been aimed toward the DPRK, which has been hit with an increasing load of sanctions every single time it lifts a finger toward independence—evidence still of the fragility of the world system. This is the UN we are speaking of, not the petty international agreements made to be broken. The sole purpose of the UN was to prevent a war between rivaling powers, and to preserve world peace in regards to the nations that “matter”; i.e. imperialist ones. It is the bulwark that prevented the metastasis of hostilities between the global powers in the Cold War, which operated through the rather explicit causeways of political discourse built around the very clear bipolar world system. Now we lack even this. We lack the clarity of a bipolar system, or a tripolar system, or even a quadripolar system for that matter. It is a rat race of all the aspiring and veteran imperialists looking to make their countries “great” again. This is such an exceedingly dangerous moment that any serious crisis could spill over into global inter-imperialist warfare. That is at once a blessing and a curse, as it threatens the lives of hundreds of millions, if not billions of people if it were to burn up in a toxic gas fire. The Blessing, however, comes with the promise that even the small become powerful, and even the fringe can now move to the center. While socialism was thought to have gone down with the ship, so to speak, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, here we are. We have a powerful resurgence of diverse social revolutionaries that all coalesce around some kind of Marxism, however twisted their individual interpretations may be. It may seem like a situation just as bleak as ever to any left-communist or phony Marxist-Leninist, who seeks only the purest and most refined kool-aid to drink. However, let us remember that the Third International was brought into its founding congress with a majority of those in attendance being quasi-social democrats and anti-authoritarians. It was nearly 30 years after the success of the Bolshevik revolution before a socialist bloc was established. It took two world wars to consolidate a world wherein just 1/3rd was socialist. We are not looking to jump from 1905 to 1949 in just a few years, and we should not delude ourselves with the idea that such reckless and haphazard progress could be sustained until final victory. That said, we are certainly no longer alone in our ideas, and the world has broken out of the post-Socialist spiral into something that we can salvage as we move into the next great crisis. For this reason all optimism is warranted, but practicality is paramount. Things will get much worse before they get better, and our jobs are going to become far more dangerous. That said, our work is all the more important, as we have very little time to prepare in the First World, where fascists, identitarians and the alt-right are quickly outpacing us. We must accept the possibility that we may lose, but not resign ourselves to it as reality. This possibility must inspire us to make difficult decisions and accept greater responsibilities both individually and collectively. What we need now more than ever are high-agency comrades who are willing and ready to take real initiative in building the revolutionary center. Oftentimes it is easy to get caught up in the hopelessness of a situation and find yourself unable to gain a sense of what to do, but it is necessary that we act deliberately. The neoliberal husk wherein we currently reside is quickly crumbling, and is set to fall in on us. We cannot stand on a platform of exceptionalism wherein we purport we have the right to lead before we have proven ourselves capable. The struggle of the world proletariat is on the march, in unity with all progressive movements aimed at rooting out imperialism as the primary human anguish of this era. We must step in line, and build with the primary intention of entering this great conflagration alongside the world proletariat. We cannot shelve our international responsibility, and, in fact, we cannot succeed without it. The success of any First World revolutionary movement is dependent upon the development of the world proletarian movement. We are trapped by the hegemony of the hostile middling classes that predominate in the First World, and who have lead the fascist resurgence we are now experiencing. It is only through anchoring ourselves to the world proletarian movement that we can effectively build and focus our own hegemony against that of the reactionary petty bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy. Any revolutionary center we put our minds and our bodies to work in creating must be integrated with this emerging worldwide struggle, and we must accept that we are in but the first stage of a grand reawakening. The fire rises, let us see it consume the world. |
The England team have shown off their official World Cup suits - and there is more than just a hint of 1966 in the design. Forty-four years ago, Sir Alf Ramsey's World Cup winners sported an ensemble with thin lapels and narrow trousers - a look England manager Fabio Capello was keen to see repeated. He asked for the thin lapels, a slim silhouette, and slanted pockets - and if Marks & Spencer could provide an injury free defender at right back too, that would be a bonus. 606: DEBATE Created in collaboration with Savile Row tailor Timothy Everest, the suit marks a break away from the designer attire of previous years, and the more superstitious might hope that it will even inspire a change in the team's World Cup fortunes. M&S' menswear director Richard Price said: "The Football Association and M&S are both great British institutions so we are extremely proud to continue to dress the England team as they travel to South Africa this summer." The suit will be available for fans to buy in stores and online. |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. manufacturing output barely rose in September and contracts to buy previously owned homes recorded their largest drop in nearly 3-1/2 years, the latest signs the economy’s momentum ebbed as the third quarter ended. The reports on Monday showed economic activity was on weak footing even before a 16-day partial shutdown of the U.S. federal government early in October that is expected to weigh on fourth quarter growth. “The economy seems to be losing steam as higher mortgage rates have hit the housing market and destructive government policy will likely bash the rest of the economy,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisers in Holland, Pennsylvania. Manufacturing production edged up 0.1 percent last month after advancing 0.5 percent in August, the Federal Reserve said. Factory output was held back by a 0.5 percent drop in computer and electronic goods production. Output of electrical appliances also fell. While automobile output increased 2.0 percent, that was a sharp slowdown from the 5.2 percent rise logged in August. Separately, the National Association of Realtors said its Pending Homes Sales index, based on contracts signed last month, plunged 5.6 percent to the lowest level since December. The decline was the largest since May 2010. The index, which leads home resales by a month or two, has now dropped for four straight months. Realtors believe home resales, which dropped in September, peaked in July and August. The reports come on the heels of data last week showing a gauge of business spending tumbled in September. That data, combined with a disappointing reading on hiring released earlier this month, has offered a dull picture of economic activity. Thomas Costerg, U.S. economist at Standard Chartered Bank in New York, said a run up in interest rates over the summer on expectations the Fed would soon trim its bond-buying stimulus appeared to be holding back the economy. “This will make the Fed even more cautious when they next start to hint at tapering,” he said. Rates on 30-year fixed rate mortgages rose to an average of 4.49 percent in September from an average of 3.54 percent in May, according to Freddie Mac. But a surprise decision by the central bank in mid-September not to cut its purchases and soft economic data have pulled rates lower since then. With politicians in Washington still to agree on a budget, uncertainty over fiscal policy may also continue to hinder growth, making it unlikely the Fed will be in a hurry to start scaling back its purchases. Fed officials meet on Tuesday and Wednesday and are expected to maintain their $85 billion per month bond-buying pace. WEAK DOMESTIC AND GLOBAL DEMAND While manufacturing accounts for only about 12 percent of U.S. economic activity, it was the main driver of the economy from the 2007-09 recession. Factory output rose at a 1.2 percent rate in the third quarter, rebounding from a 0.1 percent fall in the prior three months. Economists expect manufacturing slowed in October as the federal government shutdown hurt business confidence. The weak manufacturing data contrasts with fairly upbeat business surveys. For example, a closely watched gauge from the Institute for Supply Management has been pushing higher since contracting in May. “We are inclined to focus on actual activity gauges like manufacturing production, rather than surveys, which have given several false signals during this recovery,” said Peter D’Antonio, an economist at Citigroup in New York. “The soft manufacturing output reflects weakness abroad, little need to build inventories, and the general slowdown in demand in the first half of the year.” Workers assemble built-in appliances at the Whirlpool manufacturing plant in Cleveland, Tennessee August 21, 2013. REUTERS/Chris Berry Despite the softness in factory output, a rebound in utilities output lifted overall industrial production 0.6 percent, the largest increase since February. Utilities rebounded 4.4 percent in September after five straight months of declines. Mining production rose 0.2 percent, but that was a slowdown from at 0.6 percent increase in August. Last month, the amount of industrial capacity in use rose to 78.3 percent, the highest level since July 2008, from 77.9 percent in August. |
TransAm Map Set GPX Data Map Details Astoria, OR - Yorktown, VA (4,223.0 miles) Product Code BD-15 Brand Adventure Cycling Association Price $59.88 Current File Version Oct 10, 2018 Quantity Add To Cart Add To Cart These GPX Data products cannot be used with the Bicycle Route Navigator App! Unless you plan to use a standalone GPS device, we highly recommend purchasing route sections WITHIN the Bicycle Route Navigator app Please note, GPX Data is not refundable! Please examine the sample data on the device of your choice before purchasing GPX data packages. More information about GPX Data files can be found here. GPX Data products consist of track and service waypoint files in gpx (GPS Exchange Format) file format to be used on a GPS device, smartphone, or tablet. These products are suggested as a companion product to the printed Adventure Cycling Route maps and feature the same services listed on the physical maps. More information about GPX Data for Devices can be found here. The route that made cross-country cycling famous (Outside magazine calls the TransAm the "ultimate bicycle tour"). Ride through the history of the nation - colonial Virginia, plantations, Civil War battlefields, Lincoln's birthplace, and along the Oregon Trail. More information about this route is available here. GPX Data Resources * These products are delivered in compressed zip files. Instructions on extracting the data are located here. **NOTE: Occasionally, the GPX data you purchase will be newer than the paper map currently being sold. They may still be used together. See the Tracks and Service Points FAQs for more information.** Reviews Average rating: based on 3 reviews. They work but I have some suggestions Rating: Reviewed By: Rolf Riley These are exactly as described and delivery process was flawless. I combined the route file and poi file in ride with gps. It’s much easier that way on the bike in my opinion, maybe and the combined files as an add on to this package? Also one really cool thing would be to have every city park on the route added to the poi file as ‘ city park’ as these are great free bivvy sites mostly. Recommended for those not keen on the paper map weight, although paper maps don’t come with added technology learning curves and fails of garmin and smartphone devices lol! Great GPX files Rating: Reviewed By: John Middelberg This summer will be my second trip. I love your GPX files. They are great and very accurate. Never lost my way. Highly recommended. Rating: Reviewed By: Richard I downloaded this package as a Zip file to my Mac easily and instantly. A master folder uncompressed with the 12 sections contained as sub folders. Each subfolder has a portion of the route in both Eastbound and Westbound file versions, with any extra bits (alternate route sections etc.) contained as a separate file. The services for the route are also provided as a separate file for each section. So far I have only uploaded the set to Google Maps where the 'track' files appear as a clear blue line. The services appear as waypoints named by abbreviations (CG = Campground for example) and brief contact details / directions. In .gpx form (I suggest uploading these to a website called 'GPSVisualizer' - it can show pretty elevations of the individual sections on the 'profile' page), the services have a colourful icon set - Google alas does not translate this for whatever reason and represents them as standard flagpoints. I'd absolutely recommend this set, it has already proved invaluable for me in planning this trip even though I don't have a dedicated GPS device. I also now understand when people say that these are intended as a complement to the physical maps, not a replacement - my expectation is that you'd still need the real maps out in the field. A few extras I would have liked: 1. for Google to represent the true service icons, rather than translate them into universal Google flags, 2. if the turn by turn details and info on the section, that the physical maps have, were included as a separate text-only file, 3. if the whole route was included as an additional file, this would be great to view an overall elevation easily for example, 4. if it would be possible to have a digital addendum to update the maps based on the latest information - that would be quite cool and save the maps becoming outdated. Maybe, rather than buying static files, you'd buy access to a private webpage that hosted downloads for the latest versions? It is a brave new world and props to ACA for staying on the cutting edge. Add Product Review |
Google has won a patent on a new way to unlock a device and access applications. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday awarded Google a patent on "Alternative Unlocking Patterns." The technology describes a method by which users would create several different unlocking patterns that would pertain to a particular action. Upon completing that pattern input, the device would perform the predetermined action. According to Google's patent, the company envisions a way in which users would open up applications, check for new calls, or perform other actions through the use of the patterns. Currently, software allows for different unlocking patterns, but all they do is open up the handset's software. Google's technology would unlock the device and bring people to a certain place within the software. Here is how Google describes the patent: The stored unlocking patterns are associated with respective actions that are performed upon completion of the respective unlocking patterns. The unlocking patterns are associated with a same level of unlocked security access to the computing system. The computing system responds by unlocking the computing system and performing the action that is associated with the matching unlocking pattern. Google doesn't say in the patent whether it'll integrate the technology into Android. As with other major companies, Google applies for and is awarded patents on a wide array of technologies. In many cases, those technologies don't ever launch. (Via Engadget) |
How to Encourage Creativity and Sharing for More Productive Meetings We all know that meetings can be tedious, tiring, and ineffective at resolving the problems our businesses are facing. We need creativity and openness, and what we get instead is disinterested yawning and unhelpful criticism. In many cases, however, this unfortunate situation can be improved with some strategic adjustments to our usual meeting routines. Encouraging Participation First and foremost, allow people to share ideas without fear of criticism or interruption. Managers or other employees who respond negatively to “bad” ideas discourage people from sharing their ideas at all. Many people are already hesitant to speak up in groups or take the social risk of sharing their ideas. Harsh or critical responses all but guarantee decreased participation. Keep brainstorming sessions free of judgement about the value of individual ideas in order to foster openness. It can also help to make it clear from the outset that there’s nothing wrong with sharing ideas that don’t work or won’t ever get used. We all have lots of ideas and not all of them are equally viable or valuable, but sharing them gets everyone thinking. One person’s off-the-wall concept might lead to another person’s a-ha moment. It’s common for most groups to have a few people who speak more than others and maybe a few folks who hesitate to speak at all. A simple way to address this is to go around the room and ask each person to contribute an idea or share their opinion. You can do this during a meeting if you need to bring back some balance to the conversation, or you can do it in advance by letting each participant know that they should be prepared to share at least one idea. Depending on the size and structure of your team, you may want to consider stepping things up a notch and breaking people up with a 3 meeting combo. It works like this: Hold a short initial meeting with all the relevant players. This meeting is simply to lay out the problem that you are working on, not to solicit suggestions or ideas for solutions. Ask everyone to go back and consider the problem for a day or so. Schedule the next meeting with the creative thinkers on your team. The purpose of this meeting is to generate lots of ideas for potential solutions or courses of action. Let them know that you won’t be settling on anything during this meeting. Just gathering ideas. Finally, hold a meeting with the more analytical members of the team. The people who might have spent their time poking holes in people’s ideas during the creative meeting are ideal here. Review the ideas presented in the creative meeting and let this team voice their objections. The outcome of this process should be a good set of thoroughly vetted ideas. You may want to continue this process, sending anonymized feedback to the creative group and soliciting more ideas for further analysis, until a solution becomes clear. Encouraging Creativity Sometimes simply creating a healthy environment and encouraging participation isn’t enough. You need something to light that creative fire. It may sound counter-intuitive, but a good way to approach this is to ask for everyone in the meeting to share the worst idea they can think of. This can be especially effective when creativity has stalled or a problem is particularly difficult. Thinking of terrible ideas takes the pressure off and brings some humor into the room, two important factors that contribute to creative thinking. It’s surprising how often breakthrough ideas can come out sessions like this. It seems that when we are presented with clearly bad ideas our minds automatically start thinking of better alternatives. Another way to get the ideas flowing is to play the “Yes and…” game. This is an improv game, and it works like this: One person starts off with a basic idea or concept and, no matter what it is, instead of negating it, belittling it, or disagreeing with it, the next person has to say, “Yes, and…” They must accept the scenario as it’s presented and then to add to it. Each person should try to add something that the next person will also be able to build from. “We could all wear tuxedos to the trade show this year.” “Yes, and we could host a black tie party on the last day of the show.” “Yes, and we could lend people clothes for the party in exchange for a meeting with us during the show.” “Yes and…” You get the idea. Running through this exercise a few times can usually generate a lot of very creative ideas. Not all of them will actually work, but that’s ok. Those ideas led to the ones that do work. However, if you still aren’t getting the ideas you’re looking for, here’s one last tactic: Take a walk. There’s nothing like fresh air to bring out fresh ideas. This works best when done one-on-one or in very small groups, so everyone can easily participate in the conversation. At first, just talk about life or whatever else is on your mind. You’ll find that the conversation will probably come back around to work fairly quickly, and then you can get into the problem at hand. So there you have it. We hope at least one of these techniques helps improve the quality of your meetings and leads to some breakthrough ideas. |
In my youth, I always explained away my disorganization as my being “artistic.” Once I began my full-time career as an adult however, the need to plan, organize, and manage my time became more than just an exercise in clerical development. Yet I felt so lost. And it wasn’t that I didn’t try: I was an early adopter of the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant); I embraced gadget features like digital calendars, and virtual notepads; I even used that task-tracking app “Remember the Milk.” If there was a new productivity tool out there I tried it. Even so I struggled to integrate the various methodologies and eventually grew frustrated by how tethered I became to specific operating systems/devices that didn’t work. Eventually, I’d always end up in the Moleskine section of bookstore again, filled with longing. It felt like the right place but the blank pages simply didn’t offer enough guidance. Or so I thought. Enter the Bullet Journal. Billed as “the analog system for the digital age,” the Bullet Journal is UX designer Ryder Carroll’s genius brainchild, initially created to help him manage his own struggles with ADD. Rightly touted as a “customizable and forgiving organization system,” the bullet journal enables users to combine note-taking, list-making and planning into one place according to their own personalized system without making it a chore. It’s become so successful that now Carroll has spin-offs and imitators, some of them quite good. So which one is best for you? Read on. For the Purist The Bullet Journal mastermind Ryder Carroll explains his personal approach to the organizational system of in a simple, straightforward way. All that’s needed is a blank notebook. Novices are then instructed how to create “modules,” add rapid logging, assign “bullets” and migrate tasks. He encourages users to develop their own systems, which is exactly what some of his followers have done. For the Hyper-Organized Kara “Boho” Berry has a “bujo” fanbase of almost 75k followers on YouTube alone. And for good reason. For those who see the benefits of color-coding and need their journal to serve multiple functions (work, home, play, for example), Berry has devised a complex (but not over complicated) system that allows you to expand your bujo well beyond the scope of original Carroll’s approach. Berry’s system additionally is highly decorative as well. For the Crafty Type If you describe yourself as artsy, Sara Rose’s take on the bullet journal is even more creative than Kara Berry’s (which she acknowledges as an inspiration). Rose, however, incorporates more art supplies! Her journal features colored pens and even watercolors. Charmingly, she’s quite humble about her current bujo and by confiding to us that she’s still working on her handwriting, she gives us permission to make mistakes. She’s also incorporated a welcome new component: The Goal Tracker. For the Intellectual So you’re the type who really likes to know how things work? Enter Carrie Crista who takes a deep dive into the “system.” For those who want to know the full range of options, Christa explains all the options. And if this initial video still leaves you wanting more, Christa has some follow-ups that further explain other potential uses for your bullet journal. Added perk: This video is an astonishing celebration of someone with really gorgeous handwriting. For the Minimalist In spite of having been “invented” by a man, bullet journaling knows no gender. Nevertheless, inspired by his wife, Matthew Kent has devised a “masculine” method expressly for “dudes,” an approach which forsakes the craftier stickers and tape flags. (Interestingly, Kent admits to enjoying the evolution of his handwriting since he started his own bullet journal practice.) For those who want to stick to the basics (black pen, notebook), this is your ticket. – Laura Rebecca Other Posts You Might Like |
What goes on the campaign bus should perhaps stay on the campaign bus – at least as far as David Cameron’s remarks about closing down the BBC are concerned. The Prime Minister, amid the rigours of a tough old election campaign, told journalists he was “going to close it (the Corporation) down after the election.” The story emerged – secondhand – via the venerable Nick Robinson, who was recovering from surgery during the campaign. My instinct here is that BBC journalists – and I was one of their number for more than a dozen years – are right when they describe this as “yet another of bit of pressure” from a Conservative party which has long viewed the BBC with suspicion and in some cases outright detestation. However it also rather sounds as though an embattled Cameron was letting off steam rather than making any kind explicit threat. Nevertheless it would be a mistake to overlook the fact the BBC is approaching negotiations about charter renewal and any kind of comment by the governing party of the day about the broadcaster’s future will rightly be scrutinised to destruction within New Broadcasting House. Employees there, certainly the journalists, have felt under near constant siege since around the mid-point of the last decade, with several strikes and a long slump in morale the outcome. First came the devastating findings of the Hutton Inquiry in 2004, which plunged the Corporation into the biggest crisis in its history; there has since followed the seemingly endless rounds of budget cuts borne by those on the shop floor of news. Taken together these traumas have destroyed confidence BBC producers had in their own ability and produced a drip-feed of hemlock taken via doom-laden emails from senior managers unaffected by mountains of proposed savings. So the Prime Minister may joke and others around him fire off volleys of complaint in what the tabloid press gleefully calls the government’s ‘war with the BBC’ but oddly there is much the Conservatives would approve of at the Corporation. While not being an arm of the State the BBC certainly carries with it much of the architecture of State. That is to say the overwhelming majority of senior journalists and bosses tend to be white, middle aged, middle class men and often hail from a public school background. Their views – hardly surprisingly – reflect much of that and the idea of the BBC being a haven for socialists and subversives is just rubbish, for if there was ever a ‘Left-wing bias’ there certainly is no longer. Rather the BBC is a socially liberal place and I suspect that is – in a broad sense – the politics of those who work there too. Witness the visit of the Queen back in 2013, with journalists flocking to get near the old dear for a selfie or two. Indeed those of us who have worked there for any length of time know there is just as much pressure from the political Left as the Right to cover events in an unbiased way. I recall fielding editorial complaints from the likes of David Blunkett, Tory Central Office and the Israeli government. Mr Cameron and his ilk might be interested to know that if anything there is an in-built editorial bias from the Right because of the way the newspapers – and especially the Daily Mail – help shape the day-to-day agenda at the BBC. Senior editors plough their way through bundles of the day’s papers before ever committing themselves to covering a story and often end up reflecting what has already been printed, not only in the Mail, but the Times, Sun and Telegraph too. All of this said I, like Nick Robinson, suspect the BBC will be around for a good long time to come even with John Whittingdale as Culture Secretary. It’s been in bigger scrapes in the past with Tory governments, especially those headed by Margaret Thatcher. Imagine the UK without the BBC? – not even David Cameron would find that funny. |
A Pirate Party branch founded last November has scored a win in regional elections in Switzerland, with the city of Eichberg to fly the pirate flag under new mayor, Alex Arnold. The 31-year-old software developer is a local to the town and works for works as a developer for VRSG, which focuses on software and systems integration for the Swiss public sector. Arnold defeated two candidates from the Swiss Peoples Party to take the part-time mayoralty and took 60 percent of the vote. But the Party made no dent on elections for the parliament of St Gallen and Gosseau, the Cantons around Eichberg. The mayoral chains of Eichberg won't give the Pirate Party an enormous platform from which to push its policies: Wikipedia states the town's population is 1,481. The win is nonetheless a fillip for the Pirate Party, which had its first successes in Germany soured by reports that the organization is in disarray in that country. Earlier this month, reports emerged of organizational problems – including non-payment of fees, in-fighting, and poor strategy. The German organisation was also embarrassed last week when it emerged that party executive Julia Schramm’s publisher Random House is using DCMA takedown notices against those who pirate her book. Swiss site 20Minutes Online said the Pirate Party’s earlier foray into politics in March harvested just 1.3 percent of the vote in local elections. ® |
Treyarch has just released a new update for the Black Ops 3 beta on Xbox One, and the update includes weapon changes and specialist tuning. Vonderhaar has stated that these changes were also made to the PS4 beta when the beta was live last week. M8A7 Increased time in between bursts – Has a slightly increased upward recoil pattern – Drakon Increased Recoil Fire rate is a little faster Hitting an enemy in the upper chest no longer 1-hit kills. Neck up does 1-hit kill Razorback Used to kill in 4 shots out to 1250 units, now should only kill in 4 shots out to 800. Anything beyond 800 should take 5 shots to kill. 850 units is roughly the length of the bridge on Hunted. Slightly increased recoil HVK Hip spread size is a little smaller. Vesper Used to kill in 4 shots out to 350 units, now should only kill in 4 shots out to 300. Anything beyond 300 units will be at least 5 shots to kill. Haymaker Fire rate has increased by about 10%. Should be noticeable. Should take roughly 2.25 seconds to empty a standard magazine. KRM Up close damage increased. Should never cause a non-lethal hit within 250 units. Damage at a further distance has been reduced and can’t 1 hit kill as far out, even when ADS. XR-2 Delay between bursts has been reduced by a frame, very slight change. Kinetic Armor Lasts 7 seconds now instead of 5 Active Camo Lasts 5 seconds now instead of 4 Glitch Takes 2 full minutes to earn with no score, up from 1.5 minutes. Travels back 700 units, down from 800 Vision Pulse Range is 1400 units, down from 1600 Ripper Takes 2 full minutes to earn with no score, down from 3 minutes. Lasts for 20 seconds if no attacks are made, up from 15 seconds. Tempest Beam has a slightly smaller width. Have to be more on target to hit enemies Time in deathcam after being killed is now 2.5 seconds, down from 3 Speed Burst Stays on when moving at full speed after activating for 5.5 seconds, up from 5 War Machine Clip size is now 6, down from 8 Explosion radius damage is slightly reduced Rejack Takes 3 full minutes to earn with no score, down from 2 minutes. The animation time to get up from the Rejack has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds. SOURCE: Reddit |
Robots are coming for more Americans’ jobs — and you can blame the Fight for $15 fanatics. Wendy’s is now moving to install self-service kiosks in 1,000 of its restaurants (about a sixth of its total) by year’s end. The point is to save on labor costs, which are soaring thanks to radical jumps in the minimum wage to as much as $15 an hour in places like New York and California. “Last year was tough — 5 percent wage inflation,” says Wendy’s COO Bob Wright. That was more than twice the 2.1 percent overall inflation rate. And he’s expecting wages to climb almost as fast this year, too. But automation, Wright says, can shave 31 hours a week of paid labor from a single restaurant — almost a full-time job. Say goodbye to nearly 1,000 jobs — for starters. Wright warns that robots can take on other work: “repetitive production tasks” that aren’t “core” to what customers love. And the trend runs far beyond Wendy’s. Panera Bread, McDonald’s and others are adding touch-screen kiosks. At Cafe X in San Francisco, a robotic arm prepares and serves coffee. It’s hard to blame firms facing a sky-high $15 minimum wage for looking to rein in costs, but the toll is ugly. Job-loss estimates from a $15 minimum in New York alone run as high as 600,000 — from automation as well as shops closing and just trimming staff. Meanwhile, a new Heritage Foundation report predicts a $15 mandatory wage floor will push up fast-food prices “at least a fourth.” And since lower-income groups rely more on fast food and other products made by minimum-wage workers, they’ll be hit hardest. “Minimum-wage increases,” the report concludes, “do little to redistribute wealth.” Great: Humans lose their jobs. Machines take over. And you can thank the US labor movement. |
CARACAS (Reuters) - Investors see Venezuela’s new free-floating foreign exchange system as an important step toward improving the country’s stretched finances, but economists question whether it can provide enough dollars to kick-start the economy. A woman counts bolivar notes as she pays for an electronic item at an store in La Guaira outside Caracas January 12, 2010. REUTERS/Jorge Silva The Sicad 2 mechanism opened on Monday and has offered dollars at around 51 bolivars, or eight times the official rate. After 11 years of currency controls, critics said the launch of Sicad 2 amounts to a devaluation of 88 percent. Fitch Ratings cut its rating for Venezuela debt. Still, Venezuela’s bonds rose on Tuesday, extending gains from Monday as the measures encouraged investors. It remained unclear how much the system will ease dollar shortages that have left factories without replacement parts and consumers without basic goods including toilet paper. “With no real efforts to significantly increase the supply of foreign currency, we suspect that it is another false dawn in Venezuela’s battle to overcome a dollar drought,” wrote David Rees of research firm Capital Economics in a note. The measure offers companies such as American Airlines (AAL.O) and Colgate-Palmolive (CL.N) a legal alternative to repatriate revenue. But that would imply heavy losses for the companies. Airlines, for example, sell tickets at the official rate but would repatriate funds at the much weaker Sicad 2 rate. The central bank has not provided details on how much currency has changed hands under Sicad 2, and did not respond to calls seeking comment. President Nicolas Maduro over the weekend said the system will supply 8 to 10 percent of the economy’s demand for dollars. That would mean around $60 million per day compared with the $100 million daily volume of a similar market that functioned until 2010 when it was outlawed, according to Russ Dallen, managing partner of Caracas Capital Markets. “Anything’s better than nothing, and at least they’ve done something,” said Dallen, who facilitated transactions in the prior market. “They control it and only they can see what’s happening, so it’s kind of a black box to us on the outside.” Sicad 2 has added a third tier to the currency control mechanism that already sells dollars at 6.3 bolivars for preferential goods and at around 11 for non-essential items. On Tuesday, Maduro said the system would supply between 5 and 7 percent of “non-essential currency needs,” adding that nearly 85 percent of dollar demand would be supplied at 6.3. Insufficient supply of dollars would leave importers and businesses struggling to obtain hard currency. That could further pressure the black market rate, which helped drive inflation to 57 percent in February. DEBTS PILE UP In the run-up to Sicad 2, the bolivar strengthened on the black market to reach 59 per dollar on Monday from nearly 90 in recent weeks. On Tuesday the rate slipped back to nearly 73, according to the widely watched website DolarToday.com. The Sicad 2 rate is the average of transactions in a trading day, reported by the central bank after the close of operations. That adds a third official exchange rate to the 11-year-old currency mechanism created by late socialist leader Hugo Chavez. Barclays analyst Alejandro Grisanti said Maduro’s comments suggested the system would provide about half the volume he had originally expected. “We see that as a concern,” he said. “Lower FX sales in Sicad 2 would imply a smaller average devaluation, smaller fiscal improvement, a more limited capacity of this new market to stabilize the exchange rate.” For years, the government currency board has declined repatriation requests from foreign companies operating in Venezuela, preventing transfers of revenue to headquarters. Companies would suffer substantial losses buying dollars at the Sicad 2 rate, especially airlines that must sell tickets in bolivars at the rate of 6.3. The International Air Transport Association says its members have $3.8 billion in revenue frozen by the currency controls. On Tuesday, its representative said the new exchange rate would not apply to its members because they sold tickets at 6.3 bolivars, and at the previous official rate of 4.3. The Sicad 2 rate will also be available to tourists, who have traditionally used the black market. Chavez set up currency controls in 2003 after an opposition-led oil industry shutdown nearly left the country without hard currency. He maintained that policy even after the government stabilized output and soaring oil prices flooded the country with cash. That spawned corruption as well-connected officials bought cheap dollars and flipped them for huge profits on the black market. |
Community advocate Nicholas Wong has announced he’ll run as an independent in Delta South in the upcoming provincial election. Wong, who was born and raised in Delta, is hoping to fill the void that will be left by two-term independent MLA Vicki Huntington, who announced last month she won’t run again. article continues below The 26-year-old has Huntington’s endorsement and says her constituency association will help his candidacy to ensure the riding keeps an independent voice that’s not handcuffed by party lines. “As long as I’ve been able to vote she’s been a hero of mine. What she’s done in comparison to the other MLAs who have been around, we see just how few times a party’s representatives can go against the party line. I think her brand of independent representation is exactly the type of representation we need in South Delta,” said Wong. A graduate of Delta Secondary, Wong has a degree in philosophy at Simon Fraser University and now works in software development and project management. He ran for Delta council in 2014 and was also involved with the community group that campaigned for better surgical services at Delta Hospital. He originally planned to support Huntington’s re-election campaign, but felt someone with a passion for the community needed to step up after she made the surprise announcement she wouldn’t seek a third term. “In today’s political environment that’s rife with spin and so-called alternative facts, we’ve lost sight of what politics was meant to be, and it’s meant to be a discourse where everyone can weigh the facts as they are presented and come up with the best solution for everyone involved. Somehow that got so lost and muddied along the way,” he said. Wong said that, first off the bat, he hopes to introduce a bill to remove corporate and union donations from B.C. politics. As far as South Delta, it’s all about “the impacts on the well- being and quality of life of South Deltans” from the various things locally that are under provincial control, such as the underfunding of Delta Hospital. Also saying LRT is very doable for south of the Fraser, he agrees a buck a bridge” tolling system is the most fair and would help ease congestion. Wong has made it clear he’s no fan of Port Metro Vancouver’s Terminal 2 project as well as the George Massey Tunnel replacement bridge, a project he says can easily be replaced with a much less costly twin tunnel. He said the facts, not spin, need to get out about such projects. Wong said he thinks there’s an appetite among the electorate for more independents in the legislature, especially after seeing how well Huntington has represented South Delta. “Nick and I hold many of the same values, and most of all we share an abiding sense of the need to be a true representative of – and voice for – the people of South Delta,” Huntington said in a statement. “I urge you to take another leap of faith and vote for a man that I believe will deliver sound and intelligent service to our community.” Wong is the second candidate to declare for the May 9 provincial election. will be running against Ian Paton, the Liberal candidate in this year’s election, but the NDP still haven’t named their candidate for Delta South. Prior to Huntington announcing she wouldn’t be running, the Greens said they wouldn’t run a candidate out of respect for her, but it’s not clear if they’ll do the same for Wong. For more on Wong check out nicholaswong.ca. |
The paradox of Turnbull and the budget Updated Nothing about this time in politics makes much sense. We have a budget that could not be more politically important, but no one wants to sell it. And we've got a Prime Minister who loves the grey when everything we know about elections calls for black and white. Barrie Cassidy writes. There's a real paradox around next week's federal budget. While it is the most important politically - if not economically - for many years, the build up is both sanguine and low key, the opposite to what you would expect. Typical budgets are preceded by a softening up process; the laying down of markers; the development of a clear narrative; and the odd officially-sanctioned leak. This one - the one that precedes a formal election campaign and that has to achieve so much - has none of that. Unlike Wayne Swan and Joe Hockey before him, Scott Morrison decided not to go to the meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in the United States, which conveniently happen just before the budget every year. The events help the treasurer to frame economic strategy against a global background. But neither is Morrison locked away in treasury, beavering away and eschewing public appearances. Morrison is both active on social media and in the marginal seats. But for all that he's not saying much at all. Typically, his Twitter message is this: Well it's a week to go until we hand down the budget. This is a critical time for our economy. We are moving from that mining boom through to a more diversified economy. And this: We are focussed on a plan for jobs and growth for your future and the future of your family and I look forward to updating you more as we go through the week. Well not so far he hasn't. The messages are just as vague and general as they've always been. If that is because there really is nothing particularly earth shattering about the budget - that it really will be modest and free of political risks - then that in itself is a risk, especially now with expectations so high. As Niki Savva wrote in The Australian on Thursday, this budget: ...has to fulfil the Liberal credo of lower spending, lowering taxes and lowering or eliminating the deficit; it has to be economically credible and politically appealing ... and cement the Coalition's standing as superior economic managers. So little time, so little money, so few options. Everything about this budget promises to be modest, except what it is expected to achieve. It will certainly need to go beyond the rhetoric and the promises of every budget since the country went into deficit eight years ago. All of them promised improvements in the bottom line and so far none of them have delivered. Cynicism on that front is building faster the deficit itself. On a second front, the Government's tactics are unusual, turning political orthodoxy on its head. All week - with a break for the submarines announcement - the Government has been running dual scare campaigns against the Opposition. Usually it's the other way around. Of course ministers should attack the policies of their opponents if they disagree with them. But is that the priority with the budget just days away? And with the submarine decision still to be further exploited? Doubtless over time the Government will pressure Labor on climate change and negative gearing. But the scare campaign won't be quite the "horror show" that the Daily Telegraph suggests it might be, for several reasons. The negative gearing campaign lost some of its momentum when the Prime Minister and the Treasurer handpicked the Mignacca family as the best example of "mum and dad" investors. It turned out they had negatively geared a property for their daughter, Adison, who is not yet one. And to compound their problems, the Grattan Institute has forcefully put the case for a dilution of concessions around negative gearing. The Liberal Party's Victorian president, Michael Kroger, hit back saying the institute "is not an intellectually independent organisation ... it comes from a left political bent ... and always argues for higher taxes." And - he neglected to mention - the Prime Minister's wife is on the board! The scare campaign around climate change got off to a more promising start when Bill Shorten used words similar to Julia Gillard's "there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead." That was - and is - the stuff of instant internet advertisements. Despite that, however, Labor's new policy is vastly different from Gillard's. Her government put a fixed price on big emitters - initially $23 a tonne. Shorten's model returns to a market mechanism, but it has no carbon price, and therefore, semantics or not, no carbon tax. It is closer to Turnbull 2009 than Gillard 2012. The fact is Malcolm Turnbull cannot scare like Tony Abbott can scare - or the Telegraph can scare. He doesn't have it in him. He appears to constantly wrestle with his conscience, as if there's an invisible Jiminy Cricket on his shoulder. In his exchange with Leigh Sales on 7.30, he didn't embrace discredited modelling, preferring instead to argue "commonsense". "So you have to trust my analysis on this?" Sales suggested. And that's pretty much where he left it. Here's Turnbull's character trait/problem - call it what you will. Most politicians are wired to see just black or white. Cabinet can sit around for hours arguing the merits, for example, of ridding negative gearing of the "excesses". It might narrowly decide - after robust discussion - to leave the thing alone. Then, politics being what it is, ministers go out with a hard line that ignores the nuances of their previous discussions. They go on the attack, warning that anybody who goes down that track will ruin the economy. That's how it always works. It's either black or white. Once a decision is taken, there is no longer a middle ground; no room for compromise. Any argument to the contrary is lost in that "take no prisoners" approach. Some politicians are shameless; they carry that off ruthlessly and often convincingly. Others, like Turnbull, find it hard to conceal their discomfort. That's because his natural home is in the grey area. He knows - he's demonstrated this in the past - that on some issues - many issues in fact - the strength of the arguments on both sides demand a mature debate. But politics as we have come to know it doesn't allow for that anymore. Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC TV program Insiders. Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, business-economics-and-finance, tax First posted |
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. In order to avoid admitting to cheating on his wife, Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 97 times during his divorce proceedings with Ivana Trump in 1990, the Huffington Post reported Friday. So it should come as little surprise that Trump had kind words for a system that allows men to divorce their wives without going to court: Saudi Arabia’s Shariah law. The Republican presidential candidate praised the Islamic law, or Shariah, system during a 60-second syndicated daily radio commentary called “Trumped!” that he recorded from 2004 to 2008. In a January 2008 segment, Trump discussed a news story of a Saudi man who had divorced his wife for watching a television show while alone at home because, in Trump’s telling, the husband considered it tantamount to being alone with a strange man. “Men in Saudi Arabia have the authority to divorce their wives without going to the courts,” Trump said. “I guess that would also mean they don’t need prenuptial agreements. The fact is, no courts, no judges—Saudi Arabia sounds like a very good place to get a divorce.” BuzzFeed first uncovered the show and its website in March, and the Wall Street Journal published some audio and transcripts in July. According to BuzzFeed, stations that still have an archive of the shows cannot release the audio without Trump’s permission. When it comes to Trump’s beliefs about women, Trump’s radio vignettes often mirror his own life and his past treatment of and attitudes toward women that are now haunting his campaign. In recent days, Trump has threatened to begin attacking Hillary Clinton for her husband’s infidelities. But it’s Trump who has extensive experience with divorce—and it’s no wonder he would have preferred the Saudi system. Before finalizing his divorce from his first wife, Ivana, Trump began seeing Marla Maples, who would become his second wife. The divorce required five depositions, during which he repeatedly took the Fifth. Trump’s remarks about Saudi Arabia were not the only commentary from his radio show with relevance to Trump’s own marriages. Trump often used the show to discuss the appearance of female celebrities. In one segment from 2005, Trump noted that pop star Britney Spears had disappeared from a list of the sexiest women alive compiled by FHM, a men’s magazine. “Angelina [Jolie] took over the crown from Britney Spears, who didn’t even make the sexy list this year,” Trump said. “She has gone down, there’s no question about it. That’s what a marriage can do for you.” His belief that marriage hurts a woman’s appearance wasn’t great news for his own marriage to Ivana. As that union unraveled, he made it clear to her that her looks had deteriorated—and Ivana seemed to internalize that critique and blame herself. “She threw herself into my arms sobbing and crying and saying, ‘Donald doesn’t want me anymore,'” former New York Daily News columnist Liz Smith recently recalled. “‘He has told me, he can’t be sexually attracted to a woman who has had children.'” In order to entice her husband, Ivana got a face lift and a breast augmentation, Smith said. It didn’t work. Trump was seeing a new woman and setting the stage for his future radio commentary about Saudi Arabia. |
Catch the signs early Don’t wait to get help if you experience any of these heart attack warning signs. Some heart attacks are sudden and intense. But most start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort. Pay attention to your body and call 911 if you experience: Chest discomfort. Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes – or it may go away and then return. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain. Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes – or it may go away and then return. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain. Discomfort in other areas of the upper body. Symptoms can include pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach. Symptoms can include pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach. Shortness of breath. This can occur with or without chest discomfort. This can occur with or without chest discomfort. Other signs. Other possible signs include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness. Download our heart attack warning signs infographic (PDF). Symptoms vary between men and women As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting, and back or jaw pain. Learn about the warning signs of heart attack in women. Watch video: “Just A Little Heart Attack” – a short film directed by and starring Elizabeth Banks Don’t hesitate to call 911 Learn the signs for heart attack, and remember: Even if you’re not sure it’s a heart attack, have it checked out. Minutes matter. Fast action can save lives - maybe your own. Call 911 if you experience heart attack warning signs. Calling 911 is almost always the fastest way to get lifesaving treatment. An emergency medical services (EMS) team can begin treatment when they arrive – up to an hour sooner than if someone gets to the hospital by car. EMS staff are also trained to revive someone whose heart has stopped. Patients with chest pain who arrive by ambulance usually receive faster treatment at the hospital, too. For many reasons, it’s best to call 911 so that an experienced EMS team can begin treatment and arrange rapid transport to the emergency room. Watch an animation of a heart attack. Learn more: |
Pre-Alpha 8 was released on Monday, so we took some time this week to watch people play to see what common problems they encountered and to find the areas that we need to improve most. The time right after a release is also great for fixing long-standing issues and improving old code, because if I break something now we’ve got a couple weeks left until the next release to notice it (on the contrary, doing bigger changes a couple days before release is always a bit scary). We also worked on giving our website a makeover. Almost done! Won’t go online for a couple weeks though :) We added a tilt-shift effect (blur near the top and bottom of the screen to make everything look more like a miniature): It is disabled by default, but if you want to take some nice screenshots or record videos or even play with it there’s an option for it. And we added the Tourbillon ride: It looks a bit like something out of a science fiction movie, but it is a real ride currently in development. The movement pattern in the game is randomized. |
Game Info Box Art N/A Platform PS4 Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment Developer Heavy Spectrum Release Date May 17, 2016 Do you have fond memories of Shadow of the Beast? No, not Altered Beast, that retro grave was already desecrated in Europe and Japan in 2005. We're talking about Shadow of the Beast. Let's say you do, in fact, have a soft spot for the 1989 cult classic from Reflections and Psygnosis. Despite the lengthy development time (the remake was announced way back in 2013) you're eagerly waiting to see how demonic warrior Aarbron has made the leap to modern platforms. If that describes you, then you ... you had better sit down. There is much wrong with Shadow of the Beast Shadow of the Beast was a standout when it was originally released on Amiga computers, largely for the parallax scrolling graphics that put so many of its contemporaries to shame. It also had one heck of a cool score. The remake of Shadow of the Beast being released in 2016 by Heavy Spectrum has neither of these advantages to lean on. It's got some interesting art choices and a decent soundtrack, but neither are radical enough to stand on. No, this new Shadow of the Beast has to live or die by its mechanics and ... well, it certainly does one of those things. Spare me a paragraph to sum up the story: Aarbron is a magic baby turned into a mindless demon warrior by an evil wizard named Maletoth. But when Maletoth charges him with tracking down another magic baby (greedy), Aarbron also kills the baby's human guardian ... who just happens to be his own human father. The unintentional patricide reminds him what he once was, and sets him on a quest for vengeance against Maletoth. Shadow of the Beast is, like its predecessor, a two-dimensional brawler that, unlike its predecessor conflates hyper-violence with modernity (Aarbron's hands are two big murder prongs for crying out loud). Sadly, in the pursuit of stylishly violent combat animation, Heavy Spectrum has sacrificed fluidity and fun. There is much wrong with Shadow of the Beast, but most of it daisy chains back to this: It's sluggish. Button presses feel less like commands and more like suggestions. I lost count of how many times I got hit with a cheap shot from behind because I was performing some stylish attack animation on the monster in front of me. Every fight feels like it's being conducted in a vat of half-congealed Jello. Aarbron has some special moves, like an attack that siphons health or one that ups the experience points he's awarded for each fight. But the demonic warrior controlled so poorly, I was almost always rewarded for my flashiness by getting sucker punched. I learned to stick with the basic dodge-punch-repeat-forever combo. I can't imagine a game good enough to claw its way out of a core gameplay loop of perfectly blended boredom and frustration. Shadow of the Beast doesn't even come close. For starters, the sluggishness bleeds into the platforming segments that surround the combat. Every jump is granted an added layer of tension when it's anyone's guess as to when Aarbron will decide to leave the ground after the "X" button is pressed. The platforming feels terrible, and it makes it discouraging to unearth secrets hidden throughout each level when getting around feels so bad. Here's the hitch: If you don't seek those secrets out, you probably won't have any clue what's happening in the story. Baffling as it may sound, the actually surprisingly decent tale of Aarbron's vengeance must be unlocked piecemeal via hidden collectibles. Actually collecting those spheres requires you to waste one of Aarbron's extremely powerful screen-clearing special attacks. I have no idea why. There's a lot I'm in the dark about regarding Shadow of the Beast, so poorly did it communicate with me. I got stuck for a full hour because I couldn't find a mission-critical item better hidden than any of the game's secret collectibles. Shadow of the Beast actually works itself up to a few half-decent puzzles, but they were only admirable after I stumbled into a solution, because in the moment they hovered between baffling and infuriating. |
Demolition Truck Unit Affiliation Soviet Union ( Libya only) Role Suicide vehicle Armament Demo Bomb (Nuclear Bomb) Tier 2 Tech level 10 Properties Hit points 150 Armour type Light Amphibious No Production Cost $1500 Build time 1:00 Produced by Soviet War Factory Requires Radar Tower Combat Ground attack 400 (RA2) 300 (YR) (DemobombWH) Cooldown 80 Speed 6 (RA2) 5 (YR) Attack range 1 Sight range 5 “ Let's make a delivery! - Demolition truck ” The demolition truck (often shortened to demo truck) was a special suicide unit used by Soviet-affiliated Libya during the first and second iterations of the Thrid World War. Contents show] Background “ The Libyan Demolition Truck self-destructs on an enemy target, setting off a small nuclear bomb. - Multiplayer loading screen for Libya ” By the closing months of Second World War, both Allied and Soviet usage of remote control nuclear delivery systems called demolition trucks claimed many of their enemies' lives. After the war, the Allies wished to minimize the chance of nuclear environmental poisoning as much as possible, and much of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, demolition trucks included, had been greatly neutered on the terms of their defeat. However, this did not prevent Soviet-affiliated states to secretly develop such weapons. Libya was tasked with the design and assembly of the new generation of the demolition truck. The trucks were generally controlled not by remote - instead, they were steered to their destination by suicidal drivers. Usage The demolition truck, albeit not as powerful as a tactical nuclear missile, can be very effective against enemy units, particularly if more than one is used. The trucks were very effective against base defenses, even if they were destroyed before they reached their target. Soviet commanders could also use it in combination with the Iron Curtain to deliver an unstoppable and deadly attack. On the other hand, if an Allied commander was to obtain demolition trucks, a Chronosphere could be used to transport up to 9 trucks right inside an enemy's base. Demolition trucks cost a fairly high amount to build and due to their low health, spamming them can backfire. To combat this, one or more Apocalypse tanks may be sent first to distract nearby defensive structures. Demolition trucks can then be used to target their base without being fired upon. Counters Demolition trucks were very dangerous to keep inside bases because of their volatile nature. Allied Harriers can destroy a truck in a single hit, causing substantial damage if the truck is still within its base. Chrono legionnaires can be used to freeze and erase a demolition truck without setting off its payload. Alternatively, a single tank can be used to intercept the truck and destroy it before it reaches the vicinity of other friendly units. Assessment Pros Effective against enemy ground units and buildings. Does Splash damage. Very dangerous when used with the Iron Curtain and/or Chronosphere. Cons Expensive ($1500; $1125 with an Industrial Plant) for a suicide unit. Its creation is announced to all players. Cannot target aircraft. A single Harrier or Black Eagle missile can destroy it. Radiation left disappears pretty quickly compared to the desolator's radiation field. If a Magnetron can lifts it and releases it above water, the demolition truck will sink without setting off the bomb. Chrono legionnaires can remove them from time safely, also avoiding detonation. Only available for Libya. Quotes “ My truck is loaded! - When created and selected ” “ Let's make a delivery! - When selected ” “ I shall avenge us! - When selected ” “ Why don't you drive? - When selected ” “ One way trip! - When moving ” “ As you wish... - When moving ” “ Watch out for the bumps! - When moving ” “ For my people! - When ordered to attack ” “ I am prepared to die! - When ordered to attack ” “ It will be a smoking crater! - When ordered to attack ” “ Don't wait up for me! - When ordered to attack ” “ Aaaaah-kakakakaka!!!! - When ordered to attack ” Gallery Trivia |
More than 40 people illegally crossed the U.S. border and claimed refugee status within Quebec this past weekend, while 21 others did the same in Manitoba, border officials say. The influx of asylum seekers from the United States comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives at the White House on Monday for his first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. Mr. Trump last month signed an executive order that temporarily banned Syrian refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Patrizia Giolti, a Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson, in an e-mail Sunday said 42 people made refugee claims in Quebec over the weekend. Ms. Giolti did not say precisely where the refugee claimants crossed. Story continues below advertisement Opinion: How Canada can take Trump's refugees Read more: Trudeau concerned about refugee influx in Manitoba border town Related: Manitoba town pleads for federal help with refugee influx The RCMP did not respond to messages seeking comment Sunday. A force spokesperson earlier said it had witnessed an increase in illegal border crossings in Quebec, Manitoba, and British Columbia, with the largest of those increases in Quebec. Mr. Trudeau said last week his government was "very concerned" about the rise in asylum seekers. He emphasized the need to protect both migrants and Canada's border. Refugee lawyer David Matas said Sunday when police discover migrants crossing into Canada they take them to the CBSA, which then screens them for security reasons but does not detain the migrants simply for entering the country at an unguarded area. He said he has had a number of clients from Somalia who crossed into Canada, avoiding the ports-of-entry. Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement "They have dramatic stories," he said in an interview. "They start off in Somalia. Then they'll go to Djibouti, Kenya, and all the way down to South Africa. Sometimes they have a lot of trouble in South Africa because there's a lot of xenophobia there. Brazil is often a destination … and then they just come north from there traversing all the Latin American countries. And eventually they end up in Canada." CBSA did not provide annual totals for refugee claimants in Quebec. But it has said the number of refugee claimants crossing into Manitoba so far in the 2016-17 fiscal year is over 400, up from 68 in 2013-14. Most were from African countries, particularly Somalia. Unlike the United States, Canada will not deport failed refugee claimants to Somalia because the country is deemed too dangerous, Mr. Matas said. "People here without status are not guaranteed to stay indefinitely. They're just here supposedly temporarily," he said. Though CBSA and the RCMP said the largest increase in asylum seekers was in Quebec, much of the attention in recent days has been paid to crossings in Manitoba, with migrants arriving in the town of Emerson, population 700. Story continues below advertisement Greg Janzen, Emerson's reeve, in an interview Sunday said he does not expect the increased arrivals to stop any time soon. All 21 people who arrived in Emerson this weekend showed up Saturday morning. Mr. Janzen said it was unclear why no one arrived Sunday. On the previous Saturday, the RCMP stopped 19 people who had crossed the border. The lawyer for two men from Ghana who passed through Emerson just before Christmas has said they lost fingers to frostbite. Mr. Janzen said there is worry among locals that some of the people attempting to cross into Emerson might not have survived. "That's another coffee-shop discussion," he said. " … That possibility is real. They have been coming across when there's wind chills of -35. … I'd hate to be a farmer all of a sudden finding somebody dead laying there on the side of his field." Story continues below advertisement Emerson officials met with the RCMP, CBSA and representatives from the federal and provincial governments on Thursday to address the community's concerns. Mr. Janzen said after the meeting, he was given assurances Emerson would receive support from other levels of government. He said Sunday he was satisfied with that level of support. Migrants who cross at open fields or other unguarded areas are not covered by the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, and have the right to make a refugee claim in Canada. The safe-third-country agreement requires refugee claimants to apply for status in the country they arrive in first. The United States is the only country with which Canada has such an agreement. A Canadian government website says that that is partly because the United States meets a high standard of human rights. At a minimum, all refugee claimants on Canadian soil are entitled to an oral hearing and fair procedures, under the Supreme Court's 1985 Singh decision establishing modern refugee rights in Canada, according to Efrat Arbel, who teaches law at the University of British Columbia's Allard Law School. At the refugee hearings in Canada, a migrant's entry through a safe third country is irrelevant, Prof. Arbel said. Story continues below advertisement "It doesn't matter how you've entered. Once you make your way in you advance your refugee claim as usual," she said. "If you've entered through a field, then the safe-third-country agreement wouldn't be attached to your claim. You're not obligated to disclose the manner by which you have entered." She said the safe-third-country agreement creates an incentive for unauthorized border crossings. "It therefore not only puts the lives and safety of refugees at risk, it also makes our border less secure, more disorderly, more dangerous," she said. A group of 235 Canadian legal scholars has called on the federal government to halt the safe-third-country agreement. A recent report by the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic argued the United States can no longer be considered a "safe" country for refugees. |
Both Brazil internationals have admitted to be surprised by the struggles of former club Milan this season… PSG’s defender Thiago Silva and Real Madrid’s midfielder Kaka have spoken about the unhappiness regarding their former side Milan, right after the Brazil-Colombia superclash. The two stars have featured in Brazil’s 1000 jubilee match, and few moments later they both commented Milan’s current crisis situation giving their full support and best wishes. “It’s not easy to judge from the outside, but I’ve never seen a Milan side like this,” he told the Gazzetta dello Sport. It is certainly not Milan-like to lose six of their first 12 League games. I hope they can pick themselves up”, said Thiago Silva. The Brazilian was one of the many big name players to leave the Diavolo this summer, but he’s still a fan. “I’ll always be a supporter of the Rossoneri because I was really happy at that club,” he commented. As far Kaka is concerned, he has once again come up with a wonder-way to make the fans proud and bring their hopes back on. “I’m sorry that they have been in this difficult situation. I am sure that it will all change very soon and Milan will start performing well both in Serie A and Champions League.” The 30-year-old midfielder has always been the Achilles’ heel of the Italian giant and for that reason, he has been linked to San Siro return for a countless number of times. “Remember, Milan will always be Milan”. Download my e-book “The footsteps of a Legend – Ricardo Kaka” and find out all there is to know about this magnificent player, including stories and statements which have never been revealed before. 41.720000 21.793333 |
Image Credit Blue Sky Homes I will confess to a case of prefab ennui; I have waited a decade for it to make green modern design affordable and accessible and it has not yet fulfilled its promise. Where once the prefab proselytizers could claim that being better built in a factory was enough, it isn't any more, and one has to look closely to see: is really green? Is it too big? Too far away? Fortunately, Preston at Jetson Green has keeping up with the prefab scene, and covered five of them in February, including this little gem from Blue Sky Homes. It is one of the more interesting prefab ideas around, built with a steel frame and insulated steel panels. More at Jetson Green While the American real estate market is in the tank, the Canadian one is still pretty strong, particularly in Alberta, home of the oil industry. That's where Karoleena Custom Homes builds the Karo Cabin. The Karo Cabin is a factory-built, future-ready structure designed to be used as a summer escape, backyard studio, laneway house, or something similar and can be delivered anywhere in North America (assuming a road or ferry route). More at Jetson Green Another cute Canadian is the Faberhaus. Preston writes: Designed and built by Faberca, faberhaus gives folks a self-sufficient living space in the country. In other words, no electrical grid connection is necessary with solar power for the LED lights and propane power for the fridge, hydronic radiant heat, and everything else. It is tiny, has everything you need, expensive radiant heat, and of course, the commenters complain about the price at $ 237 per square foot. Sigh. More at Jetson Green. I have a real problem with this one by EcoSteel.. Preston writes: This sturdy steel cabin is off-grid, off-pipe, and self-sufficient, making it an interesting case study of sustainability and coastal design. The home was completed just over a year ago on Cusabo Island in South Carolina -- an impressive feat given the remote site accessible only by boat. The owner was able to take advantage of prefab construction and had the parts flown in by helicopter. And therein lies the problem. It is almost 4,000 square feet, built to resist floods and hurricanes, and everything is brought in by helicopter, the most expensive and carbon intensive form of transport in the world next to the Space Shuttle. Sustainable? Puleeze. More at Jetson Green I am going to look more closely at LABhaus. Reading their philosophy, they seem to have a good mix of design, materials and green goodies. They write: At LABhaus, we consider sustainability to have three core components: environmental, economic, and market. Environmental stability means building homes with the lowest possible impact throughout their life cycle. We use non-toxic, renewable materials, constructed using low-waste techniques, to produce a home with the maximum quality and durability with the lowest possible energy use. Economic sustainability means building homes which represent the best possible value for our consumers and which are more affordable to purchase and maintain than similar homes. More at Jetson Green When I first looked at the LABhaus rendering, I thought "another wide lot suburban design, we shouldn't do that any more" and almost wrote it off. That would have been a mistake; there is a lot going on in the prefab world, a lot of good design, ingenuity and innovation. Thanks to Preston for continuing to cover it at Jetson Green. More modern prefab from Jetson Green in TreeHugger: Top Five Super Green Modern Homes Ten Things Wrong With Sprawl Follow me on Twitter! @lloydalter and friend me on Facebook |
The bikes have stopped and the riders are enjoying some well-deserved holiday time. Andrea Iannone is spending some time in Ibiza before getting back on his Suzuki in early August at Brno. This evening the Italian rider carried out a phone interview with Sky Sport 24. The Maniac took the opportunity to explain how he's feeling: “This is the hardest break of my life – he stated - unfortunately I've never reached the holidays with such difficulties, there's a real weight when you are so keen to achieve important results”. He won't hear of giving in though: “These are life lessons that help you to grow anyway – he pointed out – I continue to train with the aim of taking the Suzuki to the top”. His GSX-RR has so far failed to meet with expectations this season: “We're continuing to develop the bike – commented #29 - last year the Suzuki could count on a different regulation, with less restrictions”. Iannone is nevertheless confident: “The bike has a good base and can become competitive – he stated – unfortunately I crashed at the Sachsenring but I was trying to bring home the best possible result”. Looking back, this isn't the first time that The Maniac has faced such a situation: “I arrived in Ducati in 2013 with more problems than I have today – he recalled - in some ways it's like returning down a path I've already taken. So as a result I'm not overly worried - he revealed - also because I believe in my team and the people around me". His last words concern Schwantz: “I've always respected Kevin – declared Iannone - he can say whatever he thinks. I would have preferred him to speak to me face to face, like a father does with his son, or if we'd confronted each other”. |
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