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We know that as humans emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, it causes the Earth to warm. But it also causes other climate changes that are less obvious. In some instances, it makes areas wetter (because there is more moisture in the air as temperature increases). This can lead to increased flooding. In other instances, it speeds evaporation so that droughts can set in more quickly and deeply. While it would appear these affects would offset each other, in reality more droughts or floods occur depending on where you are located. In some instances, areas are experiencing more severe droughts and more flooding as the weather systems swing from dry to wet quickly. Added to this is the fact that ocean temperatures have an enormous influence on weather. As an example, an El Niño, which is the appearance of a warm water pool in the Pacific Ocean, can influence weather across the globe. Human-caused warming of the oceans adds to the El Niño cycles, which in turn affect the atmosphere. The real scientific question is, do human greenhouse gases influence a specific flood or drought event? A growing body of science is finding that the answer to this question is yes. A paper just published in Geophysical Research Letters looked at the May 2015 floods in Texas and Oklahoma in the USA, which resulted from the wettest single month on record in both states. The lead author, Dr. Wang from Utah State and his colleagues examined the role of strengthened El Niño teleconnections on the flood event. Before getting into their conclusions, a little background is important. In the Pacific Ocean, there is a water temperature oscillation that occurs every few years. This oscillation happens near the equator and stretches from South America almost all the way to Australia. During one part of the oscillation, there is colder than normal waters (called the La Niña phase) while in the other part of the oscillation, the waters are warm (called El Niño). Many times, the water temperatures are near normal, and we call that a neutral phase. This process has large global consequences. First, when the ocean is in the warm El Niño phase, global surface temperatures rise temporarily. When in the La Niña phase, the temperatures temporarily drop. These short-term rises and falls last just a year or so and are superimposed on a long-term temperature increase from greenhouse gases. The cycle also has big implications for rainfall patterns around the globe. Dr. Wang and his authors recognized that in a warming world, the way El Niño intensifies rainfall patterns would change. That is, today’s El Niños may be more potent than prior El Niños. In particular, they compared the El Niño influence from 1948–1980 with the influence after 1980. They used a wide collection of measurements and modeling tools and concluded, The record precipitation that occurred over Texas and Oklahoma during the month of May 2015 was the results of a series of climate interactions and anomalies. Foremost is the role that El Niño played. A developing ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation) has a tendency to increase spring precipitation over the southern Great Plains and this effect was found to have intensified since 1980; this intensification was concomitant with a warmer atmosphere due to anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gases. Specifically, the intensified ENSO teleconnection appears to be triggered by enhanced latent heat in the equatorial central Pacific, and is associated with a broad sea surface temperature warming in the tropics. In essence, there was a detectable effect of anthropogenic global warming in the teleconnection and moisture transport leading to Mays 2015’s high precipitation. Also worth noting is the potential for predicting extreme events like the Texas floods. ENSO impacts are one of the few climate anomalies forecasters today have a better handle of. This paper notes that the chance for Texas and Oklahoma to experience an abnormally wet season in May was predicted as early as in March, according to computer models used by the Climate Prediction Center. What remains challenging is how scientists can anticipate the extraordinary magnitude of precipitation as fell in Texas and, if they do see it, how can the right information reach people. The detection of human influence on extreme weather is a rapidly maturing field and each year we are finding more and more evidence of the connections. The corollary is that without efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, we can expect more frequent and intense extreme weather in the future. |
When Chuck Schumer entered public service, David was still the king of Israel. And Pontius Pilate once discussed the pros and cons of public crucifixion with John McCain. These men have records. The American national debt has more than septupled on their collective watch. When either McCain or Schumer insists that a matter is urgent, you should put your hand on your wallet. When they get together and announce that they have a comprehensive solution, grab a rifle. I can’t tell you what’s in the immigration bill. Neither can anyone else. It’s 1,200 pages long and written in Klingon. No one who voted for it has read it. But on “Fox News Sunday” last week, Chuck Schumer said he’s worried that if this bill doesn’t pass, the GOP will soon become a regional party. That’s right: Chuck Schumer is looking out for the Republican Party’s future. And as utterly insane as that is, here’s the kicker: the GOP is falling for it. John Boehner says House Republicans will come up with their own bill. He must be stopped. Think of the Senate immigration bill as a syphilitic, two-headed, fire-breathing she-monster. And whatever the House comes up with will be a pig-faced cyclops with flipper-hands. And those two hell-beasts will be married in an unholy ceremony called “committee.” The worst attributes of each will metastasize and morph into a conglomerate demon-spawn which will rule over American immigration for the next three generations. And all of this is happening amidst an IRS investigation that threatens the federal government’s fundamental authority. At present, Congress doesn’t have the political capital to rename a post office. And they’re trying to sell us another 1,000+ page, comprehensive bill? America does have an immigration problem, but it’s an old problem. Recent estimates suggest that the problem is diminished due to our abysmal economy. As for the GOP’s dire need for the Hispanic vote, Byron York obliterated that call to action. In truth, there is nothing that makes a new law especially urgent at this moment. Anyone suggesting that our immigration mess needs to be fixed immediately by the least trustworthy federal government in a century deserves, at best, a pie in the face. But progress continues its creep. As you are reading this, left-wing activists are whispering in John Boehner’s ear. Every hour, every day, they are whispering terms like landmark and historic and your place in history. They are flattering Boehner. They are reassuring him. And all the while, they are suggesting tweaks and exceptions and special circumstances that deserve consideration and attention in the House immigration bill. The problem is that those are the only voices whispering in Boehner’s ear. The tea party doesn’t send lobbyists to D.C. The only way to stop Boehner is to convince him that the voices whispering in his ear are wrong. And the only way to do that is to make more noise in his other ear. John Boehner is much more interested in keeping his job than passing legislation. To stop this immigration bill, all we have to do is convince Boehner that it will destroy his career. The Senate bill cannot be fixed in committee. And this government cannot be trusted with any further comprehensive reform. Call John Boehner. Tell him that you’re against comprehensive immigration reform. Tell him that you don’t trust McCain and Schumer. Tell him that Congress has no business discussing new business until the IRS investigation starts producing names and those names start getting indicted. And tell him that you’ll donate to his opponent if he doesn’t listen. Boehner’s office numbers: Butler County, OH (513) 779-5400 Miami County, OH (937) 339-1524 Clark County, OH (937) 322-1120 Washington, D.C. (202) 225-6205 Boehner’s Twitter handle is @johnboehner Yates Walker is a conservative activist and writer. Before becoming involved in politics, he served honorably as a paratrooper and a medic in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. He can be reached at yateswalker@gmail.com. |
– Jim Ross has blogged about this year’s Cauliflower Alley Club Reunion. Here is what he had to say about the event… Great time at the 48th Cauliflower Alley Club Reunion this week in Las Vegas. It wasn’t a money making trip as my lovely wife attended and did her part to contribute to the economy of Vegas by doing two days worth of shopping. Seriously, we both had a wonderful time seeing so many old friends and fans that we have gotten to know over the years. CAC is a great non profit organization that does many amazing, charitable things for those in need from within the wrestling biz. CAC doesn’t look for publicity as many of their benevolent acts would bring embarrassment to many of the recipients. But, take it from me, CAC helps lots of people that you know or have heard of over the years and I’m of the mindset that more people, fans and wrestlers alike, should join the organization. For more info check out the CAC website at http://www.caulifloweralleyclub.org. I wish the event would be moved to June as I feel that following WrestleMania so closely and while many WWE talents are in Europe and can’t attend doesn’t serve the attendance at CAC well. Two trips in one month are too much for many to endure both physically and financially. Hopefully the CAC Board of Directors will take this into consideration. If they want to grow, get younger, etc then why not have their only, annual fundraiser when fans can bring their children who are in school during the month of April but are available to travel to Vegas in June? I had the pleasure of presenting Adam Copeland AKA Edge the Male Wrestler Award from CAC in a surprise presentation. Only three people knew of this matter as it was a total surprise to Edge. I followed such powerful and serious presentations as the DDP/Jake the Snake Roberts duo and the late, Paul Bearer/Percy Pringle presentation so I attempted to ad lib my way into a more light hearted mood in what felt like a somber room and rightfully so at that particular time of the evening. Reading Adam’s resume is really amazing as he’s accomplished and earned an amazing body of work winning over 30 titles in WWE. However, Adam is a much better human being with a kind soul and unwavering character which even surpasses his professional accomplishments inside the ring. The 2012 WWE Hall of Famer is one of my all time favorite signees as we signed him, and Christian, in 1997. We loved spending time with Adam and his best pal Beth Phoenix in Vegas as Adam prepares for a five month stint of filming the new season of SyFy’s Haven in Nova Scotia, if I’m not mistaken. Adam’s character on Haven has expanded to appear on every episode at this time. The amazing work that DDP is doing with Jake Roberts is awe inspiring. I met 3 of Jake’s 8 children at CAC and it was a wonderful reunion for the previously estranged family. Obviously, it was a very emotional weekend for the family as the creator of the DDT is well on is way to recovery from drug and alcohol abuse and let’s all pray that he steers the course and reaches his destination. Jake’s speech at CAC was damn amazing as was DDP’s. It was great seeing Ivan Koloff who has issues getting around and walks with a cane. Ivan is still barrel chested but like many older veterans is ‘shrinking’ or so it seemed. Uncle Ivan was a great hand with amazing endurance and strength back in the day and is now an ordained minister and spends most of his time helping others including speaking with inmates in prison. The former WWWF Champion, who defeated his hero Bruno Sammartino, always treated me wonderfully when I went to work for Jim Crockett Promotions back in the 80’s. Nora Greenwald aka Molly Holly also received an award, presented by Lisa Moretti aka Ivory, that was well deserved and beautifully received. If more people, men and women alike, had Molly’s character and integrity, the business would be infinitely better off. I hired her on the recommendation of Dean Malenko and even though she did not fit the stereotypical mold of a WWE Diva, Nora was one of the most successful and productive women that ever worked in WWE. She’s now working in a drug treatment facility in Minnesota and is happily married. |
Volker Bouffier has always portrayed himself as the last true conservative in Germany's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Bouffier is the governor of Hesse, the western German state where Germany's financial capital Frankfurt is located, and is known for raging against gay marriage, multiculturalism and school reforms. On questions of monetary policy, he has always been a champion of traditional German virtues. "The European Central Bank cannot become an institution that compensates for the failures of individual government budgets, such as Italy's," he said recently. "That isn't part of its mandate." But on Monday of last week, Bouffier seemed to be a changed man. He had invited Jens Weidmann, 44, president of the German central bank, the Bundesbank, to a meeting at the Hesse state chancellery. For weeks, Weidmann had sharply opposed the ECB's plans to buy up large quantities of Italian and Spanish sovereign debt. In the meeting with Bouffier and his cabinet, Weidmann had just reiterated his position in the ongoing dispute with ECB President Mario Draghi when Bouffier, to the surprise of everyone in attendance, announced his new priorities. Apparently, the values of Southern European bonds on the balance sheets of Frankfurt banks are now more important than his conservative values. Of course he still supported stable prices, Bouffier said, but noted that the mood in financial markets had become extremely fragile. And despite his characterization of the ECB's debt-buying plans as sinful, he said that there were no longer any alternatives to massive intervention by the central bank. "The political tools have been exhausted," Bouffier said. The Bundesbank president is becoming increasingly isolated, and not just in provincial German politics. 'Addictive Like a Drug' A powerful phalanx of key statesmen, from US President Barack Obama to French President François Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron, have long called upon Weidmann to finally abandon his resistance to the increased use of the ECB's "big bazooka." Now even some of Weidmann's former allies are turning their backs on him. Recently, Germany's powerful private banks have come out in support of Draghi, as have Weidmann's fellow ECB Governing Council member Jörg Asmussen and a majority of monetary policy experts in Northern Europe. The head of the Bundesbank has now decided that the best form of defense is attack. In an interview with SPIEGEL, Weidmann explained why he believes the approach taken by European leaders is wrong. "We shouldn't underestimate the danger that central bank financing can become addictive like a drug," he says. Of course, Bundesbank opposition is not expected to stand in the way of the Draghi plan. The EU treaties are being violated once again. Two years ago, during the course of the Greek crisis, European governments suspended the principle that no member of the euro zone could guarantee the debts of another member state. Now a similarly fundamental principle is up for renegotiation: the prohibition on national budgets being financed with the help of the ECB. The risks are considerable. If Draghi's proposal prevails, Europe's central bankers could lose control over the money supply in the medium term, which in turn could lead to substantial inflation. Southern European governments could misinterpret this as a signal that they can obtain cheap money without instituting painful reforms after all. German taxpayers would be saddled with additional billions in risk without having any say in the matter. Feelings of Desperation But those European politicians who are determined to rescue the euro have been ignoring democratic principles for a long time. They are feeling desperate because, after 17 monetary summits, they still haven't been able to stop the crisis. And now they are pleased to see Draghi doing the work for them. The purchase of government bonds sounds technical and harmless, and yet the weapon with which Europe's top monetary policy experts are now going into battle is essentially no different from the euro bonds that German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously said she will oppose as long as she lives. Not surprisingly, Merkel's take on the Draghi proposal is characterized by her typical doublespeak. At home, her advisers insist that it's a good thing that someone is upholding the principles of the Bundesbank. In Brussels, on the other hand, Merkel indicates that the Draghi plan enjoys her full support. But the two positions will in reality be incompatible if the euro crisis continues to escalate. Weidmann wants the monetary union to be able to force crisis-ridden countries to withdraw from the euro zone if there is no other way to ensure monetary stability. Merkel, on the other hand, wants to preserve the monetary union at all costs, even if this means inflation and financial crashes. Now Weidmann is even losing the chancellor as an ally, even though he served as Merkel's economic adviser for five years. The Talking Paperclip When Merkel appeared before the press at financial summits or to discuss monetary issues, Weidmann, as her adviser, always stood in the background, a thin, youthful-looking man with his brown briefcase wedged under his arm. As an adviser, he was exactly what she wanted: quick-witted, discreet and loyal to the point of self-denial. Weidmann, who holds a doctorate in economics, spoke only when he was asked. And when he did state his position at length in off-the-record conversations, he had no trouble coming up with even more tedious wording than his boss. Journalists nicknamed him the "talking paperclip." Given his nature and reputation, observers were convinced that Weidmann would prove to be even more flexible in his new position than his predecessors. Previous Bundesbank chief Axel Weber, for example, had resigned over his opposition to bond purchases, and ECB chief economist Jürgen Stark followed suit shortly after Weidmann came into office. It was all the more surprising that the new Bundesbank president was soon openly championing Germany's positions even more staunchly than his predecessors. Whereas Weber and Stark tended to keep their criticism to themselves, Weidmann, in speeches, op-ed pieces and interviews, warned of the dangers of a misguided euro crisis policy. He was regularly outvoted in the ECB's Governing Council. Nevertheless, ECB President Draghi soon realized that it would be foolish to ignore Weidmann's most powerful weapon: the deep-seated and well-founded mistrust that always takes hold in the population when politicians push for banks to start printing money. When Draghi talked of a possible new bond buying program a few weeks ago, Weidmann's resistance was to be predicted. In light of rising interest rates for Spanish and Italian bonds, Draghi felt the need to send a strong signal to the markets. Without consulting with his colleagues on the ECB Governing Council first, he announced, during a speech in London at the end of July, that the ECB would do everything in its power to save the euro. "And believe me, it will be enough," he added cheerfully. Buying Time Draghi explained his plans in more detail soon afterwards. Unlike earlier cases, he said, the bond purchases would be tied to conditions. Only those countries that had applied for assistance from the European bailout fund and were prepared to commit to reforms could expect assistance. This was Draghi's way of accommodating his critics, to the delight of the government in Berlin. According to government insiders in Berlin, Merkel and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble characterized the Italian economist's plan as "important and valuable" and felt that Draghi's announcement alone had already had an effect. Indeed, since Draghi's London speech the risk premiums on Spanish and Italian government bonds have declined considerably. With his strategy, the ECB chief is mainly buying time. Members of Merkel's and Schäuble's staffs appear to accept Weidmann's notorious opposition to Draghi with a shrug. At the Chancellery, where the young Bundesbank president used to work, there has even been malicious talk of "fundamentalists." In the Finance Ministry, too, Weidmann is increasingly regarded as a troublemaker. "Some people interpret the ECB's mandate more narrowly. Others interpret it a bit more broadly," says a senior Finance Ministry official, with a trace of fatalism in his voice. Privately, Chancellor Merkel also has little sympathy for the intransigence of her former adviser. Merkel apparently feels that Weidmann and his staff shouldn't be making such a fuss. It's a classic conflict over a cheap money policy. The government wants to use the medicine as quickly as possible, because it's easy to get. The Bundesbank, on the other hand, sees the risks and side effects and warns against writing the prescription in the first place. From the Bundesbank's perspective, the most important objective of a central bank is to maintain price stability. By buying up government bonds to force down their yields, they are intervening in fiscal policy, a classic role of government. Fatal Consequences The consequences can be fatal. With its bond purchases, the ECB is flooding the markets with money. If it doesn't claw back the money elsewhere, it continues to inflate the money supply. Experience and theory have shown that the injection of funds into the markets could eventually lead to rising prices -- in other words, inflation, which central bankers are required by law to prevent. Weidmann also suspects that the ECB indirectly contributes to funding the national budgets of crisis-ridden countries, which it is prohibited from doing under the European Union treaties. Although the ECB is not lending money directly to governments, its policy "is too close to state financing via the money press for me," says Weidmann. With his comment, he is articulating the fear that the crisis-hit countries will exploit the bond-buying program to constantly issue new debt. In addition, the bond buying reduces pressure on governments to institute reforms. That's something that the ECB's bankers learned a year ago, when they bought large numbers of Italian government bonds, only to look on as the government of then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promptly put its reform efforts on ice. To prevent this, Draghi now wants to ensure that future bond purchases are subject to strict conditions. But this makes the ECB even more dependent on the political world, because it prevents it from intervening in the future when it sees fit. Instead, it will have to wait until politicians have created the necessary preconditions. This raises new questions. For instance, will the ECB even have the option of refusing assistance? And how will it justify buying one country's bonds at an interest rate of 7 percent while it buys those of another at just 5 percent? |
The oil and gas industry is poised to save hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade thanks to a rollback of offshore drilling safety regulations that have been proposed by the Trump administration—including the elimination of the word "safe" from one rule. Accepting an industry request, Trump administration moves to roll back safety measures implemented after Deepwater Horizon spill: https://t.co/05R152nTwc — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) December 26, 2017 The rules in question were put in place following the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010, which killed 11 people, injured 16, and caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Siding with the fossil fuel industry, which has complained safety regulations are overly broad, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has proposed scrapping or changing some major requirements, according to the Wall Street Journal. The rules to be changed include one that orders companies to take steps to prevent oil-well blowouts, part of what caused British Petroleum's (BP) Deepwater Horizon disaster. The BSEE argued that the word "safe" should be taken out of the rule, to stop regulators from "interpreting the term in a way to withhold certain drilling permits." The bureau also proposed eliminating a rule that requires a third party to inspect drilling equipment, like the blowout preventor which failed just before the BP explosion. The rollback "is literally going back to business as usual," a former federal official told the Journal, which obtained the BSEE's proposal. SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts The oil and gas industry is expected to save about $900 million over the next decade if the proposal is adopted. Fossil fuel companies rake in more than $100 billion in revenue per year, making the annual savings comparatively minor—but as critics and politicians pointed out on social media, the elimination of the Obama-era safety regulations could cost lives as the BP disaster did. The move is estimated to save the industry $900 million. And more workers will probably die because of it. https://t.co/YtlnuGv8cc — Lydia DePillis (@lydiadepillis) December 26, 2017 Trump wants to drill off our beaches AND make it more dangerous! Dad fought for these safety rules as co-chair of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Commission. And, as governor, I’ll fight to protect our beaches from Trump and the oil companies. https://t.co/mla00koTwT — Gwen Graham (@GwenGraham) December 26, 2017 |
When Google+ was first launched, many questioned Google’s ability to create a social network that could find a home among powerhouses like Facebook and Twitter. These questions were highly warranted, of course, considering the company’s shaky track record after the failed experiments of Google Buzz and Orkut (though the latter isn’t really considered to be in that same category of “failure” as it’s still a popular social network in countries like Brazil and India). Welp, here we are — a whole 19 months later — and it’s being reported that Google+ has climbed all the way from the depths of social networking nothingness to become the second most active social network in the past month. The service passed up YouTube, Twitter MySpace and LinkedIn quite handily, according to a report by UK research firm Trendstream. If accurate, it’s not hard to explain how or why Google+ has gotten so big. For starters, Android and the Google Play Store deserves a big honorable mention. Google changed the Google Play Store in recent months to require people to use their Google+ profiles (which almost everyone with a Google account has) in order to leave user reviews. Google’s efforts to implement Google+ functionality in other services such as YouTube and Gmail don’t hurt, either. It might be cheating just a tad, but it’s still impressive. Still, if you’re not winning you’re losing, so the fact that Facebook still commands an insurmountable lead will overshadow this news. The social network, which the movie “The Social Network” was shamelessly based on, reportedly had 693 million active users in this period compared to 343 million for Google+. Literally everyone might not have a Facebook account, but you would be hard-pressed to find a room full of people without one in this day and age (unless you’re doing stand-up at the old folks’ home, of course). Google’s strategy is working to some degree, but the company still has some work to do to make these numbers less artificial. A ton of people do use Google+ out of sheer fun and interest, but we imagine that a rather large percentage of its growth has a lot more to do with Google’s wizardry and leveraging skills than anything else. [via Forbes] |
According to information provided on the US Central Command's YouTube channel, the video below shows a strike by a US aircraft on an Islamic State storage facility near Abu Kamal, Syria. The Pentagon later released a set of weapons system videos showing footage of a selection of the strikes that were carried out. The video was taken by cameras onboard the aircrafts. Several Gulf states partnered the US in the 14 airstrikes, which were conducted using fighter and bomber jets and Tomahawk missiles following last week's international talks on combating the Islamist fighters. Huge explosions shook Raqqa, the militants' capital in Syria, as fighter jets pounded the area and the northern province of Idlib. Unconfirmed air raids also hit the neighbouring provinces of Deir al-Zour and Aleppo, according to local reports. The US has led airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria including the extremist group's stronghold of Raqqa, in the first direct military intervention by foreign powers since the start of the country's crisis. Read more The US has led airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria including the extremist group's stronghold of Raqqa, in the first direct military intervention by foreign powers since the start of the country's crisis. Huge explosions shook Raqqa, the militants' capital in Syria, as fighter jets pounded the area and the northern province of Idlib. Unconfirmed air raids also hit the neighbouring provinces of Deir al-Zour and Aleppo, according to local reports. Several Gulf states partnered the US in the 14 airstrikes, which were conducted using fighter and bomber jets and Tomahawk missiles following last week's international talks on combating the Islamist fighters. The Pentagon later released a set of weapons system videos showing footage of a selection of the strikes that were carried out. The video was taken by cameras onboard the aircrafts. According to information provided on the US Central Command's YouTube channel, the video below shows a strike by a US aircraft on an Islamic State storage facility near Abu Kamal, Syria. A second video shows a strike on vehicle staging point, also near Abu Kamal. A third video shows a strike on an Islamic State compound reportedly northwest of Raqqa. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE all "participated in or supported" the attacks, the Pentagon confirmed. Spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said that "US military and partner nation forces are undertaking military action against ISIL terrorists in Syria using a mix of fighter, bomber and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles." The US has already carried out around 190 air strikes on Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Barack Obama has been under pressure to extend such attacks to Syria, where the group has carved out large swathes of territory including key oil fields as it seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate across the two countries. As the airstrikes took place, the Islamic State released a second video featuring the kidnapped British journalist John Cantlie, in which the hostage delivered a statement claiming the US-led coalition was walking into a "Vietnam" in the Middle East. Cantlie said Western governments were "hastily marching to all out war in Iraq and Syria without paying any heed to the lessons of the recent past." The statement characterised the Islamic State as "the most powerful jihadist movement seen in recent history" and denied it could be destroyed by current Western efforts, insisting "this is not some undisciplined outfit with a few kalashnikovs." "That the western govs were caught napping by the sheer speed of the Islamic State's growth is now a given," Cantlie said. "It's all quite a circus — airstrikes, the creation of last minute puppet governments, advisory teams on the ground, wooing previous enemies to join in and trans-border incursions into a country that has been in a state of civil war for three years, all the while underestimating the strength and fighting zeal of the opponent. Not since Vietnam have we witnessed such a potential mess in the making." France meanwhile confirmed that a French tourist, Herve Gourdel, had been seized in Algeria by the militant group Jund al-Khilafa, which threatened to kill the 55-year-old if if Paris did not cease the airstrikes it began on Friday in Iraq. Islamic State fighters warned on Sunday they would target Western citizens in retaliation for such actions, "especially the spiteful and filthy French". Western powers have been hesitant to intervene in the Syrian conflict, with Washington pulling back from intervention following chemical attacks on civilians last year despite having previously warned the Assad government that the use of such weapons constituted a red line. The West and its allies have channeled weapons and other forms of military support to moderate rebels fighting Assad but concerns about such arms falling into the hands of Islamist extremists have complicated efforts. President Bashar al-Assad has been keen to convince the international community that it is the Islamic State and other jihadist groups, rather than his regime, which pose the greater threat — and as Western fears over IS advances in Iraq and Syria grow, the tide appears to be turning in his favour as the perceived lesser of two evils. The Syrian foreign ministry said it was informed about the strikes before they took place. "The foreign minister received a letter from his American counterpart via the Iraqi foreign minister, in which he informed him that the United States and some of its allies would target (Islamic State positions) in Syria," the department said. "That was hours before the raids started." Foreign ministry statements flashed across Syrian state television as the airstrikes went on. "Syria supports any international effort that aims at fighting terrorism, whatever the terrorist group - IS, al-Nusra Front or any other one," one said, according to BBC Monitoring. Another added: "Syria will also continue fighting IS in Raqqa and other districts and will not stop fighting the group in cooperation with states which are directly harmed, principally Iraq." The country's Western-backed National Coalition opposition group welcomed the strikes by the US and Arab allies, saying they would aid the rebels in their battle against the government. "This will make us stronger in the fight against Assad... The campaign should continue until the Islamic State is completely eradicated from Syrian lands," Monzer Akbik, special envoy to the coalition leadership, told Reuters. An Islamic State fighter meanwhile insisted the group would have its revenge for the attacks, and held Saudi Arabia responsible for allowing them to go ahead. "These attacks will be answered. The sons of Saloul are the ones who are to be blamed. It happened because of them," he told using a derogatory term for Saudi Arabia's royal Saudi family. One resident of Raqqa apparently live-tweeted the strikes in the area as they happened, reporting "huge explosions" half an hour before the raids were announced by the US military. The airstrikes 5/6 concentrated near the 'governorate building' ISIS's main HQ. Meanwhile, sounds of warplanes can be heard clearly — Abdulkader Hariri (@3bdUlkaed6r)September 23, 2014 UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a number of the strikes had killed civilians as well as Islamist fighters. It noted that in Raqqa and surrounding areas IS fighters had already evacuated the majority of their command centres. The group had reportedly been preparing their defenses in anticipation of airstrikes in recent days, sending women and children out of Raqqa and dispersing fighters into civilian neighborhoods. Syrian refugees have been flooding to the Turkish border in recent days as Islamic State fighters advance on the key Kurdish town of Kobane. Turkish forces have clashed with Kurdish protesters rallying in support of the Syrian arrivals and reportedly trying to cross the border into Syria to fight the Islamist group. On Tuesday, refugees at a border crossing near Kobane told VICE News that IS fighters had pulled back from the city following the night's airstrikes. One man, who gave his name as Ahmed Kobane, said "Kobane is empty, there's no food, no water, no anything. We will wait here and maybe things will return to normal." Another, 30-year-old Mustafa Muslim, said: "The US and Europe should have hit IS in Syria a month ago. Now, they're late." Police Clash With Turkish Kurds Trying to Fight the Islamic State. Read more here Additional reporting by John Beck Follow Hannah Strange on Twitter: @hannahkstrange Follow John Beck on Twitter: @JM_Beck |
Download raw source Received: by 10.78.191.4 with HTTP; Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:02:35 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <8dd172e0803261602v8177b92t66a4af0e92320958@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:02:35 -0400 From: "John Podesta" <john.podesta@gmail.com> To: "laura nichols" <laurasnichols@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: seriously In-Reply-To: <901235.26295.qm@web56807.mail.re3.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <901235.26295.qm@web56807.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: john.podesta@gmail.com You home? On 3/26/08, laura nichols <laurasnichols@yahoo.com> wrote: > yes and susan. they've caught me on whats going on. they were unaware > thought that Mattzie has pretty much cut FT out of all conversations - > they've had several poll/focus group conference calls with the media team > (zimmerman and mark amour) without FT. He clearly doesn't want us involved. > He's been unresponsive, uncommunicative, put some assistant as the go > between with us and been dealing with the other two directly. They both > said they were pissed to hear about, want us on the team and would talk to > Tom. This has all not gone over well with us - on top of, not getting paid, > and asking to forego March and do April. totally unprofessionnal and > uncool. > but we'll try to get back on the beam. Matzzie is an ass however and i'm > not going to soon forget it. > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> > To: laura nichols <laurasnichols@yahoo.com> > Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 10:23:00 AM > Subject: Re: seriously > > Have you talked to paul? > > > > On 3/19/08, laura nichols <laurasnichols@yahoo.com> wrote: > > is there nothing you can share with me about what is happening at CDA? i > > guess Paul would talk to me about but seems slightly strange i have to ask > > him..is this still happening? should FT stay involved? we really put > > ourselves out there with this A team of about 15 movie and TV writers and > > now some underling not even Matzzie calls to tell me they don't want any > > scripts in March while they reacess and want us to produce scripts in > april > > without retainer fee (bc we didn't get asked to do much in March) WTF?? > > Begala cryptically said they were something about the Matzzie problem?? > so > > don't feel like i can call him either. > > -- > Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com -- Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com |
One of the biggest downsides of being in the iPhone camp rather than the Android camp is not getting early access to some of the cooler mobile things Google is working on. One of those is Google Goggles, a visual search feature that launched last December for Android. Now, almost a year later, it’s finally here for the iPhone as well. As they’ve announced on their Google Mobile Blog today, Google has placed Google Goggles for the iPhone as a feature inside of their Google Mobile app on the device. That app, which already allows you to search via text and via voice, now is even more powerful. Says Google: In the new version of Google Mobile App just tap on the camera button to search using Goggles. Goggles will analyze the image and highlight the objects it recognizes — just click on them to find out more. Google notes that Goggles is still a Labs project as they continue to perfect it. They say that it works well for things such as landmarks, logos, and products, but not so well yet for animals or food — they’re working on that. I’m not seeing the latest update to the Google Mobile app in the App Store just yet, but Google says it should be rolling out throughout the day. It’s a free download. Watch more in the video below: |
Pantheon has long been hosting Drupal sites, and their entry into the WordPress hosting marketplace is quite welcome. For the most part, hosting WordPress sites on Pantheon is a dream for developers. Their command line tools and git-based development deployments, and automatic dev, test, live environments (with the ability to have multiple dev environments on some tiers) are powerful things. If you can justify the expense (and they’re not cheap), I would encourage you to check them out. First, the good stuff: Git-powered dev deployments This is great. Just add their Git repo as a remote (you can still host your code on GitHub or Bitbucket or anywhere else you like), and deploying to dev is as simple as: git push pantheon-dev master Command-line deployment to test and live Pantheon has a CLI tool called Terminus that can be used to issue commands to Pantheon (including giving you access to remote WP-CLI usage). You can do stuff like deploy from dev to test: terminus site deploy --site=YOURSITE --env=test --from=dev --cc Or from test to live: terminus site deploy --site=YOURSITE --env=live --from=test Clear out Redis: terminus site redis clear --site=YOURSITE --env=YOURENV Clear out Varnish: terminus site clear-caches --site=YOURSITE --env=YOURENV Run WP-CLI commands: terminus wp option get blogname --site=YOURSITE --env=YOURENV Keep dev and test databases & uploads fresh When you’re developing in dev or testing code in test before it goes to live, you’ll want to make sure things work with the latest live data. On Pantheon, you can just go to Workflow > Clone, and easily clone the database and uploads (called “files” on Pantheon) from live to test or dev, complete with rewriting of URLs as appropriate in the database. No caching plugins You can get rid of Batcache, W3 Total Cache, or WP Super Cache. You don’t need them. Pantheon caches pages outside of WordPress using Varnish. It just works (including invalidating URLs when you publish new content). But what if you want some control? Well, that’s easy. Just issue standard HTTP cache control headers, and Varnish will obey. <?php function my_pantheon_varnish_caching() { if ( is_user_logged_in() ) { return; } $age = false; // Home page: 30 minutes if ( is_home() && get_query_var( 'paged' ) < 2 ) { $age = 30; // Product pages: two hours } elseif ( function_exists( 'is_product' ) && is_product() ) { $age = 120; } if ( $age !== false ) { pantheon_varnish_max_age( $age ); } } function pantheon_varnish_max_age( $minutes ) { $seconds = absint( $minutes ) * 60; header( 'Cache-Control: public, max-age=' . $seconds ); } add_action( 'template_redirect', 'my_pantheon_varnish_caching' ); And now, some unclear stuff: Special wp-config.php setup Some things just aren’t very clear in Pantheon’s documentation, and using Redis for object caching is one of them. You’ll have to do a bit of work to set this up. First, you’ll want to download the wp-redis plugin and put its object-cache.php file into /wp-content/. Update: apparently this next step is not needed! Next, modify your wp-config.php with this: // Redis if ( isset( $_ENV['CACHE_HOST'] ) ) { $GLOBALS['redis_server'] = array( 'host' => $_ENV['CACHE_HOST'], 'port' => $_ENV['CACHE_PORT'], 'auth' => $_ENV['CACHE_PASSWORD'], ); } Boom. Now Redis is now automatically configured on all your environments! Setting home and siteurl based on the HTTP Host header is also a nice trick for getting all your environments to play, but beware yes-www and no-www issues. So as to not break WordPress’ redirection between those variants, you should massage the Host to not be solidified as the one you don’t want: // For non-www domains, remove leading www $site_server = preg_replace( '#^www\.#', '', $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] ); // You're on your own for the yes-www version 🙂 // Set URLs define( 'WP_HOME', 'http://'. $site_server ); define( 'WP_SITEURL', 'http://'. $site_server ); So, those environment variables are pretty cool, huh? There are more: // Database define( 'DB_NAME', $_ENV['DB_NAME'] ); define( 'DB_USER', $_ENV['DB_USER'] ); define( 'DB_PASSWORD', $_ENV['DB_PASSWORD'] ); define( 'DB_HOST', $_ENV['DB_HOST'] . ':' . $_ENV['DB_PORT'] ); // Keys define( 'AUTH_KEY', $_ENV['AUTH_KEY'] ); define( 'SECURE_AUTH_KEY', $_ENV['SECURE_AUTH_KEY'] ); define( 'LOGGED_IN_KEY', $_ENV['LOGGED_IN_KEY'] ); define( 'NONCE_KEY', $_ENV['NONCE_KEY'] ); // Salts define( 'AUTH_SALT', $_ENV['AUTH_SALT'] ); define( 'SECURE_AUTH_SALT', $_ENV['SECURE_AUTH_SALT'] ); define( 'LOGGED_IN_SALT', $_ENV['LOGGED_IN_SALT'] ); define( 'NONCE_SALT', $_ENV['NONCE_SALT'] ); That’s right — you don’t need to hardcode those values into your wp-config. Let Pantheon fill them in (appropriate for each environment) for you! And now, some gotchas: Lots of uploads = lots of problems Pantheon has a distributed filesystem. This makes it trivial for them to scale your site up by adding more Linux containers. But their filesystem does not like directories with a lot of files. So, let’s consider the WordPress uploads folder. Usually this is partitioned by month. On Pantheon, if you start approaching 10,000 files in a directory, you’re going to have problems. Keep in mind that crops count towards this limit. So one upload with 9 crops is 10 files. 1000 uploads like that in a month and you’re in trouble. I would recommend splitting uploads by day instead, so the Pantheon filesystem isn’t strained. A plugin like this can help you do that. Sometimes notices cause segfaults I honestly don’t know what is going on here, but I’ve seen E_NOTICE errors cause PHP segfaults. Being segfaults, they produce no useful information in logs, and I’ve had to spend hours tracking down the code causing the issue. This happens reliably for given code paths, but I don’t have a reproducible example. It’s just weird. I have a ticket open with Pantheon about this. It’s something in their custom error handling. Until they get this fixed, I suggest doing something like this, in the first line of wp-config.php: // Disable Pantheon's error handler, which causes segfaults function disable_pantheon_error_handler() { // Does nothing } if ( isset( $_ENV['PANTHEON_ENVIRONMENT'] ) ) { set_error_handler( 'disable_pantheon_error_handler' ); } This just sets a low level error handler that stops errors from bubbling up to PHP core, where the trouble likely lies. You can still use something like Debug Bar to show errors, or you could modify that blank error handler to write out to an error log file. Have your own tips? Do you have any tips for hosting WordPress on Pantheon? Let me know in the comments! |
(JTA) — The number of hate groups in the United States rose in 2016, and most of them subscribe to anti-Semitic views, a civil rights group found. Last year, 917 hate groups were active, up from 892 in 2015, according to a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC released a list of the hate groups categorized by types, such as anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim. There is no category for anti-Semitic groups, according to Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Alabama-based center. “The reason we don’t have a separate category for anti-Jewish groups is that the vast majority of them are all anti-Semitic,” Potok told reporters in a conference call, responding to a question from JTA. At least 550 of the 917 groups are anti-Semitic in nature, Potok later clarified to JTA in a phone call, emphasizing that the number represented “a minimum.” The groups active in 2016 include 99 categorized as neo-Nazi, 100 as white nationalist, 130 as Ku Klux Klan and 21 as Christian Identity, a religious movement that says whites are the true Israelites and Jews are descended from Satan. “2016 was an unprecedented year for hate,” Potok said in a statement in the report. “The country saw a resurgence of white nationalism that imperils the racial progress we’ve made, along with the rise of a president whose policies reflect the values of white nationalists. In Steve Bannon, these extremists think they finally have an ally who has the president’s ear,” he added, referring to President Donald Trump’s chief strategist. Bannon is the former chairman of Breitbart News, a site with ties to the “alt-right” — a loose movement whose followers traffic variously in white nationalism, anti-immigration sentiment, anti-Semitism and a disdain for “political correctness.” The most dramatic growth in hate groups was in those targeting Muslims, which increased by 197 percent to 201 last year compared to 34 in 2015, the report said. The high for active hate groups recorded by the center in one year was 1,018 in 2011. |
The cost of the digital currency bitcoin hit a new record on Friday, trading above $1,900 for the first time. The surge was driven by increased trading activity in Asia spurred by global political uncertainty. Read more The cryptocurrency was trading at $1,951.44 as of 02:33 pm GMT. Its market capitalization has gained $3.7 billion since Monday to almost $32 billion. Experts link the growing value of bitcoin partly to a surge in trading from Japan and Korea. Tokyo recently approved bitcoin's use as a legal currency for retailers. Japan and Korea now account for two of the top five bitcoin trading markets in the world. “Japanese and Korean markets are trading at a strong premium as Asian fever is leading the price. Although scaling and the transaction backlog is an issue – bitcoin is defying its negative fundamentals,” the CEO of CryptoCompare.com Charles Hayter was cited by Finance Magnates portal. Analysts say political turmoil could also be supporting bitcoin while investors see the asset as a "safe haven" against geopolitical risks. Experts note a broader boost in the whole cryptocurrency market with the rise of digital currencies such as ripple and litecoin. "The new developments on litecoin, which is experimenting with alternative scaling solutions may offer a brighter future for bitcoin, and a longer-term price increase, if those similar solutions can be applied to its network," Aurelien Menant, founder, and CEO of Gatecoin, a regulated bitcoin and ethereum token exchange based in Hong Kong, told CNBC. Bitcoin market cap adds $1 billion in 24 hours as price soars past $1,700 https://t.co/2w8soC25ro — RT (@RT_com) May 10, 2017 The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has gained $11.3 billion since Monday to hit $67 billion. So how much would an early bitcoin investor make if he held on until today? The cryptocurrency traded at 6 cents for most of 2010. So a $100 investment would have bought you 1,666 coins, which are worth over $3 million as of Friday. |
By Mark Andrews The Arsenal versus Rochdale FA Cup 1st round: 10 January 1920 After the First World War The Arsenal were in financial difficulties, as both Sir Henry Norris and William Hall had taken out a variety of loans and the club was still leasing the Highbury land. They had arranged the lease on the land, moved in, built the original East Stand, upgraded the ground and then the Great War intervened. The manager at the time, Leslie Knighton, put the debt level at a colossal £60,000 in 1919, as this was the figure mentioned at his job interview with Norris. Whatever the true figure there was no doubt that The Arsenal needed to greatly increase their revenue from games. However one point of note was that The Arsenal gave free seats to men wounded in the war, at a loss of over £100 per match at this time – a generous and patriotic gesture at least for the first post-conflict season. Thankfully, persistently large crowds turned up and helped the situation. So much so that by 1925 they were in a sound enough position to purchase the freehold of the land upon which Highbury stood. However, back to 1920 as this episode highlights one tactic to use as the means to increase income and, thus, reduce the debt. In the first FA Cup draw after the Great Conflict had finished The Arsenal were drawn away against Rochdale who, at the time, were third from bottom of the Lancashire Combination, and not a league club. Consequently, the shared gate if played at Rochdale was estimated at approximately £300, so Knighton was tasked with persuading the Rochdale directorate to agree to transfer the match to Highbury. This was a frequent occurrence when a small team was drawn at home to a team in the Football League. The gate money was split 50-50 so it made sound financial sense to the smaller team. Knighton managed to do this successfully, guaranteeing Rochdale £1,000 from the gate as long as they agreed to forfeit home advantage. The implication being that Arsenal expected to get at least as much, if not more, as the visitor’s share. Knighton was more successful than his Spurs counterpart as they had tempted Bristol Rovers to change but they, unsurprisingly, preferred to play in the West Country than go to White Hart Lane. The switch to Highbury was successful as a crowd of 26,596 turned up on 10 January 1920, but not as many as had been predicted due to the awful rain. Indeed the rain had been so persistent in the days before and during the game, the Sunday Times reporter compared the state of the pitch to the mud of the trenches that many of the players and crowd would have been familiar with. As for the game Rochdale took a lead into the break, being 2-1 ahead, after Jock Rutherford had opened the scoring. Rochdale players were all on a £30 win bonus from their millionaire benefactor Jimmy White, but while they played stupendously for the first half in a bid to gain the cash, the extra fitness and skill of the First Division team told in the end as The Arsenal eventually ran out 4-2 winners. By the time Arsenal finally took the lead in the 81st minute many thousands of the crowd had left; no doubt assuming that any replay would be played at Highbury on the Monday in better weather. This was not due to the need to “beat the rush” but because 20,000 of the crowd on the terraces had no cover from the deluge of rain that carried on for most of the match and were no longer able to face the elements. Earlier in their time at Highbury Arsenal had switched a game, during the First World War as the season 1914-15 was played to a conclusion, and in the FA Cup 1st round Arsenal had drawn Merthyr Town away. By mutual agreement with Merthyr, the venue was changed to Highbury. The attendance of 9,000 may seem small, due to the war, but it was still substantially more than Merthyr would have hoped to attract at home. Arsenal won this match 3-0, played on 9 January 1915, with a hat-trick by Harry King. Earlier still, in the club’s inaugural League season, Woolwich Arsenal made a cash offer to buy off Ashford in the 1st qualifying round of the FA Cup: This was not an offer to move the contest as Arsenal were drawn at home anyway, but to allow Woolwich to save costs, as they knew the crowd would be lower than average due to the calibre of opposition, and in the event it was a meagre 3,000. Arsenal’s offer was not a frivolous one as they ran out 12-0 victors on 14 October 1893 but the offer being made openly and noted in the press highlights the different standards that applied in the FA Cup in those early years. The practice of switching to the larger team’s ground has not entirely died out as most recently Farnborough Town agreed to move their FA Cup 4th round tie against Arsenal from the non-league club’s 4,000 capacity ground at Cherrywood Road to Highbury. Arsenal ran out 5-1 winners on 25 January 2003, though Farnborough were at least £500,000 to the good due to them conceding home advantage. Sources: Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football Leslie Knighton – Behind the scenes in Big Football; Daily Express; Daily Mirror; The Times; Sunday Times; Kentish Mercury —————– Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog (top right). You know it makes sense. —————– The books… |
Integration between Skype and the rest of Microsoft's properties is slowly trickling down. Microsoft's Skype unit announced on September 13 that it is enabling sign in using Windows Live ID -- now known as Microsoft Account -- in the latest Skype for Windows beta (version 5.11). This means by signing in with a Windows Live ID, users will be able to send and receive IMs and see presence ifnormation from those using Live Messenger, Xbox, Hotmail or Outlook.com. Microsoft is enabling the same integration via a new Skype 5.11 for Mac beta, as well. According to Microsoft, there's also better Facebook integration in the Skype 5.11 betas, allowing users to sign in directly with their Facebook account log-ins without needing to create a Skype account first. Those choosing to sign into Skype using their Microsoft or Facebook accounts will have the option to link their Skype accounts. Those who go this route will see a combined list of friends. The new Skype UI is now "refreshed and flattened" with a "simpler and less cluttered look" in the latest beta. And there's more "help us improve the quality of our product" telemetry-gathering offers. Those who opt in to provide that information to Microsoft should know that reports sent to Microsoft may contain their Skype IDs and/or Microsoft Account IDs. The Skype 5.11 for Windows beta is downloadable from the Skype beta site. The Mac version of the Skype 5.11 beta is here. |
Google is constantly testing new designs and features, but Geek recently spotted a beautiful new visual overhaul of Gmail’s web interface. The leaked images show a radically simpler inbox with less clutter and a big focus on email itself. These leaked desktop designs also match up with a previous leak of mobile Gmail’s new interface. A hamburger menu on the top left hides labels to reduce visual overhaul and a new button on the lower right reveals a menu that offers actions the user can perform, such as composing email or setting a reminder. Stars appear to have been renamed ‘pins’ and the inbox also appears to allow the user to ‘snooze’ an email for reminder later, just like in Mailbox. Gmail hasn’t made many major design tweaks to Gmail since its current layout was rolled out to users in 2011. It appears Google could be preparing to release this new design in the near future (perhaps at Google I/O), but we don’t have any further details on when it’ll be hitting your inbox just yet. Update: We contacted Google for comment on this leak but it simply replied “we don’t comment on rumor or speculation.” ➤ Google is testing new web-based Gmail features [Geek] Don’t miss: Google updates its terms of service to explicitly say it’s analyzing your emails for tailored ads Image credit: Shutterstock Read next: Bitly says users are safe after its data breach, 2-factor logins coming soon |
By David Dayen, a lapsed blogger I wasn’t entirely sure if the implosion this week of Third Avenue Management’s Focused Credit Fund was an elaborate advertisement for the release of The Big Short or what, but it certainly feels like a familiar early data point, not for mortgages this time but for something we’ve been tracking for a while: the high-yield bond sector. Here are just the facts from Bloomberg: A $788 million mutual fund is blocking clients from pulling their money so its holdings can be liquidated in an orderly fashion. Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management put some of the assets in the Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund in a liquidating trust that will seek to sell them over time, the New York-based firm said in a statement on its website dated Dec. 9. The step is unusual for a mutual fund, which typically offers daily liquidity to investors, and comes after regulators raised concerns that some mutual funds are investing in assets that could be hard to sell in a market rout. David Barse, Third Avenue’s chief executive officer, said blocking redemptions was necessary to avoid fire sales. The fund, which had $3.5 billion in assets as recently as July of last year, suffered almost $1 billion in redemptions this year through November. The buried lede is the 77 percent drop in assets in just 18 months, from $3.5 billion to $788 million. That’s kind of the very fire sale that Third Avenue belatedly took evasive action to prevent. I think I first wrote about the corporate debt time bomb in February 2014 for Pacific Standard. Here’s another one a month later for Salon. I did a long exploration into leveraged loans for The Progressive in mid-2014 that they never put online – maybe I’ll post it this weekend. Here’s a taste: Since March 2009, the junk bond market has doubled to $2 trillion, as worries about risk have flown out the window. Got an idea for a vegan restaurant on a cow farm or a lingerie shop in a nunnery? No problem, some investor will lend you lots of money… Loans… are often “covenant-lite” leveraged loans, a type of junk bond that offers fewer safeguards for investors. Given the desperation for higher yields, investors foolishly accept higher risk to get their hands on low-grade corporate debt. So under the terms of these loans, investors do not get informed when the underlying companies run into financial trouble, making it harder to avoid losses… Smaller and smaller firms were the beneficiaries of these loans, like Learfield Communications, a media group with $40 million in annual revenues that received an incredible $330 million in covenant-lite loans last October. It’s correct to call this the “subprime of the corporate world.” More recently, Naked Capitalism has had Wolf Richter walking us through the coming carnage for over a year now. The basic story: the junk bonds are losing altitude, thanks mostly to losses in high-yield energy debt, with oil prices flatlined. Third Avenue’s FCF had some energy but also a number of companies acquired in large leveraged buyouts, so this is a private equity issue as well. More and more corporate debt has become distressed, and the vultures lured into buying the wounded animals are taking their own hits now, as these companies default. Standard & Poor’s counts 102 defaults among corporate debt issuers, the most since 2009. S&P’s “distress ratio” is up to 20 percent and rising; for energy debt that’s up to 50 percent. Late Friday, the next shoe dropped: distressed-debt specialist Stone Lion Capital froze redemptions in their oldest fund. I should note that Stone Lion is a major player in the Puerto Rican debt crisis, and this trouble, especially if it spreads to other vulture funds, could impact that situation, though I’m not certain in what direction. Mr. Market is starting to get the willies from all this. Icahn’s nervous, too. “The meltdown in High Yield is just beginning.” Jeff Gundlach added on Tuesday, “We are looking at real carnage.” These are really just shadow bank runs. And for a mutual fund that allows investors complete liquidity, that’s fatal. Wolf notes that there’s a big short going on here, too: When an “open-end” bond fund starts losing money, investors begin to sell it. Fund managers first use all available cash to pay investors. When the cash is gone, they sell the most liquid securities that haven’t lost much money yet, such as Treasuries. When they’re gone, they sell the most liquid corporate paper. As they go down the line, they sell bonds that have already lost a lot of value. By now the smart money is betting against the fund, having figured out what’s happening. They’re shorting the very bonds these folks are trying to sell. The longer this goes on, the more money investors lose and the more spooked they get. It turns into a run. And people who still have that fund in their retirement account are getting cleaned out. I don’t know how many retail investors are exposed, but I’d bet they don’t know either. Wolf estimates the junk bond market at $1.8 trillion, so it’s sprinkled everywhere. Even Valeant’s debt is distressed. Liquidation of Third Avenue’s Focused Credit Fund will take over a year. But it’s investors in similarly situated funds, and whether they panic, that will determine the course of this event. So far it looks pretty bad: Wolf reports that $3.5 billion in retail cash fled US junk-bond funds over the past week, $2.8 billion of that from mutual funds. I think asking “will this be the next crisis” is in a way besides the point. All crises are not created equal. But if anything, the experts and pundits are underpricing the risk. For starters, a lot of this debt was securitized, packaged into collateralized loan obligations that were privately traded, so we have no clue of the level of risk. Many CLOs were synthetic, too, and a good number of hedge funds bought CLOs with borrowed money. So Third Avenue, and like-minded distressed-debt specialists, are one thing. The real question is how the CLO holders hedged themselves, and who else has a piece of this crap. Traders trying to minimize the damage are moving into options, but that may not hold out. And of course we’ll have a Fed rate hike, in all likelihood, interacting with this next week. In a sense, this is a real-economy crisis – the slow, inevitable crash of the energy sector during an oil glut – magnified by financial engineering. If you think of it that way, you can envision the battle in Congress right now over whether to lift the oil export ban as a pre-emptive bailout, as if there was a bank bailout back in mid-2006. But even lifting the ban appears to be more like applying a band-aid when you need a tourniquet. Even with the ability to export, U.S. energy producers will still have to sell into a global market, probably with even lower prices if it gooses production in the short term. That’s not going to solve the problem. And it’s not going to unwind the toxic debt instruments. Martin Whitman, Third Avenue’s founder, literally wrote the book on distressed investing. But their investing strategy – putting high-risk investments into a mutual fund – seems like exactly what not to do, especially if a systemic downturn hit any portion of the corporate sector. I already see people trying to blame Dodd-Frank for this, and not just the usual dumb money gambling to chase returns. Brace yourselves for the next couple months as this begins to shake out. |
NEO is the real deal Matt Moravec Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 27, 2017 I’ve got to admit, I’ve caught the NEO bug. For those of you that aren’t up to date on the lesser known smart contract cryptocurrencies such as NEO or Ethereum, smart contract platforms allow you to send contracts through a blockchain. Think of a decentralized DocuSign. You send contracts to other people that are then executed. Once you receive the contract there are a series of steps you must take to complete the contract. One compelling use case I can think of is wills. Before you die, you could make a bunch of smart contracts that go out to everyone that will be tying up loose ends after your death. These contracts could be anything from social media passwords to bank account details that will be transferred to the respective parties. You would give everyone a password to this contract before you die, so that when the contract is transferred, they can open it. The contracts would be transferred on your confirmed death. The power of a decentralized exchange is that no attorney or potentially corruptable power needs to be involved. You set everything up beforehand and then can be sure that it will be carried out according to your wishes. This is just one example, but the use cases are endless. The two front runners in this race for smart contract domination are Ethereum and NEO. I personally am a huge fan of NEO because you can write the infrastructure for these contracts in the programming language you are most comfortable with. For me that is JavaScript or Go. If you are going to write contracts in Ethereum, you’ll need to learn a language called Solidity. I’m not going to learn Solidity so I really have one choice at the moment. I’ve been pivoting into blockchain technologies as a career and NEO has me very excited. I’m thinking about creating this will idea as a contest entry here. $30k for 100 lines of code doesn’t seem like a bad deal to me. |
WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a decisive 376-45 vote last Friday, the United States Congress hired drummer Joey Lombardo, a professional percussionist with years of studio and touring experience. Lombardo, who has toured with such diverse artists as Kenny Loggins, Pat Benatar and Richard Marx, is expected to provide the legislative body with a variety of much-needed percussive effects. “You wouldn’t believe how much his steady backbeat helps keep bills and budget proposals rolling along, not to mention adding some zip to those filibusters,” Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-NY) said. “Lombardo provides a rock-solid foundation upon which Congress can really jam.” Advertisement The seasoned studio vet, who played with Bryan Adams on the Australian leg of the star’s 1991 Waking Up the Neighbors Tour, will also provide drum rolls during key budget votes. Before the vote tally for the controversial Steffens-Hawley Welfare Bill was announced Monday, Lombardo performed a dramatic, prolonged snare drum roll, which, according to 93–year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), “made me tingly.” Despite his lack of Congressional drumming experience, Lombardo is confident he has the stamina to keep up with the long-winded legislators. “When I was on Tina Turner’s Break Every Rule World Tour, we did a show in Rio that was over three and half hours. I’m confident that if I can keep up with Tina, I can keep up with Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter.” Advertisement With his extensive experience playing live, Lombardo also brings a theatrical sensibility to Congress. When Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich recently opened session with the remark, “I know why Clinton didn’t want to play cards with me on Air Force One—he was afraid of losing all of his money!,” Lombardo was on hand with a rimshot and cymbal crash to drive home the humor. Lombardo’s drumset, a Starclassic eight-piece kit with glitter finish and a half-dozen Zildjian cymbals, has been permanently placed where Vice President Al Gore used to sit. The top-flight set, which was profiled in the April ’91 issue of Modern Drummer, has already caught the eye of a number of lawmakers. “Boy, I’d love to get behind those skins,” Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) said. Helms went on to say that if Lombardo could teach him his one-handed drumstick-twirling technique, that would be “very cool.” Advertisement Other voices in Congress are also excited by Lombardo’s presence. “The beat of the drum calls out to all peoples,” Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-CO) said. “Lombardo’s rhythms will represent the heartbeat of our great nation.” Schroeder added that in his sleeveless red mesh T-shirt and tight jeans, the sinewy Lombardo is “much easier on the eyes than Patrick Moynihan.” Other instruments were proposed to accompany Congress, including a bass guitar, a pipe organ and a synthesizer, but it was ultimately Lombardo’s power drumming that won out. Advertisement The two-time Drum World Drummer of the Month was eager to talk about his new job. “I’ve had a lot of tough gigs in the past, but this one tops it,” Lombardo said. “I’ll be keeping the beat for the finest product of the Enlightenment, set in motion by our forefathers, swinging with enough finesse—yet also true crushing power—in rhythm to this intricate machine of Jeffersonian thought.” Lighting a cigarette, he added, “I hope my chops are up to it.” A number of special musical guests have already been booked to sit in with Lombardo during lon-ger Congressional sessions. Among the artists: Tito Puente and his Latin Orchestra, Al Jarreau, and three-time Grammy-nominated saxophonist David San-born. Advertisement President Clinton offered his congratulations for the Lombardo hiring in a press release this morning. “After months of attempts to erode the American Dream with cruel budget cuts, it is heartening to see such a positive decision coming out of Congress,” Clinton said. “Ever since I caught Lombardo behind the set on The Hooters’ Nervous Night Tour, I’ve known him as an American who can really rock.” |
Sydney dentist's art deco radio collection sparks offer from Sheikh of Qatar Updated It was on a visit to London in the late 1990s that Sydney dentist Peter Sheridan spotted a bright green bakelite radio in a jewellery shop. "I thought it was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen," he recalls. The radio was a 1937 American-made Emerson produced during the golden age of radio broadcasting – a time when radio provided cheap entertainment for families struggling in the depression years. Mr Sheridan was fascinated with the style and beauty of the radio's design. The purchase of the Emerson was be the start of what would become arguably one of the world's best collections of art deco radios. "From a design point of view they are spectacular," he said. "In the 1930s everyone wanted a radio. The manufacturers are seeing a huge future and you've got these industrial designers in the United States - it's a fledgling profession and these guys are completely unknown. "They've all come from different fields - theatre design, architecture, set design, furniture design, and they've all started to try and sell themselves as industrial designers. But the only thing that's selling in the early 1930s is radios." The end result was a revolution in the design world as the coloured portable bakelite radios replaced the heavy wooden radio console. "The mantel radio changed the listener from the family to the individual," he said. "The moment they started selling these coloured radios, specifically targeting women, you suddenly see the ability of the individual to choose their own programs." Mr Sheridan now has more than 300 radios beautifully displayed in his apartment in Sydney. He hopes his radios will find a public home in the future and has knocked back offers from people like the Sheikh of Qatar to buy the collection. He has just published a photographic display of his radios in his book Deco Radio: The Most Beautiful Radios Ever Made in which he pays homage to the radios he describes as important icons in the history of art deco and industrial design. "The book reflects my appreciation of this revolution in design," he said. With most of the available wall space in his apartment taken up with his beautiful radios it seems his collection may be complete. "It's not the biggest [collection] but it’s the best," he said. Topics: arts-and-entertainment, visual-art, offbeat, sydney-2000 First posted |
Recently I posted a few photos on our Face Book page that got a lot of attention. It was a rather unique image with 3 of the Big 5 in one frame. I am not however talking of the 3 herbivores, but an elephant, a buffalo and a lion! What made this sighting even more unique were the circumstances behind the interaction. At one point the lion was stalking nearly alongside the buffalo which even looked around, but never ran. It was as if the elephant was telling the lion not to even dare!! It was a warm day in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve and we were heading to exit the park. We were lucky enough to find 2 large bull elephants, which then proceeded to block our path as they often enjoy doing. As we followed them for some 2 km’s down the road in the blazing heat, I was at a loss as to how I was going to get past these enormous animals. I tried creeping up behind him to shoo him off the road but he paid me very little attention. So we waited, at the mercy of the giants, edging forward when they did and stopping when they decided. I had noticed a couple of cars parked ahead that had been there for some time. I suspected this meant there may be something interesting coming up as cars don’t tend to just sit in the sun on a hot day, which made being stuck behind the Ellies even more frustrating. Suddenly out of the bushes on the left, about 50m ahead a female buffalo emerged onto the verge of the road and began grazing. How lucky we thought! However what happened next was beyond anything we could have imagined. From the exact spot that the cars were parked a male lion stalked out the long grass and across the road, his eyes fixed on the buffalo. As he approached from behind his target, his focus turned to the elephant ahead of the buffalo. Clearly when he had set out on his stalk to catch his quarry he had not realised that the large pachyderms were dominating this stretch of road. He carried on his stalk, but his eyes were fixed on the bigger elephant that was standing dead centre. In fact from the photo you can see he was actually continuing walking forward. This did not sit well with big Leo and you can see the uncertainty set in. This is where things got really weird! As we watched with anticipation, the lion a mere metre away from his victim, we awaited the inevitable pounce. It never arrived, instead the lion, so focussed on the monster in the road pulled up alongside the Buff. Making it seem as if the 2 of them were out for a leisurely stroll. Then in the next frame the buffalo looks around, then back ahead, as the lion has its gaze firmly fixed on the elephant, barely acknowledging her. She continues to graze as if nothing is amiss! Almost as if to say; ‘touch me and my buddy over there will give you a beat down to remember’. After a couple more steps, it became too much to resist and the lion attacks, but the photo shows his lack of determination. He bounds after her and then she makes a move that probably saves her life. Instead of heading off into the thick bushes, she makes a left turn right across in front of the elephants. This move completely throws the lion who once again must have been thinking, if I jump on her back, I am just going to get trounced. He continues to pursue her but doesn’t take his eyes off the elephant, allowing his prized meal to escape. The last photo shows this clearly, a fleeing 700kg Buff and an outstretched lion cursing his bad luck!! |
Image caption Mark McCammon signed a three-year contract with Gillingham in 2008 A black footballer has been awarded more than £68,000 after his dismissal by his club was ruled as unfair racial victimisation. Mark McCammon, 33, said Gillingham FC refused him treatment for an injury, docked his wages and fined him for not turning up during heavy snow. The striker claimed he and other black players at the club were treated differently from white players. Club chairman Paul Scally said they might appeal against the verdict. In a statement, the club said: "Further to a meeting with the Chairman and lawyers yesterday [Thursday], and having considered the judgement of the case for discrimination, it is likely a formal appeal will be lodged over the next week or so." At the hearing, Mr McCammon said the club had tried to "frustrate him out" by refusing to pay private medical bills to help him regain his fitness following injury when he still had eight months left on his contract. He said he was instead offered the choice of undergoing the same operation on the NHS rather than privately, which was "completely out of character" for a Football League club, he said. He also claimed he and two other black players were ordered to come into the ground amid "treacherous" snowy driving conditions and were told their wages would be docked if they did not, while some white players were told they were not required. Mr Scally described Mr McCammon's allegations as being "made maliciously and without foundation". The Barbados international forward signed a three-year contract with League Two club Gillingham in 2008 and was released three seasons later. In October 2011 he signed with Conference side, Braintree Town and was loaned to Lincoln City in March. |
Monday is Day 9 of Lockout 3.0 and while there will be a meeting between the NHL and the NHL Players Association at the league offices in Toronto, it’s to go over old ground, not new. The two sides will gather to break down and confirm the amount of last season’s hockey-related revenues, which no doubt has quickly become one of the most tiresome and despised phrases of this most recent owners’ lockout. There is still no reason for even a tiny shard of optimism to poke a hole in the cloud that has descended on the situation. Apart from the regularly-scheduled programming Monday, it’s remotely possible the two sides could talk and decide to meet for a formal negotiating session. Talks broke off Sept. 12 after the NHL made the last counterpropsal. Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, would probably preclude any talks Tuesday or Wednesday. In an informal poll of parties on both sides of the divide Sunday — it’s appreciated that some of the parties who responded tore themselves away from the NFL action — there was nothing but pessimism and dire predictions. A feeling in the players’ camp is that it is a foregone conclusion this season will be lost to the lockout. "Question now is what happens the following year?" texted one respondent on the players’ side. Rhetoric? Probably. Scary? Definitely. Has it gotten that bad, this fast? One source said early last week the next week to 10 days would be critical to determining the length of this lockout. Well, here we a week later and the only developments have been negative: comments by Detroit Red Wings vice-president Jimmy Devellano comparing the players to cattle certainly only served to crystalize the the players’ perception of the owners and make the Red Wings $250,000 poorer. Devellano said the owners weren’t going to be pushed around by any union. That’s only served to crank up the solidarity on the players’ side. There shouldn’t have been any question about the players’ unity, not this early in the process and not even in light in a number of their "union" brothers heading off to Europe to ply their trade while their comrades back home do their best Mr. Mom. Don’t expect the players to waver any time soon. Don’t forget that though the public memory is the players finally caved in and took a salary cap the last time around after missing the entire 2004-05 season, the players remember it a different way. They feel like the deal they were offered at the beginning of the process wasn’t anything like what they finally accepted, so history has apparently taught them hanging tight is worth it. "Contrary to what public opinion is, we sat out 17 months but the deal we got was not the deal we had when we started. Everyone thinks we lost in that negotiation and we wasted a year. When we started the process, the offer was $30 million hard cap and that’s not the system we’re in now," said Pittsburgh Penguins forward Matt Cooke during a recent conversation. "We feel it was a huge success. Whatever it takes, we need to get a fair deal and something that is going to fix the system so we’re not in this process in another three years or five years or six years down the road." The scary thing about that is there are probably a lot of owners feeling the same way, that losing a season was worth it because they got a salary cap, even though they say now there’s too much salary and not enough cap. That’s a bad combination, the kind of combination that led to Sunday’s pessimism. chris.stevenson@sunmedia.ca twitter.com/CJ_Stevenson |
Coffee is great, but even die-hard coffee lovers might want to give tea a chance. The other beloved warm beverage, tea imparts to its drinkers some formidable health benefits, an extra boost of alertness without the same caffeine slump of coffee, and a considerable variety of choices. Here's how to get started enjoying the best possible tea. Advertisement Why You Should Be Drinking Tea Tea's health benefits: Although coffee has been linked to some health benefits such as lower risk of certain types of cancer, there are also some negative effects associated with coffee, such as caffeine dependency. Deep down inside, heavy coffee drinkers suspect there is such a thing as too much coffee. Advertisement On the flip side, a great many more studies have attributed health benefits to tea, from reducing cancer risk to preventing obesity, and very few have proven negative tea-drinking effects (you can see a comparison of these two drinks' health benefits in this infographic.) Advertisement Alertness without the caffeine crash: Tea can provide you with that alertness that coffee is known for—without the later caffeine slump or drop. Both drinks contain caffeine, but they vary in their amounts of caffeine (in general, coffee has more caffeine per cup than tea, but this can differ by tea varietal. In The Book of Coffee and Tea, Joel, David, and Karl Schapira say that the extraction of coffee is nearly complete in the brewing of coffee, whereas a five-minute infusion of tea extracts only three-quarters of the caffeine). Aside from the concentration of caffeine in a cup of coffee versus tea, there's a difference in the way the caffeine in tea affects you compared to the caffeine in coffee (much like caffeine's effects vary depending on genetics and other factors). One source, citing a coffee and tea industry publication, says that the other chemical compounds in coffee and tea—besides caffeine—can either enhance (in coffee's case) or mute (in tea's case) the effects of caffeine. The beneficial antioxidants, polyphenols, in tea may make the body absorb caffeine differently, over a longer period of time. So, while you might have to stop drinking coffee by noon to avoid sleep problems, you probably can go on drinking tea the rest of the day with no ill effects. Advertisement You'll never get bored: Last but not least, tea is an exquisite and varied drink, ranging from the very subtle white teas to unique flavored teas to more astringent black teas. If you enjoy experimenting with different coffee varietals' tastes—pitting the acidic Guatemalan coffee beans against smoother and fuller-bodied Sumatra coffee—tea can provide you that wide world of exploration too... and then some. What Teas To Drink? Black teas in general may be better suited for coffee lovers because they have a stronger taste, but here are some more specific suggestions for teas that could suit your palate: Advertisement For bright teas to wake you up: Try some of the so-called "breakfast teas" like English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast. These are a blend of strong-tasting black teas, though there's no consensus between one tea provider or another on what a breakfast blend consists of. Many Irish Breakfast teas use Assam tea leaves (tea from the Assam district in India), which produces a tea that is "pungent, malty tasting, and full-bodied and looks unusually dark," according to James Norwood Pratt's Tea Lover's Treasury. The breakfast tea may make a nice alternative if you drink coffee for it's eye-opening qualities. Tea made from yerba mate, while not technically tea because it's made from a plant other than Camellia sinensis, has a high caffeine concentration, perhaps even more than coffee, as well as potential antioxidant and anti-inflammatory health benefits. Photo by Andrew. Advertisement For distinctive flavors: No tea will replace the way coffee tastes, but if you want something more unusual and stronger than, say, the Lipton variety, consider Earl Grey, Lapsang Souchong, or Genmachai. Earl Grey is a wildly popular and unique-tasting tea scented with the oil of bergamot. In general, Earl Grey teas are mild-flavored and have a delicate scent, yet are at the same time quite distinctive. Likewise, Lapsang Souchong is a love-it-or-hate-it sort of tea. It tastes like smoke (and is scented and flavored with smoke). The tarry taste of this "manly" and dark tea may be an option for you if you think tea is too weak-tasting compared to coffee. Advertisement If you like nutty coffees like some Guatemalan coffees or nut-flavored coffees (e.g., hazelnut coffee), you might enjoy Genmaicha, a Japanese green tea that adds roasted brown rice to the infusion for a stronger flavor often described as "popcorn-like." Photo by Robin. For balanced, healthy teas: Perhaps you don't want a tea that matches coffee in its strong flavor, but is just a good plain tea. If you like the tea you usually get at Chinese restaurants, try Oolong tea, a cross between lighter-flavored green and stronger black teas. Oolong has been called the "champagne of teas" and is characteristically a smooth, all-around refreshing tea. Photo by J Wynia. Advertisement For enjoying the ritual of the brew: If you enjoy the coffee-making process—e.g., brewing in a French press and watching the coffee grinds bloom—consider flowering teas. Flowering teas are hand-picked and hand-sewn tea leaves that unfurl and look like a blooming flower when brewed. They emphasize the art of making tea and the enjoyment of tea beyond just taste. Photo by Heather Katsoulis. How to Make Great Tea The basics of how to make a better cup of coffee also apply to tea: freshness, water quality, temperature, and timing. Advertisement Freshness: Just as whole coffee beans that have been stored in a cool, dark place are best for making coffee, great tea should be stored as whole leaves (not grind into tea bags). The freshest, better quality teas are sold as whole leaf teas rather than crushed in tea bags. Tea can last quite a bit longer than coffee when stored properly—as much as two years if not exposed to air, light, odor, heat or moisture; roasted coffee, by comparison, is best used within one to two weeks. Water quality: Since both coffee and tea consist primarily (more than 90%) of water, the quality of the water used to make these drinks is paramount. Start with fresh, cold water (not previously boiled or flat water), preferably filtered or bottled. Advertisement Temperature: Here's where coffee and tea differ. The Specialty Coffee Association of America recommends a water temperature of 195 to 205 degrees F for coffee—just before boiling. For tea, the temperature depends on your particular varietal—white, green, oolong, black, or herbal or rooibos teas. Black teas should be brewed just after boiling, while more delicate white and green teas should be brewed in temperatures below that of coffee (as low as 170 degrees F). In Pursuit of Tea has a basic brewing guide with temperatures for different teas, but you'll want to defer to your tea dealer for the recommended time for your specific teas. Timing: Depending on your method of brewing coffee, it takes about 3-6 minutes to brew. Steeping tea is pretty much the same—it depends on the type of tea you're brewing. Some oolong teas should be brewed 7 minutes and can even be re-steeped, while more delicate teas like white teas will be brewed in as few as 3 minutes. Check the brew time for your specific tea; again, this basic brewing guide will get you started, but don't be afraid to experiment. Tools of the Tea Trade You can use a French press or perhaps even an AeroPress to brew tea, but part of the pleasure of tea is the whole tea-making ritual. Consider investing in a nice teapot that reflects your sensibilities—English porcelain, Japanese cast iron, modern glass, etc.—to upgrade your tea experience. Advertisement Besides a pot to steep the tea in and some method of straining the tea leaves (usually built into the teapot), you really don't need much. A water kettle for boiling water, some means of timing the tea as it steeps (e.g., one of these top Windows timer applications), and the container are pretty much all you need. Five Best Windows Timer Applications Whether you're timing the perfect cup of tea or counting down to your next break, a good timer … Read more Read Additional resources There are a great many more types of teas, so your best bet is to explore. Here are some additional resources for exploring the world of tea: The Hacker's Guide to Tea: Tony Gebely's article for Lifehacker on understanding and brewing better tea Types of tea and their tea benefits from WebMD The Republic of Tea's Citizens' Tea Library, with basic tea varietal information Adagio teas: tea of the month club for discovering different types of teas as a monthly subscription Advertisement Have any other tea tips or resources? Share them with us in the comments. You can follow or contact Melanie Pinola, the author of this post, on Twitter. More Fun with Caffeinated Beverages Advertisement For all of its wild popularity, caffeine is one seriously misunderstood substance. It's not a simple upper, and it works differently on different people with different tolerances-even in different menstrual cycles. But you can make it work better for you. More » Advertisement Like computers, coffee is complex, easy to sink money into, and attracts a vast swath of opinions. And like computers, there is a wise middle path you can walk to get top-notch coffee at home without spending MacBook-like money on brewing gear. More » |
Story highlights Walsh has made wild threats on Twitter before He tweeted a controversial message about Obama in the wake of the Dallas shootings Washington (CNN) Former Rep. Joe Walsh on Friday defended calling on Americans to grab their "musket" if Hillary Clinton is elected president, insisting it was not an incitement to armed revolution. "When I said grab your musket, I meant, look, if Hillary Clinton wins, if she wins fair and square, then the anger that a lot of Americans have towards our political system -- and she's part of that -- we gotta double down and triple down and do whatever we can to defend our freedom," he told CNN's Chris Cuomo said on "New Day." The former Illinois congressman said he's used the phrase "grab your musket" multiple times over the past several years but never meant that Donald Trump supporters should literally reach for their firearms. "If I wanted people to take up arms, why would I recommend people take up an antique like a musket?" Walsh asked. "That's just silly." Walsh, who was elected with support from the tea party movement, is now a conservative talk radio host, tweeted Wednesday: "On November 8th, I'm voting for Trump. On November 9th, if Trump loses, I'm grabbing my musket. You in?" Read More |
I have never seen a network so devoted to a wingnut cause like FOX is with their BIG coverage of the teabaggers tea party scheduled for April 15th. Check out this video clip I made just from one show. Wall Street gladly took their $700 billion wingnut welfare cash without blinking an eye -- with Neil Cavuto demanding McCain's people cough up the cash for his peeps -- but somehow Rick Santelli's rant against "losers" who are having trouble paying their mortgages was just an incredible faux outrage and has become dear to Roger Ailes heart. It's the rich and out-of-power Republicans who are organizing these events, and it's not an accident. They are trying to kick-start a broken conservative movement by making a huge effort to tap into the 25% of people who hate President Obama. Roger Ailes has gone "all in" and is waiting for the river card as he uses Beck, Cavuto and his merry band of disenfranchised conservatives to lead them on their disingenuous mission. Digby explains: Here's the thing. The right lost its ability to be spontaneous sometime back when Phyllis Schlafly was pounding the ERA. They require structure and leadership in order to function, which is one reason why their movement and their party are so stuck. (They proudly call themselves dittoheads, after all.) So, it's no surprise to learn this: Despite these attempts to make the “movement” appear organic, the principle organizers of the local events are actually the lobbyist-run think tanks Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works. The two groups are heavily staffed and well funded, and are providing all the logistical and public relations work necessary for planning coast-to-coast protests: – Freedom Works staffers coordinate conference calls among protesters, contacting conservative activists to give them “sign ideas, sample press releases, and a map of events around the country.” – Freedom Works staffers apparently moved to “take over” the planning of local events in Florida. – Freedom Works provides how-to guides for delivering a “clear message” to the public and media. – Freedom Works has several domain addresses — some of them made to look like they were set up by amateurs — to promote the protests. – Americans for Prosperity is writing press releases and planning the events in New Jersey, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, Kansas, and several other states. This type of corporate ‘astroturfing‘ is nothing new to either organization. While working to promote Social Security privatization, Freedom Works was caught planting one of its operatives as a “single mom” to ask questions to President Bush in a town hall on the subject. Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed Freedom Works for similarly building “amateur-looking” websites to promote the lobbying interests of Dick Armey, the former Republican Majority Leader who now leads Freedom Works and is a lobbyist for the firm DLA Piper. Americans for Prosperity is run by Tim Phillips, who was Ralph Reed’s former partner in the lobbying firm Century Strategies. The group is funded by Koch family foundations — a family whose wealth is derived from the oil industry. Indeed Americans for Prosperity has coordinated pro-drilling ‘grassroots‘ events around the country. If any members of the press are reading this, I hope they can see that this is the story, not the sad little dupes who are voluntarily calling themselves tea-baggers. |
SEPTEMBER 3--During a dispute over soy sauce, a worker at a Chinese restaurant allegedly pulled a gun on a dissatisfied teenage customer who sought extra packets of the condiment, Ohio police report. According to cops, the 19-year-old patron asked for more soy sauce after receiving his takeout order Sunday night at Dayton’s Dragon City eatery (pictured below). That request somehow triggered an argument between the teen and Allan Lin, a 40-year-old cashier. As detailed in a Dayton Police Department report, the patron, Munjed Milhem, said that Lin removed a handgun from a holster on his belt and jammed the weapon into his chest. Lin, Milhem said, was “yelling frantically” and waving his gun around. When cops arrived at the business, they seized a Smith & Wesson handgun and three full 12-round magazines from Lin (who had the gun and ammo attached to his belt). During questioning, Lin claimed that Milhem was “rude” and had yelled at him over the soy sauce. He added that the teenager threatened to have him “jumped.” In reply to that purported threat, Lin said that he told Milhem, “Go ahead and do it.” Lin also reportedly admitted pushing his gun into Milhem’s chest. Lin was arrested for aggravated menacing, a misdemeanor, and booked into the Montgomery County jail. According to his Facebook page, Milhem (seen at left) graduated last year from high school and now attends Wright State University in Dayton. (3 pages) |
A team of archaeologists has announced new discoveries unearthed at the archaeological site of the ancient city of Bosra, southern Syria. The team headed by Mr. Alaa al-Saleh uncovered several archeological finds dating back to Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman periods, while excavating an area near the Roman bathhouses in Bosra. “The finds include a channel made of basalt stones and parts of the western yard’s pillars, in addition to two clay-made lanterns dating back to the Byzantine area and a basin in front of the street which leads to the theatre,” said Mr. al-Saleh to the Syrian Arab News Agency. Archaeologists also found some traditional walls dating back to the Ottoman era. “The goal of the excavation works is to prepare the site for renovation and for receiving visitors and tourists,” explained Mr. al-Saleh. “The excavation project at the southern Roman bathhouses came within the Department’s plan for the last season to complete the excavation, which started in the previous seasons with the aim of discovering more about the bathhouses”, added Wafaa al-Audi, Director of Bosra’s Antiquities Department. The archaeological site of Bosra was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. It is famous for the well preserved Roman amphitheatre dating back to the second century CE, probably built under the Emperor Trajan. |
The government has a long history of warning of the dangers of video games. But video games as national security risk? That's the latest concern to come out of an impromptu investigation launched at Colorado Spring's Schriever Air Force Base. The investigation was kicked off after a base patrol questioned a visitor who was taking pictures near the base's 9/11 display, according to the Schriever Sentinel. It turns out the man was playing Ingress, the augmented reality game created by Google's Niantic Labs. In the game, players capture virtual portals located in real locations around the world using their smartphones. After digging into the basics of the game, a 50th Security Forces Squadron investigator shared his information with the base's special investigations office and then with security forces organizations at other bases in the area. The result, as of this month, is that Ingress and other geo-location games like it are banned from the base. Base personnel are prohibited from playing those games or from escorting anyone onto the base to play the game. Col Bill Liquori, 50th Space Wing Commander, told the base paper that the games can create operational security issues. The primary purpose of the 50th Space Wing is to track and maintain the country's military satellites. The 50th Space Wing also manages the Global Positioning System. Liquori told the paper that the nature of the game, which includes taking pictures, could creates an opportunity to "provide a cover for surveillance of a possible terrorist target." We've reached out to Schriever Air Force Base and Google to see how widespread the ban is on bases and what sort of impact it might have on Ingress and will update this story when they respond. Update: A Schriever Air Force Base official confirmed the ban, but said she didn't know if it extended to any other bases. |
In 1891, after the new bridge had spurred a boom along South Congress, the "Village of South Austin" was officially annexed to the city, which typically promised better public services and then failed to deliver. It was not until 1904 that South Austin would have a fire station, and not until 1914 that South Austin's water and sewer system was tied into the city's. And though the South Austin School was already overcrowded when the city schools took it over in 1892, the "chicken coop" was not replaced until 1910. That school, rebuilt and greatly expanded, is today's Fulmore Middle School. The school adjoined Charles Newning's Fairview Park subdivision, the second of three neighborhoods that compose what we now call "Travis Heights." Their stories are instructive. The first, the Swisher Addition, was first platted in 1877 on both sides of South Congress, which tells you just how unprepossessing a commercial drag the Avenue was before the new bridge. (The eastern half stretched around the School for the Deaf to then-unnamed South First Street, and has now been annexed to Bouldin.) Though the Swisher Addition, with its streets named for various Swishers (Monroe, Mary, Johanna, Eva, et cetera), and similar projects around it were never intended to be grand, downtown hopes for South Austin's fortunes were so high that many parcels were snapped up as investments by wealthy Austin families. When Charles Newning, the agent for a New York bank, came to town in 1878, he saw the need for an upscale, owner-occupied "garden suburb," of the type then trendy in the East, where those same families would actually live, and bought 200 acres northeast of the Swisher Addition for Fairview Park. Today, Fairview Park is the "rambling" part of Travis Heights - indeed, one of the streets was called "The Ramble" (it's now Park Lane), along with The Circle, which in Newning's plan was actually a circle. Newning envisioned large houses on large lots, installed the utility infrastructure himself, and divided his tract into irregular portions to accentuate each homesite's "picturesque" natural elements. This is all standard today, but at the time most subdivisions relied on standard grids with regular lots, left sidewalks and sewer hookups to the owners, and made no attempt at income segregation. For example, the Doughty Addition, a three-block development platted in 1890 east of Congress and south of the Swisher Addition, advertised thus: "Homes for the laboring men! No city taxes! Homes for the young couples! No city taxes! Elegant suburban places for active and retired business men! No city taxes!" (Two of the larger lots, intended for those business men, would later become Cinema West.) Still, by the time most of the lots were sold, the city taxes had arrived. Ultimately, Newning took a bath on Fairview Park, partly because the Austin gentry preferred neighborhoods that didn't require a river crossing - by 1900, the Congress Avenue bridge had become the state's most notorious traffic bottleneck, and would remain so until the erection of the Montopolis (1938) and Lamar (1941) bridges. That traffic was a boon to businesses along South Congress, which was in turn good for less pretentious neighborhoods like the Swisher Addition. But Newning's ambitions for an elegant enclave were doomed by the growth of the adjacent South Congress strip; it wouldn't be until the 1940s that Fairview Park, by that point substantially altered and downscaled, would be completely built out. It fell to Newning's partner, Gen. William Harwood Stacy, and later his sons Harwood and Gillespie Stacy, to create a successful uppity Southside neighborhood with Travis Heights proper. This was unquestionably the most heavily promoted neighborhood of its time, the Circle C Ranch of pre-WWII Austin, with ads in nearly every edition of the papers bearing the classic slogan: "Out of the Noise-Zone and Into the Ozone." The Stacys learned from Newning's mistake and equipped the Heights with a few small lots to accommodate selected members of the working class, along with some of Austin's first deed restrictions. "Travis Heights is restricted to good homes, good people, and strictly residence purposes," read one 1917 prospectus. "You are guaranteed against the encroachment of undesirable buildings, or disagreeable business or manufacturing enterprises. ... If you value your children's well being, get them a home of your own and get it quick ... as far away from business and the fever and sham of transient life as possible. Make it the center of their interests and pleasures, and the downtown attractions will never lay a strong hold upon them." City Within a City Of course, the Stacys' vision of suburban splendor would have gone nowhere were the "downtown attractions" not right across the river, easily accessible by foot, car, or streetcar, and clearly visible from the Heights. And while Travis Heights was quite the hit, it didn't lead to a wholesale boom along the South Shore. West of Congress remained a largely rural preserve until WWII, even though subdivisions like the Bouldin Addition (which, like Travis Heights, was only one segment of the neighborhood that bears the name today) were platted before WWI. Once you got as far west as the Fredericksburg Road (today's South Lamar Boulevard), the subdivisions themselves disappeared - except for Barton Heights, core of today's Zilker neighborhood. The corner of Riverside Drive and Alameda in 1917. Modern, glamorous, and heavenly promoted, Travis Heights was the Circle C Ranch of pre-Depression Austin. photograph Courtesy Austin History Center Pica 03303 These areas didn't really fill in until the First Street and Lamar bridges were erected, and as with South Congress, growth came first to the commercial corridors. Even before then, though, Austinites talked of a South Austin boom, especially when the last devastating Colorado flood of the pre-LCRA era, in June of 1935, laid waste to most of the low ground on the South Shore. "The business houses that were destroyed," noted the Statesman in 1936, "have been replaced by bigger, more attractive structures." Even amidst the boosterism, it was clear to the Statesman that "South Austin gradually is becoming a distinct community despite its importance as an integral part of the whole city." Following the Stacys' example in Travis Heights, developers emphasized the Southside's quietude and scenic isolation, even as the newly widened, paved, and straightened major corridors guaranteed it would remain quiet and isolated no longer. For example, South Congress used to dead-end into an addition called LaPrelle Place, near today's intersection with Oltorf. As late as 1930, LaPrelle Place was marketed as a Travis Heights-like garden suburb with all mod cons, including the ever-valuable city water service, but no city annoyances. But in 1934, the city got the state to pave and widen South Congress through LaPrelle Place, knocking out a substantial chunk of the development, to connect with the new San Antonio highway. Neglect Sets In The South Austin legend holds that city leaders have always neglected and shortchanged the Southside, but this alone doesn't explain the sluggish pace of growth. Additions in the north, much farther from downtown and with fewer amenities, filled in almost as fast as their developers could plat them, while projects like LaPrelle Place and Bouldin, more than 20 years old by the 1930s, were barely more than lines on a map. Even when the city did pour resources into South Austin - utilities, new roads, streetcar service, new schools, and parks - the area failed to move. For example, witness the saga of Zilker Park, especially through modern-day eyes. It's curious that, when "destination parks" were touted in the last bond package as a way to spur growth in specific areas, Zilker was cited as a precedent, when in fact the park's saga was quite different: The city built it out quickly, spent a lot of money on it, and still saw no great explosion of development nearby. When the city bought Barton Springs and more than 40 acres of surrounding property from Col. Andrew Jackson Zilker in 1917 for $100,000, it was already a popular attraction, and both the pool and the bathhouse were remodeled and expanded several times between then and the development of Zilker Park itself. None of this public investment and traffic had much effect on nearby property, though at least some city elders saw the Springs as a potential hub of an extensive tourist district à la Hot Springs, which is why they supported the purchase in the first place. Much land around the Springs was still owned by old man Zilker himself, who had made his fortune as Austin's leading ice merchant and then diversified into the brick business, for which purpose he had bought the clay pits that form most of today's park. By 1932, when the city came back asking to buy more land, Zilker - who never actually lived in South Austin - was rich and locally famous, a former president of the school board, and he decided to give the city his nearly 300 acres outright. Within 18 months, with the assistance of Depression-era work relief agencies, Zilker Park was opened to the public, on July 4, 1933, with elaborate amenities remarkable in scale for a city Austin's size. Again, civic leaders saw Zilker Park as not just an Austin public service but as a regional attraction that would transform the sleepy Southside. And again, much of the land around, and on the way to, Zilker Park was to remain sleepy for years and decades thereafter. Whether it was the Armadillo, the used-car lots and shanties replaced by Palmer Auditorium, the pecan grove that became Restaurant Row, or vacant lands and failed subdivisions that were eventually merged into the park, the whole Barton Springs corridor was dominated by what the planners call "marginal uses" until the modern era. Image Is Everything What does this all mean? The most plausible argument is that the long-running image of South Austin as a bucolic Bubba backwater, where Homo Austinus lives in his primitive state, has proved far more powerful than the facts on the ground, and has thus changed South Austin reality. And that can only really be explained if you concede that the image is at least partly self-defined - or self-inflicted, depending on your dreams. If the Northside and downtown elite were fixated on making South Austin part of a whole city, then who was it who pushed in the other direction? The Southsiders themselves, the literal and spiritual descendants of the Stacys' customers in Travis Heights who wanted to be separate and distinct. A typical weekend afternoon at Barton Springs in 1939. Co-ed bathing at the Springs was even at that late date seen as evidence of Austin's "permissiveness" compared to other Texas cities. photograph Courtesy Austin History Center Pica 1796 It's tempting to say that South Austinites have, after years of maltreatment, internalized their supposedly stigmatized status and made it a badge of pride, but the fact is, it's always been this way, from the pre-bridge Southside's self-identification as the "Brooklyn of Texas." By 1954, even the kids had gotten into it; in the first Travis High School yearbook, students thanked "the citizens and businesses of South Austin" for building the school, as if the rest of Austin's citizens and businesses played no part. And, of course, today we have "78704 - a way of life" bumper stickers, and semi-serious calls for South Austin secession, all rooted in the Southside's rebel-yell, home-with-the-Armadillo mystique. This is even true in neighborhoods like Barton Hills and Travis Heights, which have from their inception been as chichi and desirable (and jealously protective of their desirability) as any district north of the river. And the neighborhoods in between, while nowhere near as boutique, have never been any more po' than dozens of neighborhoods elsewhere in the city. Indeed, if there was ever a time when the Inner Southside was truly Bubba, it was fairly short-lived, and whatever the 78704 way of life is today, it doesn't have much to do with the South Austin stereotype of cheap rents, rednecks, and the widespread availability of alcohol and fried foods. But surely the self-spawned notion of South Austin as a separate place has lived long, and will die hard. Indeed, it has grown stronger even as the real-world South Austin becomes less and less distinctive. The Colorado River may have been tamed, but in the minds of Austinites it still runs wild, dramatically dividing the city in twain and continuing to carve the Southside landscape. |
Two hundred twenty nine. That was the number of private companies valued at a billion dollars or more—so-called “unicorns”—worldwide in January 2016, according to a report released by VentureBeat. The Wall Street Journal offered a more conservative estimate, but even there the overall trend was clear. In just two years, the number of unicorns worldwide had more than tripled, from 45 to 149. To prophets of doom and gloom, there was only one explanation for the unicorn explosion: Silicon Valley was in a bubble, and it was about to burst. In April, Benchmark’s Bill Gurley published a blog post claiming the unicorn financing market had become “dangerous … for all involved.” In May, the Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Mims suggested the end might have already begun. In June, San Francisco announced it was working on an “economic resiliency plan” to help the city survive the inevitable downturn. The whole tech world held its breath. And nothing happened. Sure, there were down rounds. Some old unicorns, like content company Mode Media, shut down entirely. The unicorn explosion slowed its pace, with only a few new companies earning that status. But it’s now 2017, and we’ve seen nothing like the collapse in startup valuations and consequent economic catastrophe that everyone’s been predicting. Here’s the thing: The collapse isn’t going to happen this year, either. Or next year. Or the next, or the next, or the next. That’s because, despite sky-high startup valuations, we actually aren’t in a bubble. Most of those valuations reflect actual value creation — a level of which we haven’t seen since the second Industrial Revolution. And as innovation accelerates, they’re only going to get bigger. To see why, we’ll need to take a trip into the economic past. Information technology as a “general purpose technology”: the third industrial revolution At the tail end of the 20th century, there was much puzzlement in economics circles over why the information technology (IT) revolution wasn’t doing much to accelerate productivity growth. In 1987, labor economist Robert Solow quipped that “you can see the computer age everywhere except in the productivity statistics.” The so-called “Solow paradox” was not what it seemed, however. Looking back to the first and second industrial revolutions, economic historians like Stanford’s Paul David were able to show that a slowdown in productivity growth after a major technological innovation was not a paradox but a sure sign that a revolution was occurring. Technological innovations that trigger changes on the scale of the first or second industrial revolutions are known in economic parlance as general purpose technologies (GPTs). General purpose technologies (GPTs) are special because via a single breakthrough they open the door to potential innovations across many, if not all, sectors of the economy. Steam was a GPT in the first industrial revolution and electricity was one in the second. And, as historians like David have argued, IT is the GPT in a third industrial revolution that is still occurring. The U.S. saw a slowdown in productivity growth occurred between 1890 and 1913, when electricity was just being introduced. This may have been due to the slow pace of factory electrification, as David has argued, or some other cause. But the end result is clear: After taking more than 20 years to reach full penetration, electrification suddenly set off an enormous acceleration of productivity growth for the next 15. If that acceleration hadn’t been cut short by the Great Depression, who knows how long it could have gone on. Evidence shows a similar pattern with the adoption of IT. Writing in 2005, Jovanovic and Rousseau dated the period of IT adoption as beginning in 1971, when Intel invented the microprocessor that would become the core of the first PCs. Almost immediately, productivity growth slowed as offices began taking baby steps into the PC revolution, only picking up again in the mid-1990s. Jovanovic and Rousseau predicted that if IT adoption was anything like electrification, the economy would continue to experience accelerating productivity growth through the first half of the 20th century. Here’s the thing, though: That massive productivity growth upswing hasn’t happened yet. After 2004, productivity growth slowed again. Which means that in 2016, we aren’t yet reaping the full benefits of the IT revolution. In fact, a completely different GPT revolution may be at hand. Will smartphones drive the fourth industrial revolution? According to a 2015 McKinsey Global Report, the U.S. economy’s use of technology is still only about 18 percent of its potential. Beyond Silicon Valley, many industries’ tech is stuck decades in the past. Air traffic control uses computer systems from the 1970s; the U.S. nuclear program is still run on floppy disks. We are nowhere close to reaping the benefits of the third industrial revolution yet. And yet, we may already be in the midst of a fourth — this one driven by smartphones and AI. An Economist special report notes that the post-2004 dip in productivity growth “seems to have coincided with an apparent acceleration in technological advances as the web and smartphones spread everywhere and machine intelligence and robotics made rapid progress.” In other words, we’re in for yet another wild ride. The Economist report goes on to blame the productivity-growth dip on the fact that globalization has opened up access to armies of cheap labor abroad and thus removed the incentive to invest in labor-saving devices at home, “trapp[ing] rich economies in a cycle of self-limiting productivity growth.” But as labor costs rise in China and other developing economies, the cycle is bound to break. When it does, we’ll see productivity growth accelerate again, perhaps extremely rapidly, as the gains of the fourth revolution will be piggybacking on the as-yet-unrealized gains of the third. It’ll be like nothing ever before seen. We don’t have to wait until then, however, to get a preview of how impactful the revolution will be. There are firms today that use existing technology to their full potential. They benefit from two main mechanisms that drive increasing returns: network effects and data effects. A network effect is where the value of your product increases as your consumer or user base increases (e.g. Uber, Facebook). A data effect is where the productivity of your R&D is an increasing function of your stock of consumer and/or user data (e.g. Google search). In both cases the leading firms are able to generate the fastest growth in productivity and market share. So the winners keep winning and pull far out ahead of the others. This what we’re seeing now. A recent Brookings Institute report found that these winning “frontier” firms saw productivity shoot up in 2001-2013, while the losing “non-frontier” firms’ productivity was nearly stagnant. In other words, the lagging productivity statistics in that period are concealing vast gains for companies that have fully implemented available technology. This is why, in 2016, we’re seeing such an enormous differential between the haves and the have-nots, the unicorns and the rest. Companies that embrace today’s tech fully are already seeing an unimaginable acceleration of productivity growth that has not reached the rest of the economy yet. When it does, those sky-high unicorn valuations will no longer seem noteworthy; instead, they’ll be par for the course. Whether companies IPO or stay private, GPTs drive an influx of capital There weren’t any unicorns when the second industrial revolution was just getting underway, but there was a stock market. Jovanovic and Rousseau note that the number of IPOs spiked in 1895, just five years after the introduction of electricity, and that IPOs continued to take up larger-than-usual market share for the duration of the GPT adoption period. In other words, investors were infusing new businesses based around the GPT with enormous amounts of cash, while incumbents faced with high adoption costs faltered. Though Jovanovic and Rousseau don’t point this out specifically, their numbers show that IPOs spiked again in 1920, a few years after productivity growth began accelerating again. In the case of IT adoption, Jovanovic and Rousseau note, the reaction was more delayed. True, IPOs steadily increased their percent share of stock market value beginning in about 1977, but there wasn’t a true spike in IPOs until the late 1990s, perhaps because IT adoption initially was even more expensive than electrification. Jovanovic and Rousseau argue that this delay means some of the impacts of IT adoption might be delayed compared to electrification — in other words, there is more yet to come. It’s possible that our glut of unicorns in 2014-2016 is the privately funded equivalent of the spike in IPOs in 1920. It’s a second wave of wealth creation happening now that the benefits of the IT revolution have largely taken root. Or it could be the equivalent of the IPO spike in 1895 — a sign of the beginning of another revolution. Either way, there are strong reasons to believe tech companies’ high valuations are here to stay. Online distribution tends to present the possibility of “increasing returns to scale.” This means that as technology-based firms grow large, their profit margins can expand rather than shrink — as is the case when diminishing returns to scale prevail. As a result, technology-based firms should trade at much higher valuation multiples than firms subject to diminishing returns. This is not fully appreciated by investors because increasing returns are still represented as an aberration in the textbooks and financial analysts still model earnings growth on the assumption of diminishing returns. But it is yet another reason the unicorn explosion is not, necessarily, the sign of a bubble but of a revolution. [This story was written with contribution from the Hippo Thinks research network.] Erik Rannala is Cofounder and Managing Partner of Los Angeles-based Mucker Capital. |
A patch is coming to Overwatch that could change the experience considerably on console. Blizzard is finally doing something about thumbstick acceleration. Overwatch is getting a new mode of control for thumbsticks. The old mode will still be there, so if you like it you can stick with it, but it will no longer be the default mode. The new default mode will be Dual-Zone mode. Here is Blizzard's explanation of it: "The vast majority of the thumbstick's range moves with reduced sensitivity and relatively high acceleration. However, when the thumbstick crosses to the outer 10 per cent of its range, it will move with high sensitivity and relatively low acceleration. "This mode will allow for more precise aiming, while still allowing players to turn around quickly." The old mode is known as the Exponential Ramp mode. For reference, here is Blizzard's explanation of it: "As the thumbstick moves toward the outside of its range, the sensitivity is ramped up exponentially. The acceleration remains relatively high throughout." The Overwatch patch that introduces the new mode is on the PC Public Test Region now, which isn't much use to console gamers (who don't have a PTR). The patch notes say many of these changes "will also be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in a future patch", and given that this change is specifically for controllers, I imagine it will make the cut. There's no ETA on the patch's arrival but Tuesdays - as in, tomorrow - are usually a safe bet. With the new thumbstick acceleration mode, Blizzard will have addressed the major gripes players had with Overwatch console controls - the other being aim-assist. It's a good indication to the console community that Blizzard is listening. |
Bad news, guys: everyone's favorite large-haired ghost whisperer with a reality television program may not actually possess the ability to whisper to ghosts. According to fraud whistleblower (alternative title: professional party-pooper) Ron Tebo, Theresa Caputo — medium, dog owner, author of You Can't Make This Stuff Up — is, in fact, making this stuff up. Tebo says he's been interviewing Caputo's clients and associates for over a year — which is, like, a really long time to hold a professional grudge against a TV medium — and accuses her of various forms of trickery, including cold reading, purposely asking vague leading questions, and having her employees run background checks on ticket-holders at her events "to guarantee a catch." Here are some testimonies from disappointed attendees at her events: "She seemed off and almost every reading was like pulling teeth to match up info. She was really grasping at straws and did a lot of 'fishing,'"; "Some [readings] were just off the mark"; "There were three levels of seating and 2,500 people in attendance [and] Teresa spent the whole time on the first floor." Advertisement As someone who once went on a brief but passionate Long Island Medium bender and shed copious amounts of tears throughout, this is v. disappointing for me. This world is a cruel place with definitely not enough ghosts in it. (Also, on a more serious note: it's horrible to take advantage of grieving people like that!!!!!) [Radar] Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement Charlize Theron went to Pinkberry and realized after she had received her yogurt treat that she'd forgotten her wallet. Stars: they're just like us! Ha ha, just kidding; they are not — she came back later with Sean Penn and an $100 bill, leaving a $96 tip. [Just Jared] Advertisement Following the controversy around his ill-advised decision to wear a Native American headdress on the cover of Elle UK, Pharrell has issued an apology: "I respect and honor every kind of race, background and culture. I am genuinely sorry." [NY Daily News] |
From the Washington Post: By Max Ehrenfreund and Denise Lu Jan. 27, 2016 The number of homicides in the country’s 50 largest cities rose nearly 17 percent last year, the greatest increase in lethal violence in a quarter century. A Wonkblog analysis of preliminary crime data found that about 770 more people were killed in major cities last year than the year before, the worst annual change since 1990. The killings increased as some law enforcement officials and conservative commentators were warning that violent crime was on the rise amid a climate of hostility toward police. They said protests and intense scrutiny of officers who used lethal force had caused officers to become disengaged from their jobs, making streets more dangerous. Some have called it the “Ferguson effect,” after the St. Louis suburb in which Michael Brown Jr. was shot and killed by a police officer in 2014. |
shocking 4 year old allegedly murdered for scratching shop counter New Delhi: In a shocking incident from Geeta colony area, a 4-year-old boy was allegedly murdered by a baker and his brother for scratching the counter of their bakery shop. The duo thrashed the minor brutally and then locked him inside a rack of the counter to teach him a lesson. Later the child succumbed to injuries. Delhi police on Saturday arrested the accused Mohammed Illyas and his brother Mohammed Ikrar for the alleged murder. According to police, “Ilyas slapped him so hard that the child fell unconscious and sustained serious injuries on his head.” Soon after the incident he locked the child in a rack of the counter where he succumbed to injuries. A police official told that when he found out that the child had died, Ilyas and his brother Ikrar duped the body at an abandoned place. The minor's body was found disposed near an abandoned site in Geeta colony inside a gunny sack on Thursday, a day after he went missing from outside his house. During investigation, it was found that the child was last seen near the bakery. The bakery owners, Mohd Iliyas and Mohd Ikrar, were apprehended by the police for questioning. |
Lack of transparency in political funding had been the proverbial elephant in the room in the Modi government’s attempts to seek political credit for crackdown on black money after the demonetisation exercise on 8 November, 2016. Union finance minister Arun Jaitley tried to address this in the 2017 Budget with two major announcements—reduction of upper limit for political parties receiving anonymous cash donations from Rs20,000 to Rs2,000, and a proposal to float electoral bonds. While the government deserves credit for bringing the agenda of political funding on the table, would these announcements be effective in addressing the issue at hand? According to a report released by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), around three-fourth of the total income of national parties (BJP, INC, BSP, NCP, CPI and CPM) between FY2004-05 and FY 2014-15 was from unknown sources. The ADR gives a three-category classification for sources of income for political parties: unknown sources, known sources and other known sources. Known sources are those where details of donors who have made contributions above Rs20,000 are given. Other known sources of income include sale of moveable & immoveable assets, old newspapers, membership fees, delegate fee, bank interest, sale of publications and levy whose details would be available in the books of accounts maintained by political parties. The unknown source category has no information whatsoever about the donors. While regional parties have a higher percentage share of anonymous political funding in their total income, big parties got bulk of the money in actual terms. The Congress, which was in power for most of this period, had the highest income from unknown sources. There is little doubt about the fact that the bulk of money which is shown as received under unknown source category constitutes of black money. What vitiates matters even more is the fact that political parties themselves are suspected of fudging their accounts. 41 out of 51 political parties covered in the ADR report cited above had not submitted their income tax return for at least one year between FY 2004-05 and FY 2014-15. Even when returns are filed, parties’ refusal to allow independent audits allows them to get away with bungling in their accounts. A cursory examination of election expenditure accounts for 2014 Lok Sabha elections submitted by some major parties buttresses these apprehensions. For example, BJP’s central headquarters claimed that it did not even spend one rupee in cash in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Even other political parties report very low cash expenditure. Claims of such low cash expenditure in a mass exercise like elections seem fishy, to put it mildly. Contrast this fact with the popular notion that demonetisation was going to create difficulties for political parties by making their hoarded cash useless! It needs to be kept in mind that the money which has been discussed above does not include the amount spent by individual candidates in their constituencies. While the official limit for spending in a Lok Sabha constituency is ₹ 70 lakh, it is an open secret that candidates spend way above these limits. The election commission seized ₹ 331 crore in cash during the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow at the South Asia Programme at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, has dealt with the question of criminality and dirty money in Indian politics in detail in his latest book When Crime Pays. We reproduce here one chart from Vaishnav’s book which shows that probability of a winning elections for a candidate increases with wealth and criminal background. The figures are based on analysis of “nearly all state legislative candidates seeking office between 2003 and 2009". It is unlikely that just reducing the upper limit for accepting anonymous donations from ₹ 20,000 to ₹ 2,000 is going to put an end to this large-scale malfeasance in political funding. As far as the scheme for electoral bonds is concerned, it would work on the principle of willing donors purchasing these bonds from a bank which would only be redeemable in designated account of a registered political party. These bonds can be useful for somebody who wants to donate money to a political party while retaining his/her anonymity. However, those who route unaccounted income to political parties would have little incentive to use this option as it would leave a money trail on their end, making them vulnerable to tax queries. It would be naive to assume that black money based political funding is only a preserve of those who operate locally. An earlier Plain Facts column had discussed how shady deals involving areas such as extraction of natural resource extraction first created an economic boom and then plagued the Indian economy into a policy paralysis during the reign of UPA-II government. It is very likely that such deals would have involved illicit money changing hands between big business and politicians. In another jointly authored article, Vaishnav has argued that the overarching control of state allocation of various resources creates a natural basis for collusion between politicians and businessmen. While there is a lot of merit in this argument (think of scams such as 2G and Coalgate), reducing state discretion is unlikely to act as a silver bullet in dealing with dirty money and corruption in politics. The US, where the state has much less discretionary powers compared to India, and lobbying disclosure regulations are much more strict, was not very different in terms of public perception of corruption among politicians and political parties, showed a survey by corruption watchdog Transparency International in 2013. Transparency in political funding can only be achieved by a two-way overhaul of the existing system. Political parties must be mandated to make complete disclosures on every bit of funding and allow for independent audit of their accounts. It is the non-transparency in explaining the source of their income which encourages political parties to field candidates with criminal background, who bring with them deeper pockets. At the same time, the electorate also has to be given incentives to not support politicians with murky backgrounds. An even more disconcerting finding from Vaishnav’s book is that voters are willing to vote for criminal candidates despite being aware of their criminal links, as they can help in getting things done in a society where democratic, social and economic change has outpaced governance and created a vacuum of authority. Unless this changes, transparency would achieve little to clean political funding. The short point is, surgical strikes would not take us far in dealing with the cancer of dirty money in politics. It requires a full-blown war. |
You should be able to drink at midnight on the day before you are 21 because by law you are 21 on the day before your 21st birthday. The only exception would be if the state has a statute that specifically states that you are not allowed to drink until your "21st birthday" as opposed to being "21 years of age." There are two legal maxims at work here. One is "A day begun is a day done." The other, very similar, is "The law does not recognize a part of a day." If a person is born on January 1 he is in existence for the whole day even if he was born at 11:59:59 p.m. Then as soon as soon December 31 begins, at midnight between the 30th and 31st, he has been in existence for 365 days. One year. So he is one year old on the day before his birthday. A person does not need to be in existence for 365 24 hour periods to be a year old, otherwise we would all have our time of birth as well as out date of birth on our licenses. That's the point about the law not recognizing parts of a day. There are cases in most states to this effect: Nelson v. Sandkamp, 227 Minnesota Reporter 177; Commonwealth v. Howe, 35 Pennsylvania Superior Court 554; Lenhart v. State, 33 Texas Criminal Reporter 504; State in interest of F. W., 130 NJ Superior Court Reports 512. These are not drinking age cases but the principle still applies. The Federal view as to turning of age is the same. See Turnbull v. Bonkowski, 419 F. 2d 104. This is how the court explained it: "Since one is in existence on the day of his birth, he is, in fact, on the first anniversary of his birth, of the age of one year plus a day or some part of a day. The appellant did, then, reach the age of nineteen years on the day before the nineteenth anniversary of his birth,. . . ' At common law the rule was the same. This is what that legal scholar Blackstone said "Full age in male or female is 21 years, which is completed on the day preceding the 21st anniversary of a person's birth." 1 Blackstone's Commentary 457. This is how lawyers and judges have viewed the issue, but you might not be able to convince a bartender of the accuracy of this answer. I hesitate to advise printing this answer and giving it to a bartender (even with all the WikiAnswers adornments). The bartender might just think you've already been drinking and escort you to the door. So you can have a drink at midnight on the day before your 21st birthday, but if you do, drink responsibly. And don't drive afterward. 8 people found this useful |
As it turns out, “The Two Kids That Blow ... Up” at the Lounge Theatre isn’t nearly as explosive as its expletive-laden title might suggest. Tracing three decades in the complicated relationship between two Asian American urbanites struggling to find their place in the world, Carla Ching’s play impresses most with its delicacy of feeling. The result is a consistently engaging, deftly staged debut from the L.A. theater collective Artists at Play. SIGN UP for the free Essential Arts & Culture newsletter » As Diana and Max, the troubled step-siblings referenced in the title, Julia Cho and Nelson Lee skillfully chart their characters’ lives from childhood through middle age. We first see them at age 38 in an awkward barroom reunion following years of estrangement, followed by a flashback to their early encounter as 9-year-olds playing in the snow while her father and his mother are having sex — an affair that eventually leads to the parents’ marriage and the union of their families. In nonlinear sequence, subsequent scenes leapfrog between turning points in the characters’ teens, 20s and 30s before cycling back to the opening exchange as they contemplate the mess their lives have turned out to be. The combustible chemistry between rebellious artist Diana and compliant Max is touching in its vulnerability — the only stuff these kids manage to blow up are their opportunities for happiness. The fractured chronology adds more complexity than Ching’s narrative warrants, though director Jeremy Lelliott helpfully includes voice-overs announcing the characters’ precise age at the start of each scene, and quickly exchanged costumes by Emily Brown-Kucera and Rachel Stivers add a visual assist. Nevertheless, the heavy lifting falls to the skillful versatility with which Cho and Lee pivot into different stages of life. With absolute conviction, they evoke the characters’ deep-rooted caring and unwavering commitment to being truthful with each other no matter what the cost. Lee has landed a film gig, and the company’s decision to end the run this week, earlier than planned, is unfortunate but understandable. There’s no plug-and-play substitution for a cast dynamic with emotional bonds this palpable. ------------ “The Two Kids That Blow … Up,” the Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Ends Sunday. $20-$32. On the web. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes. Follow The Times’ arts team @culturemonster. ALSO Frida Kahlo meets John Coltrane in electric dance homage A 24-room labyrinth in Boyle Heights is a custom scare experience In this 'Next to Normal,' the message is loud but not clear |
Zack & Adam are joined by the writer of the upcoming X-Men Gold Annual, Leah Williams to talk about Excalibur’s 30th Anniversary, how long it took to come up with the best opening line in comics this year, the recent revelations about CB Cebulski, and most importantly, Maggott. This is a Maggott heavy episode people. Get hype! Check out the Battle of the Atom Master Ranking List! New content every week on XavierFiles.com Follow Zack and Adam on Twitter @Xavier Files and @arthurstacy! Our theme music is Junk Factory from the X-Men Arcade Game by Seiichi Fukami, Yuji Takenouchi, Junya Nakano, and Ayako Hashimoto. Cover art is by Adam Reck after Dave Cockrum If you want to support the show make sure you rate and review the show or check out our Patreon! Liked it? Take a second to support Zachary Jenkins on Patreon! |
Smuggler's Den Gold Meld Chase! By The Senate on 2016-02-26 23:00:00 For the next seven days, we're dropping one Gold Card a day! Each card will be available for 24-hours. The first card of the week is Lor San Tekka! If you are able to meld the six daily Gold cards, the seventh card will have a one-time offer at 100 White cards! If not, the number of White cards for the seventh card will increase! If you miss a day, don't worry! We'll offer a new bundle each day that will get you back into the meld chase! The seventh and final card for this week's chase will be Kylo Ren! We're dropping two packs with only White Base Series 3 cards... The X-wing White Base Pack will contain 10 White cards. Find it in the Cantina! The X-wing White Master Pack will be in the Master Access store and contain 10 White cards as well, but with ONE guaranteed 2016 Base White card of that day's character! Good luck, traders! Head to the Cantina! |
Donald Trump was doing the media rounds again this morning. And naturally the media was eating it up. If Trump actually does run for president at some point he will be required to disclose his finances, something many assume he'd be hesitant to do since they might reveal he is not quite the financial success he has lead the public to believe he is. On GMA today he hedged when asked if he'd release his tax returns along with the details of his finances. "Maybe I'm going to do the tax returns when Obama does his birth certificate…I'd love to give my tax returns. I may tie my tax returns into Obama's birth certificate." Then he accused George Stephanopoulos of having been "co-opted" when he expressed skepticism about Trumps birth certificate claims. Good morning America. Video below. |
OAKLAND — Warriors executive board member Jerry West has agreed to a two-year extension with the team through the 2016-17 season, an NBA source confirmed to this newspaper Wednesday. West had one year remaining on his original deal with the team, and this new deal will be tacked on for a total of a three-year commitment from this point. This move, coupled with the new deal for general manager Bob Myers through the 2017-18 season, puts a bow on co-owner Joe Lacob’s desire to keep his front office together for the long term as the team gets set to move into a San Francisco arena by 2018. West, 76, had told associates recently that he was thinking about retiring for good, especially after the chaos of the Warriors’ 51-win season and subsequent firing of coach Mark Jackson. But West also told friends that he remains passionately interested in making the Warriors a title contender. Jackson and West were on chilly terms through most of last season. But team sources say the decision to move on from Jackson was made by Lacob and Myers. According to multiple sources, West, along with coach Steve Kerr, was a leading voice in the team’s decision this summer not to put Klay Thompson into any trade offer for Kevin Love, who has since been traded from Minnesota to Cleveland. But that final decision also was made by Lacob and Myers, and the process, while at times heated, was exactly the way Lacob wants his front office to work. West joined the Warriors’ executive board as a part-owner in May 2011, and his contract was due to expire at the end of this coming season. West, a Hall of Famer, also has had a large role in the Warriors’ quest to line up sponsors and build support for their move to San Francisco. As the Los Angeles Lakers’ main decision-maker, West helped craft two championship runs, one featuring Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and another featuring Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. |
Bruce Irvin has been a pleasant surprise as a pass rusher, but there are doubts about his ability as a complete end. (Kevin Casey/Getty Images) "This is Bruce (Irvin)’s opportunity. It’s what we drafted him to play. We’ll see how he does. We expect him to really play well as he steps up." Those are the words of Seattle head coach Pete Carroll from Monday, when he announced that standout defensive end Chris Clemons would miss the remainder of the playoffs with an ACL injury. The next man up is Irvin, a rookie out of West Virginia, who was a surprise pick at No. 15 overall during last April's draft. You can dig a little deeper into what a Clemons-for-Irvin switch on the Seattle line might mean for Irvin here. But what does that change-up do to the Seattle defense? And how might Atlanta be able to attack a Clemons-less front, in this weekend's NFC divisional round playoff game? The latest "Break It Down" tackles those questions ... Let's start with the basics: Here's a look at how the Seahawks lined up against the Redskins on the play that saw Clemons injure his knee. It was a 3rd-and-5 (a passing situation), so Clemons lined up on the right (red X), with Irvin (No. 51) at left end. Clinton McDonald (No. 69) and Greg Scruggs (No. 98) filled the inside spots. The players filling those tackle roles varied -- Brandon Mebane and Alan Branch saw plenty of action in pass-rushing situation, too -- but that, generally, is how the Seahawks tried to pair Clemons and Irvin. The benefit was that Pete Carroll could pick his spots with his athletic rookie, allowing him to do what he does best, which is get upfield on passing plays (Irvin's the X on the right in the photo below). Right after Clemons first went down Sunday, the Seahawks slid Irvin to his spot at right end. Immediately, the Redskins attacked that spot with a toss play that direction. Washington had a lot of success attacking opposite Clemons' spot on the line early, using the toss to Alfred Morris. With Clemons sidelined, Washington tested the waters off the other edge. Irvin has the X above. The Redskins started in their pistol look, with Darrell Young as a fullback and Morris behind Robert Griffin III. Tight end Logan Paulsen helped to seal the edge, where Morris headed. As for Irvin ... That's not so good. Matched up against left tackle Trent Williams, Irvin wound up being driven almost to the sideline, as Morris slipped inside him for a solid six-yard gain. This highlights the red flags for Irvin as an every-down player -- he has played only sparingly against the run this season and, while his sleek frame benefits him when he's pass rushing, it's a detraction on the ground. Now, how much of a problem will that be against Atlanta? Probably not as big a one as it could be against, say, San Francisco -- a team that prides itself on having a power run game. That said, Atlanta will still try to establish both Michael Turner and Jacquizz Rodgers. The Falcons' talented offensive tackle duo of Tyson Clabo and Sam Baker might make life difficult for Irvin and the Seahawks' front, too. After Irvin's initial difficulties on the right side of the defensive line, the Seahawks opted to move him back to his normal spot on the left -- here, on a 3rd-and-11, with Seattle using just a three-man line (Irvin, McDonald and Scruggs) and blitzing LB Bobby Wagner (No. 54). Will Seattle continue to use Irvin off the left edge this coming Sunday? Carroll said only that Irvin will start at the "Leo" spot -- a position in Carroll's defense reserved for a fast rusher, almost like a 3-4 outside linebacker. Irvin, as mentioned, has done a lot of his work from left end, but will the Seahawks try to play the matchups? Playing Irvin on the left means he'll deal with Clabo; on the right is Baker. Neither is a slouch, but Clabo, a 2010 Pro Bowler, may be the stiffer test of the two. The Falcons have had more success running the football behind Clabo, as well. According to Pro Football Focus, Atlanta averaged 4.8 yards per carry on run plays behind or wider than the right tackle spot (Clabo's); that number was 3.3 on similar carries the other direction. Clabo is more than capable of clearing space in the run game, as evidenced by the shot below, which shows Clabo clearing New Orleans' Cam Jordan as fullback Mike Cox eliminates Jonathan Vilma. One of the benefits for the Seahawks of keeping Irvin at left end is that it puts him in better position to deal with rollouts or scrambles -- Matt Ryan, as a righty, would prefer to head that direction for a pass outside the pocket. An Irvin sack of Griffin Sunday showed exactly why he's so lethal to the QB's throwing side. Washington lined up in the I, then motioned receiver Josh Morgan in behind the line. Morgan kept coming and tried to chop Irvin, as Griffin faked a handoff and rolled to his right. Irvin hopped over the Morgan block attempt, only to find Young waiting for him as a last line of RGIII protection. Irvin also managed to shed that block, then took down Griffin. Granted, a more mobile Griffin might have taken off (this play was the one that preceded Griffin's knee injury), but Irvin still showed off his incredible talents ... and Matt Ryan is not necessarily a scrambling quarterback. Here, for example, on a play against the Giants, Clabo wiped out Jason Pierre-Paul, giving Ryan a clear (and gaping) lane through which to scramble. Instead, Ryan slid a couple steps to his left, away from the Pierre-Paul rush, and fired downfield. No matter which side Irvin lines up on (or what Seattle chooses to do on the other end), the Falcons will vary their protections to add a little extra help for Matt Ryan. On the 3rd-and-9 below, Atlanta started with Ryan in the shotgun and Rodgers to his right. The Falcons then motioned Jason Snelling in to Ryan's left, giving the Atlanta QB a split-RB look in the backfield. Both Rodgers and Snelling then chipped the DE on their respective sides of the field, before releasing into pass patterns. There is little question that Atlanta will try to test Irvin early, especially in the run game. If he cannot hold up there, the Falcons might use more or Turner and Rodgers until the Seahawks counter. And in the passing game, Atlanta will have multiple options: rolling the pocket from Irvin, using a back to help block him, just letting Clabo or Baker go one-on-one. Because of that, not only does Irvin need to deliver a terrific performance Sunday, but so too does the rest of Seattle's line. Remember, not only is Irvin taking Clemons' spot in the lineup, but some other Seahawks player (Red Bryant, Scruggs, etc.) has to then fill Irvin's pass-rushing shoes in long-yardage spots. |
Academics usually do not talk about “tactics.” There are theories, methods, critiques, but we -as professionals-rarely feel comfortable advocating for something as unstable or open to interpretation as a tactic. In the latest edition of the Science, Technology, and Human Values (The flagship journal for Society for Social Studies of Science) three authors threw caution to the wind and published the paper “Postcolonial Computing: A Tactical Survey” [over-priced subscription required]. While the content of the paper is excellent, what excited me the most was their decision to describe their new “bag of tools” as a set of tactics. Kavita Philip, Lilly Irani, and Paul Dourish take a moment in their conclusion to reflect on their decision: We call our results tactics, rather than methodologies, strategies, or universal guarantors of truth. Tactics lead not to the true or final design solution but to the contingent and collaborative construction of other narratives. These other narratives remain partial and approximate, but they are irrevocably opened up to problematization. I will employ the language and approach of the “tactical survey” to offer a new set of conceptual tools for understanding augmented protest and revolution. It is my aim that they prove useful for activists as well as academics and journalists following Occupy Wall Street and similar movements. This first part focuses on the intersections of transparency, social media, privilege, and public depictions of protest. Part 2 will cover the utilization of corporate technological systems (e.g. Apple products, Twitter) and building alternatives to those systems (e.g. Vibe, Diaspora). These tactics are forged from observations (first hand and otherwise) of the #OWS movement. They are intentionally abstract, because they are menat to apply to a wide range of instances and scenarios. Diversity of Tactics and the limitations of sousveillance Last Monday, Chris Hedges posted a scathing critique of the black bloc tactics exercised in Oakland and New York. He describes black bloc tactics as “The Cancer in Occupy” (that is also the title of the piece) and calls on the occupy movement as a whole to oppose and denounce “black bloc anarchists.” Hedges characterizes black blocs as “…an inchoate rage to be unleashed on any target. Pity, compassion and tenderness are banished for the intoxication of power. It is the same sickness that fuels the swarms of police who pepper-spray and beat peaceful demonstrators. It is the sickness of soldiers in war. It turns human beings into beasts.” The anarchist community has replied to Hedges’ piece with equal parts anger and resolve. Anthropologist, black bloc veteran, and anarchist scholar Dr. David Graeber wrote a reply in n+1 magazine where he expressed concern that Hedge’s article had the capacity to do much more harm than any “black-clad teenager throwing rocks.” The message is dangerous, according to Graeber, because it destroys important lines of communication among activists. Graeber explains, … “diversity of tactics” means leaving such matters up to individual conscience, rather than imposing a code on anyone. Partly,this is because imposing such a code invariably backfires. In practice, it means some groups break off in indignation and do even more militant things than they would have otherwise, without coordinating with anyone else—as happened, for instance, in Seattle. Hedges and many others seem to think that recording and disseminating unjustified acts of police violence can win the war of words. That black bloc tactics muddy the message and give the media an excuse to call a protest a mob. This is simply not the case: Sometimes, with the help of social media, we can demonstrate that particular police attacks were absolutely unjustified, as with the famous Tony Bologna pepper-spray incident. But we cannot by definition prove all police attacks were unjustified, even all attacks at one particular march; it’s simply physically impossible to film every thing that happens from every possible angle all the time. Therefore we can expect that whatever we do, the media will dutifully report “protesters engaged in clashes with police” rather than “police attacked non-violent protesters.” I have written on the power of sousveillance in the past, but must agree that there are limitations to its efficacy in the national context. Graeber is quick to note that the images of civil rights protestors getting blasted with fire hoses were recognized as police violence mainly because “Americans at the time didn’t view the Deep South as part of the same country.” Nathan Jurgenson has written in the Atlantic on the delicate balance between transparency and anonymity in the Occupy movements. Dissemination of information by the likes of Tim Pool and others have forced tough truths into the spotlight, but his reporting must still compete in a national conversation with the likes of Fox News and other forms of corporate media. When raw footage is broadly available, it is interpreted through previously held beliefs and ideologies. For example, when I blogged for Occupy Albany, many conservative commenters pointed to arrest records as evidence of violent protest tactics, not police brutality or selective enforcement. Cognitive scientists have a term for this- confirmation bias. Tactic 1: Social media is an extremely powerful tool, but should not be treated as a panacea for corporate, ideologically-driven media coverage. Images and data conveyed via social media can challenge previously held beliefs, but are also subject to the effects of confirmation bias. This means the principles of transparency, privacy, and nonviolence, are a double-edged sword for activists and their causes. Consider these principles in relation to one another, in various dimensions. The Privilege of Inviting Transparency This blog frequently revisits the topic of privacy on the internet. Most mainstream coverage of privacy fails to describe what privacy actually looks like, and what it is supposed to accomplish. If a particularly gregarious Facebook user shares everything about themselves, but deletes the content after a few hours, is that an example of privacy or transparency? In the aforementioned Atlantic article, it is obvious that there is no universal boundaries for privacy and transparency. Transparency, as an ideal, is a function of several extrinsic factors that include but are not limited to: the privileged status of those being recorded; the likelihood that the means of a certain tactic will play into existing narratives or stereotypes; and/or the desire for a “safe space” where sensitive issues are discussed. Within occupations, issues of transparency and privacy are often embedded within larger discussions of what it takes to create safe spaces for specific conversations and actions. Occupations frequently establish caucuses for people of color, women, LGBT communities, the homeless, and even self-described political radicals. These are places where those who share a common affinity can organize and call out occupations for their own acts of privilege or unintended racism classism, or sexism. These are platforms for internally dealing with the kinds of structural prejudice that all mass movements must deal with. In order for caucuses to function, they cannot put all of their meetings on ustream or even necessarily announce where and when they are meeting. Caucuses frequently deal with allegations of separatism and reverse racism. Such accusations often do more to derail important conversations all-together, rather than confronting intricate problems with well thought-out arguments made in the confidence of like-minded others. Tactic 2: Notions of transparency and privacy are not only constantly evolving, they are also a function of privilege, tactics, and expected reception by an imagined audience. Universal concepts or policies of transparency and privacy are often detrimental to or discount the experiences of historically disadvantaged groups. Always consider the subject and imagined audiences of recorded and widely disseminated images and text. Conclusion Whenever a Ustream goes live from a news-studio-in-a-backpack, or a critique of tactics and ideology goes out on the web, the researcher or reflexive activist should begin looking for or considering the effects of- confirmation biases of imagined or intended audiences; concepts of transparency held by the subject; privacy as a function of withholding information from certain people or for a certain time subjects’ histories of privilege and structural discrimination; Next week I will be discussing the roll of large technical systems (LTSs) in communication and organization. More specifically, I will consider the embedded hierarchy and labor organization within LTSs and in what ways they impede horizontal organization. From there, I will consider methods of appropriation and alternative pathways. |
Nationals recall OF Matt den Dekker, place 1B Ryan Zimmerman on DL Nationals Communications Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jun 11, 2015 The Washington Nationals recalled outfielder Matt den Dekker from Triple-A Syracuse on Thursday and placed first baseman Ryan Zimmerman on the 15-day disabled list with left foot plantar fasciitis. den Dekker, 27, joins the Nationals for the third time this season. A member of the Nationals’ Opening Day roster, den Dekker appeared in four games for the Major League team, going 0-for-2 in two at-bats off the bench. He was also added last week as the 26th man for the nightcap in the Nationals’ doubleheader split with Toronto, but he did not appear in the game. In 47 games for Triple-A Syracuse this season den Dekker has hit .234 (41-for-175) with seven doubles, two home runs, 20 RBI, 16 walks and eight stolen bases. Acquired from the New York Mets on March 30 in exchange for left-handed pitcher Jerry Blevins, den Dekker is a career .236 hitter with a .322 on-base percentage. He’s hit 12 doubles, one home run and 11 stolen bases in 84 Major League games (212 at-bats). Zimmerman, 30, is hitting .209 with a .265 on-base percentage and a .346 slugging percentage through 56 games this season. He’s clubbed 12 doubles, one triple, five home runs, and driven in 34 runs. |
Scientists and politicians on both sides of the climate change debate have been pointing to the record-breaking snowstorms in the Mid-Atlantic states to promote their theories on the earth's changing temperatures -- and the debate is getting downright nasty. Joseph Romm, a climate change expert and former Energy Department official; Jeff Masters, a meteorologist who writes on the Weather Underground blog; and others argue that this winter's snowstorms are, counterintuitively, evidence of global warming and not cooling. "It's absurd for the 'anti-science side' to say we're in a cooling trend when we're in an overall warming trend," says Romm of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. "Heavy snow is not evidence that climate science is false," he added, noting that "the snow we've seen is entirely consistent with global warming theory." But Patrick J. Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and state climatologist for Virginia for 27 years, disagrees. "Global warming simply hasn't done a darned thing to Washington's snow," he wrote on National Review, adding that "if you plot out year-to-year snow around here, you'll see no trend whatsoever through the entire history." Politicians are jumping on the bandwagon, too. "It's going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries 'uncle,'" tweeted Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. Global warming advocates feel under attack as skeptics use the record-setting snowstorms -- and the recent discoveries of errors in the U.N.'s climate science study, a growing scandal called climate-gate -- to question the theory that climate change is a manmade problem. Romm explains that cold weather doesn't cause snow. What brings the flakes down is a combination of cold and precipitation. And since warmer air holds more moisture, global warming and heavy snowfall can coexist, so long as temperatures keeping dipping below 32 degrees. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, agrees, going so far as to tell MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that scientists who doubt climate change's manmade origins are unpatriotic. "If you want to get serious about it, these guys claiming that the snow in Washington disproves climate change are almost unpatriotic -- it's as if they're denying science," Nye said. And though the science debate heats up, unlike the weather, the snowstorms have set off even more questions: Why is the East Coast getting hit, while Vancouver needs to truck in snow for the Winter Olympics? Can we accurately link extreme weather with global warming? Not really, says meteorologist Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, an independent forecaster. "You can't take regional events and link them to overall climate change," he said. "There's a huge amount of natural variance." But some skeptics say the science isn't that innocent, even though they acknowledge global warming as a measurable anomaly. "As climate change critics, we're not denying an increase in temperature," says Dan Miller, publisher of the Heartland Institute, a group that favors free-market solutions to public policy problems. "We're skeptical of the crisis level and the cause." Miller says climate-change scientists have a conflict of interest, as many stand to receive "a huge amount of money" from the government to support continued research. "There is no upper limit of money at stake," he warns. Conversely, Miller says his firm is impartial, having no financial investment in climate change; it would lose a mere 4 percent of its funding if it ends up on the wrong side of the debate. "There's no money at stake for critics," he points out. Masters says in a perfect world he'd need "200-300 years worth of records" to accurately predict further climate change. But since that's not available, "We're forced to make decisions on a limited data set." Nevertheless, Masters feels the possible dangers of global warming outweigh the risks of remaining idle. "We need to take action even in the face of inadequate data," he says. Miller disagrees, arguing that we should collectively return to the drawing board -- in light of all the controversy, confusion, and potential conflicts of interest -- before we draw any conclusions. "The science isn't settled," he says. "Yes, the climate has warmed -- that's not a hoax. But can't we go back and reconsider the science? Let's just step back and reconsider." |
Moving Day April 14th – 16th 2016 From cardboard boxes to missing shoes and found treasures, Moving Day brims with change, memories, and excitement. If you love the circus, incredible costumes, and wild set design, grab your tickets to this memorable performance in Seattle! Starting on April 14th, Emerald City Trapeze will transform into the back of every moving truck, and hundreds of boxes will frame the stage for our internationally renowned, talented performers. As one of the world’s only fully indoor Trapeze Rigs with an eye-level balcony, you will have the opportunity to be nose-to-nose with our performers. Our world-class Flying Trapeze Artists and Aerialists will pull out all the stops to show you every side of “moving”. International Talent Our international performers hail from POP Circus in Japan, Cirque du Soleil – La Nouba in Florida, Cirque du Soleil – Mystere in Vegas, Circus Juventas in Minnesota, and professional theatrical circus performances in Germany and Spain. Our Acrobatic Archer, Orissa Kelly, joins us all the way from the UK where she performed for Queen Elizabeth II, the Prince of Saudi Arabia, and London Fashion Week. Show Information Doors open at 7pm on Thursday, April 14 (All Ages) Doors open at 9pm on Friday and Saturday, April 15 and 16 (21+ Only) Join us early to grab your favorite spot and indulge in a fabulous cocktail or local craft beer. Whether you are celebrating a special occasion or simply want to treat yourself, our VIP guests will have access to the VIP private balcony, private bar, private restrooms, and enjoy free snacks. All general admission tickets will have access to both the balcony and main floor, and include coat check in the price of admission. Are you on Mobile? Book Your Tickets Here |
It's not. And what is even worse is that we are deeper in debt with nothing good to show for it. In September of 2007, just months before the current crisis began, our national debt was a little over $9 trillion give or take a few billion. As of late last week, our national debt was quickly approaching $12 trillion. That is an increase in debt of $3 trillion in just two years! Of course, most of the new debt is a result of stimulus spending, other government handouts to stimulate the economy, and war – things Keynesians have always historically believed would turn any economy around. That theory has been disproved previously and this current economic crisis is just the most recent repudiation of it. So, with all this spending what do we have to show for it. This week the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that unemployment is at a 26 year high in the United States at 9.8 percent. Payroll employment has fallen for 21 consecutive months, with total jobs lost equaling 7.2 million. This is only the phoney government number. It doesn't count workers who have been unemployed so long they have given up on finding a job and those working part time that prefer full time. The total unemployed number, meaning the number the government has always used up until the Clinton years, is actually 17 percent! This is a Great Depression number. So it is interesting when Fed chairman Ben Bernanke says his monetary policies have kept us from an economic calamity. In addition to higher unemployment, with the new debt we also have lower consumer confidence. The 2nd Quarter real gross domestic product number went down at an annual rate of .7 percent. And lastly, Americans continue to lose their homes to foreclosures. They increased by 17 percent in the 2nd quarter in spite of a government spending program meant to help borrowers save their homes. Taking all these facts together, only a fool would believe the economy is recovering, Keynesian economics works, and Ben Bernanke has saved us from an economic abyss. However, there is one sector of the economy that is doing pretty well as a result of all this new debt – big banks. As a group their stock prices are up. They are receiving a good rate of return on their bailout money being held in their Fed reserve accounts. Bonuses are being paid. And they are enjoying the privileges that come with Fed membership – anonymity when given our money and protection against failure. Perhaps when Bernanke, Biden, and Obama talk of recovery they have the big banks in mind. One thing is clear. Most of America is not experiencing an economic recovery. $3 trillion more in debt and the economy is still in the dumper. The so-called jobless recovery policymakers speak of is an insult. It doesn't give much comfort to the 7.2 million folks who have lost their jobs since December 2007. The only jobless recovery that is acceptable is the one that will result when the scoundrels that caused this mess lose their jobs. Americans will have this opportunity starting next year. Hopefully, they will take full advantage of it. Kenn Jacobine teaches internationally and maintains a summer residence in Haywood County, North Carolina. For a podcast of this post go to: The View from Abroad. |
In NYC there are street musicians everywhere trying to make a few bucks, but for a musician, Will Boyajian, he’s trying to give money away. Hopeful Cases was started to offer encouragement and support to those hungry and homeless New Yorkers. Will makes up to $400 a day playing a small rock concert in NYC subways, and anyone can take as much as they need from his open guitar case. Will does not stop singing till the case is empty. Two years ago, he made a New Year’s resolution to give a dollar to anyone who asked for one. “It was $40 a day. I made it two weeks. . . I don’t make a lot of money…I was drowning.” But he did not want to give up on helping those he saw in need. Will said, “With my limited skill set, this is what I can do.” “New Yorkers become accustomed to people in need, but that person is the same human as me, and we are just one bad summer away from being on the streets.” Will’s dream to have someone singing with Hopeful Chests in every subway stop. “So, if you’re stuck, or really hurting you know there’s someone there.” One day, a man with his life literally on his back and his puppy under his arm came up to Will. When Will told him why he was singing and that the man could take as much money as he needed, the man he turned to his pit bull puppy, “Moby, were are going to be okay.” #ThisIsWhoWeAre Who around you exemplifies kindness? Comment below on who we should celebrate next! |
Natural walleye lakes could be a rarity in Wisconsin by mid-century, thanks to climate change, a new study warns. And the largemouth bass shall inherit the warmer waters — and flourish, the government-funded study further predicts. By as soon as 2040, a mere 4 percent of Wisconsin lakes might be able to support naturally sustained walleye populations — a 60 percent reduction from today — while the number of lakes conducive to high-abundance largemouth bass populations could rise to 89 percent, up from 60 percent today, according to the study, co-authored by researchers from state and federal agencies. The study was published Thursday in the scientific journal Global Change Biology. In other words, walleye fade, and largemouth bass take over. Such a transformation would strike at the core of Wisconsin’s piscatorial identity, which cherishes the flaky flesh of walleye above all others — and supports a $1.5-billion freshwater fishing economy. The bass-walleye transformation isn’t new. For 30 years, researchers have watched traditional walleye lakes become bass-dominated lakes, often to the chagrin of anglers and cabin owners. The root cause is not known for certain, but it correlates with lakes getting warmer as summers have grown hotter and winters have become shorter and less severe, said Gretchen Hansen, the study’s lead author. The warming climate is a likely culprit because biologists have long established that in similar lakes, walleyes dominate in cooler waters and largemouth bass in warmer waters. “We don’t know for sure what the causal mechanism is there, but it’s the best correlation we have,” said Hansen, a former research scientist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources now working with the Minnesota DNR. “I do think that given trajectories of climate change, it’s pretty clear that will will have fewer lakes with walleye.” Hansen, as well as co-authors Jordan Read and Luke Winslow of the U.S. Geological Survey, ran computer models to see what would happen if temperatures continued to warm under one of the most-dire climate prediction models. “This is pretty much the worst-case scenario,” Hansen said. “It might not be this bad. A lot of people argue for using worst-case scenarios because if you can plan for that and things are less severe, then you’re better off. And we do still predict places (85 lakes) where walleye will be OK (through 2089). Those should be the highest priority lakes to protect.” Of some comfort to walleye anglers might be that not all lakes respond the same to warmer temperatures, and walleyes in large lakes seem to be able to succeed in warmer temps than smaller lakes. As a result, the total acreage of natural walleye waters wouldn’t fall as drastically as the number of lakes, according to the study. The group created an interactive map that allows viewers to zoom in and out of Wisconsin, examining how regions and even individual lakes might change in the future if water temperatures climb as predicted. Several years ago, the state embarked on an ambitious plan to try to stock its way out of the walleye-bass “flip” by expanding hatcheries and stocking more and larger walleyes in lakes where the fish had once dominated without human intervention. It’s too early to tell if it’s working, and Hansen said her study doesn’t ponder whether predicted bass-dominated lakes could still host an entirely stocked population. The study also didn’t examine waters in neighboring states Minnesota and Michigan, where scientists aren’t sure if the walleye-bass flip is also happening. The authors intend to study that next. “There are different types of lakes in parts of Minnesota, but in general, you wouldn’t think the fish or the climate would change at the state line,” Hansen said. |
The displaced first began coming through Dolo, just a few miles from the Ethiopian border, in March. Now, the trickle has become a flood. The new arrivals clutch small bags of clothes and other meager possessions. Their children are thin, some emaciated. Almost every child appears small for his or her age. But they are the fortunate ones: They have survived their journeys, at least for now. To get here, many have walked scores of miles, some more than a hundred. Almost everyone has passed bodies of mothers, children and the elderly — anyone too weakened by hunger to escape with their lives. Tens of thousands of Somalis, mostly women and children, are on the move, fleeing the worst famine in a generation in this Horn of Africa nation. Resilient Somalis have endured two decades of civil war and two consecutive seasons of failed rains. Now, after their livestock and crops have died, and with their babies suffering from malnutrition and food prices skyrocketing, they have given up any pretense that they can survive on their own. Any hope of the world helping them has also faded. Al-Shabab, the militia linked to al-Qaeda that rules large swaths of famine-stricken southern Somalia, has barred international aid agencies from delivering assistance to regions it controls. It has heavily taxed ordinary Somalis on food and other goods, exacerbating the crisis. In fact, the militia denies that a famine is taking place, disputing the United Nations’ contention that tens of thousands of Somalis, mostly children, have died because of it. Yet nearly 170,000 Somalis have fled to already crowded refugee camps in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia since January, according to U.N. figures released Monday. In Kenya, about 1,300 Somalis are arriving daily; an average of 1,700 are entering Ethiopia. Most emerge from their grueling journeys bearing scars that probably will not fade anytime soon. Waiting in vain for help Xukun Muhumed walked more than 130 miles to seek help for her thin baby, sickened by hunger. As she trudged slowly across the bleak landscape, choked by famine and drought, she wondered whether her infant son, Sadik, would survive. “If Allah wants him to die, he will die,” said Muhumed, her voice dropping. “I have seen many people who have died along the way.” “These are becoming roads of death,” Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, told reporters in Nairobi over the weekend. “Over half the women I talked to had to leave children to die or had children die.” “In the Horn [of Africa], we could lose a generation,” she added. “Those that survive could be affected deeply.” On Sunday, Muhumed held her frail son in this border town, where they had arrived a day earlier after a month-long journey. Sadik was listless, his eyes half closed, his skin leathery from malnutrition. Moments earlier, he had vomited the little milk he had swallowed. There were no doctors, no aid agencies distributing food. Many of the new arrivals sat under trees or on vacant patches of land, waiting for help. “I am asking the international community to give me medication to help my child and food to feed my family,” Muhumed pleaded. “So far, I have not gotten any support.” The last time famine struck Somalia with such intensity was in 1992, killing hundreds of thousands and triggering a U.S.-led peacekeeping mission that ended with 18 American troops killed in a 1993 battle in the capital, Mogadishu. Last week, the United Nations formally declared famine in two southern Somali regions, and aid officials predict that the entire south could join the list within a month or two. About 3.2 million people in Somalia need lifesaving assistance, the United Nations said. As many as 19 to 24 children per 10,000 under age 5 are dying every day in some areas, according to the World Food Program. ‘We have nothing now’ For months, Hawa Madey relied on her relatives for help. Her family’s crops had mostly failed, and her herd of cattle and goats had died. The conflict had isolated her area, slashing trade with other regions. The price of sorghum, the staple food, had soared more than 70 percent there. In 2009, al-Shabab banned aid agencies from areas it controlled, accusing them of being Western spies or Christian crusaders. This year, growing U.S. strikes against the militia have heightened suspicions and complicated negotiations to provide aid, U.N. officials said. Last week, al-Shabab reversed a pledge to allow foreign aid agencies to enter its areas to help victims. The militants also undermined whatever meager food Madey could sell in the market. They demanded an Islamic tax, called zakat, for everything she sold. Such a tax is typically 5 to 10 percent, but she said the fighters exacted much more. Then, her relatives lost their crops and livestock — and it was time to leave. “We have nothing now,” said Madey, 25, who arrived in Dolo on Saturday night with her two children after walking 60 miles over four days. She looked at her children, ages 2 and 3 months. They had yellowing skin and small sores on their heads, signs of severe malnutrition. Madey said softly: “I worry a lot about what will happen to my babies. Can you help?” Nearby, seated under a leafless tree, 1-year-old Amiso was in worse shape. She suffered from diarrhea and anemia. Her eyelids were white. “Since she was born, we have fed her only diluted milk,” said her mother, Gani Ibrahim. They had walked for two days from an area controlled by Somalia’s weak and corrupt U.S.-backed transitional government, which has devoted few resources to alleviate the crisis. The government is focused on preventing al-Shabab from creating an Islamic emirate in Somalia — the latest incarnation of civil war since the country was plunged into chaos by the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Aid falling far short Help from the international community has been slow to arrive. Aid agencies have been sounding the alarm for months, but funding from the United States and other Western donors is several hundred million dollars short of what is needed. At the Dollo Ado refugee camp in Ethiopia, where many of the displaced in Dolo were heading, an additional 13,000 tents are needed to meet the fresh influx, said the United Nations’ refugee agency. Meanwhile, aid agencies are struggling to keep the flood of refugees from overwhelming neighboring countries. The World Food Program is planning to open new feeding sites in Dolo by the end of the week, but that could be too late for infants such as Sadik, whose bodies have swiftly deteriorated after their long journeys. Muhumed knows she cannot return home. Her cattle and goats are dead. Her husband was on the way to Dolo, along with their four other children. She wiped away Sadik’s vomit from her red blouse and resumed waiting in a line to sign up for food aid. If they don’t get food and medication here, she said, they will cross into Ethiopia. With each passing day, she worries that her boy will die. “If we don’t get support, it will happen,” she said matter-of-factly, as if she had prepared herself for the worst. |
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